I am writing this reflection on he morning of November 05,2024, the day of the American election. One perceptive person shared about our condition in the world today: “Nobody tells the truth any more!”
The thinkers who study what is happening on a global level label this as a “post-truth society.” This means that telling the truth is no longer valued. It has been abandoned by so many of our citizens. Now, we live in a time when gaining power is all that is important. People do not get upset when their leaders, or the media tell out-right lies.
Truth-telling is to our life as a society is what our blood filled with oxygen is to our body. If the red blood cells are not carrying a fresh supply of oxygen to our muscles and organs we will suffer a major collapse of the systems in our body. We need oxygen to survive moment to moment.
We need truth-telling to survive as a society and as the human race from hour to hour. When people do not tell the truth all social order will collapse.
When our political leaders and the social media tell lies, spread conspiratory theories, we are challenged to speak the truth. Speak the truth even when it upsets many people on social media.
Maybe you had a Grandmother who spoke clearly. Sometimes she was a little too blunt, but she spoke it as she knew it to be true. There were times when she ruffled your feathers but you always knew that she cared for you. In all her bluntness, she embraced you; faults and all!
There was a very good chance that as you matured into adulthood you did not allow her bluntness to cause you pain. You became as ‘truth telling’ as your grandmother. She was a truth-teller, and you became a truth teller. And you function very well as a family!
Now, when we recognize that we are living in a post-truth society it is imperative that we take responsibility for telling the truth. The truth as best we know it. This will take a lot of courage. Some of your fellow workers will disagree; some will become angry but that does not lessen the responsibility to tell the truth about what is happening in our government, our social media and in the local community.
We must train our high-school students to have a sharp sense, a critical sense, to separate the truth from what is false. No longer can anyone take a true what runs by your social media account. Young people need to go forward with a sharp sense of shaking out the truth from the falsehoods.
And this brings us to the ultimate reality: God! Always, our God is truth-teller. We can rely on God to be trust worthy even when we do not want to follow his directives.
We live with a truth-telling God. What strength and courage that gives us to live well today.
