All this has been happening around them all the days of their lives though they couldnt see it then one day Prayer removes the veil and everything changes. Think of it this way Picture a man whistling a tune when out of nowhere first a harmony joins then another and then suddenly he is taken up into a whirlwind of music countless instruments playing soaring complexities that the mans whistling is indeed a part of but now he begins to see how small a part the longer he listens he realizes that his is not the melody and where he had thought he was whistling alone the truth had always been the music playing though never before that moment heard and now what had been noise becomes symphony.

Dont say you dont have enough time or enough money to change the world. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller Gandhi Michelangelo Mother Teresa Leonardo da Vinci and Jesus Christ.

When reading the history of the Jewish people of their flight from slavery to death of their exchange of tyrants I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable cruel revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over and that they would soon in the land of Canaan surrounded by their wives and little ones forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty this God forgetting every promise said to the wretches in his powerYour carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted. This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart cannot be accepted as a revelation from God.When we think of the poor Jews destroyed murdered bitten by serpents visited by plagues decimated by famine butchered by each other swallowed by the earth frightened cursed starved deceived robbed and outraged how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah Pharaoh was a benefactor and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God.While reading the Pentateuch I am filled with indignation pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert the prey of famine sword and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree governed by falsehood plundered by hypocrisy they were the sport of priests and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy and death their only friend.It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable hateful and arrogant being than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He only is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music beauty nor joy. A false friend an unjust judge a braggart hypocrite and tyrant sincere in hatred jealous vain and revengeful false in promise honest in curse suspicious ignorant and changeable infamous and hideoussuch is the God of the Pentateuch.

Going to church is not a sign of going to God if you think he is omnipresent he is right there in your soul and bedroom.

All of my secrets and scars and wishes and dreams can live together in this one body without shame without blame and without fear. I am all loved all accepted and all in service to God. In his eyes regardless of what I did or didnt do today I am loved. I am His so I am enough.

As it is the sister of reading so it is the mother of prayer. Though a mans heart be much indisposed to prayer yet if he can but fall into a meditation of God and the things of God his heart will soon come off to prayer....Begin with reading or hearing. Go on with meditation end in prayer....Reading without meditation is unfruitful meditation without reading is hurtful to meditate and to read without prayer upon both is without blessing.

...And in prayer this real I struggles to speak for once from his being and to address for once not the other actors but--what shall I call Him the Author for He invented us all The Producer for He controls all Or the Audience for He watches and will judge the performance The attempt is not to escape from space and time and from my creaturely situation as a subject facing objects. It is more modest to re-awaken the awareness of that situation. If that can be done there is no need to go anywhere else. This situation itself is at every moment a possible theophany. Here is the holy ground the Bush is burning now.

Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God in the here and now.

Through dreams God awakened me through prayers God directed me.

According to Benedicts scheme the community reads through... the entire book of Psalms every week. The monks are therefore exposed... to all the despairing doubtful bitter vindictive jingoistic nationalistic and seemingly racist passages in the Psalter. It is not that every sentiment expressed by a psalmist is admirable but that in praying the Psalms we confront ourselves as we really are. The Psalms are a reality check to keep prayer from becoming sentimental superficial or detached from the real world.