On this last day, I want to return to that boy that I knew, the one with all the hang ups about who he was and what he wanted, the one I gave you several snapshots of on Monday.
I want to let you know what happened to him because, he's not that same boy anymore and he's not the same boy because he came to know that God loved him in a way that was deeper, more lasting, and more freeing than the approval he was desperately looking for from his friends, or even from himself, the approval that he had thought would bring him wholeness and integrity. Here's how it happened.
By the time that he was in ninth grade, the boy that I knew was riding pretty high in some ways and doing pretty well at winning that approval he wanted. He did very well in school, he did very well on the football field and on the basketball court and he did very well in the lunchroom. One of his chief skills in that last arena was his quick wit and sharp tongue – something that comes as little surprise to those who still know him. Particularly, this boy that I knew wasn't afraid to go anywhere with a joke, especially a sarcastic one or one that took somebody else down a few notches. In fact, that was probably his best trick.
At the school the boy that I knew attended, they didn't have morning prayer like this. Instead, they used to have a little longer chapel service once a week. This boy that I knew was one of the ones who liked to sit in the back of that chapel and make jokes about the speaker. I suppose some of them were probably even pretty funny. He sure looked like he was having fun, this boy that I knew. And at the very least, the jokes kept him safe from having to take anything seriously.
Once a year they had a whole week where a special speaker came in and they had chapel every day – which was OK as far as the boy that I knew cared, because it mixed things up a bit. And one time they even had basketball player come in.
But this time, this time. Oh my gosh, they got a real dork. He must have been 6'7”. He wore plaid short-sleeve shirts, had a ridiculous mustache and was, worse than all of that, the brother of the boy's English teacher. And he had an autoharp.
How many of you know what an autoharp is? Well, it's just about the uncoolest instrument you could possibly imagine playing in front of a group of high school kids. It's this big board with strings and keys like a piano that you strum like a guitar. What the heck is that??? But he brought his autoharp and he brought his wife, who had a bad haircut, and they sang songs together while he played his autoharp.
This was rich material for the boy that I knew. This was going to be fun, he thought, sitting in the back, sniping from the pews. It was almost too easy. He was so uncool it almost wouldn't be fun to make fun of him. Maybe we should throw tomatoes, the boy that I knew thought.
And then he started out by reading some kind of Christian children's stories – something about sled dogs. The boy that I knew was shocked. This was ridiculous. Laughable. It wasn't even entertaining. “Oh my gosh. Stop talking!” he thought. “Let me out of here, for God's sake. I'm going to go absolutely freaking insane if I have to listen to five more minutes of this!”
But as the week went on, the boy that I knew grew quieter and quieter.
Some of the kids around him started listening and discussing what the man with the autoharp was saying. Discussing it! At lunch! Why??? Some of those people were even guys he played football with. Seniors he respected and whose respect he had thought he wanted. Then the boy himself started to listen. He started to realize that he himself was getting angry, defensive. He wanted to verbally assault the man. He wanted him to leave.
The problem was that that the man with the autoharp started getting into his head, making a weird kind of sense. He began to see that the man with the autoharp probably knew that he was sitting in the back laughing and didn't even care! Didn't even care! How dare he! How dare he not care what the boy that I knew thought of him!
Then the man spoke of the love of God, and he spoke about the brotherhood and courage of those who followed God. He spoke of high school kids he knew who had traded their dead ends for real purposeful action, who were making a difference in their communities, their churches and their schools. He invited everyone to join them, to help change the world.
And suddenly the boy that I knew saw all and knew himself for what he was – sitting in the back row making jokes, tearing down his friends with biting sarcasm to advance his own pride and insecurity, picking on the weak and defenseless. And even worse, he saw himself left out of whatever it was the man in the autoharp was talking about, left out of something he suddenly wanted in on.
At the end of the week, there was a chance for people to come to the microphone and talk about the week. The boy that I knew wanted to get up and say something profound, to tell everyone that they should listen to the man with the autoharp. But when he got to the microphone, all he could say was “I'm sorry.” He couldn't say any more. He just broke down crying. But he was pretty sure everyone knew what he meant.
The life of the boy that I knew didn't change overnight, but it has never been the same either. The boy that I knew turned a corner that week.
And when I have morning prayer next semester, I'll tell you the rest of the story.
