My wife and I spoke last Sunday in our ward's sacrament meeting; she spoke on the subject of pride while I spoke on character and integrity. A good portion of what I said ought to be familiar with regular readers of this blog, but there was some new stuff, as well:
I recently came across a TED talk given
by a retired Navy admiral named James Stavridis. TED, which stands
for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is a global set of conferences
run by a private non-profit organization, under the slogan "Ideas
Worth Spreading". Admiral Stavridis is a name I recognized,
since I have been following Navy and military issues for a number of
years now.
The title of Stavridis's autobiography
is “The Accidental Admiral.” He attended to the U.S. Naval
Academy at Annapolis for the same reason many others have done
throughout history, to get a free, quality education. He didn't plan
on making the Navy his career and as his commitment neared its end,
he was looking at opportunities for continuing his education. His
mentor was an officer named Mike Mullen, who would later become the
Chief of Naval Operations and then the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.
Mullen recommended that instead of
getting stuck with a huge law school bill, Stavridis should accept a
scholarship he could arrange to the Fletcher School of Law &
Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. While this would
only add three years to Stavridis's original commitment, it ended up
paving the way to a career. After commanding a destroyer, which won
an award as the best-run ship in the Atlantic fleet, Stavridis went
on to command a destroyer squadron and a carrier battle group.
In 2006 he became the commander in
chief of the U.S. Southern Command, and it was about this time that I
first heard of him. About that time I came across an article he had
written for the periodical of the U.S. Naval Institute titled “Read,
Think, Write, and Publish.” As an aspiring writer, this article
interested me. Ben Franklin is credited as saying that we should
either do something worth writing about, or write about something
worth reading, Stavridis argued that we should do both.
In 2009, Stavridis became the Supreme
Allied Commander Europe, which is the commander of NATO, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. He once gave a presentation in which
he talked about having a profile on Facebook, and he said that anyone
could friend him at the social media website. A few newspapers
picked up the story with the headline: “NATO admiral needs
friends.” This led to a number of friendship requests, as well as
several comments including one which said, “I heard you needed
friends. By the way, what is NATO?”
After retiring in 2013, Stavridis
returned to the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy to become its
dean. In his TED talk, Stavridis showed an image from the World War
I battlefield of Verdun. Referring to the trenches of the Great War,
the Maginot Line of World War II, and the battle of Stalingrad during
the same war, he argued that “walls don't work.” Despite this
fact, he noted that we have continued to build walls, including the
Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall of the Cold War.
This lesson that “walls don't work,”
could have been learned as far back as the 14th Century
when the Great Wall of China was built. In the first 100 years of
that wall's existence, China was invaded three times, but the wall
itself was neither dismantled nor scaled. Instead, the invading
armies entered through the gates, each time bribing a gatekeeper.
The Chinese had put their emphasis on the physical integrity of the
stone structure, but neglected the importance of insuring the moral
integrity of their soldiers.
In his TED talk, Admiral Stavridis
talked about about security threats we face in the 21st
century from piracy in the Straits of Malacca, the Gulf of Guinea and
across the world's oceans – in 2011, 20 ships and 500 people were
held hostage by pirates – to threats on the cyber-sea, the world
wide web – the admiral spoke of two men who committed credit-card
fraud worth $10 billion – to the trafficking of illegal drugs and
illegal weapons.
There are other threats, to society,
and to us as individuals. Many of us have probably felt concern for
the moral integrity of society as we have followed the news in recent
years. A 2006 Gallup Poll showed that 80 percent of Americans rated
the moral condition of our country as fair or poor and thought it was
worsening." As this decline in the moral condition has
occurred, there have been some who have called for new laws and new
regulations. While new laws may be appropriate, by themselves they
will not be enough; even the greatest of walls, as we have seen, can
be undermined by a lack of character and integrity.
Another wall that did not work, was the
“hedge” or “fence” which Jewish leaders built around the Law
of Moses. By building this “wall” the elders hoped to develop a
system of rules and interpretations that would keep people as far
from sin as possible. The Law of Moses was intended to point the
Children of Israel toward the Savior, but instead, with additions, it
became extremely burdensome.
