's power. I try to open myself to the other
members of the meeting, to gain a vital awareness of them, to sense the
spiritual state of the gathering. I try so to reform myself inwardly
that, as a result of this meeting, I will thereafter be just a little
less conformed to the unregenerate ways of the world, just a little more
conformed to the dedicated way of love.

I encourage a feeling of expectancy. I invite the expectation that here,
in this very meeting, before it is over, the Lord's power will spring up
in us, cover the meeting, gather us to Him and to one another. Though
meetings come and go, and weeks and even years pass, and it does not
happen, nevertheless I renew this expectation at every meeting. I have
faith that some day it will be fulfilled. We should be bold in our
expectations, look forward to momentous events. We should not be timid
or small but large with expectancy, and, at the same time humble, so
that there is no egotism in it.

I kindle the hope that, should the large events not be for me and for us
this day, some true prayer will arise from our depths, some act of
genuine worship. I hope that at the least I will start some exploration
or continue one already begun, make some small discovery, feel my inward
life stir creatively and expand to those around me.

Having aroused my expectancy, I wait. I wait before the Lord, forgetting
the words in which I clothed my expectations, if possible forgetting
myself and my desires, laying down my will, asking only that His will be
done. In attitude or silent words I may say, "I am before thee, Lord. If
it be thy will, work thy love in me, work thy love in us."

"O wait," wrote Isaac Penington, "wait upon God. Be still a while. Wait
in true humility, and pure subjection of soul and spirit, upon Him. Wait
for the shutting of thy own eye, and for the opening of the eye of God
in thee, and for the sight of things therewith, as they are from Him."

Sometimes, while waiting, a glow steals over me, a warmth spreads from
my heart. I have a chance to welcome the welling up of reverence, the
sense that I am in the presence of the sacred. Sometimes, though rarely,
the practice of waiting is invaded by an unexpected series of inner
events which carry me by their action through the meeting to the end. I
feel God's spirit moving in me, my spirit awakening to Him.

More often I come to have the sense that I have waited long enough for
this time. To forestall the possi