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I remember a line
in a movie, "We must tell the truth or we will hurt each
other." It is just as true that we will hurt ourselves. One of my recent
selections in a book club was a novel, "Circlen of Grace." No
book or story could more perfectly show the truth of these sayings. Grace was one of
four women in a lifetime friendship. They agreed at graduation to pass
around among themselves a "circle journal" to keep each
other informed about what was going on in their lives. Grace led a
lackluster life and each time when she received the journal and read about
the successes and enchanting lives of her friends she would make up
things to make her own life appear more glamorous. Then Grace became
terminally ill and knew if she wrote the truth in the circle journal,
her friends would come and visit her and see that she had been lying all
the years of their friendship. She desperately
needed friends in this final challenge of her life and took a chance and
told all the truth. She admitted living a drab life with no
significant and successful romantic relationships. The reauty of the
situation was that her truth-telling helped all the other women
admit they, too, had embellished the truth of their own lives. As they all just
told the simple truth about their lives, a great healing took place.
They were able to support each other, to hug and cry and release long
pent-up feelings. It made their friendship real for the first time. When we lie about
who we are and where we are, those who love us are deprived of a chance
to pour the oil of their love into the wounds and bruises and pains of
our life. Every year I live
I see more profound and helpful power in the words of Jesus, "The
truth will set you free." Someone has said the truth will indeed
set you free but it can make you quite miserable for a while, like a
nasty-tasting dose of a healing medicine. Take Jesus at his
word and start telling yourself the bare truth about your life. Talk to
yourself and say, "Listen self, here is what is going on and we can
only release the power of truth as we admit it." I remember what a
dose of medicine was it was for me to read Brad Blanton's "Power of
Radical Honesty" (www.radicalhonesty).
I came to see that telling the truth to myself and others really could
set me free from the chains of a phony life. I think that is
exactly what Jesus was talking about. Dalton's website
is www.daltonroberts.com
and his writings are gathered at www.ipsfeatures.com.
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