The sole foxglove that my daughter planted in small bed of flowers in her front yard is a freak of nature. Foxgloves grow tall–generally two feet or higher–but this one has defied generalities. Its height, however, is not its most admirable feature.

Its velvety blossoms once sat atop a stem that is entirely straight. And by straight, I mean disturbingly vertical for something alive. Through thunder storms, torrential rain, and 40 mph hour wind, it has persisted in its straightness.

Its flowers long gone and its stem now brown, it stands strong, a sentinel of all that is straight and true. Oh but the world would stand as such!

Several years ago when I was delivering professional development for high school teachers, I chose an essay on tolerance as the centerpiece of the afternoon’s session. My decision was morally courageous, but professionally stupid. In this essay, the writer argued for a truer definition of tolerance: respecting, but not necessarily accepting, another’s idea, perspective, or worldview. Tolerance, he claimed, has nothing to do with the relativism of the day; rather, it follows the classical path of truth which lives in constant tension with respect.

The high school I have worked in for the past five years is a small city under one roof. With 1, 400 students of diverse races and backgrounds, political, sexual, and religious views, this is a community of competing ideas and values. I brought the essay to my staff in hopes of helping them understand that their colleagues and students hold truths that compete with others’ truths. In a public educational setting, I wanted open discussion regarding the efforts and methods we might use to help our students respect and understand those with whom they disagree.

Naively, I was not prepared for what followed. Two days later, I received a phone call from a community member who had heard about our professional development session and who had since read the essay I used. For forty-five minutes, he talked at me, scolding first and condemning later. I cannot believe you used this essay. This is not the Shannon Vesely I know. 

This is not the Shannon Vesely you know? Not the Casper Milktoast of Relativism cowering beneath the tower of Truth? Not the kinder, gentler Shannon of all that is politically and educationally correct? Not the spineless, smiling wimp with stylish shoes?

No, I am not that Shannon Vesely. Not now and not ever. And yet, I let him chastise me for 45 minutes, wearing each moment and criticism like a hair shirt, scourging myself with the persistent–but misguided–belief that I might talk some sense into a man who insisted that others abandon their truth to accept his. (Though I understood that he could not accept my truth–one that clearly opposed his, ironically–and oh so tragically for such an enlightened one-neither would he respect it or me.)

Any chance that I might talk some sense into this man? Not so. He demanded that I apologize to the staff for the errors of my ways and retract all that I endorsed in the essay. And with that, he hung up. Imagine this scene (like one from a Lifetime TV movie): I am holding the receiver to my ear still, mouth agog, hands trembling, and tears pooled–but not yet fallen–in the corners of my eyes. Was it seconds or minutes before I hung up the phone? I cannot tell you, but suffice it to say, it seemed like ages.

And in the moments after I returned the receiver to the phone, I became painfully aware of what I thought may logically come next: the man would call my superintendent, the school board, the local paper. This could be it: the end of my educational career.

Still, truth prevailed. As it must. As it always does. I did not apologize to the staff nor retract my words. I did, however, relate to them the nature of the phone call I received and the demands made. In the end, with the Truth under one arm and my carefully crafted notes in my other hand, I faced the music. And I did not lose my job.

Just the other night, my son and I were talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and the chaos unfolding in many American cities. I asked him if he had ever read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” How incredibly difficult, yet magnificent, to hold the passionate truth of equality in constant tension with respect for others and the law! How painful to march through the ignorance and hatred of those who hold truths contrary to yours! And how exhausting, but necessary, to call upon mercy and grace in the face of such evil.

As a young black man, my son is working his way towards Truth. And my enduring hope for him is that, like the foxglove, he will stand straight, and he will stand true.

In the sanctuary of all that is straight and true, we find a plumb line. Like prairie settlers who, in the midst of a blizzard, moved assuredly from house to barn and back, holding fast to the line stretched between, we can navigate our storms with truth. We can and must hold fast to that which is straight and true.