The cry of the saints

 You are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14a)

For all the saints, who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. Alleluia. Alleluia. (All Saints Day hymn)

I sang the words to myself in the usual chair where I pray as the sun flowed through the southeast windows of the house. As always, one face came to mind first, my father, Lavern Miller, for whom I’ve now sung this hymn for 24 All Saints Days, since he was delivered from terrible debilitation into light eternal.

I see and feel him there with so many others, who in strength and assurance or in weakness and wavering faith confessed Jesus as Lord of life and death, heaven and earth. Jesus was our hope in those final days when all he could feel was his emptiness and need, as life slipped away.

I still feel the comfort of Jesus’ presence hovering over the scene in his cramped room, holding his hand, enveloped in a cloud of Presence lingering above his bed, waiting for the hour of deliverance.

Whispering in his ear, assuring his trembling heart, Jesus is Lord became my silent cry, a defiant affirmation, a shaking fist in the face of the specter of death and his soul-crushing suffering.

All Saints Day never fails to take me back there, consoling my heart. But the day and it signature hymn also carries me to the streets of the city and suburb where I live, raising a compelling question: What does it me to confess Jesus is Lord here and now?

For 20 centuries, Jesus is Lord has been the confession of all who place their faith and hope in him.

But what does it mean for us to confess Jesus is Lord in a country where government-mandated masked marauders engage in thuggish brutality, shattering the lives and families of immigrants, most of whom have been in the U.S. for years, if not decades, living productive lives?

At the very least, we must listen to the cry in our hearts that shouts, ‘No, this should not be.’ This is the voice of Jesus, our risen Lord, alive within the depth of our being, crying out for kindness and justice for souls created in God’s image, calling us to give ourselves more deeply to God’s work of giving life to the world.

Created in, by and for the love of God, Christ is the center of every human soul. There is no person on earth in whom we should not be prepared to see the presence of Christ.

Today, he is violated on the streets of our cities and suburbs as human beings are hunted down as if they were rabid beasts.

Christ not only suffers in these, mostly brown-skinned people, who are being profiled and targeted. He also suffers in the souls of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem and Thomas Homan and all who birthed this diabolic scheme that is brutalizing hearts and splintering families, while fanning the rancid anger and bigotry long present in our nation.  

Christ lies at the center of their souls, too, suffering, grievously wounded, buried deep beneath passions of greed, anger, pride, hate and vanity that plague all of us to one extent or another. But they have become particularly virulent and malignant in this administration.

But we who hear the voice of Christ within us must love and serve him by naming the ways and places he suffers in distressing disguise—especially today in the lives of the poor and in those who face government brutality.

Only so, do we join the cry of the saints of every age, Jesus is Lord.

Anne and the roses

The heavens are telling the glory of God …. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth. (Psalm 19:1-4)

It happens every fall. I talk to my plants. I talk to the trees on my walks in the woods. I talk to the fields, dusty with harvest on the rolling hills of my childhood.

Sometimes, I talk to them in the summer, too, the petunias and begonias and mums that light up the patio and the balcony, the day lilies in the flower beds and certainly the roses by the southwest corner of the house. I tell them how they bless me.

But our exchanges become more poignant as October goes. An urgent impulse builds within to say ‘thank you,’ not once, but again and again. Thank you.

The words come of their own accord, tears, too, as another summer slips away, its colors fading, one less, now, in the store of summers I have been given to savor the sun’s embracing rays—feeling myself so graciously, so gratuitously loved by the Blessed Author, who wrote me into the script of a great story whose ending we do not see.

But the wonder of light and color and beauty fires hope to carry the soul through winter’s sleep. Too soon, it will come upon us to silence the earth and bid us to rest in peace—knowing earth’s Beloved Author will write another summer into the story, because that’s what love does. Love always has another chapter to write. Always.

But this chapter is not quite done. Words must be spoken.

Rounding the southwest corner of the house, I stop and take a long, loving look at the last roses of summer. Five blossoms remain, one falling apart, three faded by a recent frost and one small, elegantly-formed, velvety red blossom sings out its name, undimmed and undaunted.

This is what remains from the hundreds of blossoms the bush produced this year, planted three years ago in a patch of soil that had killed everything else I dared plant there. Little wonder I consider every rose a defiant shake of the fist in the face of all that is loss and death, a triumphant yes of life praising the verdant heart of life’s loving Source.

