TRUTH

It's a wonderful Wednesday morning, and for those who know me well, Wednesday is like Friday in most peoples lives.  I look forward to Wednesday night services, because they are usually populated with people seeking to worship and grow in spiritual knowledge.  So, for that reason alone, I'm feeling excited about this day.   It's five in the morning, I'm sitting with my laptop in my recliner.  Glenda has left for work, and I have the house to myself.  This is my quiet time for writing emails, blogs, or editing my book I'm writing.  It's that wonderful time of year when I can open a window or a door and let the cool crisp air flow in from the outside.  It's just a little muggier than I like, but getting the stuffiness out of the room feels good.  

Sadly, the sparrows haven't awakened yet.  It's peaceful and calm outside.  

I don't usually use this blog to comment on political matters, because they are usually filled with the strife of people trying to exert influence over others through whatever means necessary.  Politics is the arena of human nature.  It is a place where peace rarely rests its hat.  Within the United States the two political forces can be summed up in simple ideology.  Those who claim to be liberal, want everyone to believe that all people are inherently good and that everyone has worth.  If you don't agree with their view, you are inherently evil, and have no worth.  They cling to a view that everyone will eventually grow into a cosmic whole of love, peace, and unity of purpose.  They (the left) are convinced that if we would all come to accept and believe what they believe, the world would be a better place. If you don't agree with that view, you are unworthy of human status.  

On the other end of that spectrum is the view that everything has to stay as it is, without question, without variation, without a hint of change.  Nothing changes, all is as it was, and people who want to change are frightening.  The radical right is defined by castes, cliques, and clubs.  If you don't agree with us, you are subversive, and destructive.  It is predicated upon the view that all people are incapable of making proper choices and should be directed into purpose as they define it.  

Both extremes of the political spectrum have committed evil in the propagation of their beliefs.  

With that said, I'm going to dip my toe into the political firestorm of the Judge Kavanaugh affair.  I hope this will be the first and last time I do something like this with this blog.  Why?  Because, there is a need for something more valuable than political purposes here. With a view to transparency (Is there any really needed here?) I am an evangelical conservative Christian.  For me, Judge Kavanaugh is someone I can support.  Although, he is Catholic, his conservative views are in line with what I hold.  Yet, there is one value yet to be validated.  Truth!

As anyone who has read my blogs knows, I am all about peace.  Not peace as men know it, but peace as given by a loving creator.  That peace transcends spiritual matters into the affairs of men.  I could go through a long list of spiritual matters that will not transcend into human affairs, because without a relationship with God, they hold no import.  However, TRUTH is one of those things that determine justice, and in turn affects peace.  Without truth, their is conflict in every aspect of life.  I realize some cultures value cunning, and deception.  Without deception of one kind or another, I truly believe humans would obliterate one another.  As humans, we withhold truth in order to maintain relationship, and we believe we have peace.  At a personal level, if we knew what people really believed about us, we would become murderous, and isolated.  Perhaps, that is why God didn't give us His ability to know what another person is thinking.  So, when I say truth brings peace, I am saying truth in as far as people resolving conflict.

So, what do we as Christians do when we are confronted with what we see in the current state of affairs between a nominated Judge, and an accusing woman.  WE SEEK TRUTH.  

For one thing, we don't know what happened 36 years ago.  We don't know who is telling the truth.  I hate to say it, but just because the accuser is a woman, doesn't mean she deserves to be believed.  Just because she may not have a reason to falsely accuse Judge Kavanaugh doesn't mean she should be believed.  On the other hand, just because Judge Kavanaugh has led an exemplary adult life, doesn't mean he didn't do what he is accused of doing.  Somewhere in the midst of this struggle that is outside the arena of this present truth, there is another struggle going on that makes the truth of greater import.  

I want Judge Kavanaugh to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but not at the expense of the truth.  If I am willing to sacrifice the truth for an expedient end, I am no better than those who distort the truth in both sides of the media circus surrounding this story.  So as a Christian what do I do?  

Answer, I will choose to cherish truth.  I will cry out to my loving creator to bring truth to the forefront.

