Pandora's Box:

"For whatever reason -- curiosity or malice -- she opened the box and revealed the sin. Despite how quickly she closed the lid, the sin had already escaped."

In 2004, Frank Warren began a public art project where he distributed 3,000 self-addressed postcards with instructions to write down and illustrate a secret and send it back. He stuck the cards in library books, left them on city bus seats, and in any spot where he thought they might get picked up. The only requirement was that the secret be true and that the secret had never been told before. The postcards began to trickle in, and then pour, and the deluge continues to this day, sometimes as many as 200 fill Warren's mailbox. Every Sunday on PostSecret he posts about 20 fresh secrets from all over the world.

The posts are hopeful, lewd, humorous and heartbreaking. Warren believes that his blog serves a larger purpose — that the act of designing and sending these cards is cathartic. In an interview with CNN, he said that the act of sharing secrets helps people to make changes in their lives, to become free from their past. "We think we're keeping secrets, but the secrets are actually keeping us," he said. Although the blog is fascinating, there is something unsettling about the idea of people turning first to a stranger with their secrets — a stranger who can not look them in the eye, give them a hug or help keep them accountable over the long haul.

In Telling Secrets, one of America’s foremost writers and theologians Frederick Buechner writes, "I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets ... our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human." By sharing our secrets, we draw closer to another human being by letting them know us in a deeper way.

Although people tend to think that in order to make friends you need to impress people with your accomplishments and skills, the reverse is more often true. When we brag about ourselves we alienate others, but when we share our struggles we invite people in. When we begin to tell our secrets, we invite those around us to share their own. As the conversation deepens, two souls lean towards each other and each feels less alone (with a nod to Jenny Schroedel).