The healing we need

Joseph went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:5-7)

It’s Mary I notice most of all when I close my eyes to see. So young, a blanket clutched around her shoulders, she trudges her pregnant weight alongside a man, a bit older, staff in hand, along a dusky road, the two of them, alone.

Dark hair framing her face, half-hidden, two fearful eyes peer into the unknown wondering what is next, where they will rest, sleep, huddle against the chill of night.

I have seen her in other faces and refugee places; afraid of what was behind them, they flee into the fear of what lies ahead, hoping for shelter and perhaps … someday … to return home.

That’s how I see Mary. But then the whole scene changes to a lonely place where cries of birth, unheard in the night, bring forth the child, and the light of love beckons me near to see something more.

Mary swaddles the child, warm eyes down, loving the life she labored into the night, wrapping him in new cloth, holding him close as breath, seeing nothing but him. How can it be? He who comes from eternity into time learned love’s first lesson in Mary’s arms, cradled in her heart, the two of them a portrait of the mystery we each are invited to live.

I want only to kneel and savor the warmth of their beauty enveloping my heart. But Mary looks up and extends the child toward my arms that I, too, may hold him.

And just then, Love’s holy nearness floods my eyes as I hold him close, my anxious heart calmed and healed, not by looking on from outside, but as I hold the Love Mary holds, and feel an all-consuming Love filling me whole.

This is the healing all the world needs and for which I so daily hunger, to hold the Love who holds me, to know him within … warming and filling every empty place, chasing out every doubt and fear until my heart knows the beauty in Mary’s arms deigns also to live in me.

This is Christmas, the wonder, the joy of eternity in time. It is the reason we gaze at the beauty of a mother and child … and discover we are not so lost as we feared. Never were. Never will be.

David L. Miller

Paper prayers

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

Paper prayers

Call them the saints and martyrs of Iran, young women and men beaten in the streets and hung from construction cranes to warn others not to resist. Blessed are they, Holy One. I read their stories and life wells within me. Your life. Your Love. The Presence of a mystery I can neither define nor deny.

Thank you for living in me, born there long ago, breathing still though too many hours pass when your presence feels elusive and beyond my grasp. But that is exactly the problem. I try to grasp you who are Spirit and Life rather than waiting and watching, attending to moments that breathe life in my soul.

Today, it is seeing these young men and women crying for the freedom and dignity due every child of earth. It is you who cry aloud in their voices. All things come to be through you, bearing the mark, the shape, the echo, the hope, the beauty, the light and love you are. You are the light and hope brilliant in their sacrifice.

They are more alive in you, and you in them, than are so many of us who bear your name, O, Christ.

Still, their wounding and death open the deep inner door of my being, and you rush out, a torrent of passion and prayer demanding that you receive each blessed one of them into the arms of your eternal mercy where every child of earth knows their worth.

In a single moment, I feel your love flooding from the soul’s secret room where your heart and mine are not two but one. And with this I have what my chilly December heart needs, for I know you as the Love who holds me and those young souls, who abide in the rest that one day will receive me home, too.

Blessed are you, Holy One. You are the Unquenchable Light who shines in the hearts of great saints whose images grace my morning paper. You are the Love who awakens in our hearts and drives off the darkness. You are the Eternal Word who unveils your beauty in the child of Bethlehem.

Open our eyes to see and love you … wherever you choose to appear.

David L. Miller