What Are You Insinuating?

Actually, I don't insinuate, or as I told one of my bosses today (one of many), if I have anything to say to her she's going to get it served straight up.  I still have a job, in case you're wondering.  What we were talking about was whistling and noise sensitivity.  I am quite noise sensitive, especially to the high pitched pigs being slaughtered squealing of children in the playground and prolonged whistling (which is to say, prolonged beyond five seconds).  She, my boss, immediately began to apologize for her sometimes frequent whistling, which on occasion I have noted, but today that would have been the furthest thing from my mind.  I told her that even if it does bother me I'm not going to tell you.  You're my boss.  I was again reminded that I live in a culture where it is still not considered proper to say what you think.  So everyone insinuates, beats around the bush, and hints and evades because Canadians do not do directness well and we still largely are pusillanimous (you'll find it in the dictionary) and passive aggressive. 
     These are traits I have never developed or cultivated.  I could blame, or credit, my mother for this, who always spoke her mind.  Or the effects of my development and faith as a teen age Jesus Freak.  We always tried to speak the truth, not always in love, but our ideal, our objective, was to learn this.  Hinting, insinuating, were considered dishonest and cowardly.  Sinful.
     Even long after the Jesus People disintegrated I continued on my quest towards full transparency and brute honesty.  Even now, no matter what I do to soften the impact, others at times still find me blunt, tactless.  I do not mean to be, and I struggle hard to consider other people's feelings, but it seems to be beyond my ability to speak anything but the truth except for extreme situations where personal survival or the wellbeing of others have called for concealment or a creative handling of the facts. 
     In the course of my walk with God I have always lived as though hidden and concealed from the culture I live in.  I never learned to lie.  I never learned to conceal and now I find myself having to know when to say nothing, when saying anything at all will cause nothing but trouble.  But this sometimes too can be cowardly.  Thinking of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, his martyrs beginning with Stephen and so many others who did not shy from speaking truth to power and suffering the consequences I am cautioned to not escape from this ultimate cost of discipleship.
     I am not comparing myself to them and I know that more often than not my truthful utterances must be anything but inspired and the consequences that I suffer have often been well deserved.  But not always.  And as I mentioned to a friend today who raised the question that perhaps I should be a little more careful sometimes about what I right (I mean to say "write".  How's that for a Freudian slip?) in my blog, given my inevitable bluntness, because people are going to misunderstand and get upset.  But I think it's worth the price.  Yes, as I replied to my friend, buttons at times are going to be pressed and it is important to remember that people, well, all of us, are seldom ever really rational in our behaviour.  We tend to react emotionally without thinking, even when we think that we are thinking.  Dontcha think?