Sunday, July 26, 2015

Ephesians 3:14-15

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.

Our name

My name is David Lavern Miller. I have long used the middle initial “L” if only to avoid having a name as bland as oatmeal.

There is another reason, too. Lavern is my father’s first name.

I say “is” even though he passed into the fullness of grace on Sept. 21, 2003. But there is no ‘was’ about him. He lives in the Love who fashioned him, and he lives in me, which is why I use the “L.”

I insist on it. An essential piece of me is missing anytime I see my name without it.

I received my name from him, and a name is never just a name. It is an identity, an essence, the truth of who we are. I am proud to bear his name. I am proud to be his son, to have his blood running through my veins and his hope in my heart.

The passion that often fills my heart and flows through my eyes testifies that I bear something of his heart within my own. And the hope I hold bears his mark, too. For he hoped for fullness of life and joy even while dragging around a broken body, forced to live a life he would never have chosen.

That I love him is obvious. And in loving him, in truly loving anyone or anything, I discover another gift, a deeper identity that any my father could give me.

In loving we feel and know our true name, a name given before we can receive any other.

For Love is our name. Love is our identity. Love is the deep truth of who we are. We are breathed into being by the Loving Mystery from whom we receive our life. Love is God’s name, a name given to us, but an identity we lose living in a less than loving world.

We forget our name and work at finding or making an identity that fits, but nothing we make ever quite fits us. For we are so much more than what our families and teachers say, more than what our education and jobs have made of us, more than our successes or failures suggest, more than what we say of ourselves.

But moments come when the noise and rush of life subside, when our fears fade, when we hear the silent voice of something more, something we did not create rising from within. We feel and know another self—Another Self—something, Someone … far more gracious rising from beneath the face we show the world.

And we know … our real name is Love. We are Children of the One Love from whom every family under heaven takes its name.

And in loving we know and become ourselves.

Pr. David L. Miller