How many of us, at some point in our life, have been told a secret by someone and promised not to tell? (Show of hands). Everyone’s had that experience. Confiding secrets and promising to keep secrets—are part of being human. But—be truthful now—how many of us have also, at some point or other, revealed a secret we promised not to tell? (Another show of hands) Like the King of Togo Togo story says, it’s not so easy to keep a secret, is it? And, what one of us hasn’t had the experience of telling one other person a secret we’ve been entrusted with and suddenly it seems everyone knows? Hm? As they say in Africa, “everything is alive, everything speaks.”

It’s not easy to keep a secret—or is it? When I first met Elizabeth—a neighbor in the townhouse development where I lived in Northern Virginia—I would never have guessed she had harbored a secret about herself for over twenty years.

Elizabeth had grown up in a small mid-western town, with a very strict religious upbringing. Elizabeth was the paragon of an all round good mid-western girl—an excellent student, cheerleader, leader in her church youth group. But Elizabeth was also human with human hormones and desires and late spring of her senior year she found herself pregnant. Now, being eighteen, unwed and pregnant might not seem like such a terrifying predicament today. But to Elizabeth, at that time, in that place, it was the most shameful, sinful thing that she could have done. And so she decided she would tell no one, not a soul, not her parents, not even her siblings. She was able to hide her pregnancy for the last few weeks of school and immediately upon graduation she left her home town, took a job in another city, and found an adoption agency who would place her son—it was a boy—they told her that much—after birth. Elizabeth’s relationship with her family was never quite the same. They couldn’t understand whey she had moved away so abruptly, had only phone contact with them for several months. But life went on, things were patched over and Elizabeth went on to college. She eventually married a wonderful man, had two beautiful daughters, moved to Northern Virginia and became a respected pillar of a church in that same conservative denomination of her youth. On the surface Elizabeth seemed quite happy. But inside she was haunted that someone would discover her shameful secret. And about the time that her son would have been a young adult, she began to fear that her son might try to find his birth mother. She felt a pit in her stomach when she answered the phone and it was an unknown voice; or when she opened the mail and couldn’t recognize the return address. How would her husband, who was her helpmate and confidante in the rest of her life, feel about the fact that she had never entrusted him with this if he found out? How would her children feel if they knew they had a half brother? What would her fellow church members think?

Her son did search her out and wanted to meet her. Elizabeth knew she could no longer keep his existence a secret. With fear and trembling she told her husband. He was angry at first, felt betrayed; but, those feelings were soon transmuted into compassion as he realized how scared, how desperate, eighteen-year-old Elizabeth must have felt to have gone through all that so alone. Elizabeth met her son, Brian, and gradually they developed a relationship. Over time, Elizabeth let other members of the family know and they, too, met Brian. Elizabeth’s daughters were delighted to have an older brother and Brian was delighted to have younger sisters. By the time Elizabeth and I were friends, her secret was completely out in the open. She and her parents and siblings were closer than ever, now that the long ago mystery was finally explained. Elizabeth’s parents accepted Brian as one of their grandchildren. Elizabeth and her husband had also gotten to know Brian’s adoptive parents and the four had become good friends, even sharing holiday celebrations. When Elizabeth told me her amazing story she said that after she met her son and the secret was out, she realized that there was a part of her that had always been looking over her shoulder, peering into corners, afraid, ashamed; but, now that her secret had been revealed she felt an expansiveness and joy—a freedom—she would not have imagined possible. But it was not only Elizabeth who benefitted. Most, if not all, of the members of the families involved also felt enlarged, enriched by their many new connections.

When we feel we have to keep a part of ourselves or a part of our history hidden, it compromises who we are, limits our choices and colors our perceptions of others. To live inside a secret constricts the soul. For so long, Elizabeth had feared that if people really knew her, what she had done, they would reject her. There was a part of Elizabeth that was perpetually held captive to that eighteen-year-old self who had felt such shame, feared such condemnation. That part of Elizabeth hadn’t caught up to her adult self, couldn’t see that there was a lot to admire in that eighteen year old’s resourcefulness and strength and that the attitudes she had so feared back then had changed over the years. But even more sadly, it was only after her secret was revealed that Elizabeth could believe herself to be truly worthy of love because whatever love she had experienced before she had questioned—what if they knew, would they still love me? And, also, because of that questioning reservation, it was only after her secret was revealed that Elizabeth fully appreciated how much love her husband and family had to give.

