Lifewords

Twenty four years ago this week, I was on a flight to Portland to meet up with my parents. I had words I needed to say to them for the very first time. Words that were too big for an email or a phone call, or even a handwritten letter.  

My words were also too big to say while on the drive from Portland to their house two hours away, but they couldn’t wait. So from the backseat of my dad’s car, I told them I was in love. With a woman. I was bisexual. 

For a few moments, my silence instead became theirs.

Seconds passed, which felt like decades, as mile-marker reflectors flew by us in the dark. Finally, there was mocking laughter, and all of their defenses came up.  They could not believe the words I was saying, refused to hear them. I tried again. And again, and again, to say words that they would understand. 

It was the beginning of a years-long conversation between us, attempting to bridge the distance between my silence, and theirs. After all the many words we have said to each other over the decades since then, the truth is now, they mostly don’t remember that first conversation. 

The speaking has changed them, and me, and us, and for the good. We did manage to bridge the distance. So much so now, they don’t even remember the silence. 

But I do. I still hold it all, in my heart, I hold every word. 

Some words are like spells. Bringing them to speech changes everything. Immediately, and then over time, as what is spoken sinks in and becomes a new reality, creates a new world. Words like, I love you.  Or I’m trans. Or, let’s get married. Words like, I need help, or I’m sorry.  

What are the words in your life that just by the speaking, moved you from one reality into another? The words that changed your life, the life of people you love, the words that made, and re-made whole worlds.

This power of words being spoken is what psychologist Robert Eichberg and activist Jean O’Leary understood in 1988 when they designated October 11th as National Coming Out Day.  They were trying to decide how to respond to continuing anti-gay legislation, and decided that the act of saying true words would be their best hope for turning fear into celebration.

Over three decades later, coming out is a concept most of us have a sense of – the power of claiming your own truth to change things. But what can get lost in our understanding of coming out today, is the importance of the words themselves. 

Instead we might emphasize the simple knowing of what is true – say, the coming out to ourselves, less than the actual saying of specific words. 

Some balk at the idea of labels in all their concrete specificity for identities always emergent and truth that is always unfolding, and so downplay the importance of specific words. 

Words are imperfect approximations of truth, of course – it’s why it took so damn long to bridge the distance of understanding with my parents – and words are always just a snapshot of a moment in time.  

And still, there is something uniquely powerful in the bringing of these sounds to our lips, the particular consonants and vowels, the physical breaking of silence. 

Silence can be so seductive, at least for a time. 

Silence tries to convince us we can keep things from ever changing, that not-changing is better, that somehow by not bringing truth to speech you can make that truth no longer true, or at least no longer matter quite as much. 

Silence over time can become a kind of culture, a self-protective habit passed down generation to generation, within families, and then communities, until there is silence about the silence itself. 

As poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language – this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.” 

This is the sort of silence upon which white supremacy and patriarchy depend, which is why speaking some words out loud can feel for some of us like such an impossibility, like learning a language long forgotten and forbidden. 

In silence, the amygdala runs the show. That part of our brain that thrives on threats, and fear, and reduces all of our options into fight, or flight, freeze, or fawn, and that disregards all logic as nonsense. 

Silence is seductive, and it is also eventually suffocating. To keep our truths unspoken is to be eaten alive from the inside.  

As Black lesbian poet Audre Lorde writes, “you’re never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there’s always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don’t speak it out one day, it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside.” 

Scientifically speaking, to live with the amygdala in charge has significant implications on our health – it reduces immune response, increases physical pain, anxiety, and depression, and increases the risk for high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke. 

Studies have shown that the brain responds uniquely to words we speak out loud – it re-focuses our self-understanding, and calms the amygdala. 

To break the silence is to literally save your own life. 

As Audre Lorde writes, “I have come to believe over and over again, that what is most important to me, must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect.”  

It is one reason the practice of confession can be so powerful, to put to words the harm you have caused is to begin a process of healing in yourself, and in those you harmed. 

This power of speaking words aloud is something that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his “Don’t Say Gay” law understand very well, and it’s also something that Moms for Liberty and book-banning politicians and local school board candidates understand – just how powerful it is to say specific words out loud. 

Bringing words to speech is a dangerous act, not just psychologically, although that would be enough to justify fear, and trepidation, for saying certain words for the first time. As Lorde writes, “in the cause of silence, each of us draws the face of her own fear – fear of contempt, of censure, of some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation.” 

We fear for ourselves, and sometimes even more persuasively, we fear for people we love. We sit on words that we have known in our hearts for a long time, maybe whole lifetimes because we are afraid that saying them would destroy more than we can handle. 

Silence, for all of its suffocation, is still better, we believe, than such undoing. 

I quit. I want a divorce. I’m sick. My child’s not reaching her developmental milestones. My drinking has become a problem. I was abused. I abused. I have dementia. I’m dying.

As ministers, we’re often the place people go to for a kind of trial run for first times with words like these. A safe person with whom you can try out the words with the idea that by position or trust we will un-hear it, if by the saying, the destruction becomes clearly too dangerous, or if the words once spoken no longer seem true or important after all.  

Sometimes people will meet with me, and tell me they are thinking of leaving their marriage, for example. But then, some time later I check back, and they have genuinely found a way through it. 

