My existence emerges quite often in the middle of the night;

Sometimes I bring anxiety; Frequently, I induce unrealistic fright.

Oftentimes I’m an instant reflex of a web of grave deceit;

Many feel I can be eradicated by disclosure; Allbeit revealed most indiscreet.

I was borne when humans went against their true natural flow . . .

I quickly grew enormous from false judgments which were sowed

Into the conscious being as a way to tame the actions

Of any action committed without perceived fair karmic reactions

Many occasions my existence is sparked by the master manipulators

Who use fictitious sliding scales of love as unloving validators

"If you love me you would do this; You wouldn’t do this if you knew . . .

I would never do such nonsense; because of the love I have for you.

You would go along with my way if you were down for me and true"

I’m sure you’ve heard these statements; perhaps you’ve said them too.

Know your self and love yourself and you won’t fall into the ageless trap . . .

Of the Master Manipulators who will trick you to take the rap

For anything that goes against your true heart in the name of loveless love…

And continue with the punishment until they rise abreast of and above…

The manipulation that was taught to you and for which you practice too

When you ask more from another than you know you would honestly want to do

I arise when spirit, mind, and actions are not on one accord

I bring traumatic injury to the mind; I cause such destruction; you can’t afford…

To keep me in your presence; as I’ll reek havoc on the spirit and the flesh

I’m the reflection and a reaction of being untrue to self – and perceived selfishness

Who am I . . .   (click below for riddle answer)

I’m the unwitting Spirit of Guilty Consciousness

There is really no such thing….  Who is the prosecutor, jury, and judge. And… who gives the sentence?  We have the power of free will.  We are responsible for each and every decision we make or think.  To thine own self be true; when we are, truth will prevail and the false illusion of guilty consciousness will disappear into thin air.

~By CordieB.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Quote for the Day: 

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

~William Shakespheare

As always, Peace, Light and Love. . . .

Let us drop the stones of revenge and try a new approach... forgiveness - by Anit@_M

 Now just because we forgive someone does not mean that we should allow anyone to continually hurt us. It means that we release them from the anger, resentment, and bitterness usually associated with an unforgiving spirit. It means that we love them, in spite of….. We love them whether they are in our lives or out of our lives…just like the father loves the prodigal son.  In order to conjure the spirit of forgiveness, we must first conjure the spirit of godly love and compassion. The spirit of godly love (agape) “compassionate love” will get us much further in our relationships than the spirit of being in love (eros) “passionate love.” You see in the spirit of eros love, with it’s swirling emotions and drama, we don’t actually actively love our beloved; rather, we find a desperate emotional need for our beloved to love us.  Although, the spirit of eros in a relationship is important, as it makes the relationship, exciting and exhilarating, these feelings ALWAYS dissipate unless they are accompanied by the spirit of agape love.

So if there is something that you feel unforgiving about your beloved today, try to summon the spirit of agape love and harness compassion, not only for your beloved, but also for yourself.    This is the spirit that 50-year old anniversaries are based upon!  You might be surprised how much better you will feel about your beloved, but even more so, about yourself!

Quote for the Day:   "There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” – Bryant H. McGill -

Later this week, I will give some ideas on harnessing the spirit of agape love….and I appreciate any input or comments you may have.  Until then…

Peace, Light and Love, CordieB.

Afro American Girl literally by ~madhatter-asylum on deviant ART

As I was going to see Saint I’s

I met a woman by big surprise!

Who shocked me when I realized

That she was not as saintly as she’d surmised

As I was going to see Saint I’s

I met a woman who’d cheated and lied

Who’d broken many promises in life . . .

and caused hearts to break; causing toil and strife

As I was going to see Saint I’s

I met a broken-hearted woman with blackened eyes

Who’d allowed destructive relationships to take its toll

On her body; her mind; damn near her soul!

As I was going to see Saint I’s

I met a woman with many nights of cries

Though many were brought upon herself . . .

she often blamed Saint Someone Else

As I was going to see Saint I’s

I soon become to realize

how Saint I’s choices help prophesize

her destiny and life’s Karmic reprise

As I was going to see Saint I’s

I begin to forgive past and future hurts and lies

I forgave Saint I’s for her saintly disguise

To Saints lack and fear, I gladly said my goodbyes

As I finally arrived to see Saint I’s

I met Saints Love , Forgiveness , Courage, Truth and Wise

Five beautiful spirits; in motion; yet spiritually still

These saints introduced me to Saint "Free Will "

As I was getting to better know Saint I’s

I became increasingly mesmerized by her changed demise

Forgiveness of self and others helped her to arrive and arise

Courage and Truth began to replace those fears and lies

Love began to clear up those bloodshot eyes . . .

