Friends General Conference

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Integrity

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Queries

How do we seek truth by which to live? How do we recognize it?

In what ways does my life speak of my beliefs and values?

Do I strive to be truthful at all times, avoiding judicial oaths?

In what way is my life out of harmony with truth as I know it?

Advices

When we live with integrity, alone or as a faith community, our words and deeds ring true. We are able to hear when there is discord between our values and our words or actions, and we often sense when others in our community are “out of tune” with their own truth, or when, as a community, we do not seem to be following the same conductor.

Giving testimony to truth and integrity also means refusing to place things other than God at the center of one’s life–whether it be one’s own self, possessions, the regard for others, belief in principles (such as rationality, progress, or justice) or something else. It is the understanding that even good things are no longer good when they supplant God as one’s center.

Community plays a critical role in discernment. Integrity calls us to recognize our gifts and our flaws alike with humility, helping each other lovingly to “let our lives speak,” the truth as we know it. When we live with integrity, we hold the imperfections and dark places in ourselves and our communities to the Light, remembering that our mistakes and flaws may help us understand the pain and burdens of others or even become a spring for ministry. Living with integrity requires that we not “outrun our guide.” Rather, as Carolyn Stephen wrote, we do our best to “live up to the Light we have,” knowing that “more will be given” when we are ready.

Voices

The essence of early Quakerism is precisely in a demand for complete integrity of the individual in relation to God, to other people, to self.

Cecil Hinshaw, 1964

 

At the first convincement, when Friends could not put off their hats to people, or say You to a single person, but Thou and Thee; when they could not bow, or use flattering words in salutations, or adopt the fashions and customs of the world, many Friends, that were tradesmen of several sorts, lost their customers at the first; for the people were shy of them, and would not trade with them; so that for a time some Friends could hardly get money enough to buy bread. But afterwards, when people came to have experience of Friends’ honesty and truthfulness, and found that their Yea was yea, and their Nay was nay; that they kept to a word in their dealings, and that they would not cozen and cheat them; but that if they sent a child to their shops for anything, they were as well used as if they had come themselves; the lives and conversations of Friends did preach, and reached to the witness of God in the people. 
George Fox, 1653

...and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? 
Micah 6:8b (KJV)

A neighbor…desired me to write his will: I took notes, and, amongst other things, he told me to which of his children he gave his young negro: I considered the pain and distress he was in, and knew not how it would end, so I wrote his will, save only that part concerning his slave, and carrying it to his bedside, read it to him, and then told him in a friendly way, that I could not write any instruments by which my fellow-creatures were made slaves, without bringing trouble on my own mind. I let him know that I charged nothing for what I had done, and desired to be excused from doing the other part in the way he proposed. Then we had a serious conference on the subject, and at length, he agreeing to set her free, I finished his will. 
John Woolman, c.1760

Any great issue has transformative power, once we engage it. Slavery led John Woolman through a lifetime of spiritual transformation, of renewal in his own heart. Whether our own faith is centered on Christ or other core beliefs, our journey can be animated as Woolman’s was by compassion and a love of truth. 
David Morse, 2001

Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you. Then to the Lord God you will be a sweet savour and blessing. 
George Fox, 1653

Regarding the quote from George Fox, “Walk cheerfully over the world, answering to that of God in everyone”: The word “cheerfully,” in addition to the way we use it, had another meaning in 17th century England. It meant “encouragingly” (this is the way Shakespeare used it) as in our modern sense of “to cheer someone on.” If I were to paraphrase a small part of Fox’s message it might go something like this: “Always be examples of your best conduct and behavior where ever you are. Then you will come to walk through the world, encouraging others to do likewise.” This is a very different message from how cheerfully is usually understood in our time, but it is much more consistent with the rest of Fox’s writings. 
Bruce Folsom, 1994

Integrity is one of the virtues for which Quakers in the past have been praised. It is a quality worth having, but it is doubtful if it can be reached by self-conscious effort or by adherence to a principle…. Integrity is a condition in which a person’s response to a total situation can be trusted: the opposite of a condition in which he would be moved by opportunist or self-seeking impulses breaking up his unity as a whole being. This condition of trust is different from the recognition that he will always be kind or always tell the truth. The integrity of some Dutch Friends I have met showed itself during the war in their willingness to tell lies to save their Jewish friends from the Gestapo or from starvation. 
Kenneth C. Barnes, 1972

Friends consider integrity a way of life. In the stillness of worship we come into the Divine Presence and open ourselves to the Light; we hide nothing of who we are. In keeping with that openness of spirit, Friends express themselves with honesty in their dealings with others. Plain truth needs no decorative flourishes. We speak with simple clarity to reflect in our words the reality of our perceptions and thoughts. 
Intermountain Yearly Meeting, 2006

Sing and rejoice, ye children of the day and of the light; for the Lord is at work in this thick night of darkness that may be felt. And truth doth flourish as the rose, and the lilies do grow among the thorns, and the plants atop of the hills, and upon them the lambs do skip and play. And never heed the tempests nor the storms, floods nor rains, for the seed Christ is over all, and doth reign. And so be of good faith and valiant for the truth: for the truth can live in the jails. 
George Fox, 1663

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read. 
Thomas Jefferson, 1816

 

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