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 22nd 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.