The Sun and the Truth

I hate to admit it, but way back in college, I read COSMO magazine and others like it. Even though I saw through much of its shallowness, the articles on relationships, office politics and the like held my interest because I was always seeking answers to life's painful mysteries. Over time, still seeking, I replaced these bottom rung resources with somewhat more intelligent and thoughtful ones, like self-help books and natural health magazines.


These days, however, an airport layover leaves me empty handed of new reading material. Rows and rows of magazines yield not one single publication I am willing to spend my energy and money on. In fact, there is only one magazine I feel good about buying, and that's The Sun. You can't find it in an airport, or in most stores. Good book and magazine shops will carry it, but the best deal is to subscribe. It contains no advertising, and it's all in black and white. And, it's pretty slim. I read it from cover to cover each month, deliriously. You know why?

Because it tells the truth.

Each article, interview or poem is written from a personal perspective, usually about a difficulty or dilemma that we all have faced or will face (to some degree) in our lives. The details may differ, but at each story's core is a shared humanity that you can't find regularly anywhere else in publishing. Nor on TV, or in social conversation, or any culturally sanctioned arena.

This is one of the fundamental problems with popular culture and media. You can't write or talk seriously about what life is really like for most of us, in which confusion reigns and solutions are hazy. It just won't sell. People want answers, solutions, techniques, exercises. We don't want to sit with uncertainty, ambiguity, and an eye toward "living into" the answers. We don't want to hear that struggles can last for years, or that things may not turn out how we hoped. It's uncomfortable and frightening, and our society offers no supports for it.

Humans have been trying to get happy or wealthy throughout history. Clearly, few have come up with the solutions, but the "experts" are always eager to sell us theirs. Some may be interesting and valid for our lives, and we can try their ideas on for size. But we are well served to remember that we have the truths we need, the material that matters, inside us. It may not blossom till next season, but the seeds and the wisdom are there. This is a law of growth and nature. Patience with ourselves is the most important tool we need to tend this garden. That, and perhaps the ability to discern and share our deepest truths.

(http://www.thesunmagazine.org)