Authenticity

True authenticity is not the loudest voice in the room, nor the most unfiltered confession. It is not the impulse to say whatever we feel, whenever we feel it. That may be catharsis, but it is not always truth.

Authenticity is quieter than that. Truer. It is the slow remembering of who you were before the world named you too much or not enough. It is not performance, nor rebellion against performance—it is the shedding of both. It is the alignment of your outer life with your inner essence, the part of you that was whispered into being by God.

This is your inscape (as Gerard Manley Hopkins called it) —not a curated persona or a raw emotion, but the sacred shape of your soul. To live authentically is not to invent yourself, but to return. To listen. To let your life speak from the deep well where you are already known, already beloved.

And so, authenticity becomes not a performance of uniqueness, but a quiet fidelity to who you’ve always been.

A coming home to the image of God etched deep within.