I want to be a woman who lives totally abandoned to the first commandment to love my Lord my God with all my heart. I dont want the reputation that I love God I dont want to write songs about loving God I dont want to talk about loving God. I want to actually love God. When I close my eyes I want my heart to move. When I close my eyes and I look at Him I want to feel alive on the inside. I want to look at Him with a fire in my heart and its real.

One reason why the Enemy found this so easy was that without knowing it I was already desperately anxious to get rid of my religion and that for a reason worth recording. By a sheer mistake - and I still believe it to have been an honest mistake - in spiritual technique I had rendered my private practice of that religion a quiet intolerable burden. It came about in this way. Like everyone else I had been told as a child that one must not only say ones prayers but think about what one was saying. Accordingly when I came to a serious belief I tried to put this into practice. At first it seemed plain sailing. But soon the false conscience St. Pauls Law Herberts prattler came into play. One had no sooner reached Amen than it whispered Yes. But are you sure you were really thinking about what you said then more subtly Were you for example thinking about it as well as you did last night The answer for reasons I did not then understand was nearly always No. Very well said the voice hadnt you then better try it over again And one obeyed but of course with no assurance that the second attempt would be any better...I set myself a standard. No clause of my prayer was to be allowed to pass muster unless it was accompanied by what I called a realization by which I meant a certain vivedness of the imagination and the affections. My nightly task was to produce by sheer will power a phenomenon which will power could never produce which was so ill-defined that I could never say with absolute confidence whether it had occurred and which even when it did occur was of very mediocre spiritual value.

Mother Teresa said that she couldnt imagine doing her work for more than thirty minutes without prayer. Do you and I have work that we cant imagine doing for thirty minutes without prayer

Its not that we start with beliefs and doctrine and then come up with worship practices that properly express these cognitive beliefs rather we begin with worship and articulated beliefs bubble up from there. Doctrines are the cognitive theoretical articulation of what we understand when we pray.

Let us live this day in that light that life and that peace so that we may gain the victory over those things that press us down.

High and holy ambition--to be a saint--is not opposed to holy humility--total reliance on Gods grace. Exactly the opposite. Ambition without humility is ambition that fails. It is pride which goes before a fall Prov 1618. Humility without ambition is false humility.

Alone all day Juniper would remember the animals and places he loved and hold them in his own heart before the great Heart that made them. He was learning to find quietness inside himself. He was learning to pray.

A prayer might actually be worth something to those that are doing it if they believe in it enough. Its a total waste of my time though.

In that moment I welcomed back the light and let go of the fear the feelings of unworthiness the past the loss the wallowing the grief and the anger. I let go of the illusion of control in our losses of our afflictions.

If you are religious pray. If you are philosophical contemplate. If you are spiritual meditate.