Ambiance
Jesus brought with him an ambiance of truth. He said he was the truth. When Pilate asked him What is truth? he just stood there. Such pales these days. The ambiance fades.
The new news is the old news that the CIA is lying to Congress. The new director is supposed to apologize for the years 2001-2008. Strange fruit. Those years and those who led us then should have got us accustomed to lies. One might make a case that the CIA is a school of lies for lying is spying’s life blood.
One can get so in the habit of lying that one might forget the difference between truth-telling and lying. One trouble I’ve found is remembering lies. Lies are harder to remember than truths. But the CIA is the only government agency I know of that actually has intelligence for its name. Makes me think that maybe there’re such things as intelligent lies or that they would have us believe so.
Anyhow, it’s comforting that some of us still get out of joint over lies and lying. Pilate probably wouldn’t have known the truth if it hit him square in the face which, of course, it did, and he didn’t. But there are refreshing signs that there are still people around who know the difference or else, of course, they may be lying about it. I hope not. I hope that one place we can still be sure truth is being told is among those of us who claim to follow the Way… the Way of truth and life… and still know the difference.