Honest thoughts on Honesty, Part I

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. –Oswald Chambers Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Honesty runs so deep in me that the value I give it is more a core part of my being than a decision I make to live it. I refuse to knowingly say things that are false. If my opinion would be unpleasant, I just don't say it, as a way of not being a total jerk all the time.

I can go on and on about how honesty is the most important thing in any relationship, and no matter how unpleasant things are you at least have to face them to move forward. I really believed this for a long time. Part of me still does. But good ol' Hugh Prather, in that book that I said is like my own journal, had some comments about honesty:

"'I must be honest.' 'I must be true to myself.' These words are almost always a preamble to a speech of abandonment or betrayal."

"'I want to let you know how I've been feeling.' But God is Love. To be what we were created to be, we don't always have to give an update on our negative emotions."

"If there's a question whether to say it, don't say it."

That first one about abandonment and betrayal, I understand completely. But I couldn't let it go at that. As I kept reflecting, I realized that the quote applies in situations that cannot be changed. There are some abandonments that are better for all parties. These, of course, are the ones between people in a non-marriage romantic relationship who do not belong together.

And those words about honesty and being true to oneself are just as likely to be a preamble for a confession of love (which of course can feel like an abandonment or betrayal as the speaker seems to be jumping ship on the just-friendship you probably both enjoyed for a while). At the end of season 2 of The Office, an episode I just rewatched, incidentally, Jim just says to Pam straight out, "I am in love with you," and everyone watching gasps (and if they're me, cries a little bit just like Jim) but knows it's a million times better that he said it. That he's a better and braver man for having admitted it to her, even though it's messy and mostly unwanted. Because the alternative is that he forever holds his peace and watches her marry a guy that is a way worse for her and spends the rest of his life wondering what the outcome would have been if he had been honest.

So I do think honesty is important for that kind of thing, if only to not be living a lie and not to create regrets that seem way harder to get over than other kinds of regrets.

Now, about the other honesty. This year for class we had to read La Princesse de Cleves, a really old French novel that has some great (if heartbreaking) passages in it. In typical French fashion, the princess is married to one man but has unbearably passionate feelings for another--she tries not to even be in the same room as him but since they're part of the same court this is often hard to pull off. She really wants to remain faithful to her husband and virtuous.

Pause. Would you tell your spouse about something like this? Like totes having the biggest crush ever on some other person?

Unpause. She tells him and it ruins his life because he is so jealous and upset that he can't get past it, and he obsesses about who it is and then sort of tricks her into telling him (she doesn't want to say) and is swallowed up by hatred when he knows. He falls ill from this distress and dies shortly after.

I'm stuck, here. I don't know whether I think honesty is best. I guess if I go by my other, non-love-triangle truth-telling standards, I think the amount of detail matters. I think you don't have to talk about how often you think of the other person and what they are wearing in those thoughts (jk), but you might be able to be like, "look, I have this awful problem and I want your help if you want us to have a good marriage... I have this temptation I need to resist and I need all the support I can get."

Okay but that was a book. For less ridiculous situations, my conclusions are super boring and along the lines of, "if it's an ongoing issue and it's something they can change, tell them in a nice voice that lets them know you still totally like/love them but you really wish they would change this one thing as a favor to you" or "if it's something they have no control over at all you might do better just to hold your peace about it and pray and seek some kind of refreshment elsewhere, like by chatting with friends who have experienced similar people problems".

Only marriage has that exclusivity thing, but I ultimately think (gulp, what would I know about this? Just guessing I spose) that marriage is more like a friendship than a dating relationship. Dating is about being sexy exciting and having a good time together and proving how neato you are. This might be the whole first week of marriage, but after that it will probably be scattered instances of this sort of thing but mostly friendship (C.S. Lewis once described marriage as plain and businesslike). Friendship is about smaller things that accumulate more over a lifetime, and about enjoying living with people even once you know they have a lot of ways they could improve.

This is long already, I'll save more thoughts for later.

Heart washing

We talked in my church a while ago about Proverbs 3:27, which is something like, "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he," and how what you believe defines your reality rather than the other way around.

Many people secretly fear everyone else is laughing at them silently, or just humoring them by being (or pretending to be) their friend. But fixing this problem won't come from researching ways to avoid ridicule, by being funnier or smarter or faster, but instead by acknowledging that if someone is laughing at you, that's really their decision, and deciding that you will not let real or imagined laughter determine your decisions in life. (Like in my last post: it's not in discovering an answer but in realizing the question needs some work).

In the first ever post of this blog, I said something about how human life is always physically messy. I found something in 1 Peter today that was awesomely related. 1 Peter 3:21 is about baptism: "and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience before God..." In this particular case, action is secondary to thought and intention. The action of cleaning oneself off is less important than the decision to think rightly (think cleanly/clearly?) about the world. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If his body is dirty, but his mind is clean, he is clean.

I've been reading a fantastic book lately (when I have time). Spiritual Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather is like reading my own journal, except often with fresh thoughts I've never had. [side note: His simple statement that it's possible to gossip without malice was a pleasant epiphany for me.] Last night I read, "we spend all this time in the morning trying to look prepared--getting the hair right, the clothes right--but we leave home with our minds in disarray."

He talked about how "our physical appearance and outward behavior are everything to the ego, while the thoughts behind our actions are of little concern. Yet in reality, we dwell in our minds, not our actions [...] On a spiritual path, [...] form is secondary to content. So if I find myself preoccupied with the question of what to say or do, I am already caught up in the ego. Release the question and let God do the thinking. [...] There is no question about an action taken in peace." That might sound a little intense, but I am so with this guy when he says that. I buy it when people say our choices have to come from peace. That's a conversation for another time though. I hope the connection with inner/outer cleanness is obvious. Baptism is important as a representation of the state of the inner mind, not primarily as a physical washing. It's the invisible kind of getting ready in the morning.