Thought for the Week: What is Truth?

Jill Allum considers the nature of truth

by Jill Allum 20th May 2016

Pontius Pilate asks Jesus the question ‘What is truth?’ and does not wait for an answer. Do Quakers walk away? Can we face the truth about ourselves? Do we even know it? When I was seventeen, I was part of a group of twenty or so young church people. Once a month, after the evening service, we went to an elder’s home. A doctor from Claybury Mental Hospital, near London, came over to Shenfield, Essex, to sit with us and just let us talk. It was incredible what came up and how we learnt about each other’s truth. He never appeared to ‘lead’, just to listen and, through his listening, we learnt to listen.