{"id":3331,"date":"2024-01-24T09:29:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3331"},"modified":"2024-01-24T09:30:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T14:30:41","slug":"truth-with-a-capital-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/24\/truth-with-a-capital-t\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth with a Capital T"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em> <\/a>click here<\/a>

Years before Stephen King was crowned king of literary horror, Shirley Jackson wrote what many readers consider the scariest tale of all. 

\u201cThe Lottery,\u201d published in The New Yorker<\/em> in 1948, vaulted the 32-year-old author into the national spotlight, and has since become required reading for generations of high school and college students.

If you\u2019ve never read \u201cThe Lottery,\u201d or could use a refresher, here\u2019s a link to the original publication.  It only takes a few minutes to read: \u201cThe Lottery,\u201d by Shirley Jackson | The New Yorker<\/a>

The power of Jackson\u2019s story is the unexpected twist at the end.  Now that we\u2019ve provided that official spoiler alert, we can reveal that the story unfolds in an ordinary village somewhere in America\u2019s heartland.  The residents gather on a summer morning to participate in the community\u2019s annual lottery, a ritual that\u2019s been going for longer than anyone can remember.  There are hints that this traditional event is a way to ensure a bountiful harvest. 

\u201cWell, now,\u201d says Mr. Summers, who\u2019s presiding over the formalities, \u201cguess we better get started, get this over with, so\u2019s we can go back to work.\u201d

A representative of each family steps forward.  One by one they reach into a box and draw out a slip of paper.  One of those slips has a black spot.  An undercurrent of apprehension and excitement ripples through the crowd.  \u201cWho is it?\u201d \u201cWho\u2019s got it?\u201d

Bill Hutchinson is holding the black spot.  Now there\u2019s a second drawing.  Each member of the Hutchinson family steps forward.  This time Tessie, wife and mother, draws the spot.  She protests.  But the crowd is already picking up stones, including her own little son.  \u201cCome on, come on, everyone,\u201d says one of the elders of the village.  A stone hits her on the side of the head.

Jackson closes with these words: \u201c\u2019It isn\u2019t fair, it isn\u2019t right!\u2019 Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.\u201d

This is clearly the lottery that no one wants to win. 

For a number of years, Kay Haugaard, a college professor in southern California, asked the students in her creative writing classes (who ranged in age from 18 to 81) to read \u201cThe Lottery.\u201d  Then she would make it a centerpiece of class discussion.  Haugaard notes how it\u2019s become increasingly difficult to find something that genuinely shocks contemporary students. 

That came to a head in 1997, as documented in an article she wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em> called \u201cSuspending Moral Judgment: Students Who Refuse to Condemn the Unthinkable.\u201d

Haugaard sat with her class of twenty-something students and asked for their impressions of \u201cThe Lottery.\u201d  Mostly she got shrugs. 

Puzzled at what seemed like emotional indifference, she pressed one of the students for her convictions about the meaning of the story. 

\u201c\u2019Are you asking me if I believe in human sacrifice?\u2019 Beth responded thoughtfully, as though seriously considering all aspects of the question. \u2018Well, yes,\u2019 I managed to say.  \u2018Do you think that the author approved or disapproved of this ritual?\u2019  I was stunned: This was the woman who wrote so passionately of saving the whales, of concern for the rain forests, of her rescue and tender care of a stray dog.\u201d

\u201cI really don\u2019t know,\u201d Beth responded.  \u201cIf it was a religion of long standing\u2026\u201d

Haugaard writes, \u201cFor a moment, I couldn\u2019t even respond.  This woman actually couldn\u2019t seem to bring herself to say plainly that she was against human sacrifice.\u201d 

Another student, Richard, cooly suggested that maybe the ritual of killing someone every year was important in the context of this village because it \u201cmet a need.\u201d 

Haugaard admits that she tries hard to keep her own opinions out of classroom discussions.  But this was too much.  \u201cI turned to Patricia, a fifty-something, red-headed nurse.  She had always seemed an intelligent person of moderate views.  \u2018Well, I teach a course for our hospital personnel in multicultural understanding, and if it is part of a person\u2019s culture, we are taught not to judge, and if it works for them\u2026\u2019\u201d

If it works for them.  <\/em>Haugaard found it hard to take in that no one in this class of \u201costensibly intelligent individuals\u201d felt shock or discomfort at the end of \u201cThe Lottery.\u201d  No one would go out on a limb to oppose human sacrifice. 

Shirley Jackson intended a different response.

The thrust of her story is that people are at their worst when they \u201cgo along to get along,\u201d when they perpetuate traditions and behaviors just because \u201cwe\u2019ve always done it that way.\u201d  \u201cThe Lottery\u201d is a clarion call to raise our voices against whatever is cruel or unjust, even if such behaviors have become public rituals.

We live in a time, unfortunately, when it\u2019s increasingly hard to say, \u201cThat\u2019s just flat wrong.\u201d 

The only absolute in our culture is that there are no absolutes.  Philosopher Charles Taylor declares that society\u2019s creed has become, \u201cLet each person do their own thing, and\u2026one shouldn\u2019t criticize the others\u2019 values, because they have a right to live their own life as you do.  The [only] sin which is not tolerated is intolerance.\u201d

If all ideas are equal, then nothing is right.  And nothing is wrong. 

The brightest secular minds \u2013 laboring to find a solid foundation for ethics without resorting to the notion of God \u2013 have not yet been able to achieve a consensus concerning what, if anything, is inherently good.  Which means there is no consensus as to what is inherently evil, either \u2013 including human sacrifice.  

Jesus\u2019 words are startlingly counter-cultural: \u201cYou shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free\u201d (John 8:32). 

Even though there is no punctuation or capitalization in the original Greek text of the New Testament, this is one of those places where we should not hesitate to affirm that Jesus is thinking of Truth with a capital T \u2013 a perspective that is light years away from every person cherishing their \u201cown truth,\u201d truth with a lower case \u201ct,\u201d and embracing their own version of Reality.

The good news for this generation, and every generation, is that God is really there.  And God is not silent.

God\u2019s Truth is readily accessible in God\u2019s Word.  Which means we are called to involve and immerse ourselves deeply as students of that Word. 

And what of Kay Haugaard and her students? 

She closed her article with these words: \u201cI was shaken, and I thought that the author [Shirley Jackson], whose story had shocked so many, would be shaken as well.  The class finally ended.  It was a warm night when I walked out to my car after class that evening, but I felt shivery, chilled to the bone.\u201d

May God call us to be students of a different kind.

In the face of injustice and indifference, may we resolve \u2013 always with love for God and tender love for others<\/em> \u2013 to be seekers and proclaimers of Truth with a capital T.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Years before Stephen King was crowned king of literary horror, Shirley Jackson wrote what many readers consider the scariest tale of all.  \u201cThe Lottery,\u201d published in The New Yorker in 1948, vaulted the 32-year-old author into the national spotlight, and has since become required reading for generations of high school… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-3331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3331"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3331\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}