A New Day, A New Dare

Do you remember playing Truth or Dare as a child? Usually the dare was something risky – maybe embarrassing or even scary. Something that would push you out of your comfort zone. Maybe even make you feel a bit vulnerable in front of others.

Personally, I almost always took the truth option.

The word dare implies that this is something not everyone can or will do. To take a dare is to take a risk – it costs me something in the end. A dare is not without consequences.

Back in grade school, a typical dare would be something like this:

I dare you to call Jimmy’s house and hang up!

I dare you to run outside in your pajamas (or less, depending on how daring your circle of friends happened to be)!

The truth is, truth was generally not as fun for the group as the dare could be. Much less exciting to spill the name of your crush than to actually call him on the phone and tell him you like him (with an audience of slumber party-ers, hyped up on soda in the middle of the night). I may have opted for telling the truth more often than I took a dare, but that was then. This is now.

Just as my friends found it more exciting to watch each other do something than to listen to one another say something, I find myself a forty-something who is tired of listening to a version of the truth that is nothing more than what you think I want to hear.

There are so very many words, and they are so very easily tuned out, that what I am looking for these days are men and women who are all about the dare! The doing! Action and momentum and energy and Word-become-flesh! Truth isn’t found in what you say when you’re put on the spot and have to spit out an answer. Truth is found when you and I dare to live as if that truth matters too much to keep it locked away in our words.

Truth is found when we dare to act in situations where others won’t.

Truth is found when we set aside our need to look good in front of people and choose to do the right thing, unpopular or embarrassing as it may be.

I’m discovering that truth is actually found in what we dare to do each day, and that the dare really is a better choice when what we dare to do is forget ourselves and live for others.