Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Matthew 2:9-12

Having listened to what the king had to say, they set out. And suddenly the star they had seen rising went forward and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were give a warming in a dream not to go back to Herod, and returned to their country by a different way.

Our favorite day

The magi followed a star to the place Love was born in human flesh. This is the journey of our lifetime--a pilgrimage to the places where we know Love being born in this world … and in ourselves.

We cease to be human when we turn away from the sparkling angels’ song and ignore light of those stars that shine with the Love of the child born in a manger. 

The Light who is Christmas illumines and warms our souls so that we know the Holy One who seeks us and whose beauty lives also in us. Angel song awakened our souls and starlight guided the way to the places where we knew this Light and were filled with the Love who is from the beginning.

Then the calendar page turns, and the warmth of that Light seems to fade in winter’s cold. We return to ordinary time and the mountain top vision fades. Faith’s pilgrimage continues in the valleys where angels are harder to hear and starlight is less clear.

But like the magi we do well to return to our places by a different road. For, we have seen and felt something more alive and loving than we have ever known. And we have been more alive to the beauty we are than we could have imagined. We know the Love who is and who is also in us.

So we avoid Herod, who is the symbol of all that kills what is new and beautiful … the enemy of the Love who warmed and lifted us to imagine our lives can be lived in great love … filled with the wonder of what we have seen in the manger … and discovered in our hearts.

Our way must lead us back again and again to place where we where Love is known and awakened in our depths that Christmas may be not once upon a time … but today ... our favorite day … every day.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Isaiah 60:1

Arise, shine out, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Winter’s hope

Winter descends on the earth

cold and bright; clouds scattered

across blue expanse of heaven,

little islands of hope awakening

moments and summer day memories

of gentle air and full hearts totally

convinced of the goodness of all that is

because every sight and scene is

filled with Love and Light from

unimaginable Source.

Late December sun promises

more than it can deliver, but it matters

not in this candlelight, gentle yet radiant

casting its circle of illumination on

these hands and this heart awakening

awareness and warmth within, knowledge

of the Light of Love which does not die

no matter how cold or long December days.

The Light of Lord, the Love who

abides mangers and this heart shines

more brightly on winter nights when

warmth feels far off and bears me into

the new day, each one truly new and favored

because the Light of Love arises within

and around and shines from radiant blue

of sky, from islands of cloud and

mysteriously in me, calming every corner

of my soul with knowledge only Love

can give, rising anew every morning.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 29, 2014

Matthew 2:1-2, 10-11

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, suddenly some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east asking, 'Where is the infant king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.' … The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Joy of the magi

Joy excites me this day. The joy of the magi awakens joy in me … and a resolution to seek joy in each season of the new year.

The joyful heart eagerly gives itself away to bless and love, to serve and worship. No external command dropped the magi to their knees. They knelt in the dirt because their hearts required it. They had come to the end of their search for the child of the star, the pearl of great price.

The deep desire of their hearts found surprising fulfillment, and the inner door of their souls opened to generously pour out treasures of heart far more valuable than the gold they carried.

Joy comes when the soul finds fulfillment, when it knows the Love from whom it came. It is then that the heart fills and pours itself out in acts of extravagant generosity. In moments of great love, the Love that lies sleeping within the soul awakens to life and must be given away … with great joy.

It has always been this way. People moved to extraordinary acts of service and giving do so to express the joy within them. They act from full hearts, joyfully pouring out the Love awakened within them

We cannot give ourselves joy, but we can seek to see … in every place and circumstance … the presence of goodness and grace … the Presence of the One who is Love … that this Love may awaken the Love that abides within.

Knowing this Love, joy fills and frees the soul to become its full beauty.

We can live with our eyes fixed on the ever-present pain and ugliness of this world, becoming discouraged and cynical. Or we can see with eyes trained to seek the Love who is present everywhere and every place. We can seek to see that our souls may live with joy, giving and celebrating the Love who lives everywhere.

The choice is always ours. One way leads to life … and makes every new year a time when joy can abound.

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday December 28, 2014

Matthew 2:1-2, 10-11

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, suddenly some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east asking, 'Where is the infant king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.' … The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

No boundaries

There are no limits, no boundaries to the Love God is. There are no limits to where Love goes and no restrictions on the ways Love reaches us, the beloved.

