Excerpts from
"The Soul's
Sincere
Desire"
by Glenn Clark
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Description
Professor Clark shows the
miraculous
force of prayer in his life and exemplifies a technique of prayer that
will offer practical aid and comfort to many people. In dealing with
prayer, Clark argues that if we approach God in an attitude of patient
anticipation, openness and receptivity, helpful ideas will often come
to us fully developed.
In searching for the way in which Jesus viewed the world, Glenn Clark
writes that he made the “greatest discovery” of his life. The story is
told in The Soul’s Sincere Desire, in
chapters 2 and 3: A Lost Art of Jesus, and, In the True Spirit. The
Discovery: “…that Jesus’ attitude toward life was one of converting
everything he saw and touched into parables…To look at life
imaginatively…to see life truthfully, that is to say, spiritually… was
an ‘art’ that Jesus mastered in such a magnificent manner.
Glenn Clark (1882-1956) was an English professor and highly successful
athletic coach at Macalester College, a Presbyterian liberal arts
college in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was deeply religious, and a great
believer in prayer. He came to prominence with an article in the
Atlantic Monthly, "The Soul's Sincere Desire". He began to be much in
demand as a speaker, and in 1930 organized a summer camp in Koronis,
MN, which he named "Camp Farthest Out". Here a group of congenial and
serious-minded people met for a season of fellowship, relaxation and
spiritual renewal under the direction of Dr. Clark. The camps
multiplied; in 1961 there were forty-one across the country. In
his autobiography, A Man's
Reach, he tells how he was brought to an unusual interest
in prayer through a series of experiences, and as a result prayer
became his major concern and emphasis. His soul’s sincere desire was to
know God experientially. This kept him seeking for a pattern by which
this could be accomplished for himself and others. He authored over 50
books.
Introduction
THERE are some
modern-day
prophets
who hold that truth, like
light, is impersonal, infinite, universal, and eternal, and who rejoice
that they are selfless channels by means of which its radiance may
reach humankind. The most exalted of these covet no personal fame for
themselves, deriving their reward rather from seeing the dawn they love
steadily expand and increase into high noon and flood all the plain
with light.
From such Olympian
light-gatherers
as these I have lit my torch.
The
only acknowledgment I can conceive of that seems at all worthy of such
pure natures is the continued spreading of their light, that it may
reach a larger circle and bring joy to a greater number.
Only a few of these
light-givers
came to me in the form of books.
More
have come to me as friends bearing gifts; still more have come as eager
questioners; their very needs have brought into the light new
conceptions, which, had not their hunger drawn them forth, might
otherwise never have been revealed. But deserving of gratitude above
all the rest, a gratitude that can never be repaid in words, is
that silent band of men and women of many churches and many creeds,
whose prayers have been a mighty force in
bringing into manifestation Truth more exalted than the voice of him
who utters it, and Light greater than the lamp that sends it forth.
Chapter 1
The Soul's
Sincere Desire
I DO not know why God
should
have blessed me for
the past three years with an almost continuous stream of answered
prayer. Some of the answers were marvelous, many unexplainable, all of
them joy-giving. But, greater than any particular blessing that came
with any particular answer, greater than the combined blessings of all
the combined answers was a gift, a blessing, that was so much larger,
so much more inclusive than all the other special gifts that it
encompassed all within itself. I refer to the peace and happiness and
absolute liberation from the bondage of fear and anger and the
life-destroying emotions that came to me and revealed to me the
practicability of finding the Kingdom of Heaven m the practical world
of men.
Concomitant with
this great
blessing
came the impulse to share it
with
others — to pass it on that they too might have their burdens eased and
their paths made smooth. But whenever I approached a friend to tell
him how I prayed, my brain stumbled and words failed me. My method was
so simple that it defied analysis. Like the air I breathed, it could
not be captured and confined in any form.
So two years went
by. Then one
day,
while walking home from
college, a
student said to me: "I wish very much that you would tell me how you
pray. Won't you tell me sometime?" It suddenly occurred to me that this
was the first time anyone had put that question to me. I do not know
whether it is that every question has its own answer residing in it,
just as every seed contains the entire life-plan of the completed
plant; or whether the commands of Jesus, "Ask, and it shall be given
you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you,"
were meant to be applied to questions we ask of each other as well as
questions we ask of God when we do so in the spirit of Christian
humility and love; but this I do know: late in the evening the answer
to this question leaped full-fledged into my brain. For two years I had
striven in vain to answer a question that no one had ever asked; and
then in a twinkling, before a question asked in all sincerity and with
honest purpose, the answer came.
