Today & every day

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." (Luke 19:5-7)

I must stay with you today. And then tomorrow, and then the next and then ….

That’s me. My heart leaks, which means I must return to you every day or be content with the ache that comes when I feel far from you. But this is not how you want me or anyone to live.

This gives me a clue about that must in your heart.

Zacchaeus needed you, Jesus. His life was a crooked mess. You invited yourself to his dinner table to let him know something he’d forgotten, but which I suspect he wanted back.

He’d forgotten himself, his identity. He’d cooperated with oppressors for so long, collecting their exorbitant taxes, that he didn’t know who he was, a child of God’s promise who was blessed to be a blessing, intended to know the exquisite joy of love passing through his being.

You knew this joy and wanted it for him, Jesus. I must bless this man, this lost heart, and bring him home. The voice of the Great Love in your heart moved you to call Zacchaeus down from his tree and back to himself.

Zacchaeus is a stand-in for every one of us. His need is ours. We lose ourselves. Amnesia absorbs our hearts, and we totally forget that we are children of the Great Love who calls us home that we might become ourselves.

And that is why I must be here, and it is why you are here, for me, for every one of us. Today and every day.

Pr. David L. Miller

In your presence

As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. … Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘Lord, let me see again.’ (Luke 18:35, 40-41)

The blind man wanted to see. And I? I want to be.

I want to be in your presence, Jesus. I want to know you, your life and heart filling me with peace and gentle joy so that I need and long for nothing more … than more of you.

Come to me, you once said, and I will give you rest. Most of the time I feel not rest but restlessness, my life incomplete and unfulfilled, failing whatever hope and promise you had in me and that I once had for myself.

Accusing voices rise from dark unconscious in the wee hours, taunting and reminding me again of how little I have given and brought into this world.

I know those voices come from the evil one, the enemy of our souls, and I know that morning light will scatter the darkness and send the voices back to whatever dusty, unredeemed corner of my heart from which they rose.

I know this. I truly know this. But ... there are nights the voices still haunt me, now well into my seventh decade when there is far more of this life behind me than ahead. Nothing I have done or can do silences them, even though they are less frequent now.

And this if the core truth. I cannot stop them. But you can. And have. And will again. This I know.

What do you want? You ask me … and all of us. What do you really want?

Only this, to see you, to know you, to feel my heart always in your presence, to know this inimitable Love filling me complete so that I long and need nothing more. Than you.

Pr. David L. Miller

I want you

Jesus said to his disciples, "Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? (Luke 17:7-8)

It is not to ease that our Lord calls us but to follow him, to share his work, his life, his heart, to see as he sees, feel what he feels and serve as he serves.

I stand among you as one who serves and gives his life as a ransom for many. Such are the words of Jesus, whose purpose and mission is to live the Everlasting Love that flows through his being.

This is the purpose of all who are fashioned in the image of the Love Who Is, the great Loving Mystery who reveals himself in Christ, the servant, who invites us to follow.

I want you with me. These are his words to you. I want to share everything I am and know and feel with you, the pain and glory, the frustration and ecstasy of loving the way that I love.

It is our privilege to follow him, to live the Love he is such as we are able, always faltering, frequently failing, constantly confronting our internal resistance to giving ourselves away in love … to someone or something that our Lord would serve through us.

He knows all this, of course, but invites us to come along anyway, sharing whatever light and joy knowing him awakens in our hearts.

It may not be easy, but being with him is worth the trouble.

Pr. David L. Miller

Our deepest need

Jesus said to his disciples, 'Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. (Luke 17:1-2)

Harsh as these words sound, listen closely and you will hear the voice of love speaking to the deep needs of our hearts to be together in a communion of blessing.

We are not made for ourselves but for each other. Independence, self-reliance, is a myth we engage when we feel the need to pretend we are or should be stronger than we can be.

But truth is written deep within and cries aloud from our first moments as we cry to be fed, to be held, to be comforted and warmed in arms that cradle our hearts as securely as our bodies. Failing this, we do not live and never thrive.

