A Name Rising From the Depths

A Name Rising From the Depths

by Bert Kerley

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Before I start, I just thought I’d make a little note. It was mentioned to me by Cheryl, and I thought it’d be a good idea to bring it out to the rest of you. And that was the Dreaming Committee of ACR. They thought it’d be a good idea to put it to all the CFO friends to sort of try in this next year to get hold of a copy of The Divine Plan and The Bond of Faith. And the book, I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, and try and get through some of those. The Divine Plan is magnificent. I use it a lot at Bodehouse Ministry, very much indeed. The Bond of Faith, Norman, really is wonderful at bringing that into the camps, and he’s often got it in his hands and he talked from it. And it really is, as you see, tremendous truth. And it was lovely the way that you put it in such a few little sentences, people. That’s got it into our heads. That’s very, very good indeed. If you haven’t got one of those, any one of those, I’m sure that Richard wouldn’t mind taking your name and putting an order in at once somewhere and either getting it to you. But I think it’s a great idea. I must one day, maybe, if God willing, tell you what happened when I did the course on I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes. It was quite, I don’t know, out of this world.

Before coming here to this camp this year, I had to go and get some dollars in my bank. And you know how it is in banks. There’s usually two openings with two tellers behind. And you form a queue, a line, and you always seem to pick the wrong line, don’t you? You know? It’s always the other line that’s moving up. And then if you do a quick shuffle over to the other one, that stops. And the other one goes forward, doesn’t it? But I was standing in line just before I came up here. And three or four back. And I noticed a lady keep looking at me. And I didn’t really want to notice it. But honestly, it got so bad that I really had to look at her. And she nodded to me. And she says, “I think I know you.”

So I said, “Well, that’s quite possible.” I said, “I do a little bit of speaking around here. I get around Chelmsford and Essex area quite a bit. Maybe you see me now.” “Oh,” she said, “no, no.” She said, “I don’t go to church.” She said, “But I know you.” I said, “Yes, well, you know, I’m sorry, I don’t know you.” She said, “But…” She said, “I don’t mean as a… In this life,” she said. “Oh,” I said.

So I was trying to be the Christian and showing that little bit of love. And I said, “Oh, yes?” She said, “No,” she said, “not in this life.” She says, “And you wasn’t a man. You was an Alsatian dog.”

No, but listen, this is the interesting part. She said to me… She said to me, “I can prove it to you.” “Oh,” I said. Well, I’m still trying to be helpful. So I said, no, this is interesting, this bit. She said, “You’ve got three bumps on your right shoulder.”

Jenny, come and feel my shoulder. You’re okay, Jenny? Remember what I said, you don’t have to believe me. But you do have to love me. I’m sorry. Good. Thank you, Jenny. Yeah. That lovely verse of scripture, Psalm 46, verse 10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Tremendous secret in those few words. Be still and know that I am God. We read the first passage of Elijah when he had his nervous breakdown. And did you notice how wonderfully the Lord restored his appetite by baking some lovely cakes? And the smell of cakes are very hard to resist, aren’t they? That’s something to remember, because you do lose your appetite when you have depression. But then we’re going to go on to verse 9. “And he came to a cave and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He said, ‘I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword. And I, even I only, am left. And they seek my life to take it away.’ And the Lord said, ‘Go forth, and stand upon the mountain before the Lord.’

“And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.”

I went to Kentucky camp many years ago, and before going to the camp, I was asked to go and see a minister who wanted a chat. He had a few problems he was facing. He wasn’t coming to the camp, but I was asked to go by one of the CFO friends. And we had a lovely time together. And afterwards, it’s wonderful, really, that that fellow actually became a camp chairman, eventually, and a camp speaker.

But after it, he showed me his church. I thought it was a little church, but in fact, it was a great big church. And in appreciation of what I’d done, he took me into his library, and he gave me a brand new book. And it was called The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. So as you know, you can imagine, when somebody gives me a book like that, my old bells start ringing. And I wonder why. So I went on to the Kentucky camp. It was my second visit there.

