hink of the person you are in love with? Must you be forced to yearn
for the loved one?

Worship is a hunger of the human soul for God. When it really occurs, it
is as compelling as the hunger for food. It is as spontaneous as the
love of boy for girl. If we feel it, no one needs tell us we should
worship. No one has to try to make us do it. If we do not feel it, or
have no desire to feel it, no amount of urging or forcing will do any
good. We simply cannot be forced, from the outside, to worship. Only the
power within us, the life within, can move us to it.

But others can guide our preliminary efforts. They can help us to
prepare to worship. Such preparation, as Rufus Jones has said, is the
most important business in the world. Others can provide conditions,
such as the Friends meeting for worship, thanks to which the desire to
worship may spring up and grow. The meeting for worship came into
existence because the early Friends were powerfully moved to worship
together and meet the spiritual needs of one another. I use the word
_needs_. Their spiritual needs were more dynamic than ours--or
theirs--for food and shelter. Neither threats of violence nor active
persecution could keep them away from their meetings.

Why is it that some of us would rather go to a movie, or listen to the
radio, or see a ball game, or read an exciting book? One reason, it must
be acknowledged, is because our meetings today are sometimes dull and
unliving. We assemble in our meeting houses, but nothing happens. A
related reason is that many of us have not yet awakened spiritually. Our
bodies are active. Our minds are alert. But not our spirits. Such
awakening, however, will come in due time, if we encourage it, if we do
our part to prepare for it, if we live honestly and are true to
ourselves, face life with clear eyes, and continue growing.

The main reason why we do not worship, or do not want to, is that God is
not yet sufficiently real to us. He is not as real to us as our human
father. His power is not as real to us as the power of man's brain and
muscles, as steam power, as electricity. Worship expresses man's
relationship to God. How then can we worship if we are not aware of this
relationship, if the main party to it is unreal to us?

Some people speak of worshiping things that are not of God. God being
unreal to them, their relation to Him being unrecognized, they turn to
what is real to them, and engage in various so-called worsh