Welcome back.
Whether you’re here because you feel called to uncover more Truth, or you’re just being nosey about mine, I’m glad you’re here and hope you’ll read to the end.
My obsession with Truth started with the question,
“But what if the story isn’t true?”
It was an invitation I couldn’t refuse.
Quite literally, I was frozen in my chair.
I knew everything was about to change,
and I even knew it was going to hurt.
But I also knew something else.
I knew that THE STORY that had been given to me wasn’t… well, something.
…true?
…the whole Truth?
…able to deliver the happy ending it promised?
…leading to the type of human I wanted to be, and the type of life I wanted to live?
The possibility that THE STORY wasn’t everything everyone had made it out to be “felt true” when the professor opened the door with the question.
Even though I was stunned and frozen in my chair, I also felt suddenly alive… alert… curious… engaged… onto something that I kinda already knew.
I leaned forward.
I listened closely.
And then my stomach lurched as one of my peers dove straight into upside-down world, “That’s right. It can’t be true because…” and proceeded to use our first literary masterpiece to make her case entirely against THE STORY.
Something inside me immediately registered danger or deception because much of what she was saying was quite literally impossible to me.
You see, I had more than the plot points and main characters memorized.
I had experienced
the most important truths
of THE STORY:
That there was a Something or Someone that could bend the laws of nature and make miracles, and apparently cared enough to do so (in some cases but not others).
That I seemed to be able to relate to that
Something or Someone and even play a part in said miracles through my own devoted attention, intention, and action
(in some cases but not others).
In that moment, I decided that no matter how intellectually intimidated I was by these facilitators and peers, I could/would never let them talk me out of my experience. But I also committed to staying open and willing to learn more Truth (maybe even re-label facts and feelings of my experience) because I knew the limited narrative wasn’t enough to sustain me in the face of the question, “What if the story isn’t true?”
But if it’s not what my
parents, teachers, or preachers said it was,
what else could it be?
If my sources of THE STORY were
fallible, untrustworthy, or at least insufficient,
which other sources existed?
How could I know if they were reliable?
Well, the classical training model offered some guiding principles that we used to get to the bottom of THE STORY, and that I now use as I approach other narratives in political, social, and other arenas.
But before I share those, let’s start with the knowings you already have.
If you’re one of the nosey ones, you may be disappointed to discover that my purpose with these entries is not to disclose what I believe is the Truth about these particular narratives, but to help those who already have an inkling that something is just not quite what you thought it was and find yourself wondering:
What if my social and political story isn’t true…
or at least FULLY TRUE?
What if my sources
are fallible, untrustworthy, or at least insufficient?
How does one find the Truth?
If that’s you, then I highly recommend starting with these questions:
If the current social and political narratives you’re following are not ringing as fully true, do you think they are…
…not true?
…not the whole Truth?
…not able to deliver the happy ending they promise?
…not leading to the type of human that you want to be, and the type of life you want to live?
What truths in those narratives have you experienced as true?
Which parts of those narratives feel too flimsy or too inflexible?
Which parts of those narratives feel too boundless or too limited?
Which parts of those narratives feel too inconsistent with other truths you know?
Despite how simple the questions seem, I suggest writing on each one of them for a minimum of 10 minutes.
The principles won’t help us if we don’t do the personal excavation as we engage them.
I hope you’ll do it with me, as I think the future of our country, culture, and children depends on us all slowing down and doing this work.
p.s. A recent interview I did on the topic of (re)shaping our identity and personal and collective narratives just dropped. Click on the image below if you want to listen in.