Sometimes the saying of words helps us to know the world we want to keep working for, the truth that is worth holding on to; and sometimes it just tells us we aren’t ready yet, but we will be, someday.

Sometimes people share things like this with ministers with the hopes that we will talk them out of it, that in some kind of holy wisdom we will see right through them and call it out as nonsense. 

I should tell you now, at least when I’m showing up as I mean to, you might wish for this, but I won’t deliver. Unlike other faith leaders, UU ministers claim no special access to divine wisdom, and we don’t claim to know more about your life and your truth than you do. 

The only thing we can affirm is that these words are your words, your truth, your story, and the best we can offer is to receive you in whatever you are wanting to share.  

For any of us to receive lifewords like these, life-changing words from another – it is an honor, and a privilege. And it matters – almost as much as the speaking itself, how we receive the words.  

The challenge of course, is to simply listen, and truly hear. Which requires a kind of double awareness.  

First, of the ways we are entirely separate from the one speaking. It is their journey, their truth, their worlds coming undone, or beginning anew. Not ours. We may want to relate, and unthinkingly write our own experiences on to theirs, but we must let them be the central character of their own story, and set aside our own narration for a time. 

However their truth is impacting us – whatever our reactions. We must refuse to fix, or problem solve – unless they explicitly ask for such support – and even then, we must tread lightly.  Let their process unfold in whatever way it will. To leave space for them to reveal themselves to us, and to themselves. To leave space for them to be still growing, and becoming, and changing. To let the words be spells of freedom, rather than just new prisons.  The more connected we are to another, the harder this first awareness will be. 

Our children, our parents, our spouses – their revelations will inevitably feel close in, and we can get confused between their truth, and our own. The best practice in these moments is to return to our breath, and to pause. To know and affirm that we do have our own truth that we will need to say, but that maybe ironically, for a time, our silence will be our gift. To trust that the time will come, and the person to whom we will speak that truth may or may not be this person whose truth we are now receiving. 

I never thought my parents shouldn’t have their own process about my coming out – their own feelings, their own words they needed to say and try out and work through. Of course they should. I just wasn’t the right person to receive those words.  

This question comes up often when I am talking with a couple considering ending their relationship – they want to turn to each other, to continue to be the recipient of their respective emerging truths, but it is nearly impossible to be the person with whom you are struggling to be in relationship with and be the person to whom you are turning to for support about that struggle. It’s part of the process to find someone else to turn to, and to receive the words you very much need to speak. 

It is such a critical part of breaking silence – to be aware of who the right person is to receive, and to discern the right timing. Especially in the earliest stages, it can get so confusing what to say to whom. And here I want to go back to one of the phrases I offered earlier – the words, I have dementia.  

These words are often first spoken in our community – in a small group, or in a meeting you set with one of the ministers, or with a friend you’ve met here. I have dementia. Or maybe, my spouse has dementia. Dementia is such a particularly complex reality that so many of us are wrestling with these days. Dementia can make it hard to put things into words; to literally find the words. Memory is intertwined with our identity, especially for people who have been overly-identified with their capable brains for most of their lives, as many of us have. So that by saying I have dementia, we can have a sense that we will become somehow less of a person, at least in terms of how others see us.

It’s a fear, and it’s also a potential reality – just as with a lot of the other lifewords we might share for the first time – that they will be received with a de-humanizing distance.  But this is why we who receive such words must hold on to a second awareness – alongside the awareness that we are entirely separate from the one speaking, must be the awareness that we are also entirely connected.  That there is nothing another person can share that will make them any less human than we are, or that could be completely foreign to us or our potential realities. We must refuse to overly “other” another.  We must retain a sense of humor, even a lightness. Not to downplay what someone is sharing, but more to hold on to the truth of the person that is unchanged, even as they are sharing something that may be world-shifting. 

When we put to words something for the first time, we need to know that we can still be seen for the person we are, not overly identified with these new words themselves. As queer theorist Kathryn Bond Stockton reminds us, we need to leave some space between us and the words, to remember that the words – powerful as they are, are always an approximation of the truth, not the truth itself.  

With this in mind, I have found that a willingness to say “I have dementia” when do have dementia – is one of the best ways to maintain and even deepen our connections with one another and our sense of shared humanity. Because it gives words to a reality that is there whether you name it or not. Which reduces anxiety, and makes space for that humor to come through, and for humanity to be retained. 

It is often the case that we try not to say words because we are afraid that they will be disconnecting – that we will lose relationships as a result of our utterances. And for a time, that may be true. For some relationships, it will inevitably be true. But the truth spoken and acknowledged is ultimately always more connective than untruths left in silence. We are one in shared reality, whether it is a reality we explicitly name or not, and the truth still sets us free.    

So, “What do you need to say? Audre Lorde asks. “What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?”  

In these days, speaking remains a revolutionary act. A resistance to the forces of shame and erasure,a willingness to be a full person, ever in progress, an act of trust that we could be received by another, a steadfast faith that through all of life’s tangled blessings, love persists. It is an act we do for ourselves, and it is an act we do for all of us collectively, to ensure the triumph of diverse human truth, that no truth will become unspeakable.   

Let us be for one another, a safe place to say the words that need saying for the first time. Let us be the people who speak aloud the truth. Who refuse the suffocation of silence, and who proclaim the liberating life-saving necessity of speech.