Integrity

Presented to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington

August 28, 2005

Rev. Paul Ratzlaff

            A bit of summer whimsy - you may not know this about me, but I have an elementary knowledge of shape-shifting – a kind of beginning acquaintance with shamanistic technique, like Harry Potter at the beginning of his wizardly studies.  As a novice I don’t have very good control over the process, so I cannot predetermine what shape I will shift to.  I’d like to be a dolphin, but I don’t often get there.  Recently, I decided to try this shamanistic stuff out again.  I was drumming to get myself into a shape-shifting trance when I suddenly found myself transformed into a ceramic coffee cup at the Huntington Starbucks, right there on the table between the two stuffed chairs in front of the window on Main Street.  (As I said, I’m not very good at controlling what shape I will take.)  Thinking “grande” coffee cup thoughts, I was intrigued by the conversation I dropped into the middle of – a conversation between these two guys sitting opposite to one another in the stuffed chairs in the window.

Well at least you’ve got to give the man credit for integrity.

Are you nuts!  He has not once ounce of integrity.

You just hate him.  You’ve got to acknowledge that, unlike Clinton, he never cheats on his wife.

You’re right; he just cheats the whole American public.

You’re so biased against him that you can’t give him credit for anything.  I don’t like a lot of his stuff, but at least I can acknowledge that he has integrity.

I can’t believe you can say that about him.  He has as much integrity as this cup!  (I tried to protest, “if only you knew who I really am!” but being a cup I couldn’t say anything at all.)

Fortunately the other guy said.  “Don’t dis the cup.  It has aesthetic integrity.  I like its design.”  (I glistened a little more brightly.)

“You know what I mean.”

No I don’t.  You got to admit he’s consistent.  He says what he’s going to do, he does it, and then he tells you he did it.  Pretty straightforward – what you see is what you get.  I think that’s a kind of integrity.

Like you said, that may be consistency, but it’s not what I mean by integrity.  He lied to us about this war.  He said Iraq was a threat when he knew it wasn’t a threat.  I would call that a bald-faced lie.  That’s anything but integrity.

I wouldn’t call it “lying.”  I think he got caught up in the neo-con ideology of exercising American military power to shift the dynamics of the Middle East.  I think he truly believed that if he could put in a secular, relatively democratic regime into Iraq, everything in the Middle East would change for the better.  Other countries would open up, become more liberal and more successful economically – kind of a reverse domino effect.

So he lied about weapons of mass destruction?

Maybe he didn’t “lie” about it; he just used the possibility as a motivator.

But that’s exactly why I say he has no integrity.  If he had integrity, he would have laid out his case like you said.  He would have said to the public, “I am convinced that we have an opportunity to change the whole political dynamic of the Middle East from extremism to moderation, blah, blah, blah,” but instead he had to scare people about so-called “weapons of mass destruction.”

OK I grant you that he used the possibility that Saddam Hussein was up to his tricks in order to get his agenda through.  But, to me, that doesn’t mean he has no integrity; it means he’s a politician.  Are you saying that no politician can have integrity?

Not really.  I know politicians have to use exaggeration, hyperbole and stuff like that to motivate people.  You move people more with personal stories and graphic images than by logic.  I know all that, but I still think that political leaders can have integrity.

So why not give the guy credit for integrity?

Real integrity means knowing your self deeply.  It’s not about being a caricature or cardboard cowboy.  It’s not about a role that others put you in.  It’s knowing yourself authentically.

You don’t think he knows himself?

Not in the least.

But how can you say that?  How can you know what’s inside him?  All you see are the carefully controlled images of him.

Touché.  That’s all we ever get to see of him.  If he had integrity, he’d show us something more spontaneous.

C’mon, you’re just confusing effective media management with not having integrity.

No, that’s not it.  I think you can have a powerful campaign, and still have integrity.  Real integrity is knowing who you are in the gut.  So you’re not blown around like so many folks.  I mean you ask some people what they want, and they give you some namby-pamby response, “I dun no.  What’s everyone else having?”  They’re the kind of people who have to have a fashion consultant to tell them how to dress, how to buy furniture, how to exercise, how to pray.  It’s like they’re so far out of touch with their inner self that they look to others when they should be looking inside themselves.  But there’s no there there!

Then he’s got integrity all right, ‘cause he’s not consulting with any fashion designers.

Can’t you see!  He’s got all these so-called advisors pulling the strings.

So you think he’s somebody else’s puppet?

YUP!