Even Latter-day Saints can struggle
with issues of character and integrity as we seek to serve God with
all our heart, might, mind and strength, and with an eye single to
His glory. Missionaries, too, can struggle with these issues. It
is often said that 20 percent of missionaries do 80 percent of the
work while 80 percent do 20 percent of the work. Many missionaries
also struggle to live the mission rules; some may find specific rules
difficult or even pointless, still others think it is cool to break
the rules.
As with the Chinese and their soldiers, our first line of defense is not the "walls" of commandments, rules or laws, but is rather our personal integrity and character. A number of years ago I read another article in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings titled “The Whole Sailor.” In it the authors argued that character underpins our humanity; ultimately it defines us as individuals and has a significant impact on motivation and performance. Indeed, character is the foundation of all decision-making.
As with the Chinese and their soldiers, our first line of defense is not the "walls" of commandments, rules or laws, but is rather our personal integrity and character. A number of years ago I read another article in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings titled “The Whole Sailor.” In it the authors argued that character underpins our humanity; ultimately it defines us as individuals and has a significant impact on motivation and performance. Indeed, character is the foundation of all decision-making.
Further, the authors
stated that integrity is a vital component of an individual's
character; the word comes from the Latin integritas,
which referred to the quality of a Roman Legionnaire's armor. With
integrity, all was possible in battle and all was whole. Absent
integrity, there was vulnerability; indeed, there would be a
"disintegrity" or disintegration.
President Thomas S. Monson
has often said that “decisions determine destiny.” In May 1968,
he said, “Perhaps the word 'character' best describes one who is
true to himself. For character takes no account of what you are
thought to be, but what you are.” President Monson went on to say,
“Character is having an inner light and the courage to follow its
dictates. One who is true to himself develops the attributes needed
to survive errors, to keep marching on the road that seems to be
without end, and to rise above disappointment and distress.”
In his TED talk, Admiral
Stavridis argued that “We will not deliver security solely from the
barrel of a gun.” Neither can we strengthen the moral condition of
society solely by passing laws or writing new regulations, and
neither can we strengthen our personal character and integrity by
relying solely on commandments and rules.
While commandments and
laws are important, and should be kept and obeyed, there are other
opportunities for strengthening our character and integrity. In
Moroni chapter 7, Mormon gave us counsel on how we can have “every
good thing.” The recipe is simple: Faith, Hope and Charity. If we
come unto Christ, humble ourselves and have faith in him, that we
might be lifted by his grace, then we must have hope, and if we have
faith and hope, then we must have charity. Charity is the pure love
of Christ, it endures forever, and without it we are nothing.
Mormon counseled us that
when we pray that we should pray to be filled with this love. It is
never too early to start, and we should continue to pray that we may
continue to be filled with charity, that we may be purified and that
we may truly be like Jesus. We must be careful to always have faith
and hope, and to always pray and study the scriptures, so that we may
never lose this charity once we have been filled with it.
If we are filled with
charity, then might our character and integrity be strong, then, like
the barges built by the brother of Jared, might we be “tight like
unto a dish.” These barges were not unlike submarines in that they
at times needed to be able to withstand being completely submerged
under water. The phrase they use on a modern submarine is
“watertight integrity.”
Even if we are praying
regularly to be filled with charity, there will still be threats to
our character and integrity and constant vigilance may be the price
we pay. Yet we can also be assured that the Atonement is there for
us. The Lord said to Moroni that He gives us weaknesses so that we
may be humble; He also said that "my grace is sufficient for all
men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves
before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become
strong unto them.”
This is open to all of us;
if we come unto Him he will show us our weaknesses, and if we humble
ourselves before Him and exercise faith in Him, He will lift us with
His grace and make "weak things become strong". If we
desire to increase the strength of our character and integrity, we
need only come unto Christ and humble ourselves.
Sources:
Stavridis, J. (2012): A Navy Admiral's Thoughts on Global Security (Video):
Lille, B (2012). "Open-source security: James Stavridis at TEDGlobal 2012." TED Blog, accessed at:
Stavridis, J. (2008). "Read, Think, Write and Publish." U.S. Naval Institute: Proceedings, Vol. 134 (8).
