Two days ago Nancy and I took a drive into the Appalachian Mountains, along the Blue Ridge Parkway. This year has been a drought year for North Carolina, but the splendor of God’s creation was still evident. The colors were glorious, the sky brilliant blue and places like Blowing Rock and Boone (as in Daniel Boone) not that crowded. While a brief one-way discussion with a State Trooper over the speed laws in North Carolina did take a bit of the edge off the glory of the day, it was still wonderful. And that negative surprise was counter-balanced by the positive surprise of finding that a specialty of our Carolina BBQ lunch stop was home-made pecan ice cream that is regularly fast-shipped to President Bush’s ranch in Texas. Expensive but truly worth it!



On a completely different note, just for fun the other day I tried a Google search on my name, and I am not so sure it was a good idea. While what I came up with was not as long a listing as many names would produce, everything Google displayed, with one exception, was about one thing. And the few words about that one thing were misleading in their brevity. My search showed that the only thing I am known for, at least in the Google world (and that world is very large), is for court proceedings in which my name, the church, the Presbytery Executive, and Presbytery are associated with sexual harassment.

Now this is not a pleasant association to be appear whenever one searches for my name on the internet, in fact it is downright degrading. And it highlights one of the downsides of internet searching, which is the difficulty of communicating accurately in two lines. After all, after seeing my name associated with such headlines who would bother to explore further? Who would take time to find out the whole truth? Who would leave the search with other than a question or a conclusion based on two lines on a computer screen?

So, I have pondered about what could be done about this. And I have two conclusions. The first is to become so famous that this theme is buried in an avalanche of other, and more interesting information. Perhaps I could do something that would change the world, solve the problem of global warming, or bring peace to the Middle East. That surely would at least add to the mass of articles that the Google algorithm would sift through, and some hits would be flattering. But that probably is not forthcoming—my fault…

The other way is for someone to put the truth into the public arena in such a way that it would draw the search engine to display another set of facts. I would love to see someone publish something like this, “After an exhaustive months-long investigation into allegations made by a colleague, a specially constituted and trained church panel of six men and women, made up of both clergy and laity, unanimously reached the conclusion that the evidence presented with the allegations did not support any charge against Will Ackles.” In the Presbyterian Church anyone can make any allegations against anyone else, but those allegations are then tested by an investigating committee to determine if there is any credibility to them. If there is, then charges are filed. If not, then no charges are filed. The conclusion of the committee investigating Rev. Ackles was that no charges of any kind were in order, and on appeal this was upheld by the next higher court of the church. The second way to counter the impression that Google searching presents would be for those who know these facts to place them in the public arena, but evidently that is not going to happen—not my fault…

So, what is the point of this musing? Simply to underscore the importance of the truth. Simply to encourage all to speak the truth and to counter false or misleading information when it appears--and to do it in ways that are effective in the world in which we now live. I believe that as old as the ninth commandment is it still holds true, and especially true for that thing which is most precious of all to every man and woman—his or her name… The Westminster Shorter Catechism articulated it clearly when it said, The ninth commandment requires the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, and of our own and our neighbor's good name, especially in witness-bearing. That may not be the norm in the world, but it ought to be the norm between believers, and in the church.