We’ve all heard the phrase “stranger than fiction” for when something happens that is just so bizarre that it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have even made it up.
I have another phrase that came to me: “truer than fact” because there are some things that even if you didn’t see them you believe them. Like Adam and Eve coveting and eating the forbidden fruit. Even if there were no Adam and Eve (which I believe there were) that story is true. We all know it’s true. We all feel the story inside of us telling itself whether it can be demonstrated factual or not.
And then there’s the death and resurrection of Jesus. Even if it never happened (which I believe it did) that story is true. Inside each of us we have this demand that there is life after death…somehow. In the Hindu religion it’s reincarnation. The various Buddhist sects have life after death. Many religions have had corn gods who die in the winter and come back to life in the spring. There’s even Osiris, the Egyptian god who was brought back to life. The amazing thing about the tabloid accounts of people dying, seeing a bright light, hearing a voice, and coming back is how doggone popular they are. Whether they are factual (which I am not sure I believe) they are true. There is just something deeper than the cold fact of death. There’s the warm truth of life after death. It’s not true because it’s fact. It’s true because everyone everywhere seems to inherently know that it’s true, and there really can’t be any way to explain how everyone would know it’s true…except that it is.
There are some stories that you immediately accept. I’m thinking about Snow White, with the wicked queen’s mirror on the wall. That story is true. We all know people who listen to their mirror above all, and the lengths they will go to if the mirror tells them they are not fairest. And while we’re on wicked stepmothers—why do so many fairy tales have wicked stepmothers? It’s not a fact that stepmothers are wicked, but we all know the truth of the wicked stepmother. And have you counted the number of times someone redoes Peter Pan? They’re not doing it because there are important facts that are relevant to our lives. They’re doing it because Neverland is true, and we know it, and we can’t get enough. We know that there is a reality beyond what we can see, a childhood that we’ve lost, a reality where the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn…no matter what the facts of Monday to Friday tell us.
I guess Jung and others would say that these stories are offspring of our archetypes—that wicked stepmothers and talking mirrors and forbidden fruit and neverlands are just personifications of our inner hopes and fears. Fine. Give it a name. But just because you’ve named something doesn’t mean you’ve explained it. Telling my wife she’s obviously upset doesn’t nearly explain what’s going on.
There are things in life that are true even before they happen. Truer than fact. Truth so deep that sometimes predictably animates cold, lifeless fact, but sometimes just snickers at our search, playing it coy, waiting for an opportune moment.
I think this is what’s behind a lot of people’s search for God, or for those who say they’ve found God, their search for miracles, healing, proof, signs, and all that. It’s not their doubt that keeps them looking, but their faith. Fact, often repeated and with authority, should have killed their quest for God or for signs long, long ago. But the quest continues. From TV evangelists to healing crusades to seminars on prophecy, even to the lone wanton sinner hoping there really is a God, and that God for some reason loves him. It’s really not facts they’re looking for. In their hearts they know what is true—their search is for validation.
The fact is that some wounds will never heal, and some things are broken beyond repair. But the truth is that somehow, someway, somewhere everything can be redeemed, and everything restored. Can’t you feel it? Don’t you know it? I do.
I’m not concerned so much with facts anymore. I guess I wouldn’t have made a good lawyer after all. I am more concerned with truth, with ultimate reality, with the heart of matters, with what is good whether it’s right or not. I know it makes me hard to live with, hard to pin down. People are always asking you for proof, and demanding to know by what authority you say and do things, and requiring you to justify yourself. But some things can’t be proved, the authority for some things is buried way below fact deep in the heart of reality, and justification often comes years or decades or centuries later. Some things are truer than fact. And so if we decide to live by fact, we will live in the shallows, and we will live in error. Some truths are more true than mere fact. Deny them at your peril. Wait for facts at great cost to your soul. Go with what you know and let facts train like cans behind the getaway car while the honeymooners enjoy the truth of their love.
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"I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts."
--GK Chesterton, The Ethics of Elfland
I am poisoned by these fairy tales.
Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn’t have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by
When happily ever after fails
And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly
But I know a place where we can go
That’s still untouched by man
We’ll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
You can lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence
--Don Henley, The End of the Innocence
I prefer the innocence. I still believe in the Once Upon a Time. I still believe in the Happy Ending. I still believe in the Ever After. I still believe.
When my mom was dying, I got into a conversation with one of the hospice nurses about one of our favorite movies. I love to talk Epic movies with people.
My grandmom didn't understand. She was bothered by us talking about such trivial things as entertainment at such a grave time.
I tried to explain to her the significance of the film, the Christ figure, heaven peeking through the veil, the story deriving its power from the life force of the gospel. She wanted to be ok with it, but she had such a hard time letting go. Reaching, she asked, "Well, are these TRUE stories?"
I was stumped at first. But finally I said, "Yes. Yes they are true."
She said, "Oh, well ok, I think that's good. They're true."
Then I said, "They are more true than my name being Steve."
Steve, you posted:
"People are always asking you for proof, and demanding to know by what authority you say and do things, and requiring you to justify yourself. But some things can’t be proved, the authority for some things is buried way below fact..."
Funny (not really), for me lately I have run into a twisted strain of this.
It was was religious people who DIDN'T associate with Him who questioned Jesus' authority and demanded Him to justify Himself.
Today it is largely those who claim His name and DO associate (or is it claim to associate) with Jesus who are questioning the authority and demanding justification of those who live free, transparent lives.
I recently shared the current struggle of my soul with some "cell group" Followers of a local church.
Because I was not exhibiting acceptable behaviors or using acceptable words in describing the anguish of my heart (acceptable as defined by some mysterious, unseen religious spirit or tradition, puke), I was consequently perceived by these Christians as NOT broken before the Lord and at the brink of my faith "being destroyed".
I think I hear Jesus "William Wallace" Christ leading us to smite this religious propriety (which is really impropriety) in the soprano-inducing region.
Done with the love of Jesus, of course.
Freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you see the irony in the cold hard metal FACT on the building? No? What if it stood for Foundation for Art and Creative Technology?
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