And as I was greeting some of the people coming in, because I usually like to be there greeting people and helping them in. One of the young men who had been there previously said to me, “Bert,” he said, “you’ll be pleased with what I’ve got to tell you.” Because I had been talking about relaxing and getting still. So he said, “I found a book,” he said, “which really has blessed my soul.” I said, “Sure,” this is right at the entrance of the start, you see. I said, “What is that?” And he said, “Celebration of Discipline.” And he said, “You’re not going to be on it.” So on the first morning, we go down to meditation. And they got a planned meditation. One person doing all the week. And then the man sat at the table. And to my heart’s surprise, he said, “I have been reading a book these last few weeks in preparation for this meditation. And this book is called…” Celebration of Discipline. The Celebration of Discipline. Wasn’t that amazing? Wonderful. So I guess I ought to read that book. And I did. And it blessed me so much. Now I’m going to read a passage from here, which I often quote again in my work. It’s one of the thing about being a Christian counsellor.

You can use all this, you see. You can all the power that changes people, you can use. I feel so sorry for those people that are not supposed to use that power. It must have been really hard work. Anyhow, this is the passage that I want to read to you. “Seek you first God’s kingdom and His righteousness. What does this mean? What do I have to do? Or what sort of effort is it that can be said to seek or pursue the kingdom of God? Shall I try to get a job suitable to my talents and powers in order thereby to exert an influence? No. Thou shalt first seek God’s kingdom.

“Shall I then give all my fortune to the poor? No. Thou shalt first seek God’s kingdom. Shall I go out and proclaim His teaching to the world? No. Thou shalt first seek God’s kingdom. But then in a certain sense, is it nothing I shall do? Yes. Certainly. In a certain sense, it is nothing. Become nothing before God. Learn to keep silent.

“In this silence is the beginning, which is first to seek God’s kingdom.” I’m reminded of a story of a Quaker child who was at an ecumenical service. And one of the preachers from the local church was preaching away and preaching away. And this little kitty showed it up. “Mummy! When is that man going to stop so as we can have some silence?”

That’s profound, isn’t it? I am an Anglican. I was brought up in the Anglican Church when they first touched me in the slums. So I love the Anglican Church. But I have to admit, sometimes we got a few things wrong. For instance, I can remember years and years of worshipping, going into the church with the organs playing. And we sit down there, and then the choir come out, and then we stand and sing a hymn. We then kneel for a prayer, we stand up, and we sing a song. We sit down, we hear a reading. We stand up and sing a canticle. We sit down and there’s a second reading. We stand up and sing another canticle. Then we sit down and we have prayers. Then we stand up and sing another hymn. Then the notice is a given. So we sit down, then we stand up and sing another hymn. Then the minister gets up and speaks. And then when he sits down, we stand up and sing another hymn. And then the organist plays and we all go home. And we haven’t had a moment’s silence from start to finish. And I feel sorry for organists, don’t you? They’ve been practising all the week for this best piece, right at the end. And the moment they start to play, everybody goes home.

One man complained. One organist complained. He says to the minister, he says, “You know,” he said, “I play my best piece right at the end. And as soon as I start to play,” he says, “the people stand up, get their coats and go home.” So the minister said to him, “Well, next week, you can play your piece in the middle of the service.” So he did. And the people all got up, put their coats on.

With conditions, don’t we? Can’t believe everything you know. You know. But generally speaking, you know, the general Christian reaction to suggestions of rest and quiet is “I’m too busy.” Or as if you talk about stillness and meditation, and I noticed Norman mentioned that this morning when he talked about meditation. Don’t get hung up about meditation. It’s all in the scripture. But you’ll be surprised how many people I talk to. The moment you mention meditation, they go.