In time Saint I’s lost her Saintly hood

Life started flowing like God intended it should

Her cup ran over with a cloudy, yet rainbowed sky

Thus, she dropped the Saint and became simply I

Love, Hatred, Courage, Fear, Truth and Lies . . . .

How many were going to see Saint I’s?

~Written by I (CordieB)

New Years Eve, 2005

“You can always learn something from the neighborhood drunk”
~CordieB. 

I visited my sister yesteday.   When I walked in, I could sense something was wrong.  

She said, “I’ve got some bad news to tell you about Tu-Tu.” 

 Tu-Tu is her grandson; my great-nephew.  I sat down, feeling my heart flutter. 

I’m thinking, “Please don’t let Tu-Tu be hurt, be shot…..be dead . . .” 

A million ideas are running through my head. 

Finally, my sister says, “Tu-Tu is in jail.”  

Now, being that I have been accustomed to hearing much worst news in the “hood” I’m actually relieved at hearing this news.  I’m feeling a sense of relief.  Ahh.  .  .  . I can exhale.

I look at her in an evident display of relief and ask, “What’s he locked up for?” 

“He got caught with a gun,” she replied.  

“A gun, what’s he doing with a gun?”

“We don’t know how he got it.  He was pulled over while riding with a friend, and the police checked him, and found a gun.” 

My response, “Oh . . .”  

Now mind you, Tu-Tu is only 15 years old.  The same age as my son.  My next thoughts were, “Boy, I’m glad Sammy wasn’t hanging out with Tu-Tu.”  

During the next hour or two, everyone’s talking about the mechanics of the situation; how Tu-Tu’s best friend was killed about two months ago while walking down the street in broad day light, where Tu-Tu may have found the gun, or how he might have obtained the gun, and on and on.  

Soon, the conversation became slightly amusing to most of the people in the house.  Incidents of this nature have become like second nature; they don’t carry the seriousness that you would expect such bad news to carry, because it’s not as bad as it could be . . .  Events of this magnitude happen all too often, and we’ve become somewhat immune to it all.   We are used to hearing information much more dreadful; so this was like a drip in the bucket.  I’m serious.

Then, in the corner, neighborhood drunk Tyrone looks up at everyone and says, “Ya’ll are talking about this shit like it’s a f….king joke.”  “Ya’ll always pacifying that boy.”  “This sh..t ain’t no god damn joke.”   He starts cussing and giving Tu-Tu’s mother, sister and grandmother a piece of his mind.

Ok.  I’m thinking the same thing; but I wouldn’t dare say it.  Not to his grandmother and definitely not to his mother.  Especially, not after the damage is done.  What’s the point.  I should have said it a long time ago.   Tyrone has been saying it for a very long time, at least everytime he got drunk; and that’s damn near every day.

So, my sister gets really angry at Tyrone.  She tells him to get out of her house if he has to say anything bad about her grandson that she loves so much.  She screams, “You never liked him anyway.  Get the fu..ck out my house.”  

Ok, I’m thinking, ”Somebody put some music on; let’s squash this shit.”

My daughter quickly puts on some music, and the conversation started to flow back to normal voice tones; everyones laughing and socializing like always.

Ok.  Today as I sat contemplating on calling my sister to ask her how the arraignment went, I’m thinking.  .  . .

You know,  Tyrone, the drunk, is a good, good friend to my sister.  We often times dismiss Tyrone the drunk, because he stays drunk so much.  But mind you, he may be a drunk, but he’s the only one, from family to friends, who has been speaking the truth to my sister. 

Everyone else has been hush hush about these types of situations.  We don’t want to cause any trouble–we don’t want to rock the boat; and we don’t want to start an argument.  But, had we stepped in some time ago and given some advice in a sober, caring and truthful manner, then Tu-Tu might be a free young man today. 

And so it’s like that so often in life; we keep closed mouth to that which we should speak up about–simply because the situation does not effect us directly, we are afraid, or we don’t want to get in other folks business.   We watch our neighborhoods go from sugar to shit, because it’s not our child, not right in our block, or we may even be afraid.  Or,  it only happens on the other side of town.  We watch our young people doomed for failure; but since it’s not our sons or daughters, we don’t bother to intervene.  Since it’s not happening right out side of our doors, we don’t stick our nose in it.  Sometimes we convince ourselves that we would be puting our lives at risk.  Or worst, we believe we can’t make a difference, so why bother.  What a shame. 