A star beckoned the magi and called them to come and know the glory of God, Immortal Love become flesh. For me, that star was people in my childhood in whom that Love shined and led me to know the child in the manger … and to know that Holy One in the depth of my soul.

The arrival of the magi at the manger signals the presence of God working far beyond the boundaries of Israel--and speaking in ways that go far beyond words in a holy book.

The one who is Love knows no boundaries. God is not the private possession of any one people, culture or religion, something forgotten by the narrow minds and cramped hearts of those who would claim God as their own.

But this is not the way Love is. Love … this Mystery, who takes flesh in a manger, is unbound by race and culture, by time and space and doesn’t conform to our favorite or cherished ways of working.

Love goes where it wills, and time and distance cannot limit its reach or shut it out.

At least once each year, I read a book to children, The Invisible String. It is about love’s reach from the depth of the sea to the distant stars, across the world to across the boundary of death.

The message is sweet and true and filled with what our hearts need to know. There is no place love does not or cannot go; no boundary keeps it out. An invisible string connects us with our beloved, no matter how near or far.

The book is about our human experience of love, but it is truer still of the One who is Love itself. The Holy One still sends sparkling stars and shining angels to announce good news and point us to the place where we can truly know the Love who comes.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Matthew 2:1-2, 10-11 

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, suddenly some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east asking, 'Where is the infant king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.' … The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Journey of a soul

I bless the journey, O Lord that led them to the place of joy. I bless all the rocky and smooth places of life and earth my feet have trod for they have led me here … to know the joy you intend.

The Magi’s journey is mine. Theirs is the human journey to find and know what fills the soul, to know you as Presence in our souls--and not there alone, but to know the wonder of heaven’s glory on the face of our messy earth.

They were looking, which distinguishes them from the great mass of humanity. Maybe they were privileged, free from the drudgery of exhausting work and thus able to watch the stars and wonder about what it all means.

They are so different from so many of their age … and ours. Caught up in work or pleasurable diversions, we fail to look at the sky … or into our souls …to wonder and ask what our lives are for. We lose our souls in the whirlwind of living.

It is for this hunger to know, to connect with their soul’s delight that I honor them. It is this that makes them icons of our humanity, symbols of the soul’s journey home … where … in union with the Love who made us … we know where we came from … where we are going … and who we are.

They followed the star with joy believing the end of their search--and the fullness of their life--was near. Coming to the manger, they looked on the human face of God, and their soul took flight in their flesh. Witnessing the union of flesh and Spirit, they were stirred to life by the Spirit within their own flesh.

We do not look to the stars as they did, but there are sparkling stars on our journeys, too, sparkling Christmas angels, messengers of the One who is Love, sent to lead us home. Follow them with joy and great hope. And bless every rocky and smooth place of your journey. They are leading you to joy.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 26, 2014

Friday, December 26, 2014

Matthew 2:1-3, 9-11

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the reign of King Herod, suddenly some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east asking, 'Where is the infant king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.' When King Herod heard this he was perturbed, and so was the whole of Jerusalem. … Having listened to what the king had to say, they set out. And suddenly the star they had seen rising went forward and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Love’s gift

Isn’t it odd that the one

who fears is the king who

has all the power, not those

who followed the star

to that which bids them

kneel and say, “We are

here for you, even though

we know you are here for us,

come to save us …

from ourselves?”

To the king the child is

threat, to the magi a gift.

Bearing gifts to the one

who is gift, they know

 the child appears that they

may discover what it means

to be human, to give themselves

away, to fall on their knees

in love with the Love

whom Love sends. Kneeling

in dirt and straw where sheep

walk and relieve themselves

doesn’t matter. Who worries

about the mess when love

fills them to the brim?

All that matters is following

whatever star Love sends to

guide you to the place of freedom

where fears disappear and all that

matters is giving yourself to what

love bids you do and be.

Love casts out fear, the Love

by which we are loved and

the love with which we love

what Love gives. This

I know … and always will.

The wise men loved in their

learned way, not emotional

types, but making their way

across deserts and cold what

moved them if not the love to

know, to discover and give

the gifts they carried? It

was love, hunger for union with

the Mystery they sought. 

They knew love must give 

or it is not love and without love 

there is no humanity.

