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                 %PERSONAL AND COMMUNAL INTEGRITY-2 870328

     Personal  and communal integrity are  interdependent.
Those  persons and communities which play games of  mutual
self  deception  and pretend that  personal  and  communal
integrity  are   not  interdependent---ultimately  confirm
their interdependence by their patterns of disintegration.
Natural  laws can not be broken,  they are illustrated  by
the patterns of events which they describe.   Natural laws
are    descriptions,    not   prescriptions   or   foolish
expectations.   We commonly see disintegration set in when
people and communities pretend that  their integrities are
not interdependent.  Wise expectations are based  upon our
descriptions  of  regular  patterns  of  events  which  we
commonly observe.

     The  integrity of private personal  relationships  is
interdependent  with  the  integrity of the  community  of
which  the  private  persons are an  integral  part.    If
private  personal  relationships  are  not  integrated  in
interdependent  ways  with  the  community  which  is  the
context  for the private relationships,  then there is  in
progress a process of disintegration.

     Integration   and  disintegration  are   like   chain
reactions in  nuclear  reactors;  increasing or decreasing
depending upon immediate circumstances.   A constant level
of integrity rarely persists:  a pattern of disintegration
or  integration is likely  to exist.   Each  community  is
characterized in part by what is happening to unity in the
community.

     In  communities  in  which  people  seek  to  promote
stability    through   attempts   to   be   in    control,
disintegration  is triggered through perverse patterns  of
control-rebellion,      paternalism-dependency, addiction-
dependency,   co-dependency,  etc.   Attempts at being  in
control  undermine the honesty which is essential to  open
and honest dialogue---and so lead to communal and personal
disintegration.   Failing  to be  honest with self becomes
common  when  it  is not safe to  be  honest  with others.
People  who  are  not  honest  with  themselves  lack  the
integrity  to  be honest with others.    The  effects  and
causes    are   interdependent   in   the    process    of
disintegration.

     Causes  and  effects are also interdependent  in  the
process of integration.   We need to do what we  can do to
encourage integrative processes.  When we do not do so, we
naturally  become the victims of disintegrative  processes
which  we  can not control.   Disintegration is  far  more
likely  to  be  prompted by accidental processes  than  is
integration;    in   keeping  with  the  second   law   of
thermodynamics.    Integration is the fruit of  deliberate
and often sacrificed efforts, not the fruit of accidents.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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