Today’s text
Revelation 21:3-4
Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, 'Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone.'
Reflection
We live in hope, or we do not live at all, and every hope we hold strains beyond the horizon of daily life. Every hope presses toward final joy, the union of the heart of God with our own.
Our longings and desires, however small and short-sighted, lean forward to know the fulfillment of the human heart, hoping truest happiness is possible against nagging doubts and long waiting.
I have looked into the faces of those for whom hope is slipping away. I speak not of disease or threat to physical life but loss of heart.
The anguish of the drowning crosses their brow, as they are no longer able to imagine or hold hope for happiness, for laughter and peace, for the exultation of being alive, an embodied soul able to lift hands and heart to the sky and give thanks for the miracle of being.
Life has gone out of them; Spirit has been choked from them by disappointment and struggle, anger or rejection.
But despair must be beaten back with the only promise capable of withstanding everything that would extinguish the shining light of hope in our eyes: God will make his home among us. We will dwell in sight of the Light that can never be extinguished.
That Light will fill every drab, dark corner of our being until we shine, lit up from within by the laughing light that glowed from Jesus’ eyes as he blessed children and made the blind see.
Then our tears will not be of sadness or gray despair but of fullness of heart, crystal drops of joy spilling from souls that, finally, know the love for which they were made.
For the One who made them fills them with the light of eternal nearness.
And yes, it happens even here on this earthly plane. There are moments, such sweet moments when all doubt and despair disappear, when we know the dwelling of God is with us, in us.
Our heart and hands rise in joy, and hope ignites the light of love in shining eyes. It’s more beautiful than I can say.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Thursday, November 01, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Today’s text
Isaiah 25:7-9
On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken. And on that day, it will be said, 'Look, this is our God, in him we put our hope that he should save us, this is Yahweh, we put our hope in him. Let us exult and rejoice since he has saved us.'
Reflection
Salvation comes with a word or a smile. It arrives on the wings of laughter or the touch of a hand in quiet conversation. It is the rising warmth of soul physically filling you when your heart connects with the soul of another in silent knowing, the wonder of wordless union where words only intrude.
And yes, this is the salvation of our God, the sweet connection of soul to soul when Soul, the great divine soul, is known and flows into the narrow margins of our own and expands our being to hold the joy of eternity.
It happens amid the mundane and common and most certainly when the defenses behind which we hide come down, and we reveal ourselves as human and needy as every human soul and feel no shame, only grace.
Salvation is the soul-to-Soul connection when the total love of divine life flows and fills us, and we know what we need to know, a knowing not of words and concepts but of being and love that transcends all words, a knowing which awakens tears of the heart that have nothing to do with sadness but of joy at finding what one has always wanted and needed … home in the heart of God.
These words can barely touch its truth.
Yes, the prophet spoke of a historical moment when all the death that descended upon his nation, his people, would be no more, and the oppressed would know happy liberation.
But his eyes strained toward a farther horizon, and he saw the final union of the heart of God with the hearts of human beings. He saw all creation bathed and filled with deathless life, a final state of salvation when all is well.
We are not there yet, but there are moments when salvation won by the resurrection of the Christ comes and fills us. On one hand, we are saved, wanted and loved forever. The Holy One seeks intimate connection to flow into us in every moment of our days.
On the other hand, salvation doesn’t always fill us. We resist and refuse. The difficulties of our days harden our arteries so life and the breath of love find little passage into us.
But sometimes it happens. Soul fills soul, and we smile mysteriously as those around us wonder why.
But we know. Salvation comes when it comes, sometimes in odd moments.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 25:7-9
On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken. And on that day, it will be said, 'Look, this is our God, in him we put our hope that he should save us, this is Yahweh, we put our hope in him. Let us exult and rejoice since he has saved us.'
Reflection
Salvation comes with a word or a smile. It arrives on the wings of laughter or the touch of a hand in quiet conversation. It is the rising warmth of soul physically filling you when your heart connects with the soul of another in silent knowing, the wonder of wordless union where words only intrude.
And yes, this is the salvation of our God, the sweet connection of soul to soul when Soul, the great divine soul, is known and flows into the narrow margins of our own and expands our being to hold the joy of eternity.
It happens amid the mundane and common and most certainly when the defenses behind which we hide come down, and we reveal ourselves as human and needy as every human soul and feel no shame, only grace.
