Saturday, March 11, 2017

Mark 8:34-37

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Losing and finding

So much of our pain comes from trying to hold fast to the joys and loves we have received. Long ago … and many times …  I have thought and said that we should hold everything we have and are in open palms, not grasping tightly in fear of losing the goodness of what is.

Holding our lives and loves with open palms, we can see and celebrate the beauty and joy of what we have received. We can give thanks, always knowing the wonder of the gifts of love that fill our hearts.

When we grip too tightly we fan our fears of the future, our anxiety about not being in control of what will be, our sorrow that we can lose what most fills us.

With closed grip on what is, we cannot receive what will be—the joy, the beauty, the love, the challenge, the life that is yet to come and which we can never quite anticipate. For the Loving Mystery always has surprises we can never anticipate.

Releasing our grip on what we fear losing, holding what is with open hands and hearts, our anxiety subsides. We can live with thanks and gratitude, ready to receive whatever comes next, knowing that it comes from a Heart whose love staggers us and always will.

We need not cling to what is, for whatever comes, comes from the Love who fills us and always will.

Pr. David L. Miller

                                                                                                                   

Monday, March 6, 2017

Mark 8:34-37

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Knowing Love is life

It is from the Great Love that we come and to the Great Love we go. In between these great unknowns, on the journey through our days, life that is truly is life, comes only as we know the Great Love, through whatever way this Holy One manages to find and fill our hearts.

Some speak of looking for God. I suppose there is truth in this. But experience shows that if we know the Great Love at all, it is this Loving Mystery who finds us, not the other way around.

This is how the great ones of the faith have described it through the centuries.

And once you are found, you know this Love goes on and on. You know you have been caught up in a stream which precedes your existence and will remain long after.

You taste that which the Scripture calls eternity, eternal life, moments in which you know this Love is … and that knowing and being and sharing this Love is all that really matters.

Everything else is, well, just everything else. 

Knowing the Love who is … is life, and when you are given the gift of knowing and tasting … even in moments that come and too quickly go … you know the Love who seeks us all, every day.

You know it is worth everything you've got ... and more.

Pr. David L. Miller