Did you ever play that game as a child.....

Funny thing on Sunday the Preacher was speaking of that game people play with children, or I suppose you could with adults, where you get a line of participants, old or young, stand them in a line and tell the first one a story.  You get each to repeat once as quickly as possible the story to the next one down the line.  The Preacher assured us that the story changes in many respects from one end to the other.  Did you ever actually try it?  My dad did once when we were little.  I was about 14, or so at the time, he stood us all in a line from oldest to youngest.  I think at the time the youngest allowed to participate was 5.  We went down, 14, 13, 12, 11, 8, 5.   He started with a story about three little bears.  The story ended up being about several monkeys.  He got the results that are assumed by one and all, that tell of this experiment, but my dad took the process one step further.  He took each of us aside, one at a time, to see where the experiment went awry.  It was not the supposed process of each adapting the tale at little having not heard it correctly or from embellishment.  The story that was recounted to my dad one on one was clearly the same story from one to the next except for one participant.  The ones above the changer of the tale all had the same story, as did all of the ones below the tale changer.  Was that the results that were expected?  Why did only one of the participants in the experiment change the tale?  Do we assume that the outcome will always change and that each participants adds to the tale or changes it because we assume that is how tales move about in our society?  Well I am here to tell you having participated in the great experiment, in actuality, that we should never assume tales are a communal thing.  Tales can be a communal thing but they can just as easily be the misinterpretation of one individual.  Tales can be and are the results of gossip but they can also be the mistelling of one person who just got it wrong so judging gossip to be gossip is just that judging.  That brings me to the thought that took me down this road to begin with.  Are we for the most part honest?

Do you live an honest life?  Are you, number one, honest with yourself?  I can't imagine living a life being dishonest with yourself.  Do you live a life of self deception?  Do you see thing so narcissistic that you are not even honest with yourself?  I know that 95 percent of what we believe about others thoughts about ourselves in in our own minds, so only 5 percent of what we think some thinks about us is true.  Is that honesty or human nature?  Does that mean we think to much about what others think of us in general?  I know that the less I care or think about what others think about me the happier I am.  I spent a lot of my youth worried about offending some one, my mom, my dad, my siblings, my friends, my ? ?  Ironically the only person I can ever remember never worrying about what he thought of me was Poppie, some would say he should have been the most important opinion of me and that I should have worried about that the most but truly, no.  I never had to question what he thought of me, he just loved me the way I was, he never tried to change me.  I can't say in all honesty that I was so loving of him,  I tried to make him quit smoking for 30 years, and until he did it for himself nothing I ever did made any difference.  He did grow from a scared boy into one of the best men I know, but that was a subtle and evolving change nothing that just happen overnight or in any one way.  I think that I changed  to meet him that same way but again not overnight or like an epiphany, it was life and love that did that.  I wonder if anyone is ever truly honest or is it a game of degrees.  We all are as honest as our self examination makes us.  If our measure is that we are better than our neighbor that bar may not be that high.  If it is that we let others decide for us maybe that measure is too high and unattainable.  I think maybe we have to be honest to the degree that God ask of us.  I know that is exacting, but is it?  What does God ask of anyone one on one?  Is my honesty to love my kids, and Poppie to all that I am?  Is my honesty to never tell a lie period, or to never tell a lie that causes undue pain for just the principal of being perfectly honest?  Is it honest to tell a child that you had to kill it's pet just because it was convenient at the time?  Or was it just as honest to say that your pet has passed on or has gone to sleep and at the will of God?   I know that little white lies are "sins" and hardcore purists will tell you that, but isn't it a sin to hurt some one just because you can as well?  I think that honesty is a grey subject.  I am not sure that you, me or anyone can be honest to the letter for just one day little own our whole lives, and judging what is and isn't a lie in someone else's life is none of our business.  I think God is so much bigger than the limitation we put on others because they don't abide by our sense of right and wrong.  I think that God is so much bigger says it all......tomorrow.