This post about truth points out that truth is relational. The word truth comes from the Old German trothe which is connected to troth and betrothed which suggest being in relationship. Truth is not “relativism gone wild” as the final line suggests. We speak it with compassion, but also recognize that some ‘truths’ are problematic. Those we speak out against when they arise and we remain in relationship with the world, a better world.
As Mary Oliver aptly suggests it we each have a role in building our small corner of the universe. Certainly, in each of our minds, it is not so small. It is rather grand in its own small way.
It is that small way that speaks to the humbleness we each undertake in being builders of something worthwhile and worth whiling over. It is in the natural world, the world we do not construct we find the great builders like the cricket. We can learn so much from their efforts and their places as we think and are thankful for what we receive each day.
On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God –
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope
it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 