The truth will set you free, but first it will hurt your feelings.
-- Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems from “What Matters Most: Ten Lessons in Living Passionately from the Song of Solomon”

Everybody wants the truth. Aunt Esther testified that the truth would set you free, “oh Glory!” Harry Truman said he never gave them hell, he just told them the truth and they thought it was hell. Thoreau asked for truth over money, fame and love; and Gandhi believed that knowledge of the truth made you a soldier. But, be honest, when we get the truth – the cold, hard, unpleasant truth – we call it unfair, a lambaste, disconcerting, and a bold-faced lie. Then we sulk our way back into our shells because now our feelings are hurt. Maybe we shouldn’t have asked for the truth.

See, most of the time, the truth will put you on blast. It shows itself like a beacon atop a mountain and seeks to unwrap the layers surrounding you, making you shiver, holler, and sometimes recoil after each peeling.

Truth requires you to examine the taut wrappings that have kept you from really experiencing life and its abundances. It demands that you tackle the fears that have caused sullenness and frustration to rule your life. Like truth opening up reveals how the fear of being alone causes you to keep the radio and television on all night and repeatedly entertaining any Tomisha, Dick, and Harriet in your personal space just to feel cared for and valued while they bleed you emotionally dry, truth coming out exposes your fear of commitment, making you have to carry out your own trash, change your own oil, and wrap the covers tightly around yourself each night while you hold on to a 30 year-old teddy bear. Likewise, the truth coming down lets slip your fear of success and how mediocrity have kept you under the foot and command of a boss, a 9-5, and a paycheck that never even covers the minimum and leaves you worried about answering the phone without checking the caller ID first. Truth is freedom, but it may have to hurt your feelings and put you on Front Street in order to become the standard.

But what if you never gave in to truth? What if you just went through life wearing blinders and never acknowledging that you live under lies or what you believe protects you from reality? Would life really be worth the effort?

If you really want to be free to live, love, create, advance, and improve, isn’t the pain of having your toes stepped on, hand slapped, and covers removed worth it? Truth may not feel good coming down, but when it’s on you, around you, and is you, truth brings to light a pretty hardy and beautiful you.

So, lick your wounds; put a little balm on the bruise. Get to the truth and get free.

Sadiqqa © 2007