Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
What Mitch Albom Taught Me About the Gospels

What Mitch Albom Taught Me About the Gospels

Last updated on: May 28, 2025 at 8:06 am by Vance Morgan

0 Comments

What Mitch Albom Taught Me About the Gospels 2025-05-28T08:06:14-04:00 Vance Morgan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Truth be Told

A week or so ago Jeanne needed to go to a department store to make a clothing purchase related to an upcoming work event. There are few things less attractive to me than following Jeanne around in a department store (or a store of any sort), but the store she was driving to is in a shopping center where a Barnes and Noble is just a couple of stores down. I seldom go to a real bookstore anymore, so I told Jeanne I would ride along and hang out with my best friends while she shopped.

Version 1.0.0

I seldom am looking for anything in particular on such an excursion. Rather, I am waiting for some book to jump in front of me and say, “BUY ME!” After a half hour of wandering around, I concluded that no purchases were going to be made. Then I saw Mitch Albom’s 2023 novel The Little Liar begging to be purchased. I read the first ten pages or so accompanied by an iced coffee until Jeanne showed up—that was enough to convince me that this was going to be my first post-semester summer read. I recommend it.

In many ways, The Little Liar reminds me of Marcus Zusek’s 2007 novel The Book Thief. Both are set during WWII and the Holocaust. Both stories are told by unexpected narrators. The narrator of The Book Thief is Death, the Grim Reaper, while the narrator of The Little Liar is Truth. Toward the end of Albom’s story, Truth observes how many different expressions human beings have for truth.

“To tell you the truth,” people say. Or “Can I be honest with you?” or “honestly” or “truthfully” or “no lie” or “the fact is” or “the sad truth” or “the undisputed truth” or the truth of the matter is . . .

Truth goes on to list truth-related sayings in French, Spanish, German, and Greek. But Truth’s favorite truth-related expression is “truth be told.” Not as in “truth be told, if I’m being honest . . .” but rather as a command or imperative. “You can imagine a king declaring it. A mother demanding it. The Almighty decreeing it.”

In a world of alternative facts, a world in which partisan propaganda and truth are often synonymous, the imperative to tell the truth has a dated, almost quaint feeling to it. And yet almost everyone would agree that verisimilitude is a standard worth striving for. My summer writing project is a return after eighteen months to Nice Work if You Can Get It, a teaching memoir that I’ve been working on at various times since before the pandemic. My primary sabbatical project in the fall of 2023 was to get a complete draft of this book finished, and I did. But my other sabbatical book project was grabbed by a publisher in early 2024, and it has been my front-and-center writing focus ever since.

That book is coming out in October—just about everything I need to do with it is finished. So back to the memoir. In the front material for the book, after the Table of Contents, Dedication, and Epigraph, I have a To the Reader page that includes this:

To borrow a sentiment from “The Moth,” the following stories are true as remembered by the storyteller (me). Although there is a certain linear progression to the chapters, they don’t have to be read in any particular order . . .Think of the parts of this book as puzzle pieces. They can be joined together in any order, but once all of the pieces have been considered, hopefully a coherent picture will have been assembled.

A memoir is very different from a “just the facts, ma’am” linear report of stuff that happened. It is much more like a collage or a puzzle. The process is complicated even further when some of the pieces are a few decades old, or quite recent but tangled inextricably with other pieces of memory that won’t make the cut into the book.

I’ll be spending time reading the book aloud over the next few days. Note to fellow writers—I’ve found this to be the best way to catch needed corrections and adjustments along the way. It will take me a while, since the book is currently 90000 words long. I’ll probably be cutting a bit. Since this is largely a storytelling book, I’ll be encountering stories that I have told many times for the first time in a year and a half. I have no doubt that I’ll have forgotten some details already written and might remember some others that I’ll add in. I also have no doubt that someone who is part of a particular story might remember the events very differently. Such is the nature of memory and truth-telling.

It is helpful to keep such matters in mind when reading texts that are supposedly about the same events but report them in very different, sometimes contradictory ways. Take the four canonical gospels, for instance. The first three are called the “synoptic” gospels because they appear to be presenting “synopses” of the highlights of Jesus’ life and ministry. Scholars believe that Matthew and Luke were both using Mark’s earlier text as a spine for their narratives, yet Mark says nothing about the birth and early life of Jesus while Matthew’s and Luke’s account of events surrounding the nativity are very different. Although they share many similarities, there are some crucial differences. The fourth gospel is a different animal altogether; John is clearly trying to do something else with some Jesus stories woven in, including some important stories such as the wedding at Cana and the raising of Lazarus that the synoptic gospels don’t even mention.

Attempts have been made over the centuries to meld the four gospels into one seamless narrative but have usually been abandoned. Those responsible for putting the canon together clearly had no problem with presenting four very different narratives of the life of Jesus—that’s why each is called “The Gospel according to . . .” Perhaps each should begin with a disclaimer such as “The Moth” uses to discourage readers and believers from insisting that any one narrative is the “true” one.

As Alasdair MacIntyre tells us, human beings are storytelling animals. Don’t ever let anyone steal your story by saying that “it didn’t happen that way.” If you are the storyteller and the story being told is yours as you remember it, it is true. End of story.

Previous Post

May 25, 2025

Is Our Experiment in Democracy Failing?

Next Post

May 29, 2025 How Alasdair MacIntyre Changed How I Teach Ethics

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Mary did have a choice. And she was able to make it before the Holy ..."

madalyn baumstark

Mary Got To Choose

"i cannot read beyond your recommendations for the books since i like to have a ..."

madalyn baumstark

A Doubting Faith

"AI will never be able to utter with honesty, feeling, or humility, the greeting: "Namaste".It ..."

madalyn baumstark

AI and Human Dignity

"They do. I'm sure you could find discussions of the same topic from any of ..."

Vance Morgan

AI and the Life of Faith

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Advent AI Angels Artificial intelligence atheism attention baptism Baptists beauty belief Benedictines Bible bicycling Big Bird books Bovina Camaldoli hermitage Canada Catholicism cats certainty change Christianity Christmas Collegeville Covid-19 creativity Development of Western Civilization dogs doubt Easter Enneagram Epiphany Episcopal ethics Eucharist evil extroverts Facebook faith family fear flowers forgiveness freedom friends God goodness grace happiness heaven hell history Holy Spirit Holy Week hope human nature humility humor idolatry incarnation introverts irreverence Islam Jeanne Jesus Joe Biden joy Judaism justice Kamala Harris knowledge Lent listen literature liturgy love Marsue Memorial Day miracles movies music mystery mythology NPR Old Testament optimism paradox peace Penguins philosophy piano podcast politics power prayer Protestantism Providence College Religion Rhode Island sabbatical sacrament science seeing silence Simone Weil Socrates soul sports St. John's College stories suffering tattoo teaching technology television theology thinking time tolerance transcendence travel trees trust truth Uncategorized Vermont wisdom wonder writing

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz