Granny Sez......

..."always tell the truth, then you don't have to remember what you said!"

A little like Jesus said:  Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Every gathering brings entertainment, you know.  Like the friend who wants to reminisce about a long-ago childhood.  Year by year, that childhood has changed.   (Do you have a friend  like that?)   The birth family that once was dysfunctional, poor, and sent my friend to live with others (not so dramatic as with strangers), has changed.  Over the years, that family has become a model of excellent farming, prosperous, mutually supportive and loving, a pathway for young women to find their way into the Daughters of the American Revolution.  And next year, there will be "enhancements" for every detail.

In my first pastorate, there was a woman who was a certified hypochondriac.  She was always "sick".  Ask her how she feels today;  the answer was always the same:  "Oh, I been sufferin' death!"  And then one day, she got sick.  Real sickness.  No-fooling-sickness.  And she didn't have words to express it, but that was just fine, because no one was asking anymore.  She had found that particular kind of loneliness that follows on never telling the truth.

It's like the folk-story of the boy who cried "wolf" until people quit responding, and then he met a wolf along the road.  Uh oh.

(And in a polarized political climate, all of us meet the people who never stop manipulating, but never remember yesterday's story, which often wasn't true either.  Their conversation is often a collection of bumper-stickers, strung end to end.)

I find that some conversations fade away.   I stop listening to those who are always sick, always fearful, always "pitiable", because often they are just acting out their own need to manipulate the social scene.  Because that filtering is actually the only way to keep open to those who are ACTUALLY living out a real drama, not one of their own inventing.

So, who do you and I listen to?  We like the plain-spoken.  I need the conversation with the one who truly cares about issues, real life, is concerned about the well-being of their neighbor, is celebrating life's conquest of whatever difficulty is met along the way.  I need conversation with the real person.  If we are to deal with real life, real and credible conversation is a powerful tool.  When my friend has conquered, it strengthens me.

 Granny got it right:  just tell the truth, it's so much simpler than trying to remember what you said yesterday!  Just keep it simple, plain, and honest.  (Feel free to copy my Granny and send to anyone you think might not have yet gotten the memo on this!)