Always

How lovely is your dwelling place,
   O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints
   for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
   to the living God.  (Psalm 84:1-2)

Always

Rust-edged leaves high across the way tell the season, fanning expectation for the explosion of wonder that is autumn, when dying things ignite the full glory of their inner beauty.  

How is it that intimations of mortality excite the hope that we, too, might color the world with wonder as they?

Can it be that this is the time of greatest glory, when in the near fullness of a life, you light the Love you are within this life that has always, always wanted You?

You are never far, You who are the inner light of the Love I crave and crave to be, the Love for which every molecule of my being cries out in moments when, senses dimmed by human weakness, I cannot find you near, though you always are. Always. 

Then comes the morning; light eastward springs and rusting leaves awaken the heart to your dwelling place within this heart and throughout the wonder that it is this beautiful blue pearl, this earth, this little island of life and color spinning in the infinite darkness.

And I know … I dwell in the beauty of the Lord, the beauty soon to explode in a riot of autumnal glory, the beauty who is this Love dwelling mysteriously in the soul of this one life that is mine, the beauty who would light each of us from within that we might be as faithful as the oak leaves across way. The beauty you are. Always. 

Open my heart to see that I may never lose the joy of your presence.

Pr. David L. Miller