EDITORIAL: Honesty is indestructible
Honesty, an old-fashioned word evoking thoughts of purity, kindness, reliability, and fair-mindedness. A word describing a trait that is increasingly rare in a society that is obsessed with “how to get rich quick.”
Ours is a culture that devoutly worships those with fame and power. That doesn’t care who gets destroyed in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Honesty is fast-becoming an archaic notion embraced by a noble few.
Honesty does not come in biodegradable stacks hidden in cheap, rough-hewn wooden boxes, or stashed in wooden-ash or concrete filled urns lining many a mantle (especially in Georgia). The truth may be incinerated but honesty always resurrects itself. It is the force that holds the atom together, a universal law that embodies the sacred.
When all else passes away, honesty remains. Honesty is the first thing to be sacrificed on the climb to the top of the ladder. It is disposable but not destructible. It flees from sanctimonious greed, wayward politicians, architects of terror, and racist propagandists.
In short, it is deficient in the soulless. How do you get filled? Cultivate tactfulness, and compassion, promote equality, and a hunger for ‘square-dealing.’
Honesty is developed in healthy family relationships. It is nurtured in a warm, caring environment, like yeast in bread, it increases in volume. If it’s not instilled correctly in the early years, by family, where do you get it?