Integrity’s Blemished Virtue
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:24 — 1.3MB)
Subscribe: More
Helen was revered as a good person, and I was happy to be her friend. She was a manager, a mother, an artist, a neighbor. My experiences with her were always warm and affirming. Everyone trusted her integrity because she lived her values.
But one day we find that she has done something horrible—something offending our moral code. In an instant, Helen becomes disturbing to me. How can I trust her? The experiences we shared are erased by a biting fear that all she was is a lie.
Then Hope—an acquaintance, not even a friend—steps forward with a gift of love. Hope and Helen talk, and affirm their relationship is still authentic. With this assurance, Hope is with Helen as she answers for the harm she created. Hope sees Helen as an artist, a manager, a neighbor and a person who violated a tenet. Hope insists we all are more than the worst thing we’ve done, and should not be carelessly discarded. She forces me to ask if integrity is only the memory of unblemished experience, or if it is simply capricious perception. Hope doesn’t say it, but I admit to myself: shame on me!
- Chaos and Concord - March 11, 2024
- The Rainbow - September 1, 2022
- Grace - April 1, 2021