They followed the star seeking

the child that came for them 

that they in love might kneel 

and learn how to be human, 

given to the One Love gives; 

kneeling in the dust they,greater 

than the king, knew no fear

only the love, joy and hope 

Love gives every time we bow 

before Love’s gift.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Luke 2:1-7

Now it happened that at this time Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be made of the whole inhabited world. This census-- the first -- took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judaea, to David's town called Bethlehem, since he was of David's House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. Now it happened that, while they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the living-space.

Bethlehem nearby

Twice I have visited Bethlehem, and three times I have walked from the guest house where I stayed and stooped to enter the dusty interior of the Church of the Nativity. Each time I descended the steps to one side of a gaudy Greek Orthodox altar to the traditional site of Jesus birth.

Neither the church nor the site, often filled with pilgrims armed with cameras, was of much inspiration. A star on the floor marks the spot where he was born. You can reach into the hole at the middle of the star and feel the stone or soul beneath. Dozens of orthodox lanterns cast grimy light across the stone cave. Packed with pilgrims snapping photos, the scene feels cheap and tacky, a dime-store rip off.

Only once did the spot inspire devotion in me and that was long after the tourists left and I returned to pray, sitting on a rock shelf to the side of the holy spot, which I did not find holy at all. I prayed in this birthplace for my daughter whose first pregnancy was in trouble. I prayed for her child to wait his time and be born healthy. My prayers were answered. Ben’s wit and joy never fail to delight me.

It is this which has made this tourist site holy for me, those prayers, that boy and the shine in his mother’s eyes.

But I honestly could not see Mary here, cradling her child. Maybe there were too many people. Maybe the scene was not simple enough. Maybe it was the din of a dozen languages echoing off the stone walls. Maybe if someone had scattered some straw and sheep manure around it would have felt more real.

Maybe if we all could have been quiet for a moment and realized this is the spot where a human soul filled with the wonder of God entered our world and changed everything.

Maybe then I would have felt what I wanted to feel and praised God for the wonder of becoming flesh.

More real to me is the tired Mexican mother sitting on a bench at the shopping mall, cradling her child, nursing him. It is there that I see Mary and Jesus in my world. I see God becoming flesh in a way real and near to me, and not just near … but in me as I feel compassion for her in her weariness and joy in the tenderness of the moment.

For God takes flesh in every human soul, and each time we see the compassion of such holy tenderness we witness again the incarnation of God in our midst … and feel it in our souls.

Every year at Christmas the same vision appears in my imagination. I see Mary and Jesus in the old barn on the farm, huddled among the stanchions where dad and grandpa milked the cows.

I see them there in the first world I inhabited in my childhood. They are real there, making this common place a holy place, my Bethlehem, where God puts on flesh so I can see and feel the joy of his nearness.

Seeing them there, I know … Bethlehem is everywhere.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 15, 2014

Luke 2:1-7

Now it happened that at this time Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be made of the whole inhabited world. This census-- the first -- took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judaea, to David's town called Bethlehem, since he was of David's House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. Now it happened that, while they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the living-space.

Awakening

Rough gravel clatters across

The frozen drive as I walk to

The old barn. Most of it is packed

Solid into the Jo Daviess county soil

That saw my birth here as I

Go to another birth, once more, that

Once more, I may be born.

My footfalls, the only noise

in the evening dark, silence broken

by the cold metal snap of the

latch on the warped red door.

Entering, I enter another world,

Filled with the magic that awakens

My heart to what is always waiting

whenever I take this journey, not

of distance but memory.

.

It is the woman I first see, no, it

Is her fear, her eyes, wondering

Whether the snap of the latch brings

Friend or threat. She crouches low

By the last wooden stanchion; the

Cows now loose in the field, having

Been milked. The stanchions

Rough cut brown boards worn smooth

On inside edges by the necks of cows

Scratching an itch or straining to reach

The last blades of hay in this manger

Where now lies another food.

Stacks of hay and straw bales make a

Wall behind her so she cannot run

Or hide in the bales where mice rustle

In the silence. But she does not run.

She must be here Just as certainly as

I must be here, waiting, watching for

The rustle of what moves not among

the bales … but in myself.

