Truth is a virtue that we all aspire to. I believe we all have the truth and uniquely revealed (or unearthed) from within us. The seed of truth lies in the deepest core of our being; it is that “knowing” that is mature and bears fruit in our words and actions.
To write this feels that I am taking liberty to begin with “we all have … and within us”. But I take the liberty, because I am speaking of the virtue of truth, like the virtue of beauty and love, we experience love and beauty in the face of nature, art and witnessing acts of kindness.
My father was a lawyer and also taught in university. I have friends who are lawyers and had a boyfriend who was a lawyer (and he came from a family of lawyers.) Being in the milieu of this profession is not unique to me, but I recognize that I have had exposure to the people with this background. In the practice of law the ideal is to get to the truth as argued by both sides in presentation to a judge (and maybe a jury too.)
This process of exploration and discovery of truth presents itself in most fields of study (science, theology, literature) and writing a blog. There are differences between absolute truth and relative truth. Absolute truth, for example, is gravity has an effect on an object with mass. The relative truth of gravity is it has varying effects on different planets.
In choosing to revisit my Catholic roots through the lens of life with some experience, I see it with appreciation in its richness of mercy and love.
I alluded to a philosophical conversation I had with my doctor on the fiery topic of transgender operation. My doctor is a Catholic, and our conversation about transgender operation was specific to doctors who perform the gender affirming operations. It was me who raised the Hippocratic Oath by asking how “first, do no harm”, applied in these cases. For him and for me, it is wrong to perform these operations on youths, especially when the process of due diligence to discover the underlying truth of why a youth wants to transition to a different gender is fast-tracked.
I am speaking from experience. I have a niece who chose to live life identified as “he”. In the love and mercy of God, my new nephew is accepted and loved in a Catholic family, but his chosen lifestyle is not aligned to what we practice in the sacrament of marriage. I have many friends identified with the LGBTQ+ and I appreciate being in their life. My hope is that in professing my faith in the Catholic church that I am not alienated from their circle of love.
There is a strong element of surrender in professing my faith to the Catholic church. It is the self-sacrifice to put my faith in a mysterious divine before my clever and learned intellect. It is ok if other people mock this surrender, especially if it is a “mystery”.
As I write this, I see the torture and difficulty my nephew experienced to make his choice and his bravery to follow through with a radical physical transformation. Love is the underlying truth of the schism between personal choices of individuals. Who has not experienced the spell of love? Love is the force that binds the differences in each unique ownership of truth, a truth, the truth.
There are factions among Christians and among the Catholic faith and I’ve journeyed different paths to unearth the truth that lives in me. I can continue to search and dig into different belief systems, but alas, I’ve found my home. I had to walk far and away to come home again.
In closing this blog, I recall Joseph Campbell.
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”