Whose Truth is Truth?

As we are now fully into the election year and the political cloud becomes heavier and heavier I am finding refuge once again in comedy.  I find that  the comics pointing out some of the obvious truths an flaws on both sides of the campaign give me hope that there really is hope left and people who actually do look for the real truth.  I was struck this year by John Stewart's motto for the republican national convention "a party too patriotic for facts" (trust me his motto for the democrats "the sequel, hopefully better then the first but usually not" is not any more flattering but has nothing to do with my blog).

Unfortunately, I think we have all become too ignorant for facts.   And I do use that word ignorant on purpose knowing the harsh tone it takes on.  Because in our information age and in the age when are schools are mostly places for us to keep our children occupied while we work, we have failed to not only encourage people to think for themselves but we have come to believe what comes out of peoples mouths as truths and we don't look beyond.

The problem with faith today - all faiths - is that the "truths" of the faith are often too much up to the truths of the individual follower, leading often to the abuse of the faith to push our own agendas or our own hate.

I once had this roommate who would often end a sentence with "I could have made that up" or would say a sentence like "yesterday, I lied when I said ..... I re-read the article and it actually says ...."  At first I was taken a-back by it but then later began to think it was a really good reminder that when we are hearing it through a third party then the truth we are getting is ALWAYS distorted.

So the only way to "know" for sure is to go to the source.  Unfortunately for most faiths out there our sources aren't around and what is left behind are written words with centuries of thoughts and insights written in between the words.  The ability to take a first hand look at the Bible, or Torah or any of the worlds Holy books is impossible because even if you don't follow that faith you are coming to the book with some encounters with its people or the rumors of its faith. 

And so truth becomes hard to find.  And worse in a day and age when truth can be a finger tip away we would rather forgo the use of it in order to pull at people's emotions and hope to get a deep emotional reaction that then leaves people believing in your own false reality and leaves them forgetting about the fact checking they should be doing.

Once more, unless you actually witness or hear a recording of a conversation between two people, then a quote from it is always bias - why? Because no matter how hard we are listening to the other we are always interpreting...putting our own into whatever it is that they are saying.  We are always taking away more then just the words - we might be using body language or inflection to add to what we think is being said between the lines. 

And yet, despite this crazy ability for us to leave rational minds aside in favor of the emotional untruths that come our way we are also spreading a different kind of reality out there - and that reality is the one in which we don't trust the words that come out of people.  We no longer take words at the face value but instead must look deeper.  The 24 hour news coverage is amazing at this...if there is something they disagree with especially, they can spend hours spinning and flipping the words, bringing in experts to talk about body language or inflection, all to prove that there was "more" there then what was stated.  "MORE" then the words spoken.

And that is where truth begins once again to take a huge plunder to really mattering.  You see, in our attempt to become politically correct or perhaps to conform or even perhaps in our attempt to be liked and have friends, we no longer believe what comes out of peoples mouths - we must read into them, we must add our own interpretation and we must analyze all that was said.  For sure they cannot be speaking the truth because we would never ourselves speak the truth would we? 

Worse yet is when we do find someone who does speak the truth - who isn't trying to hide or cover up - who isn't speaking in half-truths or in riddles.  And these people, although rare and few and far between, end up living frustrated lives in which they get persecuted and accused of lying.

When it looks like a horse, spells like a horse, it is one - even if it has a horn strapped to its head - there are no such thing as unicorns.


I think the challenge for faithful people should be not living into the Word of God but instead living into an authentic life in which they actually try to live the Word.  Speaking the truth and inviting people into REAL relationships, not relationships built on lies or relationships built on half truths.  Not relationships in which we "hide" part of ourselves or refuse to share the true struggles in our lives - but OPEN relationships in which we truly seek out the real in each other and find the Holy that dwells in the sacred space of authenticity and truth.

That is what people are looking for in Church - in the institutions of faith.  Somewhere they can go, be accepted for who they are and be real - have real relationships.  We are a people sick and stuck in our lives of "faking it."  From trying to fit into your workplace to keep your job to competing with each other on social media.  What people are looking for is a refuge and a place for reality.

But today, churches are less real then ever before.  People come to church pretending to be the best Christians and keeping their struggles to themselves in some distorted belief that they have to have it all together.  Churches are fighting within each other and with each other over silly and petty things.  I know a church who is so jealous of another church within its communities success that they are actually taking actions that only brings suffering to both churches - because for sure it isn't there fault that they are failing...

Let us be REAL people!  Let us find the truth that is not set within our own realities but is instead set up in the reality of our faith - the reality of sacred and let us work on real relationships.  Let us not let the emotional words of others pull our rational strings away from us leaving us to believe false statements and let us begin to live in truth.

For only when people coming together with real and authentic hearts worship the Word and spread God's message will the truth behind Jesus' love be felt by all those around and will Christ message and Kingdom be made available to all!

Spiritual emptiness

spiritual emptiness is one of the greatest problems facing all of our faith traditions today.  With the never ending involvement of electronics in our lives - early and early in today's world; we are always connected and always have the "answers" one touch away.  And so, we are left, not knowing how to listen the voice of the Holy and worse, not willing to always give into God's time.

My husband is a good example, he really didn't want a data phone because he thought that they were not needed but in an attempt to be more organized, he eventually broke down to get the phone.  Now he uses data to an extreme (luckily we have unlimited).  Not only is he always looking things up on his data phone but he often turns to his phone when he is bored to kill time. 

Now, I am not saying that he is spiritually empty by any means, but he is an example of just how much the technology we have access to can not only infect our lives but it can take away from us the valuable time we need to communion with our own thoughts and to truly listen to God.  With the sounds and images that otherwise come our way, we all need to activity take some time in our lives to sit back and shut it all out. 

As a mother of a young two year old, we have chosen to not only limit the TV but also sound in general.  Our little girl loves music, but I purposefully leave no electronics in her play room and although will play music for her during the day, don't give her constant background noise.  I find that she sings to herself or plays with one of her musical toys.  But playing in the quiet gives her time to be with her own thoughts, her own imagination an most importantly gives her a chance to develop Spiritual discipline early - cause children need that too!

As our lives become more convenient, we need to remember to look beyond what is planted in front of us and what the Holy might be trying to tell us.