She sits, watching me, her head turning

Again and again to the child, so recently

Come from the warmth of her

Womb to this common, rude space no one

Would notice as anything more than

An old barn on a half-forgotten farm

Of no particular importance to anyone,

Except to me because every year I come

here … to see him.

She watches him, the child,

Asleep in the straw who does nothing but

Make new-born sounds and awaken me

Once more to wonder that such a child

Born in such a place should mean everything

To me and a world that needs this moment

More than anything else.

The fear-eyed mother keeping watch over

The wrapped child, warm against the cold,

A more or less pathetic scene with no glory

To suggest God or royalty. Yet my soul

Knows an invitation here that is more than

Invitation because it awakens the

Love and compassion it invites, awaking, too,

Awareness that the compassion awakened

Is exactly the salvation the child is promised

To bring. And he does, just lying there, for

I know … standing there, watching them

The soul who kicked gravel across the lot is

larger now and the hand that threw the latch

more gentle for having seen him once more.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, December 13, 2014

John 1:6-8, 19-23
 
A man came, sent by God. His name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, so that everyone might believe through him. He was not the light, he was to bear witness to the light. …  This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Then they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said,
‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
“Make straight the way of the Lord,”
as the prophet Isaiah said.

Light in the wilderness

Voices cry out in the wilderness, our voices.

Monday, I open my email and hear a wilderness cry, “Is there any hope?” Will things ever get better, or will we see more police-connected deaths of African American men, more racial mistrust and conflict?

Last Sunday, I listened to someone whose family had suffered a terrible loss. As her grandchildren hurried down the hall for games during our Advent program, she shrugged, “I just don’t know what to do,” she said. 

“I think I know what you should do,” I answered. “You need to go down the hall and see your granddaughters smile. That will cure you.”

I was playing John the Baptist, sending her to where the light of God’s love would shine on her to lighten the load and let her feel alive again. That’s what the light of Christ does. 

Christ is the light to which this holy season points us. The light in him does not fade or fail. It is the light of God’s unfailing love and presence. That light has shined in all times and places and comes to full radiance in Christ. 

When it shines on … and in us, it ignites our inner being. It fills us. We are lit up from within and become the light that he is. In his light, we become light, radiant with a love beyond words, a joy beyond our fondest fantasies. 

Our souls grow light and our hearts grow large, making space in us to love and bless … and to give thanks for our lives. It is then that we know the light of Christ to which John points when he cried out in the wilderness.

We make the Lord’s way straight in the wilderness of our hearts by taking time to sit in the places where God’s love comes and lights you up from within. Go to the people and places where the light of Christ finds and fills you. 

In these days before Christmas, take time to sit by your candle, your tree in the nighttime … and know the light of Christ touching you. Open your heart and pray in the silence. Listen to the music that blesses you. Hold a child and imagine how Mary felt holding Jesus. Read the story of Jesus birth; let the words wash over you and feel its beauty.

Your heart will open like a flower. Joy will come to you. And hope will open your eyes to the Love and Light who comes again and again.

Make straight the way … for the One who is Light comes to you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 8, 2014

John 1:6-8

A man came, sent by God. His name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, so that everyone might believe through him. He was not the light, he was to bear witness to the light.

Radiant light

There are faces that shine and eyes that glisten, radiant, awakening the soul and making the heart glad. Drawn to their radiance, light and joy fill me with the desire to bless all that is.

This year, I walk through the grocery store and shopping mall blessedly unperturbed by the commotion and clogged aisles. Looking at hundreds of faces, I know nothing of the stories behind each set of eyes, yet I love each one … because a light shines within me, a light that is so much more than me.

This light shines within us when love ignites our inner being, filling the soul completely and revealing who we are and for what we are made.

We are made to be light and love, lit up from within by the Light who does fade and the Love who never quits.

My love fails and my light fades with sour moods, frustration and fatigue, but there is One whose Light never fades and whose Love never fails. He is the Light from all eternity whose name is Jesus, the Christ.

Hearing his words and basking in the light of his being, light floods the heart and pours from us so that we, too, are radiant with the eternal light of the God.

In his Light, we become light, ... radiant with a love beyond words, a joy beyond our fondest fantasies. This is what we are made to see and know … and become.

