Craig S Keener wrote in Are Miracles Real: "Many people today are familiar with miracle stories in the Bible -- the parting of a sea, water turned to wine, and, most frequently in the New Testament, healings, even of blindness, leprosy, and the reversal of recent death.

Yet it is not just people in the first century who have believed in miracles. Various polls peg U.S. belief in miracles at roughly 80 percent. One survey suggested that 73 percent of U.S. physicians believe in miracles, and 55 percent claim to have personally witnessed treatment results they consider miraculous.

Even more striking than the number of people who believe in miracles is the number who claim to have witnessed or experienced them. For example, a 2006 Pew Forum survey studied charismatic and Pentecostal Christians in 10 countries. From these 10 countries alone, the number of charismatic Christians who claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing comes out to roughly 200 million people. This estimate was not, however, the most surprising finding of the survey. The same survey showed that more than one-third of Christians in these same countries who do not claim to be charismatic or Pentecostal report witnessing or experiencing divine healing.

And the reports in these countries appear to be merely the tip of the iceberg. The survey did not include China, where one report from the China Christian Council over a decade ago attributed roughly half of all new Christian conversions to "faith healing experiences." Another report from a different source in China suggested an even higher figure. Clearly many people around the world experience what they consider miracles, sometimes in life-changing ways.

What are we to make of such claims? At the very least, they testify that many people around the world today are experiencing cures in a context of deep religious faith. Numerous medical studies have shown that faith and faith communities provide a coping resource that often facilitates better health outcomes. A number of these global reports, however, exceed even our best current expectations for what "faith" can produce. In September 2010, Southern Medical Journal published an article showing that some people in Mozambique, tested before and after prayer, experienced significant recovery of hearing or eyesight. The Medical Bureau at Lourdes has long examined evidence for extraordinary recoveries.

Most stunning to me on a personal level were sincere eyewitness claims from people that I or my wife have long known and trusted, including everything from cures of blindness to restoration from apparent death. Sometimes the witnesses include doctors. In one case, the eyewitness was my mother-in-law, who reported that my sister-in-law was not breathing for three hours. During prayer, without available medical resources, my sister-in-law revived, and had fully recovered, without brain damage, by the next day. Similar reports, again sometimes from people I know or have interviewed personally, appear widely in Africa, Asia, Latin America and sometimes even North America. Many of these reports come from highly educated professionals."

Interesting new discovery: "Bionic eyes and limbs made television's six million dollar man an icon, but new research suggests our existing biological structure already exhibits a valuable electrical property. Scientists have found that arteries react curiously to external electric fields, opening the door to minimally invasive detection and treatment of the U.S.'s number one killer -- heart disease.Discovery of 'bioelectric' arteries opens path to heart disease treatment
The research team found for the first time that electric charge inherently builds up along the walls of the body's largest artery, the aorta. The charge arranges itself so that an electric field points outward from the artery, and the direction of this internal field can be manipulated by external electric fields.

Together, these electrical traits make the aorta ferroelectric, a property mainly associated with artificial materials such as liquid crystals used in some flat screen displays. Although the researchers used pig tissue for their study, outside experts believe that these ferroelectric characteristics are likely present in humans as well.

"It's an unusual property, and we were very skeptical at the beginning," said Jiangyu Li, a mechanical engineer at the University of Washington, in Seattle, and a member of the research team. "It came to us as a big surprise, and we're very excited about it."

Having observed this property, scientists now hope to develop technology that takes advantage of it. Biomedical researchers envision new devices that could help abate the widespread problem of atherosclerosis, the buildup of fatty plaque in arteries." http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jan/29/discovery-bioelectric-arteries-opens-path-heart-di/?partner=RSS

We either choose resistance or surrender to what is; fear or love. I choose to surrender to Love. We are either in attachment to pleasure and aversion to pain, or peace in the midst of what is. I choose peace!

I am sharing an excerpt from A Course in Miracles entitled the Holy Spirit Curriculum about miracles:

"1 Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible and what has been learned can be recognized only by its results. Its generalisation is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles when you apply them to all situations. There is no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them to all situations you will gain the real world. For in this holy perception you will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate from your acceptance of it for yourself to everyone the Holy Spirit sends you for your blessing. In every child of God His blessing lies, and in your blessing of the children of God is His blessing to you.