I don't fear the mid-term elections, or a hypothetical outcome I can't see.  I don't sacrifice truth in the rush to put someone into a seat of power that God may not want them in.  If I can't trust God with the day to day existence of my life human life, then I should stop serving him completely.  He knows the truth, and as the Bible says, the truth will set you free.  Christians shouldn't become part of the feeding frenzy that is this current political battle.  We should be the calming voice calling for truth.  At the same time, the truth doesn't take forever.  IF it is the truth, Perhaps, nearly 36 years ago a little 15 year old girl should have told her parents that she'd gone to a party with older kids and in their drunken stupor she'd almost been raped. We're told by her own account that she feared her parents reactions. Now, the truth may be forever marred by human opinion.  That is the price of secrecy.  The truth is already compromised by fear. Courage is the bosom buddy of truth.  

I often tell the men I pastor of a time in my childhood when I was a serial liar.  As a toddler my Dad caught me with my hand in the cookie jar and I still declared 'I didn't do it.'  Throughout my adolescence I would lie all the time.  Then one day, my brother used one of my dad's tools to repair his bicycle and left it outside to be rained on.  Dad found it in the yard and immediately blamed me.  I denied it vehemently, but it was of no avail, in his mind I was a liar, and I was lying then.  I received one of the worst whippings of my childhood, not because of its severity, but because as each stroke of the belt fell on my body, I knew I hadn't done what I was accused of.  I was innocent of the crime.  As I sat in my room crying a truth hit me that affected the course of my life forever.  I would tell the truth to my dad no matter what.  If it meant I would be punished, at least I would be punished for what I did.  I would tell him when I'd violated his personal spaces, strayed beyond decency, and experimented with my growing sexual urges.  In short, he and my mother would be privy to the truth of my life, even in the embarrassing stuff.  Because of that, my father eventually began to trust me when I made my declination of events I didn't do. Since that time I haven't always told the truth, and I haven't always revealed my deepest darkest secrets.  I've done things I'm ashamed of to this day, and I believe they are better locked away in the past.  To many people, those 'crimes' would be laughable.  At the same time to others they would be horrifying. If asked, however, I would tell the truth.  I have to believe that Judge Kavanaugh has learned the same lessons as myself, or I would not want him on the highest court in our land.  

Tomorrow, Judge Kavanaugh, and his accuser will both tell their stories to a nation in political turmoil.  In the wings of that chamber of human endeavors will be truth.  Believe me, there is truth out there, and that truth will win, no matter the outcome.  I can say that because I believe in a loving, and just God who judges above the will and and whims of humankind.  When this is all over with, the question for Christians isn't whether truth won out or not.  Truth doesn't always win out in the court of human affairs. My brother never got a whipping for leaving that wrench outside.  Everyday, innocent people die, the weak suffer, the poor get overridden, and despots continue to subdue. Yet, in the affairs of God, truth will be revealed.  All will be revealed.  When humans fail to believe that, the truth is of no value.  Without the truth, peace becomes elusive, and tyranny prevails.  These are things I know from my short 63 years on this earth.  I've seen the price of half-truths, outright lies, and hidden truth first hand.  I've seen what happens when we value secrecy more than transparency.  

So, I will try my hardest to watch the full Senate hearings, not the encapsulated reports of either side of the media.  I will pray that the truth prevails, no matter the political outcome, because I know a just judge is presiding over tomorrows proceedings.  I will ask Him to reveal the truth, because I know He values truth.  I will lay aside my anxious heart, my dubious musings, and my preconceptions for a moment of peace.  I will ask Holy Spirit to remove my prejudice and replace it with wisdom from His throne.  Like Solomon of old, I will ask for the means to know who is telling the truth.  I urge all of my Christian brothers and sisters to trust God and believe that He will reveal the truth.  Why?  

Because only the truth can bring peace.  

As a final word, the horizon is beginning to turn a beautiful deep blue as this world spins its daily course around our lovely sun.  I am beginning to hear the faint chirps of sparrows in the tree outside my eastern window.  They are waking up to a new day, unconcerned with the mess of human events, and the political wranglings I am focused on.  They will spend their day looking for food, seeking shelter, and living out their day trusting in the one who provides them with this awesome universe in which we live.  Tomorrow will come whether they live to see it or not.  Tomorrow will come, and that is all the truth they need to know.