Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
At the heart of our lives, Holy One, is a yearning for a great love, a love for which we stretch and grasp but which lies always beyond our reach. We hunger to unite as one with that love to fulfill this longing, an ache we did not choose but find within ourselves.
We yearn and stir with anxious agitation, hungry for final satisfaction of soul that can come only as we and that love are one love, abiding in each other so closely that we find that love within ourselves and find ourselves within that love, walls of separation finally gone.
I feel this better than I describe it, My Lord, for I know it within myself. And I know what it is that I describe--salvation, the final wholeness for which our human frame is made.
The word … salvation … has grown so trite and meaningless in our world. It is used for those who have made some kind of decision about who you are, those intended for heaven, those who will escape final punishment. It’s all so disconnected with what is most deeply rooted in us that you seem so intent on saving.
You would save our inmost being, that hunger for love (for you!) that you fashioned in us, a salvation that comes not from some decision of ours but only as we find and see and surrender to the presence of Love within our own being.
There are moments when your love and ours seem one, when your joy and mine are shared, when your struggle and my labor beat in time, singing a single tune. The heart falls quiet, at rest, and I realize I am possessed, indwelt by a Love I did not fashion. I find myself (yes, finally) in a space where your love surrounds and envelops me and all that is.
This is salvation, and the joy it brings need not be forced or even requested. It is just there before any asking can occur.
I suppose something like this is what you have prepared and laid up in heaven for us. But great as this will be, I think I might recognize it. For, I have known it here and now, kneeling and lighting a candle and discovering a joy within that spills from your heart and into my own, sensing that we are not two, but one.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
How might I be different if I consistently believed that I am “kept safe” by your power? My mind would entertain far fewer anxious thoughts. My anxious heart would find rest even when threat is near, for you, Holy One, are here, always holding us.
The things that happen to all human beings can and will happen to me. I expect no special protection from the pains of mortality and finitude. The last day provides ample evidence that those nearest me possess no special exemption.
For one, insidious decline brings greater confinement. She must be tied down lest she hurt herself, while those who love her best look on, helpless to do anything for the person who most taught them how to be human.
For others, financial and housing set-backs reveal that they have less influence over what happens to them and their families than they want, need or imagined they had. The weakness of the flesh is their daily bread.
Undeniable threat and inevitable loss loom near. And for some, the only assurance is greater grief.
Safety is not the condition for any of those who faces appear in my morning mind.
But even these, you tell me, are kept safe in your power. Even now, even these rest in the hand of grace from which they will not be snatched. Even in unsafest condition, the power and grace you are can and will be known.
Trust, you say. Have faith. Tears are laced with grace. Threat has its moment. Sorrow endures an evening, but grace will have its say, and its final day holds no setting of the sun. It will not fade once begun.
For I am. And I am love unbounded. Morning will come … and stay. Even in grief, grace will mark your cheeks, and the hope held in your heart will hold you.
As do I.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you who are being kept safe by God's power through faith until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the final point of time.
Reflection
How might I be different if I consistently believed that I am “kept safe” by your power? My mind would entertain far fewer anxious thoughts. My anxious heart would find rest even when threat is near, for you, Holy One, are here, always holding us.
The things that happen to all human beings can and will happen to me. I expect no special protection from the pains of mortality and finitude. The last day provides ample evidence that those nearest me possess no special exemption.
For one, insidious decline brings greater confinement. She must be tied down lest she hurt herself, while those who love her best look on, helpless to do anything for the person who most taught them how to be human.
For others, financial and housing set-backs reveal that they have less influence over what happens to them and their families than they want, need or imagined they had. The weakness of the flesh is their daily bread.
Undeniable threat and inevitable loss loom near. And for some, the only assurance is greater grief.
Safety is not the condition for any of those who faces appear in my morning mind.
But even these, you tell me, are kept safe in your power. Even now, even these rest in the hand of grace from which they will not be snatched. Even in unsafest condition, the power and grace you are can and will be known.
Trust, you say. Have faith. Tears are laced with grace. Threat has its moment. Sorrow endures an evening, but grace will have its say, and its final day holds no setting of the sun. It will not fade once begun.
For I am. And I am love unbounded. Morning will come … and stay. Even in grief, grace will mark your cheeks, and the hope held in your heart will hold you.
As do I.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you … .
Reflection
I don’t think much about heaven, my Lord, except at funerals when I must stand and speak … or listen myself for words of hope.
The rest of the time the idea seldom enters my mind, although I am more sure of it as the years pass. Perhaps it is because I am closer to the time when I, too, will be gathered to the parade of generations who have gone before, who have dwelt this earth, lived their lives and fallen away. I, too, will take my place.
When I think of this a strange love appears in my heart for that great multitude and especially for those whose faces quickly come to mind, especially my father. I miss him at this time of year as All Saints approaches; he is one of my saints.
I think he would be surprised to think that I hold him responsible for the faith that burns today in my heart. He faced his end with a doubting faith, and I could not take his doubts away. I could only love him, telling him that he should rest and let me believe for him. I wanted him to have utter assurance, but I doubt I was able to provide that at the end.
Still, he believed and hoped, and he knew, truly knew, the beauty of eternity, the treasure that doesn’t fade shining through this translucent world. He had few words for this. It fell to me to name that beauty for him, the beauty of sunrise and set, of hills and green, of cattle and living things scattered on hills beneath an everlasting blue sky of wonder.
And he gave this wonder to me, along with the intuition of a Heart from which such glory springs. That would be your heart, Dearest Friend.
You are that Heart of infinte generosity and love that shines through and stirs hope even in old dying men … and me.
So when I think of a heritage laid up for me I can imagine it only in terms of the love and hope I know here and now because of faces like my father’s and what they gave me, often without even knowing it.
What awaits is completion of what already is, and I have tasted enough to know there are some things for which I have no words.
So let my silence praise you.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away. It is reserved in heaven for you … .
Reflection
I don’t think much about heaven, my Lord, except at funerals when I must stand and speak … or listen myself for words of hope.
The rest of the time the idea seldom enters my mind, although I am more sure of it as the years pass. Perhaps it is because I am closer to the time when I, too, will be gathered to the parade of generations who have gone before, who have dwelt this earth, lived their lives and fallen away. I, too, will take my place.
When I think of this a strange love appears in my heart for that great multitude and especially for those whose faces quickly come to mind, especially my father. I miss him at this time of year as All Saints approaches; he is one of my saints.
I think he would be surprised to think that I hold him responsible for the faith that burns today in my heart. He faced his end with a doubting faith, and I could not take his doubts away. I could only love him, telling him that he should rest and let me believe for him. I wanted him to have utter assurance, but I doubt I was able to provide that at the end.
Still, he believed and hoped, and he knew, truly knew, the beauty of eternity, the treasure that doesn’t fade shining through this translucent world. He had few words for this. It fell to me to name that beauty for him, the beauty of sunrise and set, of hills and green, of cattle and living things scattered on hills beneath an everlasting blue sky of wonder.
And he gave this wonder to me, along with the intuition of a Heart from which such glory springs. That would be your heart, Dearest Friend.
You are that Heart of infinte generosity and love that shines through and stirs hope even in old dying men … and me.
So when I think of a heritage laid up for me I can imagine it only in terms of the love and hope I know here and now because of faces like my father’s and what they gave me, often without even knowing it.
What awaits is completion of what already is, and I have tasted enough to know there are some things for which I have no words.
So let my silence praise you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:3-4
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.
Reflection
What is this lightness of being, this unbidden appearance of joy? It comes when I expected nothing, creeping unheard into my being. No signal marked its approach. I could not run to welcome the sunrise amid the night of soul of recent weeks.
