Today’s reading
Philippians 1:21
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
Prayer
There are days I cannot wait to praise you. Awakened from the sweet joy of a good rest, I rise into a world where you are, and I have all I need to have and know all I need to know. Eagerly, I descend the stairs to sit in this chair, anticipating words unthought and unimagined that will wing me again into the wonder that you are, the illimitable and all-encompassing love from which we all come and to which we all go.
I am born anew, fully alive in You who inhabit this corner of the basement and all reality. To be here, presence to Presence, to know as lovers know, is to live. The chattering ego with its banal demand to be taken seriously evaporates in such union, an insubstantial vapor, a fog of illusion constantly mistaken for the real. You are real, knowing the love you are is life.
I know Paul spoke of his physical death and return to you as he wrote these words; “to die is gain.” But dying to the drivel of power, status, image, wealth and all which postures as life-givers, that, too, is gain. Mere mirage they are, hiding the substance of the Eternal, the love that labors secretly in the impenetrable abyss of being itself.
But all this is beyond me. I but know the blessed face of that hidden love, and it is yours, my Jesus. Let me this day be the breath of beauty and grace that you are. Amen.
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
Posts
All Comments
Friday, September 22, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 1:21
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
Prayer
There are days I cannot wait to praise you. Awakened from the sweet joy of a good rest, I rise into a world where you are, and I have all I need to have and know all I need to know. Eagerly, I descend the stairs to sit in this chair, anticipating words unthought and unimagined that will wing me again into the wonder that you are, the illimitable and all-encompassing love from which we all come and to which we all go.
I am born anew, fully alive in You who inhabit this corner of the basement and all reality. To be here, presence to Presence, to know as lovers know, is to live. The chattering ego with its banal demand to be taken seriously evaporates in such union, an insubstantial vapor, a fog of illusion constantly mistaken for the real. You are real, knowing the love you are is life.
I know Paul spoke of his physical death and return to you as he wrote these words; “to die is gain.” But dying to the drivel of power, status, image, wealth and all which postures as life-givers, that, too, is gain. Mere mirage they are, hiding the substance of the Eternal, the love that labors secretly in the impenetrable abyss of being itself.
But all this is beyond me. I but know the blessed face of that hidden love, and it is yours, my Jesus. Let me this day be the breath of beauty and grace that you are. Amen.
Philippians 1:21
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
Prayer
There are days I cannot wait to praise you. Awakened from the sweet joy of a good rest, I rise into a world where you are, and I have all I need to have and know all I need to know. Eagerly, I descend the stairs to sit in this chair, anticipating words unthought and unimagined that will wing me again into the wonder that you are, the illimitable and all-encompassing love from which we all come and to which we all go.
I am born anew, fully alive in You who inhabit this corner of the basement and all reality. To be here, presence to Presence, to know as lovers know, is to live. The chattering ego with its banal demand to be taken seriously evaporates in such union, an insubstantial vapor, a fog of illusion constantly mistaken for the real. You are real, knowing the love you are is life.
I know Paul spoke of his physical death and return to you as he wrote these words; “to die is gain.” But dying to the drivel of power, status, image, wealth and all which postures as life-givers, that, too, is gain. Mere mirage they are, hiding the substance of the Eternal, the love that labors secretly in the impenetrable abyss of being itself.
But all this is beyond me. I but know the blessed face of that hidden love, and it is yours, my Jesus. Let me this day be the breath of beauty and grace that you are. Amen.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 1:21-24
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil. 1:21-24).
Prayer
You wake me again from the little death of sleep simply because you delight to make good and beautiful beings come to life and grow—and know you. It is your delight that I should live, that I should be and be here. It is your delight that I should know you as the blessed and beautiful face of life itself. You wake me to this awareness because you cherish all that you have made, every life, every universe … and me. You cherish me. Accept my amazement. It rises before you, a hymn of praise, bubbling from depths of a soul surprised that you should take such delight in me.
Knowing this, knowing you is life. Already this day I have known you in the gentle laughter of those who gather around me to share memory and insight. Their joy floats and fills the room, a rising sweet incense permeating the air and all space about us with the holy goodness of being joined to others who know and cherish you.
This life you invite me to, it is not life alone is it, dear Friend? It is life with souls such as these before whom I stand in awe, speechless at the beauty you are pleased to take in them. To live is to know this beauty, to live is to know that I, too, am joined with them in this wonder, this beauty that you delight in giving also to me. Amen.