2 Everyone in the world must play his part in its redemption, in order to recognize that the world has been redeemed. You cannot see the invisible. Yet if you see its effects you know it must be there. By perceiving what it does, you recognize its being. And by what it does, you learn what it is. You cannot see your strengths, but you gain confidence in their existence as they enable you to act. And the results of your actions you can see.

3 The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly not of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond all of them. Perceiving His results, you will understand where He must be, and finally know what He is.

4 You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for His Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses that speak for it. For you can be aware of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you as its presence becomes manifest through you. Do the Holy Spirit's work, for you share in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth. As long as you believe you have other functions, so long will you need correction. For this belief is the destruction of peace, a goal in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit's purpose.

5 You see what you expect, and you expect what you invite. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it. Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you manifest, and as you look out so will you see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you have chosen.

6 I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you see me it will be because you have invited Him. For He will send you His witnesses if you will but look upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you will find. The ego finds what it seeks, and only that. It does not find love, for that is not what it is seeking. Yet seeking and finding are the same, and if you seek for two goals you will find them, but you will recognize neither. You will think they are the same because you want both of them. The mind always strives for integration, and if it is split and wants to keep the split, it will still believe it has one goal by making it seem to be one.

7 I said before that what you project or extend is up to you, but you must do one or the other, for that is a law of mind, and you must look in before you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing. And then you look out and behold his witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What you want in yourself you will make manifest, and you will accept it from the world because you put it there by wanting it. When you think you are projecting what you do not want, it is still because you do want it. This leads directly to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of two goals, each perceived in a different place; separated from each other because you made them different. The mind then sees a divided world outside itself, but not within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal. Yet as long as you perceive the world as split, you are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal, because you have accepted only one and want but one.

8 When you want only love you will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your mind and accepted opposition there, having sought it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses for opposition are true, for they attest only to your decision about reality, returning to you the messages you gave them. Love, too, is recognized by its messengers. If you make love manifest, its messengers will come to you because you invited them.

9 The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. You can decide to see it right. What you made of it is not its reality, for its reality is only what you give it. You cannot really give anything but love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive anything but love from them. If you think you have received anything else, it is because you have looked within and thought you saw the power to give something else within yourself. It was only this decision that determined what you found, for it was the decision for what you sought.

10 You are afraid of me because you looked within and are afraid of what you saw. Yet you could not have seen reality, for the reality of your mind is the loveliest of God's creations. Coming only from God, its power and grandeur could only bring you peace if you really looked upon it. If you are afraid, it is because you saw something that is not there. Yet in that same place you could have looked upon me and all your brothers, in the perfect safety of the Mind which created us. For we are there in the peace of the Father, Who wills to extend His peace through you.

11 When you have accepted your mission to extend peace you will find peace, for by making it manifest you will see it. Its holy witnesses will surround you because you called upon them, and they will come to you. I have heard your call and I have answered it, but you will not look upon me nor hear the answer that you sought. That is because you do not yet want only that. Yet as I become more real to you, you will learn that you do want only that. And you will see me as you look within, and we will look upon the real world together. Through the eyes of Christ, only the real world exists and only the real world can be seen. As you decide so will you see. And all that you see but witnesses to your decision.

12 When you look within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it you will see it both without and within. You will see it without because you saw it first within. Everything you behold without is a judgment of what you beheld within. If it is your judgment it will be wrong, for judgment is not your function. If it is the judgment of the Holy Spirit it will be right, for judgment is His function. You share His function only by judging as He does, reserving no judgment at all for yourself. You will judge against yourself, but He will judge for you.

13 Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavourably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and have condemned yourself to death. The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only end with which it will be satisfied.

14 The ego is not a traitor to God, to Whom treachery is impossible. But it is a traitor to you who believe that you have been treacherous to your Father. That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit's teaching. For as long as you feel guilty you are listening to the voice of the ego, which tells you that you have been treacherous to God and therefore deserve death. You will think that death comes from God and not from the ego because, by confusing yourself with the ego, you believe that you want death. And from what you want God does not save you.

