On Keeping Confidences…

There is strength and safety in the counsel and confidence of more than one mind. Both in times of happiness and in times of trouble we all need someone to confide in, someone to share with, someone to talk to. There is strength and safety and sincere satisfaction in sharing thoughts and feelings and experiences with those we love and live with—husbands and wives, children with parents, families sharing with one another something of their separate circles. (Of course, there is such a thing as being too talkative, too trivial, of telling too much too tiresomely. And there is such a thing also as being too intrusive in attempting to pry out confidences with insensitive insistence.) But all this aside, it is wonderfully reassuring and satisfying to have someone to be safe with, someone to trust, someone to talk to understandingly and openly—without holding ourselves too tightly. Often, things don’t come into focus until they are talked out, and in thinking out loud, in sharing confidences with someone who has a right to share them; decisions become wiser, safer, and more mature. One of the blessings of life is to have someone to listen, someone to understand, someone close and comfortable and trusted, knowing that what is said will be respected, not misunderstood, not distorted, not misquoted, not misused. And as we have a right to expect the confidences of those we love and live with, so we have an obligation to respect and keep such confidences—and never to let anyone who shares a confidence with us be embarrassed by it. The essence of this has been beautifully phrased in this summarizing sentence from an unknown source: “oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of feeling safe with someone, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words—but pouring them all out—just as they are—chaff and grain together—certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them—keep what is worth keeping—and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”