frank laubach
Date: 2005-02-25T16:50:57+00:00

Letters By A Modern Mystic

Excerpts from letters written at

Dansalan, Lake Lano, Philippine Islands

To his father by

Frank C. Laubach, Ph.D.

Foreword by

ALDEN H. CLARK, D.D.

Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners

For Foreign Missions

1937

STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT

156 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY

Foreword

A rare experience awaits any one who reads these selections from the letters
of Frank Laubach. In them a great spirit has opened the very doors of his
soul and invited us into the inner sanctuary to share his experience of God.

To read this book quietly and with sympathetic insight is to find oneself
transported into an atmosphere of dedication, of discernment and of spiritual ecstasy which reminds one of St. Francis of Assisi. It is as exciting as
breathing the ozone of a mountain summit and makes the reader long to rise
on the wings of the spirit as the author has done.

Who is this man who expresses himself, when occasion requires, in the
scientific language of the day yet speaks with a timeless voice of a great
mystic? It is very characteristic of Dr. Laubach that in these letters he gives us only the barest glimpses of himself and his work. The fascinating story of his service to the Moros during the years when the letters were written is
barely suggested. What is of supreme importance to him and what he wants
in all modesty to share with others is his own inner religious experience, yet to know something more of the man and his work gives new meaning to the
letters.

Frank C. Laubach went with his wife to the Philippines as a missionary in

1915. For the first seven years of his service he gave himself unstintedly
and with great effectiveness to the building of evangelical churches on the

North Coast of the great southern island of Mindanao and to the broader
contacts with the culture and leadership in the Islands which has always
characterized him. These churches on the North Coast have continued to
progress and still show markedly the effect of his formative influence.

His next great service was concerned with the establishment and conduct of
a Union Theological Seminary in Manila. Dr. Laubach was a prime mover
in these plans and went to Manila not only to be one of the Seminary’s first
teachers, but to give strong spiritual leadership in the changing life of the city. The Seminary continues to be a vitally important institution of the
evangelical movement in the Islands. Here again he rendered constructive
service, the results of which continue. It was during this period that Dr.

Laubach wrote his scholarly and sympathetic book, The People of the

Philippines, and his delightful picture of the Islands for young people entitled Seven Thousand Emeralds.

But all the time he was doing these things that seemed to require his first
attention Dr. Laubach’s thought went with increasing frequency to the

Mohammedan Moros on the Island of Mindanao with whom he had had
some contacts during the first period of his service. These were a wild and
backward people, about 500,000 in number, who looked upon the Christian

Filipinos as their traditional enemies. They seemed almost completely
inaccessible to approach by a Christian missionary. To win them, as he well
knew, would require unbounded patience and great Christian
resourcefulness. Dr. Laubach believed in the power of God to accomplish
even this task and felt that he had a call to undertake it. So in 1930, a short time before the first of these letters were written, Dr. Laubach went to

Dansalan in the uplands of Mindanao to begin his remarkable service for the

Moros.

The letters reflect the beauty of this place with its homes and fields reaching down to a sparkling lake beyond which rise jagged mountain peaks. The
letters also reflect with complete frankness the lonesomeness of those first
days. For reasons of health and education Mrs. Laubach and their surviving
son Robert were compelled, during these first months, to stay at Dumaguete,
a mission station on another island, and he was alone. This was the time
when he was learning the language and coming to understand something of
the way of the life of the Moros and therefore, he was isolated from any
intimate fellowship with them. It was characteristic of the greatness of the man that this very lonesomeness led him to the deep mystic experience of

God which is recorded in his letters.

It was not long before the Moros began to realize the nobility of the spirit of this American who had come among them as their simple friend. As he
started to help them in various practical ways their response grew in
cordiality until at the end of an almost incredibly short time they had come
to regard him as their best friend. And this indeed he was, for he discerned their greatest needs and with untiring industry and creative ability of a rare order set out to meet them. In 1930 he found these Moros almost entirely an
illiterate people. It is probably fair to say that one-half of the 90,000 who live about the Lake can now read and write. He found them wedded to the
past and ill prepared to play their part in the modern world. He has done
nothing to destroy their pride in the best of their past. Indeed, he has done much to preserve the valuable elements in their culture, but he has also
helped them to realize that they are a part of the great world and to adjust
themselves to its life.

This man who writes with such poetic beauty of his inner spiritual
experiences has also been a man of intense practical activity. He has
devised a remarkably effective method of adult education and promoted it
with great ability; he has developed industries, fostered health service,
stimulated the introduction of better seed and in a thousand and one ways
proved himself a practical friend to these people. Yet no one who reads
these letters can fail to see that through it all Dr. Laubach yearned to help them to a richer experience of God. He has not sought primarily to win
them to baptism, although some have sought baptism as a result of his
ministry, but he has desired to make a deep and transforming spiritual
experience the basis of their life.

Here, as elsewhere in the world, the great mystic has been the loving servant as well as the effective channel for the outflow among needy people of

God’s transforming power.

Alden H. Clark

Boston, Massachusetts,

January 5, 1937

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to The Argus, Benton, Pennsylvania, for permission to use these excerpts from letters originally published by them,
and to Miss Constance E. Padwick, Executive Secretary of the Central Literature Committee for Moslems, Cairo, Egypt, who first edited and compiled the excerpts appearing in the booklet.

January 3, 1930 – Windows open outward

To be able to look backward and say, “This, this has been the finest year of my life” – that is glorious! But anticipation! To be able to look ahead and
say, “The present year can and shall be better!” – that is more glorious!

If we said such things about our achievements, we would be consummate
egotists. But if we are speaking of God’s kindness, and we speak truly, we
are but grateful. And this is what I do witness. I have done nothing but open windows – God has done all the rest. There have been few if any
conspicuous achievements. There has been a succession of marvelous
experiences of the friendship of God. I feel, as I look back over the year, that it would have been impossible to have held much more without breaking
with sheer joy. It was the lonesomest year, in some ways the hardest year, of my life, but the most gloriously full of voices from heaven.

And it closed very beautifully. The young men and girls of Silliman were
gathered for a watch night service. We were resolving new high resolves
until nearly twelve o’clock.

. . . . . .

As for me I resolved that I would succeed better this year with my
experiment of filling every minute full of the thought of God than I
succeeded last year.

. . . . . .

And I added another resolve – to be as wide open toward people and their
need, as I am toward God. Windows open outward as well as upward!

Windows especially open downward where people need most!

January 20, 1930 – Conscious listening to the inner voice

Living in the atmosphere of Islam is proving – thus far – a tremendous
spiritual stimulus. Mohammed is helping me. I have no more intention of
giving up Christianity and becoming a Mohammedan than I had twenty
years ago, but I find myself richer for the Islamic experience of God.

Islam stresses the will of God. It is supreme. We cannot alter any of His mighty decrees. To try to do so means annihilation. Submission is the first
and last duty of man.

That is exactly what I have been needing in my Christian life. Although I
have been a minister and a missionary for fifteen years, I have not lived the entire day of every day in minute by minute effort to follow the will of God.

Two years ago a profound dissatisfaction led me to begin trying to line up
my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half
hour. Other people to whom I confessed this intention said it was
impossible. I judge from what I have heard that few people are really trying
even that. But this year I have started out trying to live all my waking
moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing,

“What, Father, do you desire said? What, Father, do you desire done this
minute?”

It is clear that this is exactly what Jesus was doing all day every day. But it is not what His followers have been doing in very large numbers.

January 26, 1930 – Open your soul and entertain the glory of God

You who will read these letters will know that I am here exploring two lands
which for me are new. One of them is within my own soul, the other is in the
soul of the Moros.

. . . . . .

For the past few days I have been experimenting in a more complete
surrender than ever before. I am taking by deliberate act of will, enough time from each hour to give God much thought. Yesterday and today I have made
a new adventure, which is not easy to express. I am feeling God in each
movement, by an act of will – willing that He shall direct these fingers that now strike this typewriter – willing that He shall pour through my steps as I walk – willing that He shall direct my words as I speak, and my very jaws as

I eat!