But you know, they’re missing one of the greatest secrets. The Bible says, “Be still and know that I am God.” And so we ignore this tremendous wisdom and truth that comes through meditation. And by so doing, I believe, we miss the secret of the power that will release the tremendous potential in the individual and in the church. And with disastrous effects. I think this is the missing link. Stillness. We must thank God that this priceless truth is now at last coming back. We’re beginning to read again the mystics and understand what made them have a oneness with God which we long for but never touch. It’s wonderful to see these great things coming back. The strength of the Quakers lied in their centering down. Getting to that center within where God dwells.

Thank you. On the BBC in England, we have a program every morning. It’s called Thought for the Day. It’s ten minutes. Given by various people from various denominations of various faiths, I’m pleased to say. And one of the most popular speakers there is a rabbi. He’s called Rabbi Lionel Blue. He is one of these open liberal rabbis. He loves Christ. And he loves to go away to a Christian place to retreat. But he is actually a rabbi in the Jewish faith. And he’s one of the most popular. He’s light-hearted, he’s open-minded, open-hearted, but he’s captured the hearts of the people except the narrow-minded Christians. Strangely enough, they’re the ones that don’t really like it. They like something stiffer in the morning. But he says this, “I passed a meeting house in Oxford.” And a meeting house is the place where the Quakers worship. And he said, “I went in and saw a lot of farmers there, not undergraduates.” Of course, Oxford is a university city. He said, “I walked in, sat down, and was sucked into the silence.” He said, “I wanted to go deeper into that silence because I knew something was in it. It was the same silence I had felt in synagogues after my bar mitzvah. I attended every week for two months, and the silence became deeper and more profound.

“It began to have a face, a personality, a voice.” When you attain that silence, you are attaining the presence of God. I had an experience down in Leicester Square Theatre. I went to see the film Gandhi. Gandhi, I love Gandhi so much. And I like it because he loved Jesus so much. But you know, there is a man there that took one of the truths of Jesus and took the whole empire out of the English empire. And he did it without wanting to hurt her soul, which is marvelous. But I went to see the film, and it was a magnificent film. I don’t know whether any of you have seen it. Have you? Wonderful. Well, in the Leicester Square Theatre, it was absolutely… At the end of the picture, there came up a list of names with no music at all. I don’t remember that, did you? And the names went up slowly and slowly and slowly. And then, even at the end, there was no names, and the screen was absolutely plain. And not a soul could move. They had been… they had moved into that silence where God dwells. Because we had seen the life of a great man. And everybody knew he was a great man. And they knew what made him great.

It was the love of God in his heart. Nobody could move for a long, long while. It was a wonderful experience. Sometimes we get this from a speaker, don’t we? When he leaves us in the stillness, we should hold to that stillness. Or sometimes in beautiful music, you don’t feel it, you don’t want to clap. It’s so childish. That’s the sort of thing we’re dealing with when we’re dealing with silence. The silence that touches God within. Thomas Merton says this, “Silence is the strength of the inner life.” Henry Thomas Hamblin says, “The true silence is the presence of God realized.” Mother Teresa says, “We need to find God and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

Starr Daily, he wrote me a lovely letter. But he said these words, “Christ-centered meditation is most vital for unfolding the inner light and life.” It is quite a disquiet. Now, we in the Western civilization have so emphasized the material and sensual, that young people suffocated spirits have cried out in rebellion. And in desperation they are turning to the East. And the older people are turning to tranquilizers. And a tranquilizer, its purpose is to quieten you down, get you calm.

To be still. And of course we are in a world where this is very difficult to be. You remember I told you when I went away to evacuation, I found a joy in just standing over a little bridge, over a running stream. And I would sometimes put a straw in on that side of the bridge and then look over the other and see it go along. And then sometimes get caught up into a little slow whirlpool. Slowly at first. And then it goes faster and faster and gets sucked under. And that’s what happens to us, doesn’t it? We get caught up slowly at first and without realizing we get faster and faster. And it’s such a devil of a job to stop and get out of it. And it’s dangerous. It’s such a thunder. We need to learn how to be still. How to relax. That’s why I’ve emphasized that in my prayer group this week. Being still for a long time. Learning how to quieten the body, how to quieten the mind. How to breathe. Breathing is so important. Do you know… And Beaver will understand this, but do you know when she said breathe in three and hold it for three, at the time you are holding it, there is a collection of chemicals working which is acting as a tranquilizer.