Sometimes, radiant glory shines on us from the heart and eyes of others who know … who truly know the One who is Love and Light. It is then--in the Light of Christ that shines through them--that we are awakened and become what we are made to be … radiant, joyous light.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Mark 1:1-3

The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the prophet Isaiah: Look, I am going to send my messenger in front of you to prepare your way before you. A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.

Prepare Love’s way

What is the Lord’s way, if not that of Love that transforms the heart and sets us free?

We make the path straight by releasing all that blocks the flow of Love between God and ourselves … and between us and others. Sin is all that blocks the flow of self-giving Love that pours from the depth of God’s heart.

We are made to bask and revel, to know …sweetest communion, heart-to-heart, with the One Love who made us, the One who is the Heart of our hearts.

It is this communion that fulfills the human heart. All that stops the flow of grace and goodness is to be cleared away … as much as this is in our power.

Make straight the Lord’s paths. Remove the obstacles to knowing and reveling in the Love, the Life that flows from deepest mystery to the mystery of our hearts.

These obstacles are as diverse and manifold as the human race itself. What keeps us from receiving and giving, from knowing and sharing the Love of Holy One as it flows from secret depths of eternity?

Perhaps our resentments, angers and disappointments prevent the flow of love from penetrating calcified hearts.

Perhaps we are too busy to pray or even to feel what is in our hearts and offer it to God.

Perhaps we fail to see and return to the sacraments of God’s life in our lives, the people and places, the practices and moments that make us truly alive and filled … with the Love which completes us.

Make straight God’s paths. Prepare his way. Remove the negative thoughts that shut down the flow of love in you. Dwell no longer on the disappointments and resentments that sour the heart and turn it from love. Release the festering wounds at which you pick. Let go of the threatened ego’s need to win and be considered important. 

Turn your eyes to the Love who seeks you in every love, every grace and beauty. Run to the places where you know … the Love who comes to make you alive. Go there, and let it draw you into its gravity.

Your heart will open like a flower. Joy will so fill you that you can barely speak. Expectation and unfailing hope will open your eyes to the Love who is, the Love who comes to you again and again … because that’s the way Love is.

Make straight the path for the One who comes.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 5, 2014

Mark 1:1,7

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. …[John the Baptist] proclaimed  the one who is more powerful that I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals

Kissing the feet

I wonder if you are truly a human being until you have been so moved that you are eager to bend down and kiss someone’s feet.

This may seem a strange thought, hopelessly out of date. But you don’t really know what is in your heart until you love, admire and even adore someone so much that this act of humility and affection seems natural as breathing, something your heart is eager to do.

Mothers kiss their children’s feet all the time in complete affection and care, an acknowledgement that their heart totally belongs to their little one. They would do anything for them.

In ancient times, taking off someone’s sandals and washing of kissing their feet was an act of abject humility, something slaves would be ordered to do.

But for mothers and John the Baptist … and for those who have been moved to deep love … this is an act of joy. It expresses the heart’s desire to be given away in love and service to the one they kiss.

We become completely human, truly human souls, when the heart is moved to this place of giving and humility, when a slave’s act is a joyous expression of a love that cannot be denied.

Jesus comes. He appears and awakens this kind of love in the John’s heart. It is the beginning of the good news.

Jesus is the good news who moves us beyond our hang-ups and all that hems in our hearts to kiss the feet of the Love who comes to set us free.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 1, 2014

Isaiah 40:9

Get you up to a high mountain,
   O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
   O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
   lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
   ‘Here is your God!’

A voice beyond all others

There is a Voice

beyond all others

the heart strains

to hear, for it is life

and joy, bringing

news of the love that

comes anew every

morning awakening

hope for the day when

waiting is done and

fullness comes.

Trained by Love

to want nothing but

the love …Love is,

the heart, finely

tuned, leans forward

to capture every sound

and syllable, every

note and song yearning

for the moment,

word and note make magic

and the wanted news

fills the heart with the

wonder for which

every heart hungers.

Rise up O Voice, and

speak, sing, shout

the morning song that

fills the heart,

strengthens soul

and makes alive

once more.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Mark 13:35-37

“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

Stay awake

 

 Stay awake. Christ is coming ... to you.

The deep cry of our hearts is to know Christ coming to us, touching, filling us with the love that makes us alive, so that no matter our condition--joy or struggle, strength or illness--we know we are safe and well in the Love who comes to each of us … again and again … to join himself with us … that we might have his light and life … in ourselves.