Our needs change through the years; nevertheless our lives are communal from start to our final breath. I need you, and you need me … and we each need to hold each other up lest we stumble and forget we are precious children of a Great Love.

Jesus draws us into a community, centered round the Love he is, where we each receive and share the warmth of grace which our hearts have craved since the moment of our birth.

Gathered around the warm sun of his heart, we welcome each other with open arms, honest joy and words of care.  We do not stumble but walk together in that communion of blessing, the crying need of every heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

The circle of your care

‘When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’ (Luke 12:13-14)

May your soul be large, spacious, with a place for every life you meet. Blessing lies hidden behind the eyes of every single soul you encounter. So welcome each one into the circle of your heart.

Isn’t this what you tell us, Jesus?

You invited the poor into your soul, the sick and broken, the fearful and those made lame, injured in heart and limb by the inevitable bruises that come to every life.

This is how you lived. Your soul was large, immense. There was and still is room for each of us. You welcomed the souls of those you met that each might commune with the wonder of your heart and mind.

You drew human hearts into the circle of your presence that they might shine in the warmth of divine love embracing them whole, no matter that they be poor, lame or broken by life.  

Enlarge the circle, this was your mission … and the charge you give to us. Make it bigger. Release the love in you. Let it flow and embrace the world. Look upon everything you see and everyone you meet and know it is there for you to love.

Sit in the circle of Jesus’ blessed presence until warmth stirs within and overflows the cup of your soul.

Your heart will grow large, spacious and free, and you will know … the Love he is.

Pr. David L. Miller

I choose you

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them …. (Luke 6:12-13)

Slow down, you say, Jesus. Be still. Spend this time doing nothing but being here … with me. Breathe and know I am here with you.

You need this today. Your mind, anxious about many things, jumps here and there, finding nowhere to lay your heart and rest.

I offer you this gift. Sit on the mountainside with me in the darkness that is not dark at all, for I am here and wherever I am there is the light of a Presence that will fill you with the assurance that all is well and will be well.

But you will never know this, never feel it filling your soul unless you spend time with me sharing the darkness within you, the anxious thoughts that feed your insecurity and erode your peace.

So come and share this time. Do not rush off to whatever comes next. There is nothing you need more than to be here, releasing whatever burdens you bear as you sit beside me. For I come here to pray and know the Presence of the One who can never be named, except as the Love Who Is.

From this Love, I say what I say, do what I do and choose what I choose. And I choose you.

Do you not know this? If not, be here with me a little while longer. Sit in the silence with me. Name your darkness, your sin, your fear, your need, your hope … and listen.

Listen to the silence where I speak to your heart. You will hear my voice.

I choose you … and always will.

Pr. David L. Miller

The moment of enfolding

‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks’  (Luke 12:35-36)

Joy is opening a door to that face you most want to see, the face whose smile is your smile, whose arms eagerly await the moment of enfolding you in an embrace that tells you everything your heart needs to know.

The One who is Love comes; every morning he comes and every evening he keeps silent watch over you, the beloved, whom he longs to wake to another day that you might know what is in his heart … for you.

Open the door. Open your heart. Open the protected portal of your being where you bury your wounds and hide in fear.

Pour out every need. Name every last way you have failed to live for others and betrayed your own soul because you were selfish or afraid. Release every self-judgement and the damning ways others named you that still sting.

The only one who knows you well enough to name you is this One, this blessed face who waits for you to open your deepest heart to the Love he is.

So open the door. Joy awaits you. The One who knows and loves you through and through is there, always, eager for the moment of enfolding.

He stands at the door, knocking, his great divine heart in his throat, wanting to love you with the love you have always wanted.

Open the door, a smile of holy welcome awaits you.

Pr. David L. Miller

This is life

And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ (Luke 12:15)

In the silence of my basement room, still I see the red-golden leaves, tinged brown on every edge, of the little tree on the southwest corner of the lot—and am moved.

Life is seeing, really seeing this tree in this one moment of eternity—its beauty unlike any tree that ever was or ever will be—on this October day when wind and rain threaten to rip away leaves it is not quite ready to surrender.

