Where Do You Go To Find the Truth?

I went to Detroit to speak recently. When I told one friend, he asked with concern, “Are you going to be okay?” I reminded him he knew better than to believe everything he had read, or seen recently on the woes of the Motor City.

A Detroit activist hired me to inspire residents who have had a steady menu of “bad news” for some time now.  I called my talk “a spiritual pep rally.”

Some of my early advice to the audience: When you feel overwhelmed, turn off the radio and television news and don’t read the newspaper. What you get won’t be the real truth, anyway, and it may cause unnecessary worry or fear. Besides, you will only get somebody else’s perception of the truth.

As an example of real truth versus human perception, I offered my old story about losing my Jaguar. I was stopped at a light and when it turned green, I hit the gas pedal. But so did a bus in the oncoming traffic, which was turning in front of me. The bus plowed into my car and totaled my Jag. I was thankful to be alive, sore, and heartbroken about the loss of my car.

When I got home and I was safely in bed recuperating, I asked God, “Why did you let this happen to me?” Immediately, I was shown the accident as if it were happening the first time.

 Only this time I heard my subconscious mind, which was angry that the bus was trying to run the light, say: “Oh, no, you don’t.” I was obviously speaking to the bus. And after that, I floored the pedal.

What I was shown was that at that very moment that large vehicle was more than a bus to me. It represented every person, every boss, every institution—and so forth—that had ever run over me, figuratively, or used me as a doormat. The gas pedal was my revenge.

Now back to The Truth.

  A television reporter would have said, “A bus ran a stoplight and hit a woman driving a Jaguar today.”

But the truth was more than that.

 The truth, as it would have been recorded only on that heavenly network, W-G-O-D, would have said, “A woman was stopped at a light and when it changed, she saw a bus coming toward her. She did not stop because she was distracted by her thoughts about the people and institutions she believed had hurt her. Her own lack of forgiveness blinded her.”

The point: Don’t believe everything you hear about Detroit. Of course, the truth is much, much deeper.

 The way I see it, the city is bankrupt but the people aren’t. That would be impossible. They were born with a limitless amount of wealth and creativity. If anything, we should look to Detroit for possible solutions. What is happening in that city is the manifestation of the collective consciousness of our country.

And that’s the truth.

Patrice Gaines for Unity of Charlotte