Suddenly Truth

Have you ever sat in a carpeted room in a cushioned chair with people in suits who treated the truth like a homeless man begging for change in the corner? 

As they try to avoid eye contact with the ragged man,

you focus on the long, long, long table stretched like a gurney before you and imagine your integrity lying there gasping for air, waiting for the paddles to charge.

You know your only hope for survival is to meet his gaze, stare homeless truth in the eye and locate your soul

but that means exposing yourself to the suits.

Publicly acknowledging the begging truth is to betray the ruling authority of the room. You cannot free yourself from the table gurney without stripping the suits of their façade; and you wish you had the innocence of the child who saw the emperor for what he was.

You don’t have that innocence. If you ever did, it’s been washed into the gutter drain with the showered soot of a lifetime of smoky backroom deals your heart has made with your unsanctified mind.

The suits drone their deception, the homeless truth tries to catch your eye, and your gurneyed self snatches you round the wrist with a strength that makes you gasp but as  you startle, you cannot avoid his gaze a moment more.

The homeless truth is no beggar; he’s your friend.

You’re awake now from your conference room coma, aware of what is true and you smile at the ragged truth, stroking the arm of your gurneyed self because you’re going to be all right.

You’re no hero.

You’re still your mousy self, allergic to conflict, more willing to shave your head than to create a ripple of social discomfort; but you manage,

In this carpeted room

In this cushioned chair

Surrounded by suits

To speak one small truth,

Just one,

And it’s really small

but it’s enough.

Like a pinprick of light in a darkroom, it destroys their negative and the ruler who loomed so dark and strong, stretching his shadow the length of the conference table gurney shatters into a billion shards that swarm and depart like flies.

Yes, it’s messed with their world and they squirm, but one of the suits meets your gaze and you can see that she’s been searching for a home, too.

It’s light now where you are. The homeless truth is smiling in the corner and you laugh as though you share some ancient secret, because you do, he’s the only other one who witnessed your resurrection and who knows you’ve been removed from life support to eternal life.

Suddenly truth is no longer in the corner because he doesn’t lack a home anymore; Truth has found a home in you.

“Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render repayment. So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives.

“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.” Isaiah 59:14-20

What did one domino say to the other?  We don’t have to fall.