Truth cannot be owned
Truth is a reality that can be discovered, much like the principles of science...
If you’d like to deepen the immersion, you can listen to this song as you read. It’s one of my go-to songs that aids my dives…
Akiemba stood in front of me, today he was wearing a red kilt, with his top set of white feathered wings extended. His four lower wings, which look like they belong to a giant dragonfly, were currently hidden from sight. Thoughts began flowing from him into me as our conversation began.
“You cannot have intellectual property on truth. Yes, it is good to honor the person who taught you something, but that truth does not belong to them, you are merely honoring them for teaching it to you, and perhaps for discovering it, not for the truth itself. No one can own truth. Truth comes from the Father and simply is. Western thinking makes that harder to realize because of your Intellectual Property systems. For example when the Muslims follow the new moon more accurately it does not mean that this is exclusively their tradition or teaching. No it simply means that in that regard they are in alignment with the way of things. Others can also follow ‘the way of things’ or not.
“You can look to various people groups to find truths and righteous ways of being. (Righteousness refers to living in alignment with the natural built-in ways of the universe.) These tend to appear again and again across cultures and distances because they are a reality that can be discovered, much like the principles of science. When you seek wisdom in other cultures you are simply mining truth from wherever it can be found.”
Akiemba then began showing me images of a racoon wandering through the forest, eating this and that from the forest floor as his words built a metaphor. “You are like a forest animal that eats food as it finds it, travelling wherever this fruit grows and wherever that nut over there has fallen. You keep moving through the forest and eat each good thing as you find it.”
“It does not matter what patch of forest the fruit grew from, what matters is the fruit itself.”
“I understand.” I answered him, “but what does this mean in my life? How do I apply this, or act differently because of what you’ve said?”
“Tell me, Little One,” said Akiemba, “if you are wandering through the forest, you can tell a tree by its’ fruit. You are told: identify trees by their fruit. It does not matter so much what patch of forest you find that tree in, if you find good fruit it is a good tree and you can eat from it, if you find foul fruit you do not eat from it. It is true that there may be healthier patches of forest and darker parts. Identifying these patches is useful to help you find out what areas are richer and easier to forage in and which areas are perhaps better avoided, but at the end of the day good trees may be found in bad places and bad trees in good places. You must still pay attention to individual trees not just the patch of woods they grow in.”
“But I thought community matters? How can you be good if you are in an evil family?” I knew that this of course can be the case but I wondered how it is possible. It has always been a mystery to me whenever I have watched someone who grows up in a horrible environment with things like child-abuse or other traumas overcome their difficulties enough to stay a good person themselves in spite of everything pushing against it.
“Isn’t this exactly what scripture shows you time and time again? How many times do you see a righteous king or man in an evil family and the Bible says ‘so-and-so was not like his father, but rather was a son of his (true) father David.’ Or, ‘so and so was not righteous like his father he was the son of ______ -a wicked man.’
“Righteousness can spring up where you least expect it.”
“Even though a righteous community will encourage integrity, this does not guarantee that all members of the community will be such. Likewise good people can be found in unlikely places...”
Dive date: March 3 2022
In light of this article’s definition of righteousness (living in alignment with the natural built-in ways of the universe) what might righteousness might look like?
Written by Willow Lothlórien
Thanks for the restack Sue. :)