“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” wrote one Ralph Waldo Emerson, and when I first read it, the quote angered me.  It angered me because I find it hard enough to live a life of integrity, to be consistent in what I say and do, so to have some dead white guy deride my efforts from beyond the grave was a bit rich.

That was a few years ago, when I was old enough to think I’d figured out that integrity meant consistency, meant sticking with my guns, and young enough not to know I was wrong.  I can cast some blame on people pooh-poohing politicians for being flip-floppers, and elevating consistency of opinion over time to a character trait, but it shouldn’t have taken until I reached the age at which Emerson wrote his quote to realize that consistency may not be the jewel I thought it was.

Writing about this realization has been on my mind for a while, so when I read my sister-in-law’s post on her imperfect life, I thought I’d use that as a springboard.  One of the blessings of marriage is having someone who is on your side, but also has a vested interest to see you become a better person.  It’s a tough blessing sometimes, though, as it will require you to face your imperfections and faults, and realize that change is needed.

And that’s where an undue elevation of consistency is bound to hobble a person.  If consistency is understood as not changing, then consistency means also sticking with our imperfections and faults, defending our mistakes, and perhaps equivocating about the evidence to save face.  Unfortunately, that is easier than changing, which may be why the integrity = consistency holds such an attraction, but it’s not the kind of integrity I’m after if I take time to think about it.  It’s not the kind of consistency I want either, for that matter.

So what kind of consistency do I want, what kind of integrity do I want?  I want a wise consistency, and a wise integrity.  With that, I move dangerously close to Emerson, whose full quote reads, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” but hey, even a Unitarian can be right sometimes.  A foolish consistency, I think, is a complete consistency over time.  It is foolish because it doesn’t allow for growth, and because a person with such consistency has in his pride decided he has arrived at the point of complete understanding of himself and the world, with no need for change.  A wiser consistency to strive for is consistency with an ideal, that is, consistency with what God has created me to be.  This allows me to change with my growing understanding of God’s purpose without being unreliable or untruthful.

The importance of reliability and truthfulness and our desire for certainty is, I believe, where the idea of elevating consistency over time to a virtue comes from.  And it has a certain virtue.  A person should be steadfast enough that not every wind or wave can make him change his opinion and sacrifice his temporal consistency.  Only fools sacrifice their consistency on the altar of expedience; wise men sacrifice it on the altar of truth.  Yet wiser men reflect enough before stating their opinion that they only rarely need to sacrifice their consistency.
I write this knowing that in a few years I’ll look back and wonder how full of myself I was when writing this.  If recent years and all that marriage and fatherhood has taught me are any indication, I have a lot more yet to learn and many consistencies to sacrifice.  It is my prayer that consistency doesn’t get in the way of sanctification, that my pride in my integrity doesn’t keep me from tackling my imperfections.