15 When you are tempted to yield to the desire for death, remember that I did not die. You will realize that this is true when you look within and see me. Would I have overcome death for myself alone? And would eternal life have been given me of the Father unless He had also given it to you? When you learn to make me manifest, you will never see death. For you will have looked upon the deathless in yourself, and you will see only the eternal as you look out upon a world that cannot die."

The video found at the website below describes the amazing health benefits of prayer. 
What is your definition of prayer? I have changed my definition as I moved from my head to my heart! I was taught the Lord's Prayer as a child and used to say it in an intellectual, rote manner. When I had my spiritual awakening, the same prayer spoken from my heart had a drastically different effect. The power and presence of the Beloved is directly experienced when heart-fully saying the light filled words given from Yeshua.
Matthew 6:6 says to go into your heart, close the door to your external senses, and let your heart speak to God in silence and stillness. Prayer is listening to the still, small voice of God. Prayer is intimate connection to the One. Prayer is seeing from the highest view, the highest perception, the higher thoughts of the Beloved. Prayer is directing your mind to the heart. Prayer is focusing your attention and intention to the heart to commune with God.


http://w3.newsmax.com/newsletters/mhr/prayer_video.cfm

The Little Soul and The Sun
A Children's Parable
by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God




Once upon no time, there was a little Soul who said to God, "I know who I am."

And God said, "That's wonderful! Who are you?"

And the Little Soul shouted, "I'm the Light!"

God smiled a big smile. "That's right!" God exclaimed. "You are the Light."

The Little Soul was so happy, for it had figured out what all the souls in the Kingdom were there to figure out.

"Wow," said the Little Soul, "this is really cool!"

But soon, knowing who it was was not enough. The Little Soul felt stirrings inside, and now wanted to be who it was. And so the Little Soul went back to God (which is not a bad idea for all souls who want to be Who They Really Are) and said,

"Hi, God! Now that I know Who I am, is it okay for me to be it?"

And God said, "You mean you want to be Who You Already Are?" 

"Well," replied the Little Soul," it's one thing to know Who I Am, and another thing altogether to actually be it. I want to feel what it's like to be the Light!"

"But you already are the Light," God repeated, smiling again.

"Yes, but I want to see what that feels like!" cried the Little Soul. 

"Well," said God with a chuckle, "I suppose I should have known. You always were the adventuresome one."

Then God's expression changed. "There's only one thing..."

"What?" asked the Little Soul.

"Well, there is nothing else but the Light. You see, I created nothing but what you are; and so, there is no easy way for you to experience yourself as Who You Are, since there is nothing that you are not."

"Huh?" said the Little Soul, who was now a little confused.

"Think of it this way," said God. "You are like a candle in the Sun. Oh, you're there all right. Along with a million, gazillion other candles who make up the Sun. And the sun would not be the Sun without you. Nay, it would be a sun without one of its candles...and that would not be the Sun at all; for it would not shine as brightly. Yet, how to know yourself as the Light when you are amidst the Light -that is the question."

"Well," the Little Soul perked up, "you're God. Think of something!"

Once more God smiled. "I already have," God said. "Since you cannot see yourself as the Light when you are in the Light, we'll surround you with darkness."

"What's darkness?" the Little Soul asked.

God replied, "It is that which you are not."

"Will I be afraid of the dark?" cried the Little Soul.

"Only if you choose to be," God answered. "There is nothing, really, to be afraid of, unless you decide that there is. You see, we are making it all up. We are pretending."

"Oh," said the Little Soul, and felt better already.

Then God explained that, in order to experience anything at all, the exact opposite of it will appear. "It is a great gift," God said, "because without it, you could not know what anything is like. You could not know Warm without Cold, Up without Down, Fast without Slow. You could not know Left without Right, Here without There, Now without Then."

"And so," God concluded, "when you are surrounded with darkness, do not shake your fist and raise your voice and curse the darkness. Rather be a Light unto the darkness, and don't be mad about it. Then you will know Who You Really Are, and all others will know, too. Let your Light shine so that everyone will know how special you are!"

"You mean it's okay to let others see how special I am?" asked the Little Soul.

"Of course!" God chuckled. "It's very okay! But remember,'special' does not mean 'better.' Everybody is special, each in their own way! Yet many others have forgotten that. They will see that it is okay for them to be special only when you see that it is okay for you to be special."

