Practice Final - The Truth About Truth
Truth is something that was held up to me from a very early age as being one of those almost ethereal ideals. I was taught from the minute that I learned how to manipulate the truth that truth should be what guides my actions. The churches and the schools that I attended taught me that I had a responsibility to truth and that the truth would set me free. Even my comic book heroes stood for “truth, justice and the American way”. Dictionary.com offers this as one of its definitions of truths: “Truth - That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence.” That’s a lot of punch to put into 5 letters. What I’ve learned about truth is that it comes in varying degrees of value and meaning in my life. There are the “just the facts, ma’am” truths, the soft truths and the unforgettable, mind blowing hard truths.
The “just the facts ma’am” truths are easy ones, relatively speaking. Facing them, though not always pleasant, isn’t really a life altering experience. Learning at the age of 3 that poking my sister in the eye was NOT going to get me off the hook for making my own bed is an example of this category of truth. Truth is, it left me sitting alone in my room with a sore bottom all day AND I had to make my bed. Later, at 13 realizing that no matter what I did, no matter how I screamed and pulled and teased and ironed, my hair was NEVER going to do that flippy thing that was so popular in the 70’s. These are the “just the facts” truths as I see them. They are realizations that came but didn’t upset the order of my life.
The soft truths are a little tougher. Soft truths have affected pieces of my life without touching the fabric of it. Realizing at 6 or 7 that mom and dad were Santa Claus, understanding at 14 that my teachers were fallible and that adults were mostly just tall, old teenagers, and at 16 accepting that I actually had to WORK to get money and that a specific dollar amount was assigned to what I produced – these are some soft truths that I’ve had to face in my life. Theses soft truths have certainly changed my understanding but they haven’t really affected my being.
The hard truths, now those are brutal. Those truths have brought me to my knees, sometimes in despair, a couple of times in prayer and occasionally by virtue of the punch in the gut. The hardest truth was when I realized that we’re alone in this life. We may fill it with people and things but when the lid closes on us, we’re alone. Even in life, we deal with our sadness and our disappointments alone. We may share them but only on the surface. At night when the world sleeps we are alone with them. They offer up some hard to swallow truths in the middle of the night. And then there’s the truth about love. I don’t know anyone that’s successfully dodged that hard bullet of truth. Love does NOT solve all, cure all, or redeem all. Love does NOT always stay, always give and always receive. Love is a fickle creature that takes work and patience and sometimes a letting go. That was and still is a hard truth for this girl. That particular truth is one that I’m still wrestling with.
Truth has been held up in an almost god-like manner as though it could save us or free us or make us somehow more. There isn’t anything magical about truth. It isn’t faithful or kind or righteous. It is truth, not beholding to anyone’s idea or definition of it. Maybe Dictionary.com defines it as a supreme reality – and maybe that’s just what it is…right up to the point that it isn’t.
The “just the facts ma’am” truths are easy ones, relatively speaking. Facing them, though not always pleasant, isn’t really a life altering experience. Learning at the age of 3 that poking my sister in the eye was NOT going to get me off the hook for making my own bed is an example of this category of truth. Truth is, it left me sitting alone in my room with a sore bottom all day AND I had to make my bed. Later, at 13 realizing that no matter what I did, no matter how I screamed and pulled and teased and ironed, my hair was NEVER going to do that flippy thing that was so popular in the 70’s. These are the “just the facts” truths as I see them. They are realizations that came but didn’t upset the order of my life.
The soft truths are a little tougher. Soft truths have affected pieces of my life without touching the fabric of it. Realizing at 6 or 7 that mom and dad were Santa Claus, understanding at 14 that my teachers were fallible and that adults were mostly just tall, old teenagers, and at 16 accepting that I actually had to WORK to get money and that a specific dollar amount was assigned to what I produced – these are some soft truths that I’ve had to face in my life. Theses soft truths have certainly changed my understanding but they haven’t really affected my being.
The hard truths, now those are brutal. Those truths have brought me to my knees, sometimes in despair, a couple of times in prayer and occasionally by virtue of the punch in the gut. The hardest truth was when I realized that we’re alone in this life. We may fill it with people and things but when the lid closes on us, we’re alone. Even in life, we deal with our sadness and our disappointments alone. We may share them but only on the surface. At night when the world sleeps we are alone with them. They offer up some hard to swallow truths in the middle of the night. And then there’s the truth about love. I don’t know anyone that’s successfully dodged that hard bullet of truth. Love does NOT solve all, cure all, or redeem all. Love does NOT always stay, always give and always receive. Love is a fickle creature that takes work and patience and sometimes a letting go. That was and still is a hard truth for this girl. That particular truth is one that I’m still wrestling with.
Truth has been held up in an almost god-like manner as though it could save us or free us or make us somehow more. There isn’t anything magical about truth. It isn’t faithful or kind or righteous. It is truth, not beholding to anyone’s idea or definition of it. Maybe Dictionary.com defines it as a supreme reality – and maybe that’s just what it is…right up to the point that it isn’t.
posted by millay at 11:08 AM
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