A truth exchange over the WRW (World Relational Web) between two individuals may be nothing more than an inviting smile or a distancing frown. Although the consequence of this brief exchange to an individual struggling with acceptance or rejection can be profound, the exchange is brief. Their personal truth galaxies did little more than ricochet off each other.
To better see the role truth plays when two personal galaxies rub up against each other, consider the following hypothetical exchange between Joe and Bob:
Joe: “You lied.”
Bob: “No, I didn’t.”
Joe: “Yes, you did.”
Bob: “How do you know?”
The issue of truth is raised, but little is known about that truth. We don’t know if they are talking about the same event, have the same memory of that event, are talking about different aspects of the same event, or different events. Moreover, we don’t know which individual is lying, if both are, or neither is. Also, we can’t exclude the possibility that they are just teasing one other. Let’s suppose not.
Now consider four possibilities: Both are truthful; Joe is truthful, but often Bob is not; Bob is truthful, but often Joe is not; often both are untruthful.
In the first case (both are truthful), Joe would likely have asked Bob for his take on the issue before accusing him of lying.
In the second case (Joe is truthful and Bob is not), Joe’s follow-up response would probably have gone something like, “Yes, you did, and here’s why . . . .”
In the third case (Bob is truthful and Joe is not), Bob would likely explain why he didn’t lie along with supportive evidence.
In the fourth case (neither is truthful), Bob could have reasonably, and just as meaningfully, repeated, “No, I didn’t.”
This brief conversation does little more than acknowledge the complexity of the truth exchanges that can arise when two personal truth galaxies rub up against each other. We all have an have intuitive feel for the nature of the exchanges when that happens, and it frequently does. More interesting is the possibility of two galaxies interacting intensely enough to form a third.
This can happen when two people fall in love. The resulting collision of their personal truth galaxies ignites a courtship in which the participants will begin envisioning the joys and possibilities in that collision. Should their exchanges get serious, the practicalities of their marital merger will inevitably be questioned. The contemplated merger will break down at this point unless the participants commit to a unifying spirit regardless of the consequences. Once they spiritually commit, wedding plans to celebrate the exchanging of their marital vows will naturally follow.
Couples who have fallen in love know the exuberance and complexity of the first stage, may have experienced the uncertainties and concerns of the second, and possibly have been immersed in the detailed planning of the third. In his novel, War and Peace, Tolstoy captured a sense of the spiritual understandings that must be shared and appreciated for there to be a merging of minds to at least birth a marital galaxy. He writes, “[Prince Andrew] vividly pictured to himself Natásha, not as he had done in the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for the first-time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her feelings, her suffering, shame, and remorse. He understood for the first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her.”
Although most of us have fair recollections of the basic truths and spirits of the exchanges of our courtships, the actual exchanges are rarely accessible. The love letters of my parents are documented exceptions. Consequently their expressions, interpretations, and consequences can be meaningfully imagined and discussed. The following excerpts have been chosen to illustrate the complementary nature of the exchanges that gave rise to a marital galaxy that still radiates in the expressed spirits of those they’ve touched. With each I’ve parenthetically added related thoughts that my wife and I often shared in our fifty-plus years together.
February 8, 1938. “Now again I say that I love you, not for what you could be or might be but just for what you are.” (Mutual joy suffers when a partner is put off by something inherent in the other. It is a brokenness in which each must see their own responsibility.)
March 17. “You need not worry about forgiveness. You had good reason to believe as you did, and the fault was mine.” (Blaming your partner keeps you from seeing those aspects you can helpfully remedy.)
April 4. “Walter, could I eat my dinner out in the field with you? We could have a little devotional time, too, couldn’t we?” (Much of the joy in a marriage flows out of a desire and a feeling of freedom to offer and entertain suggestions regarding ways of getting together physically, mentally, and spiritually.)
April 10. “I want my Margaret to take an interest and know all my problems, and I want to share and know hers. Whatever we buy, if it be a plow or a rug, let us plan and discuss it together. It will help so much to keep things going smoothly, and besides, two heads are better than one.” (The benefits of finding an equitable and mutually satisfying view of the finances are felt throughout a marriage.)
April 28. “Walter, you surely can read me like a book.”[1] (Being on the same “wavelength” is a feeling of oneness felt by soulmates.)
May 17. “As I think of it and look back to when I first spoke to you alone. I cannot remember a single time when it was hard to speak to you. It has always been easy and natural.”[2] (There is a grounding pleasure in being married to your best friend.)
Each of the following four excerpts reveals how my parents viewed their relationship to the spirit and dynamic of the WRW. Because the understandings are expressed in the Christian vernacular, a brief clarification of terms is warranted. Numerically, the WRW is an infinitesimal sub-web of the global relational web (GRW) of plants and animals on earth. The GRW, in turn, is numerically and spatially an emergent expression of the universal relational web (URW) of atoms and particles comprising the earth and the heavens. As I see it in my Christian vernacular, God is the creative spirit birthing and fueling the URW and Christ is that spirit as it came to be expressed in the personal truth galaxy of Jesus, a man born, biblically positioned, and inaugurated in a revelation roughly 2000 years ago to play a salvific role in the WRW. His expressed spirit now radiates in the lives of those who abide by his teachings.
