Steeping ourselves in a place, simmering in its bounties, celebrating its wonders, and loving its peculiarities are necessary steps on a spiritual journey. We often take for granted the places where we work and play. To get to know them again, or perhaps for the first time, involves acts of consecration and imagination. Or as Wendell Berry puts it: "My most inspiring thought is that this place, if I am to live well in it, requires and deserves a lifetime of the most careful attention."
True integrity grows from an awareness that we can stand in the honest light of God's unconditional love and be seen in our truth. Integrity, like a muscle, needs to be worked and stretched. As we sit in the center of integrity, our heart and God's heart beat as one. The transparent light of truth filters through, embracing every cell of our being, and we are able to see and speak more clearly. Then, little by little, as the layers of lies and pretending are stripped aside, a genuine simplicity remains. Freed of grandiosity and illusion, we stand radiant and unencumbered in truth as we claim our own voice with which we dare speak our truth and live with integrity.
~ from JOURNEY OF THE SOUL by Doris Klein