One lie leads to …

By Rhiannonw

Fri, 03 Jun 2016
  • 1464 reads
2 comments
 

If people couldn’t lie
they couldn’t covet, steal, or feel
contempt of others’ faults, ill will,
and hate that would deliberately kill
or arrogantly rush to war;
and what is more,
could not ignore
the witness all around
of one who formed with skill,
and will one day remove the ill,
and should be held in awe without a sneer
when his opinions true they hear;

without deceit, and inward lies,
they couldn’t brag and generalise
and strangers, foreigners despise;
if people couldn’t lie, all cries
of innocence would always be
completely truthful, honest, wise;

and none could break a vow,
parental loneliness, neglect allow;

in fact, how different would life be
for all of them and you and me?

and why?
– because
we could not lie.

And so,
can lying cease?
the power that promises a coming peace –
from vileness and deceit a freedom full,
can daily work in me release
from lying’s tricking pull.

[IP: If you could remove one form of behaviour from the planet, what would it be? Let your imagination go wild. How could this be? How would it happen? What would be the consequences?]

 

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Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by jeand on

Hi Rhiannon

This is certainly an interesting subject - and you have done a good job of putting your point of view. I'm not sure absolute honesty would always be the best answer. Sometimes, not so much lying, but evading the truth is a kinder thing to do.

Jean

Jean Day

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thanks, Jean. I think this point came up sometime before didn't it – 'not lying' doesn't mean always having to tell of everything all at once, and anyhow. It is not necessarily being deceitful to consider when matters should be spoken of, is it?

What I wanted to draw out here, was how so much is connected to lying, and bad, hurting behaviours need lying to exist, so inability to lie would lead to a lot of other improvements! Rhiannon