Honesty and a wake-up call

Originally appeared on spirituality.com

What does it really mean to be honest? Does honesty have a spiritual basis? Those were questions I searched for answers to when I was a sophomore at a large university.

A financial crisis in my family made it necessary for me to take full responsibility for myself through a work fellowship making costumes for the school’s theater department. At the time, I was also carrying 18 academic credit hours. One of my classes was a humanities course in Classicism and the professor was a stern gentleman, who, I must admit, frightened me a little. Grades in his class were to be averaged from three major tests.

I did very well on the first one. The second was scheduled just before Thanksgiving break, and I was right in the middle of a play requiring complicated period costuming. There was a deadline I had to meet because the play was to be presented to the entire university faculty. I felt I couldn’t study for the Classicism test and get my costume work done. So I elected to cut class the day of the test.

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