Did you know that? A natural tranquilizer made by God. And you let it out again. God is so good. God is so good. And then we can meditate then when we can learn to be still. Now George Bernard Shaw in his play Saint Joan says this. Joan hears the voice of God. The Dauphin, the French prince, Dauphin, is amazed. “Your voices,” he said. “I’m a king, not you. Why don’t your voices come to me?” And then Bernard Shaw has Saint Joan saying, “They do come, but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the field in the evening listening for them. When the angelus rings, you cross yourself and have done with it. But if you prayed from your heart and listened to the thrilling of the bells after they stopped ringing…

“You would hear the voices as well as I do.” In the vision of CFO, Glenn Clark saw this need to be still. You have seen in our program, and a magnificent program, and that’s what captured my heart when I first went to my first CFO. I saw something there that I recognized as being absolutely beautiful. And this flow of quietness, action, quietness. You know, the morning meditation. After the talk, the creatives. The horizontal. The prayer. The time of stillness. It was so wonderful. And it’s in there in our program. And to get the benefit of the whole program, of the whole camp, you have to fulfill the whole program. Take one thing out, and you don’t get as much blessing as you could have. It’s like the story of Naaman, dipping seven times in the water, isn’t it? If he’d have stuck it six times, he would never have been healed. It was that last time that healed him. So too with a program. It’s that thing you don’t want to do. Well, probably bring the healing. But it’s in our program, and we should thank God for it. The horizontal, the prayer labs for teaching, places for reflection. And I think this is wonderful camp. These are the campsites that I imagined that Glenn must have had in mind.

I always picture this as a typical campsite for CFO. Sometimes we go to retreat centers. We don’t have one like this in England. We have a very lovely center. But it hasn’t got this ruggedness. And I think you really are blessed to have this ruggedness.

But a place to slow down where you can hear the still, small voice. Now, have you heard that still, small voice? Or does that statement irritate you? Now, there are a few occasions when witnesses have told of an audible voice.

And sometimes, and quite often it comes without words, an inner guiding or a conviction by thought and reason. But sometimes, when given the opportunity in the quietness, God, through your thoughts, sends up a message. I was telling you about that little lad that had hemophilia that I met. It’s a magnificent story throughout. But it’s a sad story at the present time because that boy, because he had to have so many intakes of blood, and going on for years and years and years, he has now been diagnosed as HIV positive. He is now 34. He has a lovely wife, a lovely child. He’s practically built his own home. And that is against all the odds of medicine. So at the moment, just praying for protection for him. But we’ve had magnificent feelings, magnificent stories with this boy. But this story I’m going to tell you about is when we had that healing with him, and then of course later on he had more little accidents, and sometimes he had to go into hospital. In fact, he was in and out of hospital nearly all his young life. But there was one day when he went into hospital, and they did think he wouldn’t walk again. And so I was visiting him, and we were talking around the bedside, and I said to him, David, I said to him, he’d never been on holiday.

His mother and himself had never been on holiday. I said, “If you had a holiday, where would you like to go?” So he thought a while, he said, “Bert,” he said, “I’d like to go on a farm.” He loved animals. He lives on a housing estate. And so I said, Bert, and before we left, we prayed that God would supply him with his holiday.

Well, it was about three weeks after. I forgot all about it. Completely about it. About three weeks after, I was in our church, and our church has a practice of everybody going down to the communion table, and then spreading out, and then everybody has their communion. And we had a very big and successful church, so there was a lot of people went down. And I used to have the habit of getting right down the front, so that I could go up first, and then I could spend, and this is the only time I could get silence in our church, I could spend then about 15 to 20 minutes absolutely sitting still.

