Telling
the
Truth

You know, humans look at the world around them

and to them it feels like they are inside it all,

they are inside

and everyone and everything else

is outside them.

But although other people are outside them,

they can't live without each other,

so they have to find a way to communicate with each other

when everyone is seeing things

from their own insides looking out.

And the language that they use is one of truth and lies.

A human can choose whether to tell someone what they truly believe,

or to say what they know is not true so as to deceive them.

They can choose to Tell the Truth or tell lies.

Which seems a bit crazy,

because why would someone who could Tell the Truth want to tell lies?

Well, people tell lies to gain advantage,

to keep things secret, only for themselves to know,

or they can tell lies from politeness,

to avoid having to say a truth that might cause insult,

or to avoid an answer that would need too much explanation

and take up too much time.

Sometimes people don't actually want to hear the truth.

When they say 'How are you?' they don't always really want to hear how someone feels.

Even though you might be feeling bad they just want you to say 'I'm very well, thankyou',

just words of good manners,

really just a long form of 'hello'.

And people tell lies when they are playing games,

because in war it is allowed as part of strategy,

and they need to practice strategy to face the real thing.

And in trade, they know that what is of value to one

is different from the value to another,

and agreement comes after a kind of verbal war game.

There are times when people agree that

the language used doesn't always mean what it says.

So why should we think Truth is important?

Well, if there is no Truth there can be no trust between humans,

and trust is what is needed for people to live together,

and a reward of trust is friendship.

You can't always tell if someone else is telling you the truth,

if you can trust them,

but at least if you are telling the truth yourself,

you know that they can trust you.

Actually, Truth is so precious to God that one of Allah's Names is Al- Haqq,

the Truth,

because God alone is the Only Truth,

and so by telling our truths

we are able to show the face of that Truth to those around us.

Why would we not want to live in a truthful way,

trusting our neighbours,

and bowing to Al-Haqq,

the Truth that we name Allah?