Truth and Lies

Truth and Lies by Jillian Edelstein is a powerful book about the victims and perpetrators of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee. It's a photo book of pictures Edelstein took during her time there and also contains excerpts of testimony and interviews. Very, very powerful. The photo that stood out to me was on page 188 of a superspy, double agent, and assassin who looked like a butler, down to his cup of tea.
Wow, this gives food for thought about evil and how ordinary people are transformed by it. Read the introduction- especially the part about impermissible lies. Here's a brief quote:

Any society that allows its torturers to retire with medals and pensions inevitably pays the price. The price of lies is immobilized nostalgia for tyranny. So it is true...that you cannot create a culture of freedom unless you eliminate a specific range of impermissible lies....There are a few lies that do such harm that they can poison a society just as there are a few lies in private life that can destroy a life.

Wow. Lived that.

Here's another quote from the intro about Joyce whose son was disappeared and killed.

You would think, if you were listening to the story of your own son's death, that you wouldn't want every last detail. Joyce made me realize you do want every last detail. And you do not want to be trifled with. You don't want any flannel, any embroidery, any cute little inventions. You want every last detail, as it was. As it really was.
And what does this kind of truth do for a person like Joyce Mtimkulu? It provides official, public acknowledgment, at the highest level, before her own community, with amnesty judges sitting on the dais to confirm its official status. What she wanted was official acknowledgment, validation. She wanted one moment in her life when Nieuwoudt was made to look life a pathetic liar.
Nothing quite like this actually occurred.

Yep. Lived that, too.
I remember asking God once, while I was sitting hearing yet another sermon on sin, "What's the big deal about sin anyway?"
Simply can't imagine asking that question now at the end of this last decade. I've got that answer in my guts now.