T.T. Stone speaks this morning of the world of the spirit and its uses and abuses. The two primary"fruits" of that "sphere of the spirit" are true prayer and trust:"Every man knows there is a real existence apparent to us in the boundless forms of nature. As surely, though many may sneer or deny, there is a real existence apparent to us under the boundless presence of spirit. There are deceptions and mistakes in the reports which sense brings us of nature; there are enthusiasms and errors in the visions which thought accepts of spirit. But nature is not less a fact, spirit is not less a reality. And spiritual existence, to say the least, is just as certain as natural existence. It were a waste of words to spend them in demonstration of an existence surrounding us; if our inner sense were as thoroughly exercised as our outer senses, it would be just as much a waste of words to spend them in demonstration of a grander sphere and order of existence transcending nature, pervading and quickening man and the universe. The demonstration, in fact, can hardly be other at any time than, as the word imports, a showing of the reality to the eye of the mind...
Prayer, if it be prayer, is itself emanation of a spirit into the sphere of spirit. It is not a posture, it is not a word, it is not a form, it is not a modification of body or of nature; it is spiritual effluence and experience. Trust, the deep, calm, unutterable repose of the man in the bosom of the infinite mystery, — the childlike look out into the measureless universe, nothing presented to the sense, but the soul taking an inspiration as from a father's soothing presence, — this is as really a spiritual experience, — one fact of the spiritual order...
The caution... is, not to destroy, not to deny, not to neglect, the power or the organ, but to train ourselves to discrimination of the false and the true, of the delusion which plays off its tricks upon us, and the reality which belongs to the majestic and permanent order."
Blessings
No comments:
Post a Comment