Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 2:9-11

“Whoever says, ‘I am in the light,’ while hating a brother or sister, is still in darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness” (1 John 2:9-11).

Prayer

Love is sight. Anything less is spiritual blindness. I always suspected as much. For when my heart is closed to another human soul not much penetrates my brittle shell. Refusing to love, I remain in the dark, unable and unwilling to see the frailty and truth and of human hearts beating next to mine.

So again and again I pray: Help me Dearest Heart of Mercy. Help me to receive. Open my ears to listen. Make me agnostic again: one who knows he does not know and thus must closely attend to the mystery of those who sit, stand and struggle alongside the enigma of my own life.

Dearest Heart, may I listen and hear, which is to say may I love all whom I encounter for the mystery they are, a mystery hidden in your love. You know them all, and me, which is to say that you love each of us fully, completely, without a moment’s pause. Only love knows and sees the deep heart of another soul--and the heart of the universe, your heart.

To love is to see. To refuse to love is to stumble in dark illusion about who we are and what our life is to be. This day, Holy Light, may I see as you see, to love as you love. Amen.

--Pr. David L. Miller