Hold on, little tree. Let me savor you just a little longer. True, you will be beautiful when the snows come to adorn your branches. But, for now, you witness to the Love who speaks to me in odd moments when, for reasons unknown, my soul opens to what is right in front of me.

And I know, yes, I know it is you. It is you whose smile shines from my little tree, you who are Creator of my beating heart that in more recent years has learned to love beyond what I had thought possible.

And today, I love you more … for this little tree, branches dancing in gusty-gray winds as it hangs onto the beauty it is, little knowing another beauty will surely come.

But I do. I know. The Love you most assuredly are, Holy One, will seek and delight my heart far beyond this October day, touching me on colder mornings until, ah, the wonder of another Spring I hope to see.

This, knowing you this way, dearest Friend, is life.

My joyful tears praise you in every season, knowing that little tree is my life.

Pr. David L. Miller

The place of knowing

Thursday, October 17, 2019

“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52) 

Grant, Holy One, that I should know you and share what little I am able to understand, which is very little indeed.

But this much I know: The soul’s knowledge of you is not a pedestal from which to look down upon others, imagining one is more advanced in some way.

That is the great sin of the proudly “religious,” anxiously imagining they are “right” or somehow better than those they critique.  

There is no such advancement in me. I remain forever a beginner in this life, so often falling back on myself, failing to live and love what you have been so willing to share with me of your own divine heart.

This is why I so desperately return to this, my holy space, where you seem so pleased to meet me, and I am so blessed to know that I am always welcome, I … such as I am.

So I return and ask: Tell me again. Speak to my heart once more. Give me that knowledge that is you, and I will struggle (it’s the best I can do) to share what this heart knows, if only I can find words and ways to express the mystery that inexplicably lives in my heart.

The ways and words of others who love you have been the door though which I entered the wonder of your loving presence.

May I, too, in this time of my life, be a door through which others may enter the place of knowing.

Pr. David L. Miller

To know and flow

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

“So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you."    (Luke 11:41)

To know and flow

How many gifts remain ungiven because we hesitate? How many gracious words of blessing and thanks remain unspoken, hidden in our hearts because we did not take that next step to act or speak what our hearts knew and felt within?

The Spirit moves the heart, urging us beyond ourselves to turn holy intentions into gracious realities that we might move with the Spirit.

Our joy and purpose is to know and flow with the current of God’s love. The Love who is God’s Spirit within us awakens desires to bless and give, to care and encourage, to make our corner of the world more gracious, humane and beautiful.

The Spirit gives birth to such blessed newness in our hearts, eager for us to give what we have been given, to speak the blessing and joy that others need, to share the gifts that will relieve a burden and lift a heart.

Do not wait. Do not tell yourself that there will be time later. Do not let the pace of life drown out the Spirit’s voice, distracting you from the holy purpose and impulses the Spirit stirs in your heart.

Those stirrings are a gift, a reminder that the Holy One loves you and loves for you to be an expression of divine warmth in a world where so many feel the cold ache of loneliness.

The time is now. Today is the day of salvation. The Spirit stirs your heart. The Holy One waits with eager expectation for your response … that the Love beyond all naming may be known … through you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Is it any wonder?

 At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’ (Luke 10:21-22)

Is it any wonder?

There are stories where the face of the man peeks through, and you catch hints of who Jesus really was, what made him happy, sad or angry. You see his human face, quite apart from the labels and doctrines attached to him through the centuries.

One story is when his friends return from their mission. He’d sent them to villages on the way ahead of him to teach and touch, bless and heal, to reveal the kind of kingdom Earth had never seen, a kingdom where God, in great mercy, ruled … everything.

They gather around him and share the extraordinary joy of freeing human bodies and hearts from oppressions that bound them. They had witnessed the startled wonder in the eyes of those who never imagined they would taste the joy of feeling truly alive and human again.

Jesus hears all this … and smiles. The Spirit within him swells and soars until it bursts his soul in ecstatic prayer. He smiles with delight at the joy of his friends.  

The moment is fixed in my mind. I want to hold this image before me every moment of every day that I breathe the sweet air of Earth … and bask in the exquisite joy I see, until it fills me.  

