Integrity Study - Day four

Today went much faster so if I were to do it again (which I won't of course, but if anyone wants to borrow the version broken into days and with highlights...), I'm glad it broke down this way.

Technically this study was for leaders, so it assumes that that is your goal. It wasn't too difficult to point out that we should all try to be leaders. We did a quick review of qualities people want in a leader. We talked about leaders in our lives, including parents. The big focus was on walking the walk, and how kids are more likely to do what their parents and teachers say if they're not saying, "Do as I say, not as I do."

A person may forget 90 percent of what a leader says, but he or she will never forget how the leader lives.

Of course we talked about the fact that parents aren't perfect and you shouldn't judge them based on one mistake, because the kids, especially Bear and Kitty are notorious for saying, "Well you yell," or "Dad cusses." I've yelled at the kids about 3-4 times in the 3 years they've been here! This is not an acceptable excuse for the kids' screaming violent meltdowns and I tell them so! Hubby does occasionally slip (mostly naughty words not real cuss words) when he's in traffic.

This is why Paul tells Timothy:
Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Timothy 4:15-16

We talked about hanging out with Christians can make it easier to behave with integrity, and act in a Christ-like manner. Hanging out with kids with issues can mean others assume you are like them and you might start acting like them.

I mentioned something I'd read recently about an agnostic waitress who commented that she hated waiting on groups of Christians on Sunday afternoons after church, because they were horrible tippers and rude and demanding. We talked about whether we wanted to be the kind of Christians that people admired and wanted to be like.

In this life, we never attain perfection. But there should be progress toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We will never attain it this side of eternity, but the there should be visible progress, evident to others. Notice the two things Paul exhorts Timothy to watch: your life and your doctrine. In other words, give careful attention to your behavior and your belief. Make sure they match. Constantly examine yourself to see whether or not your walk matches your talk.

In other words we're not going to be perfect, but when we said we were Christians - through baptism, joining the church, or just declaration, we committed to trying to be Christ-like and live with integrity. We should always be trying to be like him.

“How do I live when no one’s looking?” It’s easy to look like a person of integrity when people are watching, but do I live my private life with the same level of consistency as I live my public life? So much of our lives are consumed with what might be called “image maintenance.” We spend vast amounts of energy trying to get people to think about us the way we want to be thought about.

John Ortberg suggests, “Human conversation is largely an endless attempt to convince others that we are more assertive or clever or gentle or successful than they might think if we did not carefully educate them.”

WWJD?

I talked about my own focus on caring a lot about what people think of me. We talked about how much time we spend trying to get others to like us, think we're cool, or sweet or nice.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:1 are hard to get around: “Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”It’s possible to live one life publicly and another life privately. That’s not integrity; it’s an invitation for God’s discipline. We are to live with consistency in public and in private, because our Father “sees what is done in secret” (Matthew 6:4). Since this is the case, being faithful in small, secret things is a
big deal.

God is far less concerned with your public persona than he is in your private character.

It’s in the small, secret places of self-evaluation that God’s grace changes you and shapes you into the image of his Son.

In the end, we become what our desires make us. Who we become reveals what we really desire. If you desire the praise of men, then you will become a certain kind of person. But if you desire the praise of God, then integrity will need to become a priority. As you sense the overwhelming holiness of our Creator, you will understand how unraveled you are. But as you focus on the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you will recognize that even though you may feel undone, you are not undone
because he has made you whole. His grace is sufficient, for his power is made perfect in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Integrity Study - Day three

Whew! What a morning! Let's just say it started out with overflowing toilet which the child had to clean up alone for once (and redirection multiple times to get it cleaned and never did a good job. *sigh*). This is day 6 of using Colon Clenz to try to see if we can get rid of this poo that's apparently perpetually backed up in her system and she's still clogging the potty. *deeper sigh* So far I'm having a sh*tty day which isn't showing signs of improving.

Last night I stayed up way late finishing most of the alterations on my sister's dress so she can get it pressed, I cut out and whipped together a sample jacket for the girls to try on this morning, wrote Kitty's FAIR Club assignment, created and worked on the Integrity Game board and questions for a new game I want to try with the kids, and I got a call from a friend who wanted to talk about the upcoming Katharine Leslie 2-day seminar in Fort Worth that I will be attending Wednesday and Thursday next week and offered to help with. I'm still working on trying to find a friend to travel with, and my friend in Fort Worth has offered a place to stay.