Nothing sudden occurs, no great and shining moment, no reversal of fortune or deliverance from challenge. Nothing. But joy comes, welling within, lifting and filling the heart that it becomes, again, an engine of energy and gracious good will.
Hectoring inner voices fall silent. Their ghosts disappear, leaving no fear of their return.
Hope fills their place, and promise colors the day and each new encounter. Anticipation lives were avoidance and dread cast their dreary shadow.
There will be joy. There will be grace. This I know without knowing how I know.
Surely, I am deluded. But this freshness is as undeniable as the unrelenting sadness that had turned all days gray. I choose to deny neither. Honesty requires this much.
Strangely, there is no need in me to grasp this new birth that quietly appears from the grace of your Mystery. This is new.
I feel no desire to hold it fast lest it escape me, and I fall again into the darkness. My soul knows only rest and confidence. I have no idea what the day will bring. I know only the unwavering assurance that you will abide my being, unshakable and sure.
Darkness comes and darkness goes, but you abide, Holy One. New birth will come out of the darkness, and I cannot command its time.
“Patience,” you whisper. “The day will come.”
I can only await the sunrise, oppressed by the darkness, yes, but knowing the freshness of unspoilt morning will again be born in a time of your choosing.
Wait, trust, the day will come. Even now.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:3-4
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.
Reflection
What is this lightness of being, this unbidden appearance of joy? It comes when I expected nothing, creeping unheard into my being. No signal marked its approach. I could not run to welcome the sunrise amid the night of soul of recent weeks.
Nothing sudden occurs, no great and shining moment, no reversal of fortune or deliverance from challenge. Nothing. But joy comes, welling within, lifting and filling the heart that it becomes, again, an engine of energy and gracious good will.
Hectoring inner voices fall silent. Their ghosts disappear, leaving no fear of their return.
Hope fills their place, and promise colors the day and each new encounter. Anticipation lives were avoidance and dread cast their dreary shadow.
There will be joy. There will be grace. This I know without knowing how I know.
Surely, I am deluded. But this freshness is as undeniable as the unrelenting sadness that had turned all days gray. I choose to deny neither. Honesty requires this much.
Strangely, there is no need in me to grasp this new birth that quietly appears from the grace of your Mystery. This is new.
I feel no desire to hold it fast lest it escape me, and I fall again into the darkness. My soul knows only rest and confidence. I have no idea what the day will bring. I know only the unwavering assurance that you will abide my being, unshakable and sure.
Darkness comes and darkness goes, but you abide, Holy One. New birth will come out of the darkness, and I cannot command its time.
“Patience,” you whisper. “The day will come.”
I can only await the sunrise, oppressed by the darkness, yes, but knowing the freshness of unspoilt morning will again be born in a time of your choosing.
Wait, trust, the day will come. Even now.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, October 22, 2009
October 22, 2009
Reflection
The color of paradise
The trees grow bright with praise, lit from within by colors no hand can produce, except yours, Loving Mystery.
Fall comes demanding poetry to capture the colors. But our flat souls lie content with mere prose, words that tear and strain to describe the beauty our eyes caress--and this feeling that arises from a place we cannot name, except that it is in us.
Awaking, I open the door and smell the earth, moist and fresh. My heart rises for reasons it refuses to tell me, but I know: all is well and will be so.
This lightness of being … and hope is the greatest I have known in days, and it comes at the end of things.
Summer is gone. Autumn comes reminding me again that all things end. The warm sun wanes, and winter (too soon to come) must be endured … again, until I am no more.
But the colors speak, an impressionist’s palette of burnished red and gold constantly remixed, shimmering fire and translucent gold, falling by the millions in piles school children shuffle through on their way to more mundane concerns.
Gold leaf covers the back patio inches deep awakening a quiet joy I can neither bid nor stop. Its source is as mysterious as the hand who paints the earth on this October morning.
Too soon it will all be gone. The colors will fade to brown and be swept into gutters. Cold rains will turn the decaying mass to thick dark sludge as we enter winter’s trudge.
But today I have seen the brilliance, the colors lit from within by the uncreated light of the One who is Being itself. I have seen, and having seen I cannot be the same.
Eternity appeared on Janes Avenue, and I was there. And more: the Spirit who paints cool fall days gave me eyes to see the fire that burns in the Heart of Love for whom I most hunger.
That Mystery paints the day with brilliance and wonder, so that with eyes of the heart, we may see the beauty of the One who treasures and holds us, who decorates fall days with the light of eternity that we may know we are made for more than just trudging through our days.
We are made to know more love, more beauty, more wonder than we can imagine. We are made for the More that shines through autumn days and in the beauty of our brother Jesus, who is lit from within by the Love that will not let us fall into the gutter and be swept away.
Some say the life of faith is about avoiding sin and being righteous … that this most glorifies God. But the glory of fall days suggests otherwise.
Maybe our life is about seeing and knowing the More that shines through every beauty, every love, every caring word--and every fresh, moist Autumn morning that awakens the awareness that all is, indeed, well.
And it is, for we rest in the hands of the Maker of the Morning, who decorates the day with the color of paradise.
And in seeing this, our little lives are colored with the beauty we see, alight with a glory beyond all time.
Pr. David L. Miller
The color of paradise
The trees grow bright with praise, lit from within by colors no hand can produce, except yours, Loving Mystery.
Fall comes demanding poetry to capture the colors. But our flat souls lie content with mere prose, words that tear and strain to describe the beauty our eyes caress--and this feeling that arises from a place we cannot name, except that it is in us.
Awaking, I open the door and smell the earth, moist and fresh. My heart rises for reasons it refuses to tell me, but I know: all is well and will be so.
This lightness of being … and hope is the greatest I have known in days, and it comes at the end of things.
Summer is gone. Autumn comes reminding me again that all things end. The warm sun wanes, and winter (too soon to come) must be endured … again, until I am no more.
But the colors speak, an impressionist’s palette of burnished red and gold constantly remixed, shimmering fire and translucent gold, falling by the millions in piles school children shuffle through on their way to more mundane concerns.
Gold leaf covers the back patio inches deep awakening a quiet joy I can neither bid nor stop. Its source is as mysterious as the hand who paints the earth on this October morning.
Too soon it will all be gone. The colors will fade to brown and be swept into gutters. Cold rains will turn the decaying mass to thick dark sludge as we enter winter’s trudge.
But today I have seen the brilliance, the colors lit from within by the uncreated light of the One who is Being itself. I have seen, and having seen I cannot be the same.
Eternity appeared on Janes Avenue, and I was there. And more: the Spirit who paints cool fall days gave me eyes to see the fire that burns in the Heart of Love for whom I most hunger.
That Mystery paints the day with brilliance and wonder, so that with eyes of the heart, we may see the beauty of the One who treasures and holds us, who decorates fall days with the light of eternity that we may know we are made for more than just trudging through our days.
We are made to know more love, more beauty, more wonder than we can imagine. We are made for the More that shines through autumn days and in the beauty of our brother Jesus, who is lit from within by the Love that will not let us fall into the gutter and be swept away.
Some say the life of faith is about avoiding sin and being righteous … that this most glorifies God. But the glory of fall days suggests otherwise.
Maybe our life is about seeing and knowing the More that shines through every beauty, every love, every caring word--and every fresh, moist Autumn morning that awakens the awareness that all is, indeed, well.
And it is, for we rest in the hands of the Maker of the Morning, who decorates the day with the color of paradise.
And in seeing this, our little lives are colored with the beauty we see, alight with a glory beyond all time.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Today's text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.’s
Reflection
Only you are never spoilt or fade away. We rise and fall. We draw breath and grow quiet. The earth changes, erodes, erupts and reshapes itself in the constant movement of nature, unresting, unceasing, day to day, age to age.
