Everyone has an editor, newspapers, TV, movies, radio or publisher. Sometimes they are known as gate keepers or censors. Sometimes, like my dear friends, they basically correct grammar and spelling mistakes, leaving the meaning of the writing clearer. Sometimes editors take out or add stuff, changing the meaning of the communication or record. History is editing also. We have heard it said that victors usually write the history.
Most of us do some self-editing, selecting what we want to hear and see and how we communicate it. I have friends who say I could do better at self-editing. Usually they mean that in talking I am tactless, undiplomatic or childlike, saying exacting what I am thinking, sometimes before I even think.
Who edits Nature? Who controls tornadoes, hurricanes and sunny days? We can say no one, but deep down we know that humans can affect changes in nature. Just look at the tragedy of New Orleans a few years ago, or the climate changes that are going on right now.
My feeling is that if we could live with nature, not edit or change it as we do, we, human beings, would be better off. We could still use nature — plants and animals for food, rain and sun for energy — but using something is quite different from changing it.
A friend today sent me links to a couple of “YouTube” videos by an “Anonymous Truther” saying how evil the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus, Catholic religious order, were. This person took bits of history and facts and wove them together to make the Jesuits look like Lucifer or the devil personified. Now I know a little about the history of the Jesuits so I found some of the stuff sad or laughable. However, I could see how for many persons these misrepresentations and editing of history might seem to make sense. This person had a goal in mind, making the Jesuits look evil, and by editing made that goal true in the eyes of viewer or him or herself. (Probably a white male)
One of the accusations this person made was that for Jesuits “an end justifies the means” something Jesuits have fought against over the years, and that this very person was doing. Or maybe not?
I do believe in Truth and that the truth will set us free. But I do believe that we all have our opinions of truth. All we can do is be open to the truth and act in conscience according to what we believe is the truth.
If everyone, including myself, acted this way with nature and with truth, being open to truth and nature and “doing the right thing” as we best understood it, nature and the world would be better off. We would not need “anonymous truthers” or editors. “Truthers” and editors would have a name, be open to opinions of the truth of other persons and be true to nature. Nature and humans would flourish together, both being true to their nature.
In the meanwhile we have anonymous and named “truthers” and editors of the truth. I would rather be a named editor and a person open to truth and striving for the truth.
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