Consider this/ Einfach zum Nachdenken

Have you ever played this game? It’s a sort of ice-breaker amongst teenagers and involves each participant anonymously divulging an embarrassing moment in his or her life, and the participants then needing to guess who it involved. Some incidents are innocent, such as jumping into the pool and losing one’s shorts in the process; some are more “serious”, such as calling somebody ugly only to find out that it was your future boss; but all prey on the human fact that there are things in our life and history which we would rather not reveal. Why is that? Because we don’t like to look stupid, we want to keep our reputation intact, we have an image to preserve, appearances to keep up. And mind you, some of that is good, because it stems from the instinct of self-respect, a healthy

human trait.

But as with any healthy human instinct, the desire for a good name can run wild; just as the urge for cleanliness can become pathological and lead to neurosis, so can this one. Rather than simply exercising prudence about with whom and when to share our failings, we pretend we have no failings; and we build ever more elaborate edifices to fool ourselves and others.

“Little White Lies” (“Les petits mouchoirs”) is a recent movie which deals with this trait gone

rogue: a set of friends are about to go on their yearly holiday in the south of France. Each carries a wound: an inability to stay faithful in a relationship, a marriage gone stale, an obsessive-compulsive disorder, gay tendencies. What is hard enough to conceal in day-to-day city life becomes a nightmare when you live with your 8 friends for two weeks in a cottage along the sea; which does not keep each of them from trying, and this leads to funny and tragic moments. The only person immune to this theatre is a fisherman who has been their friend for many summers. They all admire him because “what you see is what you get”, he seems true to himself. But change only occurs when tragedy hits…and I better stop here lest I spoil the plot.

Christians have traditionally had a recipe against such silliness, which seems so ingrained in human nature: from the days when hairy monks went to the Egyptian desert to live together, through the days of community life in places as varied as the Italian hills, Bohemian cities or Russian archipelagos, all the way to today, Christians have practiced the art of confession. The details varied, but the basic idea was always the same. Find a person whom you trust, be they a priest, nun, elder, brother, and tell them your little white lie. As you do, it shrivels up: you suddenly realize that what has ruled you has no power of you; as you bring it to the light, you stand in the truth of who you really are and you can start afresh. Therapists and AA groups have taken over these functions, and the effects are often similar. But the first step remains as difficult as ever: owning up to something you are ashamed of.

So as you head off on vacation this summer, should you make a detour to a nearby church or clinic? It might help your recovery process.

# posted by tino @ Tuesday, July 03, 2012