When Tolerance is No Virtue

What is at stake and looking at what really matters

Photo by Brendan Sapp on Unsplash

Like many of you, I’m concerned about what is happening in politics and the world around us. It’s disturbing. It’s alarming. It’s been depressing.  

I have tried and tried to NOT write this article.  But, I’ve given in because I continue to feel a fire in my bones that begs me to speak out what I am sensing inside.  How can I write of birds, trees and the mountain laurel, when so, so much is at stake? How can I, at this stage of my own life and living in this particular intersection of the world not say something—not do something?

So here we go…

The subtle corrosion of character and the swiftly changing values of people are converging to bring a tsunami of change and a wave of destruction to the world as we know it. In our desire to be tolerant, we have tolerated a slippage of human character and decency. Tolerance, in this vein, is no virtue at all. To tolerate what we know to be wrong is what I want to explore with you here.

I don’t think there is a day now, when I do not find myself concerned—if not worried about the future. It gets personal for me, because now, I feel most concerned about the world my grandchildren will inherit from us—from you and me who have steered us here into this conundrum. To write what I am going to tell you here is to hold the image of my thirteen living grandchildren in my heart and to write for them and perhaps for you as well. I do this in the hope that what I am going to tell you really, really matters.

This existential angst is what I believe will become the coming great tsunami that could take us out. For over twenty five years, I called, “busyness” the great threat to our soul. Now, I see another, more looming and more destructive force than just being too busy and doing too much. Our internal exhaustion is coming from another systemic infection in our soul.

 Our worry; our sense of doom; our pre-occupation with our own lack of purpose is all contributing to a new existential threat that threatens our very soul, sickens our minds and drains us of holy energy to actually care any more.  To give up and resign ourselves that we are powerless to do anything at all about the situation is to again choose the wilderness over a certain land marked by abundance, goodness, and the fruits of a more noble way of living.

I’ve tried to not watch the news but compelling headlines allure me to click and read and wonder, “What has happened today that will bring more erosion; more assault and more feelings peril that we are powerless to do anything about the situation?” So I listen. I read. I am curious. Despite feeling helpless, I am digging down and landing here—in this spot talking about what REALLY matters and what is REALLY at stake.

Let me explain.

The Chinese tell a story of a man who carved towers of wood strong enough to hold enormous bells that would be hung in temples throughout China. The wood carver developed a reputation for his skill, attention to detail and mastery of the wood. He was asked about the secret of his work. He replied, “Long before I start making and carving the bell stand, I go to the forest to do the work before the work. I look at all of the hundreds of trees to find the ideal tree—already formed by God to become a bell stand. I look for the bough of the tree to be massive, strong and already shaped. It takes a long time to find the right tree. But without doing the work before the work, I could not do what I have accomplished.”

The work before the work—this is our inside job. It is the job we all must do to reclaim what we have missed along the way of living a dream that may resemble more of a nightmare.  We, as a culture and people, have forgotten the work before the work. The allurement of power, wealth and fame contribute to an inner rust of our souls and result in the subtle corrosion of character. What matters now is far different from what mattered only a few decades ago. Since the beginning of time,  there has always been a lust for power and a craving to dominate.  Yet, history shows, those who do their inner work are willing and able to offer another way of living—a way that exudes grace, goodness and honor. It’s not about perfection but it is about living with higher values in our mind to guide us in the darkness and to cast light on the path ahead. Our fascination brought on by media, applauding and following social influencers and without a moral “hutzpah” (that internal “stuff” that makes someone solid, grounded and trustworthy) to support our outer lives, we face the collapse of a life we once lived, enjoyed and aspired to live. For me, this is not about the threat to democracy. It is a threat to our very humanity. Our very souls are at stake.

Integrity, according to Psychology Today focuses on:

• Integrity is a steadfast commitment to moral and ethical principles, promoting personal and collective well-being.

• Upholding integrity is linked to increased self-esteem, life satisfaction, mental health, emotional stability, and workplace success.

• Living with integrity involves self-reflection, accountability, consistency, honesty and transparency, and ethical decision-making

Integrity is what matters. The loss and erosion of holding integrity as a virtue is at stake. Seeing human integrity as the core and essential cornerstone of a good life and of a good leader is what needs and begs for our attention.

The American Monk, Thomas Merton writes:

He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom and integrity and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centeredness, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas.

Think about it with me.  Do you think that Merton’s words have the ring of truth about them?   Without doing our inner work—our inside job—we only offer our obsessions and aggressiveness. These are the marks of our current culture and “state of the union” and do not have red, blue or purple distinctions. Being RED or BLUE is a secondary or even lower issue. It is not the core of what matters in eternity.

Most of our training to “do” our life revolves around acquiring “outward” skills, strategies and training to perform better in our work. But our real work is not amassing degrees and credentials, our real work is our inner work—that place that is not seen, but is all important, vital and essential.

The hunger for fortune, the sadness and melancholy of our immature emotional life, the mistrust of what is true and what is sound advice results in what is called, “moral counterfeiting.” This demise calls evil good and good evil.

