Truth and Fiction pt. 2

There was a moment. I was very young: maybe about the same time I discovered Doctor Who, maybe a little later. I was into poetry then, and existentialism (after I shifted out of my Wicca phase). I had just finished Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and knew that Uncle Walt was a brilliant poet. The words were raw and gentle, and full of pain. I next opened Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet and started reading. It was beautiful too, and big-hearted in a way no other poetry ever had been. The philosophy was such a blend of things: as he writes, "Half of what I say is meaningless" but he writes so that the other half will reach us. This is Fiction. Half air, half candy, but you can't breathe it.

I was reading in the dark from a mattress on the floor. I put the poetry down and picked up a book of scripture. All the mental muscles that had been flexed and straining to properly digest half-truths suddenly relaxed. I felt peace in my reading as I never had before, and I knew that I would only learn truth from The Book of Mormon, its pages shining white in the warm lamplight. I trusted it. Not because there were no errors, but because it came with its own filter, as if God had said, "I got this."

Reading scripture is not as easy as breathing. It still requires brain-bending critical thinking, and it will always contain errors. As the title page says, "And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God." It sounds like a catch-all for any kind of evil, for perpetuating half-truths, but that's not how the book functions. Even the air we breathe contains things we cannot use, but our bodies contain a mechanism for that. Ask any Salt Lake Valley resident about inversion. God created the beautiful valley, and the trees that clean the air. We invented the internal combustion engines and drive them irresponsibly.

The Book of Mormon comes with instructions, cleverly placed near the very end. . . *giggles at human wisdom* . . . but it also comes with a Feeling. When I read - and others say they experience this too - my thoughts are subtly influenced to understand the difference between minor, human errors, and Truth. It's a filter with very little to do at all except repeat word-for-word what I am reading like a very clear echo. It isn't a mediative substance, because the source of the sound is on my right, and the echo is on my left. It's more like a perfectly timed, harmonic round-singing in stereo.

I'm hopelessly mixing my metaphors again.

And I'm still sitting here, unsure what to do with Fiction, because I ingest everything. I open my mouth, and either swallow, or inhale. I try the taste of most ideas at least once. If it makes me sick, I don't eat it again no matter how good it tastes. Like my Ham allergy. Out-and-out lies, or even unpleasant fictions (lima beans) just sit on my plate, untouched. Everything else is digested, and the analogy continues. And Doctor Who is my favorite food.

I guess that's why I reject Truth in Fiction: the digestive tract doesn't process air. I burped. 'scuse me.