Because we have so beggared our notion of what truth is, we can easily find ourselves imagining religious truth to reside only in our past, as the words on the page record it.
We imagine the truth of scripture to be of the journalistic sort, the who-what-when-where-how kind of truth, the it-either-happened-or-it-didn't kind of truth, which many among us have come to believe is the only kind of truth there is.
But I'm imagining this truth might be harder to come across in your day.
I imagine that "truth" as a shimmering and beautiful orb that is buried inside a vat of tar.
"WikiLeaks has given the public more scoops than most journalists can imagine: a truth-telling that has empowered people all over the world.
The correct detail is rarely exactly what happened; and the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have... Being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven't had the opportunity to see".
(Godwin's scheme may bring to mind Bentham's panopticon, but Bentham was proposing wardens in supervision over prisoners; narration was to be concentrated. Godwin imagined citizens revealing the truth about themselves, and incidentally about one another; narration was to be distributed).
The picture transfixes us because it looks like the truth, but, looking at it, we can only imagine what that truth is: torture, execution, a scene staged for the camera?
The truth: Imagine a cyborg Bangles.
