Staying in Shape: integrity, wholeness, and relationships

So Dana sent me an email about a month ago asking if I'd like to preach today. I was excited to get the invitation, but then I saw the theme for the year was relationships. I mean I know I'm a minister, but I'm still a guy—do I really have to talk about relationships? But obviously I said yes and so here we go.

Now the sub-theme for the month is integrity. Relationships and integrity. As I thought about the sermon, my thoughts turned to Italy and high school. I thought of Dante and his story of a journey through hell, purgatory and finally heaven. He constructed his epic poem, The Divine Comedy out of series of circles—hell has a series of levels reflecting different sins culminating in his meeting with Lucifer embedded in ice gnawing on the most damned of all. Purgatorio and Paradiso are likewise a series of circular structures. We'll get back to such orbits later.

Contemplating Dante's genius, brought me back to the Latin I studied in high school. Alan Santinon was my teacher—I was a reasonably good student, but was mostly known for my willingness to wear a toga for Rome Night. Anyway, the English word integrity come from the Latin integritas—to be intact or complete in itself, integer—a whole number. So the origin of the word integrity contains a sense of wholeness, of completeness.

But what do we mean when we say someone has integrity? Usually we're saying that someone is honest, has high moral standards, is trustworthy. “I did the right thing, I told the truth because I didn't want to compromise my integrity” I didn’t want to compromise my integrity--it's an interesting concept. “I did the right thing, because I didn't want to damage my wholeness.” To be dishonest is to somehow make ourselves less than complete. I do the right thing because to do otherwise makes me less than whole.

When I use the term whole or wholeness I'm thinking loosely of what the Greek philosophers held as the aim of all life and action, eudaimonia (you-da-monia), often translated as happiness but that is too narrow a definition—human well-being or flourishing is better--though it should be noted that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others held often divergent views of what this meant in practice. Still, I think we can generally conceive of what I mean—wholeness is my word for a life that allows one to live fully, with what is necessary physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. In recent years the study of positive psychology has grown enormously—and is dedicated largely to this idea—how does one live a full and gratifying life. Almost all of my non-fiction reading these days is from the field of psychology. Study after study shows that material goods beyond a relatively modest point bring no increase in happiness, perfect health with no supportive relationships is of limited use, intellectual gifts without emotional health also falls short and so on. A good life is one of balance between the head, heart, body and soul. The good life may be hard to strictly define. I think it's rather like how supreme court justice Potter Stewart described obscenity—I know it when I see it.

I prefer to think of integrity in terms of wholeness rather than the usual connotation of morality. I prefer this sense of wholeness because it appeals not to the outward adherence to society's expectations, but rather to a deeper sense of justice and reality. Morals change as societies change. Slavery, sexuality, wars, women's rights, gay rights have all had society's negative or positive moral judgment over time. I'd like to think leaders within our tradition have often listened to a deeper voice than politics, tradition, or theological dogma. They understood and then prophetically proclaimed the singular theme that really underlies each of our purposes and principles. To deny anyone wholeness in terms of life, liberty, or love is to diminish us all. To deny anyone wholeness in terms of life, liberty, or love is to diminish us all. All human beings desire wholeness and that should be the aim of society—human well-being, flourishing, not wealth or power. And wholeness requires participation in society's decisions; it requires adequate food, water, and shelter; it requires healthcare; it requires the right to love who you love; to free speech and free spirituality, and it requires a clean, sustainable environment in which to live—that really covers most of our seven .

Most importantly perhaps, wholeness knows satiety (sah-tie-it-tee), knows when enough is enough. Emptiness, ironically, is what primarily propels us toward massive homes and cars—and the environmental and emotional impact of our unfortunate quest to possess external space when it really is an interior hole we seek to fill—when we lack true integrity, when we lack wholeness.

And let me be clear, I am not holding myself out as the model here. I struggle with this too—probably more than many of you—as Julia would attest, pointing to my ever-expanding collection of hiking gear. I know that fear drives much of the behavior that I find most unhealthy in myself. I know that I struggle to live a life of wholeness and to cultivate that in others. In fact, that may be as good a summary as I can articulate regarding the ministry I do---to try to inspire and create the conditions in which individuals and communities can live lives of wholeness.

Metaphors of wholeness and shape are widely used when we talk about integrity in a broader sense. Someone who is not right is said to be “twisted” or somehow missing pieces, “a few sandwiches short of a picnic” “not playing with a full deck.” When we're feeling upset we might say that we're “bent out of shape.”

And for something to be bent there must be some kind of force applied. What is it then that makes us less than whole, what compromises our integrity, and ultimately our relationships? I would say that there is a particular emotional, psychological, spiritual force that distorts us the most--a feeling that subverts almost everything else and distracts the nobler impulses of the soul out of sometimes quiet, sometimes screaming, desperation.

