Friday May 4, 2012

Today’s text

John 15:4-5

Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.

Reflection

This is my quiet space. My escape, my time … in a life when too little of my time seems my own.

None of my moments are mine, of course. It seems selfish and foolish to speak as if life is something I possess. I am not a possessor. Each moment is gift. The breath I breath is not my own.

In this quiet space where gentle music moves the heart, I know life, I know my heart and I know you, Holy One.

This is all the same knowing, not three separate things. I retreat here and my lungs expand, my heart grows quiet, and I am aware of a place I cannot see or describe but which I know is there, somewhere, somehow in me.

It is an intimate darkness where I know and feel your mystery. I know myself connected with you, no, not connected but part of you, inseparable, joined as a leaf in a vine, a flower on a stem.

And I am at peace. The noise of living and the voices of unfinished tasks do not disturb here. There is only me and you, and these tears that tell me I am well, at home and beloved.

My heart rests, knowing that this alone is life and that I should never settle for anything less.

So why, my brother, Jesus, should you tell me to remain, abide, live in the vine? I am part of the vine. My life flows from the vine. It is the essential and inevitable truth of every life.

But that’s it, right there. So many days I turn from the vine, the channel of infinite life and joy, of love unlimited.

Amid the anxiety that has driven me for years, I hurry about, failing to turn, quiet myself and enter that intimate darkness where I rest and watch and knowing I need to do nothing but receive and feel this oneness, this inseparable unity with you are the Source of my soul, of all life and love.

It is possible, even likely to live a life denying that we each a leaf on the vine, but it is a life of anxious striving and fear because it is lived without awareness of our essential truth: We are all part of the vine, who is the Source of our life and peace, our breath and joy.

You, Jesus, are the Source, the human face of the One, the Vine I know in this intimate darkness.

‘Remain, abide in me,’ you say. ‘Rest in me in me, for I am the vine of life. You will find the peace of an intimate quiet in which you will know the Love I am, the Love who wishes to flow in and fill you. Remain and dwell here in me, and your life will bear fruit.

It is from this restful awareness that life and beauty grows.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday May 1, 2012

Today’s text

1 John 4:7-9

My dear friends, let us love one another, since love is from God and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love. This is the revelation of God's love for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life through him.

Reflection

It is only in loving that we know you, Lord, and it is only in knowing your love that we have life. You came to the world that we might have life.

So come to me this day that my heart might fall calm and in peace know what life is.

Morning comes again, a spring morning brimming with possibility. But you do not lead me into the sunrise but to this place of silence where I listen to my created soul, seeking to hear you have always existed and always will.

You use my own aching need to bring me here. I need to know you. I hunger to know you not with the mind but with the fullness of heart. Only full hearts know you.

The mind can grasp your possibility. It captures hints of your creative wonder. It grabs your coattails as you pass through our lives. Then, it stammers a few words about who you are, what you are like and what you are doing among us so that we can pretend that we understand something.

But we understand nothing, and all the books that surround me in this quiet space are mere echoes of your life.

True knowledge of you comes not by mind but only the in-filling of the heart by your fullness. Only then do we know the fullness of love whom you are. Only then does your living substance fill us and clear out the cobwebs death and darkness that cling like barnacles to the walls and corners of our souls.

So I come again to this silence, waiting for you who are love to awaken my awareness that love is the Source of my soul. Love is the source of spring mornings. Love is true knowledge of you. Love is the reason I am made, and giving life is the sole purpose of love.

I wait, knowing your love will come and awaken me, warm my heart and fill me that I may know you and truly live … for one more day. It's all I have, and all I need.

Pr. David L. Miller