Eons pass. The new that comes allows faint memory of the joys and sorrows of the millions who have gone before, of the earth they knew.
It is the nature of things, and we find ourselves thrown into it, taking our place in the chain of ever-changing generations, rising up with promise only to fade away.
This should be a council of despair to my soul. But it is not, for eternity is known amid the temporal and dying, the unchanging is felt in and through all that changes. You who are n ever spoilt or soiled, you who never fade away are tasted amid all that fails and falls.
Life is known by those for whom death is certain. Of this, I am certain, eve now.
For even now I know life, not as biological fact but as the eternal stirring of your grace and beauty in the tears of hope that are my morning praise to you.
Even here, even now, that which does not fade or fail, spoil or decay dwells in my inner experience of joy and hope … and the love that I know you to be, through and through.
What I taste is but a taste. Yet, it is real, and it is now. And my prayer to know the joyous consolation of your life within my mind and heart finds its answer.
So blessed are you, for you do not let death have its way in human souls. You give life and then life eternal to dead, here and now, and a hungry assurance that what I taste will be forever.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into a heritage that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away.’s
Reflection
Only you are never spoilt or fade away. We rise and fall. We draw breath and grow quiet. The earth changes, erodes, erupts and reshapes itself in the constant movement of nature, unresting, unceasing, day to day, age to age.
Eons pass. The new that comes allows faint memory of the joys and sorrows of the millions who have gone before, of the earth they knew.
It is the nature of things, and we find ourselves thrown into it, taking our place in the chain of ever-changing generations, rising up with promise only to fade away.
This should be a council of despair to my soul. But it is not, for eternity is known amid the temporal and dying, the unchanging is felt in and through all that changes. You who are n ever spoilt or soiled, you who never fade away are tasted amid all that fails and falls.
Life is known by those for whom death is certain. Of this, I am certain, eve now.
For even now I know life, not as biological fact but as the eternal stirring of your grace and beauty in the tears of hope that are my morning praise to you.
Even here, even now, that which does not fade or fail, spoil or decay dwells in my inner experience of joy and hope … and the love that I know you to be, through and through.
What I taste is but a taste. Yet, it is real, and it is now. And my prayer to know the joyous consolation of your life within my mind and heart finds its answer.
So blessed are you, for you do not let death have its way in human souls. You give life and then life eternal to dead, here and now, and a hungry assurance that what I taste will be forever.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
Reflection
It is at the point of hope that we are most vulnerable, Holy One.
The hope born in us is simple, yet all eternity will not be enough to satisfy it. We hope to know you, and you are inexhaustible.
You are the inexhaustible fountain of life from which all that lives flows. You are the fount of mercy who has mercy even on that which does not yet exist.
How can one have mercy on the nonexistent? I don’t know, but you do.
You look upon the infinite possibilities of life and color and beauty within yourself, and in mercy you make them come to life. Such is the source of my own being, from within you who are Being.
You had mercy on me before I existed. Seeing the possibility of my life, your mercy willed that I should be and know the joy and mystery of just being alive--and of knowing that I had nothing to be bringing myself to be. All is gift.
The inexhaustible flow of your life cannot be dammed or held captive by the cold clutch of death. You bring my brother, Jesus, again to life.
Seeing this, the soul leaps and knows that hope is no illusion. It finds its Source in the Source of Inexhaustible Mercy, in you.
Tasting the sweet surprise of being alive, we sample your mercy. We know you. Hearing the ever-fresh news of Jesus resurrection, we feel hope for all eternity flicker to life in our souls. We know you.
This is our living hope: to know you completely, with a knowledge felt in one’s uttermost depths. I know you as the Inexhaustible Fountain of the life that is in me. I know you as the Infinite Mercy who gives me life again and again that my soul may not die.
The evil one attacks at exactly this spot, seeking to erode the hope of knowing you today.
Surely, today is not special, he taunts. Surely, the pettiness of routine, the crush of deadlines and the challenge of difficult circumstances will push aside all else. Surely, my only real hope is just getting through the thicket of daily detail and making to evening.
But a living hope seeks you in every moment.
So today, I claim again the sweet surprise of being alive with a life I did not make. Today, I claim again the presence of your risen life in my heart and the lives of so many others.
Today, I feel once more that you, Holy Mystery, are the Inexhaustible Fountain of living Mercy that will not let me die.
Today, hope will live in me because you live.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
Reflection
It is at the point of hope that we are most vulnerable, Holy One.
The hope born in us is simple, yet all eternity will not be enough to satisfy it. We hope to know you, and you are inexhaustible.
You are the inexhaustible fountain of life from which all that lives flows. You are the fount of mercy who has mercy even on that which does not yet exist.
How can one have mercy on the nonexistent? I don’t know, but you do.
You look upon the infinite possibilities of life and color and beauty within yourself, and in mercy you make them come to life. Such is the source of my own being, from within you who are Being.
You had mercy on me before I existed. Seeing the possibility of my life, your mercy willed that I should be and know the joy and mystery of just being alive--and of knowing that I had nothing to be bringing myself to be. All is gift.
The inexhaustible flow of your life cannot be dammed or held captive by the cold clutch of death. You bring my brother, Jesus, again to life.
Seeing this, the soul leaps and knows that hope is no illusion. It finds its Source in the Source of Inexhaustible Mercy, in you.
Tasting the sweet surprise of being alive, we sample your mercy. We know you. Hearing the ever-fresh news of Jesus resurrection, we feel hope for all eternity flicker to life in our souls. We know you.
This is our living hope: to know you completely, with a knowledge felt in one’s uttermost depths. I know you as the Inexhaustible Fountain of the life that is in me. I know you as the Infinite Mercy who gives me life again and again that my soul may not die.
The evil one attacks at exactly this spot, seeking to erode the hope of knowing you today.
Surely, today is not special, he taunts. Surely, the pettiness of routine, the crush of deadlines and the challenge of difficult circumstances will push aside all else. Surely, my only real hope is just getting through the thicket of daily detail and making to evening.
But a living hope seeks you in every moment.
So today, I claim again the sweet surprise of being alive with a life I did not make. Today, I claim again the presence of your risen life in my heart and the lives of so many others.
Today, I feel once more that you, Holy Mystery, are the Inexhaustible Fountain of living Mercy that will not let me die.
Today, hope will live in me because you live.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Reflection
Morning is the time for new birth, though you are not confined to the rhythms and seasons of my life, Holy One. You can make new birth occur any where, any time. That is your way and power, and you almost always surprise.
But morning is a time of hope for newness in my heart. Daylight appears with the longing that maybe today I can get it right, do all I need to do, complete my labors and come to the day’s end with a peaceful heart.
It’s a nifty formula, if entirely misguided. My hope is premised on me getting things done, organizing my life so that the nagging anxiety of uncompleted tasks is put to bed by the work of my mind and hands.
The whole effort of trying to still my soul is moved by my fear of failing, of looking and being inadequate, unprepared and foolish.
How’s that for getting down to basics?
New birth is not found in my efforts. All I can do is anxiety management, but what I want and need is to end the anxiety altogether. This can happen only if I become someone new, someone other than whom I too often am.
Someone new must be born (again) within me. Even now, that happens. You, Jesus, come to me, come in me, in the morning light, changing my heart. No, you give me a new heart. The heart of my soul turns from worry over myself to simple trust in the Love who is the Father.
I become as you are. You trust the Love who is always enough, knowing that all that really needs to be done is not what the anxious mind suggests. All that matters is to express whatever this Love moves in heart and mind.