(If you can possibly make it you should! There are still seats available and as both a professional and a parent of children of trauma herself, Katharine gives ABSOLUTELY one of the best seminars on children of trauma I've ever been to. The professionals attending learn a lot, the parents learn practical advice. I saw her last year and it was one of the most recharging experiences I ever had. I can send you info if you're interested.).

So anyway!

The Integrity Study session started late as usual, and ran long. There were a LOT of big words and concepts in this one. We only got half as far as I thought we would, but I think we can still get it done tomorrow.

The Hypocrisy of the Pharisees

After defining Hypocrisy and explaining who the Pharisees are, we talked about how some people think of Jesus as being kind of hippy-like, all peace and love, but he was not feeling peace and love here! I had Kitty read the following passage "the way Jesus would have said it!" (really angry!)

Except for stumbling over all the big and unknown words and concepts, she did pretty well and I think the word stumbles helped because we could stop and explain them... all of them... and then explaining the words we used to explain them... and then giving examples...and then tying it back to what Jesus is saying...). This part took forever, and wasn't even the main focus of this section!

“Woe* to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites**!
You travel over land and sea to win a single convert***, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell**** as you are….
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs^, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous^^ but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness….
“You snakes^^^! You brood of vipers^^^^! How will you escape being condemned to hell^^^^^?”
Matthew 23:15, 27-28, 33

*Woe - not a command for stopping a horse! It means "pathos ('chaos'), anger, warning and derision ('looking down on someone and ridiculing them.'); and may include all of these at the same time."

• Derision - gave them the example of Rathbone from Disney's Pocahontas looking down on the Native Americans - Rathbone was the governor of the pilgrims if I remember right

**Teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites - we talked about Judge Frollo from Disney's Hunchback of Notredame - he was a perfect example of hypocrisy. Someone who dictates rules to others, but does not follow them himself. (I also verified that they did not believe that the gypsies/Romany were lying, thieves and they did not. *grin* They also think Esmerelda is cool!)
***single convert - "convincing someone to believe what you believe." We talked about evangelists. The example they understood best for once wasn't a Disney movie! There is a group of Christian weigh lifters that testify while doing feats of strength called Team Impact. Bear decided to be baptised after attending one of their events. One of the members of the team grew up in a family that did foster and adoption, and he wrote back and forth to Bear while Bear was in residential treatment.

****twice as much a son of hell - new converts are often more enthusiastic and vigilant about the rules, and enforcing rules is what Jesus is against.

^whitewashed tombs - whitewashing is putting a coat of paint on something to make it look nice and pretty and cover what's underneath.

^^on the outside you appear to people as righteous - back to Judge Frollo from Hunchback to explain the word righteous!

^^^You snakes - snakes were unclean because they crawled through the mud and muck on their bellies.

^^^^vipers - Bear didn't know this was a snake.

^^^^^hell - tangent on whether or not this was a bad word.

Pheww! Finally ready to move on to the next section, but it had even more hard concepts and big words, and to be totally honest even I got it a little mixed up.

· Ethics refers to a standard of right and wrong, good and evil. It’s what the Pharisees said they believed was right.
· Morality is a lived standard of right and wrong, good and evil. It’s what the Pharisees actually did.
· Integrity means “sound, complete, integrated.” To the extent that a person’s ethics and morality are integrated, that person has integrity. To the extent that a person’s ethics and morality are not integrated, that person lacks integrity.

We talked first about Bob and her plan to be evil and take over the world. We decided she had low ethics because she has committed to the Christian values of the church, but she says she's going to be evil and go against these ethics. She had high morality because she didn't actually act evil. She has low integrity because her stated ethics and morals don't match. If she had evil standards, and acted evil, she would be unethical and immoral, but would have high integrity because her ethics match her morals (she doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk).

