spring

Humbleness: the awareness of our dependence on Spirit and the awareness of our need for and interdependence with other human beings and the world around us on all levels.

I believe that any human activity which stems from basic gentleness and the nonviolent nature of human beings has the guarantee to be of benefit and service.

Look well, O soul, upon thyself, lest spiritual ambition should mislead and blind thee to thy essential task: to wait in quietness, to knock and persevere in humble faith.

Be humble in your perpetual uncertainty.

Cultivating gratitude opens us to allurement, strengthens our trust, and expands our compassion. Gratitude manifests in the midst of our everyday living when we pause to take account of how much we have been given. We are present to the wonder of the simplest gifts: a glass of water, a spoonful of food, a breath of air. At such times our hearts are full.

In our busy lives it is so easy to forget the Divine, to be immersed in our own problems and our own selves. The mystic knows that what really matters is the inner connection of the heart in which our heart opens and cries. It is something so simple and yet so easily overlooked. Prayer is a way to be with God.

Do not think that the words of prayer as you say them arise to God. It is not the words themselves that ascend; it is the burning desire of your heart that rises like smoke toward heaven.

Today my prayer consisted in simply going to my heart and remembering all the folks I've stored there. It is not cold storage. It is a quite warm and tender place.

The sun hears the fields talking about effort
and the sun smiles,
and whispers to me, "Why don't the fields just rest, for
I am willing to do
everything
to help them grow?"
Rest, my dears, in prayer.

The human heart is a capacity for God. Prayer, then, is the development of the art of communion. We are called to develop the disciplines required for loving and open communion with God, the world, others, and ourselves. We need to recover the art of communion and so recover the universe as God's, and rediscover our roots in God, in the world, in one another, and in our inner selves.