Hilda's
Homily
Memories
by
Hilda Maston
February
was such a short month but then as you get older all
months -- even those with 31 days seem very short.
Isn't it funny that the days sometimes seem a little
long, but the weeks and months just fly by.
The
highlight of the January services was, for me, the
"interfaith service." The love, the good will, and
interest was so apparent in the church that you could
almost see it. An old sage who once said,
"different roads, same destination" was right.
Maybe it does us good to trod on some one else's road
for a while. It felt good.
Do any
of you remember the first sales tax? In Wisconsin
it was 1%. If the sale didn't merit a whole penny
the change was given in little fiber disks worth 1 mill.
They were a big bother, but when I look at the nearly
10% sales tax of today, I almost wish we had them back.
Truth or Tact?
Is it always wrong to lie? I don't think so.
Here are some examples of lies that are better than the
truth.
Your
best friend introduces you to her new beau. After
he leaves, your friend asks anxiously, "Isn't he
wonderful! Am I not lucky to have found him?"
You
answer, "Yes, he is wonderful," of course you do.
Even if you think he is the world's worse loser, you
want to keep your friend happy.
Then
there are the lies that have to do with appearance. Your
aunt says, "Do you like my new dress?" Really you
don't , because it makes her look bulgy and the color is
all wrong. Do you tell her that? No way; you
want to keep harmony in the family.
A male
friend says, "Look at that fellow over there. Is
he better looking than I am?" Of course I lie and
assure him that he is the better looking. After
all, the male ego is very fragile.
We all
lie a hundred times a day without thinking about it.
You meet a friend on the street and she says, "How are
you?"
"Fine,"
you reply, even if you have a splitting headache and
your husband has just run off with your next door
neighbor.
When
that officer pulls you over and says, "Do you know how
fast you were going?" You tell him that you were
going thirty-five miles per hour, when you know you were
going fifty?
So you see: lies are a social lubricant, one that
society could not do without. We all know the
difference between little white lies and truly serious
lies. We were all taught the difference from
childhood.
You have
heard the term, "brutally honest." Sometimes it is
brutal to tell the truth, when we know that the truth
will be hurtful. I suppose the right thing to do
is to keep the white lies for social intercourse and to
tell the truth the rest of the time. The trick is
to know how to keep everyone happy, and your conscience
clear.