We seem to love successful people, but when most of us have hit some level of success in our lives, we realize that success is not the only goal of a good life and a life with meaning. We can become disillusioned if success is our only goal. Why? Because we realize over time, that the meaning of success evolves with time in our lives and the bar of achieving a successful life changes. For me, success has changed. It is not about publishing books; being an influencer or speaking all over the world. Success now takes on a different shape and size. Success now is more about the time I have and spend with the people I love. Like many of you, the ladder I have climbed to be successful was often leaning against a wall that I no longer wanted to climb—a wall I did not want to conquer—a wall that actually blocked me from what I really want today. My wealth is about relationships. My success is sharing time in meaningful conversation. We redefine what matters as we move through the decades. I think this is wisdom to adjust our definitions and reset our lives as we age and mature—if we are fortunate enough to live long enough. The older we become combined with relentless effort and achievement wears us out and leaves us empty. We need a spiritual solution for our demise and it is only in this spiritual solution that we find a key that unlocks what it means to live a good life. The quest to be a person of integrity, is at it’s core, a spiritual pilgrimage. It is a journey to look both up and within. It is a pilgrimage to look back as well as forward.

When we do our inner work, we participate in a revolution of change that mobilizes us to become change agents to sick world and culture around us.  Without this inner work, we will only get caught in the flow and erosion that we are seeing today. You and I possess the agency to change first how we think about this and then to take the steps to alter and take action to bring about deep and significant change. We possess choices and actions that plant the seeds of having a soulful core of integrity from which the fruits of a higher and more noble way of living will be born and thrive.

We actually do know what the Chinese bell stand carver knew. We know what makes a good human being. We know what makes a good leader. We know what it means to be inspired by goodness rather than fearing power. Our gut tells us. We have good guts actually. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. We fall. But we can be transformed.  We know, inside our hearts what decency looks like and feels like. We know also what it looks like to see the degradation of another human being for the profit and advancement of  an unbridled ego. We know these things. To be human means we possess the actual ability to discern good from evil.

Because I know what integrity is, looks like, acts like and feels like, I cannot “manage” or subdue this fire within to stay quiet.  I cannot act as if I do not know this. I cannot withdraw and talk only to the red Cardinals and yellow finches.

There is an action—an agency brooding inside me that I want to pay attention to and encourage us all to do the same. I can do something. I must do something. So I am doing what I know to do. Write. Speak up and speak out. This is my beginning, again, to do this right here and right now.

As I survey the landscape today in 2024, I have only grown even more concerned.  Character and integrity have eroded as traits we actually desire and admire.  We exchange traits and truth we internally actually know is true, and barter them for placing people in power who lack this moral constitution to lead and to show us what a life well lived actually looks like, feels like and is like.  What’s more, we elevate people to political offices, leadership positions and platforms of influence who really and truly do not deserve and do not have the human constitution to be in  such positions of high office and broad influence.

This is not the invitation to choose between what we describe as “the lesser of two evils.”  This is a clarion call to ask us to not call evil, good and evil, necessary. And then to put Bible verses around this saying “For such a time as this…”  It is the invitation to choose what is noble, right, and honorable and to dig in and take a stand right here—in the primal soil of what is right and what is wrong in how one speaks; how one talks about another human being; how one embraces a basic sense of dignity and how one does not, will not and perhaps cannot.

Because of these reasons and more, I want to make a special offer to you that I seriously want each of you to consider. I think that this message needs to be heard and explored.  I spent two years of my life studying this conundrum and my time, energy and interest all resulted in a book which I wrote titled, Inside Job: Doing the Work within the Work.  The book is about doing what the master woodcarver story describes, as doing “the work before the work.” Before we go “make a living” we must first, shore up a steady and secure foundation to build our lives upon. Inside Job is about finding and growing character and integrity. It is about how to live a resilient and sustainable life. It has about how to have influence and how to live with the end in mind.  In this book, I explore the subtle corrosion of character and what this leads to in life. I explore the illusion of what is called, “work-life balance” and offer a time tested and inspirational way to live that is sustainable and actually doable.

My book, Inside Job addressees the inner work most needed today. When we lead from the inside out, we reduce the  likelihood of the implosion of lives and the carnage of stories of people who have risen only to fall because there is no moral fiber holding the pieces together.  Integrity is the sinew and muscle that holds our humanity together. It’s that all important and it is vital to hold onto what must never be given up. Never.

The publisher, Inter Varsity offered me a way to purchase copies of my book at a deep discount—a discount I want to pass on to you. This is not an invitation to buy a single copy of Inside Job. To buy one copy, you can do that on Amazon or your own ways.

  I’m wanting to bring this up at this time because of three reasons:

1)   We need to explore our need for character in life.

2)   We need to do our inner work in order to succeed in our outer work.

3)   The felt-need in the world that something is terribly wrong in politics and leadership today.

If you’ve read Inside Job, would you consider finding your copy and reading it again and passing it along to another person. More, would you consider getting multiple copies and gifting them to people in your sphere of influence—perhaps asking them to read it with you; to have a discussion and to collaborate together in explore these vital and foundational themes? Consider a church wide study.

I have 1000 copies boxed up in my garage, ready to go. This offer is good only through August 31, 2024 or until all copies are gone. I am not going to offer to ship single books. But I will offer to ship multiple orders as I describe in the link.

Click here to see the offer to get multiple copies of Inside Job!

Click here to buy a single copy of Inside Job through Amazon! These are very limited in number as you will see.

This is one way to begin a different conversation. It is one step I can take. It is a conversation I can raise here and now and know that together is better than alone.