Walking with Truth

One Sunday evening a month, our "little house on the circle" becomes a place of worship. For about a year and a half now, a small group of people has been meeting at our house for an informal time of singing, discussion, and prayer. There are six of us who attend consistently, and a few others who have participated for a little while and then moved on. Each month we choose a theme ahead of time (such as trust, faith, worship, wisdom, or joy), and we bring whatever thoughts, questions, readings, or songs we might want to contribute to the evening.

Last night our theme was "truth". We focused on Jesus as the source and embodiment of truth, on the inseparability of truth from love, and on the need to cling fast to the truths of our faith, whatever the particular circumstances we find ourselves in.

A sentence in a book I read several years ago has stayed with me: "The truth is always your friend." In other words, truth--though at times it may seem painful--will never betray us or work against us, but is always on our side.

I can say that I have found this to be true in my own life. Having embarked on the journey of special-needs family life--a journey, by the way, which I did not plan to take, did not discuss with a travel agent, did not buy a ticket for, and for which the itinerary is open-ended--I can absolutely say that I am making friends with truth (although we're not as close as we could be; we don't finish each other's sentences yet, and I admit I take a while to return her calls sometimes).

In any case, I'm grateful for the opportunity we have in this small monthly gathering to focus our minds and hearts on concepts which at first seem to be abstract and ethereal, but which are in fact essential to practical daily living. Worship, then, isn't separate from real life but integral to it.