What is Truth?

Not too long ago, I was wondering why we find it hard to trust God sometimes. It occurred to me that the story of Job might shed some light on why we hesitate when it comes to trusting God. In this all too familiar story we are told about the gathering of the sons of God. Somehow, Satan managed to make it to that meeting. Quite “cleverly”, it seems, the devil managed to turn God against Job. From our point of view it seems that Satan used God to achieve his own devious plans. He found a way to get God to allow him (Satan) to torture Job. How terrible, a blameless man suffered unjustly, because God was “outsmarted”.

Sometimes we have a legitimate concern that God might perhaps drop the ball again, and permit Satan to torment us unnecessarily. After all, haven’t we all asked this before… what was the point of Job’s suffering? Perhaps, you are asking that same question about something you are going through right now. What is the point of the financial struggles you are going through? What is the point of the family/relationship problems? What is the point of the health problems? Is God taking bets on your life? Why? Is God having fun toying with our lives? What has He to gain? What have you to gain?

Well, I found out today that I was wrong. Satan did not “fool” God in order to punish Job. NO, God fooled Satan. God in fact used Satan’s hatred to achieve his righteous purpose for Job’s life. You may not have noticed this before, but God just revealed to me that the story of Job is the whole story of man’s relationship with God. It is interesting to note that Job’s early life was patterned after the old covenant, but later on his life became a testament to the new covenant.

Earlier in his life Job lived by the letter of the law. We see this very clearly in Job 31. Take v5-8 for instance, “ If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit – let me be weighed in a just balance and let God know my integrity! If my step has turned aside form the way, and my heart has followed my eyes, and if any spot has clung to my hands; then let me sow, and another eat; and let what grows for me be rooted out.” The whole of ch 31 are Job’s last words of defense of his RIGHTeousness. And the thing to note is that under the old covenant, Job 31 is exactly what God expected his people to be like. I bet Abraham, Isaac, Samuel, Elijah, (perhaps David), Daniel, Isaiah and the like could have claimed the words in this chapter. However, God wanted something better for Job. God used Satan to get Job to the point where he could understand the message of Grace, which is the new covenant. After God thundered and responded to Job’s words, here are Job’s final words in ch 42: 5 and 6 “ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. Observe this: Job has finally, come to realize that it is only by grace that we are not consumed. He understands the Holiness, and the Otherness of God. Under, the new covenant, we come to God in repentance not by doing what is RIGHT.

In my humble opinion, I believe that this was the point of all Job’s suffering. And, yes, it was worth it. God was bringing him into a better covenant. So perhaps, when it seems as if God fell asleep on the job and that the Devil is having a field day in our lives, let us remember the story of Job. The happy ending is not that Job ended up with more “stuff” at the end of his life — NO NO NO! Rather, the happy ending is that Job at the end of his life KNEW God better.

“Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour, rains from the sky a meteoric shower of facts. They lie unquestioned, uncombined. Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill is daily spun. But there exists no loom to weave it into fabric” – Edna St. Vincent Millay

I found the transcript of the late Neil Postman’s speech delivered at a Brown Bag Luncheon talk given at the Shorenstein Center on February 7, 1995 to be quite profound and provocative. In this speech Postman, referring to Edna Millay’s poem, artfully and eloquently made a compelling case for our society’s need for more people skilled in the art of story-telling who can “weave a pattern for our lives” out of the meaningless information out there. I build on this premise. However, I argue that our society does not need skilled weavers. I think that we are all weavers, but unfortunately, we often weave poorly. I suggest that we can learn to be better weavers by incorporating other people’s stories into our own. It is only with stories that cross cultural, religious and ethnic boundaries that we can truly weave “patterns for our lives”.

Postman discussed at length some of the curses of the information age. As a case in point he suggested that “the coming of television in 1946 destroyed the idea of childhood and also resulted in corrupt political discourse” (paraphrased). I contend that in as much as effort is made to weave an authentic message through TV programs television may in fact enrich the childhood experience. Take for instance the popular cartoon for kids called “Captain Planet”. In this show, 5 kids from 5 different continents with special powers work tirelessly to save Gaia, who is mother earth. I think such a cartoon uses stories with a multicultural perspective to teach children very important lessons about the need to be stewards of the earth. One may argue that children learn a lot through social interactions with their peers and that TV takes this away from them. However, I say that TV does not take away from the childhood experience but adds to it. I believe that kids get ample opportunity to play with their peers at school and at home. TV offers another dimension to a child’s learning. For instance, while a child’s peers at school and in the neighborhood may come from very similar economic and social backgrounds, TV shows, such as Captain Planet afford kids the chance to learn about kids who are socio-culturally different but share their sense of childhood.

