Monday, August 27, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 13:10-11

Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight.

Prayer

I see her Jesus. I would rather look at you watching her to see what passes across of your face, to notice the set of your brow, the color of your eyes, to record whatever emotion moves you. I look at you, but you let me see nothing of what I want, only a blank face I cannot read, and the message seems clear: “Look at her. If you would see me, look at her.”

But looking at the woman, bent and stooped, she grows transparent. I look not at but through her to faces, broken bodies and spirits I have known only too well, souls for whom I have cared and about whom I have written, including my own dear father, resting now in the immense mercy of your eternity.

Bless him this day, my brother. Bless all the broken ones like him, so ground down by life they cry to the lonely darkness for some presence, some Presence to whisper that they are not alone. I have seen their faces, and I know the terror of abandonment magnifies their sorrow beyond human endurance.

Bear them whole in your own divine heart that they may ever know they are in you. Whisper again that they are embraced in your all-enveloping love despite the sorrow that endures until broken by the morning light you alone bring to our souls, making us alive again.

Open our eyes to see them that we may be the whisper of your eternal morning amid their darkness. For in seeing them, we see you and know again your heart, broken for the love of them all, and of me.

Pr. David L. Miller