Today’s text
John 14:28-29
You heard me say: I am going away and shall return. If you loved me you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you this now, before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe.
Reflection
Your friends hear you, Jesus. But they hear only that you are going away, and sadness with fear sinks their souls.
‘Don’t go,’ their hearts immediately cry. They can’t help it. The reaction is involuntary not chosen. They know only the sadness immense loss. ‘Don’t go,’ that is the entire awareness of their souls.
‘Don’t go. We have barely come to know you. Only now have we begun to know how you change us. We are more alive when you are here. The air is warmer and clearer. We feel lighter, safer and happier. Our hearts are secure in your nearness. We are less alive, no; we don’t really live without you.’
But the cry is not theirs. It is mine. I understand them completely. My soul languishes in sadness and distraction of its own making and confusion when I don’t feel you near.
I fall into self-preoccupation, consumed with my failure to live a truly human life; a life lived in joy, aware of its purpose, filled with the energy of eternity which is that glistening love with which you fill me in those times when I am most aware of your presence.
So don’t go, Jesus. When I don’t sense you near my life is but a half-life, a shadow life in which the light of your face fails to shine through the gray mask of my melancholy.
But you go, and you go in order to return. You come back to me again and again, appearing with the full gifts of the Father’s great and invincible heart to light my soul with joy. I know that you go to enter the fullness of the One who is Fullness of life and joy. You go so that you may pour the nectar of this living delight into souls who run dry.
So pour your life onto the dry dust of this soul that I may live as fully as you, brimming with a joy born not in pleasant moments but in the deep reaches of the divine heart.
Then I shall be alive, and all the death that clings shall be washed away.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Saturday, May 08, 2010
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Today’s text
John 14:25-27
I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
Reflection
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled even when life is troubling.” That’s what you say this morning, my Friend. “My peace I leave you, even when life is troubling. The Spirit of Life abides with and in and around you.
“You have all you need, for you have my words, my life and my love ringing in your ears and stirring in your soul, surrounding you in the hearts of those who love me. You are not and never alone. You have me, and I have you.
“So don’t be troubled or afraid even when life is fearful and threats lurk unseen in the bushes waiting to pounce. Every trouble and fear is already overcome, overwhelmed, over-powered by that from which the universe springs, by Love Itself, and Love Itself abides every place, breaking the walls of tombs and fear.
“Even in the loneliest haunts of your soul, in the hollow halls of mind where your voice echoes weak and alone, longing for some presence to break up the fearful emptiness, I am there. Your silent voice is heard.
“Hear also mine: ‘Let your heart not be troubled, for I am greater than your heart, greater than your troubles.’ In the beginning, my love exploded, making a world in which I take delight, and my delight is for you. Never are you alone or forgotten. Love forgets not its own.
“Every moment, every trouble and fear, yes, every joy, too, is an invitation to intimacy; to come near; to speak your heart into the darkness trusting that the darkness has ears. Every moment is an invitation to know that I am the enveloping darkness you cannot see, surrounding and encompasses even the darkest and most fearful places in the immensity of Love Unimaginable.
“Nothing will steal you from the enveloping cloud of my presence.
“So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid. Even your troubles and fear are held in the grasp of life and love. In darkest moments, I whisper, ‘Trust. Believe. All is well. Come close to my heart. Bring all that is in your own, fear, trouble, the whole load.’
“You dwell in the field of my immensity. Everything does. And everything that will ever come to you is a door into a love of which you will never know the end.”
Pr. David L. Miller
John 14:25-27
I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
Reflection
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled even when life is troubling.” That’s what you say this morning, my Friend. “My peace I leave you, even when life is troubling. The Spirit of Life abides with and in and around you.
“You have all you need, for you have my words, my life and my love ringing in your ears and stirring in your soul, surrounding you in the hearts of those who love me. You are not and never alone. You have me, and I have you.
“So don’t be troubled or afraid even when life is fearful and threats lurk unseen in the bushes waiting to pounce. Every trouble and fear is already overcome, overwhelmed, over-powered by that from which the universe springs, by Love Itself, and Love Itself abides every place, breaking the walls of tombs and fear.
