11/26/65

Tonight it is “Teach Us to Pray.” You’ll find this the most practical evening. We’re told he was praying in a certain place; but when he ceased one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Then he tells a story…he told them a parable to the effect that we ought always to pray and not lose heart. Then he tells the parable: “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; and in that city there was a widow who came to him constantly and said to him, ‘Vindicate me against my adversaries.’ And although he did not fear God nor regard man, he said to himself, ‘I will vindicate her because she comes constantly and she bothers me, and by her continual coming she’ll wear me out’” (Luke 18:3). So we see in this parable the central jet of truth is persistency. Anyone can learn a prayer, but it won’t be effective. You can learn all the prayers in the world and they will not in any way produce the result you seek. Effective prayer, in the real sense, is an art; and to learn an art always requires a careful method and persistent practice.

So tonight we will show you what one lady (she isn’t here tonight)…but she gave me a series of stories based upon her technique. Let me now tell you something about the lady. She works for the telephone company, in fact, all of her life she’s been there. So she went in as a long distance operator and worked her way up to the chief operator—now she’s superintendent. But she trained herself to hear a voice. Even if the voice wasn’t there, she could actually hear it just as though the voice is speaking. It’s become so much a part of her that she can really hear what she wants to hear. So here in her office, an operator…she has a son Kenneth and Kenneth wanted to be a flyer, a jet flyer. Well, he was turned down by United, by TWA, by American, by all of them as too small—his arms weren’t long enough. So she said to Kenneth, “Get on the telephone and you phone me and you tell me over the phone that you’re flying jets and it’s wonderful! I will not answer…you just tell me that so I can hear your voice, and I will hang up.” So he got on the phone and called her, and told her that I’m flying jets and it’s perfectly marvelous, wonderful. She did exactly what she told him she would do, she hung up. Well, someone gave him a pass to Miami. So when he got to Miami he was employed by Eastern Airlines. They trained him, he’s now flying jets. Before that, the mother thought “I should send him to school, to some engineering school, prepare him in some way.” Well, no preparation…just someone gave him this pass, he goes to Miami, he’s flying for Eastern.

He called her on the wire, he said, “I want a lovely home in a nice neighborhood.” Then she hung up. Not “I want,” she had to reverse that and say, “I have a lovely home in a perfectly marvelous neighborhood…and I have a sports car.” She simply, after she found out, she tuned him in, heard the same voice declaring that he has a lovely home and a sports car. Well, he has it right on the golf course, she said on the telephone, owns on the golf course—all within four months.

The mother one day in the office said to her, “I want to sell Kenneth’s Jeep. He’s gone now so I want to sell the Jeep.” She said, Now, that’s not the way we do it. “Isn’t it wonderful I’ve sold the Jeep at a wonderful price!” Two weeks later in the office as I walked by she said to me at the desk, “Isn’t it wonderful, I’ve sold the Jeep at a wonderful price.” I said to myself, “Does she want me to hear it again? I’ve heard it.” But during the coffee break, as she came out, I said, “Did you really sell the Jeep?” She said, “Yes, I sold the Jeep. I sold it at the same price I paid for it years ago. He’s used it for years, and we got the same price for it that I paid for it years ago, so I call that a good price!”

This one now…you can pass judgment if you want to. Were I this lady, I would say to this one, “Do not tempt God.” For there are people in this world who would try to make you feel you are responsible for them forever and forever. This lady said to her, “I have no money and just an old car. I would like a new car.” So I said, “I’ll just change that whole picture and you will tell me that you have a new car.” Five days later she has a new Impala. But she tells my friend that it would have happened anyway—“you didn’t do it”—although she asked my friend to hear it—“but you didn’t do it.” Then she said to her, “Now, I’m going to test you. See this ticket? This is an Irish sweepstake ticket. This is a winning ticket, this ticket won.” Well, when the tickets were drawn it won $280. This lady goes through the ceiling because she didn’t win the $150,000 and bawls my friend out. My friend had made a little note and wrote the whole thing out and she had underscored the word “this”—this ticket won. Well, it did. That ticket won, it won 280. She paid practically nothing for it, but she was annoyed at my friend because she didn’t push it up to 150,000.

