Eliminating the illusions

It could have been summer. More likely, it was winter. Whatever the case, we were trapped inside by the elements with naught but the TV to distract us.

The clicker landed on either The History Channel or Discovery and a documentary about Mardi Gras beads.

The beads, thrown by the handfuls from parade floats in New Orleans throughout the Mardi Gras celebration, are colorful and sparkling. Parade watchers frequently compete for the beads by drawing attention to themselves, sometimes even exposing themselves in order to win one more strand. Apparently, the one with the most beads come Ash Wednesday, wins. I'm not sure what they win, but it must be valuable because the competition is fierce.

The beads provided the only glimpse of color in the documentary as the producers filmed and interviewed Chinese laborers, expending their life's energy to produce strand after strand. Theirs is a gray existence with little opportunity to find moments of transporting joy. Usually female, young and single, they live in cramped dormitory-style housing, their limited free time spent catching up the laundry or putting together a meal. There is little time to ponder the deeper questions of life, even if they had access to the myriad answers to such questions.

Back in the U.S., while interviewing a zealous bead collector in New Orleans, the interviewer asked if the woman knew where the beads came from.

"Oh, I don't want to know," she responded immediately, explaining that as a child she was mesmerized by the ballerina that pirouetted atop her jewelry box.

"I could watch that dancing lady for hours," she confessed. "I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

One day curiosity got the better of her and she removed the flowing gown, revealing nothing but a framework of wires.

"I was heartbroken," she admitted. "I have always regretted destroying that illusion."

We do love our illusions, even when we know fully and well that they are, in fact, nothing but an illusion.

The undiscovered illusion charms us even further, and we, much like the woman on Bourbon Street, refuse any argument designed to expose it.

Some illusions are relatively safe, I admit. The ballerina is one. We could go on with our lives uninterrupted if we had never peeked under her skirt and discovered the wires.

Some of our most precious illusions, however, can have eternal consequences, much though we would like to cling to them. They comfort. They console. They protect. They give us hope.

We couldn't resist renting the DVD "2012" recently, even though we know the story line almost as well as we know our own names.

Disaster is imminent. Mankind is doomed. There is no hope.

Oh, wait. Maybe a glimmer of hope yet remains.

In 2012, which had stunning special effects, Hollywood followed the familiar script to a "T." And at the very end, mankind not only overcomes the threat that claims all but a few hundred thousand souls, but also maintains the illusion that when push comes to shove, man, even in the face of imminent destruction, will nevertheless, always do the right thing. A lovely illusion.

Jesus promised, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) Truth was and is an all-important tenet of faith and it is vitally important that believers understand this. One of the most caustic accusations Jesus uttered was addressed to the religious leaders of the day when he said, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)

To willfully embrace a lie therefore is to willfully embrace the father of all lies. A dangerous proposition, in any situation -- but in matters of spiritual truth, undeniably deadly.

Hardly a week goes by without some "new" spiritual teaching emerging. It's a sign of the times, much as the plethora of "end of days" movies and books are. How are we to rightly discern fact from fiction? Do we simply get to pick and choose from an a la carte menu of spiritual items? Or is there an unchanging truth yet to be discovered?

Be assured. Truth exists. It exists in the person and the teaching of Jesus Christ, who said, without equivocation, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

Start there. But don't stop there. And as truth is discovered, hang on to each piece, no matter how many cherished illusions may be lost in the process.

"Pilate saith unto him, 'What is truth?'" John 18:38 KJV