The word integrity has two meanings. The first is "honesty"... We have to be honest in facing our limitations, in facing the sheer complexity of the world, honest in facing criticism even of things which are deeply precious to us. But integrity also means wholeness, oneness, the desire for single vision, the refusal to split our minds into separate compartments where incompatible ideas are not allowed to come into contact. An undivided mind looks in the end for an undivided truth, a oneness at the heart of things. The whole intellectual quest, despite its fragmentation, despite its limitations and uncertainties, seems to presuppose that in the end we are all encountering a single reality, and a single truth.
~ from CONFESSIONS OF A CONSERVATIVE LIBERAL by Joel Habgood
Migratory birds fly very high, for three reasons. First, at a high altitude they can see better where they are going. Secondly, they are above the predatory birds that may prey on them. Thirdly, in that rarefied atmosphere they can fly very swiftly and easily. That is a parable of the way of prayer. Our souls are migratory souls. Our home is not here, but with God, to whom we seek to rise on the wings of prayer. We want to get high to see where we are going ... to rise above the noises, the fuss, and all the complications that distract and rob our lives of their own spiritual quality ... to pass swiftly to our true home, the communion of our souls with God.
The way in which we pray, when we pray really and simply, not saying prayers composed by others unless they are truly the expression of our own faith, but with simplicity talking to God in absolute confidence and sincerity, tell what our faith is.