You will object to this intense introspection. Do not try it, unless you feel dissatisfied with your own relationship with God, but at least allow me to
realize all the leadership of God I can. I am disgusted with the pettiness and futility of my unled self. If the way out is not more perfect slavery to God
then what is the way out? Paul speaks of our liberty in Christ. I am trying to be utterly free from everybody, free from my own self, but completely
enslaved to the will of God every moment of this day.

. . . . . .

We used to sing a song in the church in Benton which I liked, but which I
never really practiced until now. It runs:

“Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;

Moment by moment I’ve life from above;

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am thine.”

It is exactly that “moment by moment,” every waking moment, surrender,
responsiveness, obedience, sensitiveness, pliability, “lost in His love,” that I now have the mind-bent to explore with all my might. It means two burning
passions: First, to be like Jesus. Second, to respond to God as a violin
responds to the bow of the master.

In defense of my opening my soul and laying it bare to the public gaze in
this fashion, I may say that it seems to me that we really seldom do anybody
much good excepting as we share the deepest experiences of our souls in this
way. It is not the fashion to tell your inmost thoughts, but there are many
wrong fashions, and concealment of the best in us is wrong. I disapprove of
the usual practice of talking “small talk” whenever we meet, and holding a
veil over our souls. If we are so impoverished that we have nothing to reveal but small talk, then we need to struggle for more richness of soul. As for me I am convinced that this spiritual pilgrimage which I am making is infinitely worth while, the most important thing I know of to talk about. And talk I
shall while there is anybody to listen. And I hunger – O how I hunger! for
others to tell me their soul adventures.

. . . . . .

Outside the window, as I completed the last page, has been one of the most
splendorous sunsets I have ever seen. And these words came singing through
my soul. “Looking to Jesus ‘till glory doth shine!” Glory had been shining
all across the sky until everything was crimson. Even the paper on which I
was writing became red with the reflection from the roseate sky. It was the
reflection of my own soul where God had today been painting his wonderful
visions. Is not this marvelous sky a parable! Open your soul and entertain
the glory of God and after a while that glory will be reflected in the world
about you and in the very clouds above your head.

January 29, 1930 – Only one thing now

I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far
beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me, for I never have felt it this way before. I need something, and turn round to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me. To know this gives a sense of security and
assurance for the future which is also new to my life. I seem to have to make sure of only one thing now, and every other thing “takes care of itself,” or I prefer to say what is more true, God takes care of all the rest. My part is to live this hour in continuous inner conversation with God and in perfect
responsiveness to his will. To make this hour gloriously rich. This seems to be all I need think about.

February 9, 1930 – A lever to lift the world

I feel sure now that our thoughts flow around the world even when we do
not express them. So I mean to make a contribution with my thoughts every
hour. I am making a strenuous effort of will to concentrate upon people,
those in my presence and those out of sight in order to send to them my
thoughts of Christ. I propose to think as hard of God as I can when in
crowds, in the confidence that really dynamic thought will influence many
others.

Perhaps you have begun to suspect what tremendous dynamite lies hidden in
the idea. If the Christian people, the really Christian people of the world began to comprehend the power of thought, they could use it as a lever to lift the world! If people realize that telepathy is a fact – though as yet not
reduced to law – that ought to be the signal for a tremendous movement
among Christian people to keep their thoughts right, to make them helpful every hour from morning to night. We may yet attempt to make the world
over by the sheer force of good thoughts!

March 1, 1930 – Undiscovered continents of spiritual living

The sense of being led by an unseen hand which takes mine while another
hand reaches ahead and prepares the way, grows upon me daily. I do not
need to strain at all to find opportunity. It plies in upon me as the waves roll over the beach, and yet there is time to do something about each opportunity.

Perhaps a man who has been an ordained minister since 1914 ought to be
ashamed to confess that he never before felt the joy of complete, hourly,
minute by minute – now what shall I call it? – more than surrender. I had
that before. More than listening to God. I tried that before. I cannot find the word that will mean to you or to me what I am now experiencing. It is a will
act. I compel my mind to open straight out toward God. I wait and listen
with determined sensitiveness. I fix my attention there, and sometimes it
requires a long time early in the morning to attain that mental state. I
determine not to get out of bed until that mind set, that concentration upon

God, is settled. It also requires determination to keep it there, for I feel as though the words and thoughts of others near me were constantly exerting a
drag backward or sidewise. But for the most part recently I have not lost
sight of this purpose for long and have soon come back to it. After awhile,
perhaps, it will become a habit, and the sense of effort will grow less.

. . . . . .

But why do I constantly harp upon this inner experience? Because I feel
convinced that for me and for you who read there lie ahead undiscovered
continents of spiritual living compared with which we are infants in arms.

. . . . . .

And I must witness that people outside are treating me differently. Obstacles which I once would have regarded as insurmountable are melting away like
a mirage. People are becoming friendly who suspected or neglected me. I
feel, I feel like one who has had his violin out of tune with the orchestra and at last is in harmony with the music of the universe.

As for me, I never lived, I was half dead, I was a rotting tree, until I reached the place where I wholly, with utter honesty, resolved and then re-resolved
that I would find God’s will, and I would do that will though every fibre in me said no, and I would win the battle in my thoughts. It was as though some deep artesian well had been struck in my soul or souls and strength
came forth. I do not claim success even for a day yet, in my mind, not
complete success all day but some days are close to success, and every day
is tingling with the joy of a glorious discovery. That thing is eternal. That thing is undefeatable. You and I shall soon blow away from our bodies.

Money, praise, poverty, opposition, these make no difference, for they will
all alike be forgotten in a thousand years, but this spirit which comes to a
mind set upon continuous surrender, this spirit is timeless life.

March 9, 1930 – Boundless joy broken loose

For the first time in my life I know what I must do off in lonesome Lanao. I
know why God left this aching void, for himself to fill. Off on this mountain I must do three things:

1. I must pursue this voyage of discovery in quest of God's will. I must
because the world needs me to do it.

2. I must plunge into mighty experiments in intercessory prayer, to test
my hypothesis that God needs my help to do his will for others, and that
my prayer releases his power. I must be his channel, for the world needs
me.

3. I must confront these Moros with a divine love which will speak

Christ to them though I never use his name. They must see God in me,
and I must see God in them. Not to change the name of their religion,
but to take their hand and say, "Come, let us look for God."

A few days ago as we came on the priests, they were praying, in one
boat with thirty-five Moros, many of whom called to me to join. So I
held out my hands and prayed with them, and as earnestly as any of
them. One of them said "He is Islam," and I replied, "A friend of Islam."

My teacher, Dato Pambaya, told me this week that a good Muslim ought
to utter the sacred word for God, every time he begins to do anything, to
sleep, or walk, or work, or even turn around. A good Muslim would fill
his life with God. I fear there are few good Muslims.

But so would a real Christlike Christian speak to God every time he did
anything - and I fear there are few good Christians.

What right then have I or any other person to come here and change the
name of these people from Muslim to Christian, unless I lead them to a
life fuller of God than they have now? Clearly, clearly, my job here is
not to go to the town plaza and make proselytes, it is to live wrapped in God, trembling to his thoughts, burning with his passion. And, my loved
one, that is the best gift you can give to your own town.

I look up at this page and it is not red hot as my soul is now. It is black
ink. It ought to be written with the red ribbon. You will not see the
tears that are falling on this typewriter, tears of a boundless joy broken
loose.

The most wonderful discovery that has ever come to me is that I do not
have to wait until some future time for the glorious hour. I need not
sing, “Oh that will be glory for me -” and wait for any grave. This hour
can be heaven. Any hour for any body can be as rich as God! For do you not see that God is trying experiments with human lives. That is
why there are so many of them. He has one billion seven hundred
million experiments going on around the world at this moment. And

His question is, “How far will this man and that woman allow allow me
to carry this hour?” This Sunday afternoon at three o'clock He was
asking it of us all. I do not know what the rest of you said, but as for
me, I asked, “God, how wonderful dost Thou wish this hour alone with

Thee to be?”

