Honesty

Honesty keeps cropping up frequently this week.

Today, it was two friends discussing different social functions they had had to attend.

Both felt profoundly uncomfortable. One was embarrassed, the other so overcome by the urge to giggle that she had to leave as soon as she decently could.

The reason for their discomfort was the people they were with. Women with breasts hoisted up to their collarbones; faces lifted, botoxed and tucked up; dressed as twenty year olds, whose sole topic of conversation was the sandals they were wearing. The atmosphere was stifling: all about appearance, maintaining a facade, pretending to be other than who they really were.

My friends are beautiful, elegant women. Both are bright, with a wide range of interests. Both are very honest, real people. Neither could cope with the falsehood underlying the relationships in that particular social set.

Jesus often talked about the dangers of fussing with our appearance and trying to make ourselves look good in front of others, rather than attending to what we are like on the inside. Something to remember.

To be true, to be honest, to deny any appearance of a lie - this is how to live.