The George Fox student center sits quiet this memorial weekend, and the week is going to feel loaded with company so tomorrow will be my food shop day. Sunday is a great day for Personal Progress and while Jenn works on her Civil Rights Project, I thought I'd take on another value, Integrity#2.
I am still so moved when I look back on an incident that happened with my son when he was in the 5th grade. Daniel had a friend that he frequently spent time with. They went to the same elementary school. With both parents working, this boy and a younger brother were at times left alone at home. Mom (that's me) had an important set of rules for kids regarding friends. I wanted to know where my kids were. Who they were with, and how long they planned to be gone. They never went to a friends' home if the parents were not home. To go to a friend's home, I had to meet the parents beforehand.
This friend called my son to come over, knowing this rule. He told Dan his parents were home so I drove him to his friends home. A cool kid never is accompanied by his mom to the door of a friend, so I respected his space, taking care of goodbyes in the car, and waited for him to enter before pulling away. Sons don't mind if moms come to the door to pick them up. That's different.
But when Dan got out of the car, he leaned back in. "Mom, will you wait? I have a feeling Brandon's parents aren't really home."
The maturity of my son's request surprised me. Sure enough, a disappointed Daniel returned. "Brandon lied, he thought it would be okay if you didn't know." Brandon did not know Daniel as well as he'd thought. I am still impressed by the boy he was, and the man he is today. True integrity is seen by the choices we make when no one else is watching. (If my youth friends are reading, did you realize what examples you are to your parents?)
For this value I'm asked to do a self assessment asking myself do I gossip, tell inappropriate jokes, use swearing and profanity, am I light minded about the sacred, always truthful, morally clean, honest, dependable, trustworthy in school work and activities? I'm to write what I can improve, and one new habit I want to develop.
I think, in these particular focused areas, I'm really strong. Gossip hurts. That's just a fact. Uncomfortable jokes make me uncomfortable, vulgar jokes make me uncomfortable, there's no humor in that for me. My husband screens questionable movies for me because he knows what makes me cringe. I don't know, to me there's so much of a range to vocabulary that profanity seems unnecessary and feels like low form vocabulary. I'm just not that interested.
Light minded about the sacred. Morally clean, no issues. Completely Truthful/ Honest. This is the one I have to think about. It's a many faceted loaded value. Half truths, or leads to belief, from either appearance or verbal misleadings is still dishonesty. Why? Because a person is led to believe in something that is not true.
Examples--Focus and balance in a day are not exact// Come on kids, Dad's coming home let's hurry and clean this house! (It looks like mom has worked all day by the time dad comes home.) Then comes that comment: Wow, you've sure been busy today!
Or: Mom has been working all day doing all sorts of good, and then comes that question: Did you work out today?--(you know he means weights but laundry stair laps and vacuuming arm rows count don't they?) I think I can work more on "being completely honest."
Okay, so things I can do, and one new habit. I'm going to give being completely truthful a shot and think about that more. I think that's going to hard. I'll bet in truth we skirt around pure truth more than we realize without intention.
"So...is he cute?"
"He's got an AWESOME sense of humor!"
"What do you think of my new haircut?"
"Do you like it?"
"yes..."
"It's cute!"
In general, I really am an honest person--but I think that as I focus here, I'm going to find levels of pure truth that I didn't see before. I'm curious to know if that's true. ;^)
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