"Let it all hang out!" became the rebellious slogan of the social revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 70s, and it still haunts us.

Monday, March 18, 2002

"Let it all hang out!" became the rebellious slogan of the social revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 70s, and it still haunts us.

Reacting against the hypocrisy of a common dishonest politeness, both are wrong. Let us speak the truth in love, because the truth without love only cuts without healing, and love without truth only indulgences without helping.

If we should speak the truth without love, the lack of caring love will prevent people from caring about the truth.

Two statements true in themselves do not necessarily equate to the truth. We want to know whether what a person says is self-serving or helpful to us.

When a sales person tells me the product is "the best on the market," I hear "best for my income" until I learn by critical assessment that it is best for my purposes.

The overly familiar "I’m telling you this for your own good" is usually spoken in a tone and with a facial expression that betrays the opposite.

Sometimes people make a true statement for the specific purpose of hurting the other person. If a true statement is to represent the truth, it must heal after it has cut.

Yet, other people characteristically go in the other direction and observe the reverse principle. They think the only important thing is that you love the person. If they love the person, they will be uncritically tolerant of anything and everything in and done by the person. In effect, such people stand by and watch the person self-destruct. The person is doing harmful things to himself, these people recognize it is harmful, they know the person must stop and they know the wholesome thing the person should do – but they say not a word, calling it "unconditional acceptance."

If we should love without speaking the truth, the lack of corrective truth will prevent people from believing the love.

Children, almost reflexively, complain to parents: "If you loved me, you wouldn’t make me do this!" The proper response, too seldomly given out of a false sense of "love," is: "It is precisely because I love you that I make you do this." Or: "You don’t remember what it’s like to be young!" "Oh, I do remember, and that’s why I won’t let you go there."

"Tough love" is a reality more than an expression. It speaks of a love so tough it will speak truth that, at least initially, is sure to be bitterly rejected. It speaks the truth not because the truth is pleasant but needed.

Eventually, children will learn enough about the realities of life, they will turn resentfully against an indulgent parent with the reverse charge:

If you really loved me, you would never have let me do that! One young woman, who so learned, said, "My parents loved me so much they let me hate them."

Truth without love is not the true, and love without truth is not loving.

We cannot choose between speaking the truth and loving the person. To do one without the other is to harm the person in one way or the other. Truth and love must not so much be balanced as integrated. Loving is not one way to speak the truth, and speaking the truth is not one way to love: it is a single act of truth-love. Perhaps, truthful love or loving truth. We must warm the truth by our love and let the truth guide our love.

(Now, this should make sense to anyone as "common sense"-not predictably religious. The concept of "speaking the truth in love" is found, nonetheless, in the Bible (Ephesians 4:15). Recognizing this common sense truth put compellingly, perhaps it’s time to read the Bible for other practical advice.)

In all our dealings with people, let us speak the truth in love. The truth we speak will heal after it has cut if we warm it with our love. The love we give will actually help people, because the truth guided it.