"Wow," said the Little Soul, dancing and skipping and laughing and jumping with joy. "I can be as special as I want to be!"

"Yes, and you can start right now," said God, who was dancing and skipping and laughing right along with the Little Soul.

"What part of special do you want to be?"

"What part of special?" the Little Soul repeated. "I don't understand."

"Well," God explained, "being the Light is being special, and being special has a lot of parts to it. It is special to be kind. It is special to be gentle. It is special to be creative. It is special to be patient. Can you think of any other ways it is special to be?"

The Little Soul sat quietly for a moment. "I can think of lots of ways to be special!" the Little Soul then exclaimed. "It is special to be helpful. It is special to be sharing. It is special to be friendly. It is special to be considerate of others!"

"Yes!" God agreed, "and you can be all of those things, or any part of special you wish to be, at any moment. That's what it means to be the Light."

"I know what I want to be, I know what I want to be!" the Little Soul announced with great excitement. "I want to be the part of special called 'forgiving'. Isn't it special to be forgiving?"

"Oh, yes," God assured the Little Soul. "That is very special."

"Okay," said the Little Soul. "That's what I want to be. I want to be forgiving. I want to experience myself as that."

"Good," said God, "but there's one thing you should know." 

The Little Soul was becoming a bit impatient now. It always seemed as though there were some complication.

"What is it?" the Little Soul sighed.

"There is no one to forgive."

"No one?" The Little Soul could hardly believe what had been said.

"No one!" God repeated. "Everything I have made is perfect. There is not a single soul in all creation less perfect than you. Look around you."

It was then that the Little Soul realized a large crowd had gathered. Souls had come from far and wide ~ from all over the Kingdom ~ for the word had gone forth that the Little Soul was having this extraordinary conversation with God, and everyone wanted to hear what they were saying. Looking at the countless other souls gathered there, the Little Soul had to agree. None appeared less wonderful, less magnificent, or less perfect than the Little Soul itself. Such was the wonder of the souls gathered around, and so bright was their Light, that the Little Soul could scarcely gaze upon them.

"Who, then, to forgive?" asked God.

"Boy, this is going to be no fun at all!" grumbled the Little Soul. "I wanted to experience myself as One Who Forgives. I wanted to know what that part of special felt like."

And the Little Soul learned what it must feel like to be sad. But just then a Friendly Soul stepped forward from the crowd. 

"Not to worry, Little Soul," the Friendly Soul said, "I will help you."

"You will?" the Little Soul brightened. "But what can you do?"

"Why, I can give you someone to forgive!"

"You can?"

"Certainly!" chirped the Friendly Soul. "I can come into your next lifetime and do something for you to forgive."

"But why? Why would you do that?" the Little Soul asked. "You, who are a Being of such utter perfection! You, who vibrate with such a speed that it creates a Light so bright that I can hardly gaze upon you! What could cause you to want to slow down your vibration to such a speed that your bright Light would become dark and dense? What could cause you ~ who are so light that you dance upon the stars and move through the Kingdom with the speed of your thought--to come into my life and make yourself so heavy that you could do this bad thing?"

"Simple," the Friendly Soul said. "I would do it because I love you."

The Little Soul seemed surprised at the answer.

"Don't be so amazed," said the Friendly Soul, "you have done the same thing for me. Don't you remember? Oh, we have danced together, you and I, many times. Through the eons and across all the ages have we danced. Across all time and in many places have we played together. You just don't remember." 

"We have both been All Of It. We have been the Up and the Down of it, the Left and the Right of it. We have been the Here and the There of it, the Now and the Then of it. We have been the male and the female, the good and the bad; we have both been the victim and the villain of it."

"Thus have we come together, you and I, many times before; each bringing to the other the exact and perfect opportunity to Express and to Experience Who We Really Are. And so," the Friendly Soul explained further, "I will come into your next lifetime and be the 'bad one' this time. I will do something really terrible, and then you can experience yourself as the One Who Forgives. 

"But what will you do?" the Little Soul asked, just a little nervously, "that will be so terrible?"

"Oh," replied the Friendly Soul with a twinkle, "we'll think of something."

Then the Friendly Soul seemed to turn serious, and said in a quiet voice, "You are right about one thing, you know." 

"What is that?" the Little Soul wanted to know.

