truth

No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembles in the world's
storm-troubled sphere;
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal,
arming me from fear.

Annie

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.

March 1995 (Vol. VIII, No. 3)

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.

Open-eyed trust

Robert Augustus Masters The Way of the Lover

To be in harmony does not mean that upheaval and upset don't occur, but that their very occurrence is used, fully used, as a gift of purification that leaves one in a deeper harmony with the dictates of one's core of being. Implicit in this is trust, open-eyed trust... True trust obeys no moral code, however archaistic. It is but the unexploitable, awakened faith of one who has left the promises of the mind for the already-present glory of their heartland. It is a joy, a fertile brilliance, a holy renewal, a yes that has room for every no, a yes both paradoxical and devastatingly simple, a yes wherein the elements dance and die, a yes aflame with the transcendence of blame, a yes already alive in you.

I nourish my spiritual life

Unknown

I nourish my spiritual life, for therein lie my anchor. My understanding deepens; my faith that life has meaning grows.

Faith is the prayer of words unsaid

Roxie L. Smith

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.

Stand firm in what you yourself believe

Hilarion Seasons of the Spirit

Stand firm in what you yourself believe. Hold to your own conviction of the Truth above any other source... The truth that is YOUR truth is written on the scrolls of your heart, for there too abides the Living God. Seek only to LIVE that truth, to hold your own light high so that those who grope in darkness may see, and to tread the path that you believe your life has set before you. If you remain true to yourself, if you believe in the right, and if you place your hand into the hand of God, then no evil, no lasting sorrow, and no permanent pain will ever befall you.

Annie

Sue Bender Plain and Simple

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.

Faith that comes from spiritual knowledge

Unknown
Faith that comes from spiritual knowledge is rooted in the Silence of the heart.

My faith is tested many times a day

Maya Angelou Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

I believe that Spirit is one and is everywhere present. That it never leaves me. That in my ignorance I may withdraw from it, but I can realize its presence the instant I return to my senses... My faith is tested many times a day, and more times than I'd like to confess, I'm unable to keep the banner for faith aloft... I begin to doubt God and God's love. I fall so miserably into the chasm of disbelief that I cry out in despair. Then the Spirit lifts me up again, and once more I am secured in faith. I don't know how it happens, save when I cry out earnestly I am answered immediately and am returned to faithfulness. I am once again filled with Spirit and firmly planted on solid ground.

No coward soul is mine

Emily Bronte

No coward soul is mine,
No trembles in the world's
storm-troubled sphere;
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal,
arming me from fear.

The knowledge of the holy

A. W. Tozer The Knowledge of the Holy

Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy. Yet as electric power flows only through a conductor, so the Spirit flows through Truth and must find some measure of Truth in the mind before It can illuminate the heart. Faith wakes at the voice of truth but responds to no other sound... Still, there must be humble penitence in the heart before Truth can produce faith.

The movement of God's Spirit is very gentle

Henri Nouwen, Robert A. Jonas The Essential Henri Nouwen

The movement of God's Spirit is very gentle, very soft -- and hidden. It does not seek attention. But that movement is also very persistent, strong and deep. It changes our hearts radically. The faithful discipline of prayers reveals to you that you are the blessed one and gives you the power to bless others.

Agape is the love that consumes

Paulo Coelho The Diary of a Magus

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.

The Heart of Understanding

The Heart of Understanding gives us solid ground for making peace with ourselves, for transcending the fear of birth and death, the duality of this and that. In the light of emptiness, everything is everything else, we inter-are, everyone is responsible for everything that happens in life. When you produce peace and happiness in yourself, you begin to realize peace for the whole world. With the smile that you produce in yourself, with the conscious breathing you establish within yourself, you begin to work for peace in the world. To smile is not to smile only for yourself; the world will change because of your smile. When you sit in the silence, if you enjoy even one moment of sitting, if you establish serenity and happiness inside yourself, you provide the world with a solid base of peace. If you do not give yourself peace, how can you share it with others? If you do not begin your peace work with yourself, where will you go to begin it?

A life of little whispered words

I find that a life of little whispered words of adoration, of praise, of prayer, of worship can be breathed all through the day. One can have a very busy day, outwardly speaking, and yet be steadily in the holy Presence ... It is a life unspeakable and full of glory, an inner world of splendor within which we may live.

The anonymous prayer which in the secret liturgy of the universe

The stilling of the intellect in the presence of the Divine leads to "the abstract God", "the God of awareness", or "the God of unknowing", which are all words to express the inexpressible. This silence of the mind is the supreme adoration before God; and the finding of Divine Love in the constant personal awareness of the world created around us and within us is the anonymous prayer which in the secret liturgy of the universe unites us to the source of all being with every breath we take and every word we utter in our daily surrender to life.

Be bent

Be bent, and you will remain straight.
Be vacant, and you will remain full.
Be worn, and you will remain new.

Real knowledge comes from the unitive experience of God

Real knowledge comes from the unitive experience of God; the world's great saints and mystics have been given the key to that knowledge, and it is in turn their burden as well as their privilege to impart it to others. Once we 'set our minds on God's realm and God's justice before everything else, all the rest will come to us as well.' (Matthew 6:33) We begin to grasp the truth, that contemplative prayer -- that deep, inner loving look at God in silence -- is the way of the path, not acquisitive knowledge. And as we proceed, such amazing understanding of the fabric of the universe will be declared to us that we will scarcely be able to contain ourselves for joy that the creation is as it is. Once we are ready, God does not withhold anything from our grasp. And the measure of our readiness to receive real knowledge is our capacity to flow out in love to our neighbor.

The best prayer

The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God knowing that that goodness can reach right down to our lowest depths of need.

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