Faith is the prayer of words unsaid,
The tear that falls upon the bed.
Faith is the hope of one "Amen",
The will that trusts and tries again.
Faith is the day made fresh and new
When evening draught absorbs the dew.
Faith is the thought that lifts to bless
The One beyond the arms' caress.
Faith is the sky that leaves its gray
To welcome in a sunny day.
Faith, in a moment, dares the thing
The heart petitions God to bring.
Agape is the love that consumes ... in one form: enthusiasm. For the ancients, enthusiasm meant trance, or ecstasy -- a connection with God. Enthusiasm is agape directed at a particular idea or a specific thing. We have all experienced it. When we love and believe from the bottom of our heart, we feel ourselves to be stronger than anyone in the world, and we feel a serenity that is based on certainty that nothing can shake our faith. This unusual strength allows us always to make the right decision at the right time, and when we achieve our goal, we are amazed at our own capabilities... We blame the world for our boredom and for our losses, and we forget that it was we ourselves who allowed this enchanting power to diminish -- the manifestation of agape in the form of enthusiasm.
Becky and Ephraim's youngest child, Annie, was born with a severe physical handicap. "Annie ... Annie", they squealed as everyone in the family touched and hugged her, never treating her as a hothouse flower, always as a normal healthy child. It was a laying-on-of-hands, a healing going on every moment.
I wasn't sure I could have stayed focused on the joy, but Becky was also realistic, understanding that something could go wrong and "Annie might be taken away from us." For now, God has given them a gift. Annie was their Treasure, their miracle.
HEARTFELT GREETINGS and BLESSINGS, friends! May you ever be faithful to the truth that dwells within you. May you be ever guided and strengthened as you aspire to fulfill your purpose on Earth.
Divine Communion begins when YOU love. Then not only are you connected to love, but you are love. The way by which we commune with God is by being love.
There is a desire beneath all surface desire. It is this primary desire that you must uncover and fulfill. When in deepest silence, ask yourself: what is my deepest desire? You will inevitably discover one answer, and one alone. Your deepest desire is to unite your will with God's will. Your deepest desire is union with God... Your deepest desire is to be a co-creator in the image of God. No other desire will fulfill your potential. All other desires are symptoms of the fundamental desire for union with God.
~ from THE REVELATION: OUR CRISIS IS A BIRTH by Barbara Marx Hubbard
When I first began to enter the Silence, it felt like an alien atmosphere filled with menacing voices, capricious thoughts, uncomfortable feelings. But as the days and weeks passed, the Silence became a welcoming friend, a presence like the warmth of a fire in which I encountered the Divine Lover of my soul and experienced my Self as God's Beloved.
Love is a yearning on the part of one human being for another. In contemplative prayer one human being yearns for a love relationship, and ultimately a union with the infinite God. It is the quintessential joining of hearts and minds that fulfills the ultimate longings of the human being for infinite love. It begins when one recognizes a deeply felt longing for God, a longing that stirs out of the darkest recesses of one's being and is expressed at times with a sigh that involves the whole body. It calls for undivided attention to the Beloved so yearned for, to the point of setting aside all thoughts about anything else, even holy and comforting reflection and words. It is total dedication to the Beloved alone.
~ from WATER IN THE WILDERNESS by Francis W. Vanderwall
We seem to sense that -- whether we conceive it as a divine being or as cosmic energy -- the Spirit working upon and within all creation is shaping it into order, harmony, and beauty, uniting all beings (some willing, but the majority as yet blind and rebellious) with each other through links of love, achieving -- slowly and silently, but powerfully and irresistibly -- the Supreme Synthesis.
As you awaken, all those you love awaken a little with you. All through you love are linked by that love, are on the same spiral, rising.
My heart filled with joy, for I knew in that moment that no awakening can be personal or selfish. Every awakening spreads its power and light throughout the world.
There are some things that we simply must wait in silence to receive. We live our questions and wait for the knowing to happen. Like the tree, we wait for the sap to rise.
Think what it would mean if you could love everybody -- not because all persons in the world are so attractive and lovable that they awaken your love, but because an ever-present consciousness of Love exists within yourself and, like the sun, rays out in all directions on the "just and the unjust" alike... Those who have attained Love-Consciousness carry Love and Joy around with them wherever they go, for it is withIN themselves instead of withOUT. Enter where they may, they find an atmosphere of Love, because it is they who bring that atmosphere... Love beautified everything.
~ from THE INITIATE IN THE NEW WORLD by Cyril Scott
God, unto whom all hearts are open, unto whom all will
is spoken, unto whom nothing is hidden,
I beseech Thee to cleanse the intent of my heart
with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace that
I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.
When a person is angry with another person, that person is removed from their heart. That's why the physical reaction is to shout. The greater the distance, the louder the shouting. But when individuals are in love, they speak softly, and when they are further in love, no words are needed.
To be a world server is to be a lover. It means that you love the truth behind appearances. The full force of evolution is behind every act of love and infuses us as we live our deepest intentions. Love is the point of power within each of us where our God-self and our human-self fuse. There all polarizations vanish. Matter is perceived as Spirit revealed, the created is seen as the extension of the Creator. And change is understood to be the alchemical process through which God takes our divided self and makes of it a sacred whole.
~ from WHERE TWO WORLDS TOUCH by Gloria D. Karpinski
Great Spirit of love, we only pray to become more aware of Thy glory; that our light may grow more bright, more steady, so that others travelling along life's journey may see the light, and be welcomed to the simple home of love which we would build for all the wayfarers on the path of life. Amen.
Eliminate something superfluous from your life.
Break a habit.
Do something that makes you feel insecure.
Carry out an action with complete attention and
intensity as if it were your last.
There comes a Time when, on one hand a vague Awakening stirs the soul, the consciousness of a Higher Law ... and the sufferings we endure from the contradictions of life, compel us to renounce the social order and to adapt the New. And this time has now arrived.
Awareness, like grace itself, is always freely being offered -- but it is a living and sensitive thing. It does not take kindly to being ignored or abused. If one does not pay attention to the presence of the holy in the very midst of daily life, it simply withdraws (or, more accurately, we discover that we have withdrawn ourselves from it!); and it may be a long and weary time before we find again that particular facet of Truth which would have been such a great help to the very next stage of our journeys.
~ from ENCOUNTERS AT BETHLEHEM by Jean Jones Andersen
How shall the mighty river
reach the tiny seed?
See it rise silently
to the sun's yearning,
sail from a winter's cloud
flake after silent flake
piling up layer upon layer
until the thaw of spring
to meet the seedling's need.
Make tender, my heart:
release through gentleness
Thine own tremendous power
hid in the snowflake's art.
