Governmnt integrity -- and yours

In recent a growing predisposition in some countries to uncover weakness or hypocrisy in government has resulted in widespread inquiries. It's certainly important that issues affecting the public interest be addressed. Wrong-doing needs to be uncovered. As Mary Baker Eddy n1 writes, "Certain elements in human nature would undermine the civic, social, and religious rights and laws of nations and peoples, striking at liberty, human rights, and self-government -- and this, too, in the name of God, justice, and humanity!" n2

n1 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science;

n2 Message to the Mother Church for 1900,m p. 10;

Methods employed in the uncovering process, however, sometimes bring on this question: Can government integrity be strengthened through means other than image-damaging partisanship?

It can. Individuals compose nations. What goes on within the heart of humanity surfaces in the governments of the world. It surely follows, therefore , that the more integrity we ourselves attain and retain, the more will lasting integrity permeate governments.

Christain Science explains that integrity originates in God, divine Love. It is not a personal attribute to be acquired, but a quality of God. So we do not, in reality, personally possessm integrity, goodness, or mercy -- we reflectm them.

Hypocrisy and other evil traits do not belong to man. They are imposed on human thought by the material senses. However hypocritical we may be -- even unknowingly -- the error can never destroy the innate spiritual integrity that belongs to us as reflections of God. Dog-endowed qualities are permanent because they can never be separated from their source or from the real man.

Because every person's true selfhood includes spiritual integrity, our investigation -- whether in the form of intensive public inquiries or as individual self-searching -- can be conducted with wise restraint, mercy, and justice. We can ask ourselves: Am I seeking to impeach a person or the error in question? The self-searching that liberates is that which begins to discern man's ture, spiritual selfhood as the image of Love. Spiritual innocence is innate and permanent in man. And it can be increasingly exercised for the betterment of all as we learn to identify ourselves with good rather than evil, and to live the morality that points the way to spirituality an to the healing of human error.

Christ Jesus was clearly aware of the carnal mind's tendency to hide erroneous thinking. He rebuked hypocrisy and said, "There is nothing covered, that shall not ve revealed." n3 But he also cautioned "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harlmess as doves." n4

n3 Matt. 10:26

n4 V. 16.

Investigations will be characterized by mercy and justice as makind learns ot pray for greater spiritual integrity. And one way to start living that prayer is to ensure increasingly that our own lives have nothing to hide. Mental closets have a way of opening themselves. But man's spiritual integrity and innocence, understood and lived, forster unassailable freedom. DAILY BIBLE VERSE The Lord shall judge the people. Psalms 7:8