Saturday, August 15, 2015

Mark 9:2-4, 7-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.  Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

Elevation

It took three times before Ginny understood the most meaningful thing in her life. She lay in a low bed, half curled into fetal posture, eyes closed, dozing away what little is left of her life.

I had to look for her. She’d been moved to Silverado, a “memory facility” where all that is most human about us is lost. Looking for her room, I pass a man my age walking the hall in a diaper. He’s forgotten to put on his pants.

A hand waves wildly across the room. I am startled to see Anita, once my colleague, smart and professional, detailed to the point of annoyance. She recognizes me, knows my name, but little else. No longer can she string together a coherent sentence. Even her husband is lost in the foggy mist of her mind.

As for Ginny, she can barely stay awake to hear the end of my prayer. It wasn’t that long. Not long ago she’d receive Holy Communion every day if we could get to her. She was transported into intimacy with Christ each time.

A mystic in a nursing home bed, she would describe moments when she was aware of God’s loving presence pervading all things. Fall colors always moved her to know the Beauty who is the source of every beauty.

But not today. Today, it is only August. And I doubt autumn’s explosion of red … and gold … will awaken her mind to wonder this year.

Kneeling at her bedside, I ask if she wants communion. “I suppose I could call for that,” she says. But the third time the question finds its mark. “Yes, I would,” she says, and I quickly set up a tiny chalice and plate with the wine and wafer, setting them on the floor by my knees because there is no table or night stand.

I speak Christ’s words over the elements, and together we say the Lord’s Prayer. She still knows that. Soaking a wafer in wine until it is soft, I put it in her mouth and gently move her jaw until she remembers what to do.

Marking her head with the sign of the cross, I look down at my knees on the mottled brown carpet … then up … at the bare ceiling above Ginny’s bed … and begin to cry.

Is this what becomes of us? Is this what happens to all the love and beauty we know in our lives? If so, then for God’s sake we need to hold on … and treasure every blessed moment of love and grace that touches us.

But we don’t know what’s to become of us. None of us know.

But I do know this: The highest point of elevation for my soul is kneeling at Ginny’s bedside, looking up at the ceiling. I know … this is where God wants me. This is my mount of transfiguration … where the Holy One calls me … beloved.

Ginny, from one mystic to another … thank you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, August 14, 2015

Mark 5:27-30

She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’

Bridging

I don’t know what the worst feeling in the world is, but feeling separated from the great love you need and crave must be high on the list.

It also one of the easiest to remedy. All it takes is the smallest gesture, a knowing glance, a gentle word, the touch of a hand.

It’s mysterious, but it is through these that healing flows and soothes the heart that wants only to know the great love which every heart needs.

If only … I can touch him. If only … today … I can hear a word of grace. If only … I can feel great love touching, flowing into me … I will be healed. My heart will burst wide open. I will lift my hands to the sky and give thanks for life in all its beauty.

No, the woman did not say these things. But it is not hard to think thoughts like these stirred in the wounded silence of her heart. They are human … our … wants and needs. We need the word, the glance, the touch of a hand that obliterates the separateness between us, bridging the distance between us and the great love that alone fills and heals the heart.

We also need her openness and her faith on difficult days when that distance feels great and impassable.

She trusted … she knew there is great grace in Jesus that he refuses to keep to himself. It is for everyone. It is for us, and although we may feel distant from that great love … the moment of touch will come and we know what is there for us all along.

So even on difficult days, even after years of feeling separated from the great healing love God is, her heart remains open and ready for a knowing glance, a gentle word, the touch of a hand … that bridges the gap and makes the heart sing.

Touch us today, Great Love. We long to sing.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Mark 5:27-30

She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’

Touches

I wrote a prayer for healing and sent it to a friend. She sent it across state lines through digital media to her sister, a thousand miles away, and the sister is healed.

Well, not as we usually define it. Surgery still awaited and an uncertain future. Perhaps restoration of body will come, freedom from pain and the ability to enjoy simple pleasures again. Maybe.

But there was healing  … and hope, and I can’t explain it, no more than I can explain what relief and expansion of heart that comes when you pour out your troubles to a soul you know who loves you.

