Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Today’s text

Psalm 63:2-4

I have gazed on you in the sanctuary,

   seeing your power and your glory.

Because your faithful love is better than life itself,

   my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live;
   I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

Reflection

I watched a girl stand and sing, eyes closed, thick black hair falling on her shoulders, framing Latina features.

She spread her arms at her side, lifting them slightly as we sang, “Glorious light of heavenly glory,” the evening hymn with which we put the day to bed, giving it back to you, Holy One.

She is 11, I later learned, a guest among us, but her age doesn’t matter, only her beauty.

Standing by her mother and sister, she sang, and I fell silent, feeling privileged to be in the same room with her, breathing the same air, caught up in the same song, lifted by the same love.

I am not worthy to stand near the sincerity of such a soul who, at tender age, loves you Lord, already finding her true home in a love better than life itself, a love that surely honors and savors her beauty.

I want to kneel at her feet and thank her for saving my weary soul on a cold February evening.

You are her beauty, Holy One, shining through the simplicity of the love that pours from her. I see her and know that your love seeks only one thing … to love us so that we shine with the glory of this girl who has no idea of her beauty, but most certainly knows you, its Source, and knows you better than I can.

You fill the hearts of children, Holy One, lifting them above us, their elders, so that they may teach us simplicity of heart.

Your glory shines in the simplicity of loving, trusting hearts, moving us to lift our arms and souls to praise you beyond our tortured questions and cynical doubts, beyond our fears of showing our hearts and looking foolish, beyond our minds’ futile attempts to understand and manage you, so that we may maintain the illusion that we are in control and do not really need you.

But I do. I need to see your glory in the sanctuary and be raised to life again and again by you, by your love, which is better than life … and stronger than death.

Pr. David L. Miller