Fullest flowering of thought, love, and desire....prayer, says Evelyn Underhill

What is prayer?

The part of our conscious life which is deliberately oriented toward and exclusively responds to spiritual reality.

• He is not far from us, for in him we live and move and have our being.


• It is ascent.


• It is an ascending or getting up of the desire of the heart into God by withdrawing from earthly thoughts.

What are the two worlds?

• God and our neighbour.


• This world and that.


• Outward adoration and homeward charity.

Three faculties in prayer

• thinking


• feeling


• willing or acting

Sometimes we are mentally dull, sometimes we are emotionally flat. "On such occasions it is notoriously useless to try and beat ourselves up to a froth: to make ourselves think more deeeply or make ourselves care more intensely. If the worth of our prayer life depended upon the maintenance of a constant high level of feeling or understanding, we would be in a dangerous place.

The determined fixing of our will upon God, and pressing toward him steadily and without deflection; this is the very centre and the art of prayer.

Even when our heart is cold and our mind is dim, prayer is still possible to us. "Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."

God's spirit in us - let us think, act and live AS IF that were true. Let us rest in him, abide in him, delight in him. It is humility and love that are essential for successful prayer.

I'm In His hands

I'm in his hands,

I'm in his hands,

Whatever the future holds,

I'm in his hands.

The days I cannot see,

Have all been planned for me.

His way is best,

You see, I'm in His hands.

Just spent a few days in California in minstry. God spoke through Bev and I and to us. Much prayer had been involved, tremendous sense of community, and God's presence.

God was confirming things, teaching things - and He got the glory. There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.

Sappy, syrupy - substantial, significant

A Prayer for the Dawn

Some once said: “Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.”

Thank you for whoever said it, and teach me, I pray, how to live it.

Teach me how to weep without drowning in self-pity.

Teach me how to keep vigil even when I’m shivering in the dark.

And teach me how to wait for the dawn without the belting optimism of someone who hasn’t been through the night.

Starry-eyed optimist, or muddy-eyed, pessimist or open-eyed realist - God with us, for us, even if it isn't the way we wanted it. Happy-clappy is fun, works for a season, but God is with us, when all the stuff is stripped away, he is with us.

The Dark Night of the Soul....

God Works Passively - John of the Cross

Let it suffice to say, then, that God perceives the imperfections within us, and because of his love for us, urges us to grow up. His love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night. He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness.

In doing so he is able to take away all these vices and create virtues within us. Through the dark night pride becomes humility, greed becomes simplicity, wrath becomes contentment, luxury becomes peace, gluttony becomes moderation, envy becomes joy, and sloth becomes strength. No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the dark night.

These words are deep and powerful and true and difficult and life-giving. Lord reign in me!

To say Yes....

I am the vessel The draught is God's. And God is the thirsty one.

In the last analysis, what does the word "sacrifice" mean? Or even the word "gift"?

To be free, to be able to stand up and leave everything behind - without looking back. To say Yes.

To say Yes to life is at one and the same time to say Yes to oneself.

Yes - even to that element in one which is most unwilling to let itself be transformed from a temptation into a strength.

Great thoughts from Dag Hammarskjold "Markings".

In the last 24 hours connected on a deep level with several individuals while visiting in Montreal. Rich times - times of validation, gratitude, and spirit connection. God IS faithful, God IS good, His timing is not our timing - God IS faithful, God IS good.

Prayer and Social Justice...

It's been a while since I've posted. Since then have commenced another course "Protestant Spiritual Traditions, and have visited the National Cathedral in Washington DC on Martin Luther King Jr. day no less.

Nouwen says; "Prayer without action is piety; action without prayer is manipulation"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an incredibly devout man, who also was imprisoned for standing up to an oppressive Nazi regime. His opinion (he was executed just before the end of WWII, was that the church's role - and more specifically in the western world would become more secret, low-key - that of prayer and advocating for social justice).

It's costly - and of course we have his notion of "Cheap grace"which he cautions against - while salvation is free, it is not cheap - and we are to follow Jesus in advocating for the oppressed, mariginalized, forgotten.

I finish with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.'s last Sunday sermon (another man martyred for his faith - this Christianity business can be deadly:

SOMEWHERE we must come to see that HUMAN PROGRESS never rolls in on the wheel of inveitability.

It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be CO-WORKERS WITH GOD.

And without this HARD WORK, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation.

So we must help time and realize that THE TIME IS ALWAYS RIPE TO DO RIGHT.

It's not a question of what is more important, prayer/worship or action/justice. When be hold God and desire to be like His son, we will be constrained to act, disregarding the cost.

And as of July 1, the Salvation Army will have An interntational Social Justice Director in New York, our present Commissioner Christine McMillan. Let's do it.