Showing posts with label Morning Prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morning Prayer. Show all posts
Integrity Part III
Yesterday I tried to describe the love of God towards us as the real basis for personal integrity or wholeness. Today I want to build on that foundation by suggesting that God has a project in mind for those he is making whole.
But I want to first recognize how difficult it is to simply accept the love of God. I know that.
The love of God, as I described it yesterday, can honestly be a little embarrassing. It is embarrassing because it doesn't put conditions on us. It asks much from us and but it does not come to us with conditions that we can meet to make ourselves feel better. When you acknowledge that you are broken. When you acknowledge that you are, in Peter's words, "a sinful man" or in Isaiah's words, "a man of unclean lips," God does not say, "Well clean yourself up, for crying out loud! Put on a decent shirt, wipe your face, cut your hair, wash your mouth out with soap and then I will love you and forgive you." He says, "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.” Or even more simply, “Come and follow me.”
Especially as men, we want to have earned what we're given. We want to prove ourselves. We want to pay our own debts and we don't want handouts. And when someone comes along and says, "I'll take you as you are," it can be more embarrassing than you expect.
But don't be embarrassed. You have been shown incredible mercy in the Father's plan for rescuing you. But he has also rescued you for a purpose. He wants you for a job he's got. And it's a good job. He doesn't just want to use you. He wants you to join him in something that will complete both his purposes and your integrity.
See, he realizes that you and the rest of your buddies (That's just another way of thinking about the “human race” that gets more immediately at who we really are and what we really want to protect. So when ever someone says "the human race" or "mankind," just think, "me and the rest of my buddies." It will help you think more clearly.) At any rate, you and the rest of your buddies (and me and the rest of my buddies) have messed things up pretty badly by turning away from him and trying to figure things out on your own. What has happened is that our brokenness and lack of integrity has infected the things we have done, the world we have made.
We've messed up our politics, for instance. It's not the politicians who messed it up. It's us. It is natural that we should govern ourselves. Even apart from sin and violence, government helps oil the wheels of our social machinery. Speed limits. Zoning laws. Public parks. Public health. Roads. Bridges. It was very useful that we find a way to do these things together without needing to convene all of us every time we had a decision to make. A politician proper really is a public servant. But we've made politics about power and conflict. "Who won the debate?" too often trumps "What did they talk about last night?" "Whose fault was it that the bailout bill didn't pass" trumps, "What is the best approach to help avoiding suffering in the current economic situation and how do we balance that goal with economic justice?" "What funny personal faults and physical mannerisms will the geniuses at Saturday Night Live use to make the candidates I don't like appear ridiculous?" too often trumps, "Which person has the character, intelligence, leadership skills, and good ideas to help direct our life together as well as we can?"
In similar ways, we've messed up our relationship with creation, the way we educate, our marriages and families, and sometimes, yes, even in the way we run our churches. Don't get me wrong, in each of those areas, there is much left of the good we were created to do. But in each area, there is also a lot of envy, jealousy, bitterness, failure to forgive, hunger for power, and fear that has leaked out into our projects and infected them
But politics, education, care for creation, marriage, family and church leadership might seem a long way off for you. I want to use one more example that is closer to home, something that you have within your hands right now. We have also messed up our friendships.
Our friendships should be like the camaraderie of brothers working together in unity in the world God created for us, using one another's strengths, bearing with one another's weaknesses, finding good projects to accomplish, doing good work, playing hard and well together in all kinds of sports organized and unorganized.
And we naturally share things in common with some more than with others. God had made us remarkably different as individuals in our loves, our delights, our interests and even our tastes. And when you find someone with whom you share a love of poetry, soccer, history, fishing, camping, natural theology, or fine art, it is good and fitting that we enjoy those activities together in a unique way and that the bonds we develop with those people are strong.
But we've too often taken that thing, friendship, and made it about power, identity, exclusion and hierarchy. We're remarkable people. Just like we took the power God placed in the nucleus of an atom and made both generators to run our amazing inventions and a bomb that could destroy entire cities, so we took our social nature and made both friendships that make our very lives worth living and cliques that make some people's lives seem not worth living to them. Our friendships too often take on the characteristics of power politics. Who's in. Who's out. Who are my people, how do we stake out our territory, and how do I protect my place in this circle? Our fear, our lack of integrity, has infected the good things in your life.
