Honor your mother and father.
Rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? And yet how good are we at following this command?
For many years, I saw my mother as shallow and my father as distant. But lately, I’m seeing them more clearly. My dad ran a business. For decades he worked 6 1/2 days a week. My mom raised me and my brother and sister and did the books for the business.
Here is today’s epiphany:
I never heard them tell a lie. A lot of things happened in my family and a lot of things didn’t happen. But, every day a thread ran through it…….the truth. If my mom or dad said something……it would never have crossed my mind that it might not be true. You can say that that was the 50’s and that things are different now. But, are they? Has the truth gone away…….or possibly become unfashionable?
Watch TV tonight. You will see instance after instance where a well crafted lie is used to reach a goal. And the scary part is that this is presented as a positive thing. We even have a term for someone who strives to tell the truth and do the right thing. We call him a “Boy Scout”…………and this is not a complement. Telling the truth is often seen as evidence of naivety or lack of sophistication………or just plain stupid. We entertain ourselves by watching people lie and kill each other for hours every evening…….every day. We see that the best tool for solving a complicated problem is a handgun.
Just this week I heard a science based show on NPR that pretty much said that we should abandon the idea of truth. They said nothing is absolutely true, it’s all a question of probability.
And that doesn’t even come close to what we see on the “news” and what we hear from our leaders. Our leaders and the talking heads on our TV carefully edit the facts and present us with just the data that supports their agenda…….all in the name of promoting “the greater good”. They honestly believe that what they are doing is noble.
Is it any wonder that we have lost our mooring?
Is it any wonder that we have mass shootings?
Is it any wonder that we need web sites to tell us about the lies that other web sites tell us?
Is it any wonder that Facebook and Twitter block posts that don’t align with their agenda?
Here is an exercise for this week:
After dinner, turn on your TV. The first time someone tells a lie……the first time someone is killed…… the first time someone uses a gun to “solve” a problem……..the first time a talking head presents a “fact” that sells some political agenda…….turn it off.
You should have a good book handy……because I can guarantee you that you are going to need it. Or maybe you could go out into the yard and play with your kids…..or an even more radical move…….talk to them. Tell them the truth. Don’t lecture them about your politics.
We worry about the time our kids spend on their computers, cell phones, and tablets. But I can make a good case that what we adults consume on TV is far more destructive than “Roblox”.
Don’t lie
God