“Even in the loneliest haunts of your soul, in the hollow halls of mind where your voice echoes weak and alone, longing for some presence to break up the fearful emptiness, I am there. Your silent voice is heard.
“Hear also mine: ‘Let your heart not be troubled, for I am greater than your heart, greater than your troubles.’ In the beginning, my love exploded, making a world in which I take delight, and my delight is for you. Never are you alone or forgotten. Love forgets not its own.
“Every moment, every trouble and fear, yes, every joy, too, is an invitation to intimacy; to come near; to speak your heart into the darkness trusting that the darkness has ears. Every moment is an invitation to know that I am the enveloping darkness you cannot see, surrounding and encompasses even the darkest and most fearful places in the immensity of Love Unimaginable.
“Nothing will steal you from the enveloping cloud of my presence.
“So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid. Even your troubles and fear are held in the grasp of life and love. In darkest moments, I whisper, ‘Trust. Believe. All is well. Come close to my heart. Bring all that is in your own, fear, trouble, the whole load.’
“You dwell in the field of my immensity. Everything does. And everything that will ever come to you is a door into a love of which you will never know the end.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Today’s text
John 14:25-27
'I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.'
Reflection
What is your peace, Jesus, if not the inseparable oneness you shared with the Holy Mystery, the Father?
Most often I confuse peace with imperturbability. It is undisturbed serenity, free from distress and disordered desire. But if this is peace, you didn’t have it yourself, Jesus, so how can you give it to me?
You were disturbed, angry, disappointed, distressed and deeply moved. Your generous heart knew pain and impatience over suffering and cruelty, hatred and apathy.
But did you also know some paradoxical peace amid the swirl of distress?
Part of me wants peace without distress, serenity freed from the tensions of living. But this doesn’t exist. It can’t be had, and I wouldn’t want it even if you gave it to me. For it would be a peace stripped of feeling for life. It would not know revulsion at hunger and suffering, or the swells love that wash over me when I touch and bless the heads of my little grandsons.
Who wants a life without such feeling? Such stirring within reflects deep connection with the world its needs and joys. Serenity without passion has nothing to do with you, Jesus. It is not an expression of your Spirit.
Still, I want peace, and your offer to give it draws me to you. I want to dwell, to make my home in the peace you knew, and the only way I can conceive of your peace is as unity, harmony, oneness with the Eternal Love to which your soul was transparent.
You lived in felt awareness of the loving delight in which the Father held you. You constantly knew your life was a singular expression of the Being of the One who is Love. Your life was not yours but the substance of the Infinite Source who is Life.
Dwelling in that awareness released joy, mercy and freedom from self-conscious anxiety so that a fountain of love flowed through you.
My lack of peace is comes because I lose awareness of truth you never lost.
I am no more separated from the Loving Mystery than were you, Jesus. My life at every moment is an expression of the Ultimate Source of Being and Love. It is always held, treasured and delighted in by a Love that beggars all description.
That’s what you knew Jesus. Always. That’s what my anxious self forgets.
But it is this awareness that you give to me, so that even now I feel the power of Being in my hands, my heart and my mind, and know again what you always knew.
Today let me not forget.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 14:25-27
'I have said these things to you while still with you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you. Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.'
Reflection
What is your peace, Jesus, if not the inseparable oneness you shared with the Holy Mystery, the Father?
Most often I confuse peace with imperturbability. It is undisturbed serenity, free from distress and disordered desire. But if this is peace, you didn’t have it yourself, Jesus, so how can you give it to me?
You were disturbed, angry, disappointed, distressed and deeply moved. Your generous heart knew pain and impatience over suffering and cruelty, hatred and apathy.
But did you also know some paradoxical peace amid the swirl of distress?
Part of me wants peace without distress, serenity freed from the tensions of living. But this doesn’t exist. It can’t be had, and I wouldn’t want it even if you gave it to me. For it would be a peace stripped of feeling for life. It would not know revulsion at hunger and suffering, or the swells love that wash over me when I touch and bless the heads of my little grandsons.
Who wants a life without such feeling? Such stirring within reflects deep connection with the world its needs and joys. Serenity without passion has nothing to do with you, Jesus. It is not an expression of your Spirit.
