Let's Pretend That Somewhere, A Long Time Ago In ...

Let’s pretend that somewhere, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was a planet of crooked people. They didn’t differ much from one another as they were all crooked in the same way. What we call their left arm was bent in a peculiar way that was very unlike what we’d call their right arm, with a small percentage of the population having a crooked right arm and a straight left arm instead. Nevertheless, all were crooked.

Many centuries have gone by that people have had these crooked left arms; so long that the common condition has been long since accepted as the norm. Tools, furniture, office machines and so forth have all been designed to accommodate a crooked left arm and a straight right arm until the only people who are really inconvenienced at all by this condition are the ones with crooked right arms…but they have also learned to deal with it. They are kiddingly referred to as ‘East paws’.

One day a space ship lands and from the ship emerges a man with two straight arms. He goes about telling the people that they all belong to a King who is not of their world, but from whom they were separated many centuries ago. This good King wants to be reconciled to them as he knows what is good for them and can provide them with all they need and more. In addition, he wants them to see that they could live a much higher quality of life if they had two straight arms instead of one ~ a claim they can easily see is true by the ease and deftness of motion they witness in the new stranger ~ and he tells them that if they come with him they will all be made straight and live on a wondrous new planet with the King, enjoying his company forever, and perhaps he finished his invitation saying, “Trust me; I’m being straight with you”.

Now we could go on with this allegory and just get deeper and deeper in trouble. So let’s stop here and make the point.

The people of that world have now seen what is right. They’ve been shown their wrongness, by virtue of being compared to what is right.

The stranger off the space ship, by his very presence and his demonstrable wholeness and completeness has shown them their distortion; their corruption; their predicament.

Because it doesn’t matter how many are wrong. Even if only one is right, he represents the standard for what is right. He does not become wrong because he is alone.

- c.e.t.