Friday, August 7, 2015

Psalm 34:8

O taste and see that the Lord is good;
   happy are those who take refuge in him.’

Taste and see

I see her walk … slowly across the room, and I wonder: Are the suffering happy, O Lord? How can they know your goodness when treatment is worse than the disease and their weary hearts fail within?

Where is your goodness then? How can she taste and see? How can any of us rise above the weight of life and struggle that drags us down?

Seeing her, I feel the leaden weight of flightless souls, wondering what to do or say to re-ignite the fire in their eyes and lift their souls to flight. And I have nothing. No words to lift the weary. The weight is too great.

Yet, I know … even this is for your glory. Every loss and struggle is the stage on which you make miracles, breathing life and joy into those laden with life.

“God is good all the time, I tell her and pause. “And that’s good news,” I quickly add, “because the news is not good all the time.”

But you are, Loving One. You are.

And just then the tear on her cheek sings the hope Love is in our hearts. And I see. I see the healing Love brings, the joy that comes when we hold each other in struggle and sorrow. For a moment our eyes hold each other, knowing Love lives even on days when our hearts cannot take wing.

You live, Holy One. You live in us. You live among us. You live in our mutual knowing and unity. You live, and the Life you are in us is the Love we taste and know in the freedom of beautiful days and when tears are our only language.

You—the Love you are within and among us--lift earthbound hearts high to kiss the sky and breathe the sweet air of this good earth, filling us with the deathless hope that tastes and knows the goodness you are … always.

Taste and see.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, August 6, 2015

John 6:48

I am the bread of life.

I am

I am. The words echo across centuries and resonate in my heart. I am.

It is an ancient name, the name Moses heard in his heart when the Holy One spoke on the mountain. I am.

I am Life. I am Being. I am the Source and Power that brings to be all that is. I am the breath and spark of Life that gives life to all that lives.

I am … always, forever, from before the beginning of time. I am that which always was and always will be.

I am beyond your capacity to know or understand. I am the One who is … wherever you go, whatever happens. I am … already, now, waiting for you in every future.

There is no where you will go where I am not. You live … every moment of your existence … in my presence, for I am.

And I am love, unfailing generosity, for the Life I am I give away, sharing the Life I am with all that has life and being; all that exists … exists because I am.

I am … the bread of life, Jesus says, and with this identifies himself as the bearer of the life who is Life, the love who is Love, the Holy Mystery, the great I Am who is and always will be.

I am the bread of life, the Love the soul requires truly to live with joy, knowing … always, that Love is the substance of our souls, Love is the Origin of our lives, Love is the Presence who never lets go, Love is the destiny to which we go.

Love is the environment in which we live no matter where we are or how far we wander, no matter what happens to us; we live in the atmosphere of Love

For the great I Am is the Love Who Is … everywhere and every time in every moment. Unchanged and unchanging. Always. For you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

John 6:50-51

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

Bread of life

There is a longing that does not let go.

I feel it in my office. It gnaws at my heart when I sit alone or talk with someone about the bruises of life. I listen and hear their hopes for a life that is more than going through the motions of what needs to be done.

I know their yearning for something deeper, something that satisfies the heart. Most often they do not know what that is. They do not notice moments of completion that come, moments of depth satisfaction when the heart is warm and full and knows what it needs.

To be human is to yearn for fullness of heart, to long for the heart’s true joy. In moments it comes … and then goes. We lose it. We are fed only to hunger again.

The food we need is the Love that is in Jesus, the grace that is in his flesh. He embodies it. There is no split between his body and soul. His soul is known in all he physically does, and his physical life in the world, every act, is filled with soul, The Soul of the Universe who is Love beyond our capacity to understand.

When we feel this Love we know … we are home, no matter where we are or what we are doing, no matter the outward circumstances of life, good or bad, healthy or well. We taste and know eternal life, a life that does not die but goes with us from this life to the mystery of what is next.

It is then that our hearts are fed with the bread of life, receiving richly from the Soul of the Universe, the Soul who speaks in Jesus … and, frankly, everywhere if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The Love who becomes flesh in Jesus speaks in flowing waters and crashing waterfalls, in the brilliant blue of summer skies, in the playfulness of squirrels—and mystery of mysteries, in every soul where Love breathes and takes flesh in our oh-so-common lives.

As much as we hunger for the bread of life, God hungers more to feed us and fill our longing with the fullness of the Love who is … everywhere.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

John 6:35 

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Soul food

I know a food beyond my daily bread. I have tasted it, and I know … it satisfies every longing in your heart. It quiets every doubt and fear. It stills the restless yearning for more. It opens a hidden Source of love and joy in my startled soul.

It awakens such joy that sometime I cannot speak. I try, but words won’t come because what I know is beyond words.

How can one speak when you find yourself inside Love, a Love that engulfs every part of you and fills your heart beyond its capacity to hold? What words will do?

But no words are needed, not when you are carried away in a flood of knowing the Love Who Is … and who is in every love.

This is my food, my drink, the sustenance of my soul. Without it, the heart hungers and thirsts, it withers and grows cold, cramped and sad; the fruit of love it should bear dies and dries on the vine, half formed.

So I come here, Jesus. I come to know you. I come to savor, too, so many memories of being in the presence of those whose hearts are open to the Love that fills you, each shining with a rare beauty all their own, yet transparent to you.

Being with you, with them, feeling the Mystery, awakens the Love you are in me.

I become myself, the self I always was, the self I always am, the self that fills and spills out of me if only I eat the food and drink the wine of the Love who is present in you and in all who shine with the beauty you are.

For it is true, as you are, so are we.

We, too, are an incarnation of divine love and life, a unity of Spirit and flesh, but we forget. We lose touch with our soul, thinking we are merely what we do or how others see us.

Being here with you now, sitting, too, in the presence of those who bear this same Love, is soul food, my food and drink, awakening the startling beauty and love, the life and joy that is your life, your love and joy in us.

Is it any wonder… that I come here wanting more?

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Ephesians 4:1-6

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

One Love

Give me eyes to see and a heart to know one truth: You are in all I see, and in all I see … you are.

Everywhere I go, each face I see, open my heart to see you, your life, your Spirit breathing, giving and being life, drawing all into the unity that is your will, one with each other and in this oneness knowing, too, we are one with you.

This is our truth, our reality, wherever we go, no matter how far we travel, no matter where our feet wander, wherever fiery red sunsets delight our eye and moonlight embraces our hearts, we are one.

No matter what wounds and wars, distrust and fear separate nations, races and neighbors, we are one, every face, every place and planet, every distant star, one.

All share in one story. All are part of one body, one universe, receiving life and existence from the One you are, sharing a single destiny, union with each other in one body where Love is the air we breathe.

You, Holy One, are in all, drawing us home again, away from the separation that hurts our hearts … and yours. Opening our eyes to the truth that we are one whether we know and feel it or not.

We share a single story, the story of life, the story of this wondrous universe where unbreakable sinews connect all that is with all that is, so that what affects one affects all. There is no separate life in this story, for it is one story.

Separation is an illusion. All are connected. What happens to you affects me. Grace or injustice, love or hate cannot be isolated. They carry their consequences through the whole story, throughout the one body of creation.

So humility and gentleness is the way we must be … for the blessing of all, as you, Holy One, shatter all illusions of separation and draw us home … (soon, we pray) into the One Love you are.

Pr. David L. Miller