looking for truth

Truth is written in stone above my desk. And yet, often I don’t know what’s true. Heather, who carved this word in stone, is gone now. The last time I saw her she was struggling to breathe. She was near the end of her life, but still carving. Living with her goats along the Fundy shore on a piece of land full of overgrown gardens. This stone is still here because she carved it. 

I still think of her. She made this stone, but what she really made was the inspiration for me to think about the truth. So often now the truth is in our algorithm. Our online feeds show us what we already know and believe. We are told more of the same. How does this get in the way of finding new truths? How does it get in the way of us beginning again? Where is the new truth hiding?

For there will always be new truths. New depths to consider. New roads to plow through. There are right now, in this moment, things that are completely lost to us, things we have never considered. And our brain is waiting for them. Our heart too.

Truth-finding needs a diverse path. Room to roam. I am attracted to the same things, the same kind of stories time and time again. And if I let it happen, it is all I will ever know. I have to intercept the balls that are being thrown at me. I need to catch and make a pass before I walk off one field and on to another. 

You can find truth reading the same passage again and again. You can find new meaning in the same words. I know this to be true. Yet carry with me the hope that a new passage will fall in front of my eyes and lift me onto a cloud from which I can see the whole picture better.