"Live up to the light that you have and more will be given to you" is a familiar Quaker saying. Indifference and inattentiveness dim the light, overzealousness causes it to flicker. William Penn warned against "running before we are sent." We can seldom be absolutely sure that we are following the light: psychology has taught us that the voice of the unconscious self may take on a spurious resemblance to a divine call. We can only do the best we know at the time and trust that the Spirit, the Eternal Goodness, Reality, The Christ Within, God -- the name seems to me to matter little -- may be able to make use of the willingness alone, as if just wishing to be sensitive to the light removed some obstacle to the movement of the divine in human affairs.
~ from QUIET PILGRIMAGE by Elizabeth Gray Vining, as quoted in AN ALMANAC FOR THE SOUL by Marv and Nancy Hiles
FDR left a handwritten speech in a drawer when he died (to deliver at the UN). He wrote, "If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace... The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith."
God did not grant me the gift of art. I had to express myself in my own life, in my thoughts, in my feelings, in my dreams and ideas, and in my love for all humanity and the Earth. I feel human, totally ecstatically human. I will help this planet, with all my abilities and love, to become what it was always meant to be: the planet of Love, a true miracle in the universe, inhabited by a happy, fulfilled, peaceful, loving humanity, thankful for the miraculous gift of life.
~ Robert Muller’s "Journal" in PROPHET by Douglas Gillies
Robert could not find the answer; his mind was driving him in circles. There was only one way to make it stop. Robert walked across the fields at dusk into the Forest of Welferding. His better self always seemed to come out in nature, perhaps because he had come from and would eventually die and go into nature. He felt the cool moisture on his skin, smelled the musky moss tucked between the stones along the brook, walking until he almost forgot why he'd come. The sky was filled with stars with no air raid sirens, no distant roaring of planes. In the forest Robert had caught a glimpse of what the world could be like without war, and it was good.