We briefly touched on Hitler, but went off on a tangent about the ethics of using the results of the medical research Hitler conducted on humans. The kids decided that not using the research would mean that those people were tortured and died in vain. I talked about whether or not this meant others would felt that they condoned the means to justify the end, but the kids decided it was OK.

We continued the tangent with whether or not they would use products from companies that used animal testing, we talked about the difference between free range chickens and those that were not allowed to move and were stuffed with antibiotics and growth hormones, tuna caught in non-dolphin safe nets, child labor, prison labor, unions and domestic labor. It was a long, complicated discussion and the kids decided they would pay more for organic and to purchase pruducts from companies with unions even though they cost more. Of course they have no money and no way of telling which companies those are (Bear said he knew, and all his clothes were "safe.")

We finally just called a stop to the conversation, and I decided that the rest of what I'd planned to talk about today would just have to wait until tomorrow.

Speaking of waiting until tomorrow... all the rest of the stuff I needed to get done tonight will have to wait until then. I'm tired and it's 1am.

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Before I forget. Grandma told me today that Samuel was a High Priest not a king, and that after him the priests were elected or something so his sons didn't inherit the title. Honestly, that changes way too much of what we talked about that day, so I'm going to ignore it. If you decide to try this study with your kids, you can handle this as you wish. It was mostly a help with the 'taxes/government/ king' thing which wasn't in the original study anyway.

Integrity Study - Day two

Whew! Today's study was a little tougher to get the kids to sit still through. Kitty was still activated from last night's therapy session and could not stop talking (or singing). Bob was pouty about being woken up, only to have to wait 15 minutes on Bear (of course we'd waited 30 minutes for her yesterday!). Bear was feeling obstreperous (like that word Sharon?!), and kept physically, verbally and non-verbally "poking" his siblings. Ponito was easygoing as always, but getting involved with whoever was being the most entertaining, and so perpetuating the problem.

Both today's and yesterday's session lasted about 45 minutes. While today's lesson covered more pages, it really didn't quite say as much as yesterday's. Not because it wasn't important, but it was a little more cut and dry and "preachy" until the end. (God is trustworthy. God never lies. Seeing God or Jesus in his holiness would be traumatic - with some examples from Isaiah, a story where 600 armed soldiers came to arrest Jesus and fell to the ground, and the disciples awestruck by the Jesus they were "comrades" with only moments before).

Technically this is a study designed to develop leadership qualities so maybe that's why in a couple of places it emphasized other things and it didn't say enough about why you should have integrity (since it assumed you wouldn't be doing the study if you didn't want to be a good leader). I think tomorrow's lesson is much more personal.

By the way, if anyone besides Sharon wants a copy of the study the version with study questions and bible verses, it is available here - just click Download Word Doc (it has an audio version as well).

What we talked about today boiled down to:

• God and Jesus can always be trusted and never lie.



• Unlike God, people can break promises and disappoint you. It is the unreliability of humans that causes a lot of our heartache. (Believe me I did not mention parents at this part, but Bear brought up biomom because Kitty started talking about biosisters who live with biomom. Bear told Kitty they were in a good home. Kitty looked at him like he was nuts - have to admit I'm not sure why he said that either unless he was trying to reassure her? He does surprise me sometimes. He might mean it too, who knows?).




• God and Jesus are fully integrated (whole, wholesome, "have it all together.") and we should aspire to this. (We talked about crazy quilts and how they are a bunch of different random scraps, but when they are integrated they make a beautiful quilt. We also talked about how we must be TRULY integrated, because if you put a quilt together with Elmer's glue it might look beautiful... until there is some stress on it - then it falls apart).



• Seeing God and Jesus in their glory is always traumatic and reminds us that we are unclean / sinners.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Kitty immediately started singing this song.)
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined!
For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal (we talked about what a live coal is, Thanks Santa!) in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (We compared this to baptism)

Isaiah 6:1-7

• We can never live up to God and Jesus' integrity and standards and trying to be self-reliant leads to trauma. (I stared at certain kids when I said trying to be self-reliant - can you guess which one was primary?)



