What is Truth?

I'm not sure who asked the question first, but it must have been asked a trillion times, from the beginning of time. What is truth? There might have been a time that I would have gone to the bookshelf in search of philosophical tomes or theological treatises to find the answer. Often I have looked far and wide for answers, thinking that one exploration or another special experience might be what I was looking for. But, no...none of these have worked for me.

Many years ago, the glib conversational response, “this is true,” was heard over and over again, popping up frequently in inconsequential conversation. Yes, it was a clique, usually offered when no more articulate response might be found. But I believe it pointed to something important. Truth is not outside of me, to be found as the prize result of a far ranging quest, it is here, it is now, it is with me, and often more readily recognizable than I think.

In short, I uncover truth when I become aware of what resonates with the genuine me, the open me, the the conscious me.

This does not mean that I am making it up on the fly. For sure, my truth is informed by Universal Law, by truth principle, by beliefs that I have chosen. These are critical, for they give me a framework on which to hang my truth. But as well built as that framework may be, by itself it is not my truth. It evidences my truth. It is home for my truth. My truth emerges from me in resonance with that framework.

Wow! This means that everybody else's truth is not the same as mine. It means that today's truth and tomorrow's may look a bit different. It indicates that truth flexes to meet the world. All this is resonance with me.

Makes me feel a bit more important. A bit more knowing. And quite a bit more responsible. I guess you could say it causes me to be aware.

Contentment

I don't often read poetry, but American Smooth, by Rita Dove found it's way into my hands. I was struck by four lines in a poem titled The Passage.

I suppose there are lonesome days before me,

but no more so than those that have already passed.

I can make myself contented.

We are having very good weather.

The poem is written in the form of an at-sea journal of a WWI soldier returning home. He reflects on the conflict he endured, his fellow soldiers and his own state of mind, while sharing tight quarters, cooped up on a troop ship that is continually on the lookout for submarine attack.

What struck me was this...though the circumstances of his life were dangerous, unpleasant and uncertain, he acknowledges what is and has been, consciously chooses a better frame of mind than the circumstances seem to indicate, then finds something positive to focus on.

I can make myself contented, he says.

I, too can opt for the gain brought by contentment that I choose. I turn away from pessimism and boredom, look ahead to hope as yet unrealized...and find contentment, sweet contentment.

A Posture of Resistance

I couldn’t read the fine print from where I sat waiting for the light to turn, but I sure didn’t miss the message. “I RESIST!” shouted at me from the bumper of the car in front of me. It was almost as though whatever was being resisted was of infinitely less importance than the posture of resistance.

I RESIST!

Now, as I ruminate on it, I realize it’s not just the car or the driver in front of me that’s at issue, it’s me, too. My girlfriend tells me that I often resist what is sent my way just for the sake of resisting, because I can’t accept good coming to me. Actually, she more often says it’s just because I’m stubborn, but that’s probably the same thing. I want to do it all by myself, and I decide to resist before the offering presents itself. Could it be that I have a posture of resistance? Heaven forbid!

What you resist persists. So goes the well-worn cliché. My resistance works for me this way: I end up maintaining circumstances and situations that I really don’t want. That’s the underlying rationale for resisting in the first place. I focus on something that I don’t want. I protest, find fault, judge all else as beneath my standards, knowing that my way and only my way is right and best. And those circumstances and situations stick to me like tar.

In the process, I disallow so much good that might come to me, proud s.o.b. that I am. My failure to appreciate the good around me, to allow it to close in on me, while I am focused on having it my way does, in effect, prevent the good that I really want from ever arriving.

Hmm…so this is the way that I block the blessing that would flow to me. I sit tight in my posture of resistance.

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow?

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” So begins the doxology that I sang every Sunday in my father’s church. Lying in the shadows, seeping through the words of the sermon, forming parentheses around the strains of the invitational hymn was the subtext that retribution, punishment and curses also flowed, and if I did not ‘get right with God’ the blessings would dry up, and the consequences of my sin would catch up with me in full measure.

Not my father's church

But, what if all that flows from the Divine, the eternal, the infinite is blessing? Somehow, within me, whatever name I use for this all encompassing Source, (Love, All that is, The Universe, God) I can find nothing but blessing in it. And if that be so, what is keeping me from being the beneficiary of the flow? It makes sense that it has something to do with me.

So, let me today affirm this. God is good! Her blessings are immeasurable, stocked up, waiting to be poured out! And I have a choice to face the windows of heaven, let fall away the barriers I have built around me, and allow the blessing in…first trickling through a crack in my wall, then showering me, now flooding me, until I have no option other than to swim and frolic in it’s endless flow.

Oh, is this what a heavenly choir is?

Praise Source from whom only blessing flows.

Default

Just this morning I changed a default setting on my computer. You see, I have two printers. I originally had an HP and used that exclusively. Then I got an Epson as well, and began to use it more and more. At first I kept the HP as my default printer, but soon found that I was using the Epson more. So, I changed the setting to make the Epson my printer by default.

Make this one my default setting...

All this means that now I don’t make a conscious choice about which printer I will use each time; I made the choice one time, and without any thought process from me, my choice now sends the data to the appropriate printer. (usually)

Apparently, the same thing happens in my life. On a great range of issues, I have thought and re-thought a particular way, and those thoughts eventually became my default thought on the subject. No longer do I consciously think about the issue at hand, I merely reference my prior thought on the matter, and respond or react consistently with that thought.

The hitch comes when I discover that my default thoughts no longer serve me well. Without considering it, those thoughts, and the correlated responses come up when the issue arises. In order to change the thought, I must go through the process of actively choosing another. And until I make that new thought a true setting, the old rises again the next time around.

Choosing a new thought about the issue, and setting it firmly in place is my challenge. I most often remember to choose the new thought only after the horse is out of the barn. So I set myself to the work of impressing that thought on my automatic mind. I think it long. I think it often. I begin to get out of the old groove. As I sustain my choice it moves into my automatic mind, and I no longer have to consciously choose it every time.

Except for the times like today, when my computer setting hopped back to the old default. Those times, I simply choose again.

Minding My Speak

Never mind about speaking my mind. Somewhere along the way I learned to do that, respectfully, of course. But what about when mind and tongue are disengaged, and the outflow is the froth on top of the surface of the minutiae of my experience? You know… speaking without the benefit of having passed the content through my consciousness. (perhaps like these guys)

Sorry to say, I’ve done that all too much, on the keyboard as well as orally.

So, Minding My Speak is a choice I have made to be alert when I publish something to the world. When I speak of mind, I don’t mean primarily brain or intellect, I include remembrance, emotion and imagination as well.

It seems big, it is incredible, but it isn't everything...

I invite you into my head to listen to the authentic conversation there. If it strikes a chord with you, I hope you will reciprocate. I will attempt to ‘mind my speak always, but if I do not succeed, please bring it to my attention.