Photo by Liza Summer
Our highest loyalty doesn’t belong to people or parties. It belongs to principles. If you wouldn’t accept it from your opponents, you shouldn’t accept it from your allies. Integrity is standing by your values even when your own group violates them. — Adam Grant
I’ve been sitting with something heavy lately, and I’m going to try to say it out loud in a way that sounds like a conversation, not a confrontation.
Because honestly, I don’t want to fight anyone. I don’t want to draw lines in the sand or lob opinions across the internet like they’re dodgeballs. I want to talk like friends do when something is bothering them and they finally admit it over coffee. A little nervous. A little hopeful the other person will listen.
The last couple of weeks have been hard to watch. Hard to read. But they’re not the beginning of this for me. They’re part of a longer reckoning — years of watching, questioning, and trying to reconcile what I see with the values I was raised with and the faith I still hold close, even though it looks different than it once did.
I’ve been grieved.
Not angry in a hot, performative way.
Grieved in the quiet, ache-in-your-chest way that doesn’t resolve neatly.
And I think part of why it hurts so much is because this isn’t just about policies or headlines or “sides.” It’s about people. Real people. And it’s about watching decency feel negotiable in ways that don’t sit right in my body.
I keep coming back to this line: “Our highest loyalty doesn’t belong to people or parties. It belongs to principles.”
That line didn’t land for me like a dramatic mic drop. It landed like a quiet thud. Like someone setting a heavy truth down on the table and waiting to see if anyone was brave enough to look at it.
Because if I’m honest, most of us say our loyalty is to values. To character. To doing the right thing. But real life has a way of revealing where our loyalty actually lives.
It shows up when the thing that feels wrong is being done by “our people.”
That’s when it gets complicated.
It’s easy to condemn cruelty when it comes from someone we already disagree with. That’s low-risk. That’s familiar. That’s practically a sport at this point. Entire platforms are built on pointing at “them” and saying, “See? That’s the problem.”
But when the behavior comes from someone who shares your faith, your politics, your upbringing, your family table…
when it comes from inside the circle…
That’s where the room gets quiet.
That’s where excuses line up quickly and politely.
“Well, it’s more complicated than that.”
“They didn’t mean it that way.”
“We don’t know the whole story.”
“Now’s not the time to criticize.”
“At least they’re not as bad as…”
We don’t abandon our standards overnight. We negotiate them down. Slowly. Gently. With really good intentions.
And usually, it’s not because we’re immoral. It’s because we’re afraid.
Afraid of being misunderstood.
Afraid of being labeled disloyal.
Afraid of losing community, access, safety, or belonging.
Afraid of being the one who makes things awkward at Thanksgiving.
So instead of standing on principle, we stand on proximity. We protect the relationship. The group. The identity. We tell ourselves we’ll deal with the values part later.
But integrity doesn’t wait for a better moment.
Integrity shows up when it costs you something.
That’s the part I keep circling back to. Because integrity isn’t proven by who you oppose. It’s revealed by who you’re willing to question.
And for me, as a Christian, this has been especially painful. Not because faith requires perfection, but because it requires honesty.
Through the years, my faith has grown in some different directions. And growth changes the questions you ask. I don’t believe faithfulness looks the same for everyone, and I’m not interested in measuring anyone else’s journey against my own.
When I look at what’s happening right now in the United States, particularly in places where authority is exercised over vulnerable people — including immigration enforcement — I feel a deep dissonance between aggressive tactics, lack of due process, and the Jesus I was taught to follow. The Jesus who consistently moved toward the vulnerable. The Jesus who challenged power when it crushed people instead of protecting them.
That doesn’t mean I have all the answers. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about safety, law, or order. It means my conscience won’t let me shrug when people are harmed in ways that feel unnecessary, dehumanizing, or dismissive of basic dignity.
And here’s the part that feels hardest to say out loud:
I’ve been surprised by how alone this grief has felt at times.
Not because people disagree with me — I can handle disagreement. But because when grief isn’t shared, it can feel like a loss of something sacred — like decency becomes harder to name when it’s inconvenient.
I don’t think most people intend that. I think many are tired. Overwhelmed. Numb. Or clinging tightly to a sense of order in a world that feels chaotic.
For me, grief feels like a reasonable response to suffering. Questioning feels like a faithful response to power. And silence doesn’t always feel neutral when harm is happening in plain sight.
That’s where that quote keeps nudging me. Because integrity isn’t about standing against people. It’s about standing for something bigger than the group.
Loyalty and accountability are not opposites. In fact, the most meaningful loyalty often includes accountability. Real loyalty says, “I care enough about who we are to not let this slide.” False loyalty can start to sound like, “I’ll protect this no matter what, even if it costs us our soul.”
And no, this doesn’t mean lighting relationships on fire or becoming the internet’s moral referee. Integrity isn’t the same thing as being insufferable.
It’s quieter than that.
It looks like refusing to laugh at the joke everyone else laughs at.
It looks like not reposting something that supports your “side” but violates your conscience.
It looks like saying, “I agree with you on many things, and this still isn’t okay.”
It looks like choosing consistency over applause.
Sometimes it looks like opting out instead of calling out. Sometimes it looks like naming discomfort without issuing ultimatums.
And sometimes it looks like sitting in the tension of loving people deeply while not agreeing with everything they defend.
That tension isn’t weakness. It’s adulthood.
We’re living in a time that rewards outrage and punishes nuance. Where decency doesn’t trend well and complexity gets flattened into slogans. And a lot of us are just trying to figure out how to stay human in the middle of it.
Not impressive.
Not dominant.
Just decent.
Integrity doesn’t require you to have an opinion on everything. That’s not sustainable for people with jobs, families, and nervous systems. But it does ask you to notice what you’re willing to excuse. It asks whether your standards travel with you or conveniently shift depending on who’s speaking.
That’s a quiet reckoning. One no algorithm can measure. It happens privately, in the small choices we make when no one is watching and no one is applauding.
If you’re feeling disoriented right now, unsure where you belong, unsure how to participate without becoming someone you don’t recognize, you’re not broken.
You’re paying attention.
And paying attention in moments like this is a form of courage. And that can feel lonely, disorienting, and heavier than you expected — especially when clarity costs comfort.
Some people will feel called toward civic action. Others will respond more quietly — checking on a neighbor, offering help, refusing to look away. Both are faithful. Both count.
Loving our neighbor has always required us to widen the circle — to include people whose lives, language, beliefs, and bodies don’t mirror our own.
People will disappoint you. Movements will fracture. Parties will fail you. That’s not cynicism. That’s history repeating itself in real time.
Principles are what steady you when the ground keeps shifting. They’re what you come back to when you log off, when the noise fades, when you’re alone with your thoughts and trying to fall asleep.
For me, telling the truth right now doesn’t look like shouting. It looks like speaking gently and honestly, even when it’s uncomfortable. It looks like choosing compassion without abandoning conviction. It looks like trusting that love doesn’t require silence, and conviction doesn’t require cruelty.
In times like these, integrity isn’t about drawing harder lines. It’s about drawing truer ones — and living inside them, even when it would be easier not to.
And choosing, again and again, to be someone you can live with.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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