Can someone be right, but there be something that is "righter"? Can someone do good, but there be something that is "gooder"? Can someone know what is true, and yet find out that there is something related to that truth that is "truer"?
The grammar teachers out there, along with my mom, are probably reeling inside at've used at the end of each above sentence. They would be justified, because those words aren't really acknowledged words in the English vocabulary. They don't properly exist and in literary circles are completely unacceptable. For the grammar teacher, they might miss the whole spirit of the question because of their focus on being grammatically the words I right. I'm not suggesting that they are lesser people because they care about grammar; good grammar is actually useful in holding together our ability to communicate with each other. If everyone in every place could arbitrarily write however they wanted, it wouldn't be long before people would not be able to communicate with each other because everyone has their own set of rules and words and forms for language. Thank God for grammar.
But notice, if you please, that grammar is a servant of something. Grammar is a tool used to accomplish something that has nothing to do with grammar. Grammar has its place, but that place is useful only when put under the authority of its master: namely, communication.
What if communication got lost as the purpose? Is it possible that some people can get so consumed with grammar that they lose sight of its function? Could grammar itself become so important to a person, that it wouldn't matter if someone came to their door announcing, "Congratulations! Where can I send your 1 million dollar prize to?!" they would miss the entire message in order to say, "Don't end your sentence in a preposition!"?
With almost everyone in the world that I meet, regardless of background, religion, race, age, attitudes, and beliefs, everyone seems to have found some truth. It's in our nature to take the truth we've found and revolve our lives around it. Nothing wrong with that. But what if there is something grander, something bigger, something more complete, more whole "out there" that supersedes, usurps, and maybe even trivializes the truth we've already discovered? Is it possible that sometimes we miss the freedom that this greater truth brings because it is in our nature to find truth and stick with it, live or die?What if we became a people who always assumed there is more truth to discover? What if we had a humility that allowed us to believe that grander realities might exist that could give us more freedom than we currently have? What if were teachable enough to learn for the rest of our lives? Is there enough truth that we don't know, enough of God's Person that we haven't figured out, enough "living and active" in God's Word to believe that we haven't exhausted these sources? Is it possible that the truth we learned yesterday may need to take its rightful place in the backseat, playing a useful role in service to something more important?
If we became a people like that, then every day we would be walking in an exciting, passion filled, struggling, and constantly changing life that I don't know if we have a word for so I'm making one up: Truer. We would be living truer each day.
All of us have some truth. I think I do. Yet I'm not satisfied. And I'm sure not confident that I have it all. I love the truth. That's why I want whatever is out there that is truer than what I know now. Honestly, the discovery of truth sets me free. But the search for it and the journey toward it is equally freedom producing. I hope you'll search for it too.
2 comments:
Nice post. Grammar is truth, in that it has rules to follow. However, it is a part of a contextual truth. Grammar rules between languages change. Some even are the exact opposite from one language to another. Both are true in their context.
Many people believe facts to drive meaning, when in reality it is the facts in context of space, time, culture (and a bunch of other things) that drives meaning.
That is why you can't just look at the Bible and say, "It means what it says and it says what it means." What are the odds a Westerner from 2000 years later is going to "just get" the meaning of a passage written in an Eastern culture, 2000 years prior in another langaue?
When we get to meaning, we get closer to truth.
Welcome to the land of the bloggers! We hope everything is going great for you, Carrie and the kids in Amarillo.
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