Tuesday, November 8, 2011

There is No Tenderness Behind Your Honesty

How are we to be true to our own sense of integrity while still valuing the integrity in others? How are we to meet the true, self to self? How do we know when what feels like an issue of honesty or integrity or truth to us is really an issue of having our own way? How do we yield the floor without yielding ourselves? How do we hold the floor without blocking the way for others? How can we be to our own 'thine selves' true without damaging the self of others? Is yielding, surrender, the only path of kindness in conflict? 


For me these are still questions without answers . . . 


For I am still a work in progress . . . 


And so I still wonder . . . wrestle . . . and pray . . . 


Lord, help me be kind.


And to borrow from Art Garfunkel, whenever I get too high on my high horse, thinking, well, it's true, I remember Mr. Garfunkel's words of indictment on truth . . . 


There is no tenderness behind your honesty.


Lord, help me be tender.


Amen.

2 comments:

  1. I think the whole world is a work in progress.....Maybe none of us can get there until we all do....maybe when we strive and pray to be more the way we know we want to be we we are some how bringing the whole world along with us....i do not really know very much for sure.....but i do believe there is a way for all this to work out ...inside and outside me...sometimes i just like to take a nap ...thats when i am so grateful for the other people who struggle...maybe they bring me along while when struggle...thanks beth.....ann

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  2. Ann, The idea that we bring each other along resonates - no idea how, but it seems true & real - welcome :-) - next time, I'll nap, ok?

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