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At dawn rabbits are visible in the side yard.

Mourning doves come to the feeder.

And I set out in walking prayer to discover what is real and what is false.

Be truthful in every way, she says.

Make truthfulness your practice and do not deviate from it.

Without this commitment to interior purity you cannot remember that the Divinity towards which you advance is already inherent in you.

I enter the forest in darkness.

Between branches of maple and oak, between boughs of sweet-smelling pine, stars.

Between stars, space, reminiscent of the sea.

What moves in you, moves in me, and that movement is God.

What longs in me, longs in you, and that longing is Christ reaching for God.

All morning I write, and see in what I write, only what I would disown.

When I am tired and cannot go on I bring the pages to her and sit in a wicker chair facing the barn.

She reads patiently.

She reads slowly - attentively - as if I have brought to her a scripture.

Thought will tell you it is understandable to keep some secrets, but that is not the right standard for the one who would remember God.

Secrecy is a form of cheating which can only render the mind a disturbed environment.

Misery awaits the one who refuses honesty, not because God is vengeful, but because sorrow and grief are the condition of refusal.

Who makes truthfulness their singular goal becomes pure without effort and who becomes pure in this way merits the holiness of Christ.

"That is the way to supreme joy and happiness," she says, as if we are only just learning it together.