Let’s tell ourselves the truth.

Truth for the soul is as important as bread for the body. Even according to the Holy Scriptures, the truth liberates, uplifts, and can calm. We ourselves require and expect it in our ordinary interactions with others. Opinions about truth vary. Thomas Aquinas, the Italian philosopher, and theologian, put it most succinctly in the idea, “Truth is the correspondence of matter and reason.” Our testimony must agree with reality. The opposite is a lie. A conscious or deliberate untruth masquerading as truth. We all have experience with lying. Those who think they are not lying and have not lied are deceiving themselves. Lying is binding. It is a bondage we feel on our souls and our hearts alert us to it.

A lady said to me in a meeting: “Everywhere I go there is insincerity, falsity, and acting out. Everyone is just lying and playing at something they are not.” Lying has permeated all spheres of our lives. Lying is at the origin of getting rich, accompanying us to a career, drawing too much attention to ourselves, or if we want to conceal something so that it doesn’t come out and we suffer shame.

Lying also hurts, it leads us down a path of insecurity, it leads us down a path we don’t want to go down. Both are within us. We often feel our lies suffocating us, and if we are hurt by a lie, pain is added. What would happen if we accepted the words of the Bible? “If you speak, say yes, yes, no, no!” Aren’t these words that warn us how to treat each other so that communication is clear between us and leaves no one in uncertainty or in deception? Maybe we wouldn’t say so much, but we would know where we stand. No one’s conscience would be troubled and no one would feel the pain of lying.