God wants you to know...
... that to worship God you must go beyond words to speak with your heart.

You can mouth the words of a prayer all day long and just waste your time, unless you also speak with your heart. And to speak with your heart means to embody first. If you pray for love, be loving. If you pray for wealth, be generous. If you pray for health, practice health yourself. What is your favorite prayer? How can you begin to embody it?

From an app on Facebook oddly enough.
It's a good one. Often really good at giving me a message that's topical.
This is a good message...

The best thing about being a Quaker is the ability to allow heart and spirit to unfold as the spirit reveals. In other faiths and belief systems a believer is given a set of subscribed beliefs. I don't have to worry about trying to believe something that isn't in my heart as a Quaker. I don't have to make myself anything or anybody other than what I am today. It is a beautiful feelig to sit in silence, just waiting upon the Lord with complete peace and contentment.

"Once you've learned to place your inner observer, you automatically discover what its real purpose is. It's there to connect the two worlds in you. It is not not, as frequently assumed, a way of bailing out of your small self into your larger self, escaping the horizontal axis of your bing in favor of the vertical. Rather, it lives at the intersection of the two axes, and its purpose is to bring them into meaningful alignment. ...its job is to be simultaneously present, without prejudice, to both the contents of consciousness and the field itself.

This is in itself an important corrective to our usual notion of what spiritual awakening is all about. It is commonly thought that the goal is to override or destroy the lower, or egoic, self and replace it with the higher self. But this is really not what it intended. What is intended is a marraige of the two, so that the lower with its essential uniqueness and the higher with its transpersonal brilliance come together as a true individuality. The witnessing presence looks compassionately in both directions, allowing us to see the whole picture and be the whole picture.

Because of its primary function as connection, then, the witness is not about dissociation. It is not about "making a religioun out of one's better moments," using the higher self to suppress the lower self. In fact, as virtually all genuine spiritual teachers insist, its real function is to bring you into a state of presence, to back you down out of your mind into a full embodiment of your being, so you can feel that "I Am" that courses through God...is coursing through you as well.

Even more strongly, its purpose is to bring you into a state of unconditional presence, so that you not only believe but know that no physical or emotional state has the power to knock you out of presence. It is not a matter of replacing negative emotions with positive emotions- only of realizing that through magnetic center, presence can be sustatined regardless of whatever inner or outer storms may assail you. You do not have to make the terror or anger or grief go away; you simply have to hunker down in magnetic center an allow the surface of life to be as it is. Amazingly, you discover that at the depths Being still holds firm."

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault

Let God speak through you
( the text of the article in case the link stops working. )

The basic message is not to believe You know what You are talking about.
But listen to God as you talk.
Let your words be connected to God.
Letting the You be you and God be GOD.
So the unity can be there
and God as your very breath, can come through your words.

But read the article, it's funny, good advice and well written. :)

On choosing to answer the call to be a servant of God,

"From this very day you must stand between men and immortals, to explain the ways of the one to the other."

-Marion Zimmer Bradley

Succint. Underutilized. Frightening. Awesome.

Time after time I came to your gate
with raised hands, asking for more and yet more.

You gave and gave, now in
slow measure, now in sudden excess.

I took some, and some things I let
drop; some lay heavy on my hands;
some I made into playthings and broke
them when tired; till the wrecks and
the hoard of your gifts grew immense,
hiding you, and the ceaseless expectation
wore my heart out.

Take, oh take---has now become my cry.

Shatter all from this beggar's bowl;
put out this lamp of the importunate
watcher; hold my hands, raise me from
the still-gathering heap of your gifts
into the bare infinity of your uncrowded
presence.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/quakers_1.shtml
Really interesting article.
I don't think I've EVER before found a faith community that I so shared the same vision with.
I'm moved and thankful to know this is available to me. And eventually to my family.

Beliefs

* Each person has an inner light (part of God's spirit) inside them - so there is a unity between all human beings
* Spiritual truth can only be known through direct revelation from God
* God continues to "talk" to people today
* Conscience gives a guide to conduct
* The Bible is not regarded as the only guide for conduct and belief
* Doubt and questioning are valuable tools for spiritual growth
* All human beings can have a direct experience of God - they don't need priests to help them
* There is good and evil inside all human beings, and all human beings can choose between them - everyone has the power to choose good over evil if they really want to
* Christ's life demonstrates the full truth of God
* Quakers do not agree on what happens after death. Some believe in an afterlife, some don't

I'm drawn to contemplative prayer.
Ritual and outward displays are great, but I find Spirit much more readily through silence.

The Church of Conscious Harmony drew me,
but I never got my ass over there.
And now I'm actually being quite strongly drawn elsewhere-
to the Quakers!
Apparently their meeting(worship service) is sitting in a group/circle
in silent contemplation/listening/waiting to hear God's guidance.
Then, when you are moved, you can speak.
There is no clergy. It's you and God. No mediators needed. NICE!

I think that's really really cool.

I won't go this Sunday, because it's my 1st day with nothing to do.
So nothing is what I'll be doing.
But next Sunday I want to go.
11am meeting, on MLK.
I'm really excited.

Everything I've read about them
(the progressive, unprogrammed type)
has been really really great.
Even to their beliefs on lifestyles and their conscious lack of creeds.
I can see this. This makes sense.

Of course I'll write more as I learn more.
Or I should say, as I experience more.
Yes~

God is love.
Fear is the opposite of love.
The more you fear the farther from God you are.
Let go of your fear and find the love.
Find the love and be with God.

Paraphrased from a conversation with Jerry Anderson, an amazing healer I met many years ago.

What does it mean to be called?
It means knowing oneself as infinitely loved,
discovering within yourself a desire to give everything.
It is the assurance that God is enough
and everything else is not enough.

To be called is to receive a gift that surpasses
all understanding. A gift that is nothing
less than God himself.
A gift he longs to give.

God calls each one uniquely.
For some, His call is heard at a very young age
and for others later in life.
He may make His voice heard
at a moment of prayer
or in the midst of an amusement
that suddenly becomes meaningless.

It can be dramatic,
so that one can point to the exact instant
of His invitation,
or it can come as a gradual realization
over the course of years.

God is a lover who respects our freedom.
He does not overwhelm or coerce.
His voice is soft
and we can ignore it
or drown it out
with the noise of the world.

If you suspect He is calling you,
it is worth your while to listen.
In order to hear Him,
you must separate yourself from the question,
"what is in it for me?"
Otherwise, you will only hear the tumult
of your own self-interest.

Do not be afraid.
God is your Creator who has made you
with a specific plan in mind.
It is your task in life to discover this plan
and to fulfill it
will be your joy.

from http://www.poor-clares.org
Bethlehem Monastery of the Poor Clares
Barhamsville, Virginia