The second story concerns the house that I had for sale. Rosie kept saying she wanted to go into a bungalow, and she looked around and she found a really lovely bungalow. And I went to see it, and I could say, too, this was really a good place. It was worth buying. So I said, well, we put our house up on the market for sale.

And we made a bargain with the people who were selling the bungalow. We would like this house. But we couldn’t sell a house. We had a number of people who said they wanted to buy it, and so we let them go through in order, one after the other. And then there was about, oh, it was a long, long while. I can’t remember, a long, long while it was going on. And I kept going around to the people in the bungalow. I said, “I’m very sorry, I don’t want to put you out.” They’ve got a house being built, you see. And I said, “If you want to sell this to someone else, you go ahead.” They said, “No, we filled this bungalow. It’s for you.” I think you came there, Bill, didn’t you? In Hamilton, John? One summer there. I don’t know if Sheila did. I’ve never Sheila up in Brown, but I don’t know which house. But there was this lovely bungalow. Anyhow, there came the time when he actually rang me and said, “I’m sorry,” Bertie said, “but I really have got to do something now because the builder says the house is built and he wants his money.” So I was at work, you see.

And so I put the phone down. I thought, well, I’ll ring up the agent and I’ll get him to work quickly. Yeah, I thought, so what am I doing? What am I doing? I’m getting into a panic. So I stopped and I went out from my office across to the church where I used to go and practice my daily relaxation and meditation. And I sat in the stillness there. Now, God knows all about Him. I didn’t have to tell Him the problem. I just sat there, yielded myself to Him in the stillness. And as I was absolutely still, one name came up from the depths. The name was Peter. Now, this is interesting because straight away I remembered that very early on in our trying to sell the house, a young man was in a church that I was preaching at. He didn’t live in this area, but he went back to the church. And I talked to him and I remembered that he said he and his wife wanted to come back into the area.

And I hadn’t thought of him since because I had a lot of people at that time who wanted to buy the place. So anyhow, I went back again to the office and I phoned him up and I said, “Peter, are you still interested in buying my house? Coming back into the area?” he said, “Yes.” I said, “Would you like to come and see my place?” He said, “Yes, I’ll come down tonight.” So he came down and I showed him all around the place, you know, and I showed him all the faults in the house. The way the Christians do business, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it? And I showed him the crack here and the thing there and the things that he’d made. In fact, at the end I was so depressed.

You know, looking at all the faults. But he said to me, “We’ll buy it.” I said, “And you better tell your wife first.” He said, “I’ll bring her tomorrow night.” And he brought her the next night and we sold the house. I’ve moved into that lovely bungalow.

Did you see where it started? In the stillness. Wasn’t that marvellous? And we had ten glorious years in that place before we moved out to where we are now. In Chelmsford. The other story concerns my first car. Now I didn’t start driving, friends. You could believe this. I didn’t start driving until about 45. I never really had the desire. I never had the urge, you know. And in fact, I think both my youngsters…

I think my son was driving before me and my daughter was driving just after me. But anyhow, I hadn’t desired it. But again, it came in a very interesting way, this. One of the young boys in this family, whether he or he was a boy, you see, another young lad. He… it was a family really. It’s a beautiful story in itself. I won’t tell you all that. But this young boy had asthma. But in the family that we was looking after, I’d helped him to get a job. And he would do anything for me. And one day we… he wanted to… he had a job as an engineer in Ford. And he had to get to work. And so he needed some sort of transport. And so we prayed together about some transport for him. And then we saw a notice on the board. Moped. For five pounds. And so we bought it. And he was great at mechanics. And he got it going. And he had this moped, you see. So one day I was round my house. And up comes Brian. And wants to show me, you know, how he was doing on the moped. And he says, “Have a go, Bert.” And I said, “Oh, no, you know.”

