A man once asked me, "What is truth?"
He was tired and jaded, the cares of his lifetime etched upon his face, his eyes bleak. The fact was that he was facing an impossible matter, one which had no fair answer by all human standards. The last thing he needed was another mistake on his record – he was in deep enough as it was – and he was desperate for an answer. So desperate as to turn to me, searching, and ask his burning question.
I didn't answer him.
But that man is not the only one who has asked me this question. He was not the first and he certainly is not the last. It is the single most important question of all eternity. The answer holds the balance of the universe within its grasp.
"What is truth?"
Truth is unchanging; truth transcends even things that this world sees as fact. It permeates every cell of every body of every living creature – sentient or not. Truth is in the breath of the wind and the ringing of silence; it is what makes water wet and light warm. Truth is that which holds up the wings of birds in the skies, and what allows you to read and comprehend these words. Truth is eternal, truth lasts from before the very beginning and will endure long after the very end of all things. Above all else, truth is love.
The greatest truth of all is that you are loved.
There are lots and lots of facts, and maybe if you're like me the fact is that nobody in this world understands you. The fact is that you sometimes feel excluded and rejected, like you're outcast and alone in the world. Maybe the fact is that you do not have any friends – or maybe the fact is that you feel as though you do not have any when in fact you do... Maybe the fact is that you have secrets and fears and there are people who judge you or hate you. Maybe the fact is that you're fighting a battle that no one knows about. Maybe the fact is that you feel like a bad person. You don't even have to do anything, but the fact is that you feel guilt and shame somewhere deep in your bones, and no matter how many tears you cry there is no relieving that weight from your heart. Maybe the world tells you over and over and over again that you are, in fact, utterly unloved because you are utterly unloveable.
None of those things are the truth.
This is what I mean when I say that truth transcends facts because facts are things which you can see, or touch. Facts are tangible evidence; they're observable, as the scientists would say. But facts are not always truth. Facts are sometimes dependent on perspective, aren't they?
Take for example: there were once two men who found a symbol that had been written on the ground. One man says, "The symbol is the number six," but his fellow looks and replies, "No, the symbol is the number nine." Both of these things are fact, for one has approached the symbol from the South and the other from the North. Although each man speaks a fact, the truth is that the symbol is there between them in the sand.
So now let's return to your list of facts.
Perhaps these things are facts for you. Perhaps you pause and take an inventory of your life and you see these hurts and experiences that prove these facts to you. I tell you again, none of those things are the truth; and again, I will tell you what the truth is.
You are so loved, more than you could ever know or understand.
The truth about this love is that there is absolutely nothing that could ever be done – to you or by you – that could ever dull the shine of it. There is no place that you could go, no words that you could speak, and no action that you could perform that could possibly separate you from the truth of this love. As I said before, because this love is truth it transcends those things that the world says are facts and it permeates everything. The very stuff that holds your atoms and molecules together testifies to this love. Your DNA is encoded with this love and it is carved into the etchings of your fingerprints and in every strand of your hair.