Shame on me.

There are persons in this world, who  are resentful of the happiness of others, just as if happiness would harm them. Besides, they consider themselves as the only ones who deserve all goodness and make out of their own lives a tragedy of frustration and misery. And why all this happens ? Is perhaps that the person does not have capacity or abilities ? Not quite, the person might have a great capacity of intelligence but what truly happens is that there is no spirituality, there is no commitment to Peace and Love. There is, instead, an inner torment of loneliness and anxiety, for the simple and direct fact of envy…

This is an addiction, a terrible compulsion, which lacks love and which also  ignores the effort of others, while not wanting to recognize what is obvious since all effort has merit and is an achievement. The envious person has not open her heart, he/she is blind because of the terrible incapacity of valuing and respecting; this is a very lonely life,  with great confusion and small consciousness. True spirituality promotes emotional and psychological values since spirituality does not admit hypocrisies, arrogance, pride and self deceit…

Then, every one who is not happy has  to know that the reason is that he/she does not love, does not miss the need of a human family, of a universal family. But this can change, this must be overcome, this lack has to be faced, it is necessary to win over evil and search for goodness.  It is essential to exercise and practice the spiritual life, not as doctrine of loneliness , but as a living practice of communion and universal union.  Since, not being happy is path of destruction and death, total abandonment; let’s learn to leave behind, all motives, causes and reasons which are not truly reasons of life and let’s walk the path of happiness, of peace and let’s search for prosperity for all, this is truly humanism, and is spiritual consciousness.

By Mistical Healing Art

There are people who walk around in grown-up bodies who are not adults.  Often they are people of advanced age and accomplishment.  They can be people you trust with your life and worldly possessions.  You may leave your children in their care.  In fact, if you are not observant, you may find yourself sleeping with one.  Because you are unaware, you expect these grown-ups to act in an adult manner.  Then, in a moment of dire need, when you you least expect it, you discover that this very grown-up person has no concept of what it means to be an adult.  The results can be quite mind-boggling! 

An adult is a person who is able to accept total responsibility for themselves and their actions.  They don’t employ excuses to cover what they have done or not done.  An adult is a person who is not afraid to say what is on their mind and say it without attacking you.  Adults have a sense of clarity that will keep them calm.  Adults will give themselves the benefit of the doubt, knowing that they are human.  Because adults accept and acknowledge their own humanness, they can accept and acknowledge yours.  Adults do not strive for perfection.  They see things as they are and accept them.  Adults do not fall apart in the face of disappointment.  They answer frustration with patience.  Adults know how to take care of their physical, mental and emotional needs, and they are able to put their needs aside in order to handle an emergency.  An adult is a person whose attention is not totally focused on their wants and needs.  God gets some attention, the adult gets some, and you can have the rest. 

Until today, you may have been confused about the difference between a grown-up and an adult.  Just for today, spend some time examining yourself to ensure you are developing adult quaities and behaviors.  ~From Iyanla Vanzant – Until Today

Sister Shirley Buxton http://shirleybuxton.wordpress.com/ blogged recently on the confessions of Mrs. Marion Jones on her use of steroids. My father advised me at a very young age, “What a wicked web we weave, when first first we try to deceive.” I’m sure that Ms. Jone’s confessions sincere, and pray that the public will show her mercy.

One of the commentors, Anna, provided an insightful link to an essay on lying, which I would like to share.