“It can be as wonderful as any hour that any human being has ever
lived. For I who pushed life up through the protozon and the tiny grass,
and the fish and the bird and the dog and the gorilla and the man, and
who am reaching out toward divine sons, I have not become satisfied
yet. I am not only willing to make this hour marvelous. I am in travail
to set you akindle with the Christ-thing which has no name. How fully
can you surrender and not be afraid?”

And I answered:

“Fill my mind with Thy mind to the last crevice. Catch me up in Thine
arms and make this hour as terribly glorious as any human being ever
lived, if Thou wilt.

“And God, I scarce see how one could live if his heart held more than
mine has had from Thee this past two hours.”

Will they last? Ah, that is the question I must not ask. I shall just live this hour on until it is full, then step into the next hour. Neither tomorrow
matters, nor yesterday. Every now is an eternity if it is full of God.

But how “practical” is this for the average man? It seems to me now that
yonder plowman could be like Calixto Sanidad, when he was a lonesome
and mistreated plowboy, “with my eyes on the furrow, and my hands on
the lines, but my thoughts on God.” The carpenter could be as full of God
as was Christ when he drove nails. The millions at looms and lathes could
make the hours glorious. Some hour spent by some night watchman might
be the most glorious ever lived on earth. God is not through yet. He is
breaking through and I think the poor have less callousness for Him to
overcome as a rule than have the rich.

On the other hand the rich man has the wonderful opportunity of paying a
sacrifice which will cut his heart almost out. If he seeks the place where
his wealth is needed most, then throws all he has into that cause and then
throws himself into the cause with his money, as Jesus asked the rich
young ruler to do, his money will at that moment be transmuted into the
golden threads of heaven. Maybe there is another way, but to me there
seems only a blank wall for wealthy men save through the doorway I have
entered, a sacrifice that hurts and hurts and - behind Calvary, God!

Outside the sky is alight with golden sunset. To me that is God, working on
the sky, as he has worked so wonderfully this afternoon within me.

March 15, 1930 - Meeting God soul to soul and face to face

If these letters are to be given a name I think it must be, "The Story of a Re-conversion," for something of this sort is still in progress. This week a new and to me marvelous experience has come out of my loneliness. I have been
so desperately lonesome that it was unbearable save by talking with God.

And so every, waking moment of the week I have been looking toward Him,
with perhaps the exception of an hour or two.

Last Thursday night I was listening to a phonograph in Lumbatan and
allowing my heart to commune, when something broke within me, and I
longed not only to lift my own will up and give it completely to God, but
also to lift all the wills in the world up and offer them all in utter
surrender to His will. To feel this great longing as I felt it then with all my being, to desire to put one's shoulder under all the world's hunger and
need, and to carry it all to God, is not this the highest longing one can
ever feel? Probably not, but it is the climax of my spiritual experience to
this date. God, be the thought within my brain, and be the thought in
every brain in the world, so that no thought save the thoughts of God shall
take birth in any human mind. And this will be heaven!

How infinitely richer this direct first hand grasping of God himself is,
than the old method which I used and recommended for years, the reading
of endless devotional books. Almost it seems to me now that the very

Bible cannot be read as a substitute for meeting God soul to soul and face
to face. And yet, how was this new closeness achieved? Ah, I know now
that it was by cutting the very heart of my heart and by suffering.

Somebody was telling me this week that nobody can make a violin speak the last depths of human longing until that soul has been made tender by
some great anguish. I do not say it is the only way to the heart of God, but

I must witness that it has opened an inner shrine for me which I never en-
tered before.

March 23, 1930 - Can we think His thoughts all the time?

You and you and you and I do experience fine fresh contact with God
sometimes, and do carry, out his will sometimes. One question now to be
put to the test is this: Can we have that contact with God all the time? All
the time awake, fall asleep in His arms, and awaken in His presence, can
we attain that? Can we do His will all the time? Can we think His
thoughts all the time?

Or are there periods when business, and pleasures, and crowding
companions must necessarily push God out of our thoughts? “Of course,
that is self-evident. If one thinks of God all the time, he will never get anything else done.” So I thought too, until now, but I am changing my
view. We can keep two things in mind at once. Indeed we cannot keep
one thing in mind more than half a second. Mind is a flowing something.

It oscillates. Concentration is merely the continuous return to the same
problem from a million angles. We do not think of one thing. We always think of the relationship of at least two things, and more often of three or
more things simultaneously. So my problem is this: Can I bring God back
in my mind-flow every few seconds so that God shall always be in my
mind as an after image, shall always be one of the elements in every
concept and percept?

I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering this
question.

. . . . . .

Someone may be saying that this introspection and this struggle to achieve

God-consciousness is abnormal and perilous. I am going to take the risks,
for somebody ought to do it, in this day when psychological experimentation
has given a fresh approach to our spiritual problems. If our religious
premises are correct at all then this oneness with God is the most normal
condition one can have. It is what made Christ, Christ. It is what St.

Augustine meant when he said "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our
souls are restless until they find their rest in Thee."

I do not invite anybody else to follow this arduous path. I wish many
might: We need to know so much which one man alone cannot answer.

For example:

"Can a laboring man successfully attain this continuous surrender to

God? Can a man working at a machine pray for people all day long, talk
with God all day long, and at the same time do his task efficiently?"

"Can a merchant do business, can an accountant keep books, ceaselessly
surrendered to God?"

"Can a mother wash dishes, care for the babies, continuously talking to

God?"

"Can a politician keep in a state of continuous contact with God, and not lose the following of the crowds?"

"Can little children be taught to talk and listen to God inwardly all day long, and what is the effect upon them?"

Briefly, is this a thing which the entire human race might conceivably
aspire to achieve? Do we really mean what we say when we repeat "the
highest end of man is to find God and to do his will" all the time?

If you are like myself this has been pretty strong diet this afternoon. It
may even prove discouraging. So I will put something simpler and more
attainable:

"Any hour of any day may be made perfect by merely choosing. It is
perfect if one looks toward God that entire hour, waiting for his
leadership all through the hour and trying hard to do every tiny thing
exactly as God wishes it done, as perfectly as possible. No emotions are
necessary. Just the doing of God's will perfectly makes the hour a perfect
one. And the results of that one perfect hour, I believe, will echo down
through eternity."

April 18, 1930 - The possession of God has caught me up

I have tasted a thrill in fellowship with God which has made anything
discordant with God disgusting. This afternoon the possession of God has
caught me up with such sheer joy that I thought I never had known anything
like it. God was so close and so amazingly lovely that I felt like melting all over with a strange blissful contentment. Having had this experience, which
comes to me now several times a week, the thrill of filth repels me, for I
know its power to drag me from God. And after an hour of close friendship
with God my soul feels clean, as new fallen snow.

. . . . . .

Everywhere people are beautiful or at least they have a beautiful side. On
the boat from Manila last week was a painted woman, alone. I spoke to her
because she was lonesome. Three of the ship's officers nearby tittered as
though they thought a scandal was brewing, so I talked loud enough for
them to hear. I told her I was looking for God. As naturally as a preacher
she replied, “God is everywhere around us and in us if we only open our
eyes. All the world is beautiful if we have eyes to see the beauty, for the world is packed with God.” “Thank you for that,” I said, “I love it! What
are you going to Cebu for?” “To put on my special act. You see I dance
before seven mirrors. Nobody else, so far as I know, in the world, has just
this act. I am traveling alone, making my own engagements, for it is too
expensive to have a property man. I was treated wonderfully well through

India, wonderfully well!” I liked the way she pronounced that word, and the memories which lingered in her tired eyes. “And many people in

Manila wrote me lovely letters, asking me to come back. Oh, the world is
full of good people, full of good people.” When the dinner bell rang I said,

“I am going about the world trying to find wonderful hours, and I shall
remember this as one of them.”

April 19, 1930 – Incessant submission to God has proven extremely
difficult

This conscious, incessant submission to God has proven extremely
difficult, and I have surrendered for the past few days. And today and
yesterday I saw evidences of the result. In an effort to be witty I have said biting things which have hurt the feelings of others, and have been short
and impatient. I tremble, for I have told at least one of these men of this
experiment, and he will think this is the result. It is very dangerous to tell people, and yet, I must tell and I must start over now and succeed. This philosophy that one can begin all over instantly at any moment, is proving of great help.

