Monday, January 2, 2012

Being Truthful 366: The Mirror of Truth

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.
~Francis Bacon, Sr.

Wouldn't you know it that 2012 is a leap year so I have one extra day to work at being truthful! (I will probably need the extra practice.) I started out my year of truthfulness and so far so good, but then I only been home and gone to church services. I will say that making a promise to be truthful is like looking myself in a mirror examining everything I say for any speck of untruth all the time. This could be a very long year.

I am not sure I like what is being reflected back at me now, but then lies do reflect back on us all. Maybe, I just cleaned up that mirror so that I have a clearer view of the things I really did not want to see. Yes, it is going to be a very interesting year and one I hope brings some serious and lasting changes in me. For any such change to begin, I have to be truthful with myself, brutally truthful...well, maybe it just feels brutal.

Speaking of mirrors in a differing light, I have noticed that my daughter is often mirroring the things I do. She has been correcting me--not that I correct myself, but that I am often correcting her. She is also correcting her father, which he does not tolerate at all. We both came from an era when it was considered disrespectful for children to correct or argue with their parents. Although her generation seems to be encouraged to do both, she is not being raised in schools but by her very involved, homeschooling parents.

I do encourage discussion, but not disrespectful behavior. I explained to the Princess last night, again, that she will be corrected by her father and me, because we are teaching parents all the time. There is no school bell and class is never over. However, she is not to correct us--at least, not all the time, over everything. We would probably be more lenient if she would just back it off a bit, although we did not tell her that part. However, the poor girl may be the victim of genetic engineering, because I was like that with my own mother, probably worse...to be truthful.

This mirror of truth is already beginning to make me feel uncomfortable and I have 365 days to go.

~ My Lord, help me to see what I reflect in the mirror of Your Truth and become more truthful. ~