"I have called this book Telling Secrets because I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves - because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell" (p. 2-3).
Scary, yet comforting, to read the thoughts of your heart written by another human being. Could possibly rename my blog to "Telling Secrets" as that is precisely what I have been trying to do - tell my secrets so as not to lose myself in the facade and hopefully in the process to connect in a real, authentic manner to my fellow members of humanity. The inability or unwillingness to be real with each other and ourselves is one of the tethers that I believe is holding the Church back from experiencing the gift of true community we have been given through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
