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Sincere Sincerity Sincerely
By Stew | posted 06/26/2008
“Love must be sincere.” Romans 12:9
I’m reading a book called “Truth and Truthfulness” by Bernard Williams. The subject is familiar enough. We each know what truth and truthfulness are (although some may confuse them with Steven Colbert’s “truthiness.”) Each day we are bombarded with messages from the media, our friends, our family, and our co-workers, and we instinctively and automatically assess the “truth” and “truthfulness” of these messages and messengers. Williams discusses “accuracy” as it applies to the truth of messages, and “sincerity” as it applies to the truthfulness of messengers. It is accurate to say that what I write here will not focus on accuracy. Instead, I sincerely hope what I write here will give you a better understanding of sincerity.
As the old actor’s joke goes, once you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything.
But you really can’t. True sincerity is wholly and purely authentic.
It’s interesting that sincerity has little to say about the truth value of what is expressed during sincere expression. That’s why you hear people say, “How you say it is more important than what you say.” Sincerity’s outward expression is in body language, facial expressions, and in one’s eyes. An outwardly sincere person is an easy person to trust.
The word “sincere” itself comes from the Latin sin (one) and cere (growth, as in “cereal”), so it’s literally “one growth,” and implies a singleness and purity of expression untainted by other considerations or “growths.” In a Christian sense, this might be thought of as an individual’s own expression of the larger vine of the Church, or as the pure expression of the Holy Spirit within an individual.
Sincerity speaks to the heart, accuracy to the mind. For example, if, on the one hand, I sincerely express a belief that global warming is either a major problem or nothing to worry about, my sincerity will not affect the accuracy or truth of the matter. On the other hand, real sincerity, or the appearance of sincerity, is critical to my convincing, persuading or selling you that either one is the case and that I’m trustworthy.
A characteristic of sincerity is that it operates simultaneously at the interface of communicating selves and souls. A person is sincere when he or she is able to put aside self-interest and other competing thoughts to cleanly, purely and truthfully express oneself to another. In this notion of sincerity, it’s easy to see how one’s own thoughts and the demands of the world can get in the way or pollute sincere expression. Examples are the salesman who is worried more about a commission than a customer’s well being, or the acquaintance who continually looks at a watch during a conversation. Both undermine their sincerity.
The uncomplicated glee of the child is sincere. The ironic laugh of the adult is less so. Sincerity becomes more difficult the more you know (“Don’t touch that apple, Eve!”), and the more you are thinking about.
Lying and manipulation are two of the more extreme forms of insincerity. (In contrast to both sincerity and insincerity is emotionless, objectivity. Many utterances of simple facts – “2+2=4” or “This is a table” – are neither sincere nor insincere, since they are uttered without emotion and with little connection to the self or soul.)
Of particular interest to the Christian (or at least this one) is how prayer and sincerity go together. Because God always apprehends the truth and cannot be fooled or deceived, sincerity is implied with any prayer. So prayer seems to me the best way to practice and refine one’s sincerity. Public prayers tend to be less sincere than private prayers because of one’s need to simultaneously address not just God but others.
To be sincere in prayer, the challenge is to quiet the mind by eliminating distractions and self-interest while concentrating, single-mindedly on the prayer itself. (Disclosure: I’ve been praying for about two weeks now, so what do I really know anyway?) Without a quiet mind, a prayer will tend to miss its mark and veer away from being pure, selfless and natural in its expression to God.
The same quietness of mind found in the sincerity of prayer is also what’s needed for sincerity in conversations with others. The heart is opened up in all sincere expressions, and that sincerity, because of its openness, involves risk and vulnerability. The uttering of sincere, but naked truths is powerful and can cause alteration to existing beliefs and relationships. Unfortunately, the sincere and truthful message is not always received by an equally sincere and receptive receiver.
For this reason, sincerity needs to be tuned so that truth resonates between the two sharing a truth, or the truth may never get communicated. That’s why there’s constant adjustment going on in a sincere conversation, trying to accurately identify and attune not just facts, but feelings and beliefs and dispositions. This need for attunement and resonance is also why some sincere expressions may fall on deaf ears, be ignored, or be made fun of. For example, a parent’s sincere concern for a teenage child may be spurned, or a teenager’s sincere feelings may be ignored or avoided by a parent. They each speak truthfully and accurately to each other about separate truths without finding a common resonating frequency that allows for sincere communication. This attunement and resonance is also why it may seem and feel natural to have sincere conversations with close friends who are on the same “frequency,” so to speak.
I’ve tried to explain sincerity here. I feel like I’ve missed the mark by quite a bit. What is written above is not as sincere as I had intended when I was thinking about it. I haven’t tuned my message well enough to the intended receivers of this message. I fear it will not resonate and little if any communication will occur. I am distracted by what others will think of this article when they read it, rather than by truly concentrating on its message. I have other things in my life that I’m thinking about that make it hard to make my message one simple, pure message. Fortunately, my discussion of sincerity here didn’t necessarily have to be accurate. What is probably more important to you is whether what I’ve said above is truthful and sincere, and whether the writer can be trusted and is truthful. Good sincere question.
Sincerely yours,
Stew
To respond to this message, email Stew at stewka@comcast.net.