The essay which
follows
contains the
answer to that question. I
wish to
have it clearly understood, however, that I do not wish the method here
described to become a formula. I offer it rather as an opening of doors
and windows through which man's soul may find liberation from the
confinement of the things which bind, and expand a bit to meet the
ever-expanding love of God.
I find the frame for
my method
in
the Lord's Prayer and the
Twenty-third Psalm. I say "frame" because either one of these can be
recited in less than half a minute, and a prayer such as we
materialistically-minded moderns need is one which will demand at least
fifteen minutes of our time.
In this day of the
coliseum,
the gymnasium, and the "daily dozen,"
I
know it may sound impractical and visionary to suggest that the spirit
deserves as much care as the body. But is not our spiritual
health as important to our well-being as our physical health? Is
not the life more than the food, and the body more than the
raiment? Is not the kernel within the seed and the sap
within the oak — in other words, that which is within, vitalizing,
propelling the life processes — more important than that
which is without and can be seen and touched?
Let me stand in the
market
place
with the physical culturists and
demand, as they demand, fifteen minutes of your time every day for two
months. And while I hesitate to promise, as they promise, that at the
end of that time you will find yourself a new man, this I can say: at
the end of that time you will find yourself in a new world. You will
find yourself in a friendly universe, where religion will no longer be
a thing to be believed or disbelieved, a thing to be worn or cast off,
but where religion will be a part of life as blood is a part of the
body.
You will find
yourself in a
new
world where your God no longer
dwells
in churches and meeting-places and forms and days, but where He governs
every minute of every day of every year. You will find yourself in a
new world where immortality will no longer be sought as something far
away, to be found at some far distant time, for you will know that you
are immortal now, and that the entire universe with all its good and
with all its beauty belongs to you now and forever.
Let us take then, as
our
model, the
zeal and steadfastness of the
physical culturist, and utilize it in the field of the spirit. To
associate these two fields in our mind will prove very helpful for our
present purpose, for a prayer should be for the spirit exactly what
calisthenics should be for the body — something
to keep one in tune,
fit, vital, efficient, and constantly ready for the next problem of
life.
Now what are the
underlying
principles in Walter Camp's "daily
dozen"?
1. The first
principle is that
the
man shall stretch his muscles,
as
the caged lion stretches, whenever he can. And, mark you, the muscles
that are seen are not so important as the muscles that are unseen — in
the language of Walter Camp, "the muscles under the ribs." This
should be the first principle of prayer also. One should first of all
stretch the mind to take in God, not a one-sided, two-sided, or a
three-sided view of God, but all. Moreover, this stretching should not
be for the objective mind — which is where we can see and control it —
so much as for the subjective mind, the mind that is out of sight, the
mind that is "under the ribs."
The next principle
underlying
the
daily dozen, as well as all
other
good setting-up exercises, is to breathe deeply and freely. There is
nothing that clears the brain and avenues of circulation like breathing
with eleven elevenths of the lungs and not with one eleventh —
breathing out the old waste poisons and breathing in the new clear life
from the atmosphere which surrounds us. "This should be the second step
in our prayer;" We should pray out the bad and pray in the good;
dismiss from our mind the trouble which seems imminent and restate
emphatically the great promises of God; forgive the sinner and accept
forgiveness for the sin.
The final phase of
these
exercises
is that they should be kept up
steadily, daily, until the habit of deep breathing has been transferred
to the nervous system; in other words until it becomes an automatic
habit, so that a man between jobs at his office unconsciously stretches
his legs under the table and continues all day to breathe deeply and
freely from the depths of his lungs. This is also the goal of all true
prayer — to make the "stretching" of the mind to see God a continuous
habit all through the day, to make the deep breathing of the soul —
which mentally denies entrance of the bad thought to the brain and
expands the good thought — a steady automatic habit of the
subconsciousness. This is in accord with St. Paul's admonition, "Pray
without ceasing."
As stated above, we
find this
"frame" suggested to us in the
Lord's
Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm. The first phase — the expanding of
the mind to take in all of God — is put very briefly in these short
half-minute prayers; nevertheless, they were full of connotation for
the ones to whom they were given. "The Lord is my shepherd." "Our
Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name." Think of what the
words "shepherd" and "Father" imply!
