I am the most honest liar you could ever meet.
For a long time, I tried not to think of it that way — after all, we all tend to avoid the truth from time to time. The little lies about how we are really doing, what we really think. The fibs about what we want and how we honestly feel.
But the truth is, even the white lies about our weeks matter. And for me, it was just one more way to practice putting on a perfect face. Avoiding the truth was just one more way for me to prove to myself that I was otherwise unworthy of love, as if the very act of being human could make one unlovable.
I happen to excel at lies like this. So much so I’ve even learned to lie to myself.
It is not a difficult craft to master, especially when so much of my work as a reporter revolves around meeting strangers, making them feel comfortable instead, and drawing out the joys and the sorrows they have experienced in their walk through life.
But that is not what journalism is about. It is not what Christianity is about, and as I’ve spent the past three years smiling during interviews, asking politicians, professors, mothers and sons about their work, I’m finally choosing to lay down this hypocrisy.
There is a beautiful quote from Bréne Brown, a researcher and author whose work revolves around empathy and courage: “Vulnerability begets vulnerability.”
How could I possibly ask someone to invite me into their pain if I remain unwilling to do the same? How can I claim the truth of the resurrection and lie about the mold in my mind or the behaviors that make me feel safe or the sin that each one of us wrestles with in the dark night of the soul?
I have decided to stop interviewing my friends when we sit down for dinner just to avoid talking about my week. I want to be done treating my scars as a source of shame instead of a testimony of the deliverance my God has brought to me.
My scars are healing. So am I.
And I hope through all of this, I won’t be the only one practicing this little change.
We are blessed to spend a few short years together on this campus. My only regret about my time at Taylor has been the times I stubbornly refused to ask for help from the people that care about me, lying about how my weekend was “all good, thanks,” when I spent too many hours staring at the ceiling, or putting my head down only to have a panic attack under a table in The Echo office.
I’ve made a lot of family working for this newspaper. I met both the men I now call my brothers on the first day of Echo Training Week. I count my co-editor in chief like my sister. And as I’ve slowly begun to learn the value of honesty, as we’ve shared life together these past few semesters, they have been the ones to teach me that telling stories is a gift.
Being honest with each other is a gift.
To be imperfect is to be human, and to be honest is to welcome someone with the same love and grace that Christ offers each of us. It’s something I’m learning slowly. But I think it’s important.
God loves us as we are. No lies required.