That is enough for the day, for any day.
You knew this every day.
So be born again in me, Lord Jesus, that my heart may be ever new.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Peter 1:1-2
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Reflection
Morning is the time for new birth, though you are not confined to the rhythms and seasons of my life, Holy One. You can make new birth occur any where, any time. That is your way and power, and you almost always surprise.
But morning is a time of hope for newness in my heart. Daylight appears with the longing that maybe today I can get it right, do all I need to do, complete my labors and come to the day’s end with a peaceful heart.
It’s a nifty formula, if entirely misguided. My hope is premised on me getting things done, organizing my life so that the nagging anxiety of uncompleted tasks is put to bed by the work of my mind and hands.
The whole effort of trying to still my soul is moved by my fear of failing, of looking and being inadequate, unprepared and foolish.
How’s that for getting down to basics?
New birth is not found in my efforts. All I can do is anxiety management, but what I want and need is to end the anxiety altogether. This can happen only if I become someone new, someone other than whom I too often am.
Someone new must be born (again) within me. Even now, that happens. You, Jesus, come to me, come in me, in the morning light, changing my heart. No, you give me a new heart. The heart of my soul turns from worry over myself to simple trust in the Love who is the Father.
I become as you are. You trust the Love who is always enough, knowing that all that really needs to be done is not what the anxious mind suggests. All that matters is to express whatever this Love moves in heart and mind.
That is enough for the day, for any day.
You knew this every day.
So be born again in me, Lord Jesus, that my heart may be ever new.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
Now, I return to work after a week of respite, wondering if I can hold the slender insights that appeared during these days away from the stress that steals my soul.
My soul has known no rest, no peace in my normal labors. The peace that passes all understanding has passed me by altogether. It has been utterly beyond my reach, belonging to a world far removed from the one I have inhabited in recent weeks.
Now, I see that your peace has eluded me because I was dwelling, by choice, in fear, in a home of my own making, a place where I could protect myself from the judgments of others. I was not true to my own heart, the heart that is in me when I know you as all-surpassing love.
I have known grace and peace in abundance, and reading these words (from 1 Peter) I am captured by the generosity of heart of the writer. But this generosity has its Source in the surging waters of your abundance, in the incomprehensibility of your divine kindness.
May grace and peace be yours--be mine--in abundance. This is your heart speaking to this oft-despairing soul so needy and resistant to trusting your kindness.
Lacking trust, I protect myself from others, from their views and judgments, not revealing the heart of this soul of mine, where I know you as the Love you are. Amid difference and controversy, I seek reasons others may find convincing or worthy of respect, knowing all the while that I am being false to my truest self, to the soul that I am, to the Love that dwells there, to You.
I know no peace, no rest, because I am not living in your love but in an illusion I create for my own protection. You make a home for me in which to abide, and I try to build my own.
I know why. The home you make for me is the way of Jesus, my brother. Sprinkled with his blood, I have his life, his Spirit, a paschal spirit in which the way of life is letting go, releasing control, refusing my normal strategies of self-protection and relying on your love alone.
The way to new life is through death, the way to joy is through sorrow, the way to assurance is abandonment of the supports and protective walls I build for myself. Abundant peace arises from frightening vulnerability. This is the blood-sprinkled way into which my life has been initiated.
Seven days away has taught me this … again.
I ache for the abundance of peace you promise, Loving One, but the way to this home scares me. May my hope and aching need prove stronger than my fear.
May I trust you to be the abundant home I crave, and let go of all that is not you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: Thanks for blessing me with your notes, letting me know that you are still receiving … and welcoming these posts. May God’s peace rest upon you all.
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
Now, I return to work after a week of respite, wondering if I can hold the slender insights that appeared during these days away from the stress that steals my soul.
My soul has known no rest, no peace in my normal labors. The peace that passes all understanding has passed me by altogether. It has been utterly beyond my reach, belonging to a world far removed from the one I have inhabited in recent weeks.
Now, I see that your peace has eluded me because I was dwelling, by choice, in fear, in a home of my own making, a place where I could protect myself from the judgments of others. I was not true to my own heart, the heart that is in me when I know you as all-surpassing love.
I have known grace and peace in abundance, and reading these words (from 1 Peter) I am captured by the generosity of heart of the writer. But this generosity has its Source in the surging waters of your abundance, in the incomprehensibility of your divine kindness.
May grace and peace be yours--be mine--in abundance. This is your heart speaking to this oft-despairing soul so needy and resistant to trusting your kindness.
Lacking trust, I protect myself from others, from their views and judgments, not revealing the heart of this soul of mine, where I know you as the Love you are. Amid difference and controversy, I seek reasons others may find convincing or worthy of respect, knowing all the while that I am being false to my truest self, to the soul that I am, to the Love that dwells there, to You.
I know no peace, no rest, because I am not living in your love but in an illusion I create for my own protection. You make a home for me in which to abide, and I try to build my own.
I know why. The home you make for me is the way of Jesus, my brother. Sprinkled with his blood, I have his life, his Spirit, a paschal spirit in which the way of life is letting go, releasing control, refusing my normal strategies of self-protection and relying on your love alone.
The way to new life is through death, the way to joy is through sorrow, the way to assurance is abandonment of the supports and protective walls I build for myself. Abundant peace arises from frightening vulnerability. This is the blood-sprinkled way into which my life has been initiated.
Seven days away has taught me this … again.
I ache for the abundance of peace you promise, Loving One, but the way to this home scares me. May my hope and aching need prove stronger than my fear.
May I trust you to be the abundant home I crave, and let go of all that is not you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: Thanks for blessing me with your notes, letting me know that you are still receiving … and welcoming these posts. May God’s peace rest upon you all.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
October 11, 2009
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
I have heard the cry of refugees, living “behind the wire” of cold camps far from home. “When?” they all ask silently or aloud, fearing the answer. I never had an answer to give them, not the one I wanted to give.
I wanted to say, “Soon; the time is near,” but I could not. I didn’t know, so I shook my head and stared at the dead dust on my shoes into which their lives had descended with no end point in sight.
They yearned for what every refugee wants: home.
So do I, my Lord. I hunger for home. It’s not a new feeling, even the intensity of this distress is not unknown to me, but it has been a great while since it has been so strong.
My dispersion is not one of geography but of heart. I am what I am not; and what I am not, that is what I am.
I dwell far from home, from the heart of love where I know peace, where I rest secure in the heart of my soul … and you. When I find and enter my truest heart I discover yours also.
I am at peace, content to be who I am, neither more nor less, and the demands of others to be what they need or want me to be flies away. It does not matter.
All that matters is the dwelling, the abiding, the resting in that secret soul where I know who I am in the warm light of your smile.
My tears are not yet those of fullest joy. I stand at the portal, yearning to enter, to come home to myself and to you. But I still am an exile from the home I seek.
What keeps me out? What prevents me from entering? This is a mystery to me, for even now I see your smile, Blessed Mystery. Your hand extends to sprinkle me with the blood, the life of Jesus, who always knew his heart and yours, never knowing this distance I feel except, perhaps, in the final hours of his torture.
You want to sprinkle me with his life, his consciousness, the graced awareness of his identity as your beloved, your special servant. The heart that is his you would give to me. You have chosen me for this.
Move my soul to enter the blessedness you hungrily give. I want to come home.
Take from me every word and desire that hides and protects me from the judgments of others, for in fear I turn from being the heart that I am and become an exile from myself and the great bounty of your heart, my home.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: I have made few posts in recent monthes as I wrote a book, Marks of the Christian Life, soon to be released by Augsburg Fortress. Please let me know if you are still receiving and find these posts useful.