Elizabeth hid her secret for twenty years because she feared what others would think of her. Sometimes, though, we hide secrets not only from other people but from ourselves as well because we can’t reconcile the secret with our image of who we are. Such secrets not only impinge on our own living, but can also have devastating effects on others.

Glenn, an Air force Colonel, with a legacy of military service in his family, was a reluctant participant in therapy. It was Glenn’s wife, Marie, that first sought my counsel when I was practicing as a psychotherapist in Virginia. Marie came to me because she was distraught over their fourteen-year-old son, Jeremy. Jeremy had always been a happy, outgoing boy, a good, if not brilliant, student. But in the last year, he had become withdrawn and sullen. He spent increasing amounts of time holed up in his bedroom, reluctant to venture out even for things that he had enjoyed before, such as sports and scouts. He often feigned illness so he wouldn’t have to go to school. His grades had plummeted. Obviously there was something more going on here than the usual adolescent changes. As Marie and I tried to sort it out, Marie realized that Glenn’s behavior in relation to Jeremy had also changed and, in fact, seemed to predate the changes in Jeremy. When Jeremy was a child, father and son had a close and affectionate relationship; but, about the time Jeremy turned twelve, Glenn started insisting that Jeremy was too old for hugs, too old even for the kind of horseplay that the two had engaged in regularly before. Glenn also became very intrusive about Jeremy’s activities, needing to have a full accounting of where Jeremy had been and what he had done in the course of a day. And if time couldn’t be accounted for, Glenn would become belligerent. Suddenly, Jeremy’s desire to stay in his room didn’t seem so strange. But what was going on with Dad?

Glenn was a reluctant participant in therapy, but he did come. At first he insisted that the only problem with Jeremy was that he was afraid to grow up, that he needed to become a man—a phrase Glenn used more than once. But it was also obvious that Glenn loved his son dearly. His love of his son and his acknowledgment that his son was clearly hurting, became the leverage that kept Glenn coming back, sometimes with Marie, sometimes with Jeremy, sometimes alone. After much, much talk, and exploration of family dynamics and childhood histories, and, of what being a man meant to Glenn, and, even more telling, what not being a man meant, one day Glenn, haltingly, his face reddened with shame, “remembered” the following story.

Growing up, Glenn had worshiped his father, a West Point graduate and highly decorated veteran and wanted to be like him. But Glenn was somewhat small and frail for his age, awkward, never quite succeeded in sports or school the way his father desired. And when Glenn was twelve, his parents had sent him to boarding school, a military academy, in hopes, or so Glenn thought, that the experience would toughen him up, make him a man. There—who knows why, perhaps because his size, his vulnerability made him an easy target for such violence—he became the brunt of a brutal “hazing”, sodomized by a gang of older boys. Humiliated, ashamed beyond words, Glenn had never told anyone about the assault. He, as he said, “just sucked it up and resolved that no one would ever emasculate me again.” Not only did Glenn not tell anyone else, he told himself that the assault never happened. He simply walled it off in an untouchable place inside himself, convinced that if anyone knew, even his wife, it would occasion disgust. And, even as he told this story, Glenn was convinced that it meant the end of his marriage. How could his wife feel anything other than revulsion, knowing this about him? But instead, Marie was full of compassion, indeed, relieved. Because suddenly all the pieces fell into place. You see, when his son neared the age Glenn was when he was assaulted, Glenn unconsciously became afraid that the same thing would happen to Jeremy. Glenn’s intrusive questions, his demands that Jeremy act like a man, were attempts, however misguided, to protect Jeremy. And, though Jeremy could never have known consciously what his father had suffered, Jeremy’s behavior was a metaphorical comment on his father’s terrible secret. Just as Glenn had walled off that incident from his understanding of himself, Jeremy had walled himself off from the world. Now, it’s not as if this family magically became whole immediately upon this revelation. There was still a lot of unpacking and disentangling of ingrained patterns of relationship and re-definitions of self on everyone’s part to work through. But healing would ever have been possible, if Glenn’s secret hadn’t come out. And Glenn, like Elizabeth, was tremendously lucky to have a spouse that could see beyond her own pain in the present to have empathy for her husband’s younger self.