Philippians 1:21-24
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil. 1:21-24).
Prayer
You wake me again from the little death of sleep simply because you delight to make good and beautiful beings come to life and grow—and know you. It is your delight that I should live, that I should be and be here. It is your delight that I should know you as the blessed and beautiful face of life itself. You wake me to this awareness because you cherish all that you have made, every life, every universe … and me. You cherish me. Accept my amazement. It rises before you, a hymn of praise, bubbling from depths of a soul surprised that you should take such delight in me.
Knowing this, knowing you is life. Already this day I have known you in the gentle laughter of those who gather around me to share memory and insight. Their joy floats and fills the room, a rising sweet incense permeating the air and all space about us with the holy goodness of being joined to others who know and cherish you.
This life you invite me to, it is not life alone is it, dear Friend? It is life with souls such as these before whom I stand in awe, speechless at the beauty you are pleased to take in them. To live is to know this beauty, to live is to know that I, too, am joined with them in this wonder, this beauty that you delight in giving also to me. Amen.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 1:18b-21
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 1:21).
Prayer
To what do you invite me, O Life of all the living? What is here for me in words that stir my soul from sleep in the small hours? Lightness fills body and soul with freedom and tears though the dawn is but a smug on the horizon. For I am here with you.
Most of the time I am elsewhere. My uncentered and untethered heart wanders the Earth from place to place, task to task, person to person, caught in the rushing current of belligerent ‘musts.’ I am not stayed on you, on your love for me and for all that is. You only ask me to come, to stay, to listen, to tether my heart to your own no matter where I go.
And when I am with you, I am alive. Death has no hold, nor anxiety or even the rush of living that is a kind of death in which I refuse the gift of your life. All these are replaced by a gentle lightness of being--of being with you, in you--where I live a life I know nowhere else. I am encompassed by the all-encompassing Love you are.
And though alone, I am not alone. For there in the still silence of your love is all that is, all with whom I share life and creation; every universe and cosmos is there, down to the most infinitesimal particles of the real. All of it, all of it loved, all of of it in you, as I am in you.
This is living. All else is shadow. You are life, Blessed One. To live is to know you. To die is to die into the love whom you are. What more could I need or want? Amen.
Philippians 1:18b-21
“For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 1:21).
Prayer
To what do you invite me, O Life of all the living? What is here for me in words that stir my soul from sleep in the small hours? Lightness fills body and soul with freedom and tears though the dawn is but a smug on the horizon. For I am here with you.
Most of the time I am elsewhere. My uncentered and untethered heart wanders the Earth from place to place, task to task, person to person, caught in the rushing current of belligerent ‘musts.’ I am not stayed on you, on your love for me and for all that is. You only ask me to come, to stay, to listen, to tether my heart to your own no matter where I go.
And when I am with you, I am alive. Death has no hold, nor anxiety or even the rush of living that is a kind of death in which I refuse the gift of your life. All these are replaced by a gentle lightness of being--of being with you, in you--where I live a life I know nowhere else. I am encompassed by the all-encompassing Love you are.
And though alone, I am not alone. For there in the still silence of your love is all that is, all with whom I share life and creation; every universe and cosmos is there, down to the most infinitesimal particles of the real. All of it, all of it loved, all of of it in you, as I am in you.
This is living. All else is shadow. You are life, Blessed One. To live is to know you. To die is to die into the love whom you are. What more could I need or want? Amen.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 1:18b-20
“Yes, I will continue to rejoice ... . It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or death” (Phil. 1:18b,20).
Prayer
Life with you is so daily. I wake and my thoughts are with you. But sometimes I do not want to pray or praise you, O Maker of the morning. Nor do I want to work. My desire is single, simple and self-serving. I want to rest in you, in blessed assurance that as surely as the day is--you are, and though I rest you are working out your love, even in me.
So what do I expect today? If you labor, what shall I expect you to do today, in me and among us? Too often the anxieties of the day sap my joy and filter my expectation so that I am more ready to think the worst than anticipate blessing. My hair-trigger heart stands alert to receive every ripple of resistance or cynicism, trouble or frustration.
Why, most Faithful Friend, should I assume such a posture when you invite me to live in precinct of inviolable promise, your promise?
