from the book titled Love Can Open Prison Doors
^{by Starr Daily}

Except for idiocy and other conditions of mental invalidism, personal failure is indefensible. The failure is his own indictment and conviction.
During the last two years I have interviewed more than three hundred men and women who have openly admitted they were abject failures in life. In each case I have asked, Why? And in every instance the answer has been in the character of an alibi. But in no case has the failure laid the blame for defeat at his or her own door.
In my own experience and in the cases of all others I have found this to be an inescapable truth: that when a man offers an excuse, an alibi for himself, or in any way lays the blame for his weakness, conditions, or failures on some one or some thing outside himself, he is invariably wrong, and in nine cases out of ten he is a weakling and a coward who is roundly condemned by his own spirit.
His alibis may and generally do enlist the sympathy of those upon whom they are practiced. But if he is a normal human being, there is one person who will not accept his offering, and that is the person who is his real self. Mild of manner, easy-going, and infinitely patient, this real person, who dwells silently within him, listens to his excuses and then whispers softly, You must tell it to your friend George: but not to me.
If you insist, this quiet man within will begin to shame you with a long string of apt comparisons. He will point out those who have less advantage and native ability, but who are successful. He will take you into the bedrooms of the ill and incapacitated and let you observe courage at work in the service of humanity. He will present you with a long list of names in the huge book of political, industrial, artistic, cultural, civic, religious, and scientific life. Then he will tell you how many of these were practically illiterate, inarticulate, friendless, without direction, influence, or prestige but took advantage of opportunities that have swirled unnoticed about you all your life.
This inner man once spoke to a friend through Thomas Edison. The great inventor and his friend were walking along a city street. The friend wanted to know if it were not very difficult to succeed in this high-speed world of terrific competition. Mr. Edison's eyes directed the gaze of his friend to a ragged, prematurely old man on whose bent shoulders lay a large sack of junk. Then he answered: Yes; but it is more difficult to fail.
On a day in the spring of 1930 I sat in the cell of a fellow convict. As I had done, he had wasted the best years of his life behind prison bars. He was telling me that he was sick and tired of prison bells, profitless labor, and convict hash. But at forty it was too late to think of turning Honest John.
I inquired into his particular brand of reasons for failure , because all criminals are failures, whether they be big protected ones who never see prison, or little unprotected ones who rarely see anything else. He had figured it all out and possessed an alibi as iron-clad as the cell door behind which we sat. He could trace it all back to an unhappy instance in his childhood when a too stern father flailed the hide off him because he wanted to see what made the wheels go around in the family clock. Had his unimaginative dad been more appreciative of the genius behind his destructive curiosity, he might now be a mechanical engineer instead of a weary slave in the prison rock quarry.
I'm dressing out next month, I told him. And I'm never coming back.
Whatta ya think you're gonna do'? he asked, giving me a wise smile.
I learned the tricks of making dishonest money, was my reply, and to the degree I succeeded I failed. Now I'm going to learn the art of earning an honest living. Isn't that good logic?
He assured me that eighty per cent of the convicts were two, three, and four-time losers, and that every one of them had made that same remark a thousand times. But it don't mean anything, he added. It's just like the resolution a drunk makes on the morning after. He's never gonna take another drink as long as he lives. But in a couple o' hours he's all lit up again, an' everything looks Jake.
I insisted that mine was not an idle New Year's resolution. But what can you do? You don't know how to work. When you go out you'll meet twenty million Honest Johns who do know how, and who know all the ropes about getting jobs. They'll be your competitors in the labor market. They're skilled workers; got good names an' reputations. They can face employers with the best. But what have you to offer ? Just a life of crime. A penitentiary pallor and a lock-step hitch in your gait. A fat chance you'll have. At best I give you six months to try this bug-house notion. Just long enough for the soup-line to stare you in the face. Then you'll wake up with a bang and blast open the first safe you come across.
He did not understand that I had already wakened with a bang while lying half dead in solitary confinement. There in a moment's time the folly of crime and the stupidity of hatred appeared clear cut in my consciousness, and I got an authentic glimpse of the greatest power in all the world, the power of love, which, when lived with any measure of proficiency, could see you through any emergency, dissolve your toughest problems, cause you to lives serenely, triumphantly, and successfully at any time and in any place; that with love on your side as a philosophy of life every obstacle and opposition could be discerned in its true light, as an opportunity to call forth your power.
This was a magnificent vision, although I did have to get it through blind suffering. It has sustained me in all the hard hours since I left the prison, and has turned every difficulty into a glorious challenge and blessing.
After I had caught it, my powers of recollection were stimulated, and I wondered how I could have been so blind as not to see that love and not hate was the real power in this world.
Instantly I began to recall events in my past when the truth of love's power had been made so plain that only a midnight soul could have failed to recognize it. Now, looking back, I could see how the power of love had performed strange things in my life.