At the corner of the house, under a crystal blue sky and in the sight of confused neighbors who might have wondered to whom I was talking, I did what my heart required, obedient to love’s insistence.

Touching my heart, an involuntary gesture, the words came simple and true:

Thank you for your beauty. Thank you for the miracle of color. Thank you for singing the glory of the One whose beauty you share. Thank you for revealing my deepest desire and prayer that … maybe … someday … if only for a moment … I might shine with heaven’s light as beautifully as you.

I might add one more bit of thanks: Thanks for reminding me of life and beauty amid the vicious social divisions and the ugliness of hate that have poisoned the air we breathe. You gentled my heart, whispering a word of love you received from the One who is Love.

The roses were healing balm for my soul amid the bitterness of our times. Nothing surprising about this. Mystics and contemplatives and Jesus, too, heard Love speak in deserts and mountains, forests and flowers, in rivers that flow and winds that blow.

‘Every common bush is afire with God,’ Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, which is to say, alight with love.

A teenage Anne Frank knew this even as she hid from the Nazis in the darkest of times. ‘The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside,’ she wrote, ‘somewhere where they can be quiet, along with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.’ 

I think Anne must have seen the roses.

The last rose of summer

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’  He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. (Luke 11:1-2)

Red roses have dwindled to a few on the west side of the house. Once, there were dozens. Now, I can count their number as I steer the car into the garage. Each one grows more precious as the days pass, stirring my heart to praise the Beauty to whom they sing in silent witness.

A single rose strains high above the rest, struggling to open fully, hungry for heat on these cool October days. I cheer her labor, hoping there will be enough time and warmth for her to fulfill her promise before frost stills her song and wilts her splendor.

I watch and hope for her for she speaks my hidden truth. I, too, long for the warmth of a sun that once warmed me.

Warmth and light embraced me when I was an anxious, insecure child, walking with confidence into only one place in my entire world, the door of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Warren, Il. I was safe there, wanted, secure and home, taken in by souls who had no idea how good the warmth of their normal, ordinary, casual welcome felt to me.

Taken in—small words, but they keep returning as I think of those days. I was taken in, welcomed in this community of hearts, who left their homes every Sunday to gather at the stone church on the west edge of town to sing and pray, listen to the pastor, drink coffee and talk about the weather or whatever was happening in our largely insignificant little village.

But it was not insignificant to me, not then or now. It was the breath of life, the warmth of the sun, water for my thirsty soul.

I remember their smiles decades later; I suppose because I needed them so badly. I still hear their voices, laughter in the narthex, serious tones in Sunday school rooms, gentle urgings for us to open our mouths to sing or recite the catechism—but also to quit poking each other, sit down and behave.

I belonged and knew l belonged on a level far deeper than consciousness. I long for this warmth and light as I make my way further into (gulp) the eighth decade of life. I still have so much I want to be and live and love and give, and I long to feel taken into the light and warmth of a loving community, feeling alienated, as I do, from the faith community that was once home.

I know I am not alone in this.

Perhaps that is why I feel a deeper yearning in the disciple’s plea, ‘teach us to pray.’ I wonder if what they really wanted was—not simply to pray—but to feel inside the warmth and love of the Holy Mystery within whom Jesus communed, the one he called Father, the one he revered and who revered him.

Seeing Jesus at prayer, perhaps they wanted to feel the encompassing embrace of the divine essence as he did, to be enveloped in one all-embracing love, so that their hearts might open and their lives unveil the beauty our loving Creator had sown in their souls.

Each of them … and me … like the last rose of summer, incomplete, not fulfilled, longing to sing one more song of praise for the wonder of light and love, warmth and beauty, before October goes.

Waiting for the sun to rise

And [Jesus] said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51)

I’m tired.

I’m weary of the hate and anger, bitterness and political division that is draining kindness, trust and hope from so many. I’m tired of the rage and mayhem piped into our consciousness through every digital device we own, tired of the shootings and burnings and destruction.

I am tired of the callous cruelty of masked brutes hunting down immigrants who are just working their jobs and caring for their families, treating them like rabid animals, unburdened by the humanity of those they abuse and the lives they destroy.

And I am heartsick that souls I once knew and served and loved now think of me as ‘the other,’ sick to death that they have become ‘the other’ in my heart, too. Once, they were human souls for whom I’d gladly rise in the wee hours had they any need of their pastor and friend.

