To Be Honest: Katie Smith
I used to take great pride in the fact that I was an “honest” person. Although I now put quotation marks around the word honest to mock my previous definition of it, it is true that in some ways, I have always attempted to be an honest person. I have tried my best never to lie to others and to avoid little fibs as much as possible. However, pride comes before the fall, and somewhere on the way down, I realized that not lying is not always the same thing as telling the truth.
Francis Weller, a psychotherapist who specializes in grief and sorrow, writes that “anesthesia and amnesia” are the two primary sins of modern society. In other words, numbing out and forgetting. Numbing out as a way to cope with our lives and forgetting that our lives are connected to each other’s, forgetting that we need each other. “Breathing just a little, and calling it life,” as poet Mary Oliver puts it. I, like all, have been guilty of practicing and participating in many different forms of anesthesia and amnesia in order to avoid myself. I feel that it must be a part of my human condition to want to continually run to those things for some fleeting sense of safety and security. By the grace of God, I have become tired of running. It seems to me that to choose anesthesia and amnesia is to choose not to tell the truth: to not tell the truth about my brokenness and neediness for God, to not tell the truth about who I am. It is funny to think that I have spent so much of my life trying to be an “honest” person while also trying to avoid the honest truth about myself. For me this has looked like hiding my shortcomings from the people around me, avoiding confronting the grievances of my own heart, and not allowing or making time for myself to sit quietly before the presence of God. It often still looks like these things. I find myself identifying with Peter in the way that I often bump up against my own humanity and hypocrisy. I wonder about the kind of heartache Peter must have felt after denying Christ three times. It must have been such a grievous thing to find himself in such a state, a state that we perhaps all find ourselves in at some point.
“Now they arrested Him and led Him away, and brought Him to the house of the high priest; but Peter was following at a distance. After they kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter was sitting among them. And a slave woman, seeing him as he sat in the firelight, and staring at him, said, ‘This man was with Him as well.’ But he denied it, saying, ‘I do not know Him, woman!’ And a little later, another person saw him and said, ‘You are one of them too!’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I am not!’ And after about an hour had passed, some other man began to insist, saying, ‘Certainly this man also was with Him, for he, too, is a Galilean.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about!’ And immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. And then the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.” - Luke 22:54-62
Even before Peter was faced with his own humanity in these encounters, Christ knew the truth about Peter's folly.
“Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with You both to prison and to death!’ But He said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.’” - Luke 22: 33-34
Yet, even with this knowledge about Peter in mind, Christ still insisted on washing his feet.
“Then He poured water into the basin, and began washing the disciples’ feet and wiping them with the towel which He had tied around Himself. So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, ‘Lord, You are washing my feet?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘What I am doing, you do not realize right now, but you will understand later.’” - John 13:5-7
Jesus Christ knew the truth about Peter’s humanity and yet still offered him forgiveness and love in this act. Perhaps, as Peter wept bitterly after his denial of Christ, he drew back on the moment that Christ washed his feet. All at once he was confronted with his brokenness and how deeply loved he was despite it. Is not the same true for us? How unfathomably wonderful it is to be loved despite our downfalls.
While it is true that confronting ourselves often calls for a period of lamenting, coming in contact with the truth of who we are is ultimately a celebration of release, reality, and God’s unending mercy and love. It is the freedom to be real about the good, the bad, and the ugly with ourselves, others, and God. It is an alternative to living our lives centered around anesthesia, amnesia, coping, and avoiding. It is an invitation to a more creative, loving, and wide-open-to-God-and-others life that Christ himself led. It is an opportunity to be honest. May God grant us the grace to take the opportunity to walk in this freedom.
Katie Smith is a treasured student in the Wesley community who is currently studying Communications at Louisiana Tech. Katie first became involved with the Wesley Foundation through small groups, and it has been a blessing to learn with and from her, witnessing her growth throughout the years. In her spare time, Katie enjoys reading, writing, painting, photography, and good conversation!