Today’s article is from the writings of the late Gerald May. …Nature’s teaching is also a healing. And though we must indeed be taught, it is the healing that we need most. We have been fractured. We have been broken off from the nature of the world, broken away from the nature of one another, broken […]

Today’s post is by the late Gerald May There is a huge difference, I have found, between acting as if God were leading—which is what I do when my ego tries to decide and implement what God wants—and really letting God lead, which happens when my ego stops filtering and controlling and begins simply to […]

Article by Gerald May (in August 2016 eNews) In 1995, when the Internet was still fairly young, Shalem staff member Jerry May reflected on the spiritual possibilities of this new online space for himself and for Shalem. Here is an edited, shortened version of the original article that appeared in the Shalem News, Summer 1995. […]

Today’s post is from the writings of the late Gerald May

Sometimes, instead of praying, I find myself thinking about praying; evaluating how I’m praying, figuring out what is proper or most effective. While these mental gymnastics may be well intentioned, and in fact have some real value as reflections before or after prayer, their effect during prayer is to keep me from really praying. They keep me in the mind and out of the heart.

As long as attention resides solely in the mind, we may spend our time producing scenes in which images of ourselves pray to images of God. This can become very effortful and can lead to a kind of “pretending” at prayer. Real prayer requires at least an attempt to leave such mental struggles and allow our attention to sink deeply, simply, and nakedly into the heart. Bringing attention to the heart is not a complicated process, but it does take real intention and courage. It involves a gentle, steady and wakeful willingness to let ourselves be just who we are before God and to let God be just how God will be within us. This demands no special generation of images. Nothing need be contrived or censored. It is a disarmingly simple matter of relaxing and allowing whatever we really feel, perceive, want or fear to surface as it will. It is seldom easy and sometimes impossible to be successful at this, but the attempt needs to be made.

God’s love creates and fills the cosmos. This love is so immense and wondrous that our hearts can bear it in only the slightest of glimpses. Out of this boundless splendor, God loves each one of us into existence. Each of us is unique and precious to God, and God loves us more personally and […]

(from Will and Spirit by Gerald G. May. p.318) Appreciation of silence does not come with the same ease and readiness to all people.  Some find no difficulty at all in sitting still for hours at a time.  Others become fidgety and frustrated after only a few minutes.  It has been my experience that there […]

Scripture says that God is endlessly involved in active, intimate love with us. According to the psalmist, God formed us in the womb and knows our every thought before we speak; we could fly to the uttermost parts of the universe, and God would still be with us. God spoke through Jeremiah: “I alone know […]

Although I sometimes still find it difficult to pray about money, it’s much easier than it used to be. For a long time, money was one of those islands of life that almost never entered my prayer. Perhaps I would have prayed more about money if I had ever been poor and hungry, but I […]