I recalled a time when I was being held in jail on suspicion of burglary. For two days and nights I had been subjected to third degree police methods in an effort to torture a confession out of me. My head had been beaten with a rubber hose until it resembled a huge stone bruise, swollen beyond human shape, my face black from the congealed blood beneath the surface. Lighted cigars had been pressed against my flesh. I had hung for three hours with my wrists handcuffed over a hot steam pipe. My arms had been twisted behind me and my elbows beaten with black-jacks until the bones felt crunchy. Heavy heels had ground my bare feet against a concrete floor. On the third night of this I was about at the end of my endurance.
Again I was dragged into the torture room and sat down within the semi-circle of twelve big detectives. My previous sustaining energy of hate and anger had dwindled into a dull sense of indifference. I was alarmed at this new state of affairs. For I had learned that pain could easily be assimilated if sufficient hatred could be thrown against it. I did not want to weaken. Death was preferable. But could I stand the pain without the sustaining force of hate?
You'd better open up and come clean, the Chief informed me. If you don't you're gonna get the works. Y' understand?
I continued to sit in silence, expecting the worst, and wondering if I would be able to take it.
All right, boys, said the Chief. Get busy. Let the rat have it.
It was the show down. Unless I broke, my life was not worth a dime. I knew this as two of the detectives stepped towards me. Then a strange thing took place in my consciousness. All hate and anger were gone. The vague sense of indifference vanished. And in an unbidden instant there welled up within me an overwhelming compassion for these men, for their pathetic ignorance, their undeveloped souls, for the pitiful condition of their minds and hearts. And as this strange sentiment reached a high peak of intensity within me the Chief spoke, and what he said constituted a minor miracle.
Don't hit him again, he barked out. Take him back. I was returned to my cell, and for the remainder of the night I was under the care of a doctor. The next morning I was transferred to a private hospital, where I lived for three weeks. Every day a number of women came to see me, bringing flowers and other gifts. It was all quite mystifying, and the nurses' guarded explanations did not clarify the mystery. These women were the wives of city detectives. I could not figure the thing out. I was only a friendless, unprotected criminal. They had no reason to placate me with gifts and attention because they feared what I might reveal. I was told not to worry about anything, that all bills would be paid. Nor was I returned to the jail on being discharged from the hospital. Instead I was given an envelope and told that I was free to go. In the envelope was no word of explanation. Only five crisp, ten-dollar bills.
It was not until twenty years later, twenty years filled with crime and punishment, that I was able to see through this mystery, and to know the power, because of which my life had been spared and this odd consideration shown me.
On another occasion when I was on the dealer's side of the table, I was an unseeing witness to this transmuting power of love in action. I was robbing the safe in the home of a priest. He surprised me in the act. From a stairway above me I heard his unexpected voice: What are you doing there, my child?
I wheeled, my flashlight and gun on him. He was in a night robe and unarmed. Stand where you are, I commanded sharply. I've got you covered.
I mean you no harm. His voice had a rare accent of kindliness and honor in it. Slowly he began descending the steps.
Stop, or I'll drop you! I commanded him. With superb assurance he came on, reached the bottom, and walked leisurely over to a light switch and pressed the button. Turning to me, then, he said: Put your gun down, my child. I only want to talk with you a little while.
Logically, of course, from my point of view, I was in a close place with the odds in my favour. It was not sound criminal judgment for me to accede to his request. The correct procedure under the circumstances would have been to tie him and gag him, then to proceed with the business at hand.
What a singular thing for me to do! I obeyed him and sat in the chair he pointed out. I say singular, because it was so illogical, unreasonable from the viewpoint of a confirmed crimester-- and because, also, I listened to him while he talked to me about God in a most singular way-- a way in which there seemed to be nothing offensive to my God-hating mind. God might have been my own father, or an elder brother, or a very close friend, anything but the fierce-eyed black-bearded monster of wrath, anger, and fire I had heard so much about.
At two o'clock in the morning I accepted this priest's invitation, went with him into the kitchen, and joined him in a cold bite. I left his home without taking his money. He shook my hand and blessed me. I had no fear that when I was out of sight he would exercise what the world calls duty and call the police. To this day I am sure he never mentioned my nocturnal visit.
What was this strange power he possessed over me? He did this because his love was genuine, not the romantic, sentimental emotion that men call love; but that deep sense of compassionate being which was so eloquently expressed by the Master when He said Neither do I condemn thee. Nothing less than love could have caused me to act in a manner diametrically opposite to my habitual character as a criminal.
You see, I am introducing you to my theme. I am telling you about a power that resides in the hearts of men, which is a power greater than any power ever to be discovered in the realm of natural science.
