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Getting Caught in the Big Lie
I am mesmerized by this video. A moment of revealing the Big Lie. The lie we tell ourselves, each other, about the world, about politics, about life, about truth. This lie is pervasive and dishonest. It is what it says it is. The deceit of the human connection and condition. The transformation of all that…
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I don’t recall
I hate lies. But for me, it doesn’t end there. I hate when we encourage lies over honesty. How easy it is to conveniently forget. To ignore the truth. To misremember on purpose. Or just happen to not remember at a critical moment. “I don’t recall,” we say. Our brains are funny things, really. While…
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Who actually thinks you can believe everything on the internet?
Seriously. Who? Because I’ve never actually met such a person. At the beginning, in the ’90s, there was a lot of trust. It was new. People were just learning to express themselves. Then there was little trust. It quickly filled with swamp and opinion. And then people started to do amazing things. Like Wikipedia and…
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Agreeing to Disagree
The teacher writes the numbers on the board. 2 + 2 = She turns to the class. Silent. Eyes creep to the corners to see their neighbors. “We’ve gone over this. What does two plus two equal?” A girl in the back, braids clicking, raises her hand. “4” The teacher smiles. “Thank you. Any other…
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Dealing With Truth
Postmodernism and the era of willful deception. I’m not the only one worried about a “post-truth” or “post-fact” era. Many think pieces have tried to tackle the danger of making normal the lies and distortions we’re seeing in the world. But few of them have dealt with why we’re here and what might be a…
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Why ‘Is’ May Be Our Most Important Word
Bill Clinton Was Right About the Nature of Being Twenty years ago, in the midst of an impeachment, the sitting president made perhaps the most weasely defense ever. He infamously tried to parse the word ‘is’. In his questioning about an ongoing relationship with an intern, Former President Clinton said: “It depends upon what the…
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Truth
Truth (Day 12 of A Simple Lent) In a political campaign, it often seems like the biggest loser is sincerity and truth. It becomes easy for websites like FactCheck.org to parse every political statement or for confusions to blossom into controversies: such as fear of bias leading to a made up story of people chanting of…
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Anecdotes Are Not Reality
We love anecdotes. They say profound things about our lives and how they are lived. And we are full of them. Just ask someone about politics or religion and see what you get. In my world, so many use anecdotes to speak for where the church needs to go in the future. This has led…