Truth and Reality Are Relationships

A brief reflection honoring the ongoing spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., January 19, 2026

“A genuine revolution of values means…. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole…. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all embracing and unconditional love for all men. This often misunderstood and misrepresented concept has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. …Love is the key that unlocks the door to ultimate reality.” ––Martin Luther King, Jr. in Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?    

Truth and reality are relationships. 

You may have a favorite illustration of these facts. Perhaps our being formed from stardust, or our sharing a significant portion of our DNA not only with primates and other mammals, but also plants. More obviously, as isolated human beings we are not able to exist for very long without others and not at all without the earth. We are interrelated. Everything is interrelated. That’s the truth and reality, all reality. Science supports these facts. Good religion rejoices in them. At their best, professions such as medicine, the law, and journalism help heal and strengthen them.

The whole is crucial, necessary, essential to the individual. Individuals contribute to the whole and can make significant positive differences.

Personally, I see this all as Love loving.

To isolate oneself or exile others goes against reality and truth, and in my perspective, Love. To set oneself or one’s group over and above, over and against, anything else goes against reality, truth, and Love.

We are participants, contributors, facilitators, members, mostly leading through example.

We are participants with Love, in Love.

Here is a part of what it means to participate with Love in truth and reality: We facilitate the respect and dignity, belonging, and flourishing of all. We call out and witness against disrespect, rejection, and exiling of others that undermine truth and reality.

The Trump administration, the Republican party representatives (even some judges) that facilitated its coming to power and maintain its power, and the many billionaires that self-servingly funded its rise to power and maintain its power, have to be called out as actively working against truth, reality, and Love.

They are actively working against truth, reality, and Love when: 

They try to limit and restrict voters from voting; they don’t respect immigrants who are here and have been positively contributing to our communities for years; they brutally disrespect and harm those who come here pleading for a chance at a safer life for themselves and their families; they deny paths to citizenship for those who do or want to contribute; they treat peaceful free speech as a crime to be investigated and suppressed; they try to take over other sovereign nations in part to plunder their wealth for their own enrichment; they undermine the rule of law and the principle that no one is above it; they promote corporations and artificial intelligence over the dignity, respect, and flourishing of actual people AND the earth; they undermine and corrupt freedom of the press; they undermine, suppress, and corrupt science; they distort and suppress history; they corrupt educational institutions and curricula; they are not supporting civil and human rights; and they distort and corrupt religion, even promoting one over and against others.

To call them out is crucial, as you do when talking with your neighbors, colleagues, and friends, as I am doing here, or we do when we protest publicly together. It is clear that we put ourselves in danger of retribution when we do these things, not only from inspired rogue actors, but from the purposeful, sometimes violent, machinery of our government with its various representatives, leaders, and departments of injustice. Even with the dangers, it is crucial to stand up for and witness to, and also contribute to, life for all trying to flourish. We are interrelated, and empathically connected. It is in our DNA. We are an integral part of reality and truth, integral to Love working to flourish.

When we stand up with and for others, we are prioritizing relationships that witness to truth, reality, and Love—instead of distorting and undermining truth, reality, and Love.  

Let us contribute to and pray for truth, reality, and Love not to be undermined, but to be strong and resilient, and to flourish.  

Do I hear, Amen?