Salvation is the soul-to-Soul connection when the total love of divine life flows and fills us, and we know what we need to know, a knowing not of words and concepts but of being and love that transcends all words, a knowing which awakens tears of the heart that have nothing to do with sadness but of joy at finding what one has always wanted and needed … home in the heart of God.
These words can barely touch its truth.
Yes, the prophet spoke of a historical moment when all the death that descended upon his nation, his people, would be no more, and the oppressed would know happy liberation.
But his eyes strained toward a farther horizon, and he saw the final union of the heart of God with the hearts of human beings. He saw all creation bathed and filled with deathless life, a final state of salvation when all is well.
We are not there yet, but there are moments when salvation won by the resurrection of the Christ comes and fills us. On one hand, we are saved, wanted and loved forever. The Holy One seeks intimate connection to flow into us in every moment of our days.
On the other hand, salvation doesn’t always fill us. We resist and refuse. The difficulties of our days harden our arteries so life and the breath of love find little passage into us.
But sometimes it happens. Soul fills soul, and we smile mysteriously as those around us wonder why.
But we know. Salvation comes when it comes, sometimes in odd moments.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Today’s text
Isaiah 25:6-8
On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord of Hosts is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines. On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Reflection
Beyond every future, you are, O Lord.
Beyond the pain that grips our souls, beyond the fears we try to suppress, beyond the sorrows of life from the loss of those we love, beyond the hopes that once carried us, beyond the deaths we bear and those to come that we can’t stand to consider: beyond it all, you are.
So lift your heads, O people. Lift your hearts and see what is not yet.
Look not at what your hands can do or your mind imagine. The hopes of the human heart are paltry and fail to satisfy the need within us.
We hunger for a dream we cannot remember as when we awake from our sleeping world. Our agitated hearts grasp at air to hold the beauties of what we have felt in the night but cannot name in the morning light.
The dream is not our own but the intimation of eternity within, moving us to hunger for that feast of victory when the Holy One sits at able with the souls of those wounded by life, and joy washes every tear from their eyes.
Once veiled eyes are wide with joy, no longer shrouded in fear, no longer clouded by the weight of care they bore for those they loved.
That is all gone, for death is no more, and the thousand deaths human souls die during their days have all passed. The hope that haunted their hearts is no longer hope but present in the Presence of the One who is Love and who was present in every love they ever tasted.
For every love fans the holy dream of God within us, dreams of a world barely born and scarcely seen, a world where the hungry sit at table with the Lord of the Universe and receive their fill, their hearts flowing with songs of praise, a world where parents no longer watch over threatened children gripped by disease, a world where every soul is reverenced as the Maker’s art.
This is the dream, the hope, the future God has planted in our hearts so that we can’t remove it. Nothing else will finally satisfy, and nothing we can do will bring that future.
Yet, we taste and know it in every love and grace, in every moment of beauty and justice. In such moments, the dream takes shape within, fanning hope for the day when death is no more and justice covers the earth with peace.
Until then, we lift our eyes to imagine and a new world, and seeing we sing sweet songs of love and hope to the One who is all love and all hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 25:6-8
On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord of Hosts is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines. On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Reflection
Beyond every future, you are, O Lord.
Beyond the pain that grips our souls, beyond the fears we try to suppress, beyond the sorrows of life from the loss of those we love, beyond the hopes that once carried us, beyond the deaths we bear and those to come that we can’t stand to consider: beyond it all, you are.
So lift your heads, O people. Lift your hearts and see what is not yet.
Look not at what your hands can do or your mind imagine. The hopes of the human heart are paltry and fail to satisfy the need within us.
We hunger for a dream we cannot remember as when we awake from our sleeping world. Our agitated hearts grasp at air to hold the beauties of what we have felt in the night but cannot name in the morning light.
The dream is not our own but the intimation of eternity within, moving us to hunger for that feast of victory when the Holy One sits at able with the souls of those wounded by life, and joy washes every tear from their eyes.
Once veiled eyes are wide with joy, no longer shrouded in fear, no longer clouded by the weight of care they bore for those they loved.
That is all gone, for death is no more, and the thousand deaths human souls die during their days have all passed. The hope that haunted their hearts is no longer hope but present in the Presence of the One who is Love and who was present in every love they ever tasted.
For every love fans the holy dream of God within us, dreams of a world barely born and scarcely seen, a world where the hungry sit at table with the Lord of the Universe and receive their fill, their hearts flowing with songs of praise, a world where parents no longer watch over threatened children gripped by disease, a world where every soul is reverenced as the Maker’s art.
