Examining the strength required to hold unpopular truths in an age of noise and conformity.
There is, I think, a quiet heroism in being unfashionable.
In these days — when the air itself seems thick with shouting, and ideas are treated like passing weather rather than old mountains — to hold to a truth that is not in vogue is to stand, often alone, against a howling wind.
It is easier, infinitely easier, to bend. To trim the cloth of our convictions to the cut of the times. To murmur what is safe, and think no more of it. After all, who wishes to be regarded as quaint? Or difficult? Or — that most damning word — irrelevant?
And yet… there is a certain dignity, is there not, in refusing to lie — even by silence.
There are truths that do not change with fashion, or fade with the passing of popular enthusiasms. They are not brittle, like trends; they are not showy, like slogans. They are carved into the bedrock of the human heart. Things like honesty. Mercy. Courage. The duty to care for the least among us. The right of every soul to be seen and heard as more than a tool or a target.
To speak such truths — calmly, lovingly, without rancor — when the world around us has forgotten them, or worse, mocks them, demands a special kind of strength. Not the flashy strength of the warrior who conquers cities, but the quiet, durable strength of the tree whose roots go deep into hidden water.
I confess, I have often found it hard. Even now, with grey hair at my temples and many winters behind me, the temptation to “go along” still murmurs in my ear. After all, who does not long to be liked? To belong?
But deeper than that longing, if I am honest, is a still, steady voice that bids me remember: popularity is a fickle master. Conscience is a far better guide.
It is not a call to be obstinate, nor to cherish the sound of our own lone voices. Heaven knows the world has enough stubbornness masquerading as bravery. No — it is a call to tenderness and tenacity married together. To speak truth with humility, knowing we are fallible, but also with firmness, knowing that some things are too precious to betray.
I think of the women and men — so many of them unknown to history — who, in their time, bore quiet witness when it would have been easier to bow their heads. Teachers who taught real knowledge when it was dangerous. Pastors who loved the outcast when it was scandalous. Poets who sang of hope when cynicism was the coin of the realm.
None of them were fashionable. Many paid a price. But the world is better, immeasurably better, because of them.
And so I find myself praying, for the courage to be unfashionable when it matters most. To prize goodness over approval. To trust that, in the end, truth — real truth — is never defeated, even if it is, for a time, overlooked.
If you, too, feel a little out of step in these noisy days, take heart. You are in very good company.
