Blog 261  – 03.30.2016

As a writer I am fascinated with words and all their shades of meaning. As a young man I argued a lot about the specific meaning of words. I might have made a good lawyer because there is so much “wiggle room” with words.

I would like to discuss two words in particular and what I hope will be an interesting shade of meaning I have discovered regarding these two words. The first word is Truth. Many people believe there is an Absolute Truth. I did once. As a young man, that same argumentative young man I mentioned above, I was a youth pastor and Sunday School teacher. I came across a James Moffit translation of a verse from one of the short letters of John in the New Testament. It read: “I have no greater joy than to hear of my children living in the truth.” At the time I believed my church’s narrow interpretation of the Bible was The Truth. Forty years later I think no one and no group has a corner on the truth. In fact even my understand of the verse has changed to where I think a more accurate rendering might be: “I have no greater joy that to hear that my children are truly living.”

I have had two children by marriage, sons; and a daughter and a son from seeds I sowed and nurtured. My daughter died almost four years ago and my oldest stepson a couple of weeks ago. These two children lived truly and have now gone on. A parent, a real parent, always hopes the best of life for their children. What does it mean to live truly?

The second word is Holy. What does that word mean. The literal meaning is I think something like, “Set aside for sacred use.” Two other English words sound the same but are spelled differently,  “holie” meaning full of holes” and “wholly” meaning just the opposite – complete, whole. I think my understand of the word holy today is to live wholly or completely.  To be our highest and best does not mean we are perfect, flawless, or error free. The Blues Brothers were on a mission from God and so are we all are. And your mission Jim (or Ethan) is to live truly, to live wholly, to seize the opportunities each day presents. Carpe Diem, dudes and dudettes.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White