I tend to be quite careful about where I get news from. Even so, sometimes I get a view into the confusing world of rumour, conspiracy, fake news, disinformation, gossip and relative 'truth' that characterises so much of what attracts people's attention today. The present coronavirus pandemic is fertile soil for a bewildering variety of 'stories' to take root in and grow. There are layers and angles and interpretations, debates and arguments and what sounds plausible to one sounds ridiculous to another... Some take a perverse delight in creating the rumours and setting them loose on the internet to spread and evolve. If it is not about coronavirus, then it is about something else. It may concern trivial matters or it may concern things that are genuinely matters of life and death. Social media spreads and amplifies the ideas and the truth of the matter soon gets buried beneath the avalanche of comment and opinion. In fact(!), in the end, it can seem that the truth of the matter no longer matters - just move on to the next issue.

We lose touch with reality. We can't live like this. Those who have 'weaponised' information and use the internet to sow confusion, division and chaos have set loose something perilous they cannot control and that will come back upon their own heads. We lose touch with reality when truth gets buried by opinion and it seems a futile exercise to try to dig down to the truth of a matter. Yet, if you think about it, the only reason the debates and arguments happen in the first place is because we do have some notion of the idea of truth, or right and wrong. Lies and falsehood imply truth must exist. Arguments are about trying to establish who is right and who is wrong. But in our world where truth is treated so cheaply how can we regain contact with truth and so with reality? Not by trying to investigate and reason out the myriad of issues that confront us at any particular time, that is an impossible task. When it feels like we have no foundation to reality, when truth seems to be lost in confusion, where is the way out? It can feel like being in a maze that only gets more confusing the harder you search for the exit.

The way out is illuminated for us by God in whom there is no shadow of falsehood, lie or deception, but only the pure, brilliant light of truth, faithfulness and reliability. Jesus said, "Your [God's] Word is truth" (John 17:17). Read the Bible - God's Word of truth for us. Start with the Gospels - perhaps John to begin with and then Mark. If you would like a copy of a Gospel then please contact me.