But God has had mercy on you and forgiven you for all of that, he wants you to join him in fixing those things. On the basis of the mercy you have received and the wholeness he has made available, he wants you to help him make everything whole again.
"All creation waits," writes Paul, "with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God."
But I want to first recognize how difficult it is to simply accept the love of God. I know that.
The love of God, as I described it yesterday, can honestly be a little embarrassing. It is embarrassing because it doesn't put conditions on us. It asks much from us and but it does not come to us with conditions that we can meet to make ourselves feel better. When you acknowledge that you are broken. When you acknowledge that you are, in Peter's words, "a sinful man" or in Isaiah's words, "a man of unclean lips," God does not say, "Well clean yourself up, for crying out loud! Put on a decent shirt, wipe your face, cut your hair, wash your mouth out with soap and then I will love you and forgive you." He says, "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.” Or even more simply, “Come and follow me.”
Especially as men, we want to have earned what we're given. We want to prove ourselves. We want to pay our own debts and we don't want handouts. And when someone comes along and says, "I'll take you as you are," it can be more embarrassing than you expect.
But don't be embarrassed. You have been shown incredible mercy in the Father's plan for rescuing you. But he has also rescued you for a purpose. He wants you for a job he's got. And it's a good job. He doesn't just want to use you. He wants you to join him in something that will complete both his purposes and your integrity.
See, he realizes that you and the rest of your buddies (That's just another way of thinking about the “human race” that gets more immediately at who we really are and what we really want to protect. So when ever someone says "the human race" or "mankind," just think, "me and the rest of my buddies." It will help you think more clearly.) At any rate, you and the rest of your buddies (and me and the rest of my buddies) have messed things up pretty badly by turning away from him and trying to figure things out on your own. What has happened is that our brokenness and lack of integrity has infected the things we have done, the world we have made.
We've messed up our politics, for instance. It's not the politicians who messed it up. It's us. It is natural that we should govern ourselves. Even apart from sin and violence, government helps oil the wheels of our social machinery. Speed limits. Zoning laws. Public parks. Public health. Roads. Bridges. It was very useful that we find a way to do these things together without needing to convene all of us every time we had a decision to make. A politician proper really is a public servant. But we've made politics about power and conflict. "Who won the debate?" too often trumps "What did they talk about last night?" "Whose fault was it that the bailout bill didn't pass" trumps, "What is the best approach to help avoiding suffering in the current economic situation and how do we balance that goal with economic justice?" "What funny personal faults and physical mannerisms will the geniuses at Saturday Night Live use to make the candidates I don't like appear ridiculous?" too often trumps, "Which person has the character, intelligence, leadership skills, and good ideas to help direct our life together as well as we can?"
In similar ways, we've messed up our relationship with creation, the way we educate, our marriages and families, and sometimes, yes, even in the way we run our churches. Don't get me wrong, in each of those areas, there is much left of the good we were created to do. But in each area, there is also a lot of envy, jealousy, bitterness, failure to forgive, hunger for power, and fear that has leaked out into our projects and infected them
But politics, education, care for creation, marriage, family and church leadership might seem a long way off for you. I want to use one more example that is closer to home, something that you have within your hands right now. We have also messed up our friendships.
Our friendships should be like the camaraderie of brothers working together in unity in the world God created for us, using one another's strengths, bearing with one another's weaknesses, finding good projects to accomplish, doing good work, playing hard and well together in all kinds of sports organized and unorganized.
And we naturally share things in common with some more than with others. God had made us remarkably different as individuals in our loves, our delights, our interests and even our tastes. And when you find someone with whom you share a love of poetry, soccer, history, fishing, camping, natural theology, or fine art, it is good and fitting that we enjoy those activities together in a unique way and that the bonds we develop with those people are strong.
But we've too often taken that thing, friendship, and made it about power, identity, exclusion and hierarchy. We're remarkable people. Just like we took the power God placed in the nucleus of an atom and made both generators to run our amazing inventions and a bomb that could destroy entire cities, so we took our social nature and made both friendships that make our very lives worth living and cliques that make some people's lives seem not worth living to them. Our friendships too often take on the characteristics of power politics. Who's in. Who's out. Who are my people, how do we stake out our territory, and how do I protect my place in this circle? Our fear, our lack of integrity, has infected the good things in your life.