Nor can I explain the feeling that comes when I take my grandson into me arms, knowing the rejection he continues to receive from a school that sees him only as a data point, not a charming seven year old who needs a little extra help.

What flows through me? Why is it better when, sleepy-eyed, he wanders into my study and falls into my arms for a morning hug as he wipes the sleep from his eyes, a weathered comfort blanket rumpled around his shoulders?

There is no adequate explanation for the magic in that hug. Nor can anyone explain the healing that happens in the love that flows between us.

I know only that there are touches in which we know a great love in and beyond us, touches in which we know ourselves inside a great love that holds us … and everything that ever has or ever will happen to us. Healing happens in those touches.

Our broken bodies and troubled situations may not change. We may not get everything we want, but feeling the flow of this great love we know … everything will be alright … even when it isn’t, even when people reject and illness refuses to release us.

Even then, healing comes … each day … in the touch of hands and hearts where Love is.

Pr. David L. Miller

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 

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Psalm 8:1-4

O Love, my Beloved,
   how majestic is your name in all the earth! 

You, whose glory is sung in the heavens. 
   Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
   to silence the enemy and the avenger. 

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars that you have established; 
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   mortals that you care for them? 

Blue moon

Southbound jets from O’Hare stream across the face of the blue moon rising above the cedars, and I raise my glass to heavens, toasting with chardonnay the pale light of the second full moon of July.

The month is gone now, but not the gentle joy of sitting in the night, my glass held high, framed by the pure white disc shimmering in the eastern sky.

I toast your glory, O Lord, O Love who speaks in the night sky. I toast the glory of Love that refuses to let go, of light that penetrates the heart’s dark spaces.

The moon’s silent journey through the night, silver light reflecting from its rugged face, all this can be reduced to mathematical formulae, explainable by mind and reason.

But not so explainable is why I … and ancient souls thousands of years before … are drawn to this light, why it awakens wonder, why we find it beautiful, why it stirs love for earth and sky, life and breath; why we want to share this light, hoping another heart will be as moved as we.

And why does this pale light stir the desire to say, thank you … for my life, thank you for this love and hope?

Explain that one, please, and tell me why such desire is constant across the centuries. Why do we stare into the night sky and find ourselves as moved as our primordial cave-dwelling ancestors?

Perhaps it’s because we know … we created none of this. It is all gift, enlivening our senses, filling us with the joy of being a human soul, able to see and feel, to be moved beyond ourselves, to wonder how it call came to be and why it is all so beautiful.

O Lord, O Love, you made us to see and know, to raises glasses high under the pale moonlight, to say thank you and to be amazed that our lives are part of the story of this amazing universe, a cosmos that springs from an infinitesimal speck to this wonder, this light, this love.

I think you created it all just to awaken this love. I think this is what you really want and treasure.

For all this, thank you, thank you for making me a human soul, thank you for awakening my heart and moving me to look up, thank you for letting me know I am the child of the great love, the great joy of your divine heart.

Thank you for speaking in the moonlight.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, July 31, 2015

Ephesians 3:16-21

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

In a red chair

Sitting in a red chair in a room called Serenity, I know myself. This knowledge is not a thought but feeling and awareness. Tingling delights within as I listen to a troubled heart musing aloud from the couch opposite me.

Something just fits. I belong here, to this listening, as together we wait for wisdom and grace to appear and set him free from the grip of anxiety and guilt.

We wait, and I know I need nothing else than to be here, part of this mutual listening for the One who is Love to appear and fill us. But already I am full. I need wait no longer.

In this moment to breathe is to love. I cannot … not love.

There is no fear, no anxiety or hate in me for anyone or anything. Every breath I take is one of love. I love the person on the couch. I love this messy world. I love the longing and confusion I so often feel. I love the work I do and this place. I love the miracle of life, the sheer fact of existence, and I know … I am this love that is no love but the Love Who Is from the Beginning.

My soul is grounded yet soaring, filled yet flying, light as a feather in the wind, floating free, able and content to be this love in this time and this place, needing nothing more than what this moment provides.

