"What is Truth?!"

Don't you wish Jesus had come up with a good one-liner, something we could hang our hats on, when Pilate asked Him this little question.

[Jesus] "...for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

"What is truth?" Pilate asked.

What is truth, indeed.

Bear with me on this. It'll get weird, I am guessing.

After college I went to work at a newspaper. We published one newspaper and one free "shopper" each week. The free distribution shopper had no news at all, while a "good" week for the newspaper was one where the ads took up 60% or more of the total available column inches in the paper, with no more than 40% of the space in the paper being news. During a "really good" week, we'd have 65% advertisement, 35% news.

No matter what the ratio, you only have so many column inches to work with each week. You can never squeeze more than 100% out of the paper, and no single square inch could be both ad and news. Each inch was either ad, or news. You might draw a picture of it this way:



This grid represents a single issue of a publication. The green portion of this matrix represents the total number of square inches available. There is an axis for "advertisements" and one for "information" (news), and the more advertising you include, the less news you have space for. You can see the red stars that represent the ratio of information and news for both a newspaper and a free paper.

Another example is an encyclopedia, where there is absolutely no news at all. One hundred percent of the available space is dedicated to the information.

So far so good. The story continues...

The next job I had was working as "Publications Editor" for a startup dotcom. Our e-commerce website would provide lots of information, articles, tips, and stories related to grilling in the backyard. Along with that free information, we would have a store with hundreds of backyard-related items for sale. (Basically, we were using our information to get people to the site, then trying to entice them to buy something before leaving.)

My job was to harmonize the articles with the stuff that our procurement people were sourcing for the store.

At that time (2000), the internet was very young, and there were lots of theories about how websites could generate money, how advertising could work in such a dynamic medium, how banners would work, how interactive a web company could make its site. No one really knew how to do it effectively, and no one knew exactly how 'visitors' would act when surfing through a website.

Would the articles lead them to shop? Would the information create the desire to make a purchase?

Initially, we simply put small images of our products off to the side of our articles. So we assigned each product and each article with keywords, so that the site could dynamically display products that "related" to the articles. In this way we tried to entice people to click on the products and buy stuff.

One afternoon, a couple of us, not satisfied with this 'keyword relationship' strategy, were chatting about the options of this medium (the web) and it occurred to me that there was a significant difference between our site and a newspaper. And maybe we weren't doing all we could to maximize the options of this medium.

The web offers some interesting options. For example, pointing at an object (a word in an article, or an image of a product) could trigger a pop up balloon, which could give additional information about the product. Another significant difference is that each page could theoretically be unlimited in square inches. So you could simply stack information and advertisement a mile long and never run out of space.

Not saying this is a good idea, just that it's possible, and we hadn't considered it. The chart above comes from that very discussion. As we sat there looking at this chart and discussing this notion of "information" and "advertisement," the solution came jumping off the whiteboard at us.

We could infuse our information with advertisement.

Not simply correlate certain products with certain articles, but actually use the same space on the screen as both information (article) and advertisement. Using the same space for information and for advertisement would allow us to go toward the upper right-hand corner. A portion of the screen could be both 100% information and 100% advertisement! We nicknamed this perfect combination "Bright."

We were selling these huge gas grills that cost over $4,000, as well as lots of accessories, decorations, foods, sauces, etc. On the publications side, we were having some magazine editors write articles for us. What we needed to do was take our products to the ediors and have them write "stories" (that's what we called them!) that included a collection of our products.

So they would set up a backyard party, complete with our grill, some meats, decor, recipes, etc. All they had to do was do what magazines do best--tell the story in a compelling way, so that the shopper couldn't help but associate with the great times that these editors were having with these products. Their words were not simply descriptions of our products -- they were stories, complete with desire, pleasure, friendship, and romance. Aspiration.

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Ok, so what does this have to do with mythic reality? Good question. About a year ago, I was outside looking at the stars, when the chart came back to me in vivid detail. I sat and had a good conversation with God about it. As He began to speak, I ran and grabbed a notebook, and here's what we talked about:



This chart represents any "event," which I would describe as anything observable (in mythic terms, the visible). Might take only a moment to occur, or it might take weeks, months, years, decades or centuries to unfold. Could be something we read, something that happens to us, something we merely see happen. Could even be an object. Or a person, or an action that someone takes.

Basically, all of the stuff that happens all the time around us.

And these events have a characteristic called "information," and another characteristic called "meaning." Generally, the what and the why. What is simply the data--time, place, people, duration, colors, etc. Very quantifiable.

This bumped into this, and it took this long, and the net result was this.

Why is the meaning of the event--the significance, the reason, the "matter" of the matter.

With a communication (a "word"), the very words, language, voice, etc. are the what; the meaning of the communication is something very different--it's the why.

Sermons, for example, come in a variety of types. Two examples are on my chart--expository, and devotional. Both of them are similar to newspapers, in that the information and the meaning do not overlap. Because a sermon lasts for a set duration (30 minutes), the information and the meaning have to add up to 100%. An expository preacher might take 90% of his time to explain a passage (the what) and then he will take the remaining 10% to talk about its meaning (the why). On the other hand, a devotional might consist of just a little bit of information (a quote, a single verse) and then move straight into deriving the meaning.

In either case, the information leads to the application. Thus, the scriptures are "applied to our lives".

The meaning is "derived" from the information.

Consider this, my friends. Stories require no explanation. The why is contained within the what. The same with parables. Somehow, don't you get the feeling Jesus didn't really want to explain the parables to his followers? He just wanted to tell the parable.

Dreams are a little different type of communication. Because in a dream, neither the event nor the meaning are entirely clear. So a dream may fall somewhere short of complete understanding of the information and of the meaning.

Thus, we see how faith factors into this chart. When imperfect information and imperfect meaning come together, and yet the event adds up to more than meets the eye--this "gap" is represented by the arrows--it takes faith to accept it. Because logic, knowledge, understanding will not help us grasp the meaning.

The meaning is not derived--it is implicit in the information.

Those who hear his voice are those for whom the meaning does not need to be explained (derived). The what and the why are inseparable. The one conveys the other.

No more are we limited by the media type (x inches in the newspaper, x minutes in the sermon, x pages in the book of Matthew). We are free to roam the entire universe in our very hearts. Everything takes on meaning beyond what its information can convey.

A thing becomes more than itself.

I offer you then this notion of perfect Truth: 100% grasping of both the what and the why of an event.

[And I offer you this notion of perfect absurdity: 100% grasping of the what and zero grasp of the why of an event. Science makes a terrible religion. Too much what, too little why.]

Truth, my friends, is what it is to experience Jesus.

Something happens (an event). We open ourselves to that event taking on significance (meaning). That meaning can transcend (add up to more than 100% of) our reason, our logic, our scientific faculties.

Faith allows us to see more than can be seen with the eyes.

And we act.

We live. We love. We sacrifice, we wander, we change, we dream, we wonder, we yell out loud. We seize the day, we let the next slip away without a regret. We let the wind blow us along. We grab an oar, and row for all we are worth.

Life is one huge event, filled with millions of moment-sized events. Each one can have meaning beyond its explanation, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear what goes beyond our senses and our rationale.

Together they make up the story that God is writing.

Seeing them is the meaning of life.

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I told you it would be weird.