But God has had mercy on you and forgiven you for all of that, he wants you to join him in fixing those things. On the basis of the mercy you have received and the wholeness he has made available, he wants you to help him make everything whole again.
"All creation waits," writes Paul, "with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God."
Integrity Part II
Near the end of one of Flannery O'Connor's short stories, the main character of the story, a tattooed drifter and ne'er do well named O.E. Parker is sitting out back of a pool hall examining his soul. He concludes that despite his best effort to find unity, to become a whole person, his soul remains "a spider web of facts and lies" matching the "haphazard and botched" appearance of the tattoos on his body.
I know that sometimes that's what an exercise like the one I tried to take you through yesterday can do if you really take it seriously. "Who am I anyway? How do I explain the fact that I'm almost a different person in the classroom than I am in the hallway? In the church pew than in the locker room? With one set of friends than with another? What is this mess? Why do I so often lie to myself and to others about who I really am and what I really value when I really just want to tell the truth and be free and happy?"
I know that these things trouble you at times. They trouble me. And I hope that some of you joined me in extending the exercise throughout the day yesterday.
But I would caution you. This sort of self examination is not an end in itself. In fact, I'm not even sure there is much healthy that can come from indulging in it, from trying to find your "inner child" or discover the way to be "true to yourself." Nor do I think there is much to be gained from simply choosing from among your many masks and personas and saying, "I’m going to live that way all the time."
That is an attractive temptation, to find a short cut to the kind of integrity that would drive away the "spider web of facts and lies" that we all sometimes see when we look in the mirror. But the mask you end up choosing may not be any more true than any of the others. That's really only a quick fix, a temporary patch over a deeper problem.
You can't leave morning prayer and simply decide that you're going to be whole in your own strength or in your own wisdom. That is a dead end.
What we need is a solution that is both honest to the reality of our sometimes piecemeal lives, and yet gives us a way forward, a way of moving from brokenness towards wholeness.
It has to be honest because once you’ve faced your own "spider web of facts and lies" you know when someone is trying to cheat on that by telling you that it's not true. It has to provide a way forward, because otherwise there is nothing but despair or resignation, and you cannot live by despair or resignation.
The solution we have guys, is absolutely amazing.
Our Lord Jesus Christ
God of God
Light of Light
Very God of Very God
By whom all things were made
For us men and our salvation
Came down from heaven,
And was made a man.
Why?
Why would he do that?
He would do that so he could sympathize with us in our weakness, in our brokenness, so he knew what it felt like to be torn apart, to be tempted, to grieve over his own people's rejection of him, to be stabbed in the back by his own best friends, to feel what it felt like to be forsaken even by his own Father, and to die at the hands of angry, bitter, spiteful people.
And throughout it all, he remained a man of integrity. He remained whole. He was not broken.
Why did he do it? He did it for you. For all your confusion. For all you can't figure out about yourself, about who you are, about that "spider web of facts and lies."
He did what he had to do to make friends with sinners, prostitutes, drug addicts, losers, drop outs, people who live in busses, lawyers, lobbyists, wall street bankers and the rest of us who can't figure it out on our own any better than they can and – and – are honest enough to admit as much.
He did it because he and his Father really do love the you behind all of that other crap. They know who you really are even when you don't. And they love you for who you really are, not for what you can figure out about yourself and how straightened up you can get about who you are.
And there is nothing you have done in the last month, there is nothing you have thought in the past week, there is nothing you will do in the next year that can separate you from the Love of God in Christ. Nothing.
You can push him away, you can keep him at arms length, you can even pretend he doesn't exist. He will still love you for who you are.
But if you embrace this love, if you don't push him away and keep him at arm's lenght, then it almost stops mattering that you can't figure out who you are. You will be so secure in the confidence that you are loved by someone who knows you that well and who did that much for you and will not let go of you, that the question of who the real you is will seem almost unimportant.
What does it matter if you are 17 and still can't figure out whe the "real you" is What does it matter if I'm 35 and I still haven't quite figured out who the "real me" is? It is enough to know that I am loved by the Master of the Universe and his Son.
In the face of this, you might say with Isaiah, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
But God says to you, "Behold ... your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven."
