Truth and Compasses

I’ve seen a particular slogan on t-shirts worn by hikers and mountain bikers: “You’re not lost if you don’t care where you are.” That’s a cute saying for wandering in the woods (as long as you know they’re relatively safe woods, not too far from civilization) but it’s a frightening thought when applied to life.

Isn’t that what postmodern life is all about, though? We’re all lost… but we don’t care. Not only that, we’re so thoroughly lost that we don’t even know we’re lost any more. We’re like hikers trying to get to a mountaintop with no compasses or maps. When we see another group of hikers headed for the summit equipped with compasses (and GPS devices, and cell phones, and the like), we laugh at them. What a bunch of losers, to think that there even is such a thing as a “way,” much less that they can find it! And anyway, all directions to get there are equally valid, right? Sure! You go your way, with your compasses and stuff, and we’ll go our way, and we’re both right.

Then we end up in a dead-end canyon instead of a mountaintop and declare “this is where we intended to go all along!”

And then it gets cold and dark in the canyon, and nobody knows exactly how we got here or how to get back, and the sleeping bags are awfully thin, and is that a snake!?!, and by the way, we forgot to pack a flashlight or matches for the fire. Brr, is that snow?

Sure – if there really is no way to determine how to find the path up the mountainside, if there really is no “north” (or no way to determine what way is north), then yeah, we’re just stuck with wherever we end up, and we might as well make the best of it. Sometimes we might stumble into a nice forested glade instead of a dead-end pile of rocks. It’s not where we really wanted to go, but that’s what we’re stuck with, right?

No. There is such a thing as “north” – whether or not you’re carrying a compass. And there is such a thing as “truth” – whether or not our postmodern culture recognizes it.

The first step is to recognize that – to understand that it’s not all relative. There is such a thing as truth, and it’s out there for us to find, if we are willing to look for it. In fact, it’s not even that hard to find – there are plenty of fellow hikers headed in that direction who can supply maps, compasses, GPS navigation systems, a whole set of helpful ways to orient ourselves to the spiritual north and set off on the path.

But we have to recognize that truth is real. The best compass in the world is no good if we don’t look at it. The most detailed maps out there won’t help if we decide that “for me, east is just as good as north.” The best GPS navigator in the world is worthless if we treat its location information as “just somebody’s opinion.”

Truth is real. That’s the hardest and most important lesson for our postmodern generation. But it’s the one we need to learn, because yes, you can be lost even if you don’t care where you are. More lost than you can imagine.

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