Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Today’s text

Psalm 126:1-2

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
   we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
   and our tongue with shouts of joy.

Reflection

Sometimes our reality outstrips our hopes and expectations. Sometimes what comes to us exceeds what we thought was possible. So it was for your people, Holy One, when they returned from exile, home to Zion, the city of their sweetest dreams.

Their longings were fulfilled, and they breathed the fresh air of the home to which they never expected to return.

Their story is my story, our story, for we live so much of our lives in exile, far from home.

You made us for this earth, to tend and till, care and nurture with our hands and hearts, giving all that we are to the life of this precious planet and the lives therein.

This is home, this is life, this is our place of being. Joy comes as we give our hearts away in care and nurture of what you have made and given us. Heaven is not our home … this is. This is where you placed us to live, to grow and love.

Yet, this is not quite home.

We do our work, care for homes and families, jobs and community, striving to do and be all we can be, all the while hoping and craving something more, fearing it will never come, distressed that we may never reach it.

A sense of exile disturbs the soul.

We long for unity in love with the Love who made us. We seek the More beyond whom no more is or can be.

We try to still our restless longings with success or money, fun and ever-more crowded schedules, but these never fully satisfy the soul’s desire for more. We will always want more.

Except, … there are moments when we feel ourselves inside the More you are, Holy One, and we enter a home that exceeds every expectation of joy and peace we have ever had.

Moments come, faces appear, grace and beauty find us, touch us, fill us, carry us away into the Heart that is the home our hearts seek.

Every biblical story about God’s exiled, wandering people hungry for home, every story, myth and fairy tale that speaks of separation from home, from lost love or from a promised land not yet found--all of this speaks our soul’s unsatisfied longing to enter the heart of God.

But even in this life, moments come when our longings are stilled, when dreams are fulfilled, when reality exceeds hope and expectation, and our souls are released in joy.

And God’s dream for us comes true.

Pr. David L. Miller