"I will have to slow down my vibration and become very heavy to do this not-so-nice thing. I will have to pretend to be something very unlike myself. And so, I have but one favour to ask of you in return." 

"Oh, anything, anything!" cried the Little Soul, and began to dance and sing, "I get to be forgiving, I get to be forgiving!"

Then the Little Soul saw that the Friendly Soul was remaining very quiet.

"What is it?" the Little Soul asked. "What can I do for you? You are such an angel to be willing to do this for me!"

"Of course this Friendly Soul is an angel!" God interrupted. "Everyone is! Always remember: I have sent you nothing but angels."

And so the Little Soul wanted more than ever to grant the Friendly Soul's request. "What can I do for you?" the Little Soul asked again. 

"In the moment that I strike you and smite you," the Friendly Soul replied, "in the moment that I do the worst to you that you could possible imagine ~ in that very moment..."

"Yes?" the Little Soul interrupted, "yes...?""Remember Who I Really Am."

"Oh, I will!" cried the Little Soul, "I promise! I will always remember you as I see you right here, right now!" 

"Good," said the Friendly Soul, "because, you see, I will have been pretending so hard, I will have forgotten myself. And if you do not remember me as I really am, I may not be able to remember for a very long time. And if I forget Who I Am, you may even forget Who You Are, and we will both be lost. Then we will need another soul to come along and remind us both of Who We Are."

"No, we won't!" the Little Soul promised again. "I will remember you! And I will thank you for bringing me this gift ~ the chance to experience myself as Who I Am.

" And so, the agreement was made. And the Little Soul went forth into a new lifetime, excited to be the Light, which was very special, and excited to be that part of special called Forgiveness.

And the Little Soul waited anxiously to be able to experience itself as Forgiveness, and to thank whatever other soul made it possible. And at all the moments in that new lifetime, whenever a new soul appeared on the scene, whether that new soul brought joy or sadness--and especially if it brought sadness--the Little Soul thought of what God had said.

"Always remember," God had smiled, "I have sent you nothing but angels."


by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God 

I came across an interesting article from Scientific American, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain, describing the second brain found in the gut. Actually, the second brain is in the heart and so I would call the gut the third brain! Here is an exerpt:

I received this in an email today and thought I would pass it along:

Heal your Heart

by Tim Brieske, M.D.

As far as we know, human beings are the only life forms on the planet with conscious awareness - the ability to know that we know and to be aware that we are aware. We're able to perceive both our inner and outer environments and we can make conscious choices about where we direct one of our most valuable gifts: our attention.As many great wisdom traditions teach, whatever we put our attention on expands in our experience. We can focus on grievances, shortcomings, and pain, and those qualities will grow in importance to us. Or we can instead choose to shift our attention to beauty, love, and laughter, and we will perceive their expansion in our life.

When I'm practicing medicine, I realize a feeling of love as I relate to those seeking care. I find that as I direct my attention and shift my perception towards love and connection, the layers of my mind, intellect, and ego become less rigid, more elastic, and relatively transparent. This has the effect of allowing the love and spiritual energy we all possess to be communicated in a more authentic, less refracted way.

Hagia Sophia - Written in 1963 by Thomas Merton

I. Dawn. The Hour of Lauds.

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a 
dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden whole-
ness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom,
the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all
things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence 
that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in word-
less gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen 
roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, 
saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at 
once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of
my Creator's Thought and Art within me, speaking 
as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.

I am awakened, I am born again at the voice of this, 
my Sister, sent to me from the depths of the divine 
fecundity.

Let us suppose I am a man lying asleep in a hospital.
I am indeed this man lying asleep. It is July the second,
the Feast of Our Lady's Visitation. A Feast of Wisdom.

At five-thirty in the morning I am dreaming in a very 
quiet room when a soft voice awakens me from my 
dream. I am like all mankind awakening from all the 
dreams that ever were dreamed in all the nights of the
world. It is like the One Christ awakening in all the 
separate selves that ever were separate and isolated 
and alone in all the lands of the earth. It is like all minds 
coming back together into awareness from all distractions,
cross-purposes and confusions, into unity of love. It is like 
the first morning of the world (when Adam, at the sweet voice 
of Wisdom awoke from nonentity and knew her), and like the Last 
Morning of the world when all the fragments of Adam will return from
death at the voice of Hagia Sophia, and will know where they stand.

