So what is it about “the truth?”
I prayed for a break in the impeachment talking heads-a-thon, and my prayers were answered: media domination of a baseball cheating scandal. It’s highly developed, technologically creative and as old as the game itself. To hear the powers-that-be, and media guru’s all react with horror brings the same smile I always display when, watching Casablanca, I watch the Claude Raines’ character (Capt. Louis Renault) tell Bogart “I am shocked” to hear that illegal activities might be going on at Rick’s Café. There’s this ongoing truth and understanding but no one wants to deal with it.
So late Saturday I got to thinking. What is it about “the truth?” We demand it, but often really don’t want to know it. I was walking in the snow with Abby who was zooming about in the snowfall like a puppy as she always does, except now, without knowing the truth, her body is betraying her, and a blood disease will be laying claim to her. But she only feels joy for snow. Is she better off not knowing the truth?
We’re watching a political drama unfold on TV – knowing the truth – that barring the second coming of Our Lord, just as the votes in the House were predetermined by party affiliation, so also will be the votes in the Senate. Why not just have everyone just show up one afternoon, take attendance (thereby knowing the vote total anyway) and go out for a drink. Everything else is for show. That’s the truth. Are we better off pretending there is another truth?
Jack Nicholson shouted at Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men that now classic line: “You can’t handle the truth!” Let me wonder out loud a bit more: Ours has become and increases to deteriorate into a society and culture that has less room for God and more room for hate. Crimes “inspired” by racial and religious hatred are rising. People’s commitment to and affiliation with religious traditions continue to shrink. You think there might be a relationship among those facts! Or is that just another truth with which we don’t need to bother ourselves.
We text more but speak to one another less. Social Media, and those who rule it, can be harsh, unfair, cruel, and filled with falsehoods – even false identities of those allegedly giving their opinions and sharing their “outrages” all the time. Is “social” media really a springboard for ANTI-SOCIAL attitudes and behaviors? Is that a truth we don’t want to deal with?
I wonder whether Jesus would use the phrase that “.I am the Truth..” if He lived among us these days? What is it about “truth” that makes us just so uncomfortable to deal with it? What is that truth or those truths that God is calling me to acknowledge about myself or my community?
Or has it always been about avoiding truth when inconvenient? Is that the ultimate truth of our culture?
Fr. Joe