Thursday, April 19, 2012

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Today’s text

1 John 3:2


My dear friends, we are already God's children, but what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed. We are well aware that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.

Reflection

Let me see you this day, Jesus. Savoring the sight of your love and beauty, I become as you are.

The sight of you invites us into the inner reality of your life where you are of one mind and heart with the Loving Mystery whom no one has ever seen.

Seeing you is a transformation through which we pass from one state of being to another.

In you, we glimpse the glory of our true humanity, the fullness of what the human soul was created to be. The worry and flurry, the doubt and despair that grips us was never to be our destiny.

But it is our condition in the state of sin. Sin is not this or that moral wrongdoing but a state of the soul’s abiding in which we dwell outside the marvelous awareness that we are always one with the Infinite Source of all life and love.

Our lives are an expression of the divine presence. Our souls are open at the bottom so that the fullness of God might rush in like a river, filling us, so that the substance of our soul and the substance of God’s soul is the same.

But we-- I--close our souls so that all that God is cannot flow into all that we are. We pull away, separating ourselves, failing to return each day to the places of filling, the doors and windows through which divine substance flows, washing away our fears and making us fully human, giving us the laughter of free souls who know the secret of Eternity in their flesh and bone.

But you, Jesus, never closed your heart from the divine heart. This is who and how you were in the world. Your soul remained ever open and flowing with the love that is the substance of the Eternal One.

This is what we shall be and what we become when we truly see and know you. We see a truly human being, and we see the wonder of God, all at once.

In seeing, our souls open up. And the trickle of divine life in us becomes a rivulet, then a brook, then a stream, then a deep river, and amid joy and freedom, we become as you are.

So whatever else I see today. Let me see you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Today’s text

1 John 3:1


You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children -- which is what we are! The reason why the world does not acknowledge us is that it did not acknowledge him.

Reflection

Do I want to be known, or is it too frightening? For too long I have hidden that which I am. For decades I have been afraid to reveal this inner heart where I am filled and overwhelmed by your great divine heart.

I hide the hunger and the struggle to know the fullness of Love you are, to live beyond every anxiety, loving with the love you are.

I hide my heart, waiting for moments when I know the person in the other chair, the people to whom I am speaking might accept me or have a glimmer of understanding of what moves me.

I do not fear misunderstanding so much as dismissal and rejection. I want to be taken seriously, but what is taken most seriously in this world is that which can be counted: money, the score of recent games, concrete things that seem real because they can be seen and handled and make a practical difference in the nuts and bolts of daily existence.

But what of this inner awareness of grace and love; what of the hunger to know oneself resting in Love Unlimited; what of the experience of abiding … of feeling one’s heart enveloped in that Eternal Mystery, the Uncreated Love you intuitively know is your Source, your Home, your sweetest and truest desire?

What of the fulfillment and joy you find in that inner space where nothing separates your heart and that great Mysterious Heart? How does one speak of this reality, which is the most important truth of your and all life? It cannot be described except in vague, vaporous terms that appear to have no concrete reference the rest of the world understands?

Is it possible to describe such truth without sounding, well, like a flake?

For it sounds flaky even in the ears of the conventionally religious for whom God is something ‘out there’ to believe in, not this wind of Love that blows everywhere, even through the cobwebs of your own soul.

The world cannot acknowledge the wonder of Love Unlimited because it did not see and touch, feel and know Love Incarnate, the wonder of the mind of God in human form, in you, my brother, Jesus.

Did you fear their rejection and failure to see? It is hard to imagine that, yet there were moments at the end of your life when you prayed to be delivered from the suffering wrought by those who neither understood nor cared to do so.

Still, you went forward, knowing what you knew, being the soul you are, living from the depths of the Loving Mystery who filled you, and they destroyed you … or tried.

I have not been this brave, or should I say this filled with the One who is Love so that others’ opinions and actions no longer mattered?

But there are moments when this is true. There are moments when nothing else matters but knowing the One who is Love Unbounded--knowing that, like you, I am beloved of God from all eternity.

May I know such moments today and be the soul you call me to be, beyond every fear that hems in my heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Today’s text

1 John 3:1


You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children -- which is what we are! The reason why the world does not acknowledge us is that it did not acknowledge him.

Reflection

Beloved, the word rolls from my lips. I have no better word for the fullness of my heart when I know myself in you, Holy One.

A fullness comes into me, allowing no room for anything else but the awareness of love, of you who are love. Everything else goes away, and every thought, if any occur, is bathed in the love which you are. I see all that is as beloved, loved beyond all measure.

These are moments of truly knowing you, Blessed Mystery. Knowing the love in which you hold me and everything, I know you, the life you are. I share immediate, intimate communion in the love that is the substance of your Being.

And I am happy … and free, so free at heart.

But there is something else, a deep internal ‘must’ appears when my heart is full, and I know that I am your beloved.

The fullness of love that fills me must be shared so that all I see and touch might be filled with awareness that they, too, are beloved, embraced by the mystery of your life.

This ‘must’ is not a burden. It is not an external law that works against my nature. Filled with the Love you, this becomes my nature, even as it is yours eternally.

You must love for you are Love. Your love cannot be contained. It must spill out in ultimate and constant generosity.

In this, I know you, Holy One. You are Love Uncontainable. The substance of your life is this love that pours out endlessly, seeking to fill all that is, a love that finds me in my wayward wandering.

The whole world is your sacrament, Loving Mystery, the means of your expression. I never know when or what will again fill me with the Love you are. I only know that you will.

Last Sunday, I held precious new life in my arms, a little boy, Benjamin. I baptized him into the Ultimate Mystery, the Love which has no name but who comes to us as Father, Son and Spirit.

Tears formed as I lifted Benjamin from the font and marked him with the sign of the cross in holy oil: “Benjamin, beloved child of God from all eternity you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

Having spoken the words, I held him to my face and kissed him. I loved him with the love that is in me, the Love that you are, my Lord.

I yearned for this child, wanting him to be filled with the wonder of life and the beauty of all that he is. I wanted him to know great love surrounding him all the days of his life. I wanted him to share in the resurrected life of Jesus--hoping he would always know he is beloved by you since before the birth of the worlds.

And in that moment, I knew the love you are, Holy One, for this is the very same thing you want for this little child … and for me.

Pr. David L. Miller