So she gave me eleven of these stories, all perfectly marvelous. One lady said to her—and I know this lady well and I know her husband well—she said, “Tell me, what do you want, Mildred? Tell me as though you had it. Don’t tell me what you want, but tell me really what you want. But you clothe it so that you’re telling me that you have it, the wish fulfilled.” She calls my friend Holly, she said, “Holly, I went to Las Vegas and I married the most wonderful man.” This is October the 10th. On November the 15th she went to Las Vegas and she married, in her own eyes, the most wonderful man. So that’s one—all through her hearing.

Another one, “I gave his lady away last June. She called me up and asked me to play the part of her father. So I said, all right, when?—on the 9th of June. So I went to the church and brought my “daughter” down and gave her away. So, the day before, a friend called who was coming to the wedding service and I said, ‘What do you want?’ She said, ‘Well, I would like to get married ___(??) security, to a very, very wealthy man.’” Now this is June 8th. Holly said, “Go into my church and do today what you’re going to do tomorrow.” ___(??) going to walk down on the arm of Neville and he’s going to give me away. But now Neville isn’t here. “You take your imaginary hand and feel the texture of the dress you’re going to wear, whether it be lace or satin or anything of your choice…just simply walk down the aisle.” Didn’t hear from her until the 15th of this month, and she writes, ‘Holly, I’m engaged to a millionaire, and I want to get married in your church…the same church that in my Imagination I walked down feeling the dress I would wear.’”

But what I’m getting at today is Holly’s ability to hear. Blake made the statement, “Man has no body distinct from his Soul; that called body is a portion of the Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of the Soul in this age.” Well, there are five; she is simply cultivating hearing. You can speak to her now, and then you can just leave the room. She has recorded the sound of your voice. She can put on that sound the sentence she wants to hear, and hearing it, she drops it. So Blake made the statement, “Oh, what have I said? What have I done? O all powerful human words!” So she simply takes a person’s request, but she turns it around, and it’s not a request anymore. You’re simply making a confession that what you wanted you have. She doesn’t do anything to make it come to pass; she simply lets it come to pass.

Here is one with her husband. She is a minister, and he said to her, “Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had the church painted and new chandeliers!” Now he hasn’t her training. He’s a lovely fellow, a wonderful fellow, but a bit emotional. He can’t quite control that Imagination of his. He goes completely ___(??). But Holly can control it, so she said to him, “Now you tell me in your own way what you would tell me if it were painted and new chandeliers and all paid for.” That’s really what he wanted, all paid for. So he said to her, “Honey, isn’t it wonderful! The church is completely painted and we have new chandeliers and everything is paid for.” She said, “Within a matter of two months, Neville, we had the church painted, new chandeliers, and all was paid for…all on him.”

So here, this is an art. You can sit down and listen as though you heard. If you are very still it will become audible. When it becomes audible, do you know what it is in scripture? It’s the 3rd chapter of Exodus and the 6th of Isaiah, that when the vision breaks out into speech the presence of God is confirmed (verses 2, 8). Out of the burning bush that burned but consumed itself not came the voice “Moses, Moses,” and then the voice began to speak to Moses; then it was confirmed, the presence of God is confirmed. You can actually sit and listen as though you heard and what you are hearing is going to come to pass. Now you don’t see anything. You could…if you’re still enough you’ll see it. But if you will listen to something that’s implying a vision…if I heard a sentence, my mind may not be concentrated on what it implies as much as the actual sound. Or I might not move from the sound to what it implies. The potency is its implication. So what it’s implying you’re actually seeing, though it may not be objective to your vision. But if all of a sudden when you’re thinking about it you’re seeing it—as you think about it, if you hear the voice so that the sentence becomes audible—then the presence of God is confirmed.