. . . . . .

If this record of a soul struggle to find God is to be complete it must not omit the story of difficulty and failure. I have not succeeded very well so far. This week, for example, has not been one of the finest in my life, though it has
been above the average. I have to make a greater effort next week. I have
undertaken something which, at my age at least, is hard, harder than I had
anticipated. But I resolve not to give up the effort.

Yet strain does not seem to do good. At this moment I feel something “let
go” inside, and lo, God is here! It is a heart melting "here-ness," a lovely whispering of father to child, and the reason I did not have it before, was
because I failed to let go.

And back of that failure there was something else. A crowd of people
arrived who, when they are in a crowd, wish to talk or think nothing of
religion. I fear I have not wanted some of them to think me religious for fear I might cease to be interesting.

Fellowship with God is something one dare not cover, for it smothers to
death. It is like a tender infant or a delicate little plant, for a long nurturing is the price of having it, while it vanishes in a second of time, the very moment indeed, one's eye ceases to be “single.” One cannot worship God
and Mammon for the reason that God slips out and is gone as soon as we
try to seat some other unworthy affection beside Him. The other idol stays
and God vanishes. Not because God is “a jealous God” but because
sincerity and insincerity are contradictions and cannot both exist at the
same time in the same place.

April 22, 1930 – Open toward God and wide awake

The “experiment” is interesting, although I am not very successful, thus far.

The idea of God slips out of my sight for I suppose two thirds of every day,
thus far. This morning I started out fresh, by finding a rich experience of

God in the sunrise. Then I tried to let Him control my hands while I was
shaving and dressing and eating breakfast. Now I am trying to let God
control my hands as I pound the typewriter keys. If I could keep this
morning up I should have a far higher average today than I have had for
some time.

. . . . . .

This afternoon as I look at the people teeming about me, and then think of

God's point of view, I feel that this mighty stretch of time in which He has
been pushing men upward is to continue for many more millions of years.

We are yet to become what the spiritual giants have been and more than
many of them were. Here the selection favors those who keep themselves
wide open toward God and wide awake. Our possibilities are perhaps not
limitless, but they are at least infinitely above our present possibilities of imagination.

There is nothing that we can do excepting to throw ourselves open to God.

There is, there must be, so much more in Him than He can give us, because
we are so sleepy and because our capacity is so pitifully small. It ought to
be tremendously helpful to be able to acquire the habit of reaching out
strongly after God's thoughts, and to ask, “God what have you to put into
my mind now if only I can be large enough?” That waiting, eager attitude
ought to give God the chance he needs. I am finding every day that the best
of the five or six ways in which I try to keep contact with God is for me to
wait for his thoughts, to ask him to speak.

May 14, 1930 – It is working

Oh, this thing of keeping in constant touch with God, of making him the object of my thought and the companion of my conversations, is the most
amazing thing I ever ran across. It is working. I cannot do it even half of a day - not yet, but I believe I shall be doing it some day for the entire day. It is a matter of acquiring a new habit of thought. Now I like God's presence so much that when for a half hour or so he slips out of mind - as he does
many times a day - I feel as though I had deserted him, and as though I had
lost something very precious in my life.

May 24, 1930 - Souls dead to God look sadly out of hungry eyes

This has been a week of wonders. God is at work everywhere preparing the way for his work in Lanao. I shall tell you some of the wonders presently.

But just at this moment you must hear more of this sacred evening. The day
had been rich but strenuous, so I climbed "Signal Hill" back of my house talking and listening to God all the way up, all the way back, all the lovely half hour on the top. And God talked back! I let my tongue go loose and
from it there flowed poetry far more beautiful than any I ever composed. It
flowed without pausing and without ever a failing syllable for a half hour. I listened astonished and full of joy and gratitude. I wanted a dictaphone for

I knew that I should not be able to remember it - and now I cannot. “Why,”

someone may ask, “did God waste his poetry on you alone, when you
could not carry it home.” You will have to ask God that question. I only
know He did and I am happy in the memory.

Below me lay the rice fields and as I looked across them I heard my tongue
saying aloud, "Child, just as the rice needs the sunshine every day, and could not grow if it had sun only once a week or one, hour a day, so you need me all day of every day. People over all the world are withering
because they are open toward God only rarely. Every waking minute is not
too much:"

A few months ago I was trying to write a chapter on the “discovering of

God.” Now that I have discovered Him I find that it is a continuous
discovery. Every day is rich with new aspects of Him and His working. As
one makes new discoveries about his friends by being with them, so one
discovers the “individuality” of God if one entertains him continuously.

One thing I have seen this week is that God loves beauty. Everything he
makes is lovely. The clouds, the tumbling river, the waving lake, the
soaring eagle, the slender blade of grass, the whispering of the wind, the
fluttering butterfly, this graceful transparent nameless child of the lake
which clings to my window for an hour and vanishes for ever. Beautiful
craft of God! And I know that He makes my thought-life beautiful when I
am open all the day to Him. If I throw these mind-windows apart and say

“God, what shall we think of now?” he answers always in some graceful,
tender dream. And I know that God is love hungry, for he is constantly
pointing me to some dull, dead soul which he has never reached and
wistfully urges me to help him reach that stolid, tight shut mind. Oh God,
how I long to help you with these Moros. And with these Americans! And
with these Filipinos! All day I see souls dead to God look sadly out of
hungry eyes. I want them to know my discovery! That any minute can be
paradise, that any place can be heaven! That any man can have God! That
every man does have God the moment he speaks to God, or listens for him!

As I analyze myself I find several things happening to me as a result of
these two months of strenuous effort to keep God in mind every minute.

This concentration upon God is strenuous, but everything else has ceased to be so. I think more clearly, I forget less frequently. Things which I did
with a strain before, I now do easily and with no effort whatever. I worry
about nothing, and lose no sleep. I walk on air a good part of the time.

Even the mirror reveals a new light in my eyes and face. I no longer feel in
a hurry about anything. Everything goes right. Each minute I meet calmly
as though it were not important. Nothing can go wrong excepting one
thing. That is that God may slip from my mind if I do not keep on my
guard. If He is there, the universe is with me. My task is simple and clear.

And I witness to the way in which the world reacts. Take Lanao and the

Moros for illustration. Their responsiveness is to me a continuous source of
amazement. I do nothing that I can see excepting to pray for them, and to walk among them thinking of God. They know I am a Protestant: Yet two
of the leading Moslem priests have gone around the province telling
everybody that I would help the people to know God.

June 1, 1930 - One new lesson

Inwardly this has been a very uneven week. As a whole my end of the
experiment has been failure for most of the week. My physical condition
and too many distractions have proven too much for me, and God has not
been in the center of my mind for one-fifth of the time, or perhaps one-
tenth. But today has been a wonderful day, and some of yesterday was
wonderful. The week with its failures and successes has taught me one new
lesson. It is this: “I must talk about God, or I cannot keep him in my mind.

I must give Him away in order to have Him.” That is the law of the spirit
world. What one gives one has, what one keeps to oneself one loses.

. . . . . .

Do you suppose that through all eternity the price we will need to pay for
keeping God will be that we must endlessly be giving him away?

June 3, 1930 - Begin to build heaven

This experiment which I am trying is the most strenuous discipline which
any man ever attempted. I am not succeeding in keeping God in my mind
very many hours of the day, and from the point of view of experiment
number one I should have to record a pretty high percentage of failure. But
the other experiment - what happens when I do succeed - is so successful
that it makes up for the failure of number one. God does work a change.

The moment I turn to Him it is like turning on an electric current which I
feel through my whole being. I find also that the effort to keep God in my
mind does something to my mind which every mind needs to have done to
it. I am given something difficult enough to keep my mind with a keen
edge. The constant temptation of every man is to allow his mind to grow
old and lose its edge. I feel that I am perhaps more lazy mentally than the
average person, and I require the very mental discipline which this constant
effort affords.

