“I am the way and the truth and the life”  (John 14:6)

“Attempt to live in the truth” is the name the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel gave to his inner compass in a society in which the lie rules.  He did not call it “living in the truth,” as if it had already happened but, with a modest expression, an attempt.  That word indicates that it is not a ready-made recipe that produces results all by itself.  If you could speak of a result at all, it could perhaps only be the power of the powerless.  Vaclav Havel several times had to pay dearly in prison for this attempt, because the authorities of his country could not bear the truth.

On the other hand, it does not take any effort at all to live in the lie.  That does indeed go all by itself in a society where the right of the strongest rules and you can just let yourself be carried by the masses.

Whoever makes an attempt to live in the truth has to walk a lonely road.  We can’t follow Vaclav Havel in this.  I have to go my own way, which no one can prescribe for me.  But when in all modesty I try day-in-day-out to make the truth a reality, I walk on the path of Him who says: “I am the way and the truth and the life.  I walk with you in your attempt to live in the truth.”

Rev. Bastiaan Baan, May 5, 2024