The Quaker Value of Integrity as Practice

Over the next little while, I want to reflect in short statements about what is often called, Quaker Values or testimonies. I prefer the singular “testimony,” but that is for another day. For today, here is a brief though on integrity.

The practice of Integrity is about both self-awareness and wholeness. It is born out of a community of practice committed to living integrated lives. Practices and language develop out of that commitment that gives tools for understanding the self, my relationship to God and other people, the natural world, and material objects. A practice of integrity provides a kind of self-reflective mirror upon which I am invited to look at myself and my community and reflect upon whether my “Yes is yes,” and my “No is no.” A practice of Integrity requires me to participate in honest assessment of all areas of life consistent with our practice of worship and understanding of what God calls us to. This consistency is about having the inside and outside line up. I do not believe that we should use integrity as a claim upon another human being if I am not in constant practice of investigating my own life under the same searching light.  To do otherwise would itself lack integrity. Integrity is about truthfulness. It is something we constantly strive for and yet never fully arrive at. Thus, I believe that to strive for wholeness is to be vulnerable; there is a confessional quality to integrity. I claim my own integrity with great trepidation as I recognize that there is often a gap between my reality and that which I strive for but if I undertake it within a caring community, I can trust that together we shall be under this work of love together.