I wasn’t interested, really. “Get on,” he said, “and have a go.” So I sat on it. And he showed me how to do it. And off I went. And oh, out the street. Oh, lovely. I thought, this is good. He said, “How do you like it?” I said, “Very nice indeed.” Now, I said to him… He said, “Well, why don’t you get one?” I said, “Well, you know.” Sure. I said, “We prayed for one for you. Now we pray for one for me.” And it wasn’t long before… God, in a wonderful way, gave me a brand new moped. One of the best. One of the best. I’ve been doing this five years of visiting on this moped. When I was going along the road one day, and it was freezing cold. And a little thought came to me. Why don’t you get a car? And I thought, oh, thank you, Lord. I will. And so, anyhow, the next day I phoned up a friend. I said, “Will you teach me how to drive?” He said, “Yes.” Of course, I said, “You know, I just got a message that I ought to have a car. So I think I’d better learn to drive.” Which makes sense, doesn’t it?

Anyhow, so I started to have driving lessons. And do you know, the first Sunday after that thought came to me, we were standing in our kitchen, near that big old argument. And we heard a little noise out the door. It didn’t take any much. Then Jill said, there was someone at the door. So I went to the door, and there was a letter, an envelope. And in it was a cheque for 350 odd pounds, something like that. And it said, “Towards a car.” Quite wonderful. So I start driving, keeping on my driving lessons. And then I go to a CFO Council Ring, and we’re all talking about these things like that. And then at the end, one of them gave me a cheque with some money in to buy, to help to alter a car. And when I got out, another one gave me one. And I had enough money to buy a good second-hand car. See?

So then I went in for my test. My motor test. And this was wonderful. Because everybody thought I was going to pass. His prayers are always answered. They say, you know how they exaggerate. You know, he believes, and therefore God will honour him, and that sort of thing. So I went for my test, you know. And I get in. And I start driving. And the driver’s getting… I think the license… The, you know, examiner is getting a little bit frightened, I think. I’m steaming along there. Anyhow. And then he says, when I press the old board, he says, “You put your foot on the pedal… on the brake, and you come to an emergency stop.” He put his hand on the old board. I put the foot down, and the car went all over the place. The old skin. And then we did a three-point turn in one road, you know. Backwards, forwards, turn, round. And I went up the curb. And at the end, he had the cheek to say to me that I wasn’t ready for my driving license.

But you know, I… You’ve never learned the lessons, you know. The Bible says, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” doesn’t it? So I’m going home thinking I’ve got to face my children who expect me to pass with flying colours. I’ve got to go to work tomorrow, and they all expect me to pass with flying colours. And I’m going home feeling utterly miserable, saying, “Rejoice in the Lord always, rejoice in the Lord always.” But you know, the next day, there came another cheque through the letterbox to encourage me from friends. So anyhow, I got enough there for a second-hand car. So I said to… I eventually passed. And I said to my friend, “Would you come out with me to look at this car that someone had told me was a good one?” And he was very good at it. And he said, “Okay.” Now, that morning before we went out, I sat again in that stillness. Got it? Got it? But very, very still, before we go out, aware that this is of God, you see, is His car. All I asked for was a good gearbox and four wheels, four doors. Let Him choose the rest. Anyhow, I am sitting there quiet, very quiet. And then, up from the depths comes the last line of one of those choruses we’ve had from CFO this week.

“Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?” Got it? Now, if you’re looking at that book, the very last line, I think it’s at the second verse, is this. This is all that came up. “Pray, love, and wait. And He’ll bring the best to you.” That’s all that came up, but it stuck in my mind. So we went to see this car and he examined it. He went all around it. He said, “It’s a good buy, Bert.” And it looked good. So I said to him, “Tell me this, Peter.” I said, Peter Taylor, Norman. I said to him, “Do you think that this is the best God could give to me?”

