Friday, June 15, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 4:26-29
He also said, 'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ready, at once he starts to reap because the harvest has come.'
Reflection
It is hard to wait. I am not sure human beings are built for waiting, and growing up in the U.S. doesn’t do much to teach you the art of patient waiting.
Twice yesterday I heard the word ‘impatient’ from people who are not at all antsy. They know about waiting. They know what it is to live with uncertainty and threat, watching and wondering what will come to them, their health, their family … their lives.
They want to see and know what the future will bring. While they wait they distract themselves from the worst of their fears as well as possible, and they live their lives.
I hope they can continue to live with hope, just knowing … that beneath the surface of their lives --and of all life--there is unseen dynamic constantly at work that will yield a great harvest of loving presence in their lives, no matter what comes.
You are there, Holy One. Always. The parable is not about seeds, but about you. And you are the hidden dynamic of love secretly growing in the soil of our lives, green shoots pushing through the hard crust of doubt and fear, our uncertainty and our struggle to trust that whatever the future holds … your love holds the future.
The sower in Jesus story acts strangely. He plants but doesn’t not weed or till, water or care for the growing seed. He does nothing to assist its growth. He waits, knowing all will be well because something good and beautiful will grow and cover the earth with fresh green life.
No farmer worthy of the name, even in Jesus time, would be as passive as this man. But passivity is not the point; patient confidence is.
Living in relationship with the Loving Mystery, who is everywhere and active in everything, we are invited to take a deep breath and live, simply knowing that a harvest of divine goodness and grace, love and blessing will come.
This hardly means we get everything we want or think that we need. Life with God is not existence in a candy store.
But we will bask in the light of and love of God. For in ourselves three grows a harvest of loving presence that will fill our souls and unite our hearts with all who know this love … and with the One who is that Love.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Friday, June 15, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 4:26-29
He also said, 'This is what the kingdom of God
Reflection
Some of Jesus stories are opaque to me. I can’t see through them. Perhaps they are a bit like Zen koans, dense, obscure sayings that make little sense to common ways of seeing. Only in living with them and allowing them to unsettle us do other dimensions of meaning appear.
Perhaps it is not even correct to speak of ‘meaning.’ Perhaps his sayings provoke us, agitate us through our lack of awareness until common ways of seeing iare dislodged and a new conscious emerges.
None of his stories can be reduced to a single point of meaning, but each resonates anew each time we dare look at them and watch what they awaken in us.
Today, I see the farmer … the one who scatters the seed, and I am moved to quietness, perhaps even to patience, a contrary move for me and many in our society who are socialized to work harder and with greater diligence to make good things happen.
We are a driven people for the most part, and we honor those most driven to be successful among us. Only later seeing how badly unbridled ambition can disfigure lives and relationships.
I am impressed that the sower in Jesus story does his part … sows seed. Then he watches and does little, if anything.
He does not understand the processes by which growth and maturation occur. He knows his part is to plant and watch, being ready when harvest time comes, recognizing that life and growth are a mystery he does not control.
He knows his part and patiently awaits the mystery of growth to appear, with little apparent anxiety of what he cannot understand and with no attempt to ‘push the river’ to make something happen.
He can only do what has been given him to do … and to trust the mystery: an inner, hidden dynamic of goodness and grace will work its magic. Beauty and fullness will come … as a gift, a given, a grace, and he will have what he needs.
His is a life of knowing his part and waiting for mystery of goodness and grace to unfold, patiently trusting that it will because God will have it no other way.
Not such a bad way to live.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Today’s text
2 Corinthians 5:6-7
We are always full of confidence, then, realizing that as long as we are at home in the body we are exiled from the Lord, guided by faith and not yet by sight … .
Reflection
With apologies to Yogi Berra, “It’s hard to make predictions, especially when they’re about the future.”
And yet, there is a future we know, a future where surprising grace and the reality of love awaits our arrival, a future hidden in the heart of the One who is Love and nothing but.
As long as this awareness is before our eyes and lives in our heart, the days are never too hard, the challenges never too great. For we know what is most needful.
Paul sometimes thought of being ‘in the body’ as exile. It is, I suppose, for our flesh is weak. Our bodies grow tired, and our hearts begin to doubt whether the unseen future holds any of the goodness and grace we need to live, to breathe, to feel filled with vitality and purpose.
We experience separation, distance--sometimes great and impassable distance--between ourselves and the Heart our heart most needs to know. The feeling of being exiled from the Lord who is Love’s Holy Source is all too known in human hearts, believers and those who cannot find an inkling of faith within.
But moments of grace occur, gracious smiles appear, hope stirs in hearts that were barren but moments before, and the soul awakens to the reality of our lives.
We live in an ocean of unseen Presence. We move through a liquid grace that finds cracks and corners of soul through which it seeps in, awakening awareness that we are not exiles at all.
And we know: the future is predictable after all. We know nothing of what will come, but we know you, Dearest One, will be there … waiting.
Pr. David L. Miller
2 Corinthians 5:6-7
We are always full of confidence, then, realizing that as long as we are at home in the body we are exiled from the Lord, guided by faith and not yet by sight … .
