First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Integrity...
Nothing's a Gift
Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan.
I'm drowning in debts up to my ears.
I'll have to pay for myself
with my self,
give up my life for my life.
Here's how it's arranged:
The heart can be repossessed,
the liver, too,
and each single finger and toe.
Too late to tear up the terms,
my debts will be repaid,
and I'll be fleeced,
or, more precisely, flayed.
I move about the planet
in a crush of other debtors.
Some are saddled with the burden
of paying off their wings.
Others must, willy-nilly,
account for every leaf.
Every tissue in us lies
on the debit side.
Not a tentacle or tendril
is for keeps.
The inventory, infinitely detailed,
implies we'll be left
not just empty-handed
but handless, too.
I can't remember
where, when, and why
I let someone open
this account in my name.
We call the protest against this
the soul.
And it's the only item
not included on the list.
--Wislawa Szymborska
Violence does not necessarily take people by the throat and strangle them. Usually it demands no more than an oath of allegiance from its subjects. They are required merely to become accomplices in its lies. --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
We live in difficult times. And many of us struggle with difficult lives. All of us want to receive new life, and to be changed. The question is how.
Eberhard Arnold, founder of the Bruderhof Community, reminds us that "It is God who must change us, and God may do this in a way that upsets our own expectations and ideas, including our plans for inner growth or personal fulfillment. To be fit for God's future, we must be shaped by God."
One of the most difficult things in life is to show integrity in naming who we are--being honest about who we are, where we have failed, where we bungled our lives. Or where we feel that life (God?) has let us down and given us a bad deal.
We think that by ignoring our mistakes, by ignoring our inner suffering or rage that we're being kind to ourselves. The truth is, when we fail to show integrity in naming who we are, what we've done and what has happened to us, we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. Life becomes a kind of prison where we defend ourselves from truth.
>One of the first steps to take in trying to find integrity in our spiritual lives is refusing to separate ourselves into our "good" self and our "bad" self.
We are who we are. And who we are is someone created in the image of God. God never expects us to be perfect. And God's love never retreats in the face of failures. Jesus transformed the world because he was able to see people as they were--and he loved them as they were, even when the people around him lacked compassion.
Dostoevsky speaks of this great love--the love that can bring integrity. He writes, "Believe that God loves you as you cannot conceive; that God loves you with your sin, in your sin....Go, and fear not. Be not bitter against men. Be not angry if you are wronged. Forgive the dead man in your heart what wrong he did you. Be reconciled with him in truth. If you are penitent, you love. And if you love, you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God? Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it and expiate not only your own sins but the sins of others."