Truth is Provisional, Love is Absolute
Keith Hazelton
April 29, 2007
Like many, I received ample childhood religious instruction, raised to follow the faith of my parents, but I never encountered that sense of peace others professed and I never outgrew my doubt and concern about the conflicting doctrines proclaimed by myriad religions.
Over the years I sampled several variations of Christianity, from Catholicism to Fundamentalism to end-times Hal Lindsay-ism, but eventually, invariably, I drifted away. Always so much attention infatuation really not on this life, but the next.
After some recent years of introspection, I decided if all faiths claim to be right then certainly all must be wrong. I reveled in my revelation that no single, earthly belief-system possibly could own the truth. Weren't we clever, I reasoned, as did Voltaire, to have created God in our image.
I had arrived at my own special place, hesitant, on a precipice above a dark valley of disbelief in any supreme being, much less one with the comical cosmic countenance of a bearded, old, white-robed man who continually watched me.
A place where one day, I was sure, humankind would discover the last remaining secrets of a universe ordered only by immutable physical law, not the mysterious. A place where human truth, all things considered, must be regarded as provisional not absolute, but conditional and temporary, like tax law and election promises.
Yes, human truth is a moving target. Yesterday's belief in a flat world and an earth-centered universe eventually became discarded nonsense. Today's heresy a married Jesus or his bones in an ossuary may become truth in the next millennium of human progress.
What a different world if we regarded all human truth as subject to change. Each of us willingly would embrace as equally valid the beliefs and opinions of our fellow travelers, with dignity and respect and kindness, demonstrating, in turn, that pure form of self-sacrificing love.
Which is, as I better understand, our calling in this life. To love one another despite our differences and because of them for it is written, If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even the neo-conservatives do that. (Matthew 5:46, my translation.)
If willingly we love those whose truth we accept and with which we agree, we are compelled more to love more those whose beliefs we cannot fathom or tolerate.
So this I believe: human truth is provisional, as fleeting as each living thing on this wonderful planet, and, though we may be fond of our conflicting, temporary precepts and the discord they foment, there is but one absolute, not of earthly origin, and that is love.
Love then, I believe, manifests in our visible world the mystery and essence of that we call God. Love is what many, past and present, including Yeshua bar-Joseph of Nazareth, have been called to proclaim, sometimes at tragic cost. How could I, in my comfort unworthy to tie their sandals, not feebly attempt to walk that same path?
One day, perhaps, a scientist peering intently at the sub-atomic particles of some hidden dimension may confirm that love, all along, is the force which binds together the universe, a discovery which we, on faith, have known from the beginning of time.
I still linger near that precipice, but I have stepped away from the edge the kingdom of God cannot be far.
Keith Hazelton Oklahoma City, April 2007 CE
Author's Note: This essay was written as part of a weekly Lenten class at Mayflower Congregational Church (UCC), Oklahoma City, led by its Senior Minister, Dr. Robin Meyers. The class listened to recorded essays which had been submitted to National Public Radio for a 2005 version of Edward R. Murrow's 1950s program "This I Believe" which asked prominent Americans to briefly explain their most cherished beliefs, whether religious or pragmatic. A companion book, This I Believe, compiled by Jay Allison, Dan Gediman, John Gregory and Viki Merrick, included both the 2005 series of essays and a number of noteworthy submissions from the original radio series a half-century ago.
Over the years I sampled several variations of Christianity, from Catholicism to Fundamentalism to end-times Hal Lindsay-ism, but eventually, invariably, I drifted away. Always so much attention infatuation really not on this life, but the next.
After some recent years of introspection, I decided if all faiths claim to be right then certainly all must be wrong. I reveled in my revelation that no single, earthly belief-system possibly could own the truth. Weren't we clever, I reasoned, as did Voltaire, to have created God in our image.
I had arrived at my own special place, hesitant, on a precipice above a dark valley of disbelief in any supreme being, much less one with the comical cosmic countenance of a bearded, old, white-robed man who continually watched me.
A place where one day, I was sure, humankind would discover the last remaining secrets of a universe ordered only by immutable physical law, not the mysterious. A place where human truth, all things considered, must be regarded as provisional not absolute, but conditional and temporary, like tax law and election promises.
Yes, human truth is a moving target. Yesterday's belief in a flat world and an earth-centered universe eventually became discarded nonsense. Today's heresy a married Jesus or his bones in an ossuary may become truth in the next millennium of human progress.
What a different world if we regarded all human truth as subject to change. Each of us willingly would embrace as equally valid the beliefs and opinions of our fellow travelers, with dignity and respect and kindness, demonstrating, in turn, that pure form of self-sacrificing love.
Which is, as I better understand, our calling in this life. To love one another despite our differences and because of them for it is written, If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even the neo-conservatives do that. (Matthew 5:46, my translation.)
If willingly we love those whose truth we accept and with which we agree, we are compelled more to love more those whose beliefs we cannot fathom or tolerate.
So this I believe: human truth is provisional, as fleeting as each living thing on this wonderful planet, and, though we may be fond of our conflicting, temporary precepts and the discord they foment, there is but one absolute, not of earthly origin, and that is love.
Love then, I believe, manifests in our visible world the mystery and essence of that we call God. Love is what many, past and present, including Yeshua bar-Joseph of Nazareth, have been called to proclaim, sometimes at tragic cost. How could I, in my comfort unworthy to tie their sandals, not feebly attempt to walk that same path?
One day, perhaps, a scientist peering intently at the sub-atomic particles of some hidden dimension may confirm that love, all along, is the force which binds together the universe, a discovery which we, on faith, have known from the beginning of time.
I still linger near that precipice, but I have stepped away from the edge the kingdom of God cannot be far.
Keith Hazelton Oklahoma City, April 2007 CE
Author's Note: This essay was written as part of a weekly Lenten class at Mayflower Congregational Church (UCC), Oklahoma City, led by its Senior Minister, Dr. Robin Meyers. The class listened to recorded essays which had been submitted to National Public Radio for a 2005 version of Edward R. Murrow's 1950s program "This I Believe" which asked prominent Americans to briefly explain their most cherished beliefs, whether religious or pragmatic. A companion book, This I Believe, compiled by Jay Allison, Dan Gediman, John Gregory and Viki Merrick, included both the 2005 series of essays and a number of noteworthy submissions from the original radio series a half-century ago.
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