In Newsweek a couple of weeks ago there was a My Turn opinion piece by Amy Krouse Rosenthal – "An Agent, a Publisher and a Polygraph Test?" that caught my eye for several reasons. First, her almost comical obsession with the truth prompted her to seek out a polygraph examiner in order to confirm that the manuscript she had just completed for her memoirs was in fact true. More significant was her description of how humans are drawn to the truth. She writes, "From the earliest age on, even as we toy with it, we instinctively know there is something mighty about the truth, that it is an immobile, looming star. We grow to crave it: ‘Do you like this picture, Mommy? Be honest’; ‘Do these pants look good? Tell me the truth’; ‘Do you really love me, really, truly love me?’"
I believe one of the reasons we crave the truth is because it allows us to trust, and trust is a foundational element for a meaningful life. Our closest relationships depend on trusting that the things the one we love says are true. One of the most hurtful human experiences is the betrayal of trust. As any of us who have had our trust betrayed can attest, the experience rocks our world and recovery can be slow and painful. And, as any of us who have betrayed the trust of another know only too well, that experience is no picnic either and the road back can be long indeed.
We saw both sides of the betrayal of trust played out in the recent brouhaha over James Frey and his "memoir," A Million Little Pieces. The pain of both the betrayer and the betrayed was broadcast for all to see on Oprah. My oldest daughter was gripped by Frey’s book and when I asked for her opinion on the controversy she didn’t want to discuss it. "I want to believe this is true," she said, "Don’t ruin it for me!" Clearly, our desire for the truth – our need to trust that we’re standing on its solid ground – runs deep.
What we may not recognize right away is that this deep seated hunger for truth with a small "t" is grounded on an even deeper longing for truth with a big "T". Most of us are yearning for a sense of transcendence in the midst of the mundane. We’re searching something larger than ourselves and the mightiness of truth with a small "t" points to the still greater might of Truth with a big "T". Krouse Rosenthal is on target when she writes, "psychopaths aside, most humans yearn for truth in their lives, and to wander down a false path is to find yourself in a hellish and regretful place." We need to trust that we’re standing on the solid ground of the truth, not just in our relationships, but in the very foundations upon which we base our lives. The hellish and regretful place we can find ourselves is bad enough when it involves a lack of truth with a small "t", but it can become an even more devastating place when it involves truth with a big "T" – when we discover we’ve placed our ultimate trust in that which is not worthy of it, when we discover that the foundations of our life have been built on that which is not secure enough to bear our life’s weight.
Hollywood has illustrated this experience time and again. The Truman Show and The Matrix are great examples. In both movies the main characters, Truman and Neo, discover that everything they believed about the world was an illusion. That the things they had based their life upon, their very reality, was a sham. Our individual discoveries may not be the stuff of Hollywood, but they can be no less life altering. Maybe our illusion of control is shattered by unexpected illness. Maybe the fantasy that we can secure our future through hard work, accomplishment or the accumulation of possessions explodes in the face of impending death.
Or maybe we just awaken to the fact that there is more depth, meaning and significance to life than we could ever imagine on our own. That was Ben Stein’s experience. He used to write an E!Online column called "Monday Night at Morton’s" which described his various encounters with rich and famous people. He quit writing it because he said he wasn’t comfortable being a part of a system that has such poor values, and he didn’t want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who was eating at Morton’s was a big subject. He was talking about truth with a big "T" when he described humans as "puny, insignificant creatures." He said, "We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important. God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves. In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to him." Stein was able to realign the foundations of his life when he came to realize, "that life lived to help others is the only one that matters" and that it was his duty, "in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others he has placed in my path."
I love the way God works. Ben Stein isn’t a Christ follower, yet his realization rests firmly on the Jesus way and his message is one that we Christ followers need to hear.
The good news that each Christ follower bears to the world is that there is truth and the Truth – and both are crucial for human fulfillment. The first challenge for each Christ follower is to develop relationships of trust based on truth with a small "t" – to live with integrity so that others can know that they are standing on the solid ground of truth in their relationships with us. A second challenge follows directly from the first – to love, support and care for all who have wandered down a false path and found themselves in a hellish and regretful place – to share, in all our relationships of trust, our experience of truth with a big "T". There’s truth and the Truth, so what’s your next step?