So my answer to my two questions to date would be

1. “Can it be done all the time?” Hardly.

2: “Does the effort help?” Tremendously. Nothing I have ever found proves
such a tonic to mind and body.

. . . . . .

Are you building sacred palaces for yourself? I meant to write “places” to
be sure, but I think I shall leave the word “palaces” for that is what any
house becomes when it is sacred. The most important discovery of my
whole life is that one can take a little rough cabin and transform it into a
palace just by flooding it with thoughts of God. When one has spent many
months in a little house like this in daily thoughts about God, the very
entering of the house, the very sight of it as one approaches, starts associ-
ations which set the heart tingling and the mind flowing. I have come to the
point where I must have my house, in order to write the best letters or think the richest thoughts.

So in this sense one man after the other builds his own heaven or his hell. It does not matter where one is, one can at once begin to build heaven, by
thoughts which one thinks while in that place.... I have learned the secret of heaven building - anywhere.

. . . . . .

This morning I read awhile about the tremendous consecration with
which the scientists are studying the finest details about the sun, in an
effort to find how to predict the weather, and to know how to use its
power. And I feel that not yet have I thrown myself into the crucible of
this experiment of mind with all the abandon of the successful scientist.

We have heard the saying, “All a man's failures are inside himself.” And

I am willing to confess that as yet I have not “striven unto blood” to win
this battle. What I want to prove is that the thing can be done by all people under all conditions, but I have not, proven it yet. This much I do
see - what an incredibly high thing Jesus did.

. . . . . .

A great lonesome hunger comes over me at this moment for someone
who has passed through the same long, long channels of hope, and
aspiration, and despair, and failure, to whom I can talk tonight. And yet -
there is no such person. As we grow older all our paths diverge, and in
all the world I suppose I could find nobody who could wholly
understand me excepting God - and neither can you! Ah, God, what a
new nearness this brings for Thee and me, to realize that Thou alone
canst understand me, for Thou alone knowest all! Thou art no longer a
stranger, God! Thou art the only being in the universe who is not partly a
stranger! I invite others inside but they cannot come all the way. Thou
art all the way inside with me - here -and every time I forget and push

Thee out, Thou art eager to return! Ah, God, I mean to struggle tonight
and tomorrow as never before, not once to dismiss Thee. For when I lose Thee for an hour I lose and the world loses more than we can know. The
thing Thou wouldst do can only be done when Thou hast full swing all
the time.

June 16, 1930 - I looked at people with a love God gave

I walk out in the street full of Moros, and if my soul is as full of God as it sometimes is, I see what happens as I look into their eyes and pray for
them. No man need try to persuade me that God does not reach them, for I
see the thing happen, and now I know that every person we ever meet is

God's opportunity, if only, if only we were not so much of the time shut
off from God.

Last Monday was the most completely successful day of my life to date so
far as giving my day in complete and continuous surrender to God is
concerned - though I shall hope for far better days - and I remember how as I looked at people with a love God gave, they looked back and acted as
though they wanted to go with me. I felt then that for a day I saw a little of that marvelous pull that Jesus had as he walked along the road day after day

"God-intoxicated" and radiant with the endless communion of his soul with God.

June 22, 1930 - As simple as opening and closing a swinging door I have just returned from a walk alone, a walk so wonderful that I feel like
reducing it to a universal rule, that all people ought to take a walk every
evening all alone where they can talk aloud without being heard by
anyone, and that during this entire walk they all ought to talk with God,
allowing him to use their tongues to talk back - and letting God do most
of the talking.

For this seems to be the very thing for which I have been feeling all these
weeks. You have followed my experiment and have seen many
confessions of daily failure, as I tried to keep God in mind in the second
person. Well, today has not been a failure. The thought of God has drifted
out occasionally but not for long. But this day has been a different day
from any other of my life, for I have not tried to pray in the sense of
talking to God but I have let God do the talking with my tongue or in my
inner life when my tongue was silent. It has been as simple as opening and closing a swinging door. And without any of the old strain the whole day
passed beautifully with God saying wonderful things to me.

July 2, 1930 - The reality all about you is greater than the imperfect symbols of things which you have in words

The newest experiment, and at present the most thrilling, is letting God talk through my own tongue and through my own fingers on the typewriter. I
have been letting my tongue talk on Signal Hill behind my house and then
have come home and written on the typewriter all I could remember of it.

Here is one sample:

“I speak to you, not through your tongue only, but also through everything
which you see in nature through the beauty of this sunset, through the little Moro boy who stands beside you without understanding what you are
saying, and who wonders what you are looking at in the clouds. If I do not
speak to you in words at times, it is because the reality all about you is
greater than the imperfect symbols of things which you have in words. It is
not necessary for your tongue to speak, nor even for any definite thoughts
to light your mind, for I myself am infinitely more important for you than
anything I can give you even than the most brilliant thoughts. So when
thoughts do come, welcome them, and when they do not flow freely simply rest back and love, and grant me the shared joy of being loved by you. For

I, too, by my very nature, am hungry with an insatiable hunger for the love
of all of you, just as your love reaches out at your highest moments to all
the people about you. So child, I, even I, God, whom people have foolishly
feared and flattered for my gifts, I want love and friendship more than I
want groveling subjects. So while we love each other, child, my share is as
keen as yours.”

. . . . . .

I have written in this letter what my tongue said as I let it speak, not because I wish to recommend any of the above as prophetic, but simply because I
think it may prove helpful to those who have been dissatisfied with their
own contact with God and who may find this a helpful practice in
making contacts with God. Day after day I find this very helpful in little
intimate personal ways, which would have no value for others.

I am well aware of the probability of criticism because it is "mysticism"

- as though any man could be a believer in Jesus without believing in

"mysticism"! - or because many people think that the days of direct contact with God, or at least words from God, stopped with the closing
of the New Testament. But then what a stupid world this would be if one
never did anything different for fear of criticism!

July 9, 1930 - This is what all life can have if you are willing

Never did I so feel the need of a silent typewriter as at this moment, for
every stroke clashes with the marvelous silence of the hills tonight. I am still under the spell of that hush and of that sunset. In all my life I have never
seen a sight so beautiful as Lanao tonight… I suppose there have been
equally beautiful scenes since the world was created, but not more beautiful
for me. For it adequately reflected the passion of love which I feel toward
the Lanao people as I look and pray from the hill.

And as I talked and tasted the sweetness of the luscious light, and told

God that this was for me the masterpiece of his creation, he told me
through my own voice:

"Ah, child, this is but the symbol of beauties, and wonders which I mean to give you when you are willing and ready. I must give them, I will give them, if only you will climb your spiritual hill and open your soul,
eyes and look. This is what all life can have if you are willing. I ache with longings which poor little people cannot even suspect, to open up
wider and ever wider universes of glory to you all."

. . . . . .

If asked my chief difficulty in meeting these Moros, I should have to reply,

"No chief difficulty excepting to keep ready spiritually." And I wonder whether here is not the only serious difficulty anywhere. This year I am
readier than I have ever been before, and perhaps this is why people seem
readier also.

August 21, 1930 – “Important duties” which keep us from helping little
people are not duties but sins

I shall be forty-six in two weeks. I no longer have the sense that life is
all before me, as I had a few years ago. Some of it is behind - and a
miserable poor past it is, so far below what I had dreamed 'that l dare not
even think of it. Nor dare I think much of the future. This present, if it is full of God, is the only refuge I have from poisonous disappointment and
even almost rebellion against God. Here is this book of Reinhold

Niebuhr, a man who seems to pour out wonderful thought as easily as
one pours coffee. Why could not the rest of the world, including of
course myself, be gifted like he is? And so many of the people here, and
everywhere seem to have more cramped lives and hopeless minds even
than I have. I have been trying to teach a boy to read this afternoon, but
his mind seems to be like pouring water into a mosquito net. He could
not pronounce "i" without forgetting "a." What a tragedy to live in the world he lives in. I felt a warm love for the boy, and he felt it, for his
eyes were moist as he told me he had neither father nor mother. At times
when one looks out upon life all one sees are wrecks, and in upon life,
too - wrecks! Ah, God, what is all this wreckage for?

