Some Things Are Simply True

I don't claim to know much about it. Lately I've been looking for stronger batteries for my flashlight and learned a couple new things. I was proud of knowledge and still am in many ways. The long running criticism went that I was blessed with head knowledge but poor of heart. That was true. A question is, is it still?

My knowledge crashed and burned and still has a great many smoldering bits scattered about. I found it to be full of holes and rather hollow. But here's something strange: the little pieces seem to be valuable, more so than they were before. I am still proud of knowledge, yes, I love to know answers. There is plenty of room for pride to inflate far beyond the tiny, damaged little bits that I have, yet there is a new hope.

There is a difference between knowing the truth and loving the truth. That truth alone best characterizes the journey of these past few years.

There is a difference between knowing the truth and loving the truth. I typed this again to make a second point about this pithy, brilliant truth: I can not claim it. I heard this said recently and my own vocabulary of truth is so precious little that I have trouble even characterizing the fragments I know to be true. So much trouble, in fact, that I can no longer credit myself for any knowledge at all. Indeed this simple truth was adopted by me, is understood by me, at last, but I did not invent it. I finally recognized it, but is that even a thing to celebrate? After 37 years? I knew it all this time, though I did not love it.

Two plus two does not equal five. That is a truth I did not create either. Yet the narrow, dim beam of my flashlight has at least found this much and knows it to simply be true. Two plus two does not equal five. It never has and it never will. Some truths are just that concrete. So concrete that you can anchor yourself to them without fear. So concrete that even death itself can not overcome it, and that is indeed a truth to be loved.