Love
Me, Then Speak Truth
I am sure you have thought about honesty and dishonesty and
then given up on the ideas. The definitions seem too complicated. But in these
last years of my life, an obvious fact has interrupted my thinking. We
Christians claim to “know truth” but are not living a basic life journey that
reflects that fact. Please don’t get me wrong here. I’m certainly pointing a
finger at myself as well. I realize truth remains confusing because of the
diverse changes in moral outlook. What seems to appear typical in our culture
tends to become the moral value. And our value systems have severely changed
since the earlier days of all cultures and history.
For
example, we all know there was a day in American culture that a person’s word
was as good as a written contract. A promise was a strong motivator to
accomplish what was intended. And this situation was not just assumed but
practiced through large businesses or even trading for a cow. Only the rarest,
worst offender would dare break his or her word. A community atmosphere was
such that you could even trust your neighbor to use your tools and return them
on time.
In
addition, there used to be whole communities that could leave things in their
yards without fear of them being stolen. Now, you’d better lock down your lawn
mower. It used to be people assumed trust to be treated with respect.
You see, instead of dealing honestly with each other, we have
developed a society that has learned and practiced a peculiar brand of
dishonesty that everyone seems to accept.
For
instance: Picture a conscientious mother, holding her five-year-old son’s hand,
rushes through a store while shopping. She bumps into a man, also rushing, who
steps on the little boy’s foot. The boy lets out a scream like a fire engine.
Quickly, the mother gets in her boy’s face and says, “Hush up now, the man didn’t mean it. Stop crying. Be a big boy. Suck it
up!”
All
the while, if she is attentive, she may be embarrassed and looks around to see
how his yelling is effecting other shoppers. She wants her son to stop his pain
immediately. The little boy doesn’t care one bit about shopping protocol or
embarrassment. He just looks down at his throbbing foot and responds to the
injury. Now, he may not be able to hush, so she jerks him along, trying to
leave the scene as quickly as possible. The little boy is confused and hurt
from just acting naturally.
You see, the mother shushing him, trying to enforce a
misplaced value upon him is the beginning of a kind of sham, a subtle pretense
that can build into a dishonest trait.
Now follow this same boy into kindergarten. He’s on the
playground at school, falls and skins his knee. He runs to the teacher yelling
and crying with discomfort. She pats him but says, “Hush now Johnny, Be a big boy. Show the other boys and girls how big
you are. Quit crying.” The teacher is also concerned how this looks to
others and how it may reflect upon her as a teacher. So, she imposes the same
value as the mother that says basically, “fake it, don’t show your real
feelings.” All Johnny knows is he looks down at the blood trickling down his
knee.
Multiply the imposing kind of sham upon Johnny through the years
and by the time he reaches high school, he has learned a dishonesty that he
thinks is perfectly all right to live by. He would rather die than admit some
feeling of weakness to friends or authority because he has learned well that if
he can get by with something without being found out, if he can just bury real
feelings, then that’s the way you play the game. So, Johnny has been taught
there are two truths in life: the one on the surface you can get by with and
the real hidden truth you stuff and hide.
Now follow Johnny into adulthood. He is now John but doesn’t
know how or when to be honest with friends, workers, family, even an intimate
relationship like a mate. He simply operates on the surface of things, burying
most actual truths. In his active culture, institutions like school, church,
job, government have no specific platform to relearn a successful honesty
without punishment. In fact, individual leaders of institutions often punish a
truthful individual because duplicity reigns.
The major result of all the generations who have learned a
dishonest approach to life can be found in churches filled with people who are
frustrated and do not know how or where to tell the truth to each other in
love.
Am I suggesting that we simply open confession and have everyone
come to the front of a church to air their dirty laundry? Or, are we to use a
closed confession approach through a preacher’s ability to listen? NO on both
counts. I will offer recommendations for action later, but for now, I am
suggesting as individuals, we commit to God with a fresh approach at Christian
genuineness. We must learn to admit our deceitful approach to God, to ourselves
and to like-minded others. We must learn to face who we really are.
[more to follow]