I sat leaning upon my typewriter for a long while after that sentence, for
a voice began to talk to me. “The wreckage is the birthpangs of love."

And when I wanted to put my arm around that dirty, cross-eyed orphan

Moro with his stupid brain, I was proving that...

As I sit over in that old building day after day patiently toiling with one
man or boy to teach him the alphabet, and so hold him to a larger world,

I often wonder whether this work is becoming to a man of my age. But
when that same man fondly runs his fingers through my hair and looks
his love while he says "Mapia bapa" good uncle - I know that a little love is created. If this entire universe is a desperate attempt of love to
incarnate itself, then "important duties" which keep us from helping little people are not duties but sins - or am I all the while trying to justify my
own failure?

Home from a wonderful hour with God in the sunset. Oh, those colors,
those awful piles of clouds, those misty mysteries, those silent changes
across the sky. If one could only forget oneself entirely and enjoy the
universe - but some of us are too selfish to wipe ourselves out of the
picture. We are deep sea fish. They say there are fish under the ocean
which are under such pressure that they dare not come near the surface or
they perish. We are just that sort of fish, for we dare not venture far above the bottom of the atmosphere-ocean, or we die. We are not fish, we are
worms on the bottom, for we cannot even swim in our ocean. And we are
as little mentally as we are physically, and as tied to the bottom. Poor
worms! And I suppose that this self pity on this page is an excellent
illustration of our littleness. When I feel like blaming God, then at that
moment I show the real ugliness of my selfishness - for I know perfectly
well that I should be quite complacent about all the innumerable creatures
below man, and about all the innumerable creatures who are barely man,
about the creatures who are robbed of their manhood by other selfish
creatures like myself, I should not blame God for all these if I had all I
wanted.

. . . . . .

Here I was engaging in the most glorious action of all human and of all
superhuman life - I was communing with the very God of the universe
himself. He was showing me his very heart, even the angels can do no
more than this. I forgot that my being choked down against the bottom, of
an ocean like an octopus, and like an octopus in disposition, too, makes no
difference at all. A prison or a dungeon makes no difference if one is with

God. We preach and profess that as true, and it is true, but upon my word I
do not see many people who seem to have experienced it. I am exactly like
these Moro women and children. "Bapa," they say, "may I have this?" If I say "Yes," they forget to take it, but if I say "No;" they beg me for it.

September 2, 1930 – The beauty of immense need

Tip and I and God were together tonight on Signal Hill. Oh God, let me put
on paper the glory that was there. The sunset was not more beautiful than at
other times, but God said more in it. I suppose it was because I was
trying to make this first day of my forty-sixth year high. And that I
suppose is why all of us have some high days and some low ones. God is
always awaiting the chance to give us high days. We so seldom are in
deep earnest about giving Him His chance.

But the effort to say this colossal thing throws me into despair. It cannot
be said, can it even be hinted at? There were black clouds which swiftly
turned crimson and pale yellow. Now those black clouds are shooting
out their fiery tongues through the darkness.

Far off in the middle of the lake a long perfect waterspout stood like a
colossal pillar from the clouds to the splashing water. It was the first
perfect waterspout that I have seen from sea to sky. Above my head
those black, angry clouds turned into glorious gold, from the hidden sun.

But it was not this that made the evening wonderful. God was speaking.

I patted Tip's head as he nestled up under my arm, and told him:

"We are two tiny insects in the midst of this terrifying universe. I know a little more than you do, you nice, black dog, but not much more.

Compared with that gigantic being who wheels these awful spheres of
fire through the sky I am as near nothing as you are. I know as little
about God as you know about me, perhaps ten thousand times less. And
perhaps you are wiser than I, for you are contented to be patted on the
head and to hunt for fleas, while I am impatient to break loose into the
universe. I thought, Tip, when I was younger, that Kant was wrong when
he said the three greatest moral demands are God, freedom, and
immortality, but now I believe he was incredibly right. My soul at forty-six
demands immortality as much as it demands God. And it demands freedom
from this prison we call the world and the flesh as much as it demands
immortality.”

Then out of the skies there came a silent voice, “Your black clouds give the
sun its chance. It is surprise, it is escape from darkness to light that makes life so rich. Your prison is also your paint box from which all the beauty
you know is pouring. Lanao, where you now sit, is one of the most
beautiful creations in all the reaches of space. And here you have the
privilege of opening eyes to see beauty, which otherwise would not see. It
is selfish of you to desire to escape, until you can take humanity with you.

You are not Christlike until you demand that even after you die, your soul
shall stay and help others come through to the larger life. I almost fear that my nightly visions, much as I love to give them to you, are making you
more selfish, more hungry to get, less eager to give. The most beautiful
thing in the universe for you is Lanao stretching around this lake at your
feet, for it contains the beauty of immense need. You must awaken hunger
there, for until they hunger they cannot be fed.”

Oh, tonight I so hunger to be able to tell what else happened. But that other thing was all emotion; a painfully sweet stretching forth of arms skyward
to receive and Lanaoward to give.

September 21, 1930 - Symbolizing the truth

Our search for God through narrow straits has brought a sudden revelation,
like an explorer who has just come out upon a limitless sea. It is not any
particularly new idea but a new feeling, which came almost of itself. Today

God seems to me to be just behind everything. I feel Him there. He is just
under my hand, just under the typewriter, just behind this desk, just inside
the file, just inside the camera.

One of these Moro fairy tales has the fairies standing behind every rock
looking at the hero. That is how I feel about God today. Of course this is
only a way of symbolizing the truth that God is invisible and that he is
everywhere. I cannot imagine seeing the invisible, but I can imagine God
hiding himself behind everything in sight.

For a lonesome man there is something infinitely homey and comforting in feeling God so close, so everywhere! Nowhere one turns is away from
friendship, for God is smiling there.

It is difficult to convey to another the joy of having broken into the new sea of realizing God's “here-ness.” This morning our theme was “Jesus' view of
prayer.” It seemed so wonderfully true that just the privilege of fellowship
with God is infinitely more than any thing that God could give. When he gives himself he is giving more than anything else in the universe.

September 22, 1930 - There is no defeat unless one loses God

We have got to saturate ourselves with the rainbows and the sunset marvels
in order to radiate them. It is as much our duty to live in the beauty of the presence of God on some mount of transfiguration until we become white
with Christ as it is for us to go down where they grope, and grovel, and
groan, and lift them to new life. After all the deepest truth is that the

Christlike life is glorious, undefeatably glorious. There is no defeat unless one loses God, and then all is defeat though it be housed in castles and
buried in fortunes.

October 7, 1930 - Joy in endless giving

It is that spirit of greed which Jesus said God hated more than any other. It is so diametrically opposite to the spirit of God. For God forever lavishes
his gifts upon the good and bad alike, and finds all his joy in endless
giving.

. . . . . .

You see, I feel deeply about us all. Beside Jesus the whole lot us are so contemptible. I do not see how God stomachs us at all. But God is like

Jesus, and like Jesus, He will not give up until we, too, are like Jesus.

October 12, 1930 - Worries have faded away

How I wish, wish, wish that a dozen or more persons who are trying the
experiment of holding God endlessly in mind would all write their
experiences so that each would know what the other was finding as a
result! The results, I think, would astound the world. At least the results
of my own effort are astounding to me.

Worries have faded away like ugly clouds and my soul rests in the
sunshine of perpetual peace. I can lie down anywhere in this universe
bathed around by my own Father's Spirit. The very universe has come to
seem so homey! I know only a little more about it than before, but that little is all! It is vibrant with the electric ecstasy of God! I know what it means to be "God-intoxicated.”

. . . . . .

How fine of these Moro boys to come and lean on one's knee, or run
their fingers through one's hair - or rub the bald spots and ask why they
are so! They know that we love them, but they do not realize what a gulf

- at least historically - separates us. If they did, would they be so
affectionate? If they knew all, if they knew the love of God in all its wondrous fervor they would!