In the end, what we constantly struggle against is fear. Fear is what separates us from each other and, indeed, from ourselves. Fear is what bends us out of shape, robs us of completeness, the ultimate compromiser of our integrity. Fear of the other, fear of losing power, fear of not being enough, fear of being vulnerable, fear that the universe is against us. {Fear keeps us out of sorts, out of shape, out of time, out of place.} Think about any time you've lied or compromised your integrity. Fear, I'd wager, was at the center of that breach. Fear of punishment, fear of speaking out, fear of insufficiency--emotional as much as material. When we can move past fear, we step into a brave new world. Dante has to travel all the way through hell and then climb past the devil himself just to get to purgatory let alone paradise. Rejecting fear helps lead us to a place where make choices informed by our strengths and by reality. I am not saying that there are no risks or dangers in life to be afraid of. No, they are real and all too common—the question is what happens if fear is the primary driver of our choices. Fear was the blunt evolutionary instrument of our ancient animal ancestors who faced immediate physical risks and lacked the pre-frontal cortex that allows one to contextualize risk and make judgments—to move toward that which is difficult, that which we fear. As Rilke wrote, “we must trust in what is difficult.” And most of our daily fears are no longer inspired by the tiger in the dark, but by the judging gaze of our social group or the warping effects of a culture obsessed with money and youth.

Fear is the whisper in our hearts and heads that make us ask if we are thin enough, smart enough, rich enough, sexy or sexed enough, masculine enough, feminine enough, talented enough--- good enough. Fear is what sabotages relationships as well as our own integrity. Fear sabotages our national integrity on topics like immigration, gay rights, healthcare, military spending, privacy, and certainly guns. Fear will make us give up on anything or anyone.

Fear of lack is what drives greed, fear that others might have more or better drives economic injustice and our insatiable consumerism, fear that others will snatch up what I need or keep me from living my own life of wholeness drives war and conflict the world over. Fear is far more contagious than any physical disease.

The snake in the garden was not evil, it was fear. Fear is what drives us to create mythologies that ultimately create more fear.

We lose our wholeness when we allow fear to guide our choices. The emotion of fear isn't the issue—everyone feels fear. It only compromises our integrity when we allow it to move us. And unfortunately one of the directions it tends to move us is away from healthy relationships. I'm trying very hard these days to pause when I feel stressed, angry, indignant, or embarrassed and ask what feeling is at the center of the experience—and it is almost always fear if I dig deep enough.

A lack of wholeness is part of what ruins relationships. At some deep level we know we must have good boundaries, be individuals, be whole in and of ourselves. When one or both partners or the overall family system doesn’t allow for this development of individual wholeness—the system weakens, the individuals struggle and lash out, and relationships are broken—all integrity eventually lost.

But it doesn't have to be this dramatic—indeed it often isn't. Fear isn't just a ravening monster that devours all in its path, fear is also the thousand and one ducks that slowly peck us to death.

A friend recently reposted a list of tidbits he'd seen about good relationships. There's a million of these and I tend to ignore them, but my friend is a smart guy and a Jungian psychologist so I figured I'd take a look. Many were common suggestions, but one stood out. “Relationships are not a cure for loneliness.”

How many folks have seen the movie Jerry Maguire? Fair number. Tom Cruise's character famously walks in during the last scenes, looks at Renee Zellweger soulfully and says, “You....”? Right, “You complete me.” Sweet sentiment, but what does that say for his integrity, his own wholeness? I don't want to make too much out of a generally enjoyable movie—but I think about the failed relationships of my own past and about some of the couples I've worked with as they prepared for marriage. The strongest relationships are not the ones in which each completes the other—the best relationships are ones where each protects and nourishes the growth of the other, the wholeness of the other—stands guardian over the solitude of the other, as poet Rilke noted—to help the other find their integrity.

I know some of this first hand. I grew up in a family that had few boundaries, didn't understand healthy relationships, and focused way too much on acquisition and intellectual accomplishment. It has taken me years of therapy and self-work even to understand the tremendous gaps that I still struggle with. And, of course, we all too often seek out communities that simply match up with our own gaps, our own neuroses. I remember confiding in a professor when I was at Boston University working on my PhD. Nervously I told him that I was leaving academia for ministry. He told me, in surprisingly strong words, that I would never be happy anywhere else. He insisted that I was an academic at heart. At the time I was terrified that he was right. He wasn't. Truth is, I was quite unhappy in academia for many reasons and it was the move to ministry that allowed me to actually turn toward wholeness. But it was hard and frightening to abandon the doctoral studies I had spend most of a decade on. Wholeness takes courage.

Although we've mostly visited this from a Western perspective, this sense of integrity lies at the root of various philosophical and spiritual systems. The Chinese classic, the Tao Te Ching can be translated as the Way of Integrity. Te, while difficult to translate, may also be interpreted as power or virtue. Integrity serves well though and points to a central element of philosophical Taoism—the concept of power through flexibility and adaptability. The 22^nd chapter speaks of this:

Chapter 22

If you want to become whole, first let yourself become broken.