The Ways We Lie – an essay by Stephanie Ericsson

 The bank called today, and I told them my deposit was in the mail, even though I hadn’t written a check yet. It’d been a rough day. The baby I’m pregnant with decided to do aerobics on my lungs for two hours, our three-year-old daughter painted the living-room couch with lipstick, the IRS put me onhold for an hour, and I was late to a business meeting because I was tired. Itold my client that traffic had been bad. When my partner came home, his haggard face told me his day hadn’t gone any better than mine, so when he asked, “How was your day?” I said, “Oh, fine,” knowing that one more straw might break his back. A friend called and wanted to take me to lunch. I said I was busy. Four lies in the course of a day, none of which I felt the least bit guilty about. We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy institutions. Like most people, I indulge in small falsehoods and still think of myself as an honest person. Sure I lie, but it doesn’t hurt anything. Or does it?I once tried going a whole week without telling alie, and it was paralyzing. I discovered that telling the truth all the time is nearly impossible. It means living with some serious consequences: The bank charges me $60 in overdraft fees, my partner keels overwhen I tell him about my travails, my client fires me for telling her I didn’t feel like being on time, and my friend takes it personally when I say I’m not hungry. There must be some merit to lying. But if I justify lying, what makes me any different from slick politicians or the corporate robbers who raided the S&.L industry? Saying it’s okay to lie one way and not another is hedging. I cannot seem to escape the voice deep inside me that tells me: When someone lies,someone loses. What far-reaching consequences will I, or others, pay as a result of my lie? Will someone’s trust be destroyed? Will someone else pay my penance because I ducked out? We must consider the meaning of our actions. Deception, lies, capital crimes, and misdemeanors all carry meanings. Webster’s definition of lie is specific: 1. : a false statement or action especially made with the intent to deceive; 2. : anything that gives or is meant to give a false impression. A definition like this implies that there are many, many ways to tell a lie. Here are just a few.

The White Lie

A man who won’t lie to a woman has very little consideration for her feelings. — Bergen Evans

The white lie assumes that the truth will cause more damage than a simple, harmless untruth. Telling a friend he looks great when he looks like hell can be based on a decision that the friend needs a compliment more than a frank opinion. But, in effect, it is the liar deciding what is best for the lied to. Ultimately, it is a vote of no confidence. It is an act of subtle arrogance for anyone to decide what is best for someone else. Yet not all circumstances are quite so cut-and-dried. Take, for instance, the sergeant in Vietnam who knew one of his men was killed in action but listed him as missing so that the man’s family would receive indefinite compensation instead of the lump-sum pittance the military gives widows and children. His intent was honorable. Yet for twenty years this family kept their hopes alive, unable to move on to a new life.

Facades Et tu, Brute? —Caesar

We all put up facades to one degree or another. When I put on a suit to go to see a client, I feel as though I am putting on another face, obeying the expectation that serious businesspeople wear suits rather than sweatpants. But I’m a writer. Normally, I get up, get the kid off to school, and sit at my computer in my pajamas until four in the afternoon. When I answer the phone, the caller thinks I’m wearing a suit (though the UPS man knows better). But facades can be destructive because they are used to seduce others into an illusion. For instance, I recently realized that a former friend was a liar. He presented himself with all the right looks and the right words and offered lots of new consciousness theories, fabulous books to read, and fascinating insights.Then I did some business with him, and the time came for him to pay me. He turned out to be all talk and no walk. I heard a plethora of reasonable excuses, including in-depth descriptions of the big break around the corner. In six months of work, I saw less than a hundred bucks. When I confronted him, he raised both eyebrows and tried to convince-me that I’d heard him wrong, that he’d made no commitment to me. A simple investigation into his past revealed a crowded graveyard of disenchanted former friends.

Ignoring the Plain Facts

Well, you must understand that Father Porter is only human. —A Massachusetts priest

In the ’60s, the Catholic Church in Massachusetts began hearing complaints that Father James Porter was sexually molesting children. Rather than relieving him of his duties, the ecclesiastical authorities simply moved him from one parish to another between 1960 and 1967, actually providing him with a fresh supply of unsuspecting families and innocent children to abuse. After treatment in 1967 for pedophilia, he went back to work, this time in Minnesota. The new diocese was aware of Father Porter’s obsession with children, but they needed priests and recklessly believed treatment had cured him. More children were abused until he was relieved of his duties a year later. By his own admission, Porter may have abused as many as a hundred children. Ignoring the facts may not in and of itself be a form of lying, but consider thecontext of this situation. If a lie is a false action done with the intent to deceive, then the Catholic Church’s conscious covering for Porter created irreparable consequences. The church became a co-perpetrator with Porter.