Now, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about it. If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what anyone thinks? If I can stand here now and listen as though I heard, and what I’m hearing has no external fact to support it, none whatsoever, well, then tomorrow or the day after or the immediate future it becomes an objective fact, does it really matter to me what the whole vast world will tell me about it? If they say, “Well, you’re insane,” alright, give praise for insanity of that nature. So here is a lady, she wanted this, she wanted that, and she got it. But if anyone does to you what this one tried to do to my friend Holly after she gets the ticket, from then on ignore them. They’ll stand on your feet forever, and they’ll use you as a flea uses a dog and live off you beyond that point, all the time begging you to hear things for them; and they will never, themselves, exercise the talent that God gave them.

Now to whom did she turn when she prayed? People say, “I’ll pray to Jesus.” Well, where is he? We’re told, Call on the name of the Lord Jesus. How could you call on the name of the Lord Jesus? You do it by confessing his lordship, but you don’t pray to him. Well, who is it that I confess? Well, in this lady’s case was it not her Imagination? Isn’t that Jesus? If we are told “By him all things were made and without him there is nothing made that is made” (John 1:3), well, she brought forth a church painting, and new chandeliers, and the money to pay for it, then who did it? She didn’t pray to Jesus. She listened as though she heard her husband say, “Holly, isn’t it wonderful! The church is painted, we have new chandeliers, and everything is paid for!” Well, then if this thing became a fact, as it did in two months; and the little boy, too small for United to employ or American or TWA, so he’s working for Eastern at their expense, they trained him; then she sells the Jeep for the price she paid for it not having used it for years; then he has his own little car now and a home—all this by listening—therefore, hasn’t she found Jesus? She’s found him, because if all things are made, she knows how she made this. So she didn’t really pray to Jesus; she confessed his lordship. She confessed the lordship of her own wonderful human Imagination. That’s Christ Jesus, that’s God in man!

Now, when I think of Jesus in scripture, he’s defined as power. Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians, “Christ Jesus, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor.1:24). Well, what is power but effectiveness in realizing our purposes in life. If that power is the creative power that is called Christ Jesus and I know what I did—I simply sat down and listened, and I listened until I heard, and when I heard what I wanted to hear—well, then wasn’t that God in me being active? You can actually feel him, actually see him in action. Now, don’t go astray and worship any other God in the world. In the Bible, immorality is not sex, it’s idolatry. To turn to any other God in this world other than the only God which is your own wonderful human Imagination is idolatry.

So in this art of learning how to pray—“Lord, teach us to pray”—he gave them no formula other than the Lord’s Prayer. That’s not something which you repeat idly with words; that’s something you contemplate, that’s the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father”…it’s an established fact that we all have one Father, our Father. If I said that the fatherhood of God is universal, then I’m also establishing the fact that the brotherhood of man is. You can’t have one Father of all and not have all brothers. So that’s not something you utter in words. That prayer is simply to sit down and simply extract its meaning. That is “to contemplate.”

But in this frame, you can use the sense of touch, the sense of taste, the sense of, well, smell, the sense of sight. In her case, because she’s trained as an operator she uses the sense of hearing. And so, were she here tonight, I would ask anyone to turn to her. She’ll do it quickly and easily. It doesn’t cost her anything, she doesn’t charge for it, and she’s a simple, perfectly wonderful lady who knows how to tune in and she can hear what she wants to hear. As she said to me in the letter, “Why, Neville, it’s the easiest thing in the world if one would only listen until they hear it.” And if you really believe you’re going to hear it, you’ll hear it. It will come as an audible sound and be exactly as you have predetermined it; and not just a sound, it will be the sound of the one who asked it of you. It will be unique. After you have heard it, who could disturb you?

