Caring for the word “Truth”
My late-night reflection on a list from Marilyn McEntyre’s book,
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies
McEntyre’s list of a dozen things to consider in seeking truth:
1) Truth is illusion;
2) Truth avoids institutional control;
3) Truth tugs at conventional syntax;
4) Truth hovers at the edge of the visual field;
5) Truth is relational;
6) Truth lives in the library and on the subway and on the internet, if you listen carefully;
7) Truth is not two-sided; it’s many sided;
8) Truth burrows in the body;
9) Truth flickers;
10) Truth comes on little cat feet and slips down back alleys;
11) Truth doesn’t always test well;
12) Truth invites you back for another look.
[From McEntyre, Marilyn.
- Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies
Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing. 2021]
My nine additions to her list; my “second look,” if you please.
a) Truth never races or hurries; it prefers to saunter;
b) Truth is not exhausted by categorizations such as “objective” or “subjective” or “scientific” or “economic” or “political” or “mystical” or even “Biblical”;
c) Truth always encourages listening and loving;
d) Truth holds hands with imagination and wonder;
e) Truth is never exhausted or fully explained or ultimately grasped by words alone;
f) Truth is revealed to human understanding as being multi-faceted;
g) Truth is open and available to all seekers; it is often distorted by lies, cheating, seduction, pride, and other sins;
h) Truth never fakes, but often entertains and embraces fakers;
i) There is no “I” or “My” claim of origin in truth; it stands without such ownership.
St. Augustine concluded: “All truth is God’s truth!”
