You may ask about the name of our publication, “why ‘Integrities’?” Although integrity is usually about personal behavior, today personal integrity is not enough. We face choices about the integrity of the planet and the circles of life on earth, as well as the circles of our own lives. We need to develop a sense of how the circles of our lives connect to the larger circles of life on earth and we need to begin to shape our lives and actions according to that sense.
Like us, maybe you have a vision of the unity and interrelatedness of circles of life, but that vision has been largely mystical and religious. Francis of Assisi radiated a sense of brotherhood with sun and moon and birds and wolves and all of life. William Blake could see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. John Donne could proclaim that no man is an island.
Modern physics is coming closer and closer to the mystical vision of reality. In their search for the separate particles which form the building blocks of our universe, physicists have been finding instead an incredible array of interrelated patterns of energy, a seamless garment. If the world were a machine composed of separate building blocks, then tinkering with the individual parts should not send waves of confusion throughout the biosphere. Instead, our world is looking more and more like an integrated organism, and the continued psychic shocks, reigns of terror and new chemicals introduced into the system make our world convulse and shudder. The spasms appear locally in the drinking water and teenage suicides, in allergies and immune system problems, in an influx of refugees and an increase in political posturing, in debtor nations and balance of payment, in the disappearance of the topsoil.
If indeed the world is organic then the sickness of one part means the infection of the whole. Personal integrity and individualism can no longer cope, The hand cannot say to the foot, “I have no need of you.”
What we need is a perception of true wholes.
We are surrounded by institutions that serve false wholes. “Self-maximizing entities” Gregory Bateson has called these institutions because they are always bent on making themselves more powerful. He numbered nations and banks and unions and military establishments among them. Those who speak for the false wholes have the loudest voices. For them, loyalty to one’s country means subverting the just aspirations of other peoples. Loyalty to a religion means denigrating the values of those who strive for emanicpation through other faiths. Loyalty to the corporation or stock-holders means keeping the profits up at the expense of the poor of the world or the health of the planet which we all share.
Beginning to discern false wholes from the true and getting our loyalties straight is the task of our time if we are not to perish. Devoting our lives to larger wholes of which we are all parts is the beginning of wisdom. The saints and sages have told us all this before. Thomas More remained the king’s good servant, but God’s first. Gandhi wanted the independence of India but valued respect and nonviolence even more.
In order to serve larger, true wholes, we must assume our own power and stand up to those who foster false wholes. There is power to assume. Power always belongs to the people. Historian Hannah Arendt assures us, asking us to gather together and speak out. She never lost sight of the impact our stories can have on each other. “Even in the darkest of times, ” she wrote, “we have the right to expect some illumination, and such illumination may well come … from the uncertain, flickering and often weak light some men and women, in their lives and in their works, will kindle over the time span given to them on earth.”
By sharing the “weak light” in our lives and works, we can illuminate and warm each other as we attempt to bolster integrities in the circles of own lives and the the world we love.
Here is an opportunity for us to gather our “weak lights” together. Today, join others in saving Sakineh, who faces a horrible death by stoning in Iran. Please follow these links, and today make a step in reclaiming humanity in the world.
www.facebook.com/…Sakineh…/123908540984923
freesakineh.org
http://www.realcourage.org/2010/07/sakine-ashtiani/