And to think that less than a year ago we were writing about “the most
difficult place under the American flag, if not in the world!”

No, New York City is the most difficult place in the world, for in New

York they demand ability, unusual ability, while here in Lanao, they
demand only love - unusual love. And the love of God may be had for
the receiving.

October 15, 1930 - The pathway of true intuition

Has God ever struck you as the great stirrer up? One thing He seems to
have determined is that we shall not fall asleep. We make or discover
paradises for ourselves, and these paradises begin to lull us into sleepy
satisfaction. Then God comes with his awakening hand, takes us by the
shoulders and gives us a thorough awakening.

And God knows we need it. If our destiny is to grow on and on and on, into
some far more beautiful creatures than we are now, with more of the ideals
of Christ, that means that we need to have the shells broken quite fre-
quently so that we can grow.

. . . . . .

My confidence that this earth is but a brief school grows into certainty as
my fellowship with God grows more tender. As a discipline this world is
admirable.

Jesus and Buddha had almost the same message about this life. Buddha
said, “Abolish all desire.” Jesus said, “Fix not your desires upon this earth, but lay up all the desires you can for a fuller life, which begins within you now, and is endless.” Many people seek other escapes. Some in prodigious
work, some in reckless play, some in drugs, some in insanity - for insanity
is but an escape from pitiless, crushing failure. But I wish to tell all the
world that needs a better way, that God on Signal Hill satisfies, and sends
through me a glow of glory which makes me sure that this is the pathway
of true intuition.

December 6, 1930 - The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty

Sometimes one feels that there is a discord between the cross and beauty.

But there really cannot be, for God is found best through those two
doorways. This grey-blue rolling water tinged with whitecaps, hemmed
with distant green hills and crowned with colored clouds and baby-blue sky
reveals God's love of beauty - and God is so lavish with his paintbrush in
the tropics. He is lavish everywhere if one only has eyes to see Him at
work.

But when one comes to personality, one demands more than a pretty face
or even a soul that sings for joy. There is in the universe a higher kind of
beauty. It is the beauty of sacrifice, of giving up for others, of suffering
for others. A woman has not reached her highest beauty until she lays
down her ease and chooses pain for bearing and nursing her child. A
man has not found his highest beauty until his brow is tinged with care
for some cause he loves more than himself. The beauty of sacrifice is
the final word in beauty.

February 6, 1931 - The only doorway to the very heart o f God

Tonight, lonesome and half ill with a cold, I am learning from
experience that there is a deep peace that grows out of illness and
loneliness and a sense of failure. These things do drive me up my hill to

God, and then there comes into my soul through the very tears a comfort
which is so much better than laughter. It is "the peace of God that
passeth all understanding" unless one has it. God cannot get close when
everything is delightful. He seems to need these darker hours, these
empty-hearted-hours to mean the most to people. You and I have known
that over the coffin. We have known it when we parted and our hearts
were sore. We have known it when we lay in bed helpless. Is this a deep
truth in the very heart of nature? We sing,

“Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

“E'en though it be a cross that lifteth me.”

Is the cross the only doorway to the very heart of God?

February 10, 1931 - We are what we are now

If there is any contribution that I have to make to the world that will
live, surely it must be my experience of God on Signal Hill. This
afternoon I climbed my way to the top weighted with a sense of remorse.

Everything wrong that I have done in twenty years came back and made
me feel like a dreadful sinner. I told God about it, but do not intend to write any confessions here. We are so eager to judge people by their past, and it
is not fair. We are what we are now, not an hour ago, and what we are
planning, not what we are vainly trying to forget.

As I stood on the top very much inclined to let the tears break out of my
eyes, my tongue stopped talking to God and began talking from God to me.

“Ah, little child, I have hurt you tonight, and now I feel sorry with you. All you have confessed is true, but I love you still. I love you for coming here
and telling me about it. I love you for hungering after me. I love you for
being willing to be better. That is all I ask of people. Ah, I have wanted to do so much for you as soon as you would allow it. Now, with a sore and
lonesome heart you are ready. And after this torture I must pull you close
to my heart, tiny little one.”

And into my heart there stole another new love for God I never knew so
strongly before. I felt like saying:

“God, I do not know Thee nor this universe nor my own self. Everything
becomes more mysterious the longer I think about it. But I thank Thee that

Jesus showed us that Thou art burning, yearning, eager to do more for us
than Thou canst. Thou art like those plowmen who must break the soil and
tear it apart before seeds will grow. Thou hast plowed my heart tonight
until it is tender and ready for something to grow. I thank Thee, God, I
thank Thee, because I could not have felt thine healing hand if the pain had
not been so acute.

“God, how can we reconcile this need of pain with our effort to abolish all
misery?”

The answer seemed convincing to me:

“If you abolish. the physical suffering of the world, there will still be
disappointed love, yearnings which cannot be satisfied, which will leave
hearts bleeding even as they do today. Mansions have as many burning
hearts as do poor houses. The things which drag men down to grossness
and incessant selfishness must be wiped out. Then hearts will become sore
over infinitely larger things than selfish needs. They will learn to bleed for a world with the heart of Jesus.” There will be more suffering than
today, for only love knows how to suffer divinely. But the meanness
of suffering for one's own selfish disappointments will be gone, and
we will see a magnificence and sublimity in suffering that will make
us glad.

February 25, 1931- Why do we not always hear Thy voice?

As I lay on the warm earth on Signal Hill last night I asked God the
question: "Why is it that Thou dost allow us on this earth to do nearly all the talking? Why do we not always hear Thy voice, since Thou art so much
wiser than we are?"

Instantly back came the answer. I could see it, from beginning to end,
in a second, though it may require more than a minute to write it
down. So many of these thoughts from God are hurled at me in an
instant like that:

"When you are teaching the Moros to read, your art is to say as little
as you can and leave them to say as much as they will. That is why I
leave you to do and say as much as you can, while I say little. You
learn by doing, even when you make mistakes and correct them. You
are to be sons and daughters of God, and now you are taking the first
feeble steps of infants. Every step you take alone is infinitely more
important than you now imagine, because the thing I am preparing
you for exceeds all your imagination. So the talking you do to me is
essential. The talking others do to you, when they are trying to talk up to your expectations is more important than the talks you give to them. This is the best way to act: Talk a great deal to me. Let others talk a great deal to you, appreciating everything fine they say and
neglecting their mistakes."

March 3, 1931 - How much of this glory can one carry into business?

Oh, if we only let God have his full chance he will break our hearts with the glory of his revelation. That is the privilege which the preacher can have
above others. It is his business to look into the very face of God until he
aches with bliss. And that is how I feel this morning after two hours of
wonderful thinking with God. And now on this "mount of transfiguration" I do not want ever to leave. I want to keep this lovely aching heart forever.

But that would not be Christlike. I must now carry all I can of Him across
the river to the Moro school. There are figures and there are salaries to be
considered, for it is the end of the month. How much of this glory can one
carry into business?

April 5, 1931 – It’s a choice and I chose Christ

We see ourselves on trial with Jesus. He could walk into the jaws of death
to do his blessed work for others. He could dare to speak out against wrong
and take the consequences. He could receive floggings, could allow men to
spit in His face, could endure the agony of thorns in His head, could be taunted without a word or even a thought of anger, could think of His
mother while writhing on the cross, could cry, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I have read books which said that these
words were evidently imaginary for nobody could say anything when
suffering the excruciating torture of hanging by nails. But Jesus was such
an “impossible” person more than once in his life. This scene fits into his
whole character. True, nobody else can think of others when suffering like
that, but Jesus was better than the rest of us. Tragedy, magnificent horror!

The best man who ever lived dying because He was too good to run away:

That would have driven humanity more deeply into despair. They might or
might not have remembered Jesus. I think they would have tried to forget
him. For humanity wants to believe that God is good, and the crucifixion
portrays God forsaking the finest example of loyalty we can find. God was
betraying his staunchest defender. That cross alone is horrible. The God
who would allow the drama to stop there would be a monster or dead.

“My God, why...?”

