I am hungry. It is Wednesday night. Religious education classes won’t begin for another half hour. I sit talking with one of our fourthgrade students. I tell her how hungry I am (we prepare dinner for our students prior to class starting). I wonder if there is still an ice cream bar in the freezer. I tell her I could eat one now. She says “Well if you eat one now, you cannot have another after dinner.”
I reply that I could still have another one after dinner. She says “Now; that just would not be right, would it?”
Here we have a young student that knows the value of truthfulness and integrity. She knows what I propose is wrong. One ice cream bar short for the rest of the students after dinner.
Lying, fudging the truth and not being completely candid tend to be common issues with us in this world today. Much of the cover-up is seen as a little thing—simple self-preservation. However, it’s in the little things that habits are formed, and over time, the habit of small lies can grow into bigger acts of dishonesty— cheating on tests, lying on our income taxes, speaking ill of another person, keeping items you found instead of returning them to their owner. Integrity and truth seemingly are not valued in American society today. Just watch the news broadcasts to see the failures of politicians, corporate executives, clergy members, and other leaders of society. Personal responsibility for the truth has almost disappeared.
Integrity may be defined as answering the question “Do you do what’s right even if no one is looking or even if you know you could get away with something?”
Like most things we do well, integrity comes from practice. In recent years, folks have become quite nervous about things they value, because there has been so much change and upheaval. While corruption is not new in high places (businesses, governments, and other institutions), there is more media now, more than at any other time in history, to talk about it. And they do. Consequently, a lot of people do not respect their own leaders in business, government, and some other institutions. This breakdown in even the minimal appearance of respect seems to feed on itself, and results in other breakdowns.
So, values and integrity are not the same thing, are they? What one person values may be seen simply as covetousness by another person. So it is not that we should seek a society of values and integrity as much as we should want a society that has a value of integrity.
But is such universal respect likely to happen? At Christmas time, many people sing about “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men” but is it sung widely by people with no hatred or fear of mankind in their heart? Will all the people in the world resolve all of a sudden to be committed to treating each other with respect? Not likely?
Well then, I guess it is up to each individual to decide if what they really want is to do the right thing. It’s always been that way.
If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, and kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless.
Moliere
A question for you … Bible study… Who were the three men God told us were men of integrity?
Answer: Abimelech, David and Job. Research their names to see why God spoke of them as having integrity.
Integrity means treating people fairly and honestly. (Leviticus 19:35-36, Deut. 25:15, Proverbs 16:11-13)
Defensiveness is a form of lack of integrity, which is not accepting responsibility for our own actions. Often we look on how to blame others for our faults. Admit when we have done wrong, look for a way to improve one self. Character is respected and self improvement builds character. Special interest groups can lack integrity when they look to improve their own situation at the expense of others; we should act without expecting anything in return.
Integrity helps us to connect with others and to build trust. If we lose integrity we have made the choice to give it away. The wonderful thing about character and integrity, which are intimately related, is that they’re two of the few things in life that no one will ever be able to forcefully take away from you. Your choices are your own. Even if someone can take your life, they can’t force you to make a choice that you believe is wrong.
Beware of people who’ll try to convince you to give up on your character or integrity, saying that nobody’s perfect, and taunting you for being such an idealist. The fact that nobody’s perfect doesn’t mean violating what you believe is right. It’s good to learn from our mistakes, but we don’t always need to make mistakes in order to learn. Remember that striving to be perfect and being perfect are two different ideas; the former is integrity, the latter is futility.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Deacon Peter Mueller of St. John’s Catholic Church in Grand Marais.
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