Love Resides in Truth
I love how good children’s literature can reveal such profound truths about the human person and how we ought to live. Stories such as The Three Little Pigs, The Tortoise and the Hare, and The Midas Touch illustrate the values of hard work, persistence, and generosity. These are lessons that we, adults, ought to keep in mind as well. One of these such stories which I find very pertinent to our times is that of The Donkey in the Lion’s Skin.
The Story
The story goes something like this: Once upon a time there was a donkey, who discovered a lion’s skin a hunter had left behind. Wanting to acquire the power that a lion had, the donkey put the skin upon his back. He strolled into the nearby village, terrorizing its residents, as they thought a lion was about to attack. The villagers dropped everything and fled to their homes, locking their doors in fear. The donkey enjoyed this newfound ability, devouring the food they had left and taking their goods back with him to the forest.
Now every few days the donkey would slip into the lion’s skin and continue to terrorize the village, growing more confident and bolder each time. Finally, the villagers had enough and decided to follow the lion-impersonating-donkey as it left the town. The donkey, unaware of being followed, began to sing of his good fortune. The villagers at once recognized his singing as the braying of a donkey. They caught the donkey and reprimanded him. The moral of the story? One needs to be their authentic self and not get caught up in lies and pretentious trappings.
Inauthenticity
I’ve never encountered a donkey, or a person for that matter, dressing up in a lion’s skin to threaten people. We are, however, surrounded by lion’s skins. The skins we encounter are of a different sort. You often find them on social media, or in the artificial things we do to our bodies, or in the foods we eat. There is so much that surrounds us, so much that we embrace, which is artificial, fake, or pretend. They tell us artificial birth control is the responsible thing to do. We use perfect face filters on Instagram, and we have impossible burgers posing as ground beef. We have artificial intelligence, fake eyelashes, and men pretending to be women. This inauthenticity is becoming so pervasive that it seems the line between fact and fiction is becoming blurred.
However, even when one is more vigilant about avoiding these fabrications, they can seep into our lives without our knowing it. One of these significant areas where we might unknowingly be dressing in a lion’s skin is in our communication with others, especially with those closest to us.
Honesty
It can be really difficult to be honest – honest with others, even honest with ourselves. We have our own egos, our own versions of who we are, and if you’re like me, you desperately try to maintain that image, that lion’s skin, you’ve created. Why? Perhaps it’s because it’s covering up some deep wounds. Maybe it’s hiding our inadequacies. We don’t feel like we deserve to be loved, warts and all. So, we hide, from our spouses, from our loved ones, from ourselves.
Being real about who we are and communicating that to others – especially to those we love the most – is critical to us growing as persons. We read in Guadium et Spes, 24, that “Man is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, [and he] cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” In other words, we don’t fully become who God calls us to be unless we are sincere, authentic, real.
A Test
I remember my husband and I picking out items for our wedding gift registry just a few years ago in, ahem, 1999. We were both just starting out, and so we were picking out a lot of household items such as bedding, small appliances, car jacks, you get the idea. It was a fun time, but also a test of sorts for our growing relationship. We’re different people, with surprisingly different ideas about decorating, colors, or needs for the home. There was a lot of give and take. It was a good examination of communication in our relationship – but I failed it miserably.
You see as we were making decisions, to ease the process along, I decided to say I was indifferent about some decisions, even when I may have had an opinion, albeit most likely not a strong one. One of the decisions came in picking out the pattern for our table setting. At the time I decided that I could live with whatever pattern my husband wanted, and so I kept my opinion to myself, even though my husband’s choice was not really my taste.
A Lion’s Skin
I let my husband believe that it was a design I also enjoy. It wasn’t until many years, and several dropped, broken plates later, that this opinion of mine came to light. I wasn’t prepared for the reaction. My husband was hurt. He was hurt that I hadn’t shared my thoughts and feelings with him – even about something so seemingly insignificant. Hurt because something he thought had been true was a lie. He discovered a lion’s skin.
Looking back over this experience and others, I’ve come to realize an important lesson. We need to be real and honest with each other. Love only resides in truth, and if we can’t be truthful, then it’s not fully love. In marriage we vow to love everything about the other – the things we like and the things we don’t like, the good and the bad. Why? Because we’re called to love each other as our Lord Jesus loves us. And Jesus doesn’t hold anything back, so neither should we.
Build a Bridge
Keeping things from our spouse, the things we’re ashamed of, our desires, our fears, only serves to build a wall, rather than a bridge. Want to know the irony of it all? When we share our inmost thoughts and feelings, when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with each other, it grows into a life of freedom, it brings joy and comforts the pain. It gives our spouse an opportunity to practice true charity, and it draws us towards greater wholeness. And isn’t that what you want in a marriage?
So, strive to live in reality. Embrace the authentic. Turn off your phones, turn off the music, and really be with each other. Shed the lion skins and rejoice in living a genuine, loving relationship.
Written by Susan Hoefer for Family Foundation magazine. Susan has been a CCL teacher with her husband for many years and also works for the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana preparing couples for marriage, and promoting NFP, chastity and pro-life causes.
Learn more about teaching at www.teachnfp.org