Article February 1, 1975 Issue

I Was Told the Truth

EDNA MORGAN

When I was a child, I mistakenly believed the firemen came to set a house on fire. I was terrified whenever I heard the fire engines.

Then one day they came down the street where we were living. I ran frantically into the house to pull my mother out-of-doors and screamed, "The fire engines are coming! They'll set our house on fire!" This uncovered the reason for my peculiar reaction at the sound of the fire engine sirens, the fright that before had completely mystified my parents. When my mother then explained that firemen don't start fires but put them out, instantly the misapprehension that had terrorized me for so long disappeared from my consciousness. Why? Because I was told the truth!

That which is unreal can seem very real to the uninformed or the misinformed. For example, for many years I was terrorized by a medical diagnosis that I had an incurable heart condition. To add to my dilemma, well-meaning friends reminded me at that time that our religion decreed "we should not question an incurable affliction, but leave our destiny to the will of God."

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