Editor,
Secrecy is largely about shame, fear and guilt. I refuse to live that way.
My beloved longtime friend told me in our deep, last conversation two days before his sudden death that he wanted to have first-time sex with me, but not a relationship. He said if I told anyone, he would kill me and maybe kill himself.
I did not have sex with him. I want to celebrate sex with a friend, not hide it as a poisonous secret to keep him from killing me or himself. As he left my home that day, he told me “I love you” – maybe the only time since he and I met 39 years earlier. Several days later, I was devastated to hear that he was dead. This was my most heart-wrenching experience of 2011.
My mother was my all-time closest friend. She bared her soul to me. She taught me to speak truth and to stand up for what I believe. She was quick to forgive me and to ask for my forgiveness.
Many children of alcoholics and of miserable marriages learn young to keep secret the hell at home. Many people carry many personal secrets to their graves. Why hide the precious and the painful?
Families, churches, corporations, governments worldwide, mafia, Masons, the U.S. military, the CIA and FBI – all have tons of toxic secrets.
The person exposing the truth can get kicked out, fired, jailed or killed. I strongly commend U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning as a hero of conscience.
She may suffer decades in prison for blowing the whistle on massive U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. I contacted President Obama and all five New Mexico Congress members to urge Manning’s release.
The more secrets we carry, the more we risk bullshitting ourselves and others.
Privacy often breeds lies and cover-ups.
Evil thrives in darkness.
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I open my life to those who know me. I invite my friends to ask me any questions about my ways and actions. I want others to hold me accountable to walk my talk and to confess humbly when I fail. I aim to live in the light.
Sincerely,
Don Schrader
Daily Lobo reader
