Honesty

Honesty is an interesting thing... we show our honesty or lack thereof in all aspects of our lives.

Yesterday I was involved in a conversation where someone made the comment that most people would never dream of stealing something from a store, but that they may not think twice about not returning a library book. Isn't keeping something that belongs to someone else, even a library, the same as stealing?

There was a snow storm in November. I had taken the long way home because the roads were so slick. Just as I turned onto my own street, my car started to fishtail and it did a slow curving slide. When the car came to a stop, I had hit the last few inches of a little red pickup. I didn't really see any damage to the pickup, but I crimped the hood of my own car and there was a little red paint on the headlight on the driver's side of my car. I hurriedly ran to the house and knocked on the door. No one was home. These were not neighbors that I knew. No one was on the street. No one saw me hit the pickup.

I had groceries in the car and no paper to write a note, so I drove the block to my house, unloaded the car and quickly dashed off a note. Then I went back to the house on the corner, knocked on the door again, and finally just taped my note to the door because there was still no answer.

On my way back home, I stopped at a neighbor's house. The man was shoveling snow and I knew he was a state highway patrolman and could tell me what to do. He advised me to call the city police department on their non-emergency line. That is exactly what I did the moment I got home. An hour or two later, a policeman came to my house, listened to my story and wrote a report. He looked at my car and then we both went down the street to look at the pickup. Still no one was home. When we left, he had also left a note on the door. Over the next week or so, he continued to try to contact the people who lived in that house on the corner.

Later that day I related the story to a couple of neighbor girls. They know me quite well. After I had told about leaving the note and "confessing" about what happened, the younger girl asked "Why would you want to do that?" What she was really asking was why I would deliberately put myself into a position where I might be punished for what I had done, even if it was an accident. From my perspective, however, it was a lot less difficult to confess and pay the price (whatever it might be) for what I had done, than to live with the worry that someone might have seen me-- and called the police or told the neighbors. If I had not been honest to begin with, the penalty for hitting the pickup could have resulted in my being arrested or having to pay a big fine.

I know someone who smokes cigarettes, but who tries to hide it from everyone. He thinks he does it in private where people can't see. Sometimes he changes his shirt or his clothes after smoking, thinking that people won't notice the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothing. Breath mints have never done a very good job of disguising the bad breath that comes with smoking. Ultimately, however, which is worse-- smoking cigarettes or the "cover up", the lying that takes place when one pretends to be something that one isn't. I think people-- myself included-- are more willing to forgive someone who is honest about their bad habits, particularly when they show a desire to repent, to overcome their bad habit, even if they struggle to do so. It's a lot harder to overcome something if you are spending all of your time trying to hide it, pretending that the problem doesn't exist.

Superheroes understand the value of honesty in every aspect of their lives. They understand that trust must exist between themselves and others-- and trust is built on honesty. Without that trust, when the time of crisis comes, the people who need to be saved won't believe what the superhero says or that he/she is able to save them. Superheroes do their best to be honest, knowing that the consequences for dishonesty are always worse than the consequences of being honest. In my case, the owners of the red pickup never contacted me. The policeman let me know that he had tried several times to contact them and they never called him either. His report was on file, but that I was not responsible for anything else. My conscience is clear.