So we cannot believe in a good God unless we have Easter. It is a difficult
story to believe, because we have had nothing else quite like it before or
since. But it is only the difficulty of believing the unprecedented. On the
other hand to doubt it is far more difficult. I must either rule out the whole story of the life of Jesus or else rule out any intelligence or heart from the universe. And if I do that my troubles are far more than intellectual - they
become moral. I cannot actually sacrifice myself for others, at least not to
death, for, noble as it may sound, it is folly. The act of Jesus becomes not
only rash and useless but misleading to the rest of mankind.

. . . . . .

“How it is proved? It isn't proved, you fool! It can't be proved. How can
you prove a victory before it's won? How can you prove a man who leads
to be your leader worth following unless you follow to the death, and out
beyond mere death, which is not anything but Satan's lie, upon eternal
life.... And you? You want to argue. Well, I won't. It's a choice, and I
choose Christ.” - Studdert Kennedy.

That last sentence is the crux of the whole matter, it is a choice, and while choosing Christ brings mystery, rejecting him brings despair.

September 28, 1931 - A continuous silent conversation o f heart to heart
with God

The fashion today is to place God in court and give him a trial. We have
had such a lust for "debunking" every good and useful man in history that even God cannot escape. It is one of the unfortunate by-products of the
quest for truth, plus an unlovely hunger in humanity for scandal. It is a
species of jealousy. We dislike to believe that anybody else is quite as
good as we are, not even God.

. . . . . .

As for me, I choose to stop following this current, to stop posing as the
judge of the universe. If it brought any good results I might continue, but to date it has carried me out into the desert and left me there. The books one
reads also end on the desert.

I choose another road for myself. I choose to look at people through God,
using God as my glasses, colored with his love for them.

Last year, as you know, I decided to try to keep God in mind all the time.

That was rather easy for a lonesome man in a strange land. It has always
been easier for the shepherds, and the monks, and anchorites than for
people surrounded by crowds.

But today it is an altogether different thing. I am no longer lonesome. The
hours of the day from dawn to bedtime are spent in the presence of others.

Either this new situation will crowd God out or I must take him into it all. I must learn a continuous silent conversation of heart to heart with God
while looking into other eyes and listening to other voices. If I decide to do this it is far more difficult than the thing I was doing before.

Yet if this experiment is to have any value for busy people it must be
worked under exactly these conditions of high pressure and throngs of
people.

There is only one way to do it. God must share my thoughts of Moro
grammar, and Moro epics, and type, and teaching people to read, and
talking over the latest excitement with my family as we read the
newspapers. So I am resolved to let nothing, nothing, stop me from this effort save sheer fatigue that stops all thought.

One need not tell God everything about the people for whom one prays.

Holding them one by one steadily before the mind and willing that God
may have his will with them is the best, for God knows better than we what
our friends need, yet our prayer releases his power, we know not how.

I propose to make a strenuous effort of the will to concentrate upon each
person I meet alone and to send him my thought of God. I propose to think
as hard of the will of God as I can when in crowds. Thus I hope to prove
by experimentation what this will accomplish toward making a better
world.

. . . . . .

This afternoon has brought a wonderful experience, all inside my own
mind. I closed my eyes to pray and the faces of those before me, then
those in the houses near by, then those down the line, and across the river,
and down the highway to the next town, and the next, and the next, then
in concentric circles around the lake, and over the mountains to the coast,
then across the sea to the north, then over the wide ocean to California,
then across America to the people whom I know, then over to Europe to
the people whom I have met there, then to the Near East where my
missionary friends live, then to India where I have other friends, to others
in China, and to the multitudes who are suffering the dreadful pangs of
cold and starvation - around the world in less than a minute, and for a
time the whole of my soul seemed to be lit up with a divine light as it held
the world up to God!

I cannot get God by holding him off at arm's length like a photograph, but
by leaning forward intently as one would respond to one's lover. Love so
insatiable as the love of God can never be satisfied until we respond to the
limit. Nor will He be satisfied until His aching arms receive my
neighbors, too, and all the surging multitudes of the world, all of us
together responding to Him and to one another.

September 28, 1931 - A gentle pressure of the Will

When one has struck some wonderful blessing that all mankind has a right to know about, no custom or false modesty should prevent him from
telling it, even though it may mean the unbarring of his soul to the public
gaze.

I have found such a way of life. I ask nobody else to live it, or even to try it. I only witness that it is wonderful, it is indeed heaven on earth. And it is very simple, so simple that any child could practice it: Just to pray
inwardly for everybody one meets, and to keep on all day without
stopping, even when doing other work of every kind.

This simple practice requires only a gentle pressure of the will, not more
than a person can exert easily. It grows easier as the habit becomes fixed.

Yet it transforms life into heaven. Everybody takes on a new richness, and
all the world seems tinted with glory. I do not of course know what others
think of me, but the joy which I have within cannot be described. If there
never were any other reward than that, it would more than justify the practice to me.

. . . . . .

Today I have noticed that when I forget other people I become fatigued
rather quickly. When I am reminded of my, purpose and start again
holding people, seen and unseen, before God, a new exhilaration comes to me, and all the fatigue vanishes.

October 11,1931 – Deepening discovery

Knowing God better and better is an achievement of friendship. “When
two persons fall in love there may be such a strong feeling of fellowship,
such a delight in the friend's presence, that one may lose oneself in the
deepening discovery of another person.” The self and the person loved
become equally real.

There are, therefore, three questions which we may ask, “Do you believe in God?” That is not getting very far. “The devils believe and tremble.”

Second, “Are you acquainted with God?” We are acquainted with people
with whom we have had some business dealings. Third, “Is God your
friend?” or putting this another way, "Do you love God?"

It is this third stage that is really vital. How is it to be achieved? Precisely as any friendship is achieved. By doing things together. The depth and intensity of the friendship will depend upon variety and extent of the things we do and enjoy together. Will the friendship be constant? That again depends upon the
permanence of our common interests, and upon whether or not our interests
grow into ever widening circles, so that we do not stagnate. The highest
friendship demands growth. “It must be progressive as life itself is
progressive.” Friends must walk together; they cannot long stand still
together, for that means death to friendship and to life.

Friendship with God is the friendship of child with parent. As an ideal son
grows daily into closer relationship with his father, so we may grow into
closer love with God by widening into his interests, and thinking his
thoughts and sharing his enterprises.

. . . . . .

Far more than any other device of God to create love was the cross where
the lovingest person the world has known hangs loving through all his
pain. That cross has become the symbol of religion and of love for a third
of the world because it touches the deepest depths of human love.

All I have said is mere words, until one sets out helping God right
wrongs, helping God help the helpless, loving and talking it over with

God. Then there comes a great sense of the close up, warm intimate heart
of reality. God simply creeps in and you know he is here in your heart. He has become your friend by working along with you.

So if anybody were to ask me how to find God I should say at once, hunt
out the deepest need you can find and forget all about your own comfort
while you try to meet that need. Talk to God about it, and - he will be
there. You will know it.

January 2, 1932 - Learn to hold God by the hand and rest

In school a teacher lays out work for his pupils. I resolve to accept each
situation of this year as God's layout for that hour, and never to lament
that it is a very commonplace or disappointing task. One can pour
something divine into every situation.

One of the mental characteristics against which I have rebelled most is the
frequency of my "blank spells" when I cannot think of anything worth writing, and sometimes cannot remember names. Henceforth I resolve to
regard these as God's signal that I am to stop and listen. Sometimes you
want to talk to your son, and sometimes you want to hold him tight in
silence. God is that way with us, he wants to hold still with us in silence:

Here is something we can share with all of the people in the world: They cannot all be brilliant or rich or beautiful. They cannot all even dream beautiful dreams like God gives some of us . They cannot all enjoy music.

Their hearts do not all burn with love: But everybody can learn to hold

God by the hand and rest. And when God is ready to speak the fresh
thoughts of heaven will flow in like a crystal spring. Everybody rests at
the end of the day, what a world gain if everybody, could rest in the
waiting arms of the Father, and listen until he whispers.

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