It’s either lie or be eaten, Mama!

Another (Harrowing) #StreamTeam Review

Is it ever okay to lie?

If you’re like me, at first glance, you say no.

And then you surprise yourself by lying.

The April #StreamTeam theme was “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.” This annoyed me at first because “Really? They want me to watch movies about lying?” But then, after thinking about it, I realized that we are all liars to some degree.

(Usually, though, we just don’t admit it.)

First the movies and then my thoughts.

For your Little Kids:

1. The Gruffalo
2. Care Bears: Season 1, Episode 8, Untruths and Consequences
3. Veggie Tales in the House: Season 1, Episode 9, Lie-monade
4. Little Princess: Season 1, Episode 9, I Didn’t Do It

For your Big Kids:

1. Totally Spies!
2. A.N.T. Farm: Season 3, Episode 9, Pants on Fire
3. Spy School
4. Jessie: Season 1, Episode 14, World Wide Web of Lies

For Teens and Adults:

1. Bloodline
2. Revenge
3. The Bling Ring
4. Pretty Little Liars

Are you a fan of any of these shows? Before I received the monthly prompt from Netflix, I had only seen the Veggie Tales episode. Clearly I need to get out more! Or in this case…um…I need to stay in?

Now, though, I can tell you in all honesty (and caps): WATCH THE GRUFFALO and then watch it again.

This movie (and its sequel) are magic.

Two of the best animated films I’ve ever seen.

This month’s theme prompted some great discussion around here. First, we were like, “Dude. There are a ton of shows that we don’t watch!” There’s a reason for this—several, actually—but at the top of the list are time and the twaddle factor. There are only so many hours in a day, you know?

Plus we’re learning Shakespeare so there must be time for that.

So we didn’t watch all the movies on this list, but we did watch The Gruffalo and love love LOVED it. We watched part of the Care Bears episode and part of Little Princess, then talked about the kinds of lying that exist.

Lying to not get eaten is on the extreme side of the spectrum.

Lying to stay out of trouble? Not so much.

When I asked the kids if they’ve ever lied, their eyes got big, like, “Do we tell the truth?” Because the truth is, we know it’s a sin to lie and yet…sometimes…we get backed into a corner like this little mouse and we lie for some false idea of safety. We lie to protect our fragile heart.

“It’s either lie or be eaten, Mama!” Angela exclaimed during The Gruffalo, and I thought, my fears are often what eat me up.

And so I look in the mirror and lie about who I am—an imperfect person, a screw-up, a sinner.  My priest gave a sermon a couple weeks back where he posed the question, “Who among you has never been wrong?” Yet, in my pride, I don’t like to admit it—it irks me, you know, to be told I’m wrong—and bottom line, this is a form of lying.

The truth is, I am always in need of God’s saving grace and yet I forget this, time and again.

“It’s a sin to lie,” I tell the kids, and then a salesman came to the door. (True story! This happened just last week.)  I opened the door and was afraid of…what? His wasting my time? The fact that he was a stranger? And so I cut off his sales pitch, saying, “My husband’s out of work.”

This was a lie. My husband has work.

Not enough, but he does have work.

That lie ate away at me for the rest of the day, and I told the kids, “That was wrong of me.” It wasn’t just my little “white” lie; it was the way that I treated that young man in thinking my time was more important than him.

That was a bigger lie than my husband’s unemployment.

So live and learn and constantly seek God’s grace. This was my take-away from this month’s theme—that lying is not just “I did” or “I didn’t” or “I’m afraid.”  It’s also “I’m better…” and “I”m never wrong.”

What do you think? Do you agree?