The second phase of
prayer,
the
denial and affirmation, is
suggested
figuratively in the Psalm by "Thy rod and Thy staff," and the actual
denials are given in very clear-cut form: "I shall not want," and "I
will fear no evil." Each of these is followed by a series of
affirmations. In the Lord's Prayer, this rhythmic handling of our
problems is suggested by "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors." This suggests the in-breathing and out-breathing of that
prayer which is real communion with God.
The third phase —
that is,
keeping
the prayer-thought as a
continuing
force throughout the day — is suggested very beautifully in both the
examples we are using: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever"; "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in
Heaven." You can see in these statements a realization of the Kingdom
here and now, about us, in whatever activity we may be engaged.
How then shall we
apply these
principles to our own prayers?
Perhaps
some examples may help here. The following may open your eyes a wee bit
to the possibilities you yourself might work out in prayer.
Stretching the Mind to Take in
All of
God
1. Our Heavenly
Father, we
know that
Thy Love is as infinite as
the sky
is infinite, and Thy Ways of manifesting that Love are as uncountable
as the stars of the heavens.
2. Thy Power is
greater than
man's
horizon, and Thy Ways of
manifesting
that Power are more numerous than the sands of the sea.
3. Thy Wisdom is
greater than
all
hidden treasures, and yet as
instantly available for our needs as the very ground beneath our feet.
4. Thy Joy is
brighter than
the sun
at noonday and Thy Ways of
expressing that Joy as countless as the sunbeams that shine upon our
path.
5. Thy Peace is
closer than
the
atmosphere that wraps us around,
and as
inescapable as the very air we breathe.
6. Thy Spirit is as
pure as
the
morning dew, and yet as impervious
to
all that is unlike itself as the diamond which the dew represents.
7. As Thou keepest
the stars
in
their courses, so shalt Thou guide
our
steps in perfect harmony, without clash or discord of any kind, if we
but keep our trust in Thee. For we know Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. We
know that, if we acknowledge Thee in all our ways, Thou wilt direct our
paths. For Thou art the God of Love, Giver of every good and perfect
gift, and there is none beside Thee. Thou art omnipotent, omniscient,
and omnipresent, in all, through all, and over all, the only God. And
Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever. Amen.
The
Deep Breathing of the Soul
Before it is possible to breathe, one must be surrounded
by
atmosphere
and atmosphere must be in one. Likewise, before it is possible to
commune with God, which is a more conventional way of characterizing
the deep breathing of the soul, one must know that God surrounds all
and God is in all; that the Kingdom of Heaven is here and now.
As breathing is a mere rhythmic interchange of that which
is
within for
that which is without, a casting-out of that which seems to be bad and
a receiving, in its stead, of that which seems to be good, so the
breathing of the soul is a casting-out of all that would poison, cramp,
or belittle life — in short all that is
unlike God, and a taking-in of all that is pure, perfect, and
joyous, and which enriches life — in short, that which is like God.
Without question the very finest examples of this
rhythmic
communion
with God are to be found in the Psalms of the Old Testament. And as our
New England forefathers used to begin the day by offering a prayer and
reading a Psalm, why can we not emulate their example and add to it
perhaps just a touch of originality by offering a prayer and
improvising a psalm? Indeed, is not the psalm as much a part of worship
as a prayer, and is there any more reason why present-day worshipers
should be limited to the collection of Psalms preserved for us in the
Old Testament than that we should be limited in our prayers to the
petitions preserved for us in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the ancient
Prophets?
The only new and revolutionizing idea that I am
introducing
into
this
discussion of prayer, in fact, is a plea for reinstating the psalm, the
little brother of prayer, in our private and public worship. We find it
now lost completely to our private worship and reduced to a mere form
in our public worship. What I wish to see is the bringing of the psalm
back in the form and manner that the old Psalmists themselves made use
of, as a frank and spontaneous improvisation in the presence of a real
need, an imminent calamity, a present sorrow — an actual outpouring of
that particular need, trouble, or sorrow upon the outstretched arms of
God, and the breathing in of His healing peace, comfort, and love.
Such psalms were in themselves prayers — the finest and purest examples
of prayer that the world has ever seen, of prayer which is dynamic and
healing, of prayer which is a real communion with God.