So here, when he was asked, “Teach me how to pray,” then he tells the parable that shows you persistency. So you sit down, you’re interrupted, alright, go back to it. You’re interrupted again, go back to it. Eventually, in just a matter of moments, you’ll be able to become so still you will hear what you want to hear. Well, if you are interrupted and interrupted, don’t give up. You mustn’t give up. You simply listen until you actually hear what you want to hear. If to you seeing is easier than hearing, well, then use the sense of sight. Because you have a body that’s an inlet to the soul—“We have no body distinct from the Soul; that called body is a portion of the Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of the Soul in this age.” So it’s almost like a something you exude, this thing called body, but we think we are it. No, it’s simply a portion of the soul. You are the soul.

So here, after you leave this night and you go home, sit down and try it; doesn’t cost you a thing. And without consent of one, if you know a person’s voice, just listen to it and try what she did. If you can’t quite recall it, call them up and have them tell you what they would like to have in this world as though they had it. Make them phrase it so that they are telling you that they have it, and then you hang up. You hear the voice, and then you sit down and then you listen to the same thing and affirm it. They said it and now you hear it on the inside. When you hear it on the inside the thing is done! And you don’t have to make any effort to make it so. This so-called daily praying ___(??) for the same thing, pray daily. As he said, “In all things pray.” So he told them a parable that they should always pray and never grow weary of praying. But praying is in this simple, simple way. It’s not going up the stairs on your knees, or getting down and crossing yourself before some cross, or saying any prayers someone wrote for you. What would you do? You go to church and the minister will say, I will lead you in prayer. Well, every word is disturbance of what you want to hear. You go into the Silence; you hear what you want to hear. How can you hear some…if a minister is leading you apart, and a thousand people on the outside and a thousand different desires in this world—they all have something different—and he’s leading a word prayer that he wrote? That’s not praying. So when you pray you’re told, “Go within and shut the door; and your Father who sees in secret rewards you openly” (Matthew 6:6). So you go within, you close the door of the senses, and then inwardly you tune in and listen. I know what fantastic results one can get by this simple, simple method.

So I can’t tell you what is your best…maybe sight is better than hearing, but I find hearing very simple. No two voices are alike. They may seem to be alike but they’re not, really. They are as distinct as your odor. No two people in the world—there are three and a half billion of us—and we don’t have the same odor or the bloodhound couldn’t find us. We don’t have the same thumb print. We don’t have the same sound to our voice, even though it sounds to those not attuned to be alike. I presume that sitting here if I said that a Chinese is speaking, to the average untrained ear in the Chinese tongue all Chinese would sound alike. But to the Chinese trained in his tongue no two would be alike. So I dare say, to them all Americans sound alike, and yet no two really sound alike.

You may think, well, I don’t tell you it’s the easiest thing in the world, but practice will make it easier. It’s an art and all arts require a good method. It must be a careful method and then persistency in practice. You’re going to practice and practice daily. You can help someone without their consent, you know. You don’t have to wait for someone to ask you to help them. If you are aware of their distress or their need, you can do it if you know their voice or what they look like. Construct a scene implying the fulfillment of their dream, and see it clearly. But when speech breaks out in vision, then it’s done, that’s automatic. As told us in that wonderful story where he comes and sees the Lord on the throne and the seraphim behind him; and then the Lord speaks and said, “Whom will I send?” Isaiah says, “Send me.” So he sends him…but he heard the voice before he was sent. Well, the same thing as this…you will hear the voice. As you hear it, whose voice did you hear? You heard the friend’s voice, you heard it all on the inside. So, “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” So the whole vast world of three and a half billion, how could you crowd them into one man? But they are that. You single out from your own being the one you’re going to help and you help him. They…here he’s projected on the screen of space, and he seems so completely independent of your perception of him; here, he’s out there actually becoming all the things you heard for him.

