Ben sat on the floor in his closet with tears in his eyes. He had been scolded and sent to his room after being caught playing on his computer after he was told to stay off of screens for a while. Then when confronted about said usage, I received a decisive, “No. I wasn’t on my computer.” Lie. Busted. To the bedroom. I let him wallow for a few minutes before I went upstairs to find him in a puddle of tears among the piles of dirty clothes/toys/blankets/socks/candy wrappers/books/pillows on the floor of his closet (messy room: that will be another blog for another time.) “Ben. What the heck, dude? What is going on? Why did you lie to me?” Terrified stare. Blank look. Some more tears. And finally…”I don’t want to lie. I didn’t mean to. But I was afraid of what would happen if I told you the truth.” And there we have it. Fear followed by lies followed by trouble.

I am sure I am not the only one profoundly confused and overwhelmed by the barrage of images, stories, links and comments we are subjected to everyday. I flip around among several news sources, hoping to round out my perspective on my steady diet of news and current events. But sometimes I am only left more confused. Stories are contradictory, or altogether missing from some sites. The commentary from my friends on social media is profoundly biased and sometimes found to be blatantly untrue. A fascinating study has recently confirmed one of our fears of social media….we are constantly lying to each other. “…falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information”. Wow.

Every summer, when a new class of bright-eyed surgery interns joins us in the care of our patients, I give them some pro-tips for success: 1. Eat when you can. 2. Rest when you can. 3. Trust the ICU nurses. 4. Don’t ever lie to me. Ever. You can say, “I don’t know.” But don’t. Ever. Lie. Your patient’s life depends on you giving me correct information and being trusted to follow through with the plan. The loss of trust in a resident who tells me the creatinine is 1.0 when it’s really 2.0 is profound. That’s the difference between renal failure and not; getting fluids and not; consulting the specialist and not. We are a team taking care of 40 patients or more. I can’t look up every lab on every patient every day…we all have our role…and when one of us fails…we all lose. We lose trust. And the patient may lose much more…

We are on the receiving end of alternative facts and fake news and downright lies everyday. And it’s fatiguing us. We can’t seem to tell the difference anymore. We respond with visceral emotion and repeat what we have heard, unsure of (or without regard for) it’s veracity. The damage is done before we even realize it. We squirm in front of our computers, anxious but can’t explain it; unsure what to do with the news flashing in front of us. We are exhausted but don’t know why.

I wonder if we are all a little like Ben. Broken, really, from the burden of missing truth. Our hearts a little trapped and aching from dishonesty. We want to tell the truth, but we are all a little scared of it. In the moment, filled with emotion guiding us instead of reason, we settle for the myth, the inaccuracy. But later it tastes so bitter.

John 8: 32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Maybe we need to remind ourselves that we are on the same team. We need to better defend each other with truth and with protection from the lies that swirl all around us. We can do better. We can say “I don’t know” or “I was wrong.” And then we can forgive and trust each other; defend each other. I think our little hearts need to be set free in the truth. I think our lives, our precious little souls, depend on our promise to the truth.

 

 

Disclaimer: My viewpoints are not necessarily reflective of my employer, or any local, regional or national organization that I belong to. As a matter of fact, I pretty much just speak for myself. Please keep that in mind.