to tell you the truth

b/c sometimes i don't

It’s time for another Behind The Scenes for paid subscribers! In these posts I share my perspective on some of the topics I chose to cover in my latest book, Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, unpack what they mean to me, and opine about why they are necessary prayers for the world we are living in. Today we’ll tackle the prayer “for telling the truth.”

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What does it mean to tell the truth?

If I’m honest, I wasn’t really thinking deeply about that question when I wrote this prayer. I mean, sure, I was thinking about how hard it can sometimes be to tell the truth, especially if there are unpleasant consequences to be faced or if it helps a person or cause you don’t particularly want to be helping. I was even thinking about the necessity of speaking truth to power: telling the truth about society and its structures when that truth is inconvenient, controversial, or might get you labeled as a troublemaker.

Speaking those truths are important, vitally so. But when I wrote the prayer “for telling the truth,” I made a glaring oversight: I failed to consider what it means to tell the truth to yourself.

That omission is telling. It reveals something I would rather not look at within myself, something I would rather you not see about me either.