The IS and IF explanation.

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

In little ol' Lexington Kentucky there lives a media ministry that operates two radio stations, a 24 hour streaming site, several audio podcasts, a You Tube channel and a number of blogs. This is one of them. Also, in that same little Lexington are three station vehicles that are logoed with a huge graphic that asks the question, “What if it IS True?” We see this as a sort of Pascal's wager, on a rolling billboard, that is. Blaise Pascal was a 17^th century mathematician, physicist and all around smart dude who came up with what we now call Pascal's Wager. He basically said that if a Christ follower ends up being wrong in the end, so what? If the atheist, however, ends up being wrong then there's a travesty. An unfortunate, avoidable, eternal travesty. With this in mind, we ask the question in four foot high lettering to drive home the point.

On the other hand there's this blog. This blog is a companion piece to one of our YouTube productions that is a daily Gospel reflection that seeks to find the obvious virtue from the mass reading and then try to find ways to live it. So essentially this blog asks more the question “What IF it is true?” Subtle difference in the phraseology, but a major difference in the application. This blog presupposes the IS and focus on the IF. IF it is true then it means it's got to be true in our life. IF it's true in our life it's going to look like something. I personally believe that the best way to make it look like something is by practicing virtue.

Over the years I've gone through bouts of intense fitness crazes. I've been a seven day a week gym guy. I've run half-marathons and racked up close to triple digit weekly milage running. I've ridden century rides on my bicycle and logged hundreds of weekly miles and the one thing I know is true that every time I train super hard like that something amazing happens. People start commenting. They ask what I'm doing. Or simply make a remark about how I look. It's obvious when someone is an athlete. Now that I'm at the age where my body has begun to betray me and my physical transformations will likely never be as dramatic as they once were I do hope to still get the same attention. I just want it to be because it becomes even more obvious that I'm pumping the iron of Gospel virtue.

I welcome you to join me in this endeavor. Catholics have been traditionally bad at this. We have greater exposure to the Gospels than any other faith group that I'm aware of, but we have sadly left the heavy lifting up to the clergy. It's their job, right? They're the ordained guys. Let them look like it. But what would happen if we all started working out? Catholics, non-Catholics (heck, even non-Christians). The Greek pagans had virtue figured out pretty well before the Theological Virtues were even around to assist them. What's our excuse?

It always all comes down to focus. Thomas Jefferson said that the harder he worked the luckier he got. What if we immersed ourselves in Gospel training? What if we sought to mimic the virtues revealed by Christ? What if we decided to get in one of the many growing GPS (Gospel Prayer Solution) groups that are emerging and started working out with our friends by growing in not only our understanding of virtue but of living a mission of virtue? IF it is true it will be obvious. IF it is obvious enough WE may eventually stop asking altogether because others will beat us to the punch. IF, that is, it looks like something.

Good luck and God Bless,

Leo Brown