More than one couple has faced the difficult challenge of navigating telling the truth with compassion. Standing before a mirror anyone can say to their mate, “look at me, my waist has grown, my hair is thinning and my arms are flabby” to which the appropriate answer is not “well there is nothing wrong with your eyesight.” It was Gloria Steinem who said, ‘the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off’. True enough. Most of us can’t or perhaps shouldn’t handle the truth in its fierce nakedness. It was Edward Murrow who said:
“Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up at least for a little bit” The question now is and has always been “will the truth set us free?” Gospel of John 8:31.
When Moses came down off that mountain top with the ten commandments and found his people worshiping the golden calf, apostates that they were, he did not argue with them that his new law was better than their old pagan ways. He destroyed the tablets in anger, melted down their idol, forced them to drink the gold, and went back up the mountain to get the truth all over again. It took a while to set the truth free. Will the truth set us free? It depends on which truth.One of our principles as Unitarian Universalists implores us to affirm and promote a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” It’s part of our identity as a church, to which we add service, although I was always a bit uncomfortable with being in search of service. Of all of our principles, I find this one the most difficult. Just who is it that decides what truth is? Is truth relative to each of us or is there an absolute truth? How do we even know where to look if truth is located only within our own hearts? Psychologists now agree that the perception of what is true is wired into us, in large part. Those who perceive the world using mostly their right neo-cortex tend to be more optimistic, seeing the good in most of the world, while those who primarily use their left neo-cortex tend to be more anxious. As Milton put echoing the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” (see The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathon Haidt)
What will your truth be?
With Grace and Grit, John
