Lovely Bird

An eternal question: Is that true? Are you telling me the truth? Are you genuine? Truth. Truth is the foundation of relationships and societies. We are led to believe by very ancient sources that truth is the foundation for life. And yet in our politics, in the market place we don’t mind bending the truth, or even telling the lie in order to make personal gain.

Isn’t that a lovely bird in the photo above? I just happened to be in the right place when he flew in. Yes, what a pose. And the colors are striking. It’s a very fine photo, if you ask me. In my yard? Well, no. I didn’t take it there. While walking in the neighborhood? Ahh, no. Okay…truth be told. I took a picture of my television screen. He’s a bird on TV. He’s a bogus bird and I have to tell you the truth. I could make up a story about how I captured this photo and I could give you all the details, but that wouldn’t be true, would it.

You and I are offered the opportunity almost every day tell that “little white lie”, the one that really doesn’t matter. But truth does matter. It matters a lot. I believe that Jesus became such a threat to the Jewish religious leaders and to the Roman government that they had to get rid of him. Jesus told the truth in the face of lies and when he named the lie for what it was, he became an intolerable threat. Speaking truth can be costly, but to deny truth is to create chaos.

I still say the little bird is brilliant, even if the photo is a phony. And that’s no lie.