Honor Thy Father & Mother
Wednesday August 02, 2006
Dear Alice,
I have been an avid reader of your books since Drama of the Gifted
Child first appeared. They have been groundbreaking and enormously
helpful in my own journey.
I recently read The Body Never Lies, and I must say that I struggled
for years with that fourth commandment. Like you, I always felt that
to honor people who had so abused you was to bury the truth, and that
to know that truth was the only way to be set free.
However, in the past few years I have become a member of a New
Thought Church called Unity. In Unity, rather than having a literal
interpretation of the bible, we approach the texts from a
metaphysical and metaphorical point of view. With this in mind, I
went to the dictionary to look up the word “honor.” The third
definition was, “to accept or pay as valid.” I thought about that,
and thought that perhaps what honor really means in this case is to
look at what happened and tell the truth about it. Accept your
experience as valid. Don’t cover it up. Don’t gloss it over. This
definition has helped me tremendously to come to terms with that
commandment and use it in a way that could help me to heal.
Since the bible was not originally written in English, I wonder what
the original word that has come to be translated as honor actually was.
Just a thought, but one that has helped me to come to many truths
about my childhood and the parenting I received.
Perhaps this might be helpful to others, so I offer it here.
Thank you again for all you’ve done for so many people.
Sincerely,
D. F.
AM: If your metaphysical and metaphorical understanding of the bible help you to heal there is nothing to say against it. But if you were not a mistreated child you were not wounded so I don’t understand what you need to heal from. On the other hand, if you were beaten and humiliated don’t forget also to honor the small child who survived inside of you, whose suffering was never acknowledged, who can’t understand the bible nor your interpretations of it, and who is still hoping in pain that you eventually may HONOR HIS SUFFERING and take it seriously.