This is the dream, the hope, the future God has planted in our hearts so that we can’t remove it. Nothing else will finally satisfy, and nothing we can do will bring that future.
Yet, we taste and know it in every love and grace, in every moment of beauty and justice. In such moments, the dream takes shape within, fanning hope for the day when death is no more and justice covers the earth with peace.
Until then, we lift our eyes to imagine and a new world, and seeing we sing sweet songs of love and hope to the One who is all love and all hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Today’s text
Isaiah 25:6-8
On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord of Hosts is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines. On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Reflection
Beyond every future, you are, O Lord.
Beyond the pain that grips our souls, beyond the fears we try to suppress, beyond the sorrows of life from the loss of those we love, beyond the hopes that once carried us, beyond the deaths we bear and those to come that we can’t stand to consider: beyond it all, you are.
So lift your heads, O people. Lift your hearts and see what is not yet.
Look not at what your hands can do or your mind imagine. The hopes of the human heart are paltry and fail to satisfy the need within us.
We hunger for a dream we cannot remember as when we awake from our sleeping world. Our agitated hearts grasp at air to hold the beauties of what we have felt in the night but cannot name in the morning light.
The dream is not our own but the intimation of eternity within, moving us to hunger for that feast of victory when the Holy One sits at able with the souls of those wounded by life, and joy washes every tear from their eyes.
Once veiled eyes are wide with joy, no longer shrouded in fear, no longer clouded by the weight of care they bore for those they loved.
That is all gone, for death is no more, and the thousand deaths human souls die during their days have all passed. The hope that haunted their hearts is no longer hope but present in the Presence of the One who is Love and who was present in every love they ever tasted.
For every love fans the holy dream of God within us, dreams of a world barely born and scarcely seen, a world where the hungry sit at table with the Lord of the Universe and receive their fill, their hearts flowing with songs of praise, a world where parents no longer watch over threatened children gripped by disease, a world where every soul is reverenced as the Maker’s art.
This is the dream, the hope, the future God has planted in our hearts so that we can’t remove it. Nothing else will finally satisfy, and nothing we can do will bring that future.
Yet, we taste and know it in every love and grace, in every moment of beauty and justice. In such moments, the dream takes shape within, fanning hope for the day when death is no more and justice covers the earth with peace.
Until then, we lift our eyes to imagine and a new world, and seeing we sing sweet songs of love and hope to the One who is all love and all hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Today’s text
Isaiah 25:6-8
On this mountain, for all peoples, the Lord of Hosts is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines. On this mountain, he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death for ever. The Lord God has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people's shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Reflection
Beyond every future, you are, O Lord.
Beyond the pain that grips our souls, beyond the fears we try to suppress, beyond the sorrows of life from the loss of those we love, beyond the hopes that once carried us, beyond the deaths we bear and those to come that we can’t stand to consider: beyond it all, you are.
So lift your heads, O people. Lift your hearts and see what is not yet.
Look not at what your hands can do or your mind imagine. The hopes of the human heart are paltry and fail to satisfy the need within us.
We hunger for a dream we cannot remember as when we awake from our sleeping world. Our agitated hearts grasp at air to hold the beauties of what we have felt in the night but cannot name in the morning light.
The dream is not our own but the intimation of eternity within, moving us to hunger for that feast of victory when the Holy One sits at able with the souls of those wounded by life, and joy washes every tear from their eyes.
Once veiled eyes are wide with joy, no longer shrouded in fear, no longer clouded by the weight of care they bore for those they loved.
That is all gone, for death is no more, and the thousand deaths human souls die during their days have all passed. The hope that haunted their hearts is no longer hope but present in the Presence of the One who is Love and who was present in every love they ever tasted.
For every love fans the holy dream of God within us, dreams of a world barely born and scarcely seen, a world where the hungry sit at table with the Lord of the Universe and receive their fill, their hearts flowing with songs of praise, a world where parents no longer watch over threatened children gripped by disease, a world where every soul is reverenced as the Maker’s art.
This is the dream, the hope, the future God has planted in our hearts so that we can’t remove it. Nothing else will finally satisfy, and nothing we can do will bring that future.
Yet, we taste and know it in every love and grace, in every moment of beauty and justice. In such moments, the dream takes shape within, fanning hope for the day when death is no more and justice covers the earth with peace.
Until then, we lift our eyes to imagine and a new world, and seeing we sing sweet songs of love and hope to the One who is all love and all hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
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