What Is Truth
2005

"What is truth? Pilate asked." John 18:38

How often do we defile, twist, alter, hide, mystify, stifle, invent, veil, pollute, embellish and desecrate truth in the name of truth? This is our fall: calloused hearts that close our eyes. Do we strive to murder truth when it does not serve our glory, privilege, profit and power? What is truth? Is it to be searched for or to be made? Is it to be perpetually destroyed and reconstructed? Is it Truth if it is only our truth? Does one religion, culture, people, or time possess truth? If Truth is eternal, can it change? Can it be continuously revealed and understood? How do we reconcile truth with inconvenient facts? What new labels we attach to that truth?

We call it triumph when the power of rhetoric successfully presents deceit as truth! We call it political victory when the art of deception confidently crushes truth as an enemy! We celebrate the power of argument that conceals their truth and shrouds it then presents our willful misinterpreted fragment of the truth as truth! Are we truly seeking truth? Do we want to know, admit and accept truth in spite of the wounds it may inflict on us? Why do we seek truth? To be justified in despising those who have different truths? We claim truth and call the others 'infidels' 'primitives', 'barbaric' or 'savages' and seek either to convert them or exterminate them. Can different truths coexist? Can religious and political leaders starve for absolute power and for Truth?

Will you follow Truth when it goes through ravaging realities and damaged realizations? Are you ready to let go of your assumptions of where, when and how it may be found? What if you must go through defiling mud and vile caves, through troubled awareness and consciousness filled with doubts, questions and uncertainties? Have you found Truth, a truth, your truth?

"The truth shall set you free". Truth can bring one's demise; how will one accept it? Can one's demise lead to one's freedom? Who can accept this logic? "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40 Are we ready to see God in the poorest of the poor? "In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth." John 18:37 I never considered this statement before; I never noticed the raison-d'être for Christ's incarnation stated so clearly. Am I limiting truth to my ideas about Christ? Can an atheist, or a non-Christian live Christ-like even when he claims that he does not believe in Christ? Can Christ be a law written in the heart? Can the truth of the heart take precedence over orthodox teachings? Am I ready to see and perceive? Do I claim that I have the truth? "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains." John 9:41

My work does not point to itself. It invites to go beyond superficial readings and reflect on the questions the images reflect. An image may lead to a truth. Confronting sad aspects of life to bring a little understanding and healing to it is life affirming. Questioning what is established and prevailing may be easily dismissed as outrageous and offensive; are you willing to consider that maybe, maybe an aspect of truth may be obstructed there? Will you unveil it even when it threatens your comfortable judgments and perceptions? Dare to doubt your convictions, to question the truthfulness of your beliefs! It is my will, my desire and my intent to search for meaning and purpose in clashing realities and conflicting truths, and to find life giving seeds in the midst of contradictions, oppositions and contrasts.