A couple months ago I encountered an old friend in a new way. 

   "Obama is an idiot!" he said. "I never thought I'd see a Muslim President," he continued, his tone fueled by alchohol. "My God," he shouted, "the S.O.B. was born in Kenya."

   What was I to say after such acid was thrown in my face by a man I know otherwise as friendly, not hateful? I wanted to scorch him with stubborn facts: "idiots" don't graduate towards the top of their class from Harvard Law School. Obama is Christian. He was born in Hawaii.

   It's okay to attack a person's point of view.  Personal attacks are different.

   But, this is about truthful relationships. What if I had responded, "I hope you're spewing nonsense because you're drunk, not because you mean it."

   What if I told him my truth – that I was disgusted by his comments? Afraid of further controversy, I said nothing.

   But another friend tells me such encounters offer the chance for a "scorching truthfulness" that informs the strongest relatlationships. This truth burns both ways, steering most of us away from difficult conversations. How tragic. 

   Candor tests friendship's tensile strength. But, honesty also heralds Love's presence.

   Love wants truth. Love's Truth can enter relationship's home through different doorways. It needn't come crashing through the roof. 

   Love knows that anger is a child of fear. My friend's assaults were grounded in anxiety not accuracy. If I granted him the benefit of a doubt, I would see the little boy inside, scared of a force he could name only with epithets.

   It's easier to Love the frightened child within than the angry adult without.

   It takes heroism to survive truth's fire when it flames as criticism or, worse, burns holes in the fabric of trust. I can stand the heat if a fellow caregiver tells me I'm sounding arrogant. It's far more painful if that caregiver is a friend who sees me as only arrogant. 

   We want Love. Yet, none of us can deliver empathy all the time. Our flaws will flare in ways that may sear the hearts of those we actually love, scaring them back from the intimacy we seek.   

  Have we scared ourselves away from our own truth? My oldest friend wrote me: "The worst hurt I've ever experienced from others pales in comparison with the way I've hurt myself."

   How do we walk through the fire of our own truth to discover, on the other side, light as well as heat?  On that journey, only Love can teach us how to sing compassion as well as how to drum candor.

  Consider the fallen orchids – how they suggest butterflies, angels, the veined hands of age, wind-blown lace. And how they lie gorgeous in their dying, whether in relationship or alone. 

   Hard truths will scorch us.  But, spoken with Love honesty burns away lies revealing God's healing light. Only in this light can relationships shine sacred. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

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Orchid Series April, 2011 copyright Erie Chapman