A letter to my grandson, first draft

‘This is one of those apposite, beautiful … and precious and very great promises given to us … that we are to become participants in the divine nature … not only loved by God through Christ, and have his favor and grace … but also to have Him, the Lord Himself, dwelling in us in his fullness …  also to enjoy this love.‘ (Martin Luther, 1544)

I wonder if you remember, Ethan. You turned and asked me a question as you descended the stairs at the end of our Christmas celebration.

‘Why do you do it?’ you asked, about my online teaching and retreat work, knowing it is not necessary for me to work in retirement.

My answer was quick and satirical. “Not for the princely sum I’m paid,’ I quipped.

I have regretted those words ever since. They haunt me because you deserve a better, truer answer, and my heart will not let me rest until I try to tell you what’s in my heart.

My words won’t be half good enough to tell you what I know and feel. I’ll likely think of better words five minutes after I send this. But … here goes.

The real answer to your question is that I’d do what I do for nothing. But that is not true either. I am paid extraordinarily well.

I do it because I must, something within me will not allow me to stop naming the Love who lives at the depth of my soul, a Love who exceeds my ability to name or describe.

It doesn’t happen all the time, but often enough, when I teach or guide the prayer and meditation of others, my heart fills with an unimaginable joy and mercy that brings tears to my eyes.

A current of love springs up from a place in my soul I do not control and cannot command. All I can do is consent to its flow and share the blessing, passing on what I know and feel is true.

I know this love not because someone has told me about it, but because I experience the great and all-surpassing love of God living in my heart.

It melts my fears, releases my regrets, breathes peace in my soul and awakens joy for the simple gift of being alive. It opens my eyes to see beauty in others and the world around me, despite the pain and ugliness that abounds in so many ways and places. In this love, I feel truly free to be myself with all my quirks and shortcomings.

A long time ago, I was tempted to think life was absurd, empty and meaningless. But a handful of people taught me how to pray, how to meditate and let stories about Jesus come to life in my mind and imagination. I began to feel their power and realize that I, too, was wanted, treasured and delighted in by God.

I felt a great love enveloping me. No, I don’t feel this way all the time, but even when I don’t I know this love remains and times of feeling it near will come again.

For this eternal love of God, the source of creation, is the presence of Christ, who is not only born in history but also in the mystery of our hearts, yours and mine.

Sometimes, when I do what I do, I get to see another human being light up with joy, feeling profoundly loved and treasured by the love of God living within their own flesh and blood. And I feel it, too, living and loving me, often with tears of joy.

Of all the great things that lie in your future, my greatest prayer is for you to feel this, too.

David L. Miller

With Mary, let it be

‘You were also blessed because you have heard and believed. A soul that believes both conceives and brings forth the Word of God and acknowledges his works. Let Mary’s soul be in each of you to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Christ has only one mother in the flesh, but we all bring forth Christ in faith.’ (St. Ambrose, 339-397)

With eyes to see and ears to hear, we receive the wonder the Lord unveils to our senses that we might discover the beauty of the divine heart and know this wonder within ourselves, amid tears of joy.

For in this of all seasons, we see that we are loved by a Great Love whose joy is seeing our faces come to life, our eyes alight with surprise that we, of all creatures, should be one with the Love who made us. It is for exactly this purpose that we are created, to be joined in love with the One who is Love.

From the start of the Christmas story, we can see this. Imagine an angel, Gabriel, pure spirit, appearing in such form that a young woman might see and hear words of divine favor spoken just for her. Gabriel appears, loving the very sight of her soul, longing for Mary to believe that the secret darkness of her womb might hold the Light whom heaven and earth cannot contain.

But who can imagine it? Words are insufficient. Perhaps artists can bear us into the mystery. Thousands have tried, the great and the mediocre. With paint and brush, light and color, they exhausted their skills, longing to touch the mystery and capture the moment when heaven’s heart was conceived in the body and soul of a mere mortal who dared to say, ‘let it be.’

 

(Fra Angelico, Annunciation 1440-1445)

I return to two images each year. In Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, Gabriel bows before Mary, holding his (her?) heart lest it burst with love and hope, longing for her to believe, trust and know that Love has chosen her to be Love’s holy temple. For she is to bear the beauty of the divine face into a dark and dying world that we might see and feel the warmth of divine light melting the cold darkness of our hearts.

