Every. Voice. Matters

I am a person of faith. It would be fair to say that much of my life has focused on questions about "belief."

My Christianity has gone from high degrees of certainty about dogmatic truths that I accepted without question to an invitation to open my heart in ways that let me be at peace with my neighbor no matter what their belief might be.

I live with ambiguity and doubt. They are partners with me that stand comfortably alongside whatever is there for me to 'believe in.'

Because of this, I find myself curious about and intrigued by the Oprah Winfrey campaign inviting people to express their belief in three words . I love what she is doing. I can't wait to see what creative fellow travelers have to say about what belief grounds or inspires them.

I am going to offer my three words. They reflect one of my core values: Every. Voice. Matters.

I have chosen to be an active listener. My life has been shaped and reshaped by words that others spoke to me. One of the manifestations of my privilege -- be that my privilege as a male in a patriarchal culture; as a heterosexual in a hetero-normative culture; as a white man in a racist culture -- is that most of the voices I heard growing up, and especially the voices of those whom my parents and teachers and role models gave me access to, were the voices of white men.

White men gave me the news.

White men either wrote, edited, or approved the texts books I was given.

White men coached the teams I played on or the teams I watched.

White priests (and therefore white men) instructed me, or instructed those who instructed me, about what I could or could not believe.

White men wrote the novels I read.

White men taught me in college -- with one or two exceptions.

Somewhere along the line, others whom I loved and trusted named this to me and challenged me to start listening to other voices.

I did.

I was never the same.

James Cone, Lettie Russell, Bell Hooks, Maya Angelou, Andrew Sung-Park, Michelle Alexander, Carol Gilligan, Phyllis Trible, and dozens of others found their way into my consciousness.

People's dignity and worth cannot be fully maintained when their voices can't be heard. And it is my belief that I cannot fully live into my own humanity without being stretched by the truths they speak.

Every. Voice. Matters.

Listening to the story of another changes us. It changes them. Their story matters. Their experience matters. Their truth matters. Listening comes as gift to another; it comes as gift to you.

Voice is something without which your own life loses meaning. Take it away -- not so much the power to speak as the power to be heard -- and you strip a person of their dignity, respect, and worth.

Every. Voice. Matters.

I believe that. It is foundational for me. Whatever it is I want or need from religion any more -- it must include the capacity to utilize its agency to open up safe spaces for voices to be heard. It must question every power, including its own, that closes the spaces in which all voices can be heard.

Every. Voice. Matters.