It is a power possessed by all, but recognized by few. It is the most dynamic and readily accessible power in the universe of men. Every man can contain and express this power. It is practical. And because it is accessible to every man and because it is practical, I am perfectly safe in making again the boldest statement ever made by another human being: that, except by idiocy and other conditions of mental invalidism, failure is indefensible.
Occasionally when a man has suffered enough he will accept this power and use it. Sometimes his suffering is so great that the sheer intensity of his need will awaken him to this power which is closer to him than breath, and will heal him instantly. I call love the last experiment, because though it is the closest and most fundamental thing in a person's life, it is the last thing he will turn to for help when he is in distress.
In talking to you about love I shall not get mushy and sentimental. For love is everything that sentimentalism is not. Love is power, while sentimentalism is the misuse of power. In its practical application love is as precise and scientific as mathematics. Without it there could be no universe, no cell organization of any kind. Because love is the only integrating power in existence. It is all that can establish order out of chaos or maintain order in chaos.
Whenever it is recognized by man he likewise recognizes harmony. Love is never a disintegrating force. Science deals with disintegrating natural forces; but wisdom deals with the power of love. Natural forces lead to change: love to permanence. Love simplifies life. All that is less than pure love complicates it. Love is endurable, eternal. It is the one ultimate expression which can combine and sustain all principles of the natural and spiritual worlds. Its application releases the soul of man from the bondage of limitation. Love is God in action. And the process of becoming the doctrine of love is to grow into oneness with God.
The beautiful thing about the doctrine of love is that it casts out all fear, all striving and struggling. You merely act and express the virtues and qualities of love, and all that is needed to sustain you in happiness and harmony are inevitable consequences of your action. You are attached to nothing except the action of love. You desire no results; but possess perfect assurance that the correct results necessary to your life at a given time will be supplied. The sense of impending insecurity is unknown to him who lives the doctrine of love.
With the light of love to guide us the idea of seeking God fades on the film of our consciousness, and we know, then, that this idea, long held and fostered by men, is as false as the beard of Hercules. It is God who is doing the seeking. It is God who stands at our door and knocks. When we consciously and deliberately set out to seek God, we are simply being annoyed by God's seeking us. His incessant pounding on our door gets on our nerves, we try to escape from the friction and irritation of it, and we call this seeking God. We go to church, or the lecture hall, or drop a coin in the hand of a beggar, or we join a charitable organization. And the more we seek the farther we drift from the real consciousness of God's presence, for we stifle His voice and dull the sound of His knocking. God is the Supreme Shepherd, and it must forever be the logical procedure for the shepherd to seek his lost sheep, and not for the lost sheep to seek him. When we are lost in the woods our sense of direction is gone and we move about in fruitless circles. It is only when we cease seeking our way and sit down and get quiet that we regain our poise and balance sufficiently for intuition (the Spirit of God) to lead us out of our dilemma.
Our job here is to learn to love. It is the only obligation man has in the world. There is no other religion. And it is all the salvation possible. Any service rendered in an effort to placate God is futile. If you think you can serve God while at the same time you have in your mind you are serving God, then you are separating yourself from God. Service to God is present only when the thought of serving Him is absent. When you love the service and think not of rewards or results, or that you are doing it for God in return for His gifts, God will then draw nigh unto you.
The lover always question the correctness in any ethical or moral or philosophical statement that has become platitudinous and hence meaningless. Consequently when he hears the statement Serve God, he begins to analyze the correctness of the statement. And he discovers it to be a meaningless platitude in its current sense. For he knows that you can perform your charities, your prayers, and your abnegations until doomsday without ever becoming aware of God's presence. But if you really love God, and really serve because you love to serve, and you really pray because you love to pray, then the statement, Serve God, is not a platitude. It has meaning and salvation in it. And it is rewarded with the gift of God's grace. The statements of Jesus have never degenerated into the category of moral platitudes, because they are firmly rooted in the doctrine of love.
Now this being a very important point, as my book will increasingly endeavor to show, let us dwell just a little longer on the subject. In God service and love are one and the same thing. If we learn to love in the true sense we cannot help serving God. But if, by our wills and misconceptions, we force ourselves to serve with the mistaken notion we are serving God, or if in our service the motivating quality of love is absent, then service and love are separated, and our service is questionable; indeed, it is false and spurious. We must, therefore, learn to love first, and having learned to love, all else is added as a natural consequence.
We begin with the tremendous truth that the only world duty and spiritual obligation we have is to become love, that is, to learn to love and mean it.
Hence if this is our only obligation we begin by learning to love. We learn to love by first practicing love. The more we practice the more we become conditioned to the vibration of love. And in time, if we persist, we actually become a true lover of God and the creatures and creations of God. When this time comes we can serve God, and inevitably will serve Him, and our service will be genuine.
