I want to tell you a little about myself. In all humility, I have been an extremely honest person all my life. There was an incident as a small child of about 4 years old, when an older girl got me to help her attempt to break into the neighbours house. She picked up a large plank of wood, got me to hold onto one end, and then she began ramming the lead framed glass door repeatedly until all the glass was smashed and the lead frames were bent like a twisted prison door. She then realised this idea was not going to work, so dropped the wood and told me to keep it a secret.
I went home, and for the first time in my life, I had a secret.
I quickly began to feel ill within days, and an increasingly agonising headache overcame me. My mother kept asking what was wrong, and I kept a quiet denial, but eventually I could not keep the secret any more. Weeping my little heart out, I told my mother, and instantly my burden was lifted. My illness melted away, and my headache disappeared. My mother grounded me for a month, but my response wasn’t to keep secrets in the future to avoid punishment. My response was to never keep secrets again, and always avoid doing anything that would require secret keeping. This decision set me apart from my peers quiet drastically, but the ethical framework it built for me has made me an adult with strong convictions to stand up for the Truth.
I learned how to stand up for Truth no matter how many people support a comfortable lie.
Thus I have lived a very honest life. Does that mean my life has been easy? Of course not. In fact, to my surprise the hardest part about living honesty is that no one notices my honesty. Doctors almost unanimously treat me with suspicion, legitimately faulty items are assumed to be broken by me, and selfless gestures are met with suspicion of my motives. In everything, down to the tiniest thing, I am assumed to be a liar by default.
Though the heavens know my honesty, the people do not.
Even people (including family) who have known me for years will turn on me with accusations of deception without evidence. Why would they do that? Two reasons; because people don’t notice your honesty, and because they assume that everyone is equally, if not more, deceptive than they are. So I have learned that;
People who lie easily are the most dangerous to engage with, not because of the deceptions they will use against me, but because they will turn me into the liar and scapegoat to suit their needs.
So why do I continue to be honest? They are all equally selfish reasons, but I believe they are ethically selfish. Firstly, I physically cannot handle secrets and lies, so it is more physically comfortable to be honest. The inner turmoil of bearing the secret psychologically destroys me, and my empathy for the victim is mentally unbearable, so honesty makes my mind more peaceful. It is also a lot easier to live without trying to remember which secrets and lies I need to maintain, and it is very freeing to know that there is nothing that can be “revealed” about me.
I have always felt that everything I do, say or think is being recorded by the universe, even when I was almost totally atheist. Thus, on that day of reckoning, I want to feel like I can face my life review with an open heart. I have done my best to live a clear life, so I can only hope my karmic burden is light.
Honestly, my life has been very hard, and lying could have made certain moments easier in the short term.
However, I appreciate that so many times honesty has paid off, because accusations dissolved upon further investigations, even if it took decades. Still, the best part is being able to move through my life, letting each day disappear into the haze of memory, knowing that I am happy with my choices. I am free from the psychological baggage of guilt and shame, because I live each moment mindfully.
By living each moment well, you have lived life well.
By contrast, a liar makes the moment comfortable by deflecting their pain into the future, where it will only build up until a greater pain befalls them. I am truly sorry for people living like this, because they have created a web of lies that traps them into more lies. The only way out is total humility and honesty.
Face the pain of the truth, and be liberated.
Why would people fear facing the truth? Of course the worldly consequences are scary, but deep down the post-life consequences are eating away at people too. The fear of death grows from this fear of facing the truth. When death comes, God will be waiting to review your life with you, and you already know how that is going to look.
Well, I am here to tell you about a miracle that you can experience for yourself, today if you want to. You can get down on your knees and face God today. Close your eyes, and start to tell God all the secrets and the shame that you are afraid to face when you die. Tell Him now, because He is alive and listening. As you spill out your truth, you will feel like you are dying. The old you, built from illusions will be dismantled until there is no protective shell of deception to protect your delicate, wounded inner child any more. You will fall down, weeping, begging God to forgive you.
The miracle is that God will forgive you, because God loves you. All you need to do is speak the Truth in your heart.
This is rebirth.
You will be reborn anew. You will find you are free. Your soul will soar. Your heart will be free. You will breathe for the first time. You will rise to your feet, grateful for your life. You will know God loves you, because your heart still beats. You will look around and see the world anew. Everything around you is a blessing; the air, the water, the clothes on your back, the roof over your head, the cushion you sit on, the bird that sings, the trees that gently sway.
This is the true meaning of Christ being the Truth. He is literally the Truth. When you speak the Truth, you speak the words of Christ. He is the Way because by following the Truth, we live His Way. He is the Life that you will feel within when you Live His Way of Truth.
Last Hope 