Mary’s eyes turn down before the wonder of heaven’s messenger. Bent at the waist, her posture matches Gabriel’s bow, each offering humble reverence to the other.

With Gabriel, she is consumed in the moment of encounter, lost in the incomprehensible surprise that her life, hidden in an insignificant place, should be known, desired and chosen to bear Love’s greatest gift that we, the exiles, lost and mortal, might find our way to the home we have always wanted.

But perhaps Mary’s eyes cannot conceive or understand any of this, any more than we can. Perhaps her eyes are like ours, confused, wondering, apprehensive, not knowing what Gabriel’s greeting portends, but not turning away either, for we want, we need, we long. Our hearts attuned to the heart of the One who made us, restlessness remains until we are one with the Mystery of the Love we shall never understand in all of eternity.

(Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898)

Yes, this is our state as we listen to Gabriel’s words to Mary, inviting her to believe that she will bear the heart of God, the beauty of Christ, into the world. But this is not a message for her alone. It is a word to us and very much for us. For, the One who is born of Mary longs for your consent.

The Loving Mystery, who fashioned the stars, shaped your soul to be Love’s own dwelling, ever waiting, eager and longing for our hearts to lay down our pretenses, surrender our defenses and open ourselves to Love’s invitation to bear the beauty all heaven and earth cannot contain.

Speak then. With Mary, offer your heart in the words we most need to say, ‘Let it be. Let the beauty you are take flesh and blood in the kindness of my heart, in the forgiveness I struggle to share and the grace I try to be. Let it be, let it be, let it be … that your greatness may be known in the one life you have given me.

David L. Miller

Songs in the night

The flame of divine love enkindled human hearts and its intoxication overflowed into [their] senses. Wounded by love, they longed to look upon God with their bodily eyes. Yet how could our narrow human vision apprehend God, whom the whole world cannot contain? (St. Peter Chrysologus, 380-450)

I sing my songs in the night, in the morning, too. Day or night, I sing against the darkness.

For dark are the days as compassion wanes in our land, once known for its generous heart in a world of hurt, gentleness and care now dismissed as the domain of the weak.

Dark are the days as our consumeristic culture dazzles to distraction the hearts of millions, draining echoes of transcendence and mystery from the celebration of the birth of light.

Noise and spectacle, pretending significance, signifying nothing of depth, long ago filled every public space among us, lest we hear our longing for a voice that speaks peace to anxiety for which culture has no cure.

Retreating from the noise, I seek shelter in the rhymes and rhythms of poets ancient and new. The melodies of their hearts carry me into the Heart of the One I most need.

The Spirit breathes in them, through them, lifting me into the land of tears where my heart and the Heart of Love are one, my tears the sweet praise of love’s intoxication, my heart knowing the One whom no eye has seen, knowing, too, that I am known and loved.

Words are not enough to transport me into the land of this holiness. Only a song will do. Only a song can carry the desire of the everlasting hills for a dawn that will embrace all life and time, scattering every darkness.

Mary knew this. My spirit magnifies the Lord, she sang. My spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor upon the lowliness of his servant. The power of her song has breathed joy, strength and peace into the hearts of the poor and oppressed on every continent for 20 centuries and shows no sign of age or fading relevance.

So, too, the angelic messengers, announcing heaven’s birth in the tender frame of infant flesh. Their words took fire, igniting their hearts with melodies of joy in the dark of night. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, they sang, and we with them, a prayer of praise that we are not forgotten, denied the grace of Love’s embrace.

And I sing, too, song after song, turning the pages of my hymnal, searching for the right marriage of text and tune to awaken my heart to the wonder of what we believe, to fan the hope beyond every hope and feel the love for which no words are capable.

‘Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping,’ I sing in the cold night, snow having buried the red delight, once vibrant, at the corner of the garage. ‘Flowers that will echo the sunrise, my voice cracking, stumbling, my heart shattered and healed in the warmth of love’s final dawn on this weary world, the song a foretaste of heaven’s eternal hymn, tears the irrepressible praise for hope’s fulfillment.

Gentle on the ear you whisper softly, the song continues. Rumors of a dawn so embracing. With this, eternity’s dawn embraces me, my sadness, my hopes, my weariness with the world.

