What does it mean to be authentic?  I was on an out of town trip recently, and met a couple who were so authentic it almost shocked me.  I liked them almost instantly, and knew very quickly that it would be very easy to become close to them.  They weren't telling deep dark family secrets or delving into the gory details of their struggles.  But there was a realness in their interactions, an un-forced nature about their whole selves.  Yet they carried authority.  Their words carried authority because they seemed to be coming from a life lived sincerely.  In the short couple of hours I interacted with them, I noticed several things: