Some Thoughts on Expectations and Truth in Today's Society

      You’re dead tired. Would you choose a 2-legged chair in which to collapse? Hardly! You’d know what to expect; you’d wind up on the floor! You assume the laws of nature will hold true, so you save yourself a tumble.

      Have you ever thought about how much we take for granted every day, how important it is that what we trust to happen actually does? Think about your reactions when your morning alarm doesn’t go off, your car won’t start, traffic lights malfunction, or your computer breaks down.

      It’s one thing when electronics disappoint us, but what about when a human does? A co-worker misses an important deadline on your project and doesn’t take it seriously. You look forward to meeting a friend for lunch and she cancels at the last minute with no apology. What if it happens a 2^nd time? After the 1^st time a little trust leaks out of the relationship. Happens again? The leak turns into a flow that can resist attempts at repair. As Louisiana author Mahogany SilverRain says, “Peace and trust take years to build and seconds to shatter.”

       Truth is intimately connected with trust, and society runs on this blend. We expect machines to do what the advertising says they’ll do. We expect shop & grocery clerks to know their craft and be helpful to customers. Public officials are supposed to serve the public. News outlets are supposed to tell us the truth about what is happening in our local and broader world.

                       

      This delicate fabric of truth and trust is facing major stresses today. The role of multiple sources, exaggeration, individual truth, fake news, plus an overall skepticism in the general public are combining to fray this relationship. It's hard to decipher what is true; the interconnected age we live in is so highly complex that answers to questions and solutions to problems are not simple. Add to this the fact the world is changing so rapidly that things true even a few years ago are not so straightforward now. No wonder there are pockets of people who only agree with things they think they already know, accepting nothing that contradicts their current belief system so often rooted in the past..

      All this raises for me a question as old as humankind, but made famous by Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” It’s quite relevant in today’s social climate and raises a number of deeper questions:

·         Is truth black and white or can it be varied shades of grey?

·         Is truth absolute, the same in all times and places? If so, why do people so often disagree with each other?

·          Can truth be defined clearly?

·         How do you tell when something is true or a lie? Is there something in between?

      Because people build their lives on what they think is true, the ambiguity of truth in today’s climate makes it difficult to know whom or what to trust. Businessman and keynote speaker Stephen Covey says, “Trust is the glue of life…the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” If this is as true as it seems, what are the implications for Christians and other people of good will?

      Here are some bits of wisdom I ran across that I find helpful:

            The one who trusts in his own heart is a fool… (Prov. 28:26)

            Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. (William Shakespeare, “All’s Well that Ends Well”

            A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

                                    (English preacher Charles Spurgeon)

            Trust but verify. (American president Ronald Reagan)

            Trust not in ourselves but God. (2 Cor. 1:9)

      I conclude from all this that individuals of good will can help society recover from its current chaos by not taking a single source’s “truth” at face value.  Instead, each of us should tap into the wisdom of multiple sources, including tradition and a group larger than a handful of people. This process should include comparing this new “truth” with the universal truths from faith and morality that have endured for thousands of years. This is not easy because it takes work, but trying to be people of faith and hope has always been a challenge. I love this quote for its hopefulness:  “The deep roots never doubt spring will come.” (writer Marty Rubin)

Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB

Some Thoughts about Expectations and Dreams

     The other day I was working on liturgy for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday when I remembered a recent Enquirer article about Dr. Phillip A. Sharp. He’s a Kentuckian who grew up on a Pendleton County farm and became a renowned scientist, teacher at MIT, and winner of a Nobel Prize. The thread that brought him to mind was that both he and Martin Jr. were people from unassuming “regular” families who grew into international greatness. 

     In Phillip’s rural neighborhood, would any have expected this local farm boy to become a world-recognized scientist? In the Atlanta of 1929, would neighbors of the King family have had any inkling this new baby would grow up to change society?  Both of these boys emerged from ordinary circumstances to outstrip the common expectations for kids growing up in their home towns. 

     Jesus’ neighbors had very low expectations of him. (Remember?  He couldn’t perform many miracles in his hometown because they were so skeptical. Then there was Nathanial with his “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” attitude.) Jesus, however, had a vision of his mission that far surpassed what anyone could have imagined. 

     Funny thing about expectations – they have a lot of power over us. We humans tend to get stuck in the ordinary, the status quo. We don’t often let our hopes rise to a very high level. Why is that? I can think of a couple of reasons. 

     For one thing, it takes time and a lot of energy to believe that something more than the usual can develop out of a situation. Personally, I know I can get bogged down in the minutiae of the day-to-day and put off trying to think outside the box. 

     Another thing is that we don’t like to have our balloons burst. Sometimes it’s easier to not have hopes in the first place than to feel the pain of loss or defeat. I guess one bottom line is that when we invite hopes and dreams on our journey, risk is usually along for the trip! For Jesus, that risk turned into the cross. The cross, however, was the path to resurrection! 

     What expectations do we have of ourselves? What do we expect of the various persons we meet every day? What kinds of boxes do we put ourselves or others into? Boxes certainly can make our lives more predictable and manageable, but how many possible scenarios are never born because we choose the well-worn path over the one that may reveal new, more fruitful opportunities? When the 17^th c. Japanese poet Matsuo Basho advised us not to follow the footsteps of those who have gone ahead , but rather seek what they sought, he could well have been speaking to us about ourselves. Sometimes we need to challenge ourselves to change the way we think about our life, our day, our neighbor, our calendar … something that might strengthen our powers to dream and expect more than what always happens. Jesus certainly did! 

     Robert Kennedy’s use of George Bernard Shaw’s quote made it really famous, and it is an appropriate way to end these thoughts: "Some men see things as they are and say 'why'? Others dream things that never were and say 'why not'?" Drs. Phillip A. Sharp and Martin L. King Jr. both did. What about us?

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PS: In reflecting on these things, I found a number of wonderful quotations on the topic that I didn’t want to let slip away. I jotted them in my personal blog, so if you’d be interested in seeing them, check out my “Musings from a KY monk” athttp://KYmonastery.blogspot.com. 

Sr. Colleen Winston, OSB