Creating Communities of Truth
Today’s Readings - AM Psalm 89:1-18; Isa. 63:1-6; 1 Tim. 1:1-17; Mark 11:1-11
Teachers are some of the first to love our children outside of family relationships, teaching them they are valued and loved just for who they are. They open our children’s eyes to amazing literature, science and nature, the value of reading, and learning how to respect the earth, their class- mates and themselves. They can engage a child’s interest in passions that they will have for a lifetime. They may teach them how to catch a baseball, sew a shirt from scratch – when there was such a thing as Home EC, love poetry, play a piano or a cello, or how to bicycle kick a soccer ball. These life skills open our children’s eyes to the world of ideas and experiences that will shape them as adults and as members of their community.
In Parker Palmer’s To Know as We are Known, Palmer stresses the spiritual and communal aspects of learning. When he published in 1983, those involved in religious education, at universities, colleges or seminaries were his primary target audience. However, 10 years after publication he came to realize he had a much wider, more diverse audience. Faculty at public schools, and major research institutions of all faiths have taken it up. He came to realize there was a very simple reason – educators of all descriptions are having a really difficult time, and the pain they feel has sent them looking at “unconventional resources” (P. Palmer). Palmer describes the pain educators are experiencing as “the pain of disconnection.” Palmer points out that in the midst of alienation spiritual traditions can offer hope that is difficult to find elsewhere.
In today’s Letter from Timothy the writer is exposing a type of teaching that takes liberties with the truth, creating divisions and doing this “without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.”
Knowing where to find the truth and how to discern what we are hearing is a difficult task. Good teachers can help, they can lay the foundation but society must support their work. We must be more discerning of theories and conjectures and listen with the heart of Christ. This is what Timothy was trying to teach his followers: “not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith..”
Palmer states that “Authentic spirituality wants to open us to truth – whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us. Such spirituality trusts that any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge. Such spirituality encourages us to welcome diversity and conflict, to tolerate ambiguity and to embrace paradox.” As followers of Christ, we can leave behind the fear that creates divisions, that erodes sound learning. We can hear Timothy’s words in light of today and pledge to create spaces in which communities of truth are created, networks of relationships in which we both speak and listen with the heart of Christ, in which “instruction is love that comes from a pure heart” (I Timothy 1:5.)
Faithfully,
Sally+
Reflection - How might you be able to create a space that encourages a community that seeks truth, a space where diversity is welcomed and fear is crowded out with trust and open, whole-heartedness?