the mind, gather it, turn it steadfastly towards God. This is more
difficult. It is contrary to the mind's nature to be still. It is
against its grain to turn Godwards. Left to itself it goes on and on
under its own momentum, roaming, wandering. It thinks and pictures and
dreams of everything on earth except God and the practice of His
presence. Even those who developed great aptitude for taking hold of the
mind and turning it to God found it difficult and even painful in the
beginning. If we expect it to be easy and pleasant we shall be easily
discouraged after a few trials. Brother Lawrence warns us that this
practice may even seem repugnant to us at first.

The mind of an adult is more restive and all over the place than the
body of a child. How are we to curb its incessant restlessness and stay
it upon prayer and worship? How restrain its wanderings and point it to
the mark? How take it away from its automatic stream of thoughts and
focus it on God? Only by effort, practice, repeated effort, regular
practice. It requires life-long preparation and training. We cannot hope
to make much progress if we attempt to stay the mind only on First-days
during meeting. We must make effort throughout the week, daily, hourly.

It is by stilling the body-mind that we center down. Put the other way,
it is by centering down that we still the body-mind. I would judge that
all Friends have in common the practice of centering down. This is our
common preparation for worship. From here on, however, each of us is
likely to go his individual way, no two ways being alike. This is the
freedom of worship which has ever been an integral part of the Friends
religion. We are not called upon to follow any fixed procedure. This is
creative. The individual spirit is set free to find its way, in its own
manner, to God. Yet it leaves some of us at a loss to know what to do
next. Some of us are not yet able to press on. We are unsure of the
inward way, and our available resources are not yet adequate to this
type of exploration. We need hints from others, suggestions, guides. To
meet this need, a number of Friends have written of what they do after
they center down. Among these writings may be mentioned Douglas V.
Steere's _A Quaker Meeting for Worship_, and Howard E. Collier's _The
Quaker Meeting_. In the same spirit I would like to indicate what I do.

Once I have centered down I try to open myself, to let the light in. I
try to open myself to God