Living Undivided

How did "we" become so divided? It begins with "me."

Photo by Alex Padurariu on Unsplash

What may be missing most in our lives these days is inner integrity and inner spaciousness.  I’ll unpack these too essential realities here at Substack, because, if we grow in our integrity and in our inner spaciousness, we can find resilience and a feeling of hope.  This is essential in our world today because, of so much doom and gloom. What concerns me most these days is our shared existential angst and despair in our news; politics, national divide and global crises facing our shared home—called the Earth.

In Part 1, I’ll explore inner integrity. In Part 2, I’ll explore inner spaciousness.

Help Needed: A Person of Integrity (Part 1)

Noted author and pastor, Tim Keller, has told us that: “No civilized society has put more emphasis on results, skills, and charisma— or less emphasis on character, reflection, and depth.” Keller is right. Let me try to address this.

In all our modern ways, culture and life, why has integrity eroded from our foundations as a people, as a nation; as a church?  Why have we become so, so intoxicated with charisma and charm over substance and moral constitution? Perhaps if we understood the “why” we could find our way forward. When we lose the “why” then, we’ve also lost the “way.”

I lost my “why” and gained fifteen pounds. It wasn’t until I addressed my “why”—what is it that really matters in my life—that I renewed my commitment and have now lost those fifteen unwanted companions. My “why” —meant I needed to drill down until I knew my “why—what I really wanted—what I really needed”. To search for your why in life, sets you on an all encompassing and deeply spiritual journey. It may be just what our divided states needs at this precise moment in time. It just may be that our nation is carrying too much weight—too much unhealth. You be the judge.

Our loss of being a people of substance and moral constitution is what has my attention when I think of our politics and more sadly, when I think of the American church, in general. When the church sold its soul to politics, we lost our “why” and the church, in general lost its way. When the church is enmeshed in politics; when the church refuses to speak to our national gloom and existential angst, then we have ceased to be the church described by Paul and modeled by the early church. When we think that Constantine did us all a big favor, we may need to revisit history and learn the lessons that we have ignored.

We have bartered for power, exchanging our very conscience and convictions that have gotten us here.  It is this collective, “we” that might be an issue to first accept; then lament and finally begin to restore ourselves, our communities and our nation—and even the world. The “we” begins with the “me.”  If we are sensing a moral landslide, then what is my responsibility in it? Have I sat down, when I could stand up? Has my own voice been hijacked by resignation, fear and cynicism.

We are a people who value machines over humanity and fast technology over the slow and mysterious soul. We are bent on degrading our humanity rather than rising up and protesting our dehumanization.  We feel frayed and dehumanized by our busyness and our national and global existential questions of the meaning of life. We are riddled with anxiety; numbing our inner ache with busyness and ignoring the causes of our human dilemma and national dis-ease.

We are more fascinated by AI than by sacred wisdom. We prefer to be relevant than to be wise. We are fascinated by social influencers and mimic “their” ways. We exchange our own voice for theirs; our own convictions for the shallow ones offered by culture. We are in peril and we are forgetting what is important; what is non-negotiable and what is necessary to live a life that is worthy to be lived. Thus, our statistics reveal our internal despair: rising and alarming suicides; mental illness and an Opioid epidemic that is taking cities, states and countries down.

Add to this, our lust for power; this greed for more; and this allure of prominence. This is as old as the story of the fall of our spiritual ancestors, Adam and Eve. Yet, somehow as modern people, we have forgotten our human possibilities to be reflections of the Light in which we were created and how to live as good, wise and decent human beings created in the very image of the God who made all peoples and in all times. We may have forgotten how powerful love is and how transformational a loving kindness is, in a world like this.

We are making good evil and evil good.

The “we” begins with “me.”

Let’s refresh our understanding of what integrity actually means and what integrity looks like. If we start with a working definition, then we can at least begin any discussions on moral leadership and how to repair our dilemma with this working definition.  

Here is the definition of integrity.

in·teg·ri·ty

/inˈteɡrədē/

         noun

noun: integrity

1.     the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness."he is known to be a man of integrity"

Similar:

Honesty, uprightness, probity, rectitude, honor, honorableness, upstandingness, good character

Integrity has to do with: ethics, moral, righteousness, morality, nobility; virtue, decency, fairness, scrupulousness, sincerity and truthfulness.

It is derived from the Latin word, which means “integrate”.  A person who has integrity integrates what is right and moral into their own being and their way of being human.  There is no space between the heart and the head in a person who possesses integrity. They are one and fully integrate what they know to be right with what they know instinctively, and that they also know what they “ought” to do. 

This inner compass of “oughtness” guides the person of integrity to make ethical choices, discerning what is right from what is wrong and they both stand by and live by this inner congruence.

This sense of “oughtness” holds many of our choices about how we will live and who we will become. We work through the layers of oughtness in our moneymaking; our relationships, our sexual lives, our care of others and vocational choices. Our sense of “oughtness” is also about how we treat our home—the Earth. Our sense of “oughtness” involves how we treat our neigbor.