Jesus’ call to stay awake is grace, an invitation to welcome Christ in all the ways he comes to us.

The business of life, the rush of this season, lulls us to sleep even as it exhausts us. We fall utterly unconscious to what is happening in our souls. What am I thinking? Feeling? What is giving me real life and joy; what is stealing it from me?

We don’t know unless we struggle to stay awake through prayer and love. These two keep us awake.

We must listen to our needs and the needs of our wounded world and pray, “Come Lord Jesus,” responding with generosity to the needs of God’s hungry and suffering ones in the world.

And we must cultivate love for life, love for God’s world, love for others next door or a world away. Love begins with gratitude, by saying “thank you” every single day for the blessings our life, focusing on the graces you have received … not on what we don’t have or imagine we must have to be happy.

And if you cannot find anything for which to be grateful, I invite you to take your pulse.

Stay awake. Christ is coming to you.

This month … find places of silence away from the distractions of work and entertainment.Stand in silence under the night sky, or look into the clear cobalt skies of winter afternoons and marvel at creation.

Listen to those who speak to you without worrying about what to say next. Read a favorite passage or book that opens you to the mystery of God’s love. Sit and talk, share a drink, a thought, a memory with someone who truly cherishes you. Listen to music that opens your soul.

Stay awake. Receive each day and moment that comes without insisting that it be like yesterday or anticipating all the ways tomorrow might be better. 

Stay open and try with all your might to love each day, knowing … that amid all that happens … Christ who is Love … is coming to you.

Light a candle … and know.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, November 28, 2014

Mark 13:32-37

“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

Advent watching

For who and what

do we watch and

wait? And how to

stay awake when

waiting is long?

Only love knows

how; only those who

love stay awake, for

they know their life

depends on hearing

again the voice their

hunger craves, the smile

that cures all fear,

the words that speak

the love their hearts

must hear … and know

for life to be life

for them.

With love we wait

and watch for Love’s

appearing; it is no

burden or task

but eager longing,

for what we know

will come, a waiting

with joy for what

Love … alone

can bring.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Mark 13:32-37

“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

Awakened

Crisp air awakens my cheeks as I step into the starless night, the sky shrouded in low November clouds.

It does not matter. Skylight is not needed. Brisk air awakens inner light and raises my eyes to the sky to give thanks late on this eve of Thanksgiving.

“Thank you,” I say aloud in the darkness. “Thank you for cold winter air that makes me glad I am alive.

“Thank you for awakening my heart. Thank you for the gratitude that springs suddenly to life and fills me.

“Whatever You are, so mysterious, so far beyond anything I can think or imagine, thank you that my soul is alive to this moment, that my eyes search the dark night sky in wonder that You should come to me and that I should know … this joy, this love.”

Stay awake. That’s what Jesus says. Here, under the night sky, in an empty parking lot, I am awake, and there is nothing in me but love and gratitude for life--and for the gift of this wakefulness.

How did it come? Why am I awake to love and life now and not always?

Were I so awake at all times my anger would never get the best of me, my patience would be unflappable, my heart would always flow with grace, eager to bless those who come my way whether they like me or not.

This is what I would be were I always awake to this mysterious love within me. But these moments come and go, and it seems I am powerless to produce them because they under the command of a Mystery I do not control.

Jesus commands us to stay awake. You do not know when I will come to you, he says. But I cannot wake myself. It is his coming that awakens us.

The Love he is awakens this same Love that lives in us, the Love that is our truest self.

Once you have been awakened to this Love, you want to stay awake and watch for every small way it comes to you that you may know the joy of communing with him, knowing what God from all eternity wants you to know.

We keep falling asleep. But maybe we can work to stay awake. Maybe we can cultivate a silence of heart unfilled by the distractions of work and entertainments. Maybe we can stand in silence under the night sky. Maybe we can listen to those who speak to us without worry about what to say next.Maybe we listen to music that opens the door of our souls.

Maybe we can receive each day and moment that comes, not insisting that it be like yesterday or anticipating all the ways tomorrow might be better. Maybe we can receive each day for what it is … with whatever challenges and graces it brings.

Maybe this will keep us awake to the Love that comes on November nights.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday November 25, 2014

Today's text

Mark 13:32-37

‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.’

