Shards of truth: Unity in a broken world

Before we existed, the story goes, God convened a heavenly council — calling on the angels, each representing a different facet of the Divine. There was the Angel of Peace, calm and serene, who spoke first. “Don’t create them,” Peace said, voice steady but firm. “Humans will bring strife and conflict, they will tear at each other, and at the world you made.”

Next came the Angel of Justice, eyes sharp and discerning. “Create them,” Justice argued, “for they will seek fairness, they will build laws, and they will try to make things right, even when they fail.”

Then Mercy, with a soft and knowing smile. “Create them,” Mercy whispered. “They will love, they will forgive, they will comfort each other in moments of darkness.”

And finally, Truth stepped forward, tall and unyielding. “Do not create them,” Truth declared. “They will lie, deceive, and twist reality to suit their needs. They cannot bear the weight of Truth as it is.”

God listened to them all, and then realized 1. Never ask an even number for a vote. 2. God didn’t need the angels to weigh in after all, as God WANTED to make humans.

So God did something unexpected — God cast the Angel of Truth down to earth, shattering Truth into countless shards. In that moment, the choice was made: humanity would be born, but not with the whole of Truth. Instead, each of us was given a fragment, just a sliver of the Infinite.

Now, here we are, wandering through life, each of us holding our tiny piece of Truth, like a shard of broken glass — sometimes it cuts us, sometimes it reflects the light just so, illuminating something beautiful we hadn’t seen before. But here’s the thing: none of us holds the whole Truth. We can’t. We were never meant to.

And that’s why our work on earth is so vital. It’s up to us to pick up the pieces, to look at the jagged edge of our own fragment, and then, to reach out to others — to see the Truth they carry, to fit our pieces together, and maybe, just maybe, catch a glimpse of something bigger, something whole.

This isn’t easy. It takes humility, it takes patience, and it takes a hell of a lot of courage. Because when we hold our piece of Truth up to someone else’s, we might see that our edge isn’t as clean as we’d thought, that our understanding isn’t as complete. But it’s in that mess, in that beautiful collision of shards, that we start to see the bigger picture.

Unity is the thread that weaves through this entire story. It’s the reason God cast Truth to the ground, scattering it among us like seeds in the wind. Because if Truth had remained whole, if one person could hold it all, there would be no need for others. There would be no reason to connect, no reason to seek out another’s perspective, no need to build bridges across our divides.

But God wanted more than isolated, solitary beings. God wanted a world where we depend on each other, where our survival, our growth, our very understanding of the world and the Divine requires us to come together. The shards of Truth are scattered not as a punishment, but as a divine design, pushing us toward unity, toward connection.

In this fragmented world, unity isn’t just an ideal; it’s a necessity. Each of us holds a piece of the puzzle, a shard of the shattered Truth, and it’s only by coming together, by fitting our pieces alongside those of others, that we can begin to see the full picture. That’s the brilliance of God’s plan: we were created incomplete, so that we would seek completion in each other.

So here we are, in this broken, beautiful world, each of us with a piece of Truth in our hands. The question is, what will we do with it? Will we hold it close, afraid to let it go? Or will we offer it up, trusting that together, we might create something that shines brighter than anything we could imagine on our own?

Unity is the heart of this story, the reason we were created not as perfect beings, but as those who need each other. It’s the lesson of the shattered Truth, the divine nudge that tells us we’re better together. We’re more complete when we’re united, and in that unity, we find the true essence of who we are meant to be.

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For a different treatment of this passage and the value of humanity, please read Anne Gordon’s blog post, here.