I agree with Postman that Television has corrupted the political discourse but I say, only to an extent. Too often journalists color news with their own prejudices. In spite of this, I think that the political discourse has been enhanced greatly because of this information explosion. We have seen more transparency and accountability in government than in any other age because people in authority are kept in constant public view. More than any other age, we have been able to follow the political process through news conferences and seeing live parliamentary proceedings. We even know how our representatives vote on issues in the house. Most of all before elections we get to hear candidates debate on the issues that distinguish their platforms. So what do we do with all this information? I think it allows us to see to some extent what the different stories of the different candidates are. We are thereby empowered to choose the candidate with the story that we believe will help us to weave a “better pattern for our lives”.

There is a close association between information and technology. In view of this, Postman offered us some insight into the problem with the parallel explosion of technology alongside the “information glut”. He suggests that sometimes technology does not solve existing problems and quite paradoxically may in fact limit our options. To buttress his point, Postman told a story of his attempt to buy a Honda Accord a time ago. The salesman’s pitch was: “this car has cruise control.” Postman asked him, “what is the problem to which cruise control is the solution?” I think that if I were the salesman my response will be: cruise control is meant to solve the problem of inconvenience. Now, in this particular case the convenience brought about by cruise control may not be necessary. As postman points out, he had been driving for 35 years and never really found keeping his foot on the gas to be a problem. However, I think there are many other instances where the convenience brought on by technology leads to higher efficiency and productivity. For instance, over the past few years computer software have been introduced into medical care where doctors have the convenience of typing their patient notes into a program making the information readily available for all other providers in the network. While handwriting of notes may not be particularly burdensome for a lot of providers the convenience of being able to type notes brings a lot of other advantages. First of all, it takes some mystical or should I say mythical powers to decipher what doctors write. Now people can actually read the notes that doctors write concerning their patients, which has enhanced patient care in no small way. Secondly, doctors separated by vast distances but sharing the same patients can have easy access to patient notes which facilitates continuity of care and decreases medical errors significantly.

Even in this age, I think the “information glut” does not seem as daunting when we approach it selectively. Although, we are confronted with a lot of information we can through our personal experiences select how we use this information to enhance our lives; we can be our own information filter. So yes, we may be submerged in a sea of information. But instead of being threatened by the waves we can choose to make this an adventure and surf.

Honestly, I don’t know where to start. A friend introduced me to blogging today. Granted, I have been familiar with the term but it was not clear to me what the essence of an online journal will be. However, after a lengthy conversation my friend convinced me that every human being “needs” to blog. Sorry, I tend to be sarcastic, but not in the cynical sense. Which brings me back to my original question? Who am I?

Well, my reservation to answering this question is multi-faceted. Let me try to flesh that out a little bit. Perhaps, it is hard for me to tell you who I am because, I don’t know who you are. Often when we introduce ourselves to people we try to tell them things about ourselves that we think they may be able to relate to. For instance, someone has probably said this to you before, ” O yes, I have a friend, who has a sister who also goes to Princeton…like you”. Why do people do this? Maybe, we feel that people will not be interested in us if we can’t convince them that we share some commonality. One would cursorily think that as humans we share so many things in common that we shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to convince people of how similar to them we may be. However, history has shown us time and again that we as humans have been plagued by the awareness of how different we are from one another.

I digress. It is hard for me to tell you who i am because I guess I fear that you will discount me, even before hearing me out. I guess I don’t want you to stop reading this blog or to think you and I may have nothing in common simply because I may identify myself with a gender, a nation, a religion or some ideology. So my solution is to tell you very little about myself, at least for the time being. In a sense, you may get to know me even better by first getting acquainted with my thoughts.

By the way I have not forgotten I said earlier that the reason for my hesitation with the question, ‘who am I’ is multi-faceted. Among other reasons I think I hesistate because I don’t really know who I am. I am still trying to find out. Perhaps, as I broadcast my thoughts to the world and as I get back comments from you I shall in time discover who it is that I really am. I hope to be pleasantly surprised but I have a feeling that I may not be prepared for what I find out.