 Global Integration UpdatesCommon Ground for the Common Good Be the people we need--Build the world we need
Special News--June 2024Being the People Our World Needs
Reflections on Living in Truth 'Let the lie come into the world,
let the lie even dominate the world--
but it will not come through me.'
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize address 1970
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In this Update (#96), we commemorate Global Integrity Day-9 June (GID) by sharing personal reflections from our CORE Member Care weblog. We feature the special series Kelly did on "JC et al.--Living in Truth" (16 brief entries). Living in truth is not an abstract ideal but rather a daily practice that is foundational for a) maintaining integrity at all levels (individual through international) and b) engaging in challenging issues such as fighting human trafficking (this year's GID theme).
These personal reflections are part of a larger collection of entries on "Loving Truth, Peace, and People." Collectively they represent core values from the teachings of Jesus Christ and writings of others that have practically guided our work in global integration over the last 10+ years. We encourage you to take the time to reflect and connect with others as you consider what it means to live in truth as people our world needs.
We conclude the Update with some personal perspectives on being "people of faith-hope-love" in the Christian tradition who embrace "common ground for the common good." This inclusive approach encourages active learning and collaboration with a diversity of colleagues on behalf of wellbeing for all people and the planet. See these Global Integration Updates: Warm greetings,
Kelly and Michèle   MCAresources@gmail.com
Featured Resources
Being People the World Needs
Reflections on Living in Truth “Truth-telling, struggling for justice, working toward forgiveness: these are three central dimensions of the social process of reconciliation. In all situations I know, they are never undertaken on a level playing field; the consequences of oppression, violence, and war are not predisposed to honesty, justice, and even good intentions in all parties. Nor are the processes, for the most part, orderly. And they never seem complete, in fact, we usually experience them as truncated, prematurely foreclosed, high-jacked by the powerful. We can find ourselves acquiescing to half-measures, half-truths, compromised solutions.” Robert Schreiter, Reconciliation as a New Paradigm in Mission (2005). Quoted in Global Member Care: The Pearls and Perils of Good Practice 2011, p. 114 (quoted in the Reality DOSE! article-website). ---------- 
JC et al.--Living in Truth
Sixteen Brief Blog Entries
Suggested Applications--Making It Personal
One way to use the 16 brief entries below is to review them over the course of a few days. For example read one-three per day, reflect on them, and make at least one personal application. Use the entries as a springboard to list some quotes-writings that have been important guides for your life and work. You can do this on your own, with a friend, or as a small group. These entries are meant to shine light on our values and virtues as well as bolster our resolve to face our own distortions—memories, motivations, and morality—and to live more honestly (in truth) with ourselves and others. Truth is a foundation for trust. And trust is necessary for peace. "So love truth and peace." (Zechariah 8:19)
JC et al.--Living in Truth 1
Totalitarian Lies, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
JC et al.--Living in Truth 2
Discerning Truth (and Lies), JRR Tolkien
JC et al.--Living in Truth 3
Following the Truth, Robin Daniels
JC et al.--Living in Truth 4
Seeing Ourselves--and Others--Clearly, Patricius
JC et al.--Living in Truth 5
I Am, G.K. Chesterton
JC et al.--Living in Truth 6
Self-Justification, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
JC et al.--Living in Truth 7
Beyond Death, Sirac
JC et al.--Living in Truth 8
Dissidents, Václav Havel
JC et al.--Living in Truth 9
Speaking Truth to Power, Ronald Reagan
JC et al.--Living in Truth 10
Loving People, Mahatma Gandhi
JC et al.--Living in Truth 11
Grace is Pro Bono, Bono is Pro-Grace, Bono (U2)
JC et al.--Living in Truth 12
Kūmāré and Christós, Vikram Ghandi
JC et al.--Living in Truth 13
Improving Human Hearts and Consciences, Paul Kennedy
JC et al.--Living in Truth 14
Learning from History, Barak Obama
JC et al.—Living in Truth 15
Restating the Obvious, Os Guinness
JC et al.--Living in Truth 16
Final Thoughts
More Personal Reflections
Being People of Faith-Hope-Love
As people of faith who practice Christian spirituality, we are committed to responsibly engage with others in the challenges facing our world, locally through globally, while holding firmly to our belief that we are in God's hands. We pray that God's purposes "will be done on earth as they are in heaven;" acknowledge that prayer, repentance, and relationship with God are key to human-planetary wellbeing; and live in hope for the time when God through Jesus Christ will decisively intervene in human history with equity--righteousness and justice--to restore all things. And in the meantime, we seek to embrace lifestyles of integrity that prioritize a deep, practical love for truth, peace, and people--and this includes being willing to acknowledge, resist, and confront evil in its many forms (starting with ourselves, etc.)
We do not want to further problematize our world's plight by focusing primarily on the negative. Rather we want to also promote the many examples of the good going forward, as people of integrity find common ground for the common good.
Finally, we want to highlight that the despair and disillusion that result from seemingly intractable problems like climate, conflicts, poverty, and corruption can also be quite positive. They can embody a crucial existential message about reality that can be "revisited"--explored and heeded--rather than simply "resisted." They can point us to Someone who is bigger than ourselves, the SDGs, humanity, and our world--the knowable, Eternal One who is both in and beyond space-time and who loves us all dearly.
The above thoughts build upon the Personal Reflections in Perils, Paralysis, Hope: Sustainable Development-Sustainable Destruction? (Global Integration Update, October 2022).
Member Care Associates
MCAresources@gmail.com
 Member Care Associates Inc. (MCA) is a non-profit, Christian organization working internationally from Geneva and the USA. MCA's involvement in Global Integration focuses on the wellbeing and effectiveness of personnel and their organizations across sectors (e.g., mission, humanitarian, peace, health, and development sectors) as well as global mental health and integrity/anti-corruption, all with a view towards collaboratively supporting sustainable development for all people and the planet. Our services include consultation, training, research, resource development, and publications.
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Global Integration
Global Integration (GI) is a framework for actively and responsibly engaging in our world--locally to globally. It emphasizes connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity, commitments, and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based). GI encourages a variety of people to be at the “global tables” and in the "global trenches"--and everything in-between--in order to help research, shape, and monitor agendas, policies, and action for all people and the planet. It intentionally links building the world we need with being the people we need. Our Global Integration Updates are designed to help shape and support the emerging diversity of global integrators who as learners-practitioners are committed to the "common ground for the common good." 2015-current (90+ issues).
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Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability;
it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God,
and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (April 1963) |
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