I've got a secret

I've kept my fair share of secrets. When planning a surprise anniversary party for Mom and Dad in 1969, my brothers and sisters and I had to involve honored guests in the planning. Even with their help, it proved to be far beyond our limited ability and we ended up bringing Mom and Dad in on the secret hoping to avoid an unmitigated disaster. We didn't. Some surprise.

Years later, I had to confess to some duplicity as I planned a surprise baby shower for my daughter, Lisa, when she was expecting her first child.

My duplicity however, pales when compared to hers as she planned a surprise party for my 50th birthday four years ago. She actually sent out e-vites from my home computer. Either I am completely oblivious or she is one sly child.

Apparently, it runs in the family. Danny's sisters got me, not once, but twice, for a bridal shower and later a baby shower they planned from Denver, some 500 miles from where the party took place. Danny was in on all three of my surprises so he is no stranger to deception himself.

Secrets. Sometimes, I admit, they are just for fun.

At other times however, they can become a snare and a trap, a path strewn with sharp rocks.

Many years ago, one of Danny's sisters was dependent upon their brother-in-law for housing. She loves cats. He didn't, and he imposed a "no-cat edict."

With the cooperation of his wife, her sister, she got a cat anyway, and kept him hidden.

However, nobody told Danny the secret so when he inadvertently "let the cat out of the bag" he caught an earful from both sisters.

Secrets are like that. Who knows? Who needs to know? Can someone safely know a secret and keep it? Should someone keep a secret, especially if the secret is dangerous?

The problem with secrets, especially conspiratorial secrets, is it's hard to keep track of who knows what when. And when the secret is revealed, sometimes the deception used to keep the secret hidden does more damage than the secret ever could.

It's an issue of trust and trust seems to be in short supply in this day and age. When I was a teenager, I treated trust as if it were an inalienable right and when I was rightly warned about how precious trust really is -- between individuals, between parents and children, at work or at school, I failed to understand how serious a breach of trust could be. I have since learned, with experience being my primary tutor, that of all of the honors we can hold in this life, trust is among the most valuable and the most vulnerable.

Promised transparency has yet to be revealed in the current administration. And that lack of transparency is not unique to this administration or to just the federal levels of government.

The oft-cited "need to know basis" has its place, I'll admit. Children, because they have yet to attain the maturity to understand and process some truths, need to be protected from the harsher realities of life.

In fact, I wish my dad had kept our family's bankruptcy a secret when I was 9. I didn't need the stress of making sure that the repo man didn't take the refrigerator, because as Dad explained, "It's not part of this agreement."

When something can be safely hidden, because knowing would cause unnecessary pain or stress, then the secret should remain just that -- a secret from those who would bear the wounds. The key word here is "unnecessary." Some pain is beneficial, even needful.

Motive matters. Keeping a secret simply to protect yourself or simply because it's easier is not a justifiable motive.

And keeping secrets, operating behind closed doors, keeping everything under the table, comes at the high cost of lost trust, which, once sacrificed, is nearly impossible to resurrect.

And that seems to be where we are today -- with governments, with corporations, even within family relationships.

The truth is deemed too complicated for revelation; the explanations would be long-winded and cumbersome; or in the words of Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men," some believe that "you can't handle the truth."

The truth is, most of us can. And most of us can be trusted with the truth, given the chance. And most of us already suspect the truth, and even when that truth is hard, hurtful or personal and we'd love to hide from it, we know we're better off knowing.

And, it bears noting, no matter how well-kept a secret may be, nothing is hidden from God. Not the secret, nor the motive behind it.

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." Hebrews 4:13 (NIV)