What I believe: Part Three ~ The Struggle for Integrity
The art of being spiritual is really a struggle for integrity and the impeccability of thought, word and action that follow. It is an internal quality that informs my external life. Integrity is far more than just being true to one’s word or honest. It is far more than simple adherence to a code of moral or ethical principals. Integrity is a wholeness and soundness of mind and spirit. Integrity is organic living at its highest and truest form.
This is the beginning of what I have come to call my spiritual journey. We live in a world of rhetoric, political rhetoric, religious rhetoric, spiritual rhetoric and moral rhetoric. We need to get past the pretty words and the carefully crafted arguments and counterarguments to get to the truth. When I stop and consider how the majority of the information we are barraged with each day is empty rhetoric it is no wonder why so many people seem confused or even ambivalent. It may also be the reason why so many flock to certain religious and political organizations. They want a way out of the confusion but don’t want to work at it themselves. They would much rather have a prescribed set of rules handed to them.
The notion of integrity presents a problem for me. What exactly is it and how do I go about getting it? When you listen to the politicking and finger waging moralizing going on in our country today you hear a lot about accountability. Accountability is one way we come to understand the nature of integrity. Liberals point their fingers at the wealthy, the corporations and the government demanding that they be held accountable for whatever the egregious action of the day is. Conservatives and the wealthy point their fingers and say that the individual needs to be held personally accountable. So the arguments go.
Both sides are right. However, before we can expect our government, military or corporations to have accountability the individuals that make up these groups must first have accountability themselves. In other words we must each seek to become personally accountable.
We are fooling ourselves to think that there is some political or ideological solution to the problem if we don’t stop our finger wagging and point those fingers at ourselves. Certain Medieval religious used to refer to this process of self-examination and confession as accusing oneself. Even though we are loathe to use words such as sin and to think in terms of sinfulness it is nevertheless appropriate to accuse ourselves of our imperfections and strive to route them out.
During my 9-5 life I spend a majority of my time in seeking conflict resolution. I try to bring people together to negotiate settlement without the need of lawyers and the court. A lot of what I deal with is in relations to contracts. I have come to notice that many of the people I deal with lack accountability. They want to push the blame for whatever the problem is onto someone else. They want the other person to shoulder all the responsibility. Many seem to walk away from the process if they don’t get all the answers or concessions they want. They really aren’t adverse to compromise as long as they aren’t the ones who actually have to do any of the compromising. Some walk away and refuse to pay even for legitimately delivered goods and services.
These aren’t all large corporations either. I deal with a large number of individuals and sole proprietorships. It’s the individual and not the group at large that lacks any sense of personal accountability. They give their word which in this day and age is often a signed legally binding document that we refer to as the “contract.”
Unfortunately the people who often choose to walk away do so not because they can’t pay. If it were simply for that reason it is at least understandable but many simply back out on their commitments. They didn’t get their way so it’s “screw you guys I am going home.”
Why do people do this? A generation ago people would not have done this so readily. When you gave someone your word it was a binding sacred agreement regardless of whether or not you had a signed legal document. In fact my father and his peers took their word as a personal reflection on their character. To violate it was an admission that you were not honorable; this refusal to honor ones agreements was a sign that you lacked integrity.
Everything a man did in those does was seen as a contract. Marriage, raising children and working for your employer were all promises that were meant to be honored to the best of your abilities. Anything less was a personal failure.
In many ways we still expect this level of commitment from people. Yet we don’t seem to remember that those same principals apply to us. In our mass consumer society the customer is always right. We read this often to mean that I am always right and the other guy is wrong. If I am unhappy about something then I shouldn’t have to pay or live up to my end of the bargain.
I have talked with customers who thought they disconnected their long distance service and then proceed to rack up a large bill only to turn around and refuse to pay it. The arguments are never creative and are almost patently the same.
“I shouldn’t have to pay this because I thought my service was canceled.”
“But even so you are clearly using the service,” I might reply back.
“So!”
“So you had to know you’re service was still active. You were making long distance calls after all.”
This isn’t the case where the big bad corporation was being unethical or taking advantage of the customer. It happens. Believe me…I have seen it happen.
But in this case there was no record of the person actually having requested his service be disconnected. We always require a signed authorization form to be sent to us, a form that we provide, before we disconnect service. This customer knew nothing about this form.
The problem is in our Wal-Mart era people are under the false impression that they are entitled to whatever they want at no added expense to them. The modern American consumer has come to believe that he or she can have the very best quality at the very lowest price. In order to continue placating us in this lie many corporations have outsourced many of their jobs and even suppliers to offshore companies. They do so to stay competitive in an economy that is now global.
The American Consumer is very much responsible for the financial woes he is in….as much as the corporations competing for his depleting financial resources. No better example currently exists than the sub prime mortgage melt down. Thousands of people are in danger of losing their homes because they bought into the lie that they had the right to buy a home even if their credit was trashed and had no savings. The bought into the myth of equity and walked blindly into the rocky terrain of the sub prime mortgages market. These often very creative lending products were loaded with arms, balloons and other pitfalls that tripped the unwary and poorly educated consumer up.