Today’s text
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to all those living as aliens in the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen, in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Reflection
I have heard the cry of refugees, living “behind the wire” of cold camps far from home. “When?” they all ask silently or aloud, fearing the answer. I never had an answer to give them, not the one I wanted to give.
I wanted to say, “Soon; the time is near,” but I could not. I didn’t know, so I shook my head and stared at the dead dust on my shoes into which their lives had descended with no end point in sight.
They yearned for what every refugee wants: home.
So do I, my Lord. I hunger for home. It’s not a new feeling, even the intensity of this distress is not unknown to me, but it has been a great while since it has been so strong.
My dispersion is not one of geography but of heart. I am what I am not; and what I am not, that is what I am.
I dwell far from home, from the heart of love where I know peace, where I rest secure in the heart of my soul … and you. When I find and enter my truest heart I discover yours also.
I am at peace, content to be who I am, neither more nor less, and the demands of others to be what they need or want me to be flies away. It does not matter.
All that matters is the dwelling, the abiding, the resting in that secret soul where I know who I am in the warm light of your smile.
My tears are not yet those of fullest joy. I stand at the portal, yearning to enter, to come home to myself and to you. But I still am an exile from the home I seek.
What keeps me out? What prevents me from entering? This is a mystery to me, for even now I see your smile, Blessed Mystery. Your hand extends to sprinkle me with the blood, the life of Jesus, who always knew his heart and yours, never knowing this distance I feel except, perhaps, in the final hours of his torture.
You want to sprinkle me with his life, his consciousness, the graced awareness of his identity as your beloved, your special servant. The heart that is his you would give to me. You have chosen me for this.
Move my soul to enter the blessedness you hungrily give. I want to come home.
Take from me every word and desire that hides and protects me from the judgments of others, for in fear I turn from being the heart that I am and become an exile from myself and the great bounty of your heart, my home.
Pr. David L. Miller
Note: I have made few posts in recent monthes as I wrote a book, Marks of the Christian Life, soon to be released by Augsburg Fortress. Please let me know if you are still receiving and find these posts useful.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:9,10
He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ, for him to act upon when the times had run their course: that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth
Reflection
Have the times run their course, my Friend? Have we arrived at the day when you will bring everything together under Christ?
I haven’t yet read the paper, but I am certain the front page will tell me the news: “not yet.” No, not yet. The time has not arrived that will put at peace the tortured, divided world that, at once, longs for harmony but fails to know what makes for peace.
But here, in this oft-tortured heart of mine, there is, for once, no division. Only joy.
No, not the noise of happiness and good fortune, but the quiet giddiness that I know a secret and that secret is you, a love, a center of infinite gravity pulling, towing, drawing all life into yourself.
And for these morning moments, I am so drawn, knowing peace of heart, quiet of mind, joy of soul and the secret.
Time and history is a one-act play with one plot and a single motive force. You labor in all time and space to draw all things into the harmony of flesh and spirit, matter and divinity that is the life of Christ. He is the face of the future which all will become.
And the motive force is one: a love that cannot let go and let be, but which hungers for all and for me.
And for this morning at least, you’ve got me.
Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:9,10
He has let us know the mystery of his purpose, according to his good pleasure which he determined beforehand in Christ, for him to act upon when the times had run their course: that he would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth
Reflection
Have the times run their course, my Friend? Have we arrived at the day when you will bring everything together under Christ?
I haven’t yet read the paper, but I am certain the front page will tell me the news: “not yet.” No, not yet. The time has not arrived that will put at peace the tortured, divided world that, at once, longs for harmony but fails to know what makes for peace.
But here, in this oft-tortured heart of mine, there is, for once, no division. Only joy.
No, not the noise of happiness and good fortune, but the quiet giddiness that I know a secret and that secret is you, a love, a center of infinite gravity pulling, towing, drawing all life into yourself.
And for these morning moments, I am so drawn, knowing peace of heart, quiet of mind, joy of soul and the secret.
Time and history is a one-act play with one plot and a single motive force. You labor in all time and space to draw all things into the harmony of flesh and spirit, matter and divinity that is the life of Christ. He is the face of the future which all will become.
And the motive force is one: a love that cannot let go and let be, but which hungers for all and for me.
And for this morning at least, you’ve got me.
Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Today’s text
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
I wake again into a world where you are, Holy One. I light three small candles and kneel. Lacking adequate words to thank you, I mumble my prayer in language that strains to say what I am really feeling or what I most need.
But I hope my posture, humble before you, is better prayer than the weak words with which I try to express my need to know you loving and near. May my body praise you when my words cannot say enough. And they never do.
Kneeling, I present myself before you in effect saying, “Take me this day. Do what you will with this life. It’s yours.” Then, I remember Dimce, who was so more given to you than am I.
The front curl of his wavy brown hair danced up and down as he drew a series of intersecting lines on a succession of paper napkins. We sat in a café in Skopje, Macedonia, on a sunny mid-April day.
Dimce was the business manager of a non-profit agency that dug wells in poor villages in his country. But this day he was diagramming how he managed the flow of food and supplies from ports in Greece and Albania, through rugged mountain passes to refugee camps that housed more than 80,000 in Macedonia.
Eighty thousand lives depended on his incomprehensible scribble that looked like the diagram of a football play drawn in the dirt by a demented 11 year-old in his backyard.
Most impressive, though, was Dimce himself. He never looked up. He extended his diagram from one rumpled napkin to the next, explaining all the while but he never looked at me. Not once.
He was given, totally surrendered to a life-giving task that had become a holy obsession. Holy, indeed, since creating and nurturing life to fullness and joy is God’s work, God’s only work. Dimce was given to that holy labor, body and soul.
I think of him, My Lord, and so many others who taught me without having any idea that I would remember them long after. He did not give you a part of himself, nor did he surrender some small pleasure to discipline himself or to identify with your sacrificial love as we do in Lent.
His gave himself to your life-giving labor of love for the world. And there was no doubt in my mind that this is what he wanted to do. A deep desire within his soul moved him, not some external compulsion or law.
I wonder, from what life-giving spring does this desire spring afresh?
It is you, loving God. It is always you. Give me that desire. Awaken me each day to your mercies that I may be as surrendered to your life-giving ways as is Dimce. He is a portrait of all that you are. Would to God that I should glow with such beauty.
Pr. David L. Miller
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
I wake again into a world where you are, Holy One. I light three small candles and kneel. Lacking adequate words to thank you, I mumble my prayer in language that strains to say what I am really feeling or what I most need.
But I hope my posture, humble before you, is better prayer than the weak words with which I try to express my need to know you loving and near. May my body praise you when my words cannot say enough. And they never do.
Kneeling, I present myself before you in effect saying, “Take me this day. Do what you will with this life. It’s yours.” Then, I remember Dimce, who was so more given to you than am I.
The front curl of his wavy brown hair danced up and down as he drew a series of intersecting lines on a succession of paper napkins. We sat in a café in Skopje, Macedonia, on a sunny mid-April day.
Dimce was the business manager of a non-profit agency that dug wells in poor villages in his country. But this day he was diagramming how he managed the flow of food and supplies from ports in Greece and Albania, through rugged mountain passes to refugee camps that housed more than 80,000 in Macedonia.
Eighty thousand lives depended on his incomprehensible scribble that looked like the diagram of a football play drawn in the dirt by a demented 11 year-old in his backyard.
Most impressive, though, was Dimce himself. He never looked up. He extended his diagram from one rumpled napkin to the next, explaining all the while but he never looked at me. Not once.
He was given, totally surrendered to a life-giving task that had become a holy obsession. Holy, indeed, since creating and nurturing life to fullness and joy is God’s work, God’s only work. Dimce was given to that holy labor, body and soul.