We get this sense of “oughtness” by our birthright. To be born human, affords us all of choices of how we will act, live, be and treat others, including our very own selves.  It is one of our “inalienable rights.”

A person without integrity has not integrated well.  Somehow through nature and nurture, this inner sense of “oughtness” is broken. In this brokenness, the person emerges and begins to lead, live and do with a broken inner world—nothing to draw from; no solid substance on which to stand; no clear and guiding conviction but culture, popular opinion and the dark inner world where greed, lust, an insatiable appetite desire and quest for power and control all reside. These inner demons taunt, geer and beg an unsuspecting person to live and lead without all the wisdom available to them.

Like a ship without a rudder to guide and an anchor to hold firm, this person is guided by ego and a lust for power. This “ego,” as I have experienced it personally and been a witness to it in the lives of leaders in the church simply means, “E-dging G-od O-ut.” (Part 2 is coming ).

Something in our story; past, childhood and events of our shaping years, has thwarted a coming together. A person without integrity lives a divided life. There is a division in their private life from their public life.  This division is accepted and condoned.  Then we, in our culture and time, celebrate this division. We call it normal. What becomes normal then is hypocrisy, not integrity. This division looks like someone who thinks only of themselves and this division fosters a naracisstic kind of existence.

To Live Undivided—a clarion call to live a whole, other way!

One of the singular verses in the prayer book of the Old Testament says, this,

“Teach me to live an undivided life” (Psalm 86:11). 

When integrity is not taught, not modeled and not witnessed in our formation, then integrity will simply not be caught.  It is this teaching and catching of being a person with morals that we can find our pathway forward and reclaim our rudder, our anchor and the soul of our democracy. Remember, a person doesn’t learn to fish by someone fishing for them. A person learns to fish by fishing—then “catching on”to how you fish. I surmise that we have not “caught on” to how a just nation—a just person actuaay ought to live and be. It most have been a great lesson the wisdom writer named Job experienced “catching” the truth of his own integrity. He prayed this bold prayer:

“Till, I die, I will not deny my integrity.”—Job 27:5

I turn to the Quakers who have such wisdom in this quest.  Quaker leader and writer, Scott Wagoner puts it this way:

When we live a life of integrity, we ultimately are living out our truest and deepest self. We are living from a place of deep authenticity and honesty. We are no longer hiding who we truly are or who God has called us to become. We are no longer divided between who God has called us to be and who we think others want us to be. Often our dividedness is a result of seeking to please others and forsaking God’s original blessing on our lives through failing to live out of our giftedness and calling. When we do that, we bring a divided self to the world around us. This divided self can do damage not only to our lives, but to the relationships and projects of which we are a part.

As the Quaker author Parker Palmer puts it: “I pay a steep price when I live a divided life, feeling fraudulent, anxious about being found out, and depressed by the fact that I am denying my own selfhood. The people around me pay a price as well, for now they walk on ground made unstable by my dividedness. How can I affirm another’s integrity when I defy my own? A fault line runs down the middle of my life, and whenever it cracks open—divorcing my words and actions from the truth I hold within—things around me get shaky and start to fall apart.”

What I want to do is to inspire. What I also want to do is to stir the pot and put something into the laddle that we can actually lift out of this murky soup mix we are living in and give us something to reflect upon. I’m hoping for some personal clarity and I’m hoping that my own clarity might help others as well.

I’d welcome your comments.  But I would only welcome comments that are kind and gracious. If you leave a mean spirited comment, I reserve the right to delete it.  Don’t scroll on too quickly, now.  Sure, you can disagree. But first, lets agree to be civil.

What might help us here is to find the one line that makes you want to stop and think a bit more.  Let’ s start there.  What is the one sentence or line that I’ve written that you just want to chew on? Place it in the comments, would you?

If you’ve been reading my Substack, you know I’ve been working on this particular entry for a while. A few of your have asked me, “how can you write so much?” It’s a fair question. My writing is my own way of embracing a more contemplative life.

I’m in a new small group now of men. We call ourselves a “circle of trust.” One of our core values, we all stacked hands on in our beginning meeting was this: “When the going gets rough, turn to wonder.” So, in these rough times, I am wondering and am inviting you to wonder with me. Then, we can act. But first, let us just wonder a bit.

To help me search out my own heart, I have turned to writing this poem that I want to share with you. It is a prayer. It is a prayer for integrity.  It is something I can say; something I can pray; someplace where I can begin.  If you know the Substack world, this is where a sort of line is drawn. To read the poem, you’ll need to Subscribe as a “Paid Subscriber.”  It’s a way for me to hear  you cheering me forward and upward.  It’s a way to help recoup the costs of the new world I’m in of providing global resources and pay for website work, platform work and pay the people who have to help me. That’s not my world as you know. So, I’m asking for a $5 monthly subscription and this is what it goes towards.

Take a look at my poem. If you can, pray it with me. Recite it out-loud. Consider using this as a sort of meal time blessing. I’m sure it’ll stir up a conversation if you pull this prayer out and say it at a business luncheon or church staff meeting.

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In a confessional way, I want my own sons and grandchildren to know that I wrote this for you—more than anyone. I love you! Pappy