Hope renewed. Doubt’s darkness gone. The noise of the world silenced. The clamor of culture’s Christless Christmas put to the lie, all of it is washed away in the flood of the Love who wants us all and will have its way.

The child of our delight comes. The face of the Life and Love we praise, encompassed in word and song, brightens today’s world with his tomorrow, even as I sing.

David L. Miller

Come, Lord Jesus. Come and reign.

That we may know

Lord most high, what shall this exile do, so far from you? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and cast so far from your face? He yearns to see you, and your face is too far from him. … He longs to find you, and does not know your dwelling place. … Let me … find you in loving you and love you in finding you. (St. Anselm, 1033/34-1109)

Far from the starting place where my life began, closer to the end of my days, the desire doesn’t change.

The ancient hunger, from age to age the same, stirs the restless heart, longing to glimpse the face of the eternal, to touch the untouchable, the unchangeable and incorruptible, to bask in the light in all that is light and bathe in the fountain from which life springs.

How can it be, I wonder, witnessing again a photo from Apollo 8?  Three men from earth, rounding the dark side of the moon, shoot a single frame of a little green and blue orb, so wondrously and unexpectedly alive, floating alone amid the great darkness.

Earthrise, they called it. But what rises in the heart is wonder. Why this? Why is there anything at all? And it’s so small, this home of ours, so insignificant, so fragile. It could fall into nothingness, swallowed by the yawning immensity, lost in timeless oblivion.

But no. We are here. My heart beats alongside billions of others, blood running through my veins, unanswerable questions in my mind and a mysterious love in my heart—love for the wonder of being afforded life and love that is as real and sweet as my beloved’s smile.

And for all of this, the heart cries out to know and touch the Source of life and love, who is the sweetness of every beloved smile.

Show yourself to me. I want … I need to see and know you. Nothing unusual in this. It’s the longing of sensitive souls since time began, the innate desire for ‘I know not what’ … that fires the desire to reach beyond ourselves to understand and grasp the meaning of it all.

But how shall we know you, Eternal Mystery? Where can we seek and find your dwelling place?

Wiser souls than mine, tormented by loving desire for you, wrestled with the Mystery you are, their search collapsing in exhaustion, finding you finally in the mystery of the love within them, recognizing you were never far off, but near as that love for life and beauty … and for this little blue and green orb spinning in the great darkness.

And you who are incomprehensible love, the incorporeal mystery, the beginning of the beginning, the light of light, you, we believe, took a human face, that we may see and know the longing within us begins and ends in the love you are.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come among us that we may see the face of you who dwells in the eternity of time and the mystery of our hearts.

David L. Miller

Where hope speaks

‘At his first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as a garment. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 313-386)

Our days are determined by the voices we hear.

Listen to the chaos and clamor, the cacophony of voices in the tumult of the world and our fractured politics, and the heart soon sinks into the ceaseless waves of turbulence.

Each fresh news alert and angry social media post assaults our hearts with ever-deeper depths of depravity, injustice and indecency in high and low places.

There is no peace there, no steady voice of calm, nothing to still the mind with the assurance of eternal verities, a rock on which to anchor our hearts against the restless wash of the world too much with us, on us and in us.

With Advent, I turn each year to ancient voices speaking pastoral words from the tumult of their times to our own. They did not know what we face as our society devolves into bitter anger and deepening mistrust. No, they knew worse.

From the midst of their struggle, they speak the great truth of the season: God comes. God always comes.

Their words are not theory or blind hope but the witness of the ages to our own. To us, they say, ‘This … we know.’ The One who came in swaddling clothes to fulfill Love’s divine plan and show us Truth itself will come again to unite all things in the Love God is.

‘Christ’s coming was not only for the benefit of his contemporaries; his power has still to be communicated to us all. … [H]e will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace.’ (St. Charles Borromeo, 1538-1584)

What we await comes even now to the depth of our hearts, joining us to the long line of holy expectation stretching across the centuries from the earliest witnesses to our here and now.

 

And this I feel as the warmth of love rises, a tide of grace within my heart, filling the volume of myself, at least for this moment, that I may say … thank you … to those who spoke their witness in ancient times, assuring me that I am not alone, that my anxious heart is hardly unique, that I, like them, are meant to know this love and to live in expectation of the Lord’s coming, no matter the news of the day.