I think of him, My Lord, and so many others who taught me without having any idea that I would remember them long after. He did not give you a part of himself, nor did he surrender some small pleasure to discipline himself or to identify with your sacrificial love as we do in Lent.
His gave himself to your life-giving labor of love for the world. And there was no doubt in my mind that this is what he wanted to do. A deep desire within his soul moved him, not some external compulsion or law.
I wonder, from what life-giving spring does this desire spring afresh?
It is you, loving God. It is always you. Give me that desire. Awaken me each day to your mercies that I may be as surrendered to your life-giving ways as is Dimce. He is a portrait of all that you are. Would to God that I should glow with such beauty.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Today’s text
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
Remembering the mercies of God … . The morning comes, dearest Jesus. The day holds the promise of blessing and hope. I hunger to taste again our blessing. And I hope that I may be an expression of your unceasing grace, a soul through whom the grace of all eternity flows, a river of peace, cooling the fevered lives of others that they may bask in the joy you intend for them.
But if so, the day must begin with an act of memory. Not just any memory, but the recollection of your mercies.
So I remember. There are so many, but today I remember just one, driving to Dubuque, Iowa, and parking my car in from of Martin Luther’s statue at Wartburg Theological Seminary. It was an act of faint hope on my part.
Sitting silently in the car, looking the statue and tall tower rising over the beckoning doorway of the school, I hungered to enter, but my hope was far weaker than the sinking awareness that I could ever walk through those doors.
A college drop-out, I made cheese, sold cars and worked in a drapery hardware factory. I found myself, my heart in none of them, and the longer I worked at each I longed. I hungered for another kind of life I could barely imagine even existed.
And that life was in wrapped up in the gospel of a love I also could not imagine. But that love burned in me. Not that I was so generous or giving, Jesus. I was not, but love for you and for the mysteries of your life burned in me.
I hungered not just to know more. I also burned, truly burned to know the love that you are that my soul might rest in the gentle consolation of simply being loved with that love for which my insatiable soul longed.
This burning moved me beyond my fears to embrace my hopes. No, that’s not quite right. Through the restless burning of my soul you moved me beyond my fears to throw myself into the hope you implanted in me
Loving Mystery, you were … and are … that hope that burns in us, moving us to reach beyond our fears and all that holds us back from deeper knowing and serving of you.
That burning made me so restless, so uncomfortable, so wanting … more that I pushed through my fears. I forgot about how much work it would be, how much money it would take, how impossible it all seemed as my wife and I planned for our first child.
And I walked into those beckoning doors to enter a world of studying and serving and struggling to know the love for which I and all are intended.
This is your mercy to me, Loving God. You refused to leave me to my fears. You made my heart relentlessly restless so that I might enter the hope you had in me, the hope fanned by those drives to Dubuque when I sat and stared.
The day begins, and I remember your mercy, a mercy that made me uncomfortable but moved me to trust your guiding and to walk into the warmth of your eternal embrace.
Pr. David L. Miller
Romans 12:1
I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Reflection
Remembering the mercies of God … . The morning comes, dearest Jesus. The day holds the promise of blessing and hope. I hunger to taste again our blessing. And I hope that I may be an expression of your unceasing grace, a soul through whom the grace of all eternity flows, a river of peace, cooling the fevered lives of others that they may bask in the joy you intend for them.
But if so, the day must begin with an act of memory. Not just any memory, but the recollection of your mercies.
So I remember. There are so many, but today I remember just one, driving to Dubuque, Iowa, and parking my car in from of Martin Luther’s statue at Wartburg Theological Seminary. It was an act of faint hope on my part.
Sitting silently in the car, looking the statue and tall tower rising over the beckoning doorway of the school, I hungered to enter, but my hope was far weaker than the sinking awareness that I could ever walk through those doors.
A college drop-out, I made cheese, sold cars and worked in a drapery hardware factory. I found myself, my heart in none of them, and the longer I worked at each I longed. I hungered for another kind of life I could barely imagine even existed.
And that life was in wrapped up in the gospel of a love I also could not imagine. But that love burned in me. Not that I was so generous or giving, Jesus. I was not, but love for you and for the mysteries of your life burned in me.
I hungered not just to know more. I also burned, truly burned to know the love that you are that my soul might rest in the gentle consolation of simply being loved with that love for which my insatiable soul longed.
This burning moved me beyond my fears to embrace my hopes. No, that’s not quite right. Through the restless burning of my soul you moved me beyond my fears to throw myself into the hope you implanted in me
Loving Mystery, you were … and are … that hope that burns in us, moving us to reach beyond our fears and all that holds us back from deeper knowing and serving of you.
That burning made me so restless, so uncomfortable, so wanting … more that I pushed through my fears. I forgot about how much work it would be, how much money it would take, how impossible it all seemed as my wife and I planned for our first child.
And I walked into those beckoning doors to enter a world of studying and serving and struggling to know the love for which I and all are intended.
This is your mercy to me, Loving God. You refused to leave me to my fears. You made my heart relentlessly restless so that I might enter the hope you had in me, the hope fanned by those drives to Dubuque when I sat and stared.
The day begins, and I remember your mercy, a mercy that made me uncomfortable but moved me to trust your guiding and to walk into the warmth of your eternal embrace.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:3-9
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'
Reflection
The wind blows where it wills. We do not see from where it comes or whither it goes, but we do hear it. We sense and feel it and can flow with its currents … or resist.
So it is with those who are born from above, from your Spirit, my Lord.
They are made young again. They are fresh and hope-filled by the Spirit within them, possessing eyes and ears to perceive where you blow and how. They know: the Spirit blows and it will, never ceasing.
It gives life wherever it finds the slightest opening, for that Spirit is the living breath of the Ever-living God, of you, Holy Mystery.
Those born of your Spirit are the truly blessed. They hear and are moved by the currents of your life present in all that is and lives. They are made new, seeing and feeling the fresh breeze of your loving nearness blowing through once stale, lifeless halls of soul.
It’s true: once old, one can be born again, and again, and again. The soul can be young again and forever, standing in the fresh breeze of your blowing. For the Spirit opens eyes to see your creative love and joy in everything the eye takes in--sky and trees, faces and all matter.
So blow, Spirit, blow that I may be forever young. Born from above, let me feel your rule of love and beauty even when others imagine that only cynical and skeptical eyes can see.
Open my eyes to the dearest freshness of your love blowing in every place and circumstance.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:3-9
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'
Reflection
The wind blows where it wills. We do not see from where it comes or whither it goes, but we do hear it. We sense and feel it and can flow with its currents … or resist.
So it is with those who are born from above, from your Spirit, my Lord.
They are made young again. They are fresh and hope-filled by the Spirit within them, possessing eyes and ears to perceive where you blow and how. They know: the Spirit blows and it will, never ceasing.
It gives life wherever it finds the slightest opening, for that Spirit is the living breath of the Ever-living God, of you, Holy Mystery.
Those born of your Spirit are the truly blessed. They hear and are moved by the currents of your life present in all that is and lives. They are made new, seeing and feeling the fresh breeze of your loving nearness blowing through once stale, lifeless halls of soul.
It’s true: once old, one can be born again, and again, and again. The soul can be young again and forever, standing in the fresh breeze of your blowing. For the Spirit opens eyes to see your creative love and joy in everything the eye takes in--sky and trees, faces and all matter.
So blow, Spirit, blow that I may be forever young. Born from above, let me feel your rule of love and beauty even when others imagine that only cynical and skeptical eyes can see.
