|
Today's
quotation:
To
tell a lie in cowardice, to tell a lie for gain, or to
avoid deserved
punishment--are all the blackest of black
lies. On the other hand,
to teach one to try one's best to
avoid the truth--even to press it
when necessary toward
the outer edge of the rainbow--for a reason
of kindness,
or of mercy, is far closer to the heart of truth than
to
repeat something accurately and mercilessly that will
cruelly
hurt the feelings of someone.
Emily Post
|
|
Today's
Meditation:
Is
the truth over-rated? Do we focus so strongly on
getting other people to tell the truth because of our own
insecurities, or because the truth is an absolute good that
everyone should tell, always? Personally, I have trust
issues that developed when I was very young, and as an Adult
Child of an Alcoholic,
I still have them, though I've reined them in pretty
well. The truth is very important to me, but I also
know that it's not always necessary or justified. When
I have someone "demand" the truth from me about
something that truly isn't his or her business because they
want something to hold over another person, chances are that
I'm going to give them an answer that will satisfy them
rather than one based on the absolute truth. If the
truth will harm someone else, I'm going to withhold it or
bend it or even break it in order to protect that person,
when I truly feel that it's necessary to do so.
Of course, I would never advocate lying for the sake of
lying, or for the sake of personal gain. Emily very
rightly distinguishes between those truths that hurt
others and ourselves, and those that have their roots in
mercy and compassion. The difficulty for us is to be
able to distinguish between the two reasons, and not to
rationalize untruths that we want to tell, telling
ourselves that they're okay when really they're not.
It's important that we not get into the habit of lying and
then justifying those lies with even more untruths.
I love the truth, and I do my very best always to tell
it. But I do recognize that sometimes it's going to
harm others, and there's often no need to do that
harm. If I have a student who acted up in class and
I know that child is going to be severely punished for a
minor offense, there's a very good chance that I'll say
the student did nothing wrong--trusting that the student
will learn something important from the incident, and
knowing that it's not always up to me to control
situations. I think that a young person more often
will learn from a compassionate untruth than from a brutal
truth, and I would like always to err on the side of
compassion, even if it may be an error.
|
