Pontius Pilate presents the Christ.

Pontius Pilate presents the Christ.

Life seems to be a delicate balance between what we do and do not know—dialogues occur, rebounding between those two territories. Pride is carried like a hidden king, sometimes wielded like a two-edged sword or a self-deprecating whisper.

Like Pontius Pilate I ask, “What is Truth?” If it is universal and impersonal, then Truth is an avalanche, treating everything in it’s path the same. If it is merely personal—subject to the whims of each human on this planet—then Truth is still an avalanche; only it is a series of miniature ones constantly crashing into one another in a chaotic cacophony. If Truth is the former, nothing is personal and mercy is only a word and not a reality. If Truth is the latter everything is personal and justice is merely a word and not a reality. If it remains one or the other in our cultural heart, then pharmaceutical companies will continue to make money from psychotropic drugs as people look for ways to blunt the harshness of Truth’s split.

But True Truth is neither one, nor the other—and medicating it only delays the reckoning.

It seems contradictory for True Truth to be both transcendental and personal, but it is not. The only way for such magnificent values like Goodness, Beauty and Truth to carry their weight at such lofty and base levels is for both to be true.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise; 

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

“Tell all the truth” by Emily Dickinson

Peace,

Kirk & Sarah