Open my eyes to the dearest freshness of your love blowing in every place and circumstance.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Today’s text
John 3:3-10
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. 'How is that possible?' asked Nicodemus. Jesus replied, 'You are the Teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things!'
Reflection
Morning comes, and you awaken in me desire for the life that I want, Loving Mystery. You show it to me here. But I struggle to describe it, quickly dismissing words that come to mind. all inadequate and inaccurate.
Still, I see what it is to be born from above.
There are souls I have encountered whose eyes seemed fixed on a far point, a horizon lost to the rest of us. Their minds awakened, they take in a world most can not imagine. And their gaze rests there, drinking in a distant beauty whose light reaches into here and now, calming their heart and illumining their face with a quiet joy.
Centered on this vision, their days are less distressed by the winds of anxiety that scatters normal consciousness. They seem certain that what they know is the real and the true, even if no one else confirms it. They are born from above.
This is my prayer, to be as they, to be held in rapt attention by the uncreated beauty that shines from that far point through what is created, in blessed moments appearing also to … and in … me.
Awaken me by your elusive Spirit, Loving Mystery, to a world beyond the noise of clamoring egos and the din of the latest thing.
Fix my eyes on that far point that I, too, may see the present beauty awaiting to born in all that lives.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 3:3-10
Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?' Jesus replied: In all truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born through water and the Spirit; what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. 'How is that possible?' asked Nicodemus. Jesus replied, 'You are the Teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things!'
Reflection
Morning comes, and you awaken in me desire for the life that I want, Loving Mystery. You show it to me here. But I struggle to describe it, quickly dismissing words that come to mind. all inadequate and inaccurate.
Still, I see what it is to be born from above.
There are souls I have encountered whose eyes seemed fixed on a far point, a horizon lost to the rest of us. Their minds awakened, they take in a world most can not imagine. And their gaze rests there, drinking in a distant beauty whose light reaches into here and now, calming their heart and illumining their face with a quiet joy.
Centered on this vision, their days are less distressed by the winds of anxiety that scatters normal consciousness. They seem certain that what they know is the real and the true, even if no one else confirms it. They are born from above.
This is my prayer, to be as they, to be held in rapt attention by the uncreated beauty that shines from that far point through what is created, in blessed moments appearing also to … and in … me.
Awaken me by your elusive Spirit, Loving Mystery, to a world beyond the noise of clamoring egos and the din of the latest thing.
Fix my eyes on that far point that I, too, may see the present beauty awaiting to born in all that lives.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Today’s text
John 16:13-15
[Jesus says:] However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.
Reflection
I take no aim at completeness. Only in recent years, my Lord, have I become content with incompleteness, resigned in the knowledge that everything I touch and am will always remain less than whole, less than finished.
My heart rests easier on the days I manage to surrender the hunger for completeness and the illusion that it is attainable or even expected of me. I am what I am: perfectly incomplete, always unfinished and typically certain that I am meant for more. But seldom am I able to touch what that is.
But what that is … is not of my achievement or struggle, for it is the completeness of your love for this crazy world. That is the completeness for which I hunger, and I enter it only in surrender to the undeniable fact that I am far less than complete or whole, and the more I struggle under any other illusion, the more fragmented my soul becomes.
But you send the Spirit of truth: helper, advocate, friend, comforter, Paraclete; none of our terms exhausts the abiding of that Presence whose first mark in our souls is a loving resignation to your completeness.
In that release, that surrender to our incompleteness we begin to enter the complete truth of the complete love you are and in which you hold us.
All this mysterious Presence has and brings to us is in and from you, Loving Mystery. It is the substance that so filled my brother Jesus, whose soul resided completely in you.
So it is enough, sufficient for this day, any day. And with quiet confidence, I release myself, my incompleteness and insufficiency into the completeness of you who are complete truth, complete love.
I surrender to you again my illusions of controlling the events of my life, for you will fulfill your promise to send the Spirit of your completeness to me that I may savor the sweetness of what my soul can never attain, only receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 16:13-15
[Jesus says:] However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.
Reflection
I take no aim at completeness. Only in recent years, my Lord, have I become content with incompleteness, resigned in the knowledge that everything I touch and am will always remain less than whole, less than finished.
My heart rests easier on the days I manage to surrender the hunger for completeness and the illusion that it is attainable or even expected of me. I am what I am: perfectly incomplete, always unfinished and typically certain that I am meant for more. But seldom am I able to touch what that is.
But what that is … is not of my achievement or struggle, for it is the completeness of your love for this crazy world. That is the completeness for which I hunger, and I enter it only in surrender to the undeniable fact that I am far less than complete or whole, and the more I struggle under any other illusion, the more fragmented my soul becomes.
But you send the Spirit of truth: helper, advocate, friend, comforter, Paraclete; none of our terms exhausts the abiding of that Presence whose first mark in our souls is a loving resignation to your completeness.
In that release, that surrender to our incompleteness we begin to enter the complete truth of the complete love you are and in which you hold us.
All this mysterious Presence has and brings to us is in and from you, Loving Mystery. It is the substance that so filled my brother Jesus, whose soul resided completely in you.
So it is enough, sufficient for this day, any day. And with quiet confidence, I release myself, my incompleteness and insufficiency into the completeness of you who are complete truth, complete love.
I surrender to you again my illusions of controlling the events of my life, for you will fulfill your promise to send the Spirit of your completeness to me that I may savor the sweetness of what my soul can never attain, only receive.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:17,18
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, how rich is the glory of the heritage he offers among his holy people … .
Reflection
Full knowledge of you? What might that mean … and change?
You desire that I should know you fully, blest Christ. My knowledge is not to be partial but complete, as if then I would be complete, knowing what how to live and choose with confidence and wisdom.
You seem especially concerned that I live with real wisdom rooted in real knowledge of your purpose that I might live in awareness of what life is … and who you are.
Your purpose is to draw me and all that is into loving harmony.
You, Christ, are the unity of human flesh and divine desire, a harmony, perfect oneness of the created with the Creator. And your purpose is to include me, and all that is, into this oneness so that every heart beats and all matter moves in perfect time with your own.
And all will be one, and all will be love, and all will know love and peace will fill every corner of creation.
But this vision is not yet, and most of us long ago gave up any hope of seeing it … at least in this life. We pay it no mind. Utopian dreams that appear nowhere.
And so we live without wisdom or perception of what life is intended to be: the search to see and taste that unity, the labor to fulfill the vision of all creation singing in harmony with the music that rises from your divine heart.
The search and labor for this loving harmony (however partially we may see or fulfill it) is our call and joy. It is a life of wisdom flowing from true perception of who you are and the hope that burns at your heart.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:17,18
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, how rich is the glory of the heritage he offers among his holy people … .
Reflection
Full knowledge of you? What might that mean … and change?
You desire that I should know you fully, blest Christ. My knowledge is not to be partial but complete, as if then I would be complete, knowing what how to live and choose with confidence and wisdom.
You seem especially concerned that I live with real wisdom rooted in real knowledge of your purpose that I might live in awareness of what life is … and who you are.
Your purpose is to draw me and all that is into loving harmony.
You, Christ, are the unity of human flesh and divine desire, a harmony, perfect oneness of the created with the Creator. And your purpose is to include me, and all that is, into this oneness so that every heart beats and all matter moves in perfect time with your own.
And all will be one, and all will be love, and all will know love and peace will fill every corner of creation.
But this vision is not yet, and most of us long ago gave up any hope of seeing it … at least in this life. We pay it no mind. Utopian dreams that appear nowhere.
And so we live without wisdom or perception of what life is intended to be: the search to see and taste that unity, the labor to fulfill the vision of all creation singing in harmony with the music that rises from your divine heart.
