Love is the constant

I am old enough to remember

Dragnet

And Detective Sargent Joe Friday

And his famous phrase

“Just the facts, ma’am”

Which factually he never said

Only getting as close as

“All we want are the facts, Ma’am”

And now we live in what many call a “post factual” world

Where those entrusted with the truth

Lie

Frequently

And with no apparent compunction

I ran across a poem the other day titled simply

“The Facts of Life”

It was penned by the Irish poet Paidraig O’ Tuama

The facts of life

“that you were born

and you will die

that you will sometimes love enough

and sometimes not

that you will lie

if only to yourself

that you will tire

that you will learn most from the situations

you did not choose…”

the truth is

life is confusing and inconvenient

and life is great

we are messes

and we are beautiful

and if we would embrace the full truth

and live truthfully

we have to be willing to live in a world

where almost everything is

both/and

rather than either/or

and we have to recognize that those

pulling us to extreme positions

the extremists

the ideological and moral terrorists

will usually blur the truth rather than expose it

because when it comes to politics

ideologies

and people

absolutes are usually false

Trump is not, as he insists, blameless and infallible

Neither is he, as some would insist

Always wrong

Right to lifer advocates with their blind extremism

are often false (life deniers)

but they are not totally wrong

we have to take seriously that part of what they believe

that we can embrace

truth is messy

it is contrary to our belief

not back and white

and thus it is challenging

uncomfortable

and really hard to find

The truth is I am not good or bad

I am good and bad

I am not right or wrong

I am right and wrong

I am not smart or stupid

I am smart and (at times) incredibly stupid

We have to learn to live in the ambiguity of most truth

There is only one thing that is always

In its own unique way

True

Only one thing that is unambiguous

And that is Sacred Love

That is God

That is God with us

The one thing we can embrace

Absolutely

Is love

It is the constant

That continues to be truth

In the midst of all the other messy truths

God is not love or hate

God is not love and hate

God is love

And that is a fact