"After the extravagant letter came/ I remembered how praise/ can keep you from belonging to yourself..." - Stephen Dunn, "Heaven"
Praise and its partner Blame can separate us from self-truth.
In the fourth grade, my teacher, actually named Miss Croak, gave me a note to take home to my parents. "Mr. And Mrs. Chapman," the note read, "Your son often talks out of turn and disrupts the class." (A prophetic criticism.)
Why should I hand this damning note to my parents? I asked myself as I walked home. Why hand my own death sentence to my dad?
Halfway home, I let the note slip from my hand, as if by accident. I walked five steps, then glanced over my shoulder. The piece of blue-lined paper sat wedged in a patch of ivy.
I felt like Goofy in the Disney cartoon, an angel on one shoulder telling him to do the right thing, the Devil on the other shoulder warning him not to be a fool.
Choosing the "fool's" option I retrieved the note and delivered it to my parents. My dad did not strike me often. But, that night, he broke a yardstick over my rear end.
Telling the hardest truths always brings spankings of one kind or another. How much of our notions of truth have been shaped by praise or punishment? It takes deep belief to hang onto honesty when it burns us both within and without.
Dunn's lines sear us with the truth of how praise can split us away from "belonging to" ourselves.
If our sense of self-worth turns too heavily on the judgment of others, then our internal compass cannot find true north.
Fear tries to promise us that lies will protect our comfort. Calumny drives us to the false safety of cover-ups.
And the typical idea of truth is tragically over-simplified. Truth is never black or white. We learn early how to shade it to our own advantage.
Does the doctor tell the patient his cancer is terminal or limit that news to the family so as to "protect" the patient? How does a first line nurse confess to a supervisor about a medication error - especially if it might not be discovered?
Somehow, we want truth-telling to be easy. We want to be congratulated for our honesty, not driven into exile (as have been a long list of politicians and celebrities.)
It's the gray truth we cultivate, tilling the ground for some explanation that will bring us praise or free us from punishment. As a trial lawyer, I was trained in this craft. It is dangerous training.
Miss Croak was right. I did "talk out of turn and disrupt the class." That truth hasn't changed.
Truth may have shades, but if we try to bend its light, it may well blind us.
The world exiles truth-tellers to a lonely island. The only real company there is God's Love.
-Reverend Erie Chapman
