The Courageous Witness- Speaking the Truth
Geburah of Hod Day 30 of 50 · Strength within Splendor
The Courageous Witness- Speaking the Truth
The thirtieth saying of the Living Christ:
Do not let your testimony turn you into the knife of the accuser. The accuser seeks to wound, but the witness seeks to heal. Truth is a medicine; do not wield it as a sword to carve your own name into the world. If your testimony sharpens into a snare, truth is wielded rather than offered. As a sword, the truth can be molded and shaped until it no longer contains any of its original value. The voice of the prophets speaks against domination and control. When truth is used to build a throne for authority or power, it cuts itself off from its source. Prophets who seek to control serve idols, whose mouths cannot speak and ears cannot hear. True prophets liberate all, especially the most vulnerable and the most in need.
Do not allow your witness to fall silent. If you saw clearly and know what you saw, speak truth to the moment. The wicked and the accuser want you to feel like you will drink from a bitter cup. They want your testimony to be swallowed and hidden, so its light cannot shine on others. Do not become a thief of the truth. To be silent when the Truth is mocked is to build the walls of the city’s prison. The one who sees the captive and says nothing has turned the key in the lock.
Do not let the wonders and the truth that you have seen fail to shine in the world.
Prophetic testimony is the witness speaking the truth without cruelty and without evasion. Their testimony is direct and to the point because they have beheld the face of love. Strength is the voice of what they have seen. The prophet beholds the work of love, and their courage carries it out into the world. These two, seeing and speaking, are not in conflict; they are companions preparing the way, one for another.
The courageous witness does not speak from anger or self-righteousness but from faithfulness to what they have seen. The prophet does not perform for the marketplace. They do not add salt to the truth to make it sting, nor honey to make it pass. The light requires no theater. It is enough to say: I have seen.
They speak the word in the field when the sun is high, and they speak it in the storm when the night is long. They witness the fullness and the emptiness of the world. Their honest witness is their faithfulness.
Let truth be spoken from love, not from fear or fury.
When the wonder is beheld and the vision is true, the proper roots grow deep into the soil, and the prophet regains their courage. The witness restores the world when it can speak the hard truth from a place of love rather than anger, when they can refuse the silence to protect all from the harm of others.
When the root taps this courage, the soul is healed and learns again to trust that truth can carry the cost of speaking it. The world is healed not through tender and comfortable testimony. It is healed by the courageous proclamation of the truth of the hour, what is broken, and what the Holy One is actually doing in the midst of it.
The witness who speaks truth, even at a cost, is not alone. The fire that burns within you was not lit by your hand, nor must you carry the heat alone. Speak, and let the wind of the Spirit carry the flame.
You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.
