'Truth is like a rare bird on the endangered species list': Finding truth in today's world
From where is our help to come?
When I began to write this article, my first impulse was to easily offer numerous psalms, or quotes from scripture. I could spew out lovely language and try to write something beautiful. Taking that route today would be disingenuous.
Getting to truth of human conflict requires rigorous honesty as well as commitment. It’s a lifelong process. We live in a time when truth has been turned upside down so many times, it can be disorienting and confusing. Truth is like a rare bird on the endangered species list.
Truth is often a casualty of pithy phrases, simple excuses, double-speak and spin. Even if our experiences over the last days, months and years tell us that sorrow and brokenness in our lives is real, we can look the other way longing for something resembling joy or even contentment. Yet many of us acknowledge that we seem to be traveling on a road littered with debris, roadblocks and fear at every turn. There’s not a road sign in sight. Dear people, we are off kilter. The world provides abundant evidence of the brokenness, violence and suffering inflicted on countless lives. From where is our help to come?
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Why does rage seem so plentiful and compassion rare? It is because rage is often loud and compassion is a quieter companion? I don’t have the answers.
Anything can be argued in any direction. Like many others I’m too tired to argue and have no appetite for it now. I like many others, hunger for other ways to be in this world without inhaling the toxic vapors of hatred and intolerance. I, like many others want to know why we tolerate the “Epidemic of Isolation and Loneliness” we are in. (Read the Surgeon General’s 82-page report “Our Epidemic of Isolation and Loneliness.”) I want to know how to change and be changed by this reality we know and witness every day.
I don’t know how a person or group can claim to be a Christian and yet declare their hatred toward those who see the world differently. Hatred and violence toward self and/or others are the antitheses of Jesus Christ’s life and lessons. Hatred serves no good or holy purpose. Hate numbs the soul. Hate destroys.
Every day we must decide to start again, as if a new beginning. I pray. I give thanks for meeting a brand-new day. I sometimes ramble on and on to those who have gone on before me. I am often silent and simply grateful for each breath. We may be overwhelmed with sorrow. However we are, we can hold up our imperfect selves to the light of day. We have only ourselves to offer. However meager an offering, I give myself to God, our source of hope, truth and love.
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The Reverend Julia Dunbar is the priest at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Oxford. Formerly she served as the priest for St. Thomas Episcopal Church Auburn and Grace Episcopal Church Oxford.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Keep the Faith: Getting to the truth of human conflict demands honesty