Voir Dire

(To Tell The Truth)

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold (Proverbs, 22:1).

You always want what you think you are giving. The scarcest entity in this world, be it physical, financial, political, or even spiritual, is truth. And, truth is truth, whether anyone believes it or not. I could disappear into a black forest of moodiness just knowing that I must question the truthfulness of every man or matter I encounter. You know that the "Talking Heads" on newscasts are mostly lying to you. You know that most people with whom you do business are mostly deceiving-misleading you. You know that your doctor is just guessing (We call it practicing, if this doesn't work, you try something else). You know that your attorney is fabricating for a fee. You know how your fellow worshippers feel about one another. You question the inner alter of your pastor. Most of us are afflicted by denying the guidance of our inner man. Most of us are greatly disappointed with everyone but think, deep inside, that they are not disappointed with us. The hardest master to conquer is self.

Over the years, I have employed many young men, many of them veterans. One, Jai, had seen the horrors and experienced the wounds of Iraq. He was drawing 80% disability, home, married, attending college. He was doing some work for me.

Every time he came in my office there was a sense of defeat-bitterness. One day, I told him to sit in a chair right across from me, I said "Jai, you are looking at a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran. GET OVER IT, NO ONE CARES!" I told him that the best men either of us had ever known did not come home. We have all heard the expression, truth hurts. I advised him to get on with his life, as far as possible, to forget and forgive what he had seen and experienced in battle.

The next time that Jai was in my office, my other employees exclaimed, "He is a changed man, the bitterness is gone, he is actually smiling and wanting to talk with all of us."

This writer, world traveler, has been on excursions to both the North and South Poles. Up and around the Arctic Circle, there are remote-uninhabited islands. When you go on one of these islands, there is continuously frozen tundra... never completely thaws. A foot print in the tundra will last forever, will always be there. Footprints of the earliest explorers on these islands are still there, nothing decomposes. Now, I will make the admission that I brought back some animal bones from there... a whale vertebrae, the jawbone of some animal. The border authorities in Canada threw a fit about my souvenirs... you are not supposed to take anything from those islands. But, with smiles towards this old blind man, one said, "I don't know what the things are?" and he closed my suitcase. And, of course, I have sold these relics, but they did shrink after leaving the harsh cold of the arctic. I inquired about a small building next to every church house in the arctic. They said that they put their dead there until summertime when they could "perhaps" dig a grave.

The physiognomy of facial features, body language, are no longer forces which I can employ. The blind cannot grasp the lurid assets of others. I have no idea about features of my employees, friends, associates, even relatives. My blind friend, Catherine Vassilou, blind from birth, wanted me to describe colors to her. When one of my non-believing-evolution believing associates started a harangue about creation, I asked them to tell me the truth about the color-texture of a rose, even a zinnia or petunia. I so remember one of my army fellow medical staff members, Colonel Tuhy. He was a photography fanatic. Back then, of course the beginnings of color film. With his expensive camera, tripod, he would spend hours photographing beautiful flowers... getting the color-texture-botany just right. How can anyone, with truthfulness, study a flower? The perfection of a young child... even a small animal, and still believe that it is all just happenstance (something that happens by chance).

I am a 1930s child, always listening to radios. To this very day, radios all over my house. They help me to get around. I never get lonely with radio sounds. I perish with the sensations of wanting to see again. But, how could anyone not have faith in God, who has seen his marvels... time and space, colors, tastes, heard the symphonic notes of birds. There is real truth in color, in the twelve tones of music chords. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature, not realizing the absolutes of right and wrong, good and bad, sweet and sour. Even those before the great flood of Noah, knew about the laws of physics. Separating good from evil, that there is bound to be a caretaker of the planets. Could anyone be so dishonest that they could not truthfully recognize the small voice within self? It is a vacuum soul that does not recognize the poverty of the mind. We understand the attitude of the black people, even to this day engrained in the minds of their children. One young black man told this writer, that I could never realize the depth of sorrow he had experienced in the degradation of his mother simply because of her skin color. Born in poverty, I saw the treatment of my own mother simply because she was poor. Could anyone question the words of Jesus when he told us, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew, 5:3).

I so remember the poverty of my childhood, how hungry I became as a college student, being poor during the first years of marriage. But, I know the richness of giving the best version of myself always. Regardless, I still wear a necktie, polished shoes, clean clothes. You can see truthfulness as well as feel and hear truthfulness. Life here is not just a dress rehearsal and we only go around one time. Get over the harshness-deceit of the world, learn to love truth.

Open my eyes that I may see. Glimpses of truth thou hast for me; Place in my hands the wonderful key. That shall unclasp and set me free.