Honesty

Honesty has no shades, we are either honest of we are not. However we are accustomed to measuring dishonesty by degrees so we have white lies and whoppers, omissions and commissions, exaggerations and outright falsehoods. Clearly there are degrees of dishonesty but traveling that road is like rushing headlong down a slippery slope. The danger here lies in the fact that there are very few signs along the way to let us know when we are crossing the lines between degrees. 

We have relationships in our life from the most important to the least. We can measure the respect we have for others by how honest we are with them, our self included.  Conversely, dishonesty is both a betrayal of others and our self as well. We cannot be dishonest with others unless we are willing to do so. Further, we cannot choose to be dishonest with institutions and honest with individuals because once the choice is made, once we have lowered our standards, it will affect our behavior with everyone. Dishonesty is choosing to lower our self-esteem to manipulate a desired outcome and the rest is how we express this in our relationships with those in our life. 

With this in mind, why would any of us choose dishonesty? The first act of dishonesty is to convince our self that compromise is of little consequence. Then we allow our self to measure our dishonesty by degrees. We undoubtedly have to make greater compromises as the degree of dishonesty increases but we often do so in stages. Much like crossing a line over which we do not leap but cross by inches so the final step is so small as to appear inconsequential. 

Honesty is our natural state and it exists within us even when we cloud it over with contradiction. Let us imagine a well-ventilated room with a shining light. If we fill this room with enough dark smoke so it cannot escape easily, the reflection of the light will be reduced. We may wish to consider the light is still just as bright but we have dimmed its reflection with the dark smoke. As soon as we stop filling the room with this smoke, the luminosity is restored and the room is again brightly lit. In this way we do not have to become honest, we are honest but we may need to stop shrouding our essential goodness with illusion. 

The illusion giving rise to dishonesty likewise inhibits the life force within each of us and eventually causes discord both mentally and physically. However, by the grace of that infinite tenderness we call God; as soon as we change those attitudes that have brought about the discord healing will begin. For like honesty, health is our natural state, cloaked in discord and eager to resume illuminating our life.