Monday, June 28, 2021

day no. 15,589: right without being righteous

"He owes it to his country to speak the truth as he sees it. This implies a steadying judgment as to when it should be spoken, and to whom it should be addressed. A truth need not only be well-rounded, but the utterance of it should be cognizant of the stresses and objectives of the hour. Truth becomes falsehood unless it has the strength of perspective... A false idea will come upon a bad fate even though it has the backing of the highest authority." -- The Armed Forces Officer, U.S. Department of Defense (1950)

The Christian faith is full of grace and truth: fully truthful in being gracious and fully gracious in telling the truth. There is a way to be right without being righteousness, a way to give preference to saying the right thing without assessing if it is the right time or place to say it.

There is an unrighteous way to be right. 
There is an incorrect way to be correct. 

Be patient and remember proportion and perspective. If you are right, but assert it wrongly, you do disservice to the truth, not homage. Anything that cannot go on forever, won't. Its failure doesn't depend upon your word. That isn't to say that you should simply shut your mouth and sit back with a bucket of popcorn as you wait and watch the whole thing implode, but rather to say that if you have something to say, but not the right time or place to say it, the time or place will eventually present itself or the enterprise will fail without you having had to say anything.

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