Provisional
Truth | Essays | April 29, 2007
This I Believe: Truth is Provisional, Love is Absolute
April 2007 CE
Like many, I received ample childhood religious instruction,
raised to follow the faith of my parents, but I never
encountered that sense of peace others professed and I never
outgrew my doubt and concern about the conflicting doctrines
proclaimed by myriad religions.
Over the years I sampled several variations of Christianity,
from Catholicism to Fundamentalism to end-times Hal
Lindsay-ism, but eventually, invariably, I drifted away.
Always so much attention
infatuation really
not on this life, but the next.
After some recent years of introspection, I decided if
all faiths claim to be right then certainly all
must be wrong. I reveled in my revelation that no single,
earthly belief-system possibly could own the truth.
Weren't we clever, I reasoned, as did Voltaire, to have
created God in our image.
I
had arrived at my own special place, hesitant, on a
precipice above a dark valley of disbelief in any
supreme being, much less one with the comical cosmic
countenance of a bearded, old, white-robed man who
continually watched me.
A
place where one day, I was sure, humankind would discover
the last remaining secrets of a universe ordered only by
immutable physical law, not the mysterious. A place where
human truth, all things considered, must be regarded as
provisional
not absolute,
but conditional and
temporary, like tax law and election promises.
Yes,
human truth is
a moving target. Yesterday's belief in a flat world and an
earth-centered universe eventually became discarded
nonsense. Today's heresy
a married Jesus or his bones in an ossuary
may become truth in the
next millennium of
human progress.
What a different world if we regarded all human truth
as subject to change. Each of us willingly would embrace as
equally valid the beliefs and opinions of our fellow
travelers, with dignity and respect and kindness,
demonstrating, in turn, that pure form of self-sacrificing
love.
Which is, as I better understand, our calling in this
life. To love one another despite our differences
and because of them
for it is written, If you love only those who love you,
what credit is that to you? Even the neo-conservatives do
that. (Matthew 5:46, my translation.)
If
willingly we love those whose truth we accept and with which
we agree, we are compelled more
to love more
those whose beliefs we cannot fathom or tolerate.
So
this I believe: human truth is provisional, as
fleeting as each living thing on this wonderful planet, and,
though we may be fond of our conflicting, temporary precepts
and the discord they foment, there is but one absolute,
not of earthly origin, and that is love.
Love then, I believe, manifests in our visible world the
mystery and essence of that we call God. Love is what many,
past and present, including Yeshua bar-Joseph of Nazareth,
have been called to proclaim, sometimes at tragic cost. How
could I, in my comfort unworthy to tie their sandals, not
feebly attempt to walk that same path?
One day, perhaps, a scientist peering intently at the
sub-atomic particles of some hidden dimension may confirm
that love, all along, is the force which binds together the
universe, a discovery which we, on faith, have known from
the beginning of time.
I
still linger near that precipice, but I have stepped away
from the edge
the kingdom of God cannot be far.
Keith Hazelton
Oklahoma City, April 2007 CE
Author's Note: This essay
was written as part of a weekly Lenten class at
Mayflower Congregational Church (UCC), Oklahoma City,
led by its Senior Minister, Dr. Robin Meyers. The class
listened to recorded essays which had been submitted to
National Public Radio for a 2005 version of Edward R.
Murrow's 1950s program "This I Believe" which asked
prominent Americans to briefly explain their most cherished
beliefs, whether religious or pragmatic. A companion book,
This I Believe, compiled by Jay Allison, Dan Gediman,
John Gregory and Viki Merrick, included both the 2005 series
of essays and a number of noteworthy submissions from the
original radio series a half-century ago.
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January 13, 2007 © Ruben Bolling
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