As our first
spiritual exercise of the morning was a stretching of the mind to take
in God, so this is a breathing of the soul. And just as in physical
breathing we give a quick expulsion of the poisons we wish to
eliminate, and then drink in slowly of the new, fresh, life-giving,
body-building ozone, holding it, first deep in the lungs, then high,
turning it over, so to speak, till we have completely absorbed the
life-giving oxygen, so we should give our denials with expulsive force,
turning instantly to the constructive, soul-building affirmations. The
trouble with most of our praying, as with our breathing, is that it is
too negative. We shut ourselves up in a cramped little
three-dimensional room with our negations, breathing in again and again
the troubles that we should let vanish into thin air, instead of
turning to new and fresh air — to God.
Marvelous results will come if one will turn in thought
to God
and
Heaven, deny the existence m Heaven of the wrong thing felt or thought,
and then realize that in God and Heaven the opposite condition
prevails. One must dismiss from his mind completely the thought that
the wrong thing felt or seen is permanent, and then follow instantly
with the realization that the opposite condition exists here and now.
For money troubles, realize; There is no want in Heaven,
and
turn
in
thought to 1, 2, and 7 in Exercise I.
For poor health, realize: There is no sickness in Heaven,
and
affirm 1,
7, 6, 2 and 5.
For aid in thinking or writing, realize: There is no lack
of
ideas, and
affirm 3 and 7.
For happiness: There is no unhappiness in Heaven, and
affirm 1,
4,
and
5.
For criticism and misunderstanding: There is no criticism
in
Heaven,
and affirm 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
For friends: There is no lack of friends in Heaven, and
affirm
1,
4,
and 7.
For worry: There is no worry in Heaven, and affirm 4, 5,
and 7.
This is the kind of prayer the Psalmists of old had
recourse to
in
their hours of trouble — the most beautiful example of which is the
Shepherd Psalm.
FIRST PHASE
The Lord is my shepherd
SECOND PHASE
I shall not want
He maketh
me to
He down in green
pastures, He leadeth me beside the
still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
name's sake.
(Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death)
I
will fear no evil
For thou art
with me.
Thy rod
and thy
staff they
comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
THIRD PHASE
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Practising
the Presence of God
And now,
having
finished the
prayer which in form is something like a
Psalm, and having finished the Psalm which is similar to a prayer, let
us consider how we can turn the strength derived in the quiet hour into
the daily routine of the world of action. For the test of every life
is, after all, How do the hours of contemplation harmonize with the
hours of action?
The value of Walter Camp's "daily dozen" is that after
the
fifteen
minutes' exercise in the morning you find you are breathing a little
deeper all day. We should expect the same results from our fifteen
minutes of prayer every morning. We should be living in the Kingdom of
God a little more vitally all day. How? Let me tell you.
Here is where we can learn a lesson from the movies. No
longer
does one
have to depend upon newspapers for news; one can see the world's news
thrown on the screen if one desires. Then why does one have to depend
entirely upon one's prayers for contact with God? Cannot one see, if
one knows how, the spiritual ideas of God revealed in the cinema
pictures that flash by in actual life? The moment one awakes to the
fact that one lives in God's world here and now, one begins to see in
every event that comes a part of the beautiful symmetrical plan of God.
Of course, as it flashes by in little separate pictures of a
fraction of a second each, not every picture may seem quite perfect.
Neither would every stitch of a famous tapestry appear perfect to an
eye looking through a microscope.
Once reach this stage and you have found the secret of
following
Paul's
seemingly impossible command, "Pray without ceasing." And now miracles
will begin to happen around you.
When a visitor comes, accept him as a messenger from God,
and
before
long a divine message actually will come to you. Accept every
disappointment as a signpost to show you to another path which is
better, and you will always find the other path is there. Gradually
this practising the presence of God, or living in the Kingdom of
Heaven, will become a habit. Then you will wonder why for so many years
you had not been living there before.
But remember that the best way to get there is to stretch
the
mind
frequently to take in all of God that you can, and practise frequently
the deep breathing of the soul. In other words, one can enter the
Kingdom only by prayer and meditation. "Love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all
thy strength." "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you."
Thoughts
about Prayer
Think of
God and
Heaven, not of
the bad thing you are tossing off into
the air.
Pray if possible out of loyalty to God, for the joy of
it, not
for
results.
Do not pray to bring things to pass; pray to see things
that
are
already in the Kingdom.
Do not limit the avenues by which God will answer your
prayers.
Remember that God's ways of manifesting His love are as uncountable as
the stars of the firmament.
Do not feel responsible for your prayers or the answer to
them.
God
alone is the planner and knows best. Love, rejoice, and be thankful for
the unfoldment of His plan as you see it.
"The Soul's
Sincere
Desire"
by Glenn Clark
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