Sunday, November 8, 2026. Coffee: strong. Captain: humbled.
This morning I sat in a meeting where a roomful of people took turns telling the truth about themselves. The kind most of us save for 2 a.m. and a ceiling fan. People said what was so, sat back down, and the coffee kept going around the room.
I rode home thinking, I love being honest. Then I thought about how rare that is in politics, and I nearly leaned my motorcycle into a mailbox. Which would have been the most transparent thing to happen in public life all week.
Let me say this up front, in the spirit of the thing: I am not a saint. I spent years in sales. I have told a prospect a product would “basically pay for itself,” and I have watched his face as he did the math.
So I’m not writing from the mountaintop. I’m writing from the folding chair, which is where the good stuff happens anyway.
In that room, honesty wasn’t a strategy or a brand. It was the price of admission. You tell the truth because the alternative has already cost you plenty, and you’re tired of paying.
Politics runs on the opposite economy. Out there, honesty is a luxury item, something you can afford only after the election, after the polls settle, after the donors are thanked. The truth gets focus-grouped until it comes out shaped like a slogan. Lying is the most bipartisan thing in America. It may be the only bill both sides would sign tomorrow.
We do it too. We vote for the candidate who tells us what we want to hear and punish the one who tells us what we need to hear. Then we complain that nobody up there tells the truth. That’s like a man who orders the fried everything and blames the waiter for his cholesterol.
This morning’s topic was humility, and humility turns out to be honesty’s older brother. You can’t be honest about yourself while you’re busy protecting an image of yourself. Pride needs a press secretary. Humility doesn’t. Humility just says, “Yeah, that was me,” and asks for help.
The men I admire most aren’t the loudest ones. They’re the ones who said, at some point, “I was wrong,” with no comma after it. No “but.” No “mistakes were made,” which is the passive voice slipping out the back door before the check comes. Those three words have done more good in my life than every campaign speech I’ve ever heard.
Proverbs 12:22 says, “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.” Not tolerates. Delights. God apparently gets a kick out of an honest man. That means the bar isn’t perfection. The bar is truth. Perfection I can’t do. Truth I can at least attempt before lunch, most days.
And Jesus saved his sharpest words for people performing righteousness in public while running a different operation in private. He called it hypocrisy, from the Greek word for a stage actor. A few of our public servants deserve a SAG card.
So what do we do with this? Three small things I’m trying.
First, telling the truth in small rooms before I ask anybody to tell it in big ones. If I can’t be honest at my own kitchen table, I don’t get to demand it from a podium.
Second, rewarding honesty when I see it, even when it stings. When somebody tells me a hard truth, I want my first words to be “thank you,” not “well, actually.” My “well, actually” has a lot of mileage on it.
Third, voting, spending, and sharing like honesty matters. Every click and forward is a little ballot for the public square I want. If I share what makes me feel right instead of what’s true, I’m part of the machine I’m complaining about.
Here’s what gives me hope. That room this morning was full of regular people with no titles and no campaigns, and it was the most honest room I’ve been in all year. Honesty isn’t rare because it’s impossible. It’s rare because it’s expensive, and most of us are still shopping for a discount.
I’d love to see a politician say, “I was wrong, and here’s what I’m doing about it.”
Until then, I’ll keep practicing in the folding chair. The coffee is free, and nobody asks me to kiss a baby.
Captain to crew: tell the truth today. Start small. Start with yourself. And when somebody tells you the truth, thank them.
Fair winds, and honest ones.
JC
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