You might say with the tax collector, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"
But God says to you, "He who humbles himself will be exalted."
You might say with Peter, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
But God says to you, "Do not be afraid."
It turns out that the key to real integrity, the mystery of becoming a whole person, is not to be found in endless self-reflection or in the raw power of your own choice but in the apprehension that you are loved unconditionally and at great cost.
"Thou hast formed us for Thyself," prays Augustine, "and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."
I know that sometimes that's what an exercise like the one I tried to take you through yesterday can do if you really take it seriously. "Who am I anyway? How do I explain the fact that I'm almost a different person in the classroom than I am in the hallway? In the church pew than in the locker room? With one set of friends than with another? What is this mess? Why do I so often lie to myself and to others about who I really am and what I really value when I really just want to tell the truth and be free and happy?"
I know that these things trouble you at times. They trouble me. And I hope that some of you joined me in extending the exercise throughout the day yesterday.
But I would caution you. This sort of self examination is not an end in itself. In fact, I'm not even sure there is much healthy that can come from indulging in it, from trying to find your "inner child" or discover the way to be "true to yourself." Nor do I think there is much to be gained from simply choosing from among your many masks and personas and saying, "I’m going to live that way all the time."
That is an attractive temptation, to find a short cut to the kind of integrity that would drive away the "spider web of facts and lies" that we all sometimes see when we look in the mirror. But the mask you end up choosing may not be any more true than any of the others. That's really only a quick fix, a temporary patch over a deeper problem.
You can't leave morning prayer and simply decide that you're going to be whole in your own strength or in your own wisdom. That is a dead end.
What we need is a solution that is both honest to the reality of our sometimes piecemeal lives, and yet gives us a way forward, a way of moving from brokenness towards wholeness.
It has to be honest because once you’ve faced your own "spider web of facts and lies" you know when someone is trying to cheat on that by telling you that it's not true. It has to provide a way forward, because otherwise there is nothing but despair or resignation, and you cannot live by despair or resignation.
The solution we have guys, is absolutely amazing.
Our Lord Jesus Christ
God of God
Light of Light
Very God of Very God
By whom all things were made
For us men and our salvation
Came down from heaven,
And was made a man.
Why?
Why would he do that?
He would do that so he could sympathize with us in our weakness, in our brokenness, so he knew what it felt like to be torn apart, to be tempted, to grieve over his own people's rejection of him, to be stabbed in the back by his own best friends, to feel what it felt like to be forsaken even by his own Father, and to die at the hands of angry, bitter, spiteful people.
And throughout it all, he remained a man of integrity. He remained whole. He was not broken.
Why did he do it? He did it for you. For all your confusion. For all you can't figure out about yourself, about who you are, about that "spider web of facts and lies."
He did what he had to do to make friends with sinners, prostitutes, drug addicts, losers, drop outs, people who live in busses, lawyers, lobbyists, wall street bankers and the rest of us who can't figure it out on our own any better than they can and – and – are honest enough to admit as much.
He did it because he and his Father really do love the you behind all of that other crap. They know who you really are even when you don't. And they love you for who you really are, not for what you can figure out about yourself and how straightened up you can get about who you are.
And there is nothing you have done in the last month, there is nothing you have thought in the past week, there is nothing you will do in the next year that can separate you from the Love of God in Christ. Nothing.
You can push him away, you can keep him at arms length, you can even pretend he doesn't exist. He will still love you for who you are.
But if you embrace this love, if you don't push him away and keep him at arm's lenght, then it almost stops mattering that you can't figure out who you are. You will be so secure in the confidence that you are loved by someone who knows you that well and who did that much for you and will not let go of you, that the question of who the real you is will seem almost unimportant.
What does it matter if you are 17 and still can't figure out whe the "real you" is What does it matter if I'm 35 and I still haven't quite figured out who the "real me" is? It is enough to know that I am loved by the Master of the Universe and his Son.
In the face of this, you might say with Isaiah, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
But God says to you, "Behold ... your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven."
You might say with the tax collector, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"
But God says to you, "He who humbles himself will be exalted."
You might say with Peter, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
But God says to you, "Do not be afraid."
It turns out that the key to real integrity, the mystery of becoming a whole person, is not to be found in endless self-reflection or in the raw power of your own choice but in the apprehension that you are loved unconditionally and at great cost.
