Summer is a wonderful time to pursue interests that get
squeezed out of my schedule the rest of the year. Over the past few months I
have dabbled in everything from molecular biology to Russian history and
fantasy fiction.
In July I discovered our local library has the first
two books of Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles
of Prydain on CD. A little children’s fiction sounded perfect for a mental
break. I checked them out.
The fast-paced plot had me looking for cooking or cleaning
jobs to do so I could listen to another chapter. I’m attached to the
characters—noble Adaon, loveable Gurgi, and the eager Taran, determined to win
honor.
But one scene disturbed me. Ellidyr agrees to help Taran with a crucial task on one condition:
Taran and his comrades must swear an oath that they will lie about what
happened. Isn’t that a contradiction? Can you trust someone who promises to
lie? Can you trust someone who promises to help on condition that you lie?
On a deeper level, I wonder if Taran surrendered his most
powerful weapon when he swore the oath. Solzhenitsyn, the Russian literary
giant, faced the might of the Soviet Union with the weapon of truth. Václav
Havel led the Czechs to freedom, relying on the same weapon. Os Guiness explained
in a lecture at Stanford in 2005:
…they
were aware there were only two ways they could bring down the Soviets: either
they had to trump Soviet power with equal or more power—they were a handful of
dissidents—unthinkable, or they had to counter Soviet power with another type
of power altogether. So that’s what they did, with the power of truth. “Truth
prevails for those who live in truth.” And the unthinkable happened. They won.
I wonder if I were Taran, would I have the courage
to live by the truth and refuse Ellidyr’s offer, even if it cost me my life? I
may never know. But I can choose to live in the truth today.
As Solzhenitsyn said, “One word of truth outweighs the
entire world.”
