When We Lie

Lying, Liar, Lies

If mere humans may have things abominable to them, mine is lying. I hate it in nearly all forms: commercial advertising and political propaganda, of course, as well as even when people doing good things feel compelled to pretend they are flawless: that the rotten thing they just did is required by that good thing they’re doing, for instance, or that they didn’t do the rotten thing at all.

There is no I don’t know which is worse there, because it doesn’t matter. Both are lies.

Alas, there are children in this house, and also we grown-ups in it occasionally venture into the world of other putative adults, which are to say that we get a lot of lies.

And it’s still strange to me in many cases, especially the times involving children — because there are usually multiple systems both human and the mechanical in place to catch them. I mean what the hell are they thinking?

Well, that’s half right. Hell’s involved, but they probably aren’t thinking, at least not well. Internet filters are watching, as are adults — slightly less reliable than software, but far more experienced at being human, which means we were kids, which means we know what the hell they’re thinking.

Still, it’s encouraging that they’re not thinking, as is the foreignity of the falsehood. It’s good when it’s strange because it means we retain hope — modicum … smidge … whatever. There is yet faith.

*

Only two things can happen when we lie. One is we get away with it. One is we don’t.

If we don’t, we may suffer consequences. To take again the example of kids, they often get punished more for disobedience also involving deception. They are less like to be trusted each successive time. If they don’t stop, they will be come dishonest bastards. There’s a lot of downside.

If we do ‘get away with it’ we also suffer. We think we don’t because we get what we wanted — the sweet slake of sin — and there may even be little or no quick or immediate response. It might take a few days for the lie to come to light, or parents have grown too weary to do any real good, or, if it’s been a long slog of subterfuge, both. But even in the worst case, where the least good is done, the parents know, and God knows.

That is to say, the liar has slimed the one or two human people in his life who care the most about him, who want the most for him, who will be one of his only sanctuaries when the world lies back at him, not to mention the one God who is even more of each of those things. So really we never get away with it. God knows. This is said to carry no weight in the world these days. But many people who say so are also known to … lie.

And then there is that pesky Natural Law, which says the truth will out.

One of my favorite speakers is Dr. John Mark Reynolds. He is also a philosopher, theologian, and university provost, but I like him most and know him best for his speaking. Once he asked an audience why, if forces of evil ever overthrow the government of the United States, why he asked us, is that effort destined to fail, those forces destined to fall?

We guessed and guessed and guessed, our flailings focused around troop strengths and covert intrigues and other men-and-chariots concepts.

No, he said. It will fail because it’s false.

Bam, as some of the kids used to say.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.

The truth will out. Lies fail.

If you’re five years old, the slime squirms out from between your crossed fingers in less than the time it took you to gather it up into them. If you’re twenty-five, an adult say, you may get a little longer. If you have an army, the Soviet Union say, the lie might last nearly a century.

Woo Woo.

Of course John Mark is also a father, and a grown-up operating in the big good world, so he sees a lot of lies. Prolly has engaged in it himself a time or two. Men doing good things you see, are not unflawed.

Whatever we may claim.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

The Simple Art of Murder (Excerpt)

Raymond Chandler In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not

Read More »

Around the House

One night I watched about half of “Extreme Makeover: Personal Edition.”  Or something like that. It was about body renovations instead of housing, which is an interesting way to extend the brand.  I can’t help wondering if as they pitched the idea a guy didn’t say, “Heh, heh — fat people … house … get

Read More »

The Adult Test

If you have thought — This is dirty This is broken This is wrong And decided to help — Scrub it Repair it Right it You may be an adult.

Read More »

Pas De Duh

Is ballet a sport? The question is asinine in at least two ways. Of course it is, whether one is asking does it qualify as one or simply based on the assumptions implicit in the question itself. To put it as stupidly, would a Ferrari fit in my garage? Is Rivendell a better deal than

Read More »

Related

Shock and Appall

Our system is perfectly designed for the results we’re getting. We worship wealth and crave power. We have a job called “celebrity” and wink at vulgarity and reward villainy. We admire brashness. We randomly excuse or excoriate peccadilloes: depends on the news cycle, the fame or infamy possible, and the money and status of those involved.

Read More »

Less Is More

I don’t know. What happened next? So, so beautiful. This is why. You like me. This is it. Red White Blue What the fuck? What if we … Why should I? God is love. Show me how. I love you. See you later. Yes, yes, yes! I’m leaving you. Please don’t go. I was wrong.

Read More »

Un Success Full

Thomas Merton was asked once to contribute to a book on success — specifically a statement of how he’d achieved it in his own life. I replied indignantly that I was not able to consider myself a success in any terms that had meaning to me. If it happened that I had once written a

Read More »

All Things Considered

This could go a couple different ways. An image likes could be Veteran’s Day, it’s not, or Memorial Day which, though closer, it’s not. Could be about a song (actually a poem) I found only a few months ago or an automatically somber meditation on mortality that’s begun before you’ve even begun to read …

Read More »