To illustrate this point an example may be employed. Suppose you have a very dear friend. You do something to hurt or offend him. Thereafter something stands between you and your friend. It is an invisible and nameless barrier, which you want to remove. In seeking to remove it you try various ways to serve him. You bring him gifts, or you seek to make influential contacts advantageous to him. In other words, you seek to heal the world in his heart by means of compromise and placation. But the barrier remains. All you do does not wipe away the disappointment in his eyes.
So long as this disappointment is allowed to remain you are separated from your friend, although you associate with him daily. While it remains you cannot serve him effectively, because the server and the object of service are separated. So long as this is so you cannot know how to serve him.
Finally you weary of your thankless efforts, and you go to your friend in a spirit of humility and contrition, and you apologize for your wrong, and you ask him to forgive and forget. The spirit within him meets the spirit within you. All hurt vanishes from his face, to be replaced by a smile of genuine joy. Your old relationship is instantly re-established. And now you can serve him. You bring him a gift that is a gift of real love and affection. You do things for him because you love to do it, and not because in doing it you desire to win back his friendship.
And so it is with God. When His Spirit has become your spirit, when you have actually known Him by a deep inner experience of knowingness, you are capable of serving Him in works, faith, and prayer. But to pray to God without loving God, or without the capacity to love Him, is to render lip service to an unknown God, and the only possible value in such a prayer must be psychological and not spiritual.
Finally when we have suffered and been defeated enough we shall turn to the last experiment, we shall turn to love and begin to learn to love by practicing love. As we become love we draw God to us; when we know God we cease all straining and quietly lay our burdens in His lap, knowing that He knows best how to dispose of them. But how do we begin the practice of love. Love is charity in the true sense of that misused word, and charity begins at home. Hence we start the practice of love first in our own homes. It is when we learn to love those nearest to us that we are then able to love our neighbors, the citizens of our community, and finally of the state and nation and the world. And then our love reaches out to embrace all nature. With this accomplishment the Grand Passion is born full-blown in our hearts and we love God with an affection that is holy. To love Him is not to seek Him longer; but to accept Him who has long been seeking us.
Since writing this simple chronicle of love in action behind the bars of a modern penitentiary, I have received several hundred letters from all parts of the world. Some have been inspired by reading the book; a few have been repulsed. Many have had their curiosity aroused. Others have found in it the information necessary to effect salutary changes in their lives: they have regained lost health; have solved their environmental and economic problems. All have asked questions concerning statements which were either implied or lightly touched upon in the context. And these questions are the most important features contained in the letters received.
To ask has value. To decide upon the answer has greater value. To act upon the decision is of supreme importance, whether the decision acted upon be good, bad, or indifferent. It is better to keep busy with blunders and mistakes, trials and errors than it is to sit with folded hands and a heart filled with unexpressed and frustrated wishes.
The questions have called forth this introduction. Almost entirely these pages are concerned with the deliberate and conscious application of the Law of Love to the practical everyday problems of life. My readers have unerringly sensed the power of love as being a power within their capacity to recognize and to use. But they have wanted to know more about what love is, as well as how to use it and what it does when used.
I make no claims of a last-word nature. Love can be defined on familiar levels of consciousness. Beyond that it enters mystery and awaits our arrival in another dimension.
The following statements we can comprehend:
We cannot escape love. If in the physical body we ceased to love for an instant we should die. Hate is nothing more than an intense form of self love. It is a twisting of God's love, causing it to operate negatively rather than positively, destructively rather than constructively in the direction of our own best interests. Because God loves, we love. Our love does not create that which was before. Before our love, was God's love. It is His love which created our love, and which supports, sustains, and expands it. We are partakers of God's love. We act in the direction of those qualities of being which we conceive to be of God. God's love is always creative. We are creative when we express His love in action. As to what His love creates, through us, is a matter of our own choice. To act in the direction of kindness, faith, discrimination, gratitude, reverence, forgiveness, is to build the qualities of constructive love into our personalities. To act in the direction of hate, doubt, in discrimination, ingratitude, unforgivableness, is to build into our personalities the destructive qualities of misused love.
As Robert E. Speer has pointed out in his work, Seeking the Mind of Christ: His love is the power of our loving. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. If God so loved us we also ought to love one another. We love because He first loved us. God's love did not begin when we began to love God. We never would have loved either God or our brother had it not been for the love of God. His love, whether we knew it or not, begat all our love. Our love of God . . . is but letting Him love us. Our love is but a faint shadow of His, a shadow that advances and retreats and quivers uncertainly. The great and steadfast love of God is not the child of the shadow. Unchanging, measureless, utterly forgiving, rich with the wealth of His infinite nature, the love of God is beneath and above and about our weak human love, and we can rest upon His love as the great certainty beyond all our impulses.''