November 11, 1937. “Today we had an Armistice program at school. The speaker told of the horrors of war and then mentioned that the clouds of war are lowering over us. It rather worried me. I can’t understand why people are unable to live peaceably together but then I realize that I get angry and say cutting remarks that can cause hurt feelings so it is only God can help humanity thru the peace of Christ to live harmoniously with each other. (Finding one’s responsibility in an encompassing brokenness is far from easy. My parents tended to focus on those things they could change rather than blaming others.)
February 26, 1938. “God truly answered my prayer for a Christian husband in sending you.”[3] (Margaret’s greatly appreciated answer to prayer came when hers and Walter’s personal truth galaxies collided and they found themselves united in mind and spirit. Roughly 25 years later I encountered a musically gifted organist with long dark hair at a Lutheran student get together—a clear answer to what had long been my attribute-blinkered prayer for a lifemate. A unique encounter at a first dinner with her family with her parents a few months later set me wondering what I really wanted in a lifemate. Realizing we were much more united in body than in mind or spirit I apologized and went my way.[4] Two years of lonely nights would pass before I encountered Martha., an occasional Methodist with short auburn hair whose fingers never learned to play the piano after seven years of lessons. I soon realized she was an answer to my unconscious prayer for a soulmate.[5])
April 6. “If Christ should happen to come before we are united, we will not remember our disappointment in not having a home together. I am so happy that you love me with a pure love, so what care I if we have to wait?” (When the NRWs of marital partners are on the same wavelength, they open up new ways of seeing the world for each other. Here Margaret is responding to Walter’s seeing Hitler’s Anschluss as a possible portent of the prophesied End Times.)
April 12. “Speaking of money and our getting married, if we have not enough faith, not enough hope, and our love is not strong enough to face the future together, come what may, then it is hopeless even with a million dollars.”[6] (Marriage was not really a choice for Walter and Margaret once their personal truth galaxies had collided. They soon found that they were already united mentally and spiritually. Neither was it a choice for Martha and me following a similar realization.)
September 10. “May He [God] grant to us children who may live Christian lives and bring others to His fold. . . . May we work in His kingdom on earth and do our work because
He gives us strength and then, when our summons comes, be taken up to be with Him
forever.[7] (Margaret’s interest in Walter’s and her expressed spirits is palpable and consistent with the understanding that helping others, especially those closest to you, is critical to the healthy birthing of your own truth galaxy by virtue of the very dynamic of the WRW.)
Marital commitments are celebrated in all cultures. All members of the WRW enter as children. If material existence were our only concern in populating the WRW, the laboratory would suffice.[8] But it isn’t. So much is lost once we lose our instinctual love for children and their joy. Consequently, most children are born out of a marital union of some type.
Most children experience a parental form of love in one way or another. The truth exchanges at homes, whether inviting or distancing, are extensive and heart-felt. Their effects on the mind of a child are cumulative and profound with potentially and equally profound consequences on the birth of that child’s personal truth galaxy.
As a member of the WRW, every newborn is universally worthy. That does not guarantee that they will develop an inner sense for that worthiness. One’s sense of worthiness emerges from one’s truth exchanges on the WRW. A child’s early exchanges largely come from via parents and siblings. It takes the coordinated expressions of others such as friends, teachers, neighbors, doctors, and leaders to instill in a child a vibrant appreciation of their worthiness as a whole. It is to the political truth expressions of these larger groups brought together by common interests and concerns that we now turn.
[1] Johnson, Mark, 2019, Questioning God: Philosophical Reflections on Pivotal Concerns in My Parents’ Letters, EA Books, Inc. EAbooksonline.com, 23, 182, 282, 305, 400.
[2] Johnson, Walter, 2024, Abiding in God: A Scientist’s Insight into Our Guiding Spirits Inspired by The Courtship Letters of His Religious Parents, EA Books, Inc. EAbooksonline.com, 43.
[3] Johnson, Mark, 2019, Questioning God: Philosophical Reflections on Pivotal Concerns in My Parents’ Letters, EA Books, Inc. EAbooksonline.com, 136.
[4] Ibid, 137–139.
[5] Johnson, Walter, 2024, Abiding in God: A Scientist’s Insight into Our Guiding Spirits Inspired by The Courtship Letters of His Religious Parents, EA Books, Inc. EAbooksonline.com, 69–74.
[6] Johnson, Mark, 2019, Questioning God: Philosophical Reflections on Pivotal Concerns in My Parents’ Letters, EA Books, Inc. EAbooksonline.com, 286, 319.
[7] Johnson, Walter, 2024, Abiding in God: A Scientist’s Insight into Our Guiding Spirits Inspired by The Courtship Letters of His Religious Parents, EA Books, Inc. EAbooksonline.com, 208.
[8] Aldous. Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1932).
