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
A COUNSEL OF RESISTANCE AND DELIGHT IN THE FACE OF FEAR
What I've seen on my rounds is that if you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to reflect at the end of a life, then love is revealed as the great currency. It's the thing. The treasury. It's what mattered...
How well did I love? whom did I love?, and how was love central to the life that I made for myself?
...When the lots are counted, when we are gathered in, we will find that it was love that mattered. Love expressed, given, received, fought for. So for those of us fighting right now, I say; keep going. As a culture, as an individual, believe in the full life that is your bequeathed inheritance, not the subterranean half-life that terror and impoverished minded bullies will try and spike your wine with. You are too good for that.
~ Martin Shaw in A COUNSEL OF RESISTANCE AND DELIGHT IN THE FACE OF FEAR