If you want to become straight, first let yourself become bent.

If you want to become full, first let yourself become empty.

Those whose desires are few gets them, those whose desires are great go astray.

For this reason the Master embraces the Tao, as an example for the world to follow.

Because she isn’t self centered, people can see the light in her.

Because he does not boast of himself, he becomes a shining example.

When the ancient Masters said,

“If you want to become whole, then first let yourself be broken,”

they weren’t using empty words.

All who do this will be made complete.

-Lao Tzu

Again the concept of wholeness in relation to integrity—“all who do this will be made complete.”

This might seem like a contradiction. On one hand I'm saying not to yield to fear and yet here I am elevating a text that tells us “if you want to become whole, first let yourself be broken.” But being broken is not the same as lacking integrity—and the Chinese philosophers understood this. We only lose integrity in brokenness when we refuse to see it or admit it.

A lack of integrity, a lack of wholeness is notoriously hard to escape. It reminds me of the old Sufi story about a servant who runs into the angel of death in the Baghdad market. Death gestures toward the man who runs away terrified. The servant goes to his master and begs for a horse. He rides, fast as he can, to get far away from Baghdad and the menacing angel. He rides all day and all night to the distant city of Samarra—once there he feels safe. The merchant, curious as to what transpired, goes to the market, finds the angel, and questions him. The angel of death apologizes saying, “I didn't mean to scare the poor fellow, I was just so surprised to run into him here in Baghdad since I have an appointment with him tomorrow morning in Samarra.”

Our culture provides us a million ways to distract ourselves from the challenging work of wholeness and justice. We have created entire industries, cities even aimed at filling that void. And we too often pathologize and then medicate the anxiety and depression that comes from this lack of wholeness and the compromised relationships it leads to. Look at what people will do to their bodies with chemicals and surgeries to try to defy the reality of time. Look at what people will believe in an effort to fill the void. But no botox or facelift, no black and white theology or bank account will give you a sense of completeness. We preserve our wholeness when we are honest about where we are broken—and in this honesty, in this humility, we connect with our power and our ability to change.

One nuance of meaning that gets lost in translating Te as Virtue, Power or even Integrity is the animistic quality—the sense of the word that speaks to the inherent spirit or power that imbues the natural world. The mountains, the oceans, the forests, deserts, and rivers—and certainly the animals—all have their own integrity, their own innate state of wholeness. When our own integrity is compromised, when we are not able to be whole, to contain ourselves, we spill out into the natural world disrupting the integrity found there. How else can we understand the deforestation, the pollution of the oceans, the extinction of life except in terms of some serious breach of human integrity—some lack within us that drives us to disrupt the natural world and, as a species, largely ignore the integrity of the earth?

We live in concentric circles, like Dante's imaginings. Circles of relationship: the inmost, our relationship with ourselves, the next circle our family, and so on progressively outward to community, country, planet. I don't have to go all the way back to a poet now dead 693 years to find images of circles, but it's not just the geometry—it's the fact that the inhabitants of Dante's realms are where they are because of the choices they made in life. Those suffering in hell were those who had in some way or another what Dante considered dis-ordered appetites—they turned away from wholeness and followed a narrower, backward, usually fearful path. How often do we engage in behaviors that wind up nibbling away at the edge of ourselves? How often do we turn away from the path we know to be right? How often do we inhabit hells of our own creation?

I have borne witness to many forms of suffering over my years as a chaplain, but without doubt, the people whose suffering feels most intense and most resistant to palliation are those who are suffering in emotional and spiritual pain of their own devising.

Wholeness requires space to assume one's full shape. This is the process of becoming an adult—learning the shape of one's whole being and then striving to live into that form. In relationships then, we ought to listen deeply, to watch closely to see the healthy shape those closest to us are seeking to fulfill—and then support them in that growth. I see already some of the outlines of my son Ben's growth—and I see myself struggling at times to allow that shape to expand beyond the bounds that I've grown comfortable with—to let go of the baby, let go of the toddler and create room for the boy who is already, inevitably moving toward individuation and adulthood. What I seek as a parent perhaps more than any other thing, even more than sleeping in, is to be brave enough, to have enough integrity in myself to allow the same in my child.

So as we leave this place, the question before each of us is how are we going to live with more integrity? How are we as individuals, as a society, as a spiritual community going to live in ways that fosters wholeness for ourselves and those around us. How are we going to strive for this in all our relationships? How are we going to live our lives and our relationships with wholeness, with integrity.

In Dante's vision of heaven, his final moments have him circling the divine presence moved not by money, power, or fear, but as Aristotle suggested, the “L'amor che (kay) move il sole e l'altre stelle.”“The Love, that moves the sun and the other stars.” Love, not fear, is what will move us toward wholeness in relationships, in all things. Move us toward the good life and toward integrity.

Blessed be, namaste, and amen.