[COLOR="Blue"]Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help. (Science and Health 453)
Honesty in every condition, under every circumstance, is the indispensable rule of obedience. To obey the principle of mathematics ninety-nine times in one hundred and then allow one numeral to make incorrect your entire problem, is neither Science nor obedience.
(Miscellaneous Writings 118)
So wrote Mary Baker Eddy. No grey areas there! :rolleyes:
I was thinking about how to pray about this current scandal in Parliament.
One thing that hit me, was that I can’t hold up my hands and say that I’ve never ever done anything dishonest in my life. Can any of us? During my flying career, I’m sure that more than once I exceeded my duty free shopping allowance and got away with it. I’ve sold stuff (once) at a car boot sale and not declared it on my income tax return etc, Last year I discovered that I should have been paying business rates on a holiday let property instead of residential rates (I honestly didn’t realise) – the funny thing is that business rates are cheaper!
So what popped into my head was Jesus’ words to the self-righteous men about to stone the woman for adultery (I always wonder where the man was?):
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John 8:7
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
So part of me actually feels sorry for our MPs – well, at least those who genuinely did not realise that what they were doing was wrong – at least wrong according to the spirit, if not the letter of their agreement.
But I see this and the collapse of our banking and investment systems as a hopeful sign, as are disclosures of torture at Guantanamo etc. There has been so much rottenness, based on fear, greed, arrogance and selfishness and now it seems it is all coming up to the surface to be uncovered and destroyed.
Again, Jesus said:
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Mark 4:22
For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.
And the prophet Isaiah foretold a time when:
[COLOR="Indigo"]Isa 25:7
And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
[COLOR="Blue"]S&H 596:28
VEIL.A cover; concealment; hiding; hypocrisy.
S&H 570:1
The march of mind and of honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood,--into human indignation; for one extreme follows another.
But let’s now think about what integrity is and how it is part of each of us. Here’s the first of 4 articles I found on www.spirituality.com on this important subject:
[url] A spiritual state of wholeness[/url]
.[COLOR="DarkGreen"].in its spiritual definition, integrity is the state of divine wholeness that God gives and maintains in each of us.
Integrity isn’t, then, simply an option for how to live life or a matter of personal moral convictions. Nor does it involve rigid adherence to a human code. In its spiritual meaning, integrity is the state of being complete, whole, and perfect. And because God is divine good and the actual source of all the completeness, perfection, and goodness that men and women express, integrity—wholeness, soundness, and incorruptibility—is built in, spiritually “hard-wired” into our very being.
So how can we help?
Paul wrote to Timothy:
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I Tim 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
[url] Prayer that supports honesty in government[/url]
And finally, here are a the last two articles. The first by someone involved in government at the time of Watergate, where he didn’t uphold his integrity and the second, where she did, not knowing if she would still have her job:
[url]Lessons on integrity in politics[/url]
[COLOR="DarkGreen"]When you’re appointed to a position at higher levels of government, the document that represents your commission opens with this statement: “Reposing special trust in your integrity, prudence, ability, I do appoint you ...”—and then goes on to describe the position to which one is appointed. My own integrity was tested in the White House while I was Deputy Counsel to then-President Nixon, and appointed to co-chair the “Plumbers,” a team tasked with discrediting Dr. Daniel Ellsberg. He was an antiwar activist who released classified documents about the US Vietnam War strategy to two major newspapers. We were also supposed to track down any other “leaks” of classified documents. But in carrying out our assignment, we broke the law.
[url] Business ethics[/url]
Love and peace,
Judy