I am convinced, in my own case, that my mother had in some strange way some knowledge of this, because she always would go ___(??), and she would sit alone when she darned our socks. The sock reminded her of the one who wore it and she would talk to herself but she was talking to her son. Actually as she darned that sock she was building in her own mind’s eye the future she wanted for that son. They all became successful. I’m quite sure if one could trace their success to the source it would go all the way back to their mother, where she instead of criticizing them and comparing them in some strange way to neighbors she never compared us to any neighbor, not for one moment. If she did, she never found us wanting. That was Mother. But to ourselves she would always build it up and she built it up in her own mind’s eye, confident that time would take care of it, and each one would mold itself right into her image of that child. And eventually they all did.

So in learning to pray, don’t commit to memory any prayer, it doesn’t work. But take your own wonderful soul, which this is only a portion of it, the five senses, and these are the chief inlets of this age—well, think sense. You may be given to color, given to pictures, and the sense of sight may be easier for you. Some can think of someone and see them vividly in their mind’s eye. This lady, she thinks of them, she hears them. Another one can touch. No two handshakes are alike. You take a hand…some give you just the fingertips. A big strapping man and you put the hand out, he gives you this; well, forever you think of him in terms of that. There’s something about that handshake. Others go right in and grip you…a good firm shake. Others almost take your hand away; they want to show how strong they are or how they feel—well, that’s another kind of shake.

But if you know and associate with any one person, you can do that and touch them. That’s again in Genesis, the 27th. And so he came close and received the blessing through touch. He put these things on his hands, a hair…he was a smooth-skinned lad and he took the hair of a goat and wrapped it upon his hand and his neck so when he came to his father he would deceive the father into believing he was Esau. For the blessing belonged to Esau. As he came close, the father said, Come closer still, my son, that I may touch you…I can’t see. The father was blind. So here, Isaac is blind, so Jacob comes very, very close and he’s now clothed as his brother would be clothed, and he receives the blessing that belonged to his brother—through the sense of touch. So you can take someone if you know that sense of touch and bring them very, very close and touch them. Feel the joy of their good fortune. You aren’t robbing yourself by feeling the joy of another. As you’re told in the story of Job, when Job prayed for his friends his own captivity was lifted. So you don’t have to be concerned about giving yourself a little time for your own prayers for self. Your prayer for another is your prayer for self, because in the final analysis there is no other.

This whole vast world is one being fragmented and that one being is yourself, the whole vast world. It doesn’t make sense, how can this whole vast world be contained within one being? And yet, some day you’ll have the vision and you will see it. I have seen it so vividly, so clearly. At a distance it seemed like one man, and as you approached, multiple nations, but unnumbered nations in one man. I saw it so vividly one night when I was with Blake and he told me to lean back and fall. I fell like some meteor through space, and when I settled and came to a stop, there in the distance was this wonderful being. The heart was like living ruby, the whole being was alive. But it seemed like one being. As I approached it and I got nearer and nearer, here, multitudes of people all contained in one man.

My friend (who is here tonight) that vision of his, looking down on a prone man, and the prone man contained every conceivable thing that man could do. You couldn’t conceive of a situation that was not already worked out in detail in that prone man…and his desire to come down and identify with a man in that vast world of men. They’re all contained in one man. He came down, identified, and played his part here in this world that’s fragmented.

So here tonight, if you treat it seriously your fortune is in your hands…if you treat it seriously. You could go out and say this is stupid, it doesn’t make sense, that isn’t religion, it isn’t spiritual, well then that’s your choice. I can’t force it on you; I can just offer it. I acquaint you with God’s law and leave you to your choice and its risks. Only, as you succeed don’t let someone stand upon your back and simply make you the goat—that if they don’t get what they want, you have failed. You can tell them the principle and leave them entirely to themselves that they in turn may begin to exercise the talent within themselves.

You know the story of the talents. He came back, called for the one who had five. The one who had five had multiplied it because of use, and he commended him and said, “Keep all ten.” The one who had two, alright, he had doubled his, too, by use, and he was highly commended, and allowed to keep it. But the one who was given one was afraid to test it and he buried it. When he heard he had buried his talent, he was condemned and cast out; and the talent he received was taken from him and given to the one who had the most. So it’s entirely up to us whether we use the talent or we don’t use it. So I’m not teaching some moral law here. I think everyone who comes here should have acquired some kind of ethical code long before they came here. You should have acquired it at your mother’s knee. So I’m not to acquaint you with any moral code whatsoever. I leave you to your choice. So you can simply know what you want in this world for your friend and then attack it in this manner.