• The disciples were with Jesus all the time and were comfortable as his companions - while he wore his mortal* guise (*Kitty loved when I described this as his body - the part that eats and poops), but when he dropped that guise for a milisecond - all fell down overwhelmed (including 600 armed soldiers). (We also talked about this song -one of my favorites. I asked the kids what they would do if Jesus walked through our door. By then the kids were mostly off topic and talking about how they wanted to walk on water like the lizard?! ).



• Jesus is the mediator between us and God.

Then we got to the important stuff (not that the rest wasn't important, just harder to show its relevance to the kids, particularly in regards to their integrity):

• Christ is inside us ("then how could he walk through the door Mom?" *sigh* So glad you have a good memory for a metaphor Ponito!).



• We have to try to behave with integrity because this is what we agreed to do (ex. when Bear and Kitty were baptised and accepted Christ).



• We are given the ability to behave with integrity because we have Christ inside us!

Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship. Christianity is not about rules and regulations. Instead, it is the presence and power of a person who indwells us and promises to never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

• If we are Christ's body then we should be behaving as he would want us to. (And here is the song we talked about that is now stuck in my head).

• Isaiah's commitment and his life as a faithful prophet demonstrate for us the possibility of framing a life of integrity with God’s help.

Integrity Study - Day one

So of course today didn't go exactly as scheduled. Ponito is my early bird and this morning he wanted me to give him a fauxhawk (the clippers broke so I've been cutting his hair with scissors so this takes quite awhile. The first time I just left it all long on top. I got distracted by this and didn't make sure the girls were up and moving until 9am (Daddy woke them at 8am, but they went back to sleep). Bob was surly and difficult to get moving so we weren't ready to go until 9:30am - when we were supposed to be done! Plus most didn't have breakfast, clothes for the day or chores started. *sigh*

I'm really excited about the Integrity Study though so I forged ahead.
Please forgive any and all historical inaccuracy in this - that wasn't really the point! I tried to limit just reading the study and focus on discussions. I think we had some great insights.

We started by talking about what things are important in a leader (leader on a group project, superior in the military, boss at work...). The kids knew what the study was about so it took awhile to get them to say anything beyond honesty and integrity!

After surveying thousands of people around the world and performing more
than 400 written case studies, James Kouzes and Barry Posner identified those characteristics most desired in a leader. In virtually every survey, honesty or integrity was identified more frequently than any other trait.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? If people are going to follow someone, whether into battle or in business or ministry, they want assurance that their leader can be trusted. They want to know that he or she will keep promises and follow through with commitments.

The Integrity of Samuel

In light of this research, Israel’s high regard for Samuel comes as no surprise. Samuel was a man who exuded integrity. Nowhere is this best illustrated than in 1 Samuel 12:1-4: Samuel said to all Israel, “I have listened to everything you said to me and have set a king over you. Now you have a king as your leader. As for me, I am old and gray, and my sons are here with you. I have been your leader from my youth until this day. Here I stand. Testify against me in the presence of the Lord and his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated? Whom have I oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me shut my eyes? If I have done any of these, I will make it right.”
“You have not cheated or oppressed us,” they replied. “You have not taken anything from anyone’s hand.”

During his farewell speech, after having led Israel for decades, Samuel promised to repay anything he had unjustly taken from anyone. What a promise! Even more impressive was the people’s response. Not one person rose up to make a claim against Samuel.

We talked about how great Samuel was, but quickly went off on what seemed to be a tangent about Hitler being a good leader (Bob is playing at "Evil" being a good thing right now - her alleged goal is to take over the world!). This actually really helped us talk about good leaders. I pointed out that Hitler was a very strong leader. Most of his followers believed he was right and followed him not out of fear (although that was certainly a big part of it), but also because he was a very charismatic leader who knew how to influence people's thinking. He took full advantage of people's greed and feelings of superiority. He encouraged it.

Hitler told people that Gypsies were lying thieves who were inferior to his followers. Bear wanted to know if that was true about the Gypsies. I told him there was probably some truth to it, but that a lot of it was perception. We talked about a Bugs Bunny cartoon that makes me cringe to watch it. There's a witch on a broom chasing Bugs Bunny, and she keeps running into things. She says something along the lines of, "Tee hee, women drivers!" This was funny because in those days women were considered to be inferior and bad drivers. It was acceptable to make fun of them and perpetuate this stereotype. Nowadays we know (well insurance raters know) that women are considered to be better drivers than men. The point was you can make people believe a lot of things.