"Thou hast formed us for Thyself," prays Augustine, "and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."
Fall Morning Prayer 2008: Integrity Part I
The following is the first of a four part morning prayer on Integrity.
We talk a lot about community at Trinity School. We talk a lot about what we do together. That is right and it is fitting. As Mr. Wacker has been reminding us, we are a little outpost of the Kingdom of God, and maintaining this outpost is a group effort. We work together. We get things done.
But this week I want to talk about integrity – and integrity is something you have to cultivate in the depths of who you are as an individual. People might be able to help you foster and preserve it, but its something that can really only begin with a good long look in the mirror – and I'm not talking about making sure that your hair is sticking out at just the right angle.
Normally, when people talk about "integrity" they really mean "honesty" – or maybe honesty raised to the Nth power. In this way, you would describe someone who always kept their word as a "man of integrity." Sometimes it is also used to describe someone who is morally upright. And those are certainly important, but they’re not what I want to talk about this week. I want to talk about integrity in a far deeper sense.
Webster’s defines "integrity" as "the state or quality of being entire or complete; wholeness; entireness."
But what does it mean to be a whole person? To be complete?
Tommorrow I will talk about how one might begin to pursue this wholeness or completeness, telling some stories about my own quest for integrity in this sense.
But this morning I just want each of you to think about one simple question.
Who is the real you?
Really.
Take a moment to really imagine yourself.
I would suggest, and I think you will agree with me, that there are probably many "you"s to choose from when you’re trying to answer the question, "Who is the real you."
Let’s start ticking some options off here.
Is the real you the person who everyone, including your teachers, sees in the classroom?
Or is the real you the person only your class sees in the hallway at the lockers or after school at Caribou?
Or is the real you the person that your sports team knows on the field or in the locker room or from rides home from practice and games?
Or is he the person that your parents know as their son? The brother your siblings know? The co-worker the people at your work know? The youth group member your friends at church know?
Is the real you that person your whole class sees at a class party?
Or is he that someone that only a few of your closer friends know, the ones you share at least some of your struggles, emotions, difficulties and frustrations with?
Who is the real you?
Is he the one who confidently walks through the day, defining yourself in as cool a fashion as our uniform allows? Cool enough hair. Cool enough walk. Cool enough.
Or is it the you who secretly wonders if anyone really likes you for who you are?
Is the real you the one who wakes up in the morning thinking you've pretty much got it going on?
Or is it the one who goes home at night kicking himself again and again for that stupid thing you said that your friends just wouldn't let go of?
Is the real you the person you know yourself to be?
Or is it the person you want to be, deep down?
We all know there's a big different, but who is the real you?
Or, is that still an open question?
Is it possible that with all these different "you"s running around, even in your own head, with all these different "selves" that all certainly feel genuine when you’re living each of them them but that don't really fit together all that well when you step back and look at the big picture, that you might not really know who the real you is yet?
Or is it at least possible that you struggle – as all of us do no matter what age – to be a person of integrity, to be a man of a single-minded purpose that informs every one of your many selves and holds them together?
Let me throw out a few snapshots for you of the interior life of a boy that I once knew, struggling with his own lack of wholeness and integrity.
As a 7th grader, this boy that I knew, the son of a blue collar father sacrificing to provide his children with a private education, gets upset at his mother for trying to stitch a name brand emblem onto his shorts so he could fit in at school. He feels really bad afterwards. But he doesn't even know how to begin to apologize.
As an 8th grader, there he is sitting on the back steps of his American history classroom between bells. And he jokes in the context of a lecture he had just heard that we should have just nuked Vietnam. When a 7th grade girl, who he had forgotten was adopted from Vietnam, runs away crying, this boy that I knew felt disgusted with himself, but laughed all the same and said, "She’ll get over it."
As a 9th grader, this same boy that I knew is in the basement of his church when two of the coolest guys in his school ask him to skip youth group with them and to go the 7-11 down the road. Maybe get a slurpee. And a hot dog. He skips youth group and walks the whole way feeling equal parts guilt, exhilaration, freedom and fear.
That's enough for now about the boy that I knew, but I want to close by acknowledging this to you before I go any further this week.