She told me some perfectly marvelous ones, but that last one…$280 and to bawl her out for only $280…she wanted the $150,000. Here is one, she said, “My brother had a small taxi business, and about three weeks before this thing happened he said to me, ‘You know, I have a feeling, a strange feeling that if I don’t sell or give it away, something’s going to happen to me!’” Well, he didn’t…he’s in Bakersfield…so, two weeks later some litigation with a man and a woman in his cab. So the day of the trial she’s working in her office here with the telephone company and all day long she was thinking of him, seeing that he’s free, released. She called at four and they said he’s in court. That seemed kind of late to her. She called a little while later—still in court. She got into her car and drove to Bakersfield. When she got there at this very late hour he’s still in court. Here it is ten, ten-thirty. So she went in and saw the brother, and she said, “You can’t go into the jury room, but you can send your mind in there. You can’t go in, but you can send your mind in and you can tell them to release me—I am released, I am free! Sit down here and go into that jury room and you tell them that I am free, I am released.” Then she said, in my purse I had a huge, big white envelope, so I took it out, with a pencil, and I said, “You sit right down here now and write as many times as you can: I am free! I am released! Keep on writing it, keep on writing it.” At five minutes after twelve they brought in the verdict: He was released, he was freed.

Now, she did not give me the nature of the trial, why he was on trial, why they brought the action against him. She just gave me the facts, that here he was, he had this premonition that something would happen if he didn’t sell his small taxi business. He didn’t sell, and two weeks later he’s litigating with this man and a woman. While the jury was locked up, she drove all the way to Bakersfield, and told the story: You can’t go in there physically, but you can go there in your mind, go right in and proclaim “I am free, I am released.” And then you sit here and you write it over and over and over and fill this envelope with the statement “I am free, I am released.” At five minutes after twelve at night, 12:05 A.M., the jury came out and he was free, released.

These stories are all true. I know this lady well. And this is an amusing part of it, I gave her away, and this little line (a reception after the wedding) and this lady came forward and she came to me, she said, “Who are you?” I said, “Well, did you see the service?” She said yes. I said, “I am the bride’s father.” She looked at me as though I were completely insane. I learned afterwards the lady who asked me was the bride’s sister. The sister had not seen the bridegroom, had seen none of this crowd that came. Well, I’m not ___(??) wedding’s are always gay. So she came forward, I said, “You saw the wedding didn’t you?” “Yes.” “Well, I’m the bride’s father.” And what a strange look on her face…she’s in an insane asylum.

Now this lady knows this thing well enough to know how to do it. Although the man’s a perfectly marvelous fellow, he hasn’t a chance, not a chance, because he doesn’t know how to work the law. She does. She made up her mind, “That’s it” and he was hooked. But he’s divinely happy now…he’s very happy.

Now let us go into the Silence.

Q: In the Bible ___(??). Does this mean inner talking?

A: Inner talking, inner vision, inner touch.

Q: The constant…all the time…

A: You’re doing it anyway, but you’re doing it unknowingly. A man walks the street, he’s not alone; he’s always imagining something and dwelling on something. Most of the time he’s dwelling on things he doesn’t like, and tries to resolve them that way by argument, mental arguments. If everyone really expressed what he’s imagining outwardly, you would know the whole vast world’s insane. But we are a little bit curtailed by society. We don’t want to appear in the eyes of others as a fool, and so we restrain what we normally would be outside the expression. Occasionally, a man passes by and he doesn’t care and he’s sawing the atmosphere, talking to himself. But everyone is talking to himself, only they are more restrained…but talking to himself.

