Trust

Friends,

I’ve just spent a couple of weeks with visiting young children, and I was often reminded of the importance of trust between us. Children are dependent on us for their safety and care, and it is a special humbling and fulfilling experience to have a child take you hand for guidance and protection because they trust you. And we can extend that to experience with adults and others who must rely on others for their judgment and commitment. I especially remember my need to trust as I entered the operating room, and just before surgery a nurse takes my hand to offer assurance I will be well taken care of. 

So this has led me to thinking more deeply about the importance of trust in my personal and societal life. I have realized that trust is such a major indicator of the health and welfare in our families, work places, and all aspects of our communal life. I have found that the more trusting we are in personal relations, and as a culture itself, the higher the level of well-being and mutual care and safety. Conversely, with minimal trust a community is like a depleted battery with less energy for the free flow of communication and a more profound commitment to the common good. The present political culture of lying and deception undermines trust and sadly has become a current norm, and we generally have become understandably wary of most administrative pronouncements and news bias. This level of societal trust has taken a significant toll at the expense of our personal and social confidence.

But in spite of our necessary wariness we must still expect and demand integrity of ourselves, our friends and coworkers, and especially of  leadership in general.  I hope each of us finds friends and associations with a high level of integrity and thus a sense of given trust.. Trust amounts to assuming people will tell the truth, forebear our failings, work out our differences with mutual respect, and center our ethics around serving the common good. Not only is this a huge benefit for each of us personally but also for the community and country as a whole. It establishes an ethical base from which we can offer corrections and alternatives to those with whom we can witness our integrity. If we cannot establish trust with governmental leadership, we can at least practice and maintain it ourselves.

Building trust, of course, is often difficult. We generally need to build it bit by bit when we experience someone especially present and supportive in times of our need. But building and maintaining trust is an essential, basic source of mutual respect, confidence and good will in any personal or communal relationship. In times when trust seems so threatened, let each of us learn to monitor whether our behavior, or that of friends and colleagues, serves as a means of resistance, along with supporting the changes we need to confront and the means by which we will build an alternative societal ethics as necessary. 

Peace and well wishes to all,

Tom