And he said, “Oh no, if you put it like that, no.” So I said to the gentleman, “Well, thank you very much. No, we won’t buy the car.” Do you know, and just after that, another check came, which made it possible for me to buy a brand new car. Okay? But it’s that still small voice. If it hadn’t have been for that, I would have bought that car. Now, that doesn’t mean to say I’m always waiting to hear these voices. That’s not so. But what I’m trying to show you, that it does happen. Sometimes this happens, and you know it’s happened, from deep within you.

So I urge that we practice this stillness. We practice it, we be patient, we don’t strive. It’s going to be difficult for you youngsters, but I would recommend it because when you come to your examination times, if you could learn to be still, to be aware that the Lord’s in your sort of corner. Got it? You relax, you let go of the results, and all you do is sit there and just do your best, and let it flow. You’ve done your work well, if you’ve done your work well. You don’t have to be anxious about the results, because He’s got you in His hands. Got it? And then you just write out. And you’ll be surprised. Because you are relaxed, and because your thoughts are working beautifully, up will come the answers of the questions that you’ve been asked about it. The wisdom will come from deep within too. It’s tremendous. You don’t have to be worried or anxious about examinations. Just give yourself to God. But if nothing dramatic happens, nothing obvious comes at first, there are still tremendous benefits to have from this practice. Your thinking becomes more orderly. Your fears subside.

We become more efficient at what we do. We enjoy what we do. Our spiritual awareness grows in the everyday. Our consciousness grows. Our Christ consciousness grows. You know that everybody has a level of consciousness, which is the Christ consciousness. You have the self consciousness, you have the subconscious, you have the unconscious, but you also have the Christ consciousness. And when you’re living in Christ, you are allowing the Christ consciousness to come through.

The practice of Christian meditation enables us to know God and to know ourselves. And Socrates says the great secret is to know yourself. There are many secrets to be learned in the kingdom of heaven. In my search for the kingdom, I read the stories in the Bible. I do read my Bible. A lot of people don’t think I read it. But I do read it a lot because I talk about a lot of other books. But as you can see, that’s in tablets really. But all the other books make this so much more and more precious.

But one of the things I used to want to know is when the Bible says, “He took His disciples aside and taught them secrets.” I wish I was there then. He told the people in parables, then He would tell other things. I wonder what He told them.

That’s where I wanted to be. Starr Daily tells a very interesting story in one of his books. His wife visited a friend in hospital. She was a young woman in the final stage of cancer. She was paralyzed from the waist down. She was given one or two weeks to live. Starr went into a hammock in his garden or yard. He meditated for an hour. And suddenly he felt an unattable sense of assurance. He said, that all was well. So he went into his house and he told his wife, “It’s been done.”

“What’s been done?” she said. “The woman,” he said, “she’s been healed.” The patient was discharged to a rest home two weeks later. In checking the exact time of healing, it was as Starr stated. The recovery was complete in six weeks. I thought that’s a wonderful story. But you know what I wanted to know? What did he do in that hammock?

That’s what I asked. What did he do? He learned the art of being still. Of meditating. Of getting into the presence. Something wonderful happened. Let’s all in some way try to get some more moments to spend in stillness this next year.

Let’s try and get to that point where we can know ourselves and know God. I’m just going to close with a prayer now before we have the 9 o’clock prayer. This prayer was read over on the BBC a long, long time ago and I wrote up for it. But actually it’s in one of my own books now, I notice. And I’d like us all to just relax, close our eyes while I read this prayer out.

Slow me down, Lord. Ease the pounding of my heart by the quietening of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time. Give me, amidst the confusion of my day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory. Help me to know the magical restoring power of sleep. Teach me the art of taking minute vacations. Of slowing down to look at a flower.

To chat with a friend. To pat a dog. To read a few lines from a good book. Remind me each day of the fable of the hare and the tortoise. That I may know that the race is not always to the swift.

That there is more to life than measuring its speed. Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak. And know that it grew great and strong. Because it grew slowly and well. Slow me down, Lord. And inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values. That I may grow toward the stars of my enduring destiny.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Let it be peace on earth. And let it begin with me. Amen.