BitterSweetLife

Can "truth" be eclectic?

Common sense and common experience reveal that to go looking for a truth that “suits us” will inevitably meet with success—and the package deal will likely include a gift shop and a tour guide to the magical kingdom.

When people shop for faith like it’s clothing, the search is over before it begins. We find “answers,” of course, but our “finds” have the same precariously-perfect style we’d expect of the summer’s fashion trends. And the same staying power.

Ultimately, there is nothing for it but to go searching simply for the Truth—color and style preferences be damned—and accommodate ourselves to its reality. Then our joys and our rewards, when they arrive, will be genuine—the kind that last forever.

Still later, we will find, to our astonishment, that the Truth is in fact what fits us, meets our deepest needs entirely, like lock and key—but we had to approach it as the truth in order to find it, and not merely look for the sweetest deal going.

Because the truth was larger, far larger than us, we had to discover the truth—and then grow into it. In the final reckoning, to craft designer truth, to build heaven to suit, is to reinvent the wheel.

And in the case of the truth, it can’t be done.