Taking steps towards radical honesty…
Have you ever been in a relationship where the person says, “I want you to be completely honest with me” and you make the mistake of believing them? There is something about complete honesty that can be very confronting. Even if we are told the “complete truth” it is usually massaged to make it a little more palatable – or at least, it is massaged if the person is a friend, but might be coldly dumped (and perhaps exaggerated) if an enemy. I’ve been thinking through my values – the things I most truly hold to – and asked myself where honesty...
Read MoreTruth telling: Words as weapons or healing balm?
I have a few mantras I trot out often enough to be annoying. One is “facts are friends”. And they are! Even though we might not like what they are saying, it’s better to face reality than to have it forced upon us. So I am in favour of telling the truth, and developing environments in which candid conversations can take place – though I do work hard to demonstrate that candour and kindness do not have to be incompatible. My stance then is that truth telling works… except when it doesn’t. Are there times when we should lie – or if not lie, avoid...
Read MoreTruth, Goodness, Beauty: Cultivating a Christian Voice
I recently spoke at the Christian Media and Arts Australia conference on “Truth, Goodness, Beauty: With What Voice Should we Speak in Today’s Culture?” It’s a genuinely important question, and AVENIR, the Leadership Institute I now lead, was closely involved in the program design and presentations. It was a real privilege and I think it was a very significant conference. Given that the voice of Christian media is heard by several million Australians every week (and there were representatives from other countries as well) – it is obviously important that those...
Read MoreTruth, Kevin Rudd and the UN…
Those who keep up with Australian politics will know of the debate surrounding the government’s decisions not to formally nominate former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to be appointed as the secretary-general of the United Nations. There are those who see it as sheer vindictiveness (‘petty, partisan, vindictive’ to use the words of a former Labor foreign minister Gareth Jones)- the current government unwilling to back a fellow Australian simply because he has been on the other side of politics. They also see it as a serious breech of protocol, where ambassadorial appointments...
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