From Chapter Two, Why You Don't Have to Believe Your Intuitions Are the Holy Spirit: Or, How the Spirit Shapes Our Hearts.
Take kindness, for example. A kind person looks at the world differently than a cruel or indifferent person. A kind person sees people differently -- she will notice when you are hurting, for instance, even when others don't. So kindness is a form of perception in addition to everything else: a form of feeling, a readiness to be moved to compassion, and a willingness to do what needs to be done. It's all part of the same package, the same shape of the heart. Like all virtues, kindness is a habit of perception, feeling, thinking and action, all rolled into one.
And with other intelligent habits, the perceptions of a kind heart may outrun our ability to explain them. A kind-hearted person may see that you're hurting, for example, without knowing why. She'll notice things about you without knowing exactly what it is she's noticing -- she "just knows" there's something wrong, something that's eating at you, even though she doesn't know how she knows it. That's why her kindness can be so surprising -- to both of you! She sees what's going on with you, maybe before you do, and suddenly you're having this heart-to-heart talk that you've needed for a long time, without even knowing you needed it.
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