Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday November 21, 2006

Yesterday's letter dealt with the truth that true friendship must be founded on absolute truth about yourself to the person or group with which you intend a friendly relationship.

Years ago I had an opportunity to co-write my life story with a well known writer and certainly a profit would have been realized, which according to Dr. Samuel Johnson is the only reason sane people write anything! A friend, a fellow clergyman, who knew of my background advised me to let the deal pass as revealing incidents about my checkered past would embarrass my friends who had, in imagined kindness 'swept several things under the rug.' Foolishly I followed the advice.

In the ensuing years and the ensuing troubles that seem to come with years, I have learned a valuable lesson about leading with my scars, or to draw from Cromwell, 'be painted as I am, warts and all.'

Over the years I have read all of Charles Colson's books and many of his articles. The man is successful beyond belief in his chosen field, that of helping prisoners and other downtrodden people along the path of life. In all of the publications I have on hand Mr. Colson has saved everyone time by stating his part in the attempt to as one Washington writer said, "Steal the union." He never fails to mention 'Watergate.' He does not want to deliberately deceive anyone about the matter. In today's world, due in large part to the power of the Internet, to think for one moment that you can 'hide' from an intelligent person is to engage in utter folly.

If there were no Internet, no archives of daily papers stored in libraries, if everyone who 'knew' suffered amnesia, the words of Harper Lee, the recluse who wrote, "To Kill A Mockingbird" still ring true in the heart of any thinking person:

"Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

I once visited with a man who was going through very deep water. He pastored a large church and it was getting larger. In an attempt to comfort him I mentioned a 'scar' from his past and told him how much his courage in overcoming this had inspired me. I thought he was going to faint! He said, "Larry, you must never mention that around here. I would be totally ruined if that ever came out." This poor though very accomplished man, had live every day of his thirty some year tenure in near paralyzing fear of a skeleton emerging from a dark corner of his life. Instead of comforting, I sadly discovered that I scared the dear man half to death! The tragedy is that most of people he feared would discover his 'little secret' already knew and loved him anyway. Though he had reached thousands, he probably would have reached thousands more with an upfront showing of the 'scar.' And lived free of fear.

In building friendships it is imperative to let the people you target for friendship see the real you and not a fraudulent version of you.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2006 Use with credit.

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