I think he’s got integrity.  I don’t agree with him, but he’s got a kind of integrity.  I think he really believes deep down that the best way to a better life for everyone is through business doing better and better, and that anything that gets in the way of business ends up hurting everyone.  So, if environmentalists limit business, they end up hurting everyone, whereas he believes that if we let business loose, it will find ways to take care of the environment.  After all, business people got to breath and drink water, too.

Sounds like you bought the party line.  You’re gonna be a billionaire, too.

No way.  Like I said, I don’t agree, but at least you gotta admit he’s got integrity.

You keep confusing consistency with integrity!  Or maybe you’re confusing “sincerity” with integrity.  I do think he believes in what he’s doing.  In that way, he sincere, but he’s got zero integrity.

And it seems to me the only kind of person who has “integrity,” as you put it, is the person who agrees with you.

I don’t think so.

But you keep saying that the people you don’t like may be “consistent,”  they may be “sincere,” but they’re lacking “integrity.”  So what gives?  Name me one conservative with integrity!

(Long silence….)  Well if we’re thinking of politicians, how about John McCain?  He, at least, is willing to call a spade a spade.

Surely our President calls things as he sees them.  Didn’t he just say that people who want to pull the troops out will weaken America?  He could have mealy-mouthed that, but he didn’t?  He could have made nice with Cindy Sheehan, put his arm around her fatherly like, and listened to her politely, but he drew the line, didn’t he?

That’s a good example.  The difference between him and John McCain is that McCain is willing to challenge his own party.  McCain, I think, would really talk with the woman – other than a photo op.  Real integrity means you have the confidence to be with people who are very different from yourself.  You don’t surround yourself with people who never question you.  One of the things I hate about him is that he never puts himself in a position to be truly confronted.  Every event is managed so he’s in a friendly crowd.  If he had real integrity, he would welcome being challenged, because he would be confident that he would get a bigger picture by engaging people who think different.

I don’t see you spending a lot of time with people who disagree with you.

Hey, I’m talking with right now, right?

Yeah, but that’s only because you know we agree about most everything politically.  We’re just arguing about a word.

But he’s the President.

So you hold a different standard for the President than for yourself.  Most of the time you say “the President puts his pant legs on one at a time, just like you and me.”

OK, but there’s another thing that gets me about him.  Real integrity means knowing your shadow sides too.  It means knowing your weaknesses, your temptations, your failings.  Remember when he was asked if he’d done anything he regrets, and he said “nope”?  It struck me right then that his was not a person of integrity.  If you have integrity, you face yourself squarely.  You know your “ins” – and your “outs.”  You know your shadow side.  You don’t hide it as if you don’t have any.

So you want him to confess publicly his doubts, his second thoughts?

Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

That would be a recipe for disaster.  People don’t want a leader who has doubts.  They don’t want someone who’s confused.  They want someone who’s cocksure of himself.  They’ll give up on him, if he shows any vulnerability.

So you’re buying that macho image – the lone gunslinger riding into town to clean out the bad hombres.

No, I’m just trying to be real about how the public works.  The public wants a leader with confidence.

Real integrity doesn’t have to mean confusion and chaos.  It simply means facing your limits – facing your limits as a person, as a nation, as a whatever.  It means acknowledging that there are things beyond your control.  But this doesn’t mean giving up.

But can John Q. Public see that?

Maybe not everyone, but many people can.  I think at a deep level, most people would respond to a leader with humility.  In my book, real integrity is related to humility.  You know that who you are is part of a much larger process.  And you keep integrity by serving that larger process, not by some narcissistic self-promotion.

But anyone who’s going to be President has to have an enormous ego.

Of course, but some are also blessed with an even bigger picture than just themselves.

You put up a mighty high standard.  Can anyone meet it?

That’s just it.  A person doesn’t have to be perfect to have integrity in my book.  Au contraire, my friend.  A person with integrity knows very well where their growing edges are, and works on them.  Integrity doesn’t mean you’re all done.  Rather it’s knowing yourself well enough to know where you need to make changes to be a fuller, more whole person, consistent with what the larger life picture – or, you know, God, is asking of you.

Now you’re bringing God into it.  He’s certainly brought God into it….

            About that time my trance wore off, and I found myself in my old shape – should I say “customary” shape – just when the conversation sounded like it was turning theological.  Anyway, I immediately sat down at my computer to write down the conversation that I had heard so that I could share it with you today.

That’s the news from Starbucks where the coffee is strong, the people are good-looking and all the conversation is above average.