"What was this you were saying about wanting to trust everyone?"
"It isn't that naïve, it's more of a kind of essential innocence", says Aaron.
"Essential innocence."
"It's something that I learned during street ministry."
"What do you mean?" I actually have just said this to fill in the pause. He appears to be thinking out loud. It is nice to be back behind my own steering wheel.
"I was lied to so often, by so many. And they weren't just the hookers on the street corner or the queens and twinks in the gay bars, but also people in the church. Clergy especially. I really think that Anglican priests, for lies and broken promises, even surpass politicians."
I pass on answering this, but thinking of my father, and all the subtle lies and deceptions, little white lies, but oh how they accumulated. Yes, Aaron might have a point, but this wound for me is still a little bit raw.
"What it's come to", he says, "Is that I never know anymore if someone is telling me the truth. but I still try to accept it as what they want me to hear, and that maybe they are trying as hard as they can to be truthful. Just as I try as hard as I can to speak truth. But there is something so essentially dishonest about our human nature, that any attempt that we make to be truthful can only be regarded as a shot in the dark. but I still want to hold on to what is the most essential part of each person. And it isn't falsehood. It is truth. It is not darkness. It is light. It's only otherwise for those who truly choose to become evil..."
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