February, 6, 2015

February, 6, 2015

Mark 1:35-38

 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’

Moonlight

I do not wonder why you wandered from the house into the moonlight hours waiting for dawn. I know.

There is gold in the mouth of the morning, says an old German proverb. I beg to differ. Strike the ’l’ please. There is God in the mouth of the morning, the wee hours when the world is still.

You went out and saw thin clouds slow dance across the face of pale moonlight, playing with the face of earth’s nearest neighbor. Sitting in silence, you watched the gentle waves of light and darkness wash across earth and sky as a thousand stars and more dotted the infinity none of us understand.

And you listened … to the Heart within your own heart to hear the Inner Voice of Love who longs to dance with us—playing like cloud and moon in the darkened sky, filling us with the peace of the silent hours that we may live one more day as people who know the Love you are … who find that Love finding them right where they are.

This is the Love you sought in the moonlight so that knowing and hearing you may draw us to sit with you that we, too, might hear and know what moonlight awakens in the soul in the dark hours.

I spoke with a 13 year-old atheist wannabe the other day. He thinks he is, but he isn't … at least not yet.

He had arguments from the science he has learned and the objections cynical minds have handed him. I offered answers, good ones, to his every question about God and faith and why he didn't need to commit intellectual suicide to have faith and know you, Holy One.

The words I spoke to him feel empty now. I should have told him what it is like to sit with you in the silence, listening to the heart’s hunger, as the night clouds dance in slow motion across the face of the moon.

I should have told him what it is like to be quiet and listen to the Inner Voice of Love who speaks and has spoken in the hearts of billions when the noise of life falls away for a few minutes.

But I had no words a 13 year-old would understand. Maybe when he has felt truest love in his heart and learns its voice. Maybe some night in the moonlight he will be moved to wonder. Maybe then he will know what we know … the Love who finds us where we are … and who speaks in the moonlight.

Pr. David L. Miller