We also talked about taxes. How amazing was it that not only did Samuel live such an exemplary life, but he must have charged taxes and done king/government things which were not popular with everyone and his people still could not find anything negative to say about him?

We talked about why people didn't get mad at Samuel for making people pay taxes.

We talked about a mentally ill person who recently deliberately crashed his plane into a building because he was unhappy about his taxes (this happened near to where we live). We talked about being so above reproach that even mentally ill people had nothing bad to say about you.

I questioned why did the kids think that people didn't mind paying taxes to the king, but didn't want to pay taxes to the government. Bear's theory was because they were used to not having a say in whether or not they paid taxes. You paid them because the king said so. So then we talked about the King of England during the War of 1812. (Now here I have to admit we used what we knew about the king from Disney's Pocahantas 2 where the king was portrayed as an inbred, crazy loon who thought all Native Americans were savage heathens and bear baiting was good clean fun.) We decided that people rebeled against the king because they wanted taxation representation, but that maybe they didn't like this king because he didn't have integrity.

Samuel’s honesty and personal integrity permeated every area of his life. These two characteristics directed how he regarded his possessions, his business dealings and his treatment of those who were weaker than himself. Samuel held himself accountable to the people he led. He opened himself up to the scrutiny of everyone with whom he had ever had dealings. As a result of this practice, Samuel’s leadership has become legendary as this story has been told and retold throughout the centuries.

People want to know that their leader can be trusted. They want to know that leaders will keep promises and follow through on commitments. Promises and commitments are significant, though, in our day of Machiavellian ethics, it seems that they have become optional. We often seem more concerned with convenience and performance. We give lip-service to the importance of character, but we have the idea that when things get tough, the rules can be changed and commitments and covenants may be discarded at will.

Here we talked about how we often make choices because they are convenient, or it's too hard, or "everybody is doing it." I tried to lightly touch on some specific instances of lack of integrity with regards to chores, then we moved quickly on.

But the Bible makes clear just how important our covenants are. Throughout the Scriptures, God focuses on the fact that he is a God who makes and keeps his covenants, that he can be trusted (1 Chronicles 16:15; Psalm 105:8). God can be trusted because he is trustworthy.

The we began talking about whether or not the Israelites would trust Samuel's sons as leaders. They grew up with Samuel as a good example of what integrity and good leadership was. I also started comparing leadership to parenting.

I talked about Grandma's situation. How she was raised by a mother who thought she was gawky, stupid, ugly and would never marry, but would be alone her whole life with no family (Grandma's allergic to cats). That self-image will be with her the rest of her life.

I was raised the opposite. I was told that I was beautiful, smart, and could do almost anything I wanted to. When I raise my child who is 4 inches taller than I am (just like Grandma was 4 inches taller than her mom), am I going to teach my child that she is gawky and too big? No, of course not.

Samuel's sons were raised with integrity, and they will most likely be kings with integrity.

We talked about raising kids with integrity. How that is my responsibility. I don't remember how it came up, but at one point Bob made the comment that of course she knows she can trust me to never get rid of her no matter what. Parents don't get rid of their kids. WHOA!

I pointed out that like Samuel's sons, Bob and Ponito are going to act the way they were taught. Bear and Kitty have it harder because they did not start out being raised with integrity (in hindsight it might not have been a good choice for me to word it in quite that way). They have to work harder at acting with integrity because that was not how they were taught.

That’s the point: it always comes down to the issue of character, not just words. Biblical integrity is not just doing the right thing; it’s a matter of having the right heart and allowing the person you are on the inside to match the person you are on the outside. This is how God is. This is how his people should be.

Perhaps a good word to think of is “consistency.” There must be consistency between what is inside and what is outside. God is totally consistent. His actions and behaviors always match his character and nature. And his goal for us is nothing less. Christ’s objective for his disciples is to make us disciplined people. In the words of John Ortberg, “Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.” Just like God.

Integrity Study Day 2
Integrity Study Day 3
Integrity Study Day 4
Integrity Game