Such is the awakening of one man, one morning, at 
the voice of a nurse in the hospital. Awakening out 
of languor and darkness, out of helplessness, out of 
sleep, newly confronting reality and finding it to be 
gentleness.

It is like being awakened by Eve. It is like being 
awakened by the Blessed Virgin. It is like coming 
forth from primordial nothingness and standing in 
clarity, in Paradise.

In the cool hand of the nurse there is the touch of all 
life, the touch of Spirit.

Thus Wisdom cries out to all who will hear (Sapientia
clamitat in plateis) and she cries out particularly 
to the little, to the ignorant and the helpless.

Who is more little, who is more poor than the helpless 
man who lies asleep in his bed without awareness and 
without defense? Who is more trusting than 
he who must entrust himself each night to sleep?
What is the reward of his trust? Gentleness comes to 
him when he is most helpless and awakens him, 
refreshed, beginning to be made whole. Love takes him
by the hand, and opens to him the doors of another 
life, another day.

(But he who has defended himself, fought for himself 
in sickness, planned for himself, guarded himself, loved 
himself alone and watched over his own life all night, is 
killed at last by exhaustion. For him there is no newness. 
Everything is stale and old.)

When the helpless one awakens strong as the voice of 
mercy, it is as if Life his Sister, as if the Blessed Virgin, 
(his own flesh, his own sister), as if Nature made wise
by God's Art and Incarnation were to stand over him and 
invite him with unutterable sweetness to be awake and to 
live. This is what it means to recognize Hagia Sophia.

II. Early Morning. The Hour of Prime.

O blessed, silent one, who speaks everywhere!

We do not hear the soft voice, the gentle voice, the 
merciful and feminine.

We do not hear mercy, or yielding love, or non-resistance, 
or non-reprisal. In her there are no reasons and no answers. 
Yet she is the candor of God's light, the expression of His 
simplicity.

We do not hear the uncomplaining pardon that bows
down the innocent visages of flowers to the dewy 
earth. We do not see the Child who is prisoner in all 
the people, and who says nothing. She smiles, for 
though they have bound her, she cannot be a prisoner. 
Not that she is strong, or clever, but simply that 
she does not understand imprisonment.

The helpless one, abandoned to sweet sleep, him the 
gentle one will awake: Sophia.

All that is sweet in her tenderness will speak to him
on all sides in everything, without ceasing, and he
will never be the same again. He will have awakened 
not to conquest and dark pleasure but to the impeccable 
pure simplicity of One consciousness in all and through all:
one Wisdom, one Child, one Meaning, one Sister.

The stars rejoice in their setting, and in the rising of 
the Sun. The heavenly lights rejoice in the going
forth of one man to make a new world in the morning, 
because he has come out of the confused primordial dark 
night into consciousness. He has expressed the clear silence 
of Sophia in his own heart. He has become eternal.

III. High Morning. The Hour of Tierce.

The Sun burns in the sky like the Face of God, but 
we do not know his countenance as terrible. His light 
is diffused in the air and the light of God is diffused 
by Hagia Sophia.

We do not see the Blinding One in black emptiness. 
He speaks to us gently in ten thousand things, in
which His light is one fullness and one Wisdom.
Thus He shines not on them but from within them.
Such is the loving-kindness of Wisdom.

All the perfections of created things are also in God;
and therefore He is at once Father and Mother. As 
Father He stands in solitary might surrounded by 
darkness. As Mother His shining is diffused, embracing 
all His creatures with merciful tenderness and light. 
The Diffuse Shining of God is Hagia Sophia. 
We call her His "glory." In Sophia His power is 
experienced only as mercy and as love.

(When the recluses of fourteenth-century England
heard their Church Bells and looked out upon the 
wolds and fens under a kind sky, they spoke in their
hearts to "Jesus our Mother." It was Sophia that had 
awakened in their childlike hearts.)

Perhaps in a certain very primitive aspect Sophia is
the unknown, the dark, the nameless Ousia. Perhaps
she is even the Divine Nature, One in Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost. And perhaps she is in infinite light unmanifest, 
not even waiting to be known as Light. This I do not know. 
Out of the silence Light is spoken. We do not hear it or see
it until it is spoken.

