FIVE TRUTHS

A while back I came across a short piece called "Five Truths to All World Religions." I don't know the author and so cannot verify the truth of these truths. At first and second reading they seem valid and seem to be truths that any world religion would hold. Personal and/or cultic religions might believe otherwise. Herewith are the five truths  along with my thoughts.

Life is hard. No kidding. Or as Scott Peck says at the very beginning of The Road Less Traveled, "life is difficult." Another truth to that truth is that as individuals we tend to make our own lives even more difficult by taking the more-traveled, seemingly -easier, but in the end, even-more difficult roads. We are our own worst enemy.

           

We're going to die. The younger we are, the less we believe that, or at least act as if we don't believe it. We do some very foolish things, dangerous, life-defying things. As we grow older, we do everything we can to delay, postpone death, or make believe through all kinds of cosmetic covering or extraordinary medical procedures that it won't happen to us, at least not in the near future.

           

We're not as important as we think we are. That's certainly a blow to our ego. But it is true. When we fall victim to #2 above, the world will go on as it always does and always will. It will adapt when we are no longer there. It will overcome, just as we must go on when others, even more important than we, die. We adapt. We go on.

           

We're not in control. We wish we were. Oh, how we wish we were. Life would be so much better for everyone if we were in control. We would make sure of that. The reality, of course, is that no one is ultimately in control – except God. We'd love to play God, but that job, fortunately for us, is already taken. All we can do is control what we can control, namely our own thoughts and words and actions.

           

Life is not about me. We, you and I, are not the center of the universe. We are only one small part of it, an important part, to be sure, but only a part. That does not mean that we are unimportant. It simply means that the world does not revolve around me, my wants and needs, even if I think it should, even when I sometimes act as if it does. It doesn’t and never will.

           

We all know that those truths are true, valid, and certainly undeniable. And even though we spend much of our life and too much of our time trying to deny, overcome or prove false these truths, in the end truth always wins out, much to our chagrin and often to our pain and discomfort.

           

What makes these truths even more difficult to bear is that we too often forget that we have help ready at hand to deal with the harshness of life, the certainty of death, the humbling of our ego, the loss of control and the importance of others. That help is the grace of God in and through the community of people who gather with us in prayer and praise of that God.