CREEDE HINSHAW: God loves us with all of our flaws

Last week’s New York Times carried a lengthy article about an ostentatious, successful New York City Realtor whose past included private schools, talented parents and high society connections. When this woman died, a Times reporter portrayed her vividly in an article about her life. Then somebody called the reporter to say that almost everything the Realtor had said about herself was fabrication. Although the Realtor was a highly successful businesswoman, her past was rather ordinary, and in some ways quite dark. She had constructed a fantasy story about her life.

This story seemed to hint at the effort most of us make to hide the real self from others or to spin the autobiography we think would be most appealing or least damaging.

In our own smaller ways, we construct our own reality for others, too. It is easy to recount a story so we become the “star of the show,” the person who sniffed out the truth, quickly arrived at the proper conclusion, made the courageous decision, uttered the right words to put another person in his/her place, etc., etc.

In most of my stories, I come out looking really, really good. And when there are circumstances where I can’t evade taking some responsibility for messing up, I can always manage to sanitize the details so that maybe a sympathetic listener would feel sorry for me or at least shed a tear of empathy. There is some of that New York Realtor in all of us.

I’ve been thinking about the obituaries I read in the daily paper. It’s not that they do not reflect reality. But they reflect a rather selective reality. Almost every single obituary reports on people who “never met a stranger,” loved their children and grandchildren, will be missed forever, accomplished amazing things and went to heaven. Though I’m not suggesting an obituary should include the unhappiness of a divorce, the estrangement from a child, the firing from a job, the addiction to drugs or alcohol, the prickly personality of the deceased, at the very least the reader should recall an obituary is a very selective telling of a person’s life. The obituary I’ve already written for me follows these same happy themes and probably needs a little more honesty.

One of my good friends, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, had learned to be honest with himself and others; his candor, though refreshing, was also intimidating. Not everybody is ready for honesty. He pointed out to me there is seldom much vulnerability in the church, where people are more comfortable hiding pain and despair. We are the poorer because we hide from each other.

In 2021, can we begin to be a little more transparent with each other and with ourselves? God, our Creator, knows us completely and loves us fully. From God, no secrets are hidden. It might be a good start to the new year to be more honest with God, with ourselves and with others about our successes, failures, longings, dreams and hopes.