Finding integrity, finding wholeness, bringing these parts of yourself together, is hard.
And it's is probably a life long work.
On the other hand, it begins today or it doesn't begin at all.
We talk a lot about community at Trinity School. We talk a lot about what we do together. That is right and it is fitting. As Mr. Wacker has been reminding us, we are a little outpost of the Kingdom of God, and maintaining this outpost is a group effort. We work together. We get things done.
But this week I want to talk about integrity – and integrity is something you have to cultivate in the depths of who you are as an individual. People might be able to help you foster and preserve it, but its something that can really only begin with a good long look in the mirror – and I'm not talking about making sure that your hair is sticking out at just the right angle.
Normally, when people talk about "integrity" they really mean "honesty" – or maybe honesty raised to the Nth power. In this way, you would describe someone who always kept their word as a "man of integrity." Sometimes it is also used to describe someone who is morally upright. And those are certainly important, but they’re not what I want to talk about this week. I want to talk about integrity in a far deeper sense.
Webster’s defines "integrity" as "the state or quality of being entire or complete; wholeness; entireness."
But what does it mean to be a whole person? To be complete?
Tommorrow I will talk about how one might begin to pursue this wholeness or completeness, telling some stories about my own quest for integrity in this sense.
But this morning I just want each of you to think about one simple question.
Who is the real you?
Really.
Take a moment to really imagine yourself.
I would suggest, and I think you will agree with me, that there are probably many "you"s to choose from when you’re trying to answer the question, "Who is the real you."
Let’s start ticking some options off here.
Is the real you the person who everyone, including your teachers, sees in the classroom?
Or is the real you the person only your class sees in the hallway at the lockers or after school at Caribou?
Or is the real you the person that your sports team knows on the field or in the locker room or from rides home from practice and games?
Or is he the person that your parents know as their son? The brother your siblings know? The co-worker the people at your work know? The youth group member your friends at church know?
Is the real you that person your whole class sees at a class party?
Or is he that someone that only a few of your closer friends know, the ones you share at least some of your struggles, emotions, difficulties and frustrations with?
Who is the real you?
Is he the one who confidently walks through the day, defining yourself in as cool a fashion as our uniform allows? Cool enough hair. Cool enough walk. Cool enough.
Or is it the you who secretly wonders if anyone really likes you for who you are?
Is the real you the one who wakes up in the morning thinking you've pretty much got it going on?
Or is it the one who goes home at night kicking himself again and again for that stupid thing you said that your friends just wouldn't let go of?
Is the real you the person you know yourself to be?
Or is it the person you want to be, deep down?
We all know there's a big different, but who is the real you?
Or, is that still an open question?
Is it possible that with all these different "you"s running around, even in your own head, with all these different "selves" that all certainly feel genuine when you’re living each of them them but that don't really fit together all that well when you step back and look at the big picture, that you might not really know who the real you is yet?
Or is it at least possible that you struggle – as all of us do no matter what age – to be a person of integrity, to be a man of a single-minded purpose that informs every one of your many selves and holds them together?
Let me throw out a few snapshots for you of the interior life of a boy that I once knew, struggling with his own lack of wholeness and integrity.
As a 7th grader, this boy that I knew, the son of a blue collar father sacrificing to provide his children with a private education, gets upset at his mother for trying to stitch a name brand emblem onto his shorts so he could fit in at school. He feels really bad afterwards. But he doesn't even know how to begin to apologize.
As an 8th grader, there he is sitting on the back steps of his American history classroom between bells. And he jokes in the context of a lecture he had just heard that we should have just nuked Vietnam. When a 7th grade girl, who he had forgotten was adopted from Vietnam, runs away crying, this boy that I knew felt disgusted with himself, but laughed all the same and said, "She’ll get over it."
As a 9th grader, this same boy that I knew is in the basement of his church when two of the coolest guys in his school ask him to skip youth group with them and to go the 7-11 down the road. Maybe get a slurpee. And a hot dog. He skips youth group and walks the whole way feeling equal parts guilt, exhilaration, freedom and fear.
That's enough for now about the boy that I knew, but I want to close by acknowledging this to you before I go any further this week.
Finding integrity, finding wholeness, bringing these parts of yourself together, is hard.
And it's is probably a life long work.
On the other hand, it begins today or it doesn't begin at all.
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