Not fortune telling, not spell-casting, not even name-it-and-claim-it spirituality, but truth telling. We have a shortage of it. From the everyday washing over of a minor indiscretion to the biggest lies, the most heinous deceptions, we try over and over again to trick each other into accepting what we hope will be a better reality, an easier or more advantageous way of seeing the world.
My almost grown children are hearing incredible, destructive lies that are temporarily isolating them from people who love them dearly. And I have started a Truth Journal so that one day, when the time is right and I know no one will interfere, they can hear the truth about things and hopefully feel set free. They both deserve that and so much more.
What lies do you catch? What lies do you tell? What lies do you allow to slip past without making any effort to stop them? I'm not suggesting that we spend our lives combating falsehood; we need to be good stewards of our time and energy and use wisdom to choose our battles. But I wonder how different life would be if, starting immediately, we refuse to settle for untruths.
I found this lovely print on Pinterest.
The original source appears to be
And I am really thinking of the important stuff here, the things that impact our hearts, although knowing for sure what truth lies behind certain advertising schemes or whether aspartame is R-E-A-L-L-Y that bad for me, yep, I'd like to know.
Today I challenge you to join me in facing the worst lies in your life by standing on the knowledge that Truth can overcome them. Love trumps, Love wins, and words matter. Use them wisely and trust that even your thoughts can circle back to you. So make them good and beautiful. Make them truthful.
xoxoxoxo
i've learnt through experience and watching others, that honesty is not always the best policy. as someone who believes so strongly in honesty, this was s difficult pill to swallow.
ReplyDeletehonesty + compassion means that sometimes staying quiet is best.
however, honesty is still my first consideration. i then consider whether telling the truth will actually impact others, the world, myself, in a beneficial way.
Monica, I agree wholeheartedly. Absolute truth is not always necessary, it can be hurtful without cause. I was just thinking of not buckling to abject lies. Sometimes negative inertia causes us (me) to start believing the lies, to feel weak before them.
ReplyDeleteI like your combo of honesty + compassion, that's key.
I also agree wholeheartedly. When it comes to possibly painful truth, I try to evaluate whether that truth is necessary, or helpful. For example, my grandmother has told me there are things about my father I don't know. My father died 8.5 years ago. Is there anything I need to know that will change me? At this point, all I have of him are memories. And so, I choose not to get involved in the truth she wants to share with me. I prefer to have good memories of my father, not questions about the accuracy of my grandmother's truths.
ReplyDeleteThe lies that get me the most are the ones we tell our kids that we think don't matter. Like my colleague who tells her little girls that if they don't do x, the cats are going to get them, or some other monster. Now a child who previously had no concept of fear, is suddenly deathly afraid and you are the one that made it so.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the story about a woman who told her toddler that the new baby's forehead moving up and down (fontanel) was a little froggy that lived inside her new sibling's head. No surprise that the toddler tried to cut it out and as mommy was reversing the car, she failed to notice that the toddler had also come out and she backed over her toddler. She lost both kids.
you never know the ripples of your lies. I simply told my daughter that her milk was finished, she was growing up and we had to pack away the bottles. No monster or cat or dwarf or dog came to get them. She simply grew up. And she accepted it as truth and we never heard anything about it again.
She can trust me. I value that. I value that in all my relationships.
Lies have no value. Except perhaps to delay the inevitable, and often times even make it worse.