Still, I want peace, and your offer to give it draws me to you. I want to dwell, to make my home in the peace you knew, and the only way I can conceive of your peace is as unity, harmony, oneness with the Eternal Love to which your soul was transparent.
You lived in felt awareness of the loving delight in which the Father held you. You constantly knew your life was a singular expression of the Being of the One who is Love. Your life was not yours but the substance of the Infinite Source who is Life.
Dwelling in that awareness released joy, mercy and freedom from self-conscious anxiety so that a fountain of love flowed through you.
My lack of peace is comes because I lose awareness of truth you never lost.
I am no more separated from the Loving Mystery than were you, Jesus. My life at every moment is an expression of the Ultimate Source of Being and Love. It is always held, treasured and delighted in by a Love that beggars all description.
That’s what you knew Jesus. Always. That’s what my anxious self forgets.
But it is this awareness that you give to me, so that even now I feel the power of Being in my hands, my heart and my mind, and know again what you always knew.
Today let me not forget.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Today’s text
John 14:23
Jesus replied: ‘Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him.’
Reflection
Tuesday comes. The day off ends, not that it was devoid of work anyway. Responsibilities and care intrude even on the most protected days.
But with the morning light, the unending to-do list asserts itself with unrelenting vigor. I suppose I should be thankful for good work to do, but I am not.
Insistent anxiety compels me to rush by these quiet, daybreak minutes and rush headlong into the fray. I’m driven to silence the nagging voice that hectors my mind until I can cross a clutch of neglected tasks off the list.
Peace of mind, I am certain, depends upon getting things done. Only then can the heart rest.
It’s a lie, of course. It isn’t true. The list will always be there. Faces and phone calls, administration and neglected conversations you will always have with you. (Didn’t you say something like that, Jesus?)
I cannot meet all the needs on the list, let alone do all that I demand of myself. Not even close.
This awareness splinters consciousness at the very point--now--when I want (and badly need) to dissolve all self-consciousness in you, so that there’s awareness only of Presence, so that I know that I am with and in you, so that I feel my being encompassed in divine immensity; so that this awareness fills every internal space, and the peace of oneness floods the mind.
A divided mind cannot have this awareness, only a mind that turns again and again from habitual lies to singular truth.
I love the awareness of oneness with you, so I keep your word, which, I believe, means waiting here, refusing the urge to throw myself into the day before my soul has had time to be with you and receive its freedom.
The word I keep is the truth that I am made by and for you. You hunger to dwell in me, even as I yearn to dwell in you. So being here, with you, must be the day’s first business, a quiet keeping of the truth in the face of noisy lies.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 14:23
Jesus replied: ‘Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him.’
Reflection
Tuesday comes. The day off ends, not that it was devoid of work anyway. Responsibilities and care intrude even on the most protected days.
But with the morning light, the unending to-do list asserts itself with unrelenting vigor. I suppose I should be thankful for good work to do, but I am not.
Insistent anxiety compels me to rush by these quiet, daybreak minutes and rush headlong into the fray. I’m driven to silence the nagging voice that hectors my mind until I can cross a clutch of neglected tasks off the list.
Peace of mind, I am certain, depends upon getting things done. Only then can the heart rest.
It’s a lie, of course. It isn’t true. The list will always be there. Faces and phone calls, administration and neglected conversations you will always have with you. (Didn’t you say something like that, Jesus?)
I cannot meet all the needs on the list, let alone do all that I demand of myself. Not even close.
This awareness splinters consciousness at the very point--now--when I want (and badly need) to dissolve all self-consciousness in you, so that there’s awareness only of Presence, so that I know that I am with and in you, so that I feel my being encompassed in divine immensity; so that this awareness fills every internal space, and the peace of oneness floods the mind.
A divided mind cannot have this awareness, only a mind that turns again and again from habitual lies to singular truth.
I love the awareness of oneness with you, so I keep your word, which, I believe, means waiting here, refusing the urge to throw myself into the day before my soul has had time to be with you and receive its freedom.
The word I keep is the truth that I am made by and for you. You hunger to dwell in me, even as I yearn to dwell in you. So being here, with you, must be the day’s first business, a quiet keeping of the truth in the face of noisy lies.
Pr. David L. Miller
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