"A LYING MOUTH KILLS THE SOUL"
Once a priest in confession gave me invaluable counsel on lying that I use to evaluate my speech. I confessed I had not meant to deceive someone in conversation, but had done so. For context, I am very fond of tall tales and humorously wild exaggerations. But I've learned to restrain myself from attempts at witty anecdotes lest the listener take it seriously, and if they do, to rectify it quickly. And in my life, truth is genuinely stranger than fiction. Once I had a lovely neighbor in Palos Verdes, that chunk of land that is rapidly disappearing into the Pacific. We used chat and share jokes. One time I got carried away and told a yarn that suddenly she believed, and her serious face evinced that I'd gone too far. When I confessed this to a priest at Saint Michael's Abbey in Silverado Canyon, he asked me if my intent had been to deceive from the beginning, and I said no, but that were I back again, I'd be quick to say that I had only meant to pull her leg. The saint...
