We Hold These Truths

When I was in Elementary School, I watched a show called “To Tell the Truth,” one of America’s first television game shows. The basic premise of the show was celebrities attempting to correctly identify a contestant from a group of three. One contestant was attempting to conceal their identity while the other two contestants were pretending to be someone there were not. Many times the truth was hidden so well that it was not until the very end of the show that the identity of each individual was revealed. 

When the statement, “Will the real (and then the person’s name was stated), please stand up, the tension would build in the air. Many times all three contestants would make movements toward standing – and you just knew that your guess was correct. I remember attempting to guess who was telling the truth. Many times I would completely miss identifying the right person. I often wondered if I identified the wrong person because I couldn’t tell who was telling the truth or because all three persons were so very skilled at hiding or becoming someone they were not. 

It seems that today, many of us are still playing To Tell the Truth in our daily lives. We say we believe in freedom, and we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave; still we do not feel free enough in our families, in our jobs, or worse – in our places of worship to show up authentically as ourselves. Many of us have spent years trying to be someone or something that we are not; and our efforts are not even to win a game show or a prize. We are hiding our own identity just to get through life.  And worse than that, we are hiding our true identify from ourselves!

What happens when we decide to hide our skills and talents – the essence of who we really are?  The world misses out on the gift. Let us continue this month to remember that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, – that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Do yourself and the world a favor – Tell the truth of who you are. But first and foremost, you have to tell the truth to yourself! 

What a time to be alive.  I don’t know about you, but I am still attempting to emotionally process the events that have occurred over the last 2+ weeks in this great land of ours.  And to use the words of one of our prayer chaplains, Cristen Wesenberg, after many of our chaplains went through Level One Reiki Training with Bonnie Hassan, “I feel like I fell out of the top of the highest tree and hit every branch on the way down.”  It seems to me that events are coming fast and furious, and before I have a chance to process one, the next one appears on my radar screen. 

Many of you reading this espouse to believe in the universal laws that govern our world; and the process of Free Speech in America.  And even with those beliefs, sometimes certain events or happenings are difficult, at best, to wrap our hearts and minds around.  The difficulty comes for me when there seems to be many who do not view the incident in the same way I do.  First to experience, even from afar, the events of Charlotte, N.C. and to feel the confusion that I personally felt, took quite a bit of prayer and time in the silence for me. And to see and feel the amount of prejudice and judgment that is still in our world today seems overwhelming. (Do know that the card you signed is making its way to the Emanuel AME Church along with a bit of money to show our support for their loss.) 

And then to look out from the safety of my home at the varying ideas about the Confederate Flag and what it means to each person.  I have begun to weigh the basic history of a “symbol” with the ways that the symbol is used today and has been used in the past.  I have attempted as a minister and a counselor, to just be an observer and hold the high watch – when there have been times that my own beliefs and ideas about the use and display of the symbol brought up old feelings for me to process.  Those feelings took me back in time to different situations and experiences that now, in this moment, are still question marks in a heart and mind that is full of overflowing emotions. 

And then on the heels of processing the event of Wednesday June 17^th we receive the news on Friday June 26^th that Marriage Equality has become a reality in the United States of America. That news could not have come at a better time for Nashville, TN because of the Pride Festival that was being held the very same weekend.  Many of us have experienced a myriad of emotions around the Supreme Court Ruling.  And, to use the words of my sweet new daughter-in-law Mary Beth, “What a great time to be alive!”  We are truly “Walking Down a Different Street,” and moving to places that we are not fully prepared for emotionally, even though some of the places look promising and exciting.  Which brings me to the title of this blog – Is Freedom Really Free? 

There was a group of traveling singers many years ago called, “Up With People”.  They sang a song that has been rattling around in my mind for the last week and the words to the chorus are:  “Freedom isn’t free; freedom isn’t free; you’ve got to pay the price, you’ve got to sacrifice, for your liberty.”

Spend a bit of your July the 4^th Weekend with us at Unity of Music City.  We will be diving a little deeper into the topic of what it really means to be free and what it costs each of us. Are You All In? – or are you like millions of others, waiting on the sidelines to see what happens before you make a decision about how to proceed with the dreams of your life?   Yes – there will be presentation by our Creative Arts Ministry and there will be awesome music with a brand new song by our own Deb Moore.  Let the “day after” your celebration of our country’s freedom, be a day to celebrate your own Spiritual Liberation.