Look in the morning’s paper. If there is any good news in it they bury it in the very last page. I saw TV before I came out. Every one repeated the same things, all holdups and murders, that seems to appeal to men; who’s dead that comes right out. But you can’t stop it. You’re a talking being. You’re talking to yourself all the time. The thing is to control it. If you can control it, allow only those things to come in…like Holly when she does some work for someone else. You voice it; alright, you voice it, but now turn it around. Rearrange the furniture of the mind. The furniture was set this way, but I want so and so; rearrange the furniture, I have so and so. Same furniture, same words regrouped. She said, “I want to get married in Las Vegas.” Alright, turn that around, “I went to Las Vegas and I married the most wonderful man.” Same words rearranged, meaning something entirely different.

Q: Can one listen to himself or her own self saying just what he or she wants for herself as effectively as you would were you listening for someone else?

A: You can, certainly you can. Certainly you can! And one should be extremely discrete in this world. You don’t go into a restaurant and say, “Bring me a dinner”…“bring me a menu.” And you go through the entire list and you may settle for a hamburger. But you want everything they have to offer, and then you go through the entire list and you pick out what you want. You don’t go in and say, “Give me a tie.” “Let me see what you have” and you pick out a tie from maybe a hundred ties. But you have to be discriminating in this world, and so you single out what you want in this world, not what others think you should have.

Let no one tell you God knows best. Well, who is he? Didn’t he become me? When he became me he gave me the power to discriminate; and he speaks to me through the language of desire; and he made me not for frustration but for satisfaction. So take my desire which is simply looking at and looking towards what I want; now rearrange it so I look from it. Remember also what the definition of the word prayer is. In the Concordance [Strong’s] it’s defined as “motion towards, accession to, nearness at, at or in the vicinity of.”

You’ll find this very, very practical. And share with me the results. Don’t give me anything, just share with me the results as this lady did. So Paul tells us in Galatians, Let him who teaches, or rather, Let him who was taught the Word share all good things with him who teaches (6:6). Paul wasn’t asking for one penny, nothing of this world’s goods, but do share with him the results of your use of the principle, that he in turn can encourage the faith of others by telling their story. It’s working anyway.

Q: I was thinking, wouldn’t we all be physically beautiful if we were praying unceasingly of the beautiful thoughts, the beautiful things that we’d be giving one another and would be expressing on our face? My mother used to say, “What you are speaks so loud I can’t hear what you say.” The expression that comes on your face, or I know must come on mine, when I’m thinking of something really wonderful that has happened to some friend of mine is simply beautiful.

A: Well, here in this wonderful world of ours, take the English tongue—the most liquid tongue in the world, the richest tongue in the world—has borrowed from all tongues, with a far greater vocabulary than any other tongue. And yet, to express the emotion you’ve just expressed we only have one little word, and it’s not in use to express it: empathy. If I say I empathize with you, the average person will say, “What’s he talking about? What is he talking about?” Yet if I say I sympathize, I have compassion for you, I pity you, well, we have hundreds of words to express that emotion, and only one little word to express “rejoicing in the good fortune of another.” The word because it’s not used…because no one rejoices, really rejoices, in the good fortune of another, they’re envious. But they sympathize, oh do they sympathize! Let a next door neighbor have some injury or some misfortune, the whole neighborhood rushes in to sympathize. Let it be known that their next door neighbor just came into a fortune, “Why should she get it? I know what she’s done in the past. I know what she’s done. I know what she’s capable of doing.” So she gets it…“Where is the justice in this world?” they’ll say. And so, we don’t exercise that emotion of rejoicing in the good fortune of others; but, oh, sympathy, we just wallow in it.

Well, if there aren’t any more questions, our next meeting is Tuesday. Because Sunday is Advent my subject will be Advent. The great season begins this Sunday, called Andrew’s birthday. He is the first disciple, the first one to be told the law. So you have four Sundays, four great events leading up to the fullness of the image.

So Tuesday “Advent”…until Tuesday.