Paul lived in that blessed land, and his words pull me there. Amid the grayness of his prison cell, his comforts were few, his future uncertain and his control over his days nonexistent. Yet, he expected not shame but the blessing that your beloved life would be exalted in him for your revelation and his joy.
I want to live in this way. Today, my brother, invite me to live in the sweep of your promise to complete--in me, in us, in this and every universe--the love with which you love us. Today, let me live expecting to know you, blessed Christ, and to exalt you in each encounter, for you are here and our confidence is in you alone. Amen.
Philippians 1:18b-20
“Yes, I will continue to rejoice ... . It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or death” (Phil. 1:18b,20).
Prayer
Life with you is so daily. I wake and my thoughts are with you. But sometimes I do not want to pray or praise you, O Maker of the morning. Nor do I want to work. My desire is single, simple and self-serving. I want to rest in you, in blessed assurance that as surely as the day is--you are, and though I rest you are working out your love, even in me.
So what do I expect today? If you labor, what shall I expect you to do today, in me and among us? Too often the anxieties of the day sap my joy and filter my expectation so that I am more ready to think the worst than anticipate blessing. My hair-trigger heart stands alert to receive every ripple of resistance or cynicism, trouble or frustration.
Why, most Faithful Friend, should I assume such a posture when you invite me to live in precinct of inviolable promise, your promise?
Paul lived in that blessed land, and his words pull me there. Amid the grayness of his prison cell, his comforts were few, his future uncertain and his control over his days nonexistent. Yet, he expected not shame but the blessing that your beloved life would be exalted in him for your revelation and his joy.
I want to live in this way. Today, my brother, invite me to live in the sweep of your promise to complete--in me, in us, in this and every universe--the love with which you love us. Today, let me live expecting to know you, blessed Christ, and to exalt you in each encounter, for you are here and our confidence is in you alone. Amen.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 1:18b-20
“It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or death” (Phil. 1:20).
Prayer
What I do I expect, Faithful One? What do I eagerly await, assured that you attend your promises as a mother watches her wobbly toddler, ready to fulfill her vow to be there at every bump and fall and crack in the sidewalk? You coax me beyond the shadow existence where every bet is hedged and every expectation is couched in ‘maybe.’ You lead me by the hand from the shallows into deep water where my feet no longer find the bottom but must swim in the fluid currents of divine promises and purposes which take me to places I fear.
And you whisper, “believe, trust. You will not be put to shame but will exalt the life that I am in your mortal flesh.” So I hope, and more: I expect. That is the radical form of faith to which you invite, a faith that risks disappointment and disaster, a faith that breaks through the tough, gray cocoon of self-protection to play in the stunning light of day.
This is my prayer: To live no longer in the gray safety of small expectations but in vibrant assurance that I may know you in making known the loving wonder whom you are. Let me enter each moment, each situation, each encounter, expecting to encounter and exalt you. Each moment of my life exits for you and for your exaltation. This is what time is for. This is what I am for: to know you and make you known, living in eager expectation to know your love, your life, the wonder you are. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Dean of the chapel, Cornelsen director of spiritual formation
Philippians 1:18b-20
“It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or death” (Phil. 1:20).
Prayer
What I do I expect, Faithful One? What do I eagerly await, assured that you attend your promises as a mother watches her wobbly toddler, ready to fulfill her vow to be there at every bump and fall and crack in the sidewalk? You coax me beyond the shadow existence where every bet is hedged and every expectation is couched in ‘maybe.’ You lead me by the hand from the shallows into deep water where my feet no longer find the bottom but must swim in the fluid currents of divine promises and purposes which take me to places I fear.
And you whisper, “believe, trust. You will not be put to shame but will exalt the life that I am in your mortal flesh.” So I hope, and more: I expect. That is the radical form of faith to which you invite, a faith that risks disappointment and disaster, a faith that breaks through the tough, gray cocoon of self-protection to play in the stunning light of day.
This is my prayer: To live no longer in the gray safety of small expectations but in vibrant assurance that I may know you in making known the loving wonder whom you are. Let me enter each moment, each situation, each encounter, expecting to encounter and exalt you. Each moment of my life exits for you and for your exaltation. This is what time is for. This is what I am for: to know you and make you known, living in eager expectation to know your love, your life, the wonder you are. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Dean of the chapel, Cornelsen director of spiritual formation
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)