Article February 2, 1981 Issue

Truth and Love—inseparable!

MARGUERITE E. BUTTNER

I wanted to buy a newspaper at a news rack but didn't have the right change. I asked a boy who was also buying one if he had change. He replied with a generous smile, "You don't need any money." Holding the news rack open after he had bought his paper, he said, "Just reach in and take one." He meant to be helpful!

"Isn't that dishonest?" I asked him. "You look like too bright a boy to do a thing like that!" As he rode off on his bike, I could see he was crying.

In making the choice between a human sense of truth and love, I had sought the truth. Yet I wanted to be as kind to that boy as he had intended to be to me. Would he later recognize the love I meant by the rebuke? Had I really expressed love?

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