One of the greatest human needs is to be known, known in all our fullness. But that is, as Frederick Buechner says, also our greatest fear. Because it is not just to be known for which we yearn, but to be accepted as known. We long for places and people who will embrace us whole; see us in our full humanity with our pasts and pecadillos and weaknesses, whether real or imagined, and still find us loveable, worthy; people and places who will shine the light into our dark corners and hidden recesses and bless what they find with empathy and understanding. And yet we fear that such acceptance is not possible—not for us—not for our secrets—shameful, culpable, as we are. Ah, but to be known fully, completely and experience acceptance—would that not be grace?

The Psalmist wrote, “Oh, God you have searched me and known me. You have plumbed the secret reaches of my heart, looked upon my every intimate secret, and still you hold me in the palm of your hand.” To be known and accepted as known. It is a timeless, universal human longing.

And yet, consider. A recent study by the National Science Foundation shows that a growing number of Americans—25%—have no one in whom they can confide, no one to whom they can turn in times of trouble. Paradoxically, despite the growth of internet social networks, Americans report feeling more isolated now than ever. Twenty years ago, three quarters of Americans said they had at least one person other than their spouse in whom they could confide; today, only half say they can count on a friend for support.

Search the internet and you will find a host of sites where people can anonymously reveal their most intimate secrets. Of course, some of the entries are obvious fictions; others prurient posturing; but many are heartbreaking: stories of childhood humiliations and aching regrets; confessions of weakness and unrequited love; revelations of mortifying physical embarrassments and guilt-laden transgressions. But perhaps even more plaintiff are the comments readers leave, also anonymous: “I wish I could give all these people a hug and tell them it’s ok to be human;” “I cried when I read this. I wish I could just tell these people it will be ok, cause I myself have never had anyone tell me that and it would help so much;”“ It makes me feel compassion for my fellow human beings; we’re the same the world over;”“Reading this, I don’t feel so alone.” ”

We long to be known and yet we keep our secrets hidden, fearing rejection, diminishment in our own or other’s eyes. And sometimes we keep our secrets hidden because exposure can mean true danger. The King of Togo Togo is not just an African folk tale. It echoes real scenarios repeated many times throughout history with much more horrible consequences than being the butt of laughter. Think of people who tried to hide their Jewish or homosexual identity in Hitler’s Germany, or people trying to pass for white in the Jim Crow South. To know such secrets was to be entrusted with people’s very lives. And even today, to be outed as gay or trans-gender, for example, can, in some quarters, mean the loss of jobs and reputations, becoming the target of harassment or even deadly violence.

We long not only to be known but also for a world where everyone is free to be oneself, without fear of abuse, discrimination or censure, a world where what is truly shameful, truly culpable, is exposed—the use of power to limit, control and destroy, to deny the right of others to exist. To be forced to live inside a secret, to keep a part of who one is hidden, either because of social stigma or structures of oppression, not only constricts the soul and circumscribes one’s living, but it undermines freedom, subverts justice for everyone.

We, here, aspire to be a Beloved Community, a place where everyone, no matter their identity, is accepted, embraced in one’s fullness; a place where none of us are forced to carry a burden of secrecy or camouflage; a place where it is okay to be human. Can we be that place for one another? Can we be real with one another?

I’m not suggesting that we each immediately start unburdening ourselves to any and every person we meet here. Of course, we need to be careful and none of us wants to hear too much information too soon. There needs first to be a relationship; we need to know the person to whom we speak is trustworthy, caring. But I am suggesting that we each try to cultivate relationships here in which we can risk being ourselves. And, even more importantly, that we each strive to become the kind of people worthy of such trust; the kind of people who listen with ears attuned to the universal desire to be accepted; the kind of people who treat private revelations with respect and reverence because we know that when we are invited into that deep place inside another person where one’s secrets are kept we are entering holy ground; and, the kind of people, too, who will stand in courage and solidarity with those who experience censure in the outer world.

Let us be a true Beloved Community, a place where we can lay down our burdens, be human, be real; a place where none of us need to hide or pretend or be anything other than who we are and are called to be. Let us be worthy of such trust; expansive in our empathy, enlarging in our understanding. Let us communicate that acceptance, the grace of God to one another. And let us work to build a world that mirrors that shining grace.