Good morning, God, and thank you for this new day. I hope to make it a good day, one in which I'm able to give to others who are willing to receive! I would like to ask you to stay with me, though, and to help me to stay focused on love and compassion, and not let frustration or any other negative emotions take charge of me or my actions or reactions.
I put that title, there, God, because I'm still very confused about the concept of honesty, especially how it applies to us. In theory, honesty isn't supposed to be a relative term, but in reality it definitely seems to be. If I'm in a store with my wife and she wants an opinion on a piece of clothing, I can tell her what I think if something doesn't seem to fit her. But if she's at home and she's already bought it and she's asking me what I think, then I can't give her the same answer that I would have given her in the store before she bought it. It's a very strange dynamic.
But my major concern is that in our culture, lying is becoming not only acceptable, but even defendable. If I support you and you've been completely dishonest, then I'll defend your words, even though I know that they're not true. I do this to be "true" to you. It doesn't make sense. When should we call our loyalty off and acknowledge the fact that someone has lied, and even call them on that? How can we even think of electing as our leaders people who have blatantly lied, have been called on their lies, yet still present themselves as leaders?
A reply:
Election time is a very good time to have these thoughts, for we see so many people struggling with their ideas of truth, and many people violating their own ideas about it.
In fact, truth can be seen as being much like me: everyone wants you to worship their idea of me, yet few are willing to live up to their own ideas of me. They say that you're wrong if you don't believe as they believe, but their actions very often don't live up to just what they believe in me. Many say that I'm a God of love and compassion, yet show little of either in their lives. But as soon as you fail to show love and compassion, they'll be all over you with their harsh criticism.
Truth is similar. People have their ideas and their ideals concerning truth, and most people would agree that truth is relative, yet as soon as they catch you "violating" their ideals about truth, they're willing to condemn you--even though they violate those same ideals themselves. They just don't get caught by other people.
Truth must be relative. Some people will say that I condemn liars, but I really don't condemn anyone--you condemn yourselves. (But that's a different topic!) There are many lies that I look on with approval. For example, say that you're with a man during his last few moments of life. In that time, he says some incredibly harsh, mean, and vicious things about his wife, who can't be there with you. You're the only person in the world who knows what he says, and later, his wife asks you what he said during his last moments of life. Are you going to be completely honest and tell her, word for word, exactly what he said? Of course not--if you do, then you're just as cruel as he was. But if you say something like, "He wasn't able to talk much near the end, but he did want me to tell you that he loved you very much," you have lied. But it's a lie that feels right, because it's a lie that is right.
I have given you an inner mechanism, a conscience, that is a very good indicator of what's right and what's wrong. You'll know when saying something that isn't true is the best thing for a given situation. In politics, when people lie knowingly to try to hurt someone else, they never feel good about it in their consciences, though their logical minds may tell them that what they're doing is fine. But they're also not being honest with themselves, and that lack of honesty will come back to them. All things that are done with malice come back to those who commit them.
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