ON BEING AN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR OF THE TRUTH

ON BEING AN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR OF THE TRUTH

1. My Austrian born law professor Albert A. Ehrenzweig told us long ago that he could design a perfect legal system, but it would be useless unless some human community accorded it a minimum of acceptance.
2. This insight is especially relevant for those of us who look for root causes, who are willing to examine the defects of capitalism, or for those of us who wish to understand and act in the civic area on the principles of our spiritual traditions. Few persons wish to enter into such a discussion unless they are already knowledgeable, and in such cases one is preaching to the choir.
3. Holders of the truth should be neither angry nor impatient nor imperious with their truth, nor should they give up on such a human community.
4. A truth holder can be effective, if at all, only by being an active, visible, participating part of the human community, including family, neighborhood, church, local government, places of play and leisure, and national government. No one will ever hear his truth if he becomes a goat milking hermit.
5. A truth holder must keep constantly in mind a concept that E. F. Schumacher in A Guide for the Perplexed called “adequatio.” By this he meant that a truth holder can impart only so much of his truth as the listener is ready and willing to receive. Until the listener is ready and willing, no imparting of the truth is possible.
6. A truth holder should be confident and secure in his truth, but he must be magnanimous, caring, and understanding with those in the human community who are not yet willing to listen, and he must patiently remain a participating part of the human community. He should be self-questioning. He must be aware of his own motives and defects and his Enneagram or psychological type. He must be open to the fears, needs, biases, bigotries of others in the human community, and willing to listen, really listen! He must remain sensitive to their concerns and to their probable Enneagram types. He may be most effective by quietly raising questions instead of making dogmatic doctrinaire assertions. Truth is of no value whatever in the human community unless holders of the truth remain as available beacons to teach and to guide when people are ready to listen.

Dated: October 17, 2008

Doug Page dougpage2@earthlink.net