In the Nameless Beginning, without Beginning, was 
the Light. We have not seen this Beginning. I do not know 
where she is, in this Beginning. I do not speak of her as a 
Beginning, but as a manifestation.

Now the Wisdom of God, Sophia, comes forth, reaching
from "end to end mightily." She wills to be also 
the unseen pivot of all nature, the center and significance 
of all the light that is in all and for all. That which is poorest
and humblest, that which is most hidden in all things is 
nevertheless most obvious in them, and quite manifest, for it 
is their own self that stands before us, naked and without care.

Sophia, the feminine child, is playing in the world,
obvious and unseen, playing at all times before the Creator. 
Her delights are to be with the children of men. She is their sister.
The core of life that exists in all things is tenderness, mercy, virginity 
the Light, the Life considered as passive, as received, as given, as 
taken, as inexhaustibly renewed by the Gift of God. Sophia is
Gift, is Spirit, Donum Dei. She is God-given and God 
Himself as Gift. God as all, and God reduced to Nothing: 
inexhaustible nothingness. Exinanivit semetipsum. Humility as
the source of unfailing light.

Hagia Sophia in all things is the Divine Light reflected in them,
considered as a spontaneous participation, as their invitation 
to the Wedding Feast.

Sophia is God's sharing of Himself with creatures. His outporing,
and the Love by which He is given, and known, held and loved.

She is in all things like the air receiving the sunlight. In her 
they prosper. In her they glorigy God. In her they rejoice to reflect 
Him. In her they are united with him. She is the union between them. 
She is the Love that unites them. She is life as communion, life as 
thanksgiving, life as praise, life as festival, life as glory.

Because she receives perfectly there is in her no stain.
She is love without blemish, and gratitude without 
self-complacency. All things praise her by being themselves
and by sharing in the Wedding Feast. She is the Bride and the 
Feast and the Wedding.

The feminine principle in the world is the inexhaustible source 
of creative realizations of the Father's glory. She is His 
manifestation in radiant splendor! But she remains unseen,
glimpsed only by a few. Sometimes there are none who 
know her at all.

Sophia is the mercy of God in us. She is the tenderness 
with which the infinitely mysterious power of pardon 
turns the darkness of our sins into the light of grace. 
She is the inexhaustible fountain of kindness, and would 
almost seem to be, in herself, all mercy. So she does in us 
a greater work than that of Creation: the work of new being
in grace, the work of pardon, the work of transformation from
brightness to brightness tamquam a Domini Spiritu. She 
is in us the yielding and tender counterpart of the power, justice
and creative dynamism of the Father.

IV. Sunset. The Hour of Compline. Salve Regina.

Now the Blessed Virgin Mary is the one created being 
who enacts and shows forth in her life all that is hidden in Sophia. 
Because of this she can be said to be a personal manifestation
of Sophia, Who in God is Ousia rather than Person.

Natura in Mary becomes pure Mother. In her, Natura
is as she was from the origin from her divine birth. In Mary Natura
is all wise and is manifested as an all-prudent, all-loving, all-pure person:
not a Creator, and not a Redeemer, but perfect Creature, perfectly 
Redeemed, the fruit of all God's great power, the perfect expression
of wisdom in mercy.

It is she, it is Mary, Sophia, who in sadness and joy, with the full awareness
of what she is doing, sets upon the Second Person, the Logos, a crown
which is His Human Nature. Thus her consent opens the door of created
nature, of time, of history, to the Word of God.

God enters into His creation. Through her wise answer, through her obedient
understanding, through the sweet yielding consent of Sophia, God enters 
without publicity into the city of rapacious men.

She crowns Him not with what is glorious, but with
what is greater than glory: the one thing greater than
glory is weakness, nothingness, poverty.

She sends the infinitely Rich and Powerful One forth
as poor and helpless, in His mission of inexpressible
mercy, to die for us on the Cross.

The shadows fall. The stars appear. The birds begin to sleep.
Night embraces the silent half of the earth. A vagrant, a destitute
wanderer with dusty feet, finds his way down a new road. A 
homeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without 
identifications, without even a number, a frail expendable exile
lies down in desolation under the sweet stars of the world and 
entrusts Himself to sleep.