Ceasar Chavez Speaking Truth to Power
My wife and I took four persons in two cars with us today to Church. Two in my car were long-time members of our parish who had no way to attend Sunday mass without a ride. One is a man with a disability who lives in housing on the other side of town and the other is his mother, who now has dementia and lives in an assisted living home in the southern suburbs.
During Mass today my friend and his mother left the Church. I thought she was not feeling good and they went outside for some fresh air. After Church I looked for them and found him in distress and her sitting down in front of the Church. He said she was suffering from a pain in her chest and could not stand up. I called 911 and the fire department ambulance came.
They did not find anything immediately wrong with her but because of her age and medical condition decided to take her the hospital. My friend rode in the ambulance with his mom and I followed in my car. I soon lost the ambulance and proceeded to the hospital they said they were going to. They were not there but I did find them in a nearby hospital.
After many hours and many exams they could not find any problem and released her. I drove them both back. I felt a little inconvenienced but had done what I had to do. After dropping off his mother at the assisted living place and while driving home the son, whose disability is a mental health disease, he told me how much he appreciated my believing in the truth of what he had to say. I responded that I had no reason not to believe he was speaking the truth. The truth, that she might be in danger, was very inconvenient for me, taking up my whole Sunday afternoon, a nice sunny day at that. But his gratitude made me realize how valuable it is to face the truth as we see it, no matter how inconvenient it may be.
It also made me realize how important it is to speak truth to power, like our message to Marquette to eliminate Military training on campus, despite how inconvenient it is. As Dorothy Day says, our conscience may be misinformed but we need to follow it. Whenever the Truth is convenient or inconvenient, it is the truth as we know it
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