I once witnessed a student, who had been caught actually helping himself to the money in the till, denying he had done it!
What makes us so afraid of the truth? The obvious answer is that we are afraid of the consequences if we confess it. It is hidden from us that the consequences are actually far worse if we set out on the road of deceit.
A boy once thought it would be fun to practice shooting with his catapult at a hen in his grandmothers yard. Unfortunately his first shot was a direct hit and killed the hen. In panic he buried the hen and denied any knowledge of the reason for its sudden disappearance. B
ut his sister saw him and embarked on an enjoyable campaign of blackmail, getting him to do all the jobs or else I will tell. The boy could not stand it after a while and went and confessed to his ambuya, who said she also had known all along and was just waiting for him to confess. There were no consequences as he was judged to have been punished enough by his own lie.
Are there differences in what we mean by truth in the West, in Africa and in the East? In the West for sure there was a time when people believed there was such a thing as the truth and their laws scientific, secular and sacred – sought to define it. Today, broadly speaking, only scientific laws are accepted and then only until another law comes along to replace them.
Otherwise people act on the basis of what works for me. In other words truth has become personal, my truth. In Africa, truth and law have emerged as servants of the group, the community, the people. It is our truth. In Asia and the East I dont know what happens.
But what I am moving towards is that truth is somehow written in our hearts and we know the truth and when we follow it we experience freedom (John 8:32). Yet in our society and in our world the powerful can simply manipulate the truth, aiming their catapult at the judges and the law, the farmers and the farms, the journalists and the press, the voters and the elections, etc. They think they can get away with it like the little boy, but can they and for how long?
Post published in: Opinions