Tell the Truth but tell it slant,

Success in Circuit lies.

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise.

As lightning to the children eased,

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.

 

I continue to gain a deeper understanding for this Dickinson quote.  “Truth,” I suppose, can encompass many things including God, that which is right, our true Selves, love, purpose, creation, origin, and the list goes on.

 

To “dazzle” is to remove the dark lenses from our eyes in order to see Truth in all her glorious beauty.  

 

This dazzling must be a “gradual” process because Truth is a powerful and poignant force that one’s spiritual eyes cannot handle if they are not first developed to a certain stage of maturity.  Pre-mature exposure to such Light will in nowise be harmless.  The potent effects, if exposed too early to Truth, will be blinding—even to the point of death (i.e. spiritual death) in some cases.  Therefore, one must be gradually exposed to the powerful emission of Truth, or else never experience its fullness.

 

It is for this reason then, that life is an on-going journey of personal growth. And as I continue to grow and change in who I am, becoming more like the person I was created to be, becoming more like my Creator, and exposing others to the Truth in the process, I must remember the truth behind this line: “The Truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind.”  

 

And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (The Message)

 

 

Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.  All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)