“Breathe,” a most gracious voice says. “Breathe and know this is you, and this is me. This union of our hearts is all you were ever meant to be. All you will ever need is here. In this moment, you know what the mind cannot know, the love that surpasses all knowing.

“All that matters is this union, this knowing. Breathe and know.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, July 27, 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.

No reason

Reason bends no one’s knees in adoration. Reason has nothing to do with it. Praise flows from a place beyond reason’s reach.

It comes when the heart is inexplicably filled with the warmth of a Love that reaches from soul’s depth to embrace everything it sees and hears. It flows from awareness of this Love within the soul’s own depths, uncreated, simply given like the miracle of life itself.

It burgeons within, filling every aching empty space, granting the heart truest knowledge of the Love that lives at the depth of one’s soul, the Love that is the soul’s Source.

There is no separation in moments of knowing. We know: The soul and the Love who is its Source are one and the same. And in every moment of filling, every millisecond of knowing, we feel the Love we truly are, knowing … the Goodness whom all the world cannot contain mysteriously dwells within the confines of our soul.

This Goodness is our soul. We are one with the One Love though we rarely feel and know it.

It is a mystery to me why certain moments bring awareness of this oneness. I know only that moments of oneness come and fill us so completely that praise and adoration of our Mysterious Source is natural as breathing. Two words form on the lips before one is conscious of forming them: Thank you.

Two words, totally inadequate and absolutely necessary.

Moments of filling and adoration are always a gift. We don’t make them happen.

The sounds of morning—bird chatter and cardinal call, the pounding of hammers far off, the whoosh of tires on asphalt—echoes of the world awakening: Today, it is these that awaken the heart to the Wonder who resides within, so that I ... that we ... might adore again the Love Who is … and the love we are.

Pr. David L. Miller

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

Friday, July 24, 2015

Psalm 23:6

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
   my whole life long.

Wherever, whatever

This life is a journey of unknowing. We do not know where we will go, who we will meet or what surprises will come. We do not know the dark valleys we will walk or what heights of crazy exhilaration will make us laugh, weep and dance. We cannot see what friends will appear to delight our hearts or what failures will weigh on our souls.

We don’t know.

And the longer we live the more we discover how little we understand the workings of the world and the mysteries of the human heart, especially are own.

Life unfolds as it will. Surprises come turning us in directions we could not have anticipated but which we must live with as much grace and hope as we can.

But the darkness of unknowing is grace, taking from us the illusion of control and any idea that our minds and strength will ever be enough to live the lives we are given.

In this darkness, the heart curls up and closes down in abject fear, or it opens to receive the mystery of what is and what will be without demanding the outcome.

I am not sure why the darkness of unknowing turns some to fear and others to open-hearted reception of life. Perhaps the sheer blessing of life and breath have opened a foundational faith that behind every goodness there is a Goodness, a Heart beyond their own whom they cannot see and cannot ever know.

Perhaps the mercies and graces that have touched their flesh have also reached their heart, suggesting an inner grace at the heart of life, a generosity of love and beauty that is not just there, but which follows and seeks human hearts wherever they go.

I just know there are hearts not cowed by the darkness. They welcome the days of unknowing, which is every day in every life. They dwell in hope, trusting that the darkness hides a Love that pursues and catches us ... and won't let go.

They know wherever they go and whatever happens … they live in the house of Lord, the land of the Beloved, whose mercy and goodness follow us every step of our journey.

If we know this … and I do, we have all we need.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, July 24, 2015

Thursday, July 24, 2015

Psalm 23:1-3a

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 
   He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters; 
   he restores my soul.

Restoration

Maybe it is the buttercream light of a summer evening, glow of heaven, smooth and rich, spread deep and soft across trees and well-trimmed yards. Maybe it is the orange marmalade streaking the western sky as the passionate red ball of earth’s sun falls again beneath the horizon to warm other hearts.

Or maybe it is something less celestial, like a few words on a page or the sound of a voice at which the heart springs to flight, a feathered bird, reaching heights only hearts of hope can know.

Whatever stirs this bird to flight I know its name and know, too, there is no life without it. Hope is its name, and it adjusts the eyes of the heart for the long view, looking down the road toward union with the Love it must crave for it was made by and for Love and craves the fullness of this Love in every love known.

