{"id":3668,"date":"2013-01-24T12:16:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T12:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=3668"},"modified":"2018-07-19T19:58:19","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T19:58:19","slug":"pinocchios-nose-and-the-truth-that-frees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/01\/pinocchios-nose-and-the-truth-that-frees.html","title":{"rendered":"Pinocchio’s Nose and The Truth That Frees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s post<\/a> contained an untruth.<\/p>\n

Last night I went back and read a sentence\u00a0that claimed\u00a0a previous unfamiliarity with the reality that God can meet us everywhere, when in actuality\u00a0I’ve always<\/em> known intellectually that God can meet us anywhere and everywhere.\u00a0 This reality has only become experientially truer in recent days, thanks to this mommy’s potty training ordeal and the discovery that bathrooms\u00a0can be\u00a0a good place for administering pastoral care in the workplace.<\/span><\/p>\n

I corrected the sentence…because writing (and re-writing!) is one way I, knowing I can deceive myself, stay honest with myself and with you…because writing vocalizes those things that I have come to believe are true, at least for me…because writing helps to capture reality in its rawest,\u00a0simplest\u00a0form.<\/span><\/p>\n

You don’t have to be in an “AA” group to acknowledge all the tales we can spin about ourselves and our world that simply are, at the end of the day, falsehoods. \u00a0Maybe\u00a0if church were more like an “AA” group, we Christians would be more truthful and more trustworthy human beings. \u00a0Lately, though, and gradually over the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking more about what it means when Jesus says He is “The Truth.”\u00a0 (You’ll find some of these meditations in my forthcoming book, <\/span>Grace Sticks<\/em>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

If the Psalmist in despair can declare that all men are “liars” (Psalm 116), what does it mean for Jesus to be The Truth that sets us free?<\/em><\/p>\n

The other day I met a woman stuffing envelopes on a warehouse floor with a terrible secret she had carried for nearly four decades.\u00a0 Her first child of four, she told me, had been the product of a rape at age 17 by an older stepbrother.\u00a0 She had kept that traumatic secret all these years for the sake of keeping the peace in her family.\u00a0 She hadn’t even told her own mother.<\/p>\n

“At 17 I had things I wanted to do,” she said to me, in muted anger and lament, her eyes momentarily clouding with tears that she stoically brushed away.\u00a0 Those dreams had been snuffed out overnight.<\/p>\n

For some reason she had told me- and now she wondered, like she had at various times throughout the years, whether at least her mother deserved to know what had really happened that fateful night.<\/p>\n

I wanted this woman to know that she didn’t need to feel ashamed about what this man had done to her- that it wasn’t her fault.\u00a0 I wanted her to know that she didn’t have to keep the family peace- that this wasn’t her duty, if it meant capitulating to a lie.\u00a0 I wanted her to know how strong I knew she was.<\/p>\n

I wanted her to know that The Truth would set her free <\/em>(John 8:32).<\/p>\n

But how does The Truth set us free? What does that look like?\u00a0 Does it mean revealing for the first time a heavy secret that one has carried all one’s life?\u00a0 Does it mean learning to claim The Truth as that which defines us, rather than our most shameful secrets? Does it mean telling the truth no matter the consequences and whatever the fall-out?\u00a0 Does it mean following Jesus and\u00a0simply forgiving? Does it mean putting away any claim\u00a0we might have to\u00a0justice?<\/p>\n

Stanley Hauerwas<\/a> has said that the task of Christian ethics begins with telling the truth.<\/p>\n

For me, dwelling in The Truth means telling my own story as truthfully as I can- and I don’t think this means\u00a0sharing with the whole world in full detail all\u00a0of my\u00a0dirtiest secrets about how\u00a0I have failed or about how others have failed me.<\/p>\n

Maybe The Truth does ask us, however, to share precisely\u00a0those things that have held us in bondage or would claim our allegiance in place of God or would seek through lies to drain the life right out of us…maybe The Truth demands our honesty about these things, so that God and a few trusted\u00a0others can help heal these broken places in our lives and in the lives of our neighbors.\u00a0 Sometimes this step in the direction of The Truth, depending on the circumstances, may require pursuing legal justice.\u00a0 Sometimes it may not.<\/p>\n

In a world of\u00a0lies and\u00a0illusions, it can be easy to despair;\u00a0in the light of One who calls Himself The Truth, I take heart that we really can begin to live more and more as free people.\u00a0 The question is…how, concretely?<\/em>\u00a0 What does it mean that The Truth will set us free, and how do we live like it? Leave your thoughts below.<\/em><\/p>\n

Next up, a continuation of our Jesus Epithets<\/em> series and\u00a0the first\u00a0interview in our series, There’s Power in the Pen<\/em>, with author\u00a0Amy Julia Becker. I hope you’ll keep coming back to this intersection between God and life.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s post contained an untruth. Last night I went back and read a sentence\u00a0that claimed\u00a0a previous unfamiliarity with the reality that God can meet us everywhere, when in actuality\u00a0I’ve always known intellectually that God can meet us anywhere and everywhere.\u00a0 This reality has only become experientially truer in recent days, thanks to this mommy’s potty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,25,122,1],"tags":[1515,114,340,829,1513,1514],"class_list":["post-3668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-jesus","category-theology","category-uncategorized","tag-christian-ethics","tag-stanley-hauerwas","tag-telling-secrets","tag-telling-the-truth","tag-the-truth","tag-what-is-truth"],"yoast_head":"\nPinocchio's Nose and The Truth That Frees - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/01\/pinocchios-nose-and-the-truth-that-frees.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pinocchio's Nose and The Truth That Frees - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday’s post contained an untruth. Last night I went back and read a sentence\u00a0that claimed\u00a0a previous unfamiliarity with the reality that God can meet us everywhere, when in actuality\u00a0I’ve always known intellectually that God can meet us anywhere and everywhere.\u00a0 This reality has only become experientially truer in recent days, thanks to this mommy’s potty…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/01\/pinocchios-nose-and-the-truth-that-frees.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-24T12:16:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-07-19T19:58:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kristina Robb-Dover\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pinocchio's Nose and The Truth That Frees - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/01\/pinocchios-nose-and-the-truth-that-frees.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pinocchio's Nose and The Truth That Frees - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","og_description":"Yesterday’s post contained an untruth. 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