Deflecting

 When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff. —Cicero

I‘ve discovered that I can keep anyone from seeing the true me being selectively blatant. I set a precedent of being up-front about intimate issues, but I never bring up the things I truly want to hide; I just let people assume I’m revealing everything. It’s an effective way of hiding. Any good liar knows that the way to perpetuate an untruth is to deflect attention from it. When Clarence Thomas exploded with accusations that the Senate hearings were a “high-tech lynching,” he simply switched the focus from a highly charged subject to a radioactive subject. Rather than defending himself, he took the offensive and accused the country of racism. It was a brilliant maneuver. Racism is now politically incorrect in official circles—unlike sexual harassment, which still rewards those who can get away with it. Some of the most skilled deflectors are passive-aggressive people who, when accused of inappropriate behavior, refuse to respond to the accusations. This you-don’t-exist stance infuriates the accuser, who, understandably, screams something obscene out of frustration. The trap is sprung and the act of deflection successful, because now the passive^aggressive person can indignantly say, “Who can talk to someone as unreasonable as you?” The real issue is forgotten and the sins of the original victim become the focus. Feeling guilty of name-calling, the victim is fully tamed and crawls into a hole, ashamed. I have watched this fighting technique work thousands of times in disputes between men and women, and what I’ve learned is that the real culprit is not necessarily the one who swears the loudest.

Omission

The cruelest lies are often told in silence. —Robert Louis Stevenson

Omission involves telling most of the truth minus one or two key facts whose absence changes the story completely. You break a pair of glasses that are guaranteed under normal use and get a new pair, without mentioning that the first pair broke during a rowdy game of basketball.

Who hasn’t tried something like that? But what about omission of information that could make a difference in how a person lives his or her life?For instance, one day I found out that rabbinical legends tell of another is woman in the Garden of Eden before Eve. I was stunned. The omission of the Sumerian goddess Lilith from Genesis—as well as her demonization by ancient misogynists as an embodiment of female evil—felt like spiritual robbery. I felt like I’d just found out my mother was really my stepmother. To take seriously the tradition that Adam was created out of the same mud as his equal counterpart, Lilith, redefines all of Judeo- Christian history. Some renegade Catholic feminists introduced me to a view of Lilith that had been suppressed during the manycenturies when thisstrong goddess was seen only as a spirit of evil. Lilith was a proud goddess who defied Adam’s need to control her, attempted negotiations, and when this failed, said adios and left the Garden of Eden. This omission of Lilith from the Bible was a patriarchal strategy to keep women weak. Omitting the strong-woman archetype of Lilith from Western religions and starting the story with Eve the Rib has helped keep Christian and Jewish women believing they were the lesser sex for thousands of years.

Stereotypes and Clichés

Where opinion does not exist, the status quo becomes stereotyped and all originality is discouraged. —Bertrand Russell

Stereotype and cliché serve a purpose as a form of shorthand. Our need for vast amounts of information in nanoseconds has made the stereotype vital to modern communication. Unfortunately, it often shuts down original thinking, giving those hungry for the truth a candy bar of misinformation instead of a balanced meal. The stereotype explains a situation with just enough truth to seem unquestionable. All the “isms”—racism, sexism, ageism, et al.—are founded on and fueled by the stereotype and the cliché, which are lies of exaggeration, omission, and ignorance. They are always dangerous. They take a single tree and make it a landscape. They destroy curiosity. They close minds and separate people. The single mother on welfare is assumed to be cheating. Any black male could tell you how much of his identity is obliterated daily by stereotypes. Fat people, ugly people, beautiful people, old people, largebreasted women, short men, the mentally ill, and the homeless all could tell you how much more they are like us than we want to think. I once admitted to a group of people that I had a mouth like a truck driver. Much to my surprise, a man stood up and said, “I’m a truck driver, and I never cuss.” Needless to say, I was humbled. Groupthink Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light? — Maurice Freehill Irving Janis, in Victims of Group Think, defines this sort of lie as a psychological phenomenon within decision-making groups in which loyalty to the group has become more important than any other value, with the result that dissent and the appraisal of alternatives are suppressed. If you’ve ever worked on a committee or in a corporation, you’ve encountered groupthink. It requires a combination of other forms of lying—ignoring facts, selective memory, omission, and denial, to name a few. The textbook example of groupthink came on December7, 1941. From as early as the fall of 1941, the warnings came in, one after another, that Japan was preparing for a massive military operation. The navy command in Hawaii assumed Pearl Harbor was invulnerable—the Japanese weren’t stupid enough to attack the United States’ most important base. On the other hand, racist stereotypes said the Japanese weren’t smart enough to invent a torpedo effective in less than 60 feet of water (the fleet was docked in 30 feet); after all, US technology hadn’t been able to do it. On Friday, December 5, normal weekend leave was granted to all the commanders at Pearl Harbor, even though the Japanese consulate in Hawaii was busy burning papers. Within the tight, good-ole-boy cohesivenessof the US command in Hawaii, the myth of invulnerability stayed well entrenched. No one in the group considered the alternatives. The rest is history.

