Sunday, November 2, 2014

Today’s text

Matthew 5:1-3

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:  ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Poor & rich

Wise and secure today,

no grasping rankles the heart

content to welcome what

comes as from your hand,

receiving as one who has no

claim on tomorrow or

even my next breath.

Poverty of spirit You

call it; forsaking all claim

and demand of what is not

or which cannot yet or

perhaps ever be, but receiving

with gratitude what is, knowing

the Love and grace it is;

the challenge, too, each

thing, each day, each grace

a challenge and gift shaping

the soul into the Mystery

of You who are in this

and every soul.

So with open hearts we

live, waiting …

the unveiling only time  

can bring, but knowing

always the Mystery we bear

is the Love you are, shaped

by particularities of our

surprising lives and

histories--who could have

guessed?--each a glory

of Your Glory.

Just so, in hope we watch,

trusting, knowing …

whatever time brings or

soul grows in its secret soil

will be the Love you are, and

peace will attend our poverty

of spirit, a taste of that kingdom

made of Love alone

by Hands not ours.

Pr. David L. Miller

October 28, 2014

Today’s text

Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Seeing

Beatific vision tradition calls

the seeing of the One who

sees in love, so different

from our seeing, obsessed eyes

compulsive, fixed on warts

and wounds, busy tongues

seeking every sore spot.

With delight the Seer sees

every curve and contour

of body and soul, eyes

lingering, caressing,

slowly moving, savoring

even the smallest the quiver

of lips upturned into the smile

that echoes the Divine Heart’s

joy, who sees and says, “mine,

mine, mine,” bursting with Love

at the sight of life filled

and revealing the Life who is.

Just so we are seen by

the Beauty who seeks

and savors Beauty

in all, inviting us to see

self and all so well, and

seeing to know in all we

see the One who always is …

and Who always is Love.

Seeing that we are seen

in love, vision is pure, and

we see with love through

eyes longing for the One

Love present in all that is, waiting

the day we see Beauty

and nothing more.

Pr. David L. Miller

October 27, 2014

Today’s text
 

1 John 3:1-2

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

As you see …

I am glad I was born in a rural place where fields roll among hills carved by ancient glaciers, where golden trees follow valleys, crowding near rivulets that run when the rains come, seeking the water of life … just like me.

The trees, I see, are my brothers and sisters, teaching me what I tend to forget.

Autumn colors are all around, not only in rural landscapes. But seeing the hills roll before your eyes from the top of a ridge, hazy mounds purple in far distance, awakens the awareness of beauty in a young child, or at least in the child that I was … and in many ways still am.

But as the years pass a blessed awareness appeared: Somehow, mysteriously, the beauty you see resides also within you, or you wouldn’t be able to see it at all.

The hills whisper that the beauty you see is the beauty you are.

We become … more and more what we see, more of the beauty … or, sadly, the ugliness or distractions or whatever it is on which our eyes most linger.  

You are the Great Beauty shining in the hills of childhood memory and in the eyes and hearts of so many, in so many places where I sat and listened--and looked into the glow of eyes and hearts where shined your Love and Beauty … and was made more alive than I had ever been.

I saw you then … and now, and you continue to make me feel truly alive, moving me to hunger for more … of  You. Whatever goodness and beauty lies within this soul was brought to life by seeing you where you appeared, or at wherever I had eyes to see and know you.

As we see, so we become, so let me see you that as you are so I may be.

Pr.  David L. Miller