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Bare Trees in Fog

Crossing Lines: Truth be Told

Writer's picture: Marie LaureMarie Laure

The lines aren’t malleable until we decide they are. Deciding is all it takes for long standing institutions built on principle to begin to crumble; be it the church, the school, the government. All are susceptible if and when the lines that define them are manipulated by an individual or a group.


These leylines* on which each was founded, at times have been obscured by winds of change, yet they have emerged intact after the storm. When, however, these lines lose themselves under the pressures of “the times,” all else that once was built on certitude is lost. Without certitude anything goes -- or everything goes -- ethics, morality, common sense, and above all, Truth with a capital “T.” Without Truth, where are we? Back in the dark ages; not medieval days where much certitude was placed ahead of human rights and lives, but all the way back to prehistoric times with the most rudimentary existence for all living creatures. Is that what we want? Truly?


I’ll not take to my “high horse” to fight this fight. I have fallen from there too many times to no avail. Several failed attempts over a lifetime of trying stand out in hindsight. How many, very many innocent trees have been felled by my failure to prevail on their behalf? How many womens’ lives, including my own, have been detrimentally impeded by man-made rules of law, despite my protest signs held high? Or what of my impotence before unholy men of the cloth standing between women and their God given gifts buried beneath oppressive edicts in spite of boycotting their “services.”


No, I will not carry yet again banners held high at this age of seventy while vile and vicious vitriol is spewed in the faces of those of us who try as we might to hold the line that matters for us all. The work of speaking out and up belongs to those with so much more at stake than whatever remains of my days.


These younger iterations of those who have come before owe it to themselves to reclaim the Truth with a capital “T.” Do they know the Truth? Was it visible to them as they came of age the way it was during different times before they became aware? Speaking Truth on a regular basis helps to preserve it for everyone and for ourselves. A world without Truth is a pliable existence.


Today we say we believe in these “unalienable rights” while tomorrow we abandon them for our own purposes. Allowing the foundations that were meant to last to be weakened is like watching the constant ebb and flow of the tide eroding the very place beneath our feet. We know that we are no longer standing on solid ground. Each of the major modern institutions that were brick and mortar and by definition, concrete, have been eroding to the point of totally washing away. That is the Truth of the world in which we live. What are we to do? What will we do?


*geographical lines that crisscross all over the globe. Similar to latitudinal and longitudinal lines, ley lines seem to provide a structure or system for many monuments and natural landforms. Further, they supposedly carry with them rivers of “supernatural energy”.


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David Salisbury
David Salisbury
Sep 29, 2023

The Solzhenitzn quote I try to live by is: "The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world."

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Marie Laure
Marie Laure
Sep 30, 2023
Replying to

Thank you, David. You have given me inspiration for next week's blog! Never know where it will come from, but your comment and quotation hit home.

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© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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