We are taught that God=truth, and that God cannot be questioned.

But the truth is, the truth must be questioned relentlessly for truth to be maintained. It must stand against any beating.

Is this thing true? Is it eternally true? Does it have integrity? Is it beautiful in its sound integrity? Does it explain? Does the explanation hurt? Does it also breed hope? Is it the truth?

Things which are true are whole and precise and round and encompassing of its parts, like a wheel or a storyline, each part integral to the whole, and the whole integral to a greater whole.

Imagine, for a second, that nothing is over your head. There is nothing that you cannot understand if you have all of the information you need. Imagine that not understanding something was simply a matter of needing more information.

But imagine that you have a limited capacity for how much you can store. If you become overloaded, you start to break down.

This means that you will be plagued with not understanding everything that falls before you. You will, invariably, have missing information. This is what it means to be human.

This is why it is so important that the work that we do be done with integrity. That what we put into the world represents itself, truly. Because things which are truly made, put out, projected provide massive amounts of packaged information: in the making of a coffee cup is information about soil composition, construction, art, preservation. And you know immediately if it doesn’t hold water. A true coffee cup can be relied upon. We can take the whole for the sum of its parts, and set on our way finding our own truth, which is not a different truth than someone else’s truth but a different angle, and you’ll know it is true if it supports, though may expand upon, what we know to be true. If a mug holds water, it doesn’t not hold water. A leak means the mug is not true. If the leak is patched, the mug is true. The incongruous patch proves its wholeness, but also proves it did not start that way. That is true. It is not the prettiness of a thing that shows integrity. Rather prettiness smooths over what is not whole (though it can also create wholeness by removing distraction. By the same token, it can remove wholeness by distraction). But it’s the integrity, which makes a thing whole. The integrity is truth, is beauty. The integrity is all, is God.

Truth is what we seek, and God is what we become, as we create universes of information with what we put into the world: Replications of ourselves in all we touch.

The truth is no one is coming to save us. And if someone does, it will just be a bag of meat, like you.

But there is nothing you can’t understand if you can discern truth from lies, and only seek what is true. And with what you discover, you can create your vision. You can be God.

But you will die one day, and you can’t leave it to someone else. And it’s a lifelong mission and did I mention you will one day die?

“Be the change you want to see in the world” is not just a bumper sticker. It is how you discover that you are not some fictitious God Almighty, capable of everything all at once. It’s how you discover that you are fallible. It’s how you discover that God is not coming to save you. That maybe God does not exist as you conceive God–that your vision of the world was not true. It is how you are reborn with the ability to discern truth from lies, which some mistake as cynicism…

But it is only cynical if you refuse to pick up the enormous chore before you: no matter how small, and mortal, and ill-prepared you discover you are, you MUST be the change you want to see in the world. Or someone else will seize your world and remake it in their image. Some mortal fucking meat bag, bossing you around like he’s God.

The moment you see how small, how mortal you are, how cruel, deceptive and unkind the world can be, the moment you see truth with clear eyes, and how shrouded in useless deceiving components it inevitably (truly) gets wrapped in, this is the moment you may ascend beyond your mortal life to work that is eternal and true, that may be passed on, because it is true, and the word of God (you). To create something true is to create a universe. Whether you create a child, or a home, or a piece of art, or invent the wheel, or refine a previous truth into something more true, or simply do the thing you said you would do. To simply do, with integrity, with truth, is how God saves the world. God saves it when you save it.

This is when you can finally be the change you want to see in the world. But you cannot change the truth or halt time, and time will invariably end you.

God is not what you follow. Truth is. God is what you become when you live a life of integrity and truth. God is not immortal, but God lives so long as life seeks truth. God lives in the living. But God dies all the time.

Truth is not pretty and neat. Truth is whole, round and covered in patches. Like the earth. Like the universe. Like your weird body. Like your mean parents.  Like your dirty tennis shoes. They are themselves, and come by it honestly, naturally.

In New America, we will be one nation under truth, which is a thing you beat with a hammer to see if it beats you back. God is a personal business–the business of what you hope to become.

But what is true must stand up to what we have each found to be true. It must be questioned, critiqued, and vetted. Seeking truth is humanity’s group project. It is not reached through repetition or mimicry, but through the honest laying out of what you have come to. You may seek role models in Gods who have lived before you. A Christian’s mission, for instance, should be to live as Christ lived: To create legends of goodness in his true care of the poor and miracles that feed the hungry. The legend and work live on and show the way to others.

No harm in it, good for you, and it’s your right as a New American. Go forth and worship your God by aiming to be like him.

Just as a woman may choose Persephone to guide her from the underworld into springtime, so she may show others the way.

But God is not the supreme ruler. You are God. And you’re just a fucking meat bag.

Be the change you want to see in the world. But the truth is round and covered in patches, like a disco ball. The patches reflect their environment. You are but one small, shining reflection. You cannot see the whole scope of the space you are in all at one time. As the ball spins, you see more and more. But you are not the ball itself. You exist to dabble light on the dance floor. Do your best not to obscure. Help the world find its way in the dark*.

That is what God does. Be a God. Be a shining mirror on this great, big, disco ball.

Here are some pithy truths I hope prove useful:

The medium is the message.

Do not cast your pearls before swine.

The revolution will not be televised.

Smiling faces, sometimes, they don’t tell the truth.

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.

Love is all you need.

*I may have stolen this metaphor from someone, but I don’t know who. Or maybe not. It felt like deja vu writing it though. Anyway, if I stole it, sorry for not quoting. I hope it wasn’t Hitler who once said “Life is like a disco ball.” It doesn’t sound like him, though, so I think I’m in the clear. It’s probably Taylor Swift or some shit. I know she has a song about a disco ball. But I think the theme is different. Something about dancing. I don’t know. These are all old concepts, but we can use reminders.