integrity

Being a fool for God was not merely alright but liberating.

Integrity comes not from privilege, textbooks, or profession, but from being grounded in humility.

Shamed and enraged, I sit by the side of the road and cry.Eclipsed by a sense of disgrace, my emotions feel momentarily stifled and disconnected. Instead of anger, I feel dishonored and exposed. I cannot even formulate my thoughts, much less speak them. My integrity and humility have been violated. I have only my own indignation to spur me on.

There are so many things we expect God to do: lead us, bring good people into our life, give us a life of abundance, make us happy, fix our problems, fix other people, triumph over our enemies, etc. However, why do so many people think they will get any of this if they choose not to live righteously? If you choose to hurt other people and not take any responsibility for it or live your life as if everyone else is the problem, except you then God is going to lead you back to the same people, same places, same situations so you can fix the same problem you ran from. God is not standing in your future telling you to forget what you did. He is standing in front of you telling you to go back and undo what you did! He leads you to places that change who you are. He doesn't lead you to places to forget who you are.

We live in a culture that celebrates talent more than integrity, but we've got it backward. Talent depreciates over time. So do intellect and appearance. You will eventually lose your strength and lose your looks. You may even lose your mind. But you don't have to lose your integrity. Integrity is the only thing that doesn't depreciate over time. Nothing takes longer to build than a godly reputation. And nothing is destroyed more quickly by one stroke of sin. That's why it must be celebrated and protected above all else.

The problem will never be diversity, the challenging of tradition or the one person that questions the way life should be. The person that shows the world that this is wrong, there is a perspective you didn't consider, this is worth fighting for and being different is a blessing, will always be the solution for change.

A woman who holds her head up too high, is trying to breathe from her own pollution.

I care not for the body which may rot. Yet, for the transgression of the spirit, of moral ethics, of life, liberty and the soul itself, I must and shall cross the line of battle or lose the very reason not to.

The truth! Since when have the majority on Earth cared about the truth?

Sympathy of victims and humanity of us question the stronghold of integrity towards justice.

We were to write a short essay on one of the works we read in the course and relate it to our lives. I chose the "Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. I compared my childhood of growing up in a family of migrant workers with the prisoners who were in a dark cave chained to the floor and facing a blank wall. I wrote that, like the captives, my family and other migrant workers were shackled to the fields day after day, seven days a week, week after week, being paid very little and living in tents or old garages that had dirt floors, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. I described how the daily struggle to simply put food on our tables kept us from breaking the shackles, from turning our lives around. I explained that faith and hope for a better life kept us going. I identified with the prisoner who managed to escape and with his sense of obligation to return to the cave and help others break free.

...the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.""...a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.

Journalism is not like fiction and will never be. In fiction, you can feed people with lies, yet at the end of the reading, people still live the same life - go to work, eat, come back home, and sleep - nothing really changes aside from, at the very least, their perception of the world. But, things are different in journalism. You tell people a barefaced life, they will believe it, and something is going to happen. People will promptly respond to what they believe is true because it relates to their life, and we take life seriously, don't we?

If you want to know if someone was meant to be in your future, then remove all the worldly things about them from your mind. Don__ think about their looks, the intimate moments or their personality. Now, think about how they made you feel, how they improved your life and what virtues they possess that push you to want to become better. Did they bring you closer to God? Did they bring you to your life mission? Did they ever lie to you, betray you or made it impossible for you to feel comfortable speaking your mind? When you remove all the shine from a diamond, it becomes a glass rock. What value is it then? See beneath the surface and you will know who your future is with.

Your body is a temple, not a daily dumping ground for another person__ pain, anger, betrayal, judgment, hypocrisy, denial, games, jealousy or blame. When you are being psychologically, spiritually or emotionally abused by a person, and they don__ care how it hurts you, then it is time to leave what is polluting your relationship with God.

My mom used to say, __ife isn__ fair,__ said Shadow.__f course she did,_ said Wednesday. __t__ one of those things that moms say, right up there with __f all your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it too?____ou stiffed that girl for ten bucks, I slipped her ten bucks,_ said Shadow, doggedly. __t was the right thing to do.__omeone announced that their plane was boarding. Wednesday stood up. __ay your choices always be so clear,_ he said.

I will either adamantly prioritize my agendas at the expense of the truth, or I will consistently bring my agendas into unrelenting obedience to the truth. And if for some reason you__e trying to determine who I truly am, the choice I make will tell you.

All along, I was less concerned about walking a path of integrity and more caught up in a compass calibrated by greed. And with a compass such as this, how is it that I__ having a hard time understanding why I am where I am?