I grieve the loss of what once was natural as breathing, tired of the passions of anger and resentment that imprison my heart. I fight them, but they are too strong.

The only thing that really helps is you, O Lord, seeing you, hearing you, singing about you so that the sorrow of my soul becomes prayer and my heart is restored, warmed in the rays of your goodness.

I wonder about the times when you were weary, not just tired, but soul-weary from the weight of loving the resistant, the rejecting and even the hateful, not to mention those who were just slow to understand.

You stepped away. You sat in the silent darkness waiting for the sun to rise, your heart turned to the Love who filled you … and who stirs in me, too.

Perhaps that is what I am doing here, fingers on these keys, sitting in the darkness, waiting for the sun to rise, refusing to deny how profoundly the darkness of these hateful, divisive times has darkened my heart, even as thoughts of my own end haunt me in the night, reminding me of decades I wasted and people I hurt, attempting to heal my own wounds and exorcise my demons by making a name for myself.

I cannot, of course. Only love casts this kind out, the Love ceaselessly streaming from the heart of your mercy, Jesus, to we who sit in the darkness. ‘Come to me all you who are weary,’ you say; you will see heaven opened.’

Indeed, I see you, even in my heavy heart, dear Friend. For what is this sorrow, if not your love within me, longing for a more gracious world? And what is this ache, if not a prayer for the freedom to love and laugh and embrace the world with a generous heart, your heart, Jesus?

So, I see, now; even this darkness is my friend, bearing me to your side that we may wait, together, for the sun to rise, as it will. It always does.

The man behind the counter

The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)

The heart cannot be denied. Not today. Not here. Not his. Nor mine.

A pair of sparkling silver studs in each ear, he turns left and right, back and again, dozens of times, as the line at Jersey Mike’s weaves its way through the lunch rush. 

Short, solidly built, Latino, small tattoos on each arm, one bearing a set of initials, he reaches again and again into the cold case for ham, roast beef, salami, prosciutto, provolone, white cheddar, each time shaving thin slices and piling them on loaves of white or wheat or Italian, split with a long silver knife far sharper than anything in our kitchen.

Never a hesitation, no movement wasted, a flowing current of life from one order to the next, a constant stream of affability flows from his smile to each person in line, questions, comments, jokes, laughter as each gives their order.

Tears well in my eyes as I watch, enthralled, waiting my turn, loving him, wondering who he is and how his heart became this bountiful. Strangely thankful to be standing in line with a couple of dozen others, my impatience evaporated in the spectacle of grace and the camaraderie of strangers.

For a few minutes, the reigning social divides ceased to exist. There were no conservatives or liberals in the line, no progressives or reactionaries, no venomous vitriol over the assassination of Charlie Kirk, only human souls received with joy and showered with welcome as the line snaked by, the world redeemed by the man behind the counter.

You cannot fake this. The moment flowed from the abundance of a bountiful heart that knows joy and loves human faces.

The bounty of his heart stirred an answering love in my own, revealing again the old, much forgotten truth that caring for the health of our hearts is the most important thing we can do for the redemption of our time and place.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk has exacerbated bitter social divisions and the rage simmering just below the surface in millions of hearts. A flood of hatred and mutual recrimination inundated social media, sweeping untold numbers of human hearts into the bitter tide of hatred and mistrust.

Only those who care for their hearts find escape and equanimity, returning again and again to the well of love and mercy, gentleness and care. An old friend wrote that the present troubles moved him to turn on Springsteen then listen to Brahms’ German Requiem, letting the music wash over him.

I see him there and understand. Lost in lyric and harmony, each song, each verse, each line a sacrament watering the tender growth of faith, hope and love within, washing away the soul-killing poison of fear, hate and division that overwhelm us when we are too much with the world.

Our first priority, especially these days, is to care for our hearts for our own spiritual health, to flee the fray and fly to places of refreshment, to the wells of grace that heal our souls and gentle our hearts.

I have no idea where that is for the man behind the counter. All I know is that I want a bountiful heart like his, free and full, flowing with the All-Embracing Love who graces my heart at lunch counters.

Enter the joy of your master

Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master. (Matthew 25:20-21)

Time and distance dissolve in the silence of meditation. You never know who or what might appear in the inner eye of the heart, where nothing is ever lost.