For what we wait

There is a joining we know and a joining for which we wait, a joy we know and a joy that aches for completion only the Holy One can provide.

Christmas celebrates the joining of divine reality with human substance, revealing what we each are but which we have not become.

We look at Jesus in his mother’s arms and wonder at the beauty of the child. We believe and know he is the face of heaven shining on us and making us alive once more.

This is the joining we know. His light warms and heals hidden longings for which no other fulfillment can be found.

We see him and know the love who is Love touching us and quieting the inner ache, whispering once more, “Rest, my love is enough for you.”

We are creatures made from Love, by Love and for the Love Christ is. In him, we see what we each are and what we … and all nature and history … will be.

Our joy is to be finally and fully joined with the Love shining from his face that it might also shine from ours, in our hopes and tears, our longings and our laughter.

This joining is our Advent longing. We do not await the birth of Jesus who has already come but the birth of Christ in us and all creation, the full joining of the divine heart with our human hearts so that everywhere we look and all we shall see is Christ, the perfect unity of God and creation.

We stay awake for he comes to join with our hearts in all times and every moment.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday November 18, 2014

Matthew 25:37-40

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

The light of Christ

There are several mysteries here. The first is the presence of Christ in the man in need, the suffering woman, the neglected child. It is not just that Jesus identifies with those in need, though he does. There is more.

Christ is present in every human being. Each is an image of God meant to shine a light of God’s grace and beauty in this world.

The blessing of the poor lifts those weighed down by life that the inner light of grace might shine in their eyes and hearts that they may know and be what they are--lights of the God’s holy presence shining rays of the Love Christ is.

This is not for them alone, but … for me … and for all who grow weary and stagger through days lost from the joyous light of Christ animating and lifting our hearts.

To see and know the light of Christ shining and enveloping you from the eyes of another gives life that is Life … and joy that is Joy. It awakens the Life within us, and we shine with the light of Christ we each are.

We need each other to be awake and alive, the light of Christ in you awakening me, and the light in me awakening others … that the presence of the Holy One may shine in our hearts and give light to a world descending now into winter’s darkness.

However cold it becomes, there is a warmth within, a fire of grace and eternal love, the very image of the Eternal Love at the depth of every human soul. The struggles of life can beat the fire down, but its embers are ever there, awaiting the spark of grace to ignite the fire into the light of Christ, the true self of every human being.

Shine the light you are, so alive and crazy beautiful, and the Christ light within you and the hearts of others will warm you through winter’s coldest blast.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Matthew 25:14-21

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.

The law of our nature

The story goes on, and it’s not good news. The guy who has only one talent loses what little he has to those who already have more. It is one more chapter in the old story, “Them that’s got shall win; them that’s not shall lose.” The poor get poorer. Nothing new here.

The Master in the story gives from his fullness to each servant. But at the end he is not sympathetic. He has no compassion on his fearful servant but sends him away into the darkness where the soul aches for the light of God.

So is God, the Master, a punisher like this? Or is God like the healing hand of Christ reaching to the tenderest spots in our hearts to heal us again when morning comes?

Does God look at the world with jaundiced eye or with the warmth of one who loves us in spite of ourselves, welcoming every open heart?

I’ll take the latter. Everything I have ever learned in prayer and meditation, everything the wise and most Spirit-filled through the centuries have written speak of the passion of a love so warm and life-giving they stumbled over themselves to speak it.

But there are laws in the world of Spirit as everywhere else. The Divine Spirit works in certain ways, and when we resist these ways we cut ourselves off from the joy of the Master for which we are intended.

The Master gives life and breath, gifts and graces in creation. It is God’s nature to give, and human souls are created in the image of the Giver of all life. The two servants who risked what they had received cooperated with the Spirit. They flowed with the living stream of grace and love that springs from the heart of God.

The servant who fearfully hid what he had acted against God’s nature … and his own. He tries to hold tight to what he has, fearing punishment instead of obeying the Master’s way, the way of gift and grace, the way of risk, the way that leads to joy.

He did not know or trust that he was made in the image of his Master. Violating his own nature he lived in darkness not the light of the grace for which we hunger.

In the world of Spirit, when you give something away you become more … not less. You enter the Master’s joy.

Pr.  David L. Miller