Integrity

A friend of mine just got fired from his job. "For lack of integrity" he said. "What does integrity mean anyway?" This is the ultimate question for me at the moment. What does integrity mean? What does it mean to have integrity, in my job, in my vocation, in my family, and in my friendships?

A quick browse of the ol' Websters gives integrity the following meanings:

1.	adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

2.	the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.

3.	a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition: the integrity of a ship's hull.

But my questions remain unanswered by these three explanations. What a person of integrity looks like is still beyond me and I am unsure that I would fit into any of these definitions, simply because I see most of my flaws before I see my strengths.

The thing is, I have this irking feeling in my heart that if I was a person of integrity; moreover an integrated person of integrity (meaning all parts of my life were lived with equal integrity), I would have a peace about who and what I am in every situation. I think about transition a lot. Mostly because the way my brain works, I can figure out a system anywhere. I like figuring out systems, observing patterns, and recording the functional systematics as a dutiful anthropologists--a scholar of humans, a scholar of culture. I observe my friends as if they are a foreign tribe in a remote island. Their behaviors are exotic to me. Yet, when I have figured them out, I can maneuver in that system of ethics and behaviors. However, I've noticed my own pattern. Until I have the system mastered, I feel awful about myself--I feel foreign--I am the outsider. I don't fit in. I get down on myself, thinking I did the wrong thing/said the wrong thing/I am the wrong thing.

But if I was a person of integrity, my actions, my thoughts, my words, would all stem from the same source--a strong moral compass and a strong connection to the God who created morals and systems. If my words came from that source (and I knew it), then I feel like I could allow myself more grace-- grace to make mistakes in a new context, grace to not know everything. I would focus less on mastering a system and being functional in it, and I would focus more on being myself in the midst of a new system. But I'm struggling with it. How does a white woman speak to a African-American foster youth? How does she offer him functionality in this system, even while her own functionality seems fragile? Integrity speaks.