Seeking Truth

"Keep the company of those who seek the truth - run from those who have found it."  - Vaclav Havel

As a person of faith, I hear the word "truth" kicked about not infrequently.  Depending on the context, it bears a range of meanings, which in turn carry their own baggage and freight the conversation to varying degrees.  Two perspectives on truth, in particular, have challenged me to think through my own understanding.  "Truth," as many postmoderns have it, is an archaic and manipulative power construct.  Truth, in the language of many Christians, is the foundational expression of reality, the absolute "what is."  Small wonder, then, that so many postmoderns abhor religion.  Or that Christians respond to postmodern claims of subjectivity with anger and fear.

Havel suggests, however, that truth is something much more grand than these [admittedly abbreviated and caricatured] polar perspectives.  To those who claim there is no such thing as truth, Havel issues an invitation:  "Seek truth!"  "Join up with others who seek it!"  To those who claim "There is truth, and this is it!" Havel cautions that truth is not something to be found.  It is not a solid construct, not a destination, not an endpoint.

Rather, truth becomes something vibrant and living.  It is something more elegant and intricate than we might imagine.  It is infinitely profound, inviting us to go ever deeper.  It is dark and painful, and never allows us to settle for long.  It calls us to know ourselves when we'd rather avert our eyes.  It summons us to know others when we'd prefer to dismiss them.  Truth sometimes screams to us in pain; in our confusion, truth might show itself elusive.  Yet Truth is also often revealed as hope; truth is found in beauty and friendship, in abundance and in love.  

Truth is simply not static - nor does it allow us the luxury of a passive response.  Truth strengthens but does not indulge.  Truth demands our attention, but never fully satisfies.  Truth will likely never make us comfortable.  Truth will challenge us and perhaps evade us and, when all is said and done, capture our hearts.  Hearts cannot deny or dominate, but they can follow. Relentlessly.

At this point, I believe, the dissonant perspectives on truth come as a gift.  A Christian perspective assures us that there is, in fact, "something big" out there.  Beyond us, beyond what we can see, there is something that calls us outside and beyond ourselves.  A postmodern view beckons us past any temptation to settle with an easy answer about that "something."  It reminds us that beyond any answer or meaning we might find, lies yet another.  And another.  

This, I think, is the quest to which Havel invites us:  the quest to live in constant pursuit of the truth, a truth we can know only in active response, truth revealed in the act of seeking.     

Exploding reality

I read a blog post this morning that completely exploded my construct of reality. And when I say completely, I do mean completely. And by exploded, I mean blown to kingdom come.

Referencing the new book Reality Hunger, as well as some related web conversations, Kester Brewin asks: "Is it a reality we are immersing ourselves in when we read, or a virtual space?"

If you know me at all, you know that I'm not just a reader. I'm an avid reader. A passionate reader. A voracious reader. Not an hours and hours a day reader, but life-shaped-by-the-books-I'm-reading sort of reader. I love books. I own too many of them, and usually read too many at once. To me, there are few questions in the world as interesting as "What are you reading?"

I've certainly been accused of escapism, and there's no doubt I can get overly engrossed in my reading. Sometimes books do pull me away from other priorities, and I admit, my timing still needs some work. But mostly, reading for me is simply another one of the worlds in which I engage. There's the world where I happen to be right now (that would be Grand Rapids), there's my formative childhood world (Northwestern Argentina), the world of family (spread across the U.S.), the world of challenging ideas (mostly cyberspace), and the world/s of the book/s I'm reading right now.

As a child, I moved frequently, and of necessity learned to adapt to new environments, while simultaneously keeping alive the reality of past settings. I've never had all my friends in one place. I've never, in my memory, communicated in only one language. My favorite foods, favorite restaurants, favorite people have always spanned at least two continents. So to me it just makes sense that books would become one more environment in which I could engage. It could be argued that books aren't a real environment--let's face it, it's not like I could exactly see or taste or smell what I was reading about. Not exactly, because my eyes and tongue and nose were still in a geographically tangible world. But the sensory organs that take over after the initial input--the brain connections that told me I really was seeing and tasting and smelling these things--were no less convincing. Just ask anyone in my 8th grade class who watched me read the end of "Gone with the Wind." I was right there with Scarlett O'Hara, no question about it.

Now, don't get me wrong--I never expected to find Frodo hanging out in my front yard. I was simply happy to hang out in his. I have certainly known the boundaries between worlds, which is perhaps why finishing a really good book has often been as painful for me as a teary airport farewell. But as I thought about this today, I realized that the boundaries, apparently, have not for me been clear indications of the beginning and end of "reality." They have simply been markers between two different realities.

This is just as true of non-fiction as it is of fiction. The lessons I learn, the ways I change, the things I appreciate and fear, all flow through and around my tangible world as well as the books that I read. I cannot count the times I've marveled at the ways in which books "choose me". They consistently engage me on a level that parallels other aspects of my life, very much like a friend over a cuppa who listens, draws me out, helps me think things through.

So back to the mental explosion. If books are this real to me, do I have a problem? Those boundaries I noted earlier--the ones between book world and this world--are they enough to keep me "properly" grounded? Or are gauzy purple dresses, crystals, and flighty remarks about quantum dimensions awaiting me just around the corner?

I'll let you just imagine what happens when I start thinking about reality and cyberspace.