There is peace and strength in their witness, stability and hope.

For hope is the presence of love … longing for love’s fulfillment. It is the ache of the heart, yearning for the love it feels to fill the earth, like the waters cover the sea.

Come, Lord Jesus, speak peace to our hearts lest our souls be lost to the tides of our times. Speak in words, ancient and true, that the beauty of our hope maybe born anew.

David L. Miller

On the Mount with Jesus and Fr. Dennis

 As [Jesus] came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. (Luke 19:41-42)

We come to Jesus in the hour of our need, but to know him we must stand at his side in the hour of his sorrow.

It helps to see and hear the places and moments, the words and small movements through which his heart is revealed. Watching closely, we hear what words cannot tell and feel his soul, speaking to our own.

He sits on the Mount of Olives, the ridge overlooking Jerusalem from the east. Shadows deepen in Kidron, the valley below him, as the remainder of the day fades, the towers of the city the last to savor the light.

His head turns from one side to the other, savoring the city before him, right to left, north to south and back again, his eyes embracing the thick, gray stones of the city wall he knows will not stand the violent storms soon to come, in the brutal crush of history.

He is silent. No words. None are needed. His silence voices the wonder of who he is, what he feels and what we most need to know.

Slowly, his lips form words …  seen as much as heard, the whispered longing of a grieving heart. ‘If only … .

‘If only you knew the things that make for peace.’

The words hang in the air, echoing a love that is true, bearing the sadness of the times and the bitterness to come. He has a death to die, and the city will see destruction as empires clash, unleashing a river of tears of which his own are the foretaste.

How can I not love a heart who loves like this, who looks over the city who will hate and reject him and love it still, down to the last lost soul? If his is the heart of God, then the victory over all that is hate is certain.

And there is only one good thing to do. Stand with him, stand by him, as his eyes embrace the city of his sorrow, our hearts softened to see as he sees and feel as he feels, sharing his sorrow. Knowing, too, it is not only Jerusalem he surveys, but the conflicts and burdens of our time and place, for we, too, do not know the things that make for peace.

Perhaps we can learn by standing by Jesus, watching him, as he loves the city which will destroy him. Perhaps then we can feel and become the love that refuses to hate in the face of rejection, the mercy that embraces the brokenness of our times without rancor, seeking only to pour the oil of consolation on those whose struggles are greater than our own.

It can be a small thing that maybe isn’t small at all. Perhaps this is why Fr. Dennis appeared in my prayer. As I watched Jesus surveying the city, I suddenly saw Fr. Dennis there, standing beside the place Jesus sat.

An older priest on Chicago’s south side, Fr. Dennis ferries Venezuelan immigrants to the parish house where he lives to do their laundry, so they can avoid the laundromats and ICE agents.

Who knew laundry could be one of the things that make for peace? Fr. Dennis figured it out, standing with Jesus in a place of his sorrow. Perhaps we can, too.

David L. Miller

The eyes of longing

‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ (Luke 18:8b)

The heart is a lonely hunter, and it is no less true when the hunter is the divine heart. Loneliness and longing echo through the heart of Jesus in any number of stories the New testament records, including this haunting question.

Jesus gazes into the future with aching eyes, wondering aloud if any will know him when he appears. Will any be waiting? Will any be watching? Will any be praying and hoping for the healing and mercy he brings?

Will his eyes meet the watchful longing of tired souls yearning for him to shower justice, mercy and peace on this fractured world? Or will our hearts surrender hope, no longer believing, expecting or even desiring the healing only love can bring?

The image of God he unveils is not one of impenetrable power. He reveals the longing heart of a lover who hungers to be known and received by the beloved, who cannot rest content until the hearts for whom he hungers are gathered, safe and at home, encompassed in his love.

The desire I feel in him is reason enough for me to love Jesus and to call him my brother. For in his aching eyes, I see the reflection of my own. And in his lonely question, I feel his mercy, his longing for my heart to be one, finally at home in the great, eternal love of his heart.

In this, we are joined, his heart and mine, already one. The ache in my heart for healing and peace and mercy and everything this world so badly needs is the presence of his Spirit within my own, a share in his life and an answer to his lonely question.

Yes, Lord, you will find faith, for the flame of your love lives in the longing of our hearts. And we cannot be content with anything less than you.

David L. Miller