Out-and-Out Lies

The only form of lying that is beyond reproach is lying for its own sake. — Oscar Wilde

Of all the ways to lie, I like this one the best, probably because I get tired of trying to figure out the real meanings behind things. At least I can trust the bald-faced lie. I once asked my five-year-old nephew, “Who broke the fence?” (I had seen him do it.) He answered, “The murderers.” Who could argue? At least when this sort of lie is told it can be easily confronted. As the person who is lied to, I know where I stand. The bald-faced lie doesn’t toy with my perceptions — it argues with them. It doesn’t try to refashion reality, it tries to refute it. Read my lips…. No sleight of hand. No guessing. If this were the only form of lying, there would be no such things as floating anxiety or the adult-children-of-alcoholics movement.

Dismissal

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I am the Great Oz! —The Wizard of Oz

Dismissal is perhaps the slipperiest of all lies. Dismissing feelings, perceptions, or even the raw facts of a situation ranks as a kind of lie that can do as much damage to a person as any other kind of lie. The roots of many mental disorders can be traced back to the dismissal of reality. Imagine that a person is told from the time she is a tot that her perceptions are inaccurate. “Mommy, I’m scared.” “No you’re not, darling.” “I don’t like that man next door, he makes me feel icky.” “Johnny, that’s a terrible thing to say, of course you like him. You go over there right now and be nice to him.” I’ve often mused over the idea that madness is actually a sane reaction to an insane world. Psychologist R. D. Laing supports this hypothesis in Sanity, Madness and the Family, an account of his investigation into the families of schizophrenics. The common thread that ran through all of the families he studied wasa deliberate, staunch dismissal of the patient’s perceptions from a very early age. Each of the patients slatted out with an accurate grasp of reality, which, through meticulous and methodical dismissal, was demolished until the only reality the patient could trust was catatonia. Dismissal runs the gamut. Mild dismissal can be quite handy for forgiving the foibles of others in our day-to-day lives. Toddlers who have just learned to manipulate their parents’ attention sometimes are dismissed out of necessity. Absolute attention from the parents would require so much energy that no one would get to eat dinner. But we must be careful and attentive about how far we take our “necessary” dismissals. Dismissal is a dangerous tool, because it’s nothing less than a lie.

Delusion

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. —Eric Hoffer I could write the book on this one. Delusion, a cousin of dismissal, is the tendency to see excuses as facts. It’s a powerful lying tool because it filters out information that contradicts what we want to believe. Alcoholics who believe that the problems in their lives are legitimate reasons for drinking rather than results of the drinking offer the classic example of deluded thinking. Delusion uses the mind’s ability to see things in myriad ways to support what it wants to be the truth. But delusion is also a survival mechanism we all use. If we were to fully contemplate the consequences of our stockpiles of nuclear weapons or global warming, we could hardly function on a day-to-day level. We don’t want to incorporate that much reality into our lives because to do so would be paralyzing. Delusion acts as an adhesive to keep the status quo intact. It shamelessly employs dismissal, omission, and amnesia, among other sorts of lies. Its most cunning defense is that it cannot see itself. The liar’s punishment [. . .] is that he cannot believe anyone else. —George Bernard Shaw These are only a few of the ways we lie. Or are lied to. As I said earlier, it’s not easy to entirely eliminate lies from our lives. No matter how pious we may try to be, we will still embellish, hedge, and omit to lubricate the daily machinery of living. But there is a world of difference between telling functional lies and living a lie. Martin Buber once said, “The lie is the spirit committing treason against itself.” Our acceptance of lies becomes a cultural cancer that eventually shrouds and reorders reality until moral garbage becomes as invisible to us as water is to a fish. How -much do we tolerate before we become sick and tired of being sick and tired? When will we stand up and declare our right to trust? When do we stop accepting that the real truth is in the fine print? Whose lips do we read this year when we vote for president? When will we stop being so reticent about making judgments? Whendo we stop turning over our personal power and responsibility to liars? Maybe if I don’t tell the bank the check’s in the mail I’ll be less tolerant of the lies told me every day. A country song I once heard said it all for me: “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

Ericsson, Stephanie. “The Ways We Lie.” 1992. 4 Dec. 2005