And Nothing But the Truth

There has been more said about truth and its difference from falsehood than has been considered in a long time. This has been exacerbated by the presence of a newly post-factual world, where excuses, denial and even outright insistence that it is the truth,so what! are more and more common.
But let us be real: people lie! People have turned from truth in varying ways since Adam tried to cover the truth about that apple. In some communities of faith,there is even a liturgical way for someone to confess deceit and falsehood, and be forgiven for it.
And at the same time we almost expect the lie, even feel a thrill about the supposed revelations offered us. (Exhibit A: the tabloids, and even more the click-bait headlines on the internet.) Perhaps it is a residue of childhood when the grownups would keep things from us (in the justifiable reason of protecting us), perhaps it is our current rapidly-changing society where a need to know what is going on has become essential (if perhaps futile.)
But we are facing a different issue today. People in authority, for a variety of reasons, seem to have declared war on truth. Not absolute truth, to be sure (even were that possible!) But simple, garden variety truth. Perhaps it comes from a time in their lives where they could say whatever without chance anyone might know the difference. Perhaps it comes from something deeper, a need to seem better, grander than others. Whatever the etiology, it leaves many feeling every feeling from frustration to anger.(And for some, a kinky sense of the ridiculous.akin to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot"skit.)
Some have compared this to Goebbel's Great Lie strategy. (If you repeat a lie often and seriously enough, people will begin to believe it)But it does challenge us to look at what we hold true, to insist the earth does go around the sun, that there is nothing really to be afraid of in the darkness, that trust (however risky) is still our best option. Because the truths long since held evident are still true

Been There,Done That

Okay, it was pretentious and condescending of me. She had been through the trauma of homelessness personally, and I tried to make it seem as though I knew what it was like. After all, I have a career full of work with that population, establishing shelters and drop-in centers, providing free counseling, leading a low-income advocacy group. No, I  have never been personally homeless, but...
She caught me up right away. If you have never been through something like that, don't think you know what it is like! Which is a more and more common point of view: don't assume you know what my life is like! Don't use your perspective as a lens to examine my experience!
And, as is usually true with absolutes, it's right, and it's wrong.
It is true that most realities are not transferable. A white person cannot really know (however well-meaning) what it is like to be a person of color. A straight person ends up projecting his or her own sexual anxieties and fantasies onto the LBGT community. And the American who has vacationed in another land can only have surface understanding of the ethnic, national and historical reality of that land.
But if we were to take this to the logical extreme, no one would have anything in common with anyone else. The doctor would be unable to diagnose or treat any medical problem not personally experienced. The actor would be unable to play any role but him or herself. Laws could not be passed, much less enforced, because the legislators cannot know our personal code of right and wrong.
At its most benign, this ends up being a form of tribalism, a drawing of boundaries to exclude all those we hate or fear. In Vermont, for example, the only residents considered "true" Vermonters not only had to have been born in Vermont; one's ancestors must have as well! In a more insidious example, Nazi Germany ruled that a Jew was anyone who had a drop of Jewish blood in his or her ancestry.
In a day when we strive for a balance between diversity and commonality, it is essential that we begin from a common place, a place where we all are of equal value, a place where difference does not mean division, a place where unity does mean uniformity. You may never really know my experience, nor I yours. But see that as an opportunity to share rather than an obstacle