Earlier today I was listening to a pastor speaking on television.  While I must admit that I really had it on more for background filler than anything, one particular sentence that he spoke seemed to reach straight through the air, grab my attention, and draw it in.  He was reciting a stanza of a poem from a nineteenth century American poet by the name of Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  What struck me was the fact that the words of a poem, written over 100 years ago, rang so true in the midst of today’s world-wide chaos where headlines from Haiti compete with breaking news of a son who strangled his father because he paid too much attention to his Olmypic-medal-winning-figure-skating-sister.

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for it’s well understood
The good are half bad and the bad are half good.

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man’s wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

Not the humble and proud, for in life’s little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.

Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter end each man his tears.

No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

read the full poem from The Charlotte Democrat, Jan 10, 1896

So what is it about the poem that makes it’s words seem to transcend time? While the poem in its entirety holds some theological challenges for me, like the fact that the Bible would tell us that we should be both a leaner AND a lifter by lifting each other while sharing one another’s loads, within the words seemed to exist a sliver, a thread, of what seemed like the truth.   That is what grabbed my attention.  You see, truth is timeless.  In it’s absolute, Truth is eternal.  It can cut through the clutter and move the background into the foreground.

On Tuesday of this week, I am going to be heading to a club in downtown Boise to accept an invitation from an old college buddy.  He contacted me by Facebook and invited me to listen to his younger brother sing and play acoustic guitar. I have a feeling, however, that he thought there was no reason why I would actually accept the invite.  In his invitation, he said “Maybe he isn’t right up your heavy Christian roots alley, but it’s powerful music all the same.”  That struck me.  Truth once again?  Sure, there is the chance that his brother’s music isn’t “up my alley”, but why would he suppose I would simply dismiss him out of hand?  Even better, why would he feel that if the music is powerful, I wouldn’t be able to extract value, to draw truth, from it?  Is my faith so fragile that I can’t find value in things that may lie slightly outside of it?

I checked out his brother’s stuff on MySpace, and what do you know… it is powerful music.  It’s honest music.  The truth in it makes it powerful.  Sure the themes aren’t what I listen to every day, and sure there are songs that I could find good reason to refute in principle (like “Damned”) but many resonate with experiences I’ve had in life, and I can feel the emotion in his brother’s voice.  I’m looking forward to Tuesday night.  It’s a chance to get outside of my typical and keep my eyes open for that thread of truth.  I’m learning that it gets easier and easier to find it when you know what you’re looking for.  The more I understand my own faith, the better I understand my own beliefs, the more I find that the truth that they are based on is threaded through so much around me.   I just have to discern the threads.  (In a touch of irony, while on his website, I also noticed that he is a supporter of TOMS shoes, so I guess our worlds aren’t that far apart after all!)

So here is my question for you.  Have you done, seen, or listened to something lately outside the typical scope of your faith that resonated with you and, possibly to your surprise, reinforced your beliefs?  What was it, and what about it, rang true to you?  I look forward to hearing your responses!