And who knows why it takes flight at words or in the creamy glow of fading light? It just does, withholding its mystery from the minds of mere mortals.

Sometimes it seems to die when union seems impossible, only to take flight again and restore the heart, filling it with the knowledge necessary for life.

And that is this: Love remains and seeks us, leading us to places (still waters or golden evenings maybe) that stir hope’s feathered bird to take flight and lift us above the ditch of doubt so that we taste and know sweet union with the Love we seek.

Hope tastes what it wants and needs, seeking the fullness the heart demands. That’s what we are, Children of Love seeking union with the Love who seeks us.

For this, we hope. Always.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Mark 6:55-56

And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Healing … again

Places of healing are everywhere, an office conversation, a brief phone call, a post-surgical celebration with a woman who has just been given her life back, or just a bit of time … with a friend whose voice quiets your heart.

All of them … healing, and there appears to be no need to speak of God, for what has God to do with any of these things? They can all be explained without reference to God.

But God for me is not an outside intruder who occasionally intervenes in the crazy mess of living. I don’t think I have ever really believed in that God.

But there is Another who haunts me wherever go, a power and presence of healing love constantly working within the everyday flow of time and events.

There is Another who can be found anywhere and everywhere human souls are truly human, touching hearts thought hands and hugs, words and knowing looks that exchange love and free the heart.

God is built in to the processes of life and is known in every ounce of love and every life-enhancing moment that touches and lifts our souls. And all who are touched are healed. This is the way it works. We are healed in the touching.

We hunger for the healing touch of the Love who labors in all of life—and each of us—seeking to be known and expressed in every soul.

We seek souls in whom Love breathes, hearts who welcome our own, knowing in themselves the indescribable ache and exquisite beauty of being a human soul, needing as we the touch of a hand, a calming voice, a presence who makes real the Presence who heals the inner ache.

Wherever Jesus went they begged to touch him.

Technology changes, our machines and medicine are better than ever, and we have more knowledge than our forebears could imagine. But we still ache to touch and be healed by The Other who is pleased to touch us … in simple moments and loving hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, July 17, 2015

Mark 6:53-56

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Healing

Freedom found me in the hospital lobby. I got off the elevator, and for the first time in days I felt free. Perhaps it was because I was myself, and it felt great.

I had visited a patient, listened, shared an observation or two I thought helpful and prayed with gratitude and hope, speaking with was in my heart and what was playing in the depths of those with whom I spoke.

I felt my true worth, which is to be and bear a word of blessing and meaning amid the craziness of living and the unpredictability of illness—healing my own soul in the process, freeing me from any need to please or prove something to someone.

I felt a flow of life from a place deep within that naturally appears when it is not stopped by anxieties about tomorrow or the need to measure up to some external standard or expectations you place on yourself.

This connection with self was at the same time connection with something beyond me, something that is pleased to be expressed in and through me, a Source, a Spring that is fresh and alive, that brings a cool blue happiness not caused by any external event.

There is an awareness of being in tune, in time, perfect rhyme and rhythm with the Life that is pleased to live in and through you. There are no wants, no need for hopes for something more because you already know and have the More that the heart wants.

Our basic human problem is our sense of separation from the Life and Love that is our Source, the Mystery who wants to live in and through us. Anxieties and hopes take us from the goodness of NOW, moving us out of sync with the flow of life and laughter, joy and our natural goodness that dwells within as our truest nature, which seeks expression through us.

But this cannot be expressed when worries about performance, anxieties about tomorrow or guilt over yesterday blocks the flow of our truest self, the self that is the expression of the Great Self, of whom we each are a unique and irreplaceable expression.

This is the healing that Jesus brings … or at least brings to me.

In total freedom, he loves we who wonder if we shall ever know a love that truly sets free. Knowing the Love in him, anxieties grow quiet, fears fade, guilt becomes irrelevant. The flow of Life in him sweeps through us and carries us into the joy of knowing who we are and for what we are made.

Little wonder people begged to touch and be touched by him. They wanted the exquisite healing that comes ... even in hospital lobbies.

Pr. David L. Miller