try.

"it is not complicated to live a spiritual life, but it is difficult. we are blind, and subject to a thousand illusions. we must expect to be making mistakes almost all the time. we must be content to fall repeatedly and to begin again to try to deny ourselves, for the love of God.

it is when we are angry at own mistakes that we tend most of all to deny ourselves for love of ourselves. we want to shake off the hateful thing that has humbled us. in our rush to escape the humiliation of our mistakes, we run head first into the opposite error, seeking comfort and compensation. and so we spend our lives running back and forth from one attachment to another.

if that is all our self-denial amounts to, our mistakes will never help us.

the thing to do when you have made a mistake is not to give up what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start over again with the thing you began badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well."

-thomas merton.

look.

"do not look anxiously about you, I AM your God."

Isaiah 41.

the L-rd is my shepherd.

"those who hope in me will not be disappointed...do I lack the strength to rescue you?"

-the L-RD, isaiah.

Yes. (and amen).

"for no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'yes' in Christ. and so through him the 'amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God."

-2 Corinthians.

ruach.

"i was concentrating on the words of the prayers.  the words moved and danced in front of me.  i felt the words inside of me.  'from egypt you redeemed us, o L-RD our God,' i prayed, 'and from the house of slavery you ransomed us.'  the words were alive.  i felt them alive and moving inside me..."

-chaim potok, my name is asher lev.

by his Presence.

"ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other.  has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?  has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?  has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the L-RD your God did for you in egypt before your very eyes? 

you were shown these things so that you might know that the L-RD is God; besides him there is no other. 

from heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you.  on earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of that fire.  because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. 

acknowledge and take to heart this day that the L-RD is God in heaven above and on the earth below.  there is no other."

-deuteronomy 4.

-----

oh L-RD, 

through the powerful name of our mighty liberator, Jesus, may we begin to learn how to take this passage to heart, that we may acknowledge You with power and in truth. 

amen.

begin.

oh L-RD,

"begin in mercy a new work of love within me.  say to my soul, 'rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.'  then give me grace to rise and follow You from this misty lowland where i have wandered so long." 

in the mighty and gentle name of Jesus,
amen.

40.

"be patient and tough. someday this pain will be useful to you."

-ovid.