Truth, honesty, trust

It takes a lot of trust to talk about truth honestly. I have to trust you, you have to trust me. We each have to trust in a lot of things. I have to trust that the other is not out to hurt me, to undermine me, to exert power or control over me, to belittle me, to lie to me, to deceive me, to manipulate me, etc. We both have to trust that the discussion is about making things, understanding, or action better. I need to know you care about me. Only when that level of trust exists can truth be discussed with any level of honesty.

The Church has largely lost that trust. That trust, as the basis of any good relationship, has been squandered. No wonder any time we want to talk about truth it becomes a battle. Our ideas and intentions are immediately questioned. It really isn’t even a question of what is or how we know truth. The question is what have we done with truth?

Sure, people are arguably naturally rebellious. Sure, the (oft quoted scripture we love to trot out in these discussions) cross is an offense. It is one thing when the other doesn’t want to listen. It is an entirely different thing when we have given the other little reason to listen. Almost every day the news reports of yet another abuse or scandal by church leaders.

Timing is everything!

We are also living in an age where institutional structures are being called into question. Similarly political, business, and even humanitarian institutions have also demonstrated regular abuse and scandal. The Church has lost trust in an age where culture and society has been forced to question what was once trusted.

The Arts have also lost trust. Just as the Church has largely itself to blame for the current lack of trust, so, too, the Arts. As what I call hyper-individualism permeated most of 20th century Modern art, essentially eschewing ties and responsibility to the community (and the community doing its part to push the artist away), we are now overcoming this sense that one does not need the other.

Bottom up solutions

At the grassroots, community based level, art is once again finding nourishment. People are discovering that the arts are their neigbours, their friends, their relatives, their community. Even when there are meta-community artists, their art seems best experienced as a community. Relationships, and thus trust, are being rebuilt one brick at a time.

Similarly, this is the only way forward for the Church. Bottom up, people to people, person to person, in community. These things are intrinsic to both art and the Church. You really can’t have either without trust and relationship. Both the Church and art are natural outpourings of relationship.

The system is never more important than what it was created to support. Man was not made for sabbath, but sabbath for man. Truth isn’t something to enforce, it is something to be lived and shared. It comes out of relationship with each other. It is about caring about and for each other.

Once that is in place we can talk about truth.

It is only at the moment
of humans’ realistic admission to selves
of having made a mistake
that they are the closest
to that mysterious integrity
governing the universe.
R. Buckminster Fuller in R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe

Thanks for reading.

Joe