So, it is today. I imagine the servant in Jesus’ parable, eagerly showing his master what he’s done, and Kristi appears. I see her in the photo she sent me 30 years ago. Relaxed, a gentle smile warming her face, a little Dominican girl sits in her lap.

I don’t recall who she was working with at the time, the Peace Corps? Maybe, but I’m only guessing. She was young, early 20s, doing agricultural work in a place much poorer than the bottomland along the Republican River of her Nebraska home.

She sent me that photo tucked inside a letter, apparently wanting me, her confirmation pastor, to see her there and know what she was doing. I wish I still had her letter. Perhaps it will appear someday, stuck between the pages of an old book, as is my habit.

I’d like to think I had something to do (however small) with what carried her body and soul to the Dominican Republic to hold that child. Maybe something I said or our fall mission festivals, where hunger and human need had central place, planted a seed in the fertile soil of her heart.

But modesty admits that a multitude of faces and unsuspected moments give birth and growth to what each of us becomes. Parents, teachers, friends, professors, any and all of them can awaken unimagined possibilities that take us to wild and unexpected places, changing our direction in the blink of an eye.

I don’t know what ultimately transported Kristi to embrace that time and place in her generous heart. I know only that she wanted me to know, and that’s plenty enough to awaken tears, my heart daring to believe that seeds I sowed for Love’s holy sake might still be growing, not only in Kristi but in the lives she touched.

I have long thought that the Holy One has yet to receive a reasonable return from the many gifts and graces God has so abundantly showered on my life. Looking back, I am more aware of my mediocrity and narcissism, most of which flowed from my vanity and insecurity.

At a young age, it seemed Kristi was well on her way to being more like the servant in Jesus’ parable than I became, for which I’m thankful. Still, I think she or God or both were trying to tell me something in that photo.

Maybe, just maybe, they were telling me that, despite what I know of myself, my poor efforts mattered more than I ever suspected.

Maybe attempting to measure how much or how little we have done, how well or how poorly, is a fool’s errand. Maybe we haven’t a clue about what the Spirit of Love manages to do through us, in spite of ourselves.

And maybe the gentle tears of remembering Kristi in that photo is the voice of my gracious Lord, saying, Welcome to the joy of your Master.

Why I come here

As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 103:15-17)

Too soon they will be gone. Wild daisies, four feet tall, cover the forest floor beneath the canopy of old oaks 70 feet tall and more.

Filtered light casts rays amid shadows on the forest floor, as the woodchip trail leads deeper into whatever mystery the woods hold for me this day.

Star-bright yellow blossoms celebrate in dappled light, seizing the day, as if they know cooling temperatures signal the end of their praise to the mystery of their Maker.

I come here to see them, already planning other hikes on other trails where I might take in their brethren, shimmering whites and blues across forest glens where my heart leads me less often than is good for my soul. Soon they, too, will pass away.

But I am here now and being here now is what most matters. I come to see and hear and feel and love the love awakened within, for which I praise the One who sings in forest flowers.

Strewn across the forest floor, the golden profusion accompanies my steps, stretching around the next bend and the next and the next, green and gilt melding together in a wash of impressionist delight.

Each blossom a saint of God, praising the Love who called them out of nothingness to light my way home into the Love for which I long.

White oaks and basswoods soar above like giants of holy faith. Spreading their arms, sheltering the life of all that flowers, fades and passes into yesterday, they strain toward the Mystery who has haunted my heart since I was a boy, wondering: what is this ache within me?

Out here, I know. It is not for the flowers and trees, but for the love they awaken that is not of my own making, but which is the other self I am, the self beyond ego and striving, the self who wants only to love, to know love, to be love, to be one with the utterly Nameless One who is Love.

The mystery of our lives is ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory,’ St. Paul (or one of his followers) once wrote. Out here, I know this Christ not as someone to believe in but as the Love beyond myself who is pleased to inhabit my mortal flesh, moving me to want nothing but more of the same.

So, I continue on, my boots scuffing the woodchip trail, a blessed pilgrimage away from all that clicks and beeps and shouts and flickers from digital screens.

Each step is a sacrament, a taste of the Everlasting Love who sings to me in the flowers, shelters me under the oaks and unveils the divine face in the merciful compassion of Jesus, my brother, who bids me to come here and abide with him.