In spirit and in truth

In Spirit and In Truth.

Freeman is writing about these words quite a bit in the chapter I'm reading this week, and I like a lot of what he says. The truth, he says, is what is; everything that is is the truth. "Truth includes all falsehood and illusion; truth ultimately absorbs and makes even wasted time and absurdity meaningful."

So, for example, in this picture, it is true that there is an ugly corrugated boathouse outside Shelton. It is also true that somehow, paired with a boat and a reflection, I found it beautiful.

It is false that there are mountains behind the trees; they are actually over to the left: west, not north. But it IS true that the cloud formations behind the trees LOOKED like mountains to me, and inspired me to create this photo. It is true that this photo is an illusion, and a false image, and that I may have wasted time putting these two images together. But it is also true that, at some level, truth somehow redeems that wasted time -- perhaps by making the image serve as an illustration, or perhaps by my telling you the truth about the image.

What I loved, reading the section on truth and spirit this morning, after writing last night's post, is that what Freeman says next feels a lot like what I was trying to say in that post, about being gentler with one another during these stressful times. Because a lot of us will begin searching for answers again, after a very long time of thinking we had them all. We may be very impatient with our failures, and we may not always agree with the answers others find: their truths may not, at the time, feel like truth to us.

"Aware that this Spirit of truth is with us as a friend, we are better able to tolerate in others and in ourselves what has not yet reached fullness of being and become fully truthful. Truth is tolerant because the Spirit is forgiving love. It allows the untrue to survive for the time being as a loving parent allows a child to make mistakes. Truth embraces rather than excommunicates its enemies. It is made manifest after much distillation of experience... When there is no ego through which the truth has to pass, communication becomes communion."

I am thinking, as I read this, of the times I have sat and listened to my children and my friends, and I can see and hear things in what they say that I suspect are underlying truths, things they don't want to hear or are not yet ready to face. It used to be that I would take that as an opportunity to argue, lecture, or advise. But now, reading this, I see that there is a lot of ego in that choice -- "I know something you don't know." And though what I know may be true, it may NOT be true for them, or it may just not be true for them NOW.

Reading Freeman, I see that if I trust the spirit of truth to move in their lives as surely -- though often slowly -- as it moves in mine, then I understand that my truth may not be their truth, but that both are somehow true. It allows me to accept and forgive myself for the truths I can't yet see, or missed, and it allows me to forgive and accept them as well. It seems like this acceptance of the shifts in truth, even as they are all truth, is the compassionate stance that will allow us to embrace ubuntu, to move past the barriers that separate us into the truth that unifies us; from the frustrations of communication (and its failures) to the loving acceptance that is communion.

It is, in a way, moving out of time; moving away from the differences we sense now to the oneness that is to come, to that one day -- which is also now -- when we will all be held --or finally know ourselves to be held -- in that same loving embrace. If we trust that that will hold true, then we can let go of our egoic need to correct, or to rescue, and choose rather to say (as I am learning to say to my daughters) "and how are you planning to work with this? Please let me know if I can help" and just leave it at that.

And what about the creepily untrue people and situations that wreak havoc in our lives? Perhaps a variation of that stance, of throwing their versions of the truth back into their laps without correcting or arguing, of saying, "I see that's true for you but it's your problem to solve, not mine," will free them to disengage from our lives -- or at least free us to disengage from theirs. I'm frankly not sure that will work, but I already know correcting and arguing and fighting don't seem to solve anything, so I'm willing to try: It's always a hope...