I offer these material examples because they are symptoms of a larger disease. There is a lack of integrity from the inside out in our lives. A recent jingle for Best Buy claims strongly and proudly, “I want it all, I want it all, I want it all and I want it now.”
Every time I hear this I can’t but help thing it is the perfect statement about our current social consciousness in this country. We want what we want and that is all there is to it. We want what we want even if it is bad for the environment or our health. We want what we want even if it exploits workers. In fact we won’t pay attention to these possibilities until our media informs us of it and then we pretend to be outraged.
We are encouraged to do so. We have been sent a message for so long that a sign of a good American is the level of his or her consumerism. We aren’t being told to “ask not what our country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.” Unless of course it is an election year and the candidates are out spinning rhetoric trying to persuade you that they are exactly the agent of change we need.
John F. Kennedy’s statement to the country in the early 60’s was still during a time when we were told that useful and purposeful work was more important than what we owned. We had a common enemy with a face in the form of Communism and the Soviet Union. There were clear lines of demarcation and everyone knew what was expected of them.
A generation later our enemy is faceless. We are held in fear by clever terrorists who have Middle Eastern names and worry that they may actually be living among us. Our enemies no longer need to launch an ICBM missile to get at us, an action that would guarantee their mutually assured destruction along with ours. Now our enemies are willing to sacrifice their own lives and the lives of non military personal and non-political targets to make their point.
In the land of the Free where we have struggled to give equal rights to women and minorities and only in the last 30 to 50 where we have begun to make improvements we are now creating new racial inequalities in the form of Middle Eastern and Latino people.
We are waging an expensive and unpopular war in Iraq spending millions of dollars while our economy here at home is falling down. Meanwhile we are still being barraged with messages to spend and consume. The government is trying to forestall home foreclosures and our looking at sending taxpayers rebate checks to encourage them to spend.
Now I am all for free money. But it really isn’t free is it? Will this work? I don’t know I am not an economist. It seems to me that it may be fatally flawed. The rebate checks are part of a stimulus package that is designed to get consumers spending again. But what if these consumers use it to pay don existing debt or save it? Will it work then? Should the government be giving away rebates a time when Medicare and Social Security are in trouble and when we are embroiled in a war that has created the largest federal deficit in history? I don’t know.
What does any of this have to do with integrity or spirituality? Maybe everything! We are country without a collective inner life. Everything is up for sale and can be purchased on the internet or the local discount retailer with a debit card. Even our spirituality is a mass consumable. There are teachers and writers making bank by selling their books and teachings. Some of it is good. But a large amount of is nothing more than saccharin spirituality filled with stuff that tastes great but is not really nourishing to the soul.
Most of it is simple fair that fills us for the moment. It is fast food garbage that takes the edge off the hunger even as it ravishes our health. The words are pretty and make us feel good about ourselves for the moment. But in the end it doesn’t facilitate any real or lasting change. Many of us shy away from this type of work because it is very difficult and it can be devastating to us. When we approach our spiritual life from a point of integrity we shed the false skin that masks who we really are.
We can’t begin to change effectively until we begin to see who we are warts and all. We must embrace this ugliness and befriend it. We must bring it forth into the light and examine the shortcomings that affect our personal and business relationships.
Evangelical Christianity and New Age Spirituality can’t be more distant from each other than they are but they often share one thing in common. They give the believer a sense that all they have to do is “give it up,” “release it,” or “claim our good” in order to transform ourselves. We simply must acknowledge that we can’t do it ourselves and need to rely on God and his grace.
I would agree. Grace and giving things over to God are a big part of what I believe. But I also understand that despite needing God’s grace I have a role to play in this as well. I have a commitment to make. It isn’t enough to simply open oneself up to receive grace. One must do something with it! This often culminates in a struggle as my inherent tendencies to be self-centered struggle for supremacy with the higher spiritual quality of life. It is not easy to put others first or to surrender to a higher and greater goal. Common causes are great as long as it doesn’t interfere with lunch or Law & Order.
God’ grace brings the darkness out of me into the light. It lets me see where my failings and it compels…and, yes…commands me to act. There is a mitzvot to every situation in my life. I must seek the righteous way to act. I must seek what it means to love my neighbor as myself in every moment. The commandment is to find the best way to love in the moment and then to actually do it.
It is okay to look after ones one self-interest but not if it harms another. Even if that harm is not intentional or we are ignorant of it this does not matter. The harm was still done. If I find that another has been harmed by my actions I must seek reparation. I must do what I can.
This way of living requires that I carefully weigh the consequences of my actions. I must be conscious of what I consume and how I consume it. I need to give up the notion that I deserve something because I am hard worker, I have earned or what a great person I am.
By slowing down my use of the media and looking at my consumption I am able to clear a space for an inner life to grow. The inner life is the place from which the integrity we seek comes forward.
Next: Integrity and Impeccability from a practical stand point