MIA: The Truth

John 8:32:And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Simon and Garfunkel from the song The Boxer:  Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

If someone were to ask me what I seek in a relationship, the first word out of my mouth would be "honesty".  The second would be "respect".  The two go hand-in-hand.  A relationship founded on untruths, whether they be lies of omission or commission, robs both parties of making life decisions based on what is real.  Real is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth". Lying (the act of telling untruths) happens for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is that it says, "I don't respect you enough or trust you enough to tell you the truth about a situation because I'm selfish.  I'm ashamed.  I'm afraid.  I don't want to take responsibility for the truth."  Me, me, me.  It is difficult to reason with that.  People who are so steeped in themselves don't see (or care?) about what they do to others.  If they can lie to you, they can cheat on you and steal from you and treat you, otherwise, as if your needs and desires are secondary to their own.  

Reasons for lying are many:

1.  To avoid punishment.  Children will lie about their misdeeds in order to escape the wrath of Mom and Dad that will surely come if they tell the truth about what they did.  This is the immature brain speaking.  Parents are much less likely to be angry with a child who fesses up to wrongdoing than with one who will look them in the eye and lie.  (Been there.)  A prisoner of war will lie because his captors require it, and the punishment for not complying can be swift and treacherous.  These lies are forgivable in the right circumstances.  Caught by the police with drugs in your car?  The traditional answer--and one the police hear many times a day--is "It isn't mine.  I didn't put it there.  I don't know how it got there."  The same as for driving drunk.  "I only had a couple of beers."    

2.  To save someone else's feelings.  As altruistic as this sounds, telling a woman that her jeans don't make her look fat when they do gives her false information on which she bases her future decisions about those jeans, that style, that fad...whatever.  There are ways to tell the truth without hurting feelings.  If I asked my mother if she liked something I was trying on to purchase, all she had to say was, "It doesn't do anything for you."  That didn't mean I was fat or stupid or even that she didn't like it.  She was saying that it wasn't flattering to me.  (Even with the perfect body and the pocketbook to buy whatever you want, some articles of clothing just don't work right you.  Fact of life.)  It saved an argument and a lot of feelings.  Before you lie in order to save someone else's feelings, consider whose feelings you are really trying to protect!

3.  To save face.  Humiliation is an extremely powerful factor in the lives of humans.  Hundreds of times a year, people will commit suicide rather than face the consequences of something shameful that they have done.  Murder followed by suicide is a common occurrence.  That's how strong an impulse saving face is!  If humiliation equals willingness to die before facing the music, imagine how hard people will work to prevent others from discovering the truth in a less-than-suicidal situation.

4.  To convince others to think the way that you do.  Here's where things get iffy.  The Internet--and in particular, Facebook--is rife with people posting memes with quotes and statistics (mostly political in nature), but they post these things without researching to see whether or not they are true.  In that regard, I have become a source of irritation for many of my FB friends.  

Addressing #4 here, when I see a meme that quotes someone that people like or respect, I research to see if it is accurate.  Honestly, 90% of the time, it isn't.  The quote wasn't said by the person pictured, or it was doctored and undocumented...or just plain made up.  Yet people post it as if it were truth.  When I call them on it, they respond that they just liked the idea...or they didn't trust the research I did...or were directly quoting from biased websites.  (I've been a de-bunker since early childhood.  Even my mother called me "Peggy De-Bunker.)  Worse yet, when these things are posted, sooo many people believe them as Gospel without checking first.  If I'm going to post something that has my name on it as the poster, I want it to be true and accurate.  Someone's opinion is someone's opinion, but posting a quote attributed to George Washington needs to be accurate since people place some semblance of honor to what the father of our country said.

So...what if you suspect you know the truth, or really do, yet are being lied to?  If you ask the liar if he/she did the deed you are questioning, that gives him/her another opportunity to lie.  You may think you are giving him/her a chance to come clean, but more often than not, it just creates more drama. More lies.  You want to believe.  It helps you to believe.  But when the real truth comes crashing down, you are more hurt than ever because these lies are coming from people you love.

My problem right now is not that I am being lied to by family but that I am being lied to by politicians.  The truth doesn't matter any more.  Donald Trump, for example, has been caught in dozens of lies, yet his followers deflect and deny and are convinced that the rest of us who don't support him are "sheeple". If the truth is no longer important, then our lives in the United States mean nothing.  Load the courts with judges that think as we do.  Don't consider the international ramifications of closing borders and rejecting immigrants. Discount women as trophies.  Further victimize the victims.  Mock the disabled.  Say the words with no understanding behind them, then sit back and watch the ignorant among us respond in kind.  I'm scared, boys and girls.  I'm really, really frightened.  

I had a beloved aunt, once, who was so stubborn that there was often no reasoning with her.  She said Mattoon, IL, was north of Chicago.  We told her it wasn't.  She insisted...so a map was produced to prove the point.  She said the map was wrong.  And that's what we are dealing with in today's world.  The truth is missing or ignored.  What is the source of your truth?  How much do you value it?  Whatever happens in the future depends on how you deal with it now.

I'm trying to find truth in my own life, so the challenge I make is not all about everyone else, so God bless you in your quest!