Reflection
With apologies to Yogi Berra, “It’s hard to make predictions, especially when they’re about the future.”
And yet, there is a future we know, a future where surprising grace and the reality of love awaits our arrival, a future hidden in the heart of the One who is Love and nothing but.
As long as this awareness is before our eyes and lives in our heart, the days are never too hard, the challenges never too great. For we know what is most needful.
Paul sometimes thought of being ‘in the body’ as exile. It is, I suppose, for our flesh is weak. Our bodies grow tired, and our hearts begin to doubt whether the unseen future holds any of the goodness and grace we need to live, to breathe, to feel filled with vitality and purpose.
We experience separation, distance--sometimes great and impassable distance--between ourselves and the Heart our heart most needs to know. The feeling of being exiled from the Lord who is Love’s Holy Source is all too known in human hearts, believers and those who cannot find an inkling of faith within.
But moments of grace occur, gracious smiles appear, hope stirs in hearts that were barren but moments before, and the soul awakens to the reality of our lives.
We live in an ocean of unseen Presence. We move through a liquid grace that finds cracks and corners of soul through which it seeps in, awakening awareness that we are not exiles at all.
And we know: the future is predictable after all. We know nothing of what will come, but we know you, Dearest One, will be there … waiting.
Pr. David L. Miller
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Today’s text
2 Corinthians 4:16
That is why we do not waver; indeed, though this outer human nature of ours may be falling into decay, at the same time our inner human nature is renewed day by day.
Reflection
We do not know, and that is what is most distressing for our souls.
Life happens, challenges come, victories and wounds, love and loss. Each moment is a tiny piece of a great drama whose ending we do not see, the story of what the Spirit of God is doing to renew our inner nature … and all creation.
Most often we cannot see what the Spirit is doing, what gift or strength, what courage or joy might appear in the midst of difficult times … or our many average days ruled by the regularity of routine.
The Spirit is not governed by our anxiousness to know how things will turn out, to see what renewal or restoration may appear.
Our task is to live, a day at a time, waiting and watching … or perhaps not.
Perhaps the greatest wisdom is simply to live, to love, to give yourself to the work and souls that surround us, not getting too disturbed … or elated … by the moment at hand … or any moment.
Perhaps it is best not to worry about seeing what renewal God’s Spirit will bring, for that distracts our vision from the present moment which is all we really have.
We can take the long view, trusting that God is working, knowing that the Spirit will do what the Spirit does … give life. Waiting for that fresh breath, we attend to the daily, the now, the need of the moment, knowing … just knowing that grace will come. Blessing will fill us.
The Spirit will breathe renewing life and hope, love and vigor into our souls even when troubles bring sadness and deadening routine wears us low.
Nothing is lost or wasted. Nothing. All that has been, all that is and will be is swept into the great drama of what Love is doing in our little souls.
Our eyes may see nothing at any given moment, nothing but years and yearning, loss and decay. But the Spirit lives and breathes … into us … the renewing breath of life so that we might breathe free and sing songs of life, trusting that renewal and life will come to our souls … day by day.
May we see your life today, dear One? If it is all the same to you, might we not feel, if only for a precious moment, the breath of new life blowing through our souls … that we may know?
Pr. David L. Miller
2 Corinthians 4:16
That is why we do not waver; indeed, though this outer human nature of ours may be falling into decay, at the same time our inner human nature is renewed day by day.
Reflection
We do not know, and that is what is most distressing for our souls.
Life happens, challenges come, victories and wounds, love and loss. Each moment is a tiny piece of a great drama whose ending we do not see, the story of what the Spirit of God is doing to renew our inner nature … and all creation.
Most often we cannot see what the Spirit is doing, what gift or strength, what courage or joy might appear in the midst of difficult times … or our many average days ruled by the regularity of routine.
The Spirit is not governed by our anxiousness to know how things will turn out, to see what renewal or restoration may appear.
Our task is to live, a day at a time, waiting and watching … or perhaps not.
Perhaps the greatest wisdom is simply to live, to love, to give yourself to the work and souls that surround us, not getting too disturbed … or elated … by the moment at hand … or any moment.
Perhaps it is best not to worry about seeing what renewal God’s Spirit will bring, for that distracts our vision from the present moment which is all we really have.
We can take the long view, trusting that God is working, knowing that the Spirit will do what the Spirit does … give life. Waiting for that fresh breath, we attend to the daily, the now, the need of the moment, knowing … just knowing that grace will come. Blessing will fill us.
The Spirit will breathe renewing life and hope, love and vigor into our souls even when troubles bring sadness and deadening routine wears us low.
Nothing is lost or wasted. Nothing. All that has been, all that is and will be is swept into the great drama of what Love is doing in our little souls.
Our eyes may see nothing at any given moment, nothing but years and yearning, loss and decay. But the Spirit lives and breathes … into us … the renewing breath of life so that we might breathe free and sing songs of life, trusting that renewal and life will come to our souls … day by day.
May we see your life today, dear One? If it is all the same to you, might we not feel, if only for a precious moment, the breath of new life blowing through our souls … that we may know?
Pr. David L. Miller
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