True, Honest, Genuine and Authentic

One of the attributes of healthy spiritual life I have come to appreciate is the connectedness of friends who share in a manner that is True, Honest, Genuine and Authentic. In fact, this is the title of a poem I wrote I now share with you and hope that it encourages straightforward social interaction in your life as well as in mine. The poem tries to express the process of becoming True, Honest, Genuine and Authentic.


Look and see what's really there.
Listen and hear the unspoken prayer
that waits patiently behind the noise.

Look without a preconceived notion.
Listen without your own emotion
distorting the truth and losing your poise.

Look at the beauty between the turds.
Listen to the silence between the words
that tells you what takes away joys.

Life is real; not pretend and show.
Love is real; it surely does know
the Way and the Truth without toys.


On this day the Church celebtrates the memory of Saint Frances de Chantal. As a married woman and mother of six children, she experienced the infant death of two of them and then the accidental death of her husband. She did not try to escape from this reality. Instead, she entered directly into it as it was, believing the God was there in her Reality. When she tried to express this to the sisters in the convents she founded, she spoke of the "martrydom of love" and the suffering that entailed. In my mind, she was a living icon of what is True, Honest, Genuine and Authentic.

Wishing you an authentic response to this day's ups and downs.