The search and labor for this loving harmony (however partially we may see or fulfill it) is our call and joy. It is a life of wisdom flowing from true perception of who you are and the hope that burns at your heart.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Today’s text
John 15:15,16
I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.
Reflection
I live too much of my life far from this knowledge. The words here invite a confidence and purpose far beyond the frequent uncertainties of my soul.
Oh, of you I am quite certain, Jesus. I have no real doubts, but of myself I have little except for uncertainty, not knowing what I am to do, uncertain of who I really am, hesitating when I should step forward and lead, ever doubting that what I do is helpful, well-informed or in any way useful.
But here you commission me to go, to bear fruit, to reveal the depth of God as those depths are revealed in the love that intimately passes between you, Jesus, and the One you call Father. You dwell in intimate sharing with that One, and you invite me to do the same with you, so that the knowledge I have is not second-hand, but immediate and … certain.
Is it there, in this certainty of knowing you, that our steps find the surety and resolve that filled you during your earthly ministry? Is it there that I find the equanimity and assurance to live with confidence, knowing that you are my friend, and will be even when I am not much of a friend to you?
I want this confident joy, which is had only by knowing you, only by having you reveal in me the love you are, only by knowing the mystery of what you awaken in me when I feel enveloped by you.
Then, I am known, and I know. I know you know me. And I know I am chosen by Love, for Love, to Love, and it doesn’t really matter where I am or what I am doing. For your friendship fills me, and I know what to do and how to live, no matter where I am or where I go.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 15:15,16
I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.
Reflection
I live too much of my life far from this knowledge. The words here invite a confidence and purpose far beyond the frequent uncertainties of my soul.
Oh, of you I am quite certain, Jesus. I have no real doubts, but of myself I have little except for uncertainty, not knowing what I am to do, uncertain of who I really am, hesitating when I should step forward and lead, ever doubting that what I do is helpful, well-informed or in any way useful.
But here you commission me to go, to bear fruit, to reveal the depth of God as those depths are revealed in the love that intimately passes between you, Jesus, and the One you call Father. You dwell in intimate sharing with that One, and you invite me to do the same with you, so that the knowledge I have is not second-hand, but immediate and … certain.
Is it there, in this certainty of knowing you, that our steps find the surety and resolve that filled you during your earthly ministry? Is it there that I find the equanimity and assurance to live with confidence, knowing that you are my friend, and will be even when I am not much of a friend to you?
I want this confident joy, which is had only by knowing you, only by having you reveal in me the love you are, only by knowing the mystery of what you awaken in me when I feel enveloped by you.
Then, I am known, and I know. I know you know me. And I know I am chosen by Love, for Love, to Love, and it doesn’t really matter where I am or what I am doing. For your friendship fills me, and I know what to do and how to live, no matter where I am or where I go.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Today’s text
John 15:9-11
I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.
Reflection
Your commandment is that we abide in you, Jesus, abide with you in the arms of the Eternal One. You call that Mystery ‘Father’ and know him as love, but your words are no more adequate to the Mystery than are mine.
Your command is that we seek in every space the face of that Love, to look upon every story as a holy story, a story where you are, where love labors, where the central struggle is to live fully.
Every story is the story of a struggle to come fully alive amid all that prevents it, even though what prevents it is usually we ourselves, in one way or another.
Every one is the story of the struggle of life with death, of love with ego. Yes, ego, for it is ego that moves me to withdraw into a self-protective shell. It is fearful ego that narrows vision to mere narcissism so that I can see only what immediately affects me.
It is ego that keeps me from seeing the stories and struggles of life to live in the souls of others. And not seeing them, my soul remains unmoved by the loving desire for life in abundance that is there. I fail to see their hunger for joy, for freedom and love.
You command me to remain, to abide in you. But how and where …if not to seek vision of your loving longing amid all of life, and especially where the struggle is most intense?
Pr. David L. Miller
John 15:9-11
I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.
Reflection
Your commandment is that we abide in you, Jesus, abide with you in the arms of the Eternal One. You call that Mystery ‘Father’ and know him as love, but your words are no more adequate to the Mystery than are mine.
Your command is that we seek in every space the face of that Love, to look upon every story as a holy story, a story where you are, where love labors, where the central struggle is to live fully.
Every story is the story of a struggle to come fully alive amid all that prevents it, even though what prevents it is usually we ourselves, in one way or another.
Every one is the story of the struggle of life with death, of love with ego. Yes, ego, for it is ego that moves me to withdraw into a self-protective shell. It is fearful ego that narrows vision to mere narcissism so that I can see only what immediately affects me.
It is ego that keeps me from seeing the stories and struggles of life to live in the souls of others. And not seeing them, my soul remains unmoved by the loving desire for life in abundance that is there. I fail to see their hunger for joy, for freedom and love.
You command me to remain, to abide in you. But how and where …if not to seek vision of your loving longing amid all of life, and especially where the struggle is most intense?
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, May 08, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Today’s text
John 15:1-5
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.Reflection
You are the vine, O Christ. Through you flows the life of the infinite and eternal, the substance of the Father, the nectar of being and truth.
Apart from you we are, indeed, cut off, cut off from the source of our being, cut off from ourselves, cut off from the peace and unity that is our truest rest, cut off from our home.
Cut off from you we restless and searching, disconnected from the life and peace, the calm and rest, the vitality and purpose for which we hunger.
We hunger for the flow of life through our bodies. No mere knowing of mind will do.
We long for the experience of being filled and carried along in the flow of life coursing through body and soul, bearing us with joy into our days, filling us with assurance and certainty that we are born on by love.
It is love, then, that fills our hearts and strengthens our arms, our resolve. It is love that courses through the vine--and our bodies, truest joy and purpose filling and carrying us into tomorrow with unflagging hope.
How I hunger for this awareness, for you. How I wish I could make this experience happen just by willing it. It is the experience of being alive. Anything less won’t do; it can never satisfy the soul. The soul knows: I am made for more.
So I will seek to be humble and human, knowing the life flowing through the vine is not mine to order or control. It is the living life blood of Eternity’s love, a love which called me into being and presses to fill me--if I would but stay connected to the vine, the artery of every blessing, the Source of life that is life.
Let me humbly cleave as tightly to you as I can and wait for your life blood to fill me again … that I may live.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 15:1-5
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.Reflection
You are the vine, O Christ. Through you flows the life of the infinite and eternal, the substance of the Father, the nectar of being and truth.
Apart from you we are, indeed, cut off, cut off from the source of our being, cut off from ourselves, cut off from the peace and unity that is our truest rest, cut off from our home.
Cut off from you we restless and searching, disconnected from the life and peace, the calm and rest, the vitality and purpose for which we hunger.
We hunger for the flow of life through our bodies. No mere knowing of mind will do.
We long for the experience of being filled and carried along in the flow of life coursing through body and soul, bearing us with joy into our days, filling us with assurance and certainty that we are born on by love.
It is love, then, that fills our hearts and strengthens our arms, our resolve. It is love that courses through the vine--and our bodies, truest joy and purpose filling and carrying us into tomorrow with unflagging hope.
How I hunger for this awareness, for you. How I wish I could make this experience happen just by willing it. It is the experience of being alive. Anything less won’t do; it can never satisfy the soul. The soul knows: I am made for more.
So I will seek to be humble and human, knowing the life flowing through the vine is not mine to order or control. It is the living life blood of Eternity’s love, a love which called me into being and presses to fill me--if I would but stay connected to the vine, the artery of every blessing, the Source of life that is life.
Let me humbly cleave as tightly to you as I can and wait for your life blood to fill me again … that I may live.
Pr. David L. Miller
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