Some Presbyterians enjoy the games played at the General Assembly, but I found my faith restored in Memphis where their Redbirds wear real baseball socks instead of those ridiculous long pants affected by most players in these benighted days. Doubtless the ubiquitous white tennis shoe will soon become an acceptable accessory for the black pulpit robe and Geneva tabs will hang from the frayed collars of flannel work shirts. Happily, in Memphis a great tradition continues with the famous Peabody Hotel marching ducks. Not long ago they acted with Tom Cruise in the movie The Firm. The ducks were the ones with serene expressions on their faces. These ducks always quack me up. Even better, in Albuquerque when the opposing Sky Sox pitcher lost his no-hitter in the ninth inning, the hometown Isotopes fans stood and cheered him all the way into the dugout. That’s the way life is supposed to be. According to the Bible, the great God worked the big inning and will get the save even for those who die on base.
Having downsized some years ago, Margaret and I retain visiting rights to all the things residing with our children that once belonged to us. I enjoyed getting reacquainted with Fish Do the Strangest Things, a favorite book read over and over to her father and now to his daughter. A two-year-old blue-eyed blonde who inquires with a happy smile, “Grandad, Would you like to read to Rebecca?” is completely irresistible.
My lifetime award fish story does not involve a fish at all. Years ago our other son was receiving a generally favorable evaluation at his first grade parent-teacher conference until Mrs. Johnson urged us to deal with his stubborn attitude. By way of illustration she cited a lesson on the ocean where she pointed out porpoises are among the fish that live there. With some indignation, Mrs. Johnson reported our son raised his hand to insist that porpoises are mammals not fish. I watched my wife’s eyes widen in surprise and she blurted out, “But they ARE mammals.” Mrs. Johnson quickly changed the subject, but it was obvious she thought she had discovered the source from whence our son inherited his stubbornness.
The old concept of “invincible ignorance” is both a sorrow and a comfort. Mrs. Johnson was so certain she was correct it would not naturally occur to her to revisit her conviction. Over the last 40 years I have occasionally wondered if Mrs. Johnson ever learned that porpoises really are mammals and if she ever remembered the little boy who first pointed out that fact to her. Apparently the theologian Francis Gomarus (1563-1644) lectured holding a dagger in his hand with the promise of driving it into his heart if he ever misquoted the Scripture. If I made that promise, class attendance would never be an issue.
Surely one of life’s cruelest ironies is how easily we can be both right and wrong at the same time. Our son was quite right in his scientific classification of porpoises as mammals, but he was entirely wrong in his personal classification of Mrs. Johnson as someone who wanted to learn that truth. The overriding truth was that no competent ichthyologist would be attending first grade that year, but Mrs. Johnson would be in class every day. Thomas Aquinas following Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics VI.5) makes a distinction between knowing the truth (sapientia) and applying the truth (prudentia). According to Dante’s heavenly pageant the three theological virtues dance at the right wheel of the Christ chariot and the four cardinal virtues led by Prudence dance in a flame of purple robes at the left wheel (Purgatorio, Canto 29). Seeing past, present, and future with her three eyes means that Prudence uses lots of mascara. More importantly, as an intellectual virtue, prudence requires more experience and maturity than a first grader can possibly possess.
I assume all Christians accept Our Lord’s claim to be the Truth (John 14:6) but his being the truth and our telling the truth are not the same. It is hard for us to steer around Pilot’s question, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Men, like snakes in the grass, have been lying to women since shortly after the Adam bum exploded in the Garden of Eden. And women, determined not to rush into the encircling arms of the first pretty face, have been devising ever more complicated strategies to test masculine integrity and sincerity.
Doubtless we must deal with Immanuel Kant’s still reigning dogmas and categorical imperatives, but accepting the cant of Kant, I can’t. Truth is often difficult to discern, more difficult to apply, and sometimes impossible to accept. Every still-married man knows that when his wife asks, “How do I look?” The right answer is never, “Terrible!” Truth is she is asking for reassurance not accuracy.
Prudence is usually invoked to guide the putative truth-teller, but a truth-receiver can also require protection from objective truth. This insight is one of the enduring contributions of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s section in his Ethics entitled “What is Meant by ‘Telling the Truth’.” For me the puzzle is the Apostle Paul’s claim that the Cretan prophet who said “Cretans are always liars” is telling the truth (Titus 1:12). If an always lying Cretan ever told the truth, he could not be always lying. I suspect a careless scribe wrote “Cretan” when he meant to write “Cretin.” Therefore, I am preparing a sermon with the title, “Cretan or Cretin?” I like the etymological fact that Cretin means Christian. In the meantime, let me assure you that you can trust me. I would never lie to you. And, by the way, you look very nice.
