To Tell the Truth

When I was a girl my favorite story was the Emperor’s New Clothes. I believed everyone would want to know the truth about the king’s faux pas but alas, that is just not so. We sometimes like our myths and stories we tell one another. Pointing out what is readily available for others to see can upset the apple cart, too.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote once that: “people grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” As Girl Scouts, we are about growing character and teaching girls to speak honestly. This is difficult sometimes, even though it seems it should be easy. My oldest daughter felt that her teachers this year were/are out of integrity when they are yelling at students in their classroom. My daughter’s response to that was to be uncooperative and not turn in homework. It created a D as a grade for her in one of her progress reports.

But it was a great lesson. Sometimes we work with or for people we may not like so much. It could be just our personalities or ways of seeing the world, or it could be something more. However, sometimes we have no choices and must learn how to be gracious even when we might not agree with someone. While my daughter resisted the lesson, I think she understood what I was saying and has conformed, learning to put aside what she doesn’t like about her teachers, and do what she needs to do to make the grades she wants to achieve.

Building a healthy community is hard work and requires each of us to step up to hear things we may not like to hear about ourselves or one another. It demands that each of us be present to the ways we behave with each other and the connections we have with one another. By being conscious of the ways we act and react, as well as the feelings it invokes in us and in others, we begin to create the kind of community that feels safe and nurturing for everyone. Sometimes, people may opt out of that effort, because they don’t want to change, others may be willing to try on different behaviors. While it may feel uncomfortable at times, the gift of commitment to one another is great.