by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
I try to run for 30 minutes at least two or three times every week. Over the years my workouts have given me exercise in weighing truth and falsehood as well as stronger lungs.
The elliptical machines at the workout center form a row facing ten television monitors. I can watch several morning programs simultaneously. I can see CBS, NBC, and Fox together or move down the row for CNN and MSNBC with Fox visible at a distance.
Often the channels cover the same breaking news or political events. What each channel emphasizes reveals differing takes on the story. I watch and read the captions and the messages across the bottom of the screens.
Marketing slants messages to sell products. Perfect skin. The car we deserve. Politics employs facts and alternative facts to market platforms and promises, never more vigorously than in an election year.
In Hebrew the word for truth refers to what holds and stands firm like the stakes that hold a tent in place. In our world truth isn’t as fixed, certain, and clear as many might prefer. Life is not the same for the 1% and the 99%, for women and men, for people of different races and ethnic groups, for island people with rising sea levels and prairie farmers of the Midwest. The stakes that hold them firmly in place differ. Each of us views events from where we stand. We depend on others to communicate their reality; others depend on us to take in their reality.
Finding truth is both an individual search and a collective one. To make judgments, we go through an individual process of looking at consequences and outcomes. We consider our own ideals and motivations. We also draw on collective standards of character and moral conduct such as the ten commandments and standards of caring in our society and church such as the common good.
We have minds to weigh what is true and consciences to weigh what is right. Sunday’s gospel suggests a negotiating process for righting wrongs in the Christian community.
- What successes or frustrations have you experienced in seeking the truth in situations?