Say what you like: say I'm ill,

When we tell someone we're not at home, we have to hide in that place. When we invent a long line of lies, we have to memorize each one.

It's easiest just to come clean, use plain and simple words, and speak true. When accusers spear us with their stares, we can disarm them by looking them right in the eye. 

Not only do lies deceive others, they keep us hidden from ourselves, and make our real reasons for the choices we've made seem unworthy, if we feel we can't express them. Better that we be truthful, even if a little pain results. Truth keeps communication lines open.

Then, when someone really wants to know what's on our minds, we can simply open our hearts. 

How much better it is to clearly sort out what is really important to us, and then give ourselves to those things or people wholeheartedly. 

Famous writers have written about the difficulty of having more than one or two really good friends. That number seems so unimpressive if we equate popularity with the number of friends we have.

If we want quality, we must accept our limitations. In this way we avoid wasting energy on unimportant tasks, on friends who aren't true or close, on goals which aren't what we really want. 

We can only commit ourselves wholeheartedly to a limited number of tasks and a limited number of people.

 Was she naive? No. 

She deeply believed in the goodness of creation and the goodness of all creatures, including those who persecuted and murdered her people. 

Somehow, young as she was, Anne Frank knew a truth we sometimes lose: that it is not what people do that makes them good or evil. 

It is who they are.

And for Anne Frank, all people are made in the image of God -- and therefore, deep down at their core, must be good. She was able to see through the brutality and hatred to that true creation of God. 

We are left in awe at such faith and love. But we can draw from it too, and when our brother or sister or parent or child does something to hurt us, we can remember Anne Frank's ability to see what is good. 

We can look beneath the hurtful actions and forgive.