BEWARE THE BLARNEY

 

Bill Clinton did it. He looked straight into the camera and said – well, you know what he said. Richard Nixon barely escaped impeachment because he did it, even though he claimed he was “not a crook.” Lance Armstrong lost endorsements and all his credibility because he did it. And Pinocchio? It was as plain on the long nose on his face when he did it.

“It” was lying. Jose N. Harris said, “There is beauty in truth, even if it's painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don't teach anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one's character, one's mind, one's heart or one's soul.”

Sometimes we shade the truth of our lies. “I wasn’t really lying.” “It was just a little baloney” or a “bit of blarney.” Hmmm. Someone once said that “The difference between ‘blarney’ and ‘baloney’ is this: “Baloney is when you tell a 50-year old woman that she looks 18. Blarney is when you ask a woman how old she is, because you want to know at what age women are most beautiful.” Yes, right. Sure.

Monsignor Fulton Sheen tried to explain further. “Baloney is flattery laid on with a trowel. Blarney is flattery laid on with the lips; that is why you have to kiss a stone to get it.”

That stone is in Blarney Castle, located in Blarney, Ireland, near Cork. It originally dates from before 1200. During Queen Elizabeth I’s reign of England and Ireland, she decreed that all properties must be given over to the crown. Owner Cormac MacCarthy was not about to just hand over Blarney Castle, queen or no queen. He sent several flowery letters to Her Majesty, chock full of praise and flattery and never actually ceded the castle to her. It went on so long it fried her patience and she (supposedly) exclaimed in frustration, “Blarney this and blarney that. He’s all blarney!” The actual world famous Blarney Stone can be found up several winding staircases, high in the castle’s battlements; to acquire the “Gift of Eloquence” from kissing the stone one must lean over backward and hang on to an iron railing from the parapet. That’s surely another word for it, the gift of eloquence! Friedrich Nietzsche wasn’t fond of such “eloquence” and told a friend who had disappointed him, “I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

Whether someone “talks “blarney” or uses the “gift of eloquence” (saying things they don’t mean to gain a favor), spreads “baloney” or “just tells white lies,” God hates lying. In Leviticus 19:11 He warns, “You shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.” Our “lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 12:22) and we delight Him when we “deal truly.” Dealing truly with one another—now that’s no blarney!