Imago Dei Christian Community

“We must keep in mind that the purpose of the exploration of prayer is not to get anywhere. We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. ”

“The prayer of words attempts to express our dependence on the great mystery of God. The prayer of silence is not so much to express, but to experience that dependence.”

“We have to pray for the grace of a beginner’s mind. The beginner’s mind is a posture of eagerness, of spiritual hunger. It knows it needs something. To acknowledge oneself as a beginner is to be open to transformation.”

“Grace will lead us into fears and voids, and grace will fill us, if we are willing to stay in the void. We mustn’t engineer an answer too quickly. To stay in God’s hands, to trust, means that to a certain degree I have to stop taking hold of things myself. I have to hold instead to a degree of uncertainty, fear and tension. This takes practice and grace. As long as we stay in the world of preference and choice, we keep ourselves as the first reference point. Prayer lives in a spacious place. It is free of personal needs or meanings or even interpretations.”

“Who I really am. That’s a place of utter simplicity. Perhaps we don’t want to go back there often precisely because it’s so simple. It feels so unardorned. There’s nothing to congratulate myself for. I can’t prove any worth, much less superiority. There, I am naked and poor and I feel like nothing.”

“The only true perfection available to us is the honest acceptance of our imperfection.”

“True contemplation looks for the place of perfect simplicity. You can’t stay there, but if you know this simplicity once, it is enough for a whole lifetime. You know your life is radically okay. That you are a child of God. You are in union. There is nothing to prove, nothing to attain. Everything is already there.”

The whole foundation of prayer must be laid in humility, and the more a soul humbles itself in prayers, the more God lifts it up. The nearer we draw to God, the more this virtue should grow; if it does not, everything is lost. Humility is the right road, and if we can journey along a safe and level path, why should we want wings with which to fly?

Let His Majesty guide us wherever He will. We are not our own; we belong to Him. His Majesty may do what He likes with the soul. It is His property. The soul no longer belongs to itself. It has been given over wholly to our Lord. Let it, therefore, cast its cares wholly aside for ever and ever.

Now it is best for the soul which God has not raised to a higher state not to try and seek to rise higher. Let this be well considered, because all the soul will gain in that manner will be but loss. Do not demand that which you have not merited. It is very important that we do not attempt to raise our spirits ourselves if God does not raise them for us. If He does, then there will be no mistaking it.

What the soul must do in seasons of quiet amounts to no more than proceeding gently and noiselessly into prayer. What I mean by noise is running about with the intellect, looking for many words and meanings. Everything is in motion and rush. Therefore in such times of quietude, let the soul remain in its repose. Put aside learning. The time will come when learning will be useful for the Lord. For here there is no demand for reasoning, but simply for knowing what we are and that we are humbly in God’s presence.

here is nothing in this universe that is easier to obtain than the enjoyment of Jesus Christ. Your Lord is more present to you than you are to yourself; his desire to give Himself to you is greater than your desire to lay hold of Him.

Abandonment is the key to the inward spiritual life. It is practiced by continually losing your own will in the will of God. Great faith produces great abandonment.

Inside your spirit there is an act going on. It is a sweet sinking into Deity. The inward attraction becomes more and more powerful. Your soul, dwelling in love, is drawn by this powerful attraction and sinks continually deeper into that love. The experience of union begins very simply when there is born in you a desire for God. When the soul begins to turn inward to the life of the Spirit; when the soul begins to fall under the powerful, attraction of the Spirit. At this point, an earnest desire for union with God is born.

Prayer is a melting, a dissolving and an uplifting of the soul. It causes the soul to ascend to God. Nothing is as quick to return to its center as is the soul to the Spirit. Therefore hold your soul at peace. The more peaceful your soul is, the more quickly it is able to move toward God, its center.

When we speak of continual prayer, we are speaking of a prayer that originates from within. It originates there and works out, filling and permeating your whole being.

Simply keep returning to Him each time you have wandered away. When something is repeated over and over, it becomes a habit. This is true even of your soul. After much practice your soul forms the habit of turning inward to God. When this act has been formed in you, it will express itself as a continual abiding in your spirit and a continuous exchange of love between you and the Lord.