free your secrets

last night jeff and i went to bookshop santa cruz


to hear frank warren


speak about his postsecret books and website.

every week, frank receives thousands of postcards
with secrets on them.
these secrets include confessions, hopes, and fears.
some get posted onto his website-
others get put into his books-
others remain “secret-secrets” because of copyright.
some are scandalous
(so watch out!)
but of course they are!
they wouldn’t be a secret if they weren’t.

frank had a lot to say about the power of secrets
and the power of revealing them-
he had story after story
of how people felt
the freedom to get their secrets out in the open
after viewing the bravery of others
to reveal their secrets to him.

he posts new postcards every sunday
his website get millions of hits a week-
why are we so interested in the secrets of others?
he said that all of us are on a search for grace-
and authenticity-
its ironic that frank would reveal these secrets
on sunday mornings-
a time when so many are looking for grace and authenticity-

he made this point that i found interesting,
and i’ve noticed it myself:
several of the secrets are exactly the same-
the artwork is different,
but the ideas, and often the words are identical.
he made the point that-
we feel that our secrets are making us painfully different
from the others around us-
and therefore we’re afraid to share them.
and the reality is that we have the same secrets-
and if we all got them in the light,
we would realize that we aren’t so strange after all.

he shared a secret of his own-
and he said that as he shares it more and more,
it loses its power, and he begins to control IT,
rather than IT controlling him.

someone asked him if reading all of those secrets
makes the secrets boring or even watered down
and surprisingly, he said yes.
and then he asked,
“isn’t that the point?”
“isn’t that why people share their secrets with me?”
“so that they will lose their power?”

as jeff and i were riding home
we talked about some of the themes that frank talked about:
confession, grace, authenticity,
choosing not to judge, integrity, unconditional love-
and we concluded that frank warren has cashed in on an idea
that is as old as the scriptures-
he’s re-packaging what the scriptures have been telling us
for thousands of years:
“confess your sins
to each other
and pray for each other
so that
you may be
healed.”
(james 5)

in the words of frank miller:
“free your secrets
and free yourself.”