In the 1930s, when “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” was released, children learned of a jolly bearded gift-bearing man who “knows when you are sleeping and knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!” If integrity is what you do when you think no one is watching, it’s a wonder children who grew up with this song ever developed any.
-Lori Stone (CLF)
How do you recognize and embody integrity?
“Let the life I live speak for me.”
-African-American Spiritual, as made famous by Sullivan and Iola Pugh (The Consolers)
What does your life say to others?
When I think of integrity, there is another word that closely flows behind which is accountability. If a process, a person or an object has integrity, we believe there is a solid foundation, a reliability that can be rested upon. Do the spaces in which we move have integrity?
-Lecretia Williams (CLF)
How do you make sure that your spaces create an environment that is rigorous, fluid, and filled with integrity?
Integrity: Firm adherence. When I look at the words firm adherence, I think of my Dad, whose life was filled with FIRM adherence. When the cashier gave Dad too much change after a transaction, Dad would turn it into a math lesson, and explain that they had given him too much, and he would return the 1 cent that belonged to the store. When I picked a rose from the neighbor’s rose bushes and gave it to my Dad, he asked that I ring the doorbell of the neighbor and apologize.
Because Dad was filled with so much truth, I could never reveal to him that I was struggling and cheating my way through middle and high school. I could not approach him. I was, in his value system, without integrity, and so I couldn’t approach him with my struggles.
-Beth Murray (CLF)
When has integrity been a barrier to your relationships?
A fundamental understanding of freedom in this society includes the idea of bodily integrity for each person: the right to personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination. Even though this would seem self-evident, there are people who do not yet enjoy this freedom and those who face the possibility of losing it.
-Lori Stone (CLF)
Let us pray for bodily integrity to be established once and for all as worthy of respect and protection.
