June 23, 2008
Liar, Liar
I have an aunt (now deceased) who was honest, but not truthful. She’d never dream of cheating anyone out of anything, but she’d lie when it would have been just as easy to tell the truth. I have a low tolerance for people who lie, but I often overlooked my aunt’s lies because they came from a reality she created in her own mind. It was aggravating though. The minute you believed what she said, you shouldn’t have, but if you didn’t believe her you should have. At a recent conference I attended a session on ‘ethics’. The speaker said, “A liar is someone who doesn’t tell the truth when he has the opportunity.” Ouch! This shoe fits whether it’s in our personal life or in our Christian walk.
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Gail;
-----Frankly, I don’t like to make a distinction between my personal life and my Christian walk. I am alive and functioning in the physical world, having been made spiritually alive in the Lord. When I do wrong, I want the Lord to see and be there, because I know He is a friend and Father who will correct according to the nature of my errors, as He sees them. So, whether I am diddling at work, spouting obscenities under my greasy pickup, or consoling a hurting soul with the wisdom of Proverbs, I see it as all just one “me” so that over time the good can get better and the worse can get gone.
-----Otherwise pressures build up inside to explain the parts of the self which do not align with what we know we ought to be. In response to those pressures, the craftiness of the mind will introduce slight distortions to the way we perceive things. Those distortions will not only effectively relieve the inner pressures, but they will also remove our attitudes and perceptions a step from reality, which condition itself will produce more distortion. We call these biases. Without deliberate intervention, the level of these biases will tend to reach an equilibrium with the biases of everyone else around us.
-----But almost always people will either intervene to reduce their own level of bias, or to increase it. It is when one sees an advantage in them that he will work to increase them. From a resulting, fooled state of mind he can find blessing to speak seemingly inconsequential inaccuracies, like, “Yes honey, that dress looks wonderful on you,” when he sure well knows it shows every stitch of her panty lines. And it would almost seem a reasonable response, understanding the fat lip he would accrue at any mention of those panty lines. Telling the unabashed truth is often dangerous, and most all of us lack the diplomacy to soften it without leaching the honesty from it. So we buy into myriads of falsehoods to seemingly protect ourselves and the ones we love, especially in such an economically and politically charged society as is ours. It is when one intervenes to reduce his own level of bias that he begins to appreciate the breadth and depth of the intricacies God has created in His creatures. It is when life becomes warmer and fuzzier, danger comes closer, and adventure acclimates to the wholesome.
Love,
Steve Corey
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