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.
We give you thanks,
Gentle One who has touched our soul.
You have loved us from the moment of our first waking
and have held us in joy and in grief.
Stay with us, we pray.
Grace us with your presence
and with it, the fullness of our own humanity.
Help us claim our strength and need,
our awesomeness and fragile beauty,
that encouraged by the truth
we might work to restore
compassion to the human family
and renew the face of the earth.
Amen.
~ from MORE THAN WORDS by Janet Schaffran and Pat Kozak
God, our creator and sustainer,
you loved us long before we knew ourselves to be lovable and love us still.
Give us, we pray,
a greater awareness of your love for all people,
and a confidence in the action of your grace
in us and in all creation.
Inspire us with a greater sensitivity
to the poor and oppressed.
Give us the courage to act on their behalf.
We praise you today
for your mysterious ways among us:
for your presence in the midst of human affairs
and your seeming absence.
By the power of your Spirit,
may we grow in the truth that impels us to act justly,
and thus give expression to the compassion
of the One who is Love. Amen.
