Trail West Dispatch #11 November 22, 2025

“Investigate.  Figure things out for yourself.  Spend more time with long articles.  Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media.  Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you.  Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad).  Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.”                                   –Timothy Snyder

I’ve had my share of comeuppances for not doing enough investigation, at least by some other people’s standards.  One that comes to mind is the time when I reposted a meme that was supposedly a quote from the newly elected Pope Leo XIV.  I thought he sounded like an Anabaptist and I liked what he said, but he apparently never said the words that others attributed to him.  One of the people who pointed this out is a professor from a Mennonite college.  Our daughter-in-law is his first cousin, so I felt the rebuke somewhat personally.  He invoked “Thou shalt not bear false witness” as a justification for his position.  I acknowledged my error but said that I thought it represented his viewpoints accurately, and I would probably leave it in place for people to see the whole thread.  I saw it as needful transparency on my part, and an opportunity for others to wrestle with the matter itself (treatment of foreigners).  He didn’t think that was a good idea, and I eventually removed the post—under some inward protest. 

Recently the pope expressed publicly some of the same sentiments that appeared in the fake meme.  I may have felt a tiny bit vindicated for having spied a truthful sentiment early on, even though I got some of the details wrong.  I’m afraid this is the story of my life, at least in relation to missing too many details, and I am not proud of it.  

But Timothy Snyder says we should investigate.  I do a lot of it, too much, in some people’s minds, or the wrong kind, or for the wrong reasons, or with too little tact in relaying what I learn.  Considering the difficulties, why should I investigate, especially to the extent of ticking off every one of the subpoints under the main injunction—and in a different sense ticking off people around me in the process?  Because somebody’s gotta do it.   That’s my simplest take on the matter.

Snyder is saying that investigation is a means for resisting tyranny, which is something that all of us idealize.  Since we also idealize non-violence and the avoidance of deception, I personally think investigation is a good fit for people like us if we have the technical and critical thinking skills to do so, and if we are at a stage in life where we can invest the necessary time.  I see it as a stewardship decision, an opportunity to make the best use of the resources that God gives us.  Does that mean that all of us have an impossibly time-consuming obligation to investigate?  Does it mean that we will always get things exactly right?  No and no.  All of us must rely on people wiser than we are to do some of the investigating for us, and we stand to benefit a great deal from what they learn and share. 

I am particularly grateful for the people who acquire information by wading through a lot more muck than I could navigate with any sense of optimism intact.  We do it so you don’t have to are the words I sometimes hear from them.  Perhaps only people who get paid for it can afford this level of commitment to the task of investigation.

The important task that remains for all of us is to take what we learn and expose it to the light of truth as found in Scripture and then to ask What wilt thou have me to do?  Being as faithful to the facts as we know how to be and then being transparent before others are important as well.  I feel sure that, on some level at least, all of us can find a way to incorporate investigation into a life of faithful discipleship.           –Miriam Iwashige