A man atop a colt ’neath which
leaves lay spread
Have we ever seen
a more perfect joining
’tween
a body and its Head?
Our rector preached about truth last Sunday.
“Everyone has their own truth these days,” he said. “You hear it everywhere. Let this person speak ‘their truth,’ ‘I’ve got to tell my truth…’ Where is a person to go to find the truth? Is such a thing impossible?”
I’m not sure what he said next, for he had me … my mind was drifting, thinking on this stifling and bewildering subject.
It wasn’t always how the rector described.
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies,” said Churchill. “[T]o say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true,” Aristotle tells us. “Do you swear to tell the truth?” we’re asked in our common oath.
Our epoch has had a fine time of dismantling when it comes to this subject. But, in this inundation of words, this sea of point and counterpoint, is there nowhere we can go to find a signal, some distant lighthouse twinkling, even bleakly, that our confused minds might ultimately discern the way of True North?
As it happens, reality is crafted in such a way that, when it appears buried in one context, it reappears stubbornly in another. Hence, when words seem to strangle themselves, we are given images with which to find our way home.
Thinkers have written copiously about the problem of the one and the many. The earliest philosophical debates were between thinkers who believed reality existed as a multiplicity and those who thought it a single, unified whole. This central pursuit is even where we get the term university, i.e., finding unity in diversity.
And it is here in the image from the poem included above. For it is Our Lord Himself who has united the low things (i.e., not only the donkey but also you and me) with the high things (the Holy Trinity of the Godhead), and it is to this that we can turn this Passion Week to find truth amidst counterrevolutionary falsehood.
My mind was in and out during the rector’s homily. I knew I should be paying attention, but I simply couldn’t. I almost took out my phone to write down some notes, but then thought better of it.
By the end of the service, I could hold back no longer. The rector held out his hand and smiled, but I could only talk.
“I know where we can find truth…” I told him.
He leaned back and withdrew his hand, as if to say, “By all means, tell me…”
“…and it’s very simple,” I continued, “for truth is a man on a donkey on a bed of palms 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. That’s it, and it isn’t anything else. Do you see?”
Confusion passed over his face. He nodded in the direction behind me to where two visitors were standing. I also saw that I was holding up the line.
“Can we talk about this later?” he whispered.
Clearly, I had some points to flesh out.
Along with his father, Allen Keller runs a lumber business in Stevenson, Alabama. He has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MBA from University of Virginia. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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