HONESTY

Honesty is such a lonely word

Everyone is so untrue

Honesty is hardly ever heard

And mostly what I need from you

- from "Honesty," by Billy Joel

Many moons ago, way back when I was a college freshman, the university I attended took part in a national survey tracking values in young adults. I think when my class took the survey - pages and pages of questions - the project was about ten years into thirty years of data-collection.

We filled out the surveys, and then researchers analyzed our answers to rank our personal values, qualities like love, kindness, strength, integrity, empathy. I still remember my results from that survey: at the very top of my values list was integrity.

My thinking at the time was this: if someone loves me (love was in my top three), but they are not honest with me, if they are untrustworthy, then there really is no security in that love, no solid foundation for that love to endure. Love based on truth, however, is something cosmically powerful.

If someone is kind (kindness was high on my list, too) but lacks integrity, if that kindness is not based on truth and genuineness, then what IS it based on? Is it truly kindness? Or is it some kind of self-serving philanthropy? And can that kindness be trusted?

I don't really think we can rate values 1, 2, 3, certainly not in the sense of this-matters-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else. We should desire and strive to grow in all virtues. Ranking virtues seems like trying to rank which is most important to the health of our physical bodies: food, air, water, rest, relationship. They are all important. Without any one of them, we fail to thrive. Sure, we may be able to survive longer without some than without others, but neglect any of them and eventually our health deteriorates.

Still, I suspect if I filled out that survey again, thirty-five years later, my results would be the same. I see integrity - as in shalom-ness - as the starting point, the place from which all other virtues flow and on which they build. I can trust God's love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, correction, providence - because with God, there is no shadow or deceit. I can trust Scripture, because it is the Word of God, and God never lies.

One of the kids was talking to me recently about this virtue: "If I am not honest with myself, about myself, how can I grow? If I lack integrity in my relationships with others, how can those relationships have any depth? How can they last? And the thing is, if I am really loved by God and absolutely secure in Christ - and I am - then I have no reason to not be honest and transparent, either with myself or with others. I have nothing to fear."

Oh, how I wish I could walk in full consciousness and full assurance of those words every second of every day!

In "Honesty," Billy Joel sings that it is relatively easy to find tenderness, sympathy, love, friendship, security, comfort. But honesty? It's such a lonely word.