Truth

by DANNIELLE LARKIN

I recently witnessed a woman give an impassioned speech. She shared with the audience her resentment for development. She said her family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with the Mormon pioneers. She said they settled this land. She said they deserve our respect. She said none of us understood. She said a lot of things. But, to my ears, she never told the whole story. For one thing, she let the indigenous people slip through the cracks of her memory. Didn't the indigenous, their stories, rights, and desires deserve an impassioned speech?

This whole incident got me thinking. What is truth? Is it possible for my truth and your truth to come from completely different narratives? Is anything true when we all have different perspectives, ideas, and beliefs?

I suppose what bothered me most about this woman’s speech was not the fact that I did not agree with her telling of the story, it was the fact that she whole-heartedly believed her story was the ONLY story that mattered or existed. When another version of the “truth” was offered, she sat down, and symbolically plugged her ears from having to tolerate the perspective of anyone else.

I began to think about the times I’ve done this in my own life; when I’ve been so sure of my “rightness,” and someone else’s “wrongness,” that I was unwilling to even hear the ideas of another because they somehow felt threatening to my version of truth.

But, we are big kids now. It is time for us to open our ears and our hearts and learn to support one another, even when we think and believe so differently. Some of us have the gift of story-telling. Now, we just need to hone the complimentary talent of story-listening. Close our mouths for a moment. Listen intently. Let others share their “truth.”

Only then do we understand that truth is different for each of us. And that’s OK.