For in his smile I, too, know the Father, the Incomprehensible Mystery, whose love heals the broken and turns hopelessness and sorrow upside down.

Seeing that smile, is it any wonder that we love him?

Pr. David L. Miller

The peace of knowing

The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ (Luke 10:17-20)

The peace of knowing

It is better to know you are known by God, cherished in the divine heart, than to have power, even power over evil.

Freedom and peace flow through the soul when we know our lives—my little life, with all its uncertainties, false steps, conflicted motives, confusion and anxiety—are written on the heart of God.

To know you are known by the One who is Love evaporates every fear of what the future holds.

This knowledge is of the heart, not the mind. It is the experience of being loved, as one is, without merit, by a transcendent Presence who fills you for the sheer joy of doing so, and then takes joy in your joy.

The delight of God is to fill us with the Love God is, again and again, so that we know all will be well and in all manner of circumstances.

A single moment of such awareness frees the heart from its burdens and fills us with peace. Our burdens do not go away, but suddenly they are all manageable because we are filled with the Love who will see us through, the Love who knows us and knows our need.

The power that frees, the power that strikes down the demons that wound our bodies, harrow our hearts and furrow our brows is the Love of the One who is Love.

This One, the Incomprehensible Mystery, knows … you.

Let this awareness fill you. Speak the words, your mantra, “I am known, I am known,” until God’s joy fills you with the peace …of knowing.

Pr. David L. Miller

Always

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

Always

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pr. David L. Miller

Found, again

‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. (Luke 15:8-9)

Found, again

Sometimes I thank you for the damnedest things. And mean it.

Today, I thank you, O Lord, for all the things in my life that have made me a moody soul. I thank thee for all the people who have hurt me and forced me to feel my heart deeply. Thank you for the struggles and disappointments that sometimes make me sad and depressed.

Thank you for all of it. If I didn’t feel these things as I do, I would have sought you with less energy and resolve. I would have been content with average, with good enough. I would not have plumbed the depths of my soul to feel my need, and I would have missed the ecstasy and elation of knowing you, the Love who finds me in spite of myself.

You are Seeking Love, I proclaim again and again, always believing it is true, always aching to be found.

Then there is today, this very day when, amid the quagmire of emotion, you find me once more, and I thank you for who I am, for what this life has made of me, for all it—the good, the bad and the painful, for successes and failures, for rejections as well as the appreciation that have greeted me on the journey.

You find me in my darkness and tell me, again, that it is for a holy purpose, for the sharing of a very great love that you have made me as I am—weak, vulnerable, needy, attuning my senses to every expression of the Love you are, the Love who finds me, again and again. 

Thank you for being who you are … that I may be who I am. Yours.

Pr. David L. Miller

Made for joy

So he told them this parable: ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” (Luke 15:4-6)

Made for joy

The joy of children reveals the heart of God and the heart our Lord wills for us.

The Holy One seeks our heart in a million ways through graces and beauties, blessings and smiles, each glowing with the heart of Eternity, eager for us to know that Love prevails and always will, in every circumstance, even those most difficult.

Like children whose hearts are free because they know caring eyes and arms are always there for them, we, too, are intended to know. Knowing, we live.

Life … is to know the hungry heart of the Great Love who hunts for us, seeking to find and fill every lost corner of our lives until we are home, fully and forever, rejoicing, sharing God’s own joy at having his lost ones safe in the divine arms.

So look and see. Open your heart to everything this day brings. Every grace and smile, however small and seemingly insignificant, is a sacrament of the Love who aches for your nearness.

Every beauty and each drop of renewing rain from gray morning skies is intended for your awakening.  

Hold out your hand. Feel the dew of heaven that greens earth’s old crust. The Loving Mystery seeks you in all that is life, eager to carry you home that our joy may be complete.

Pr. David L. Miller

That smile

I love the Lord, because he has heard

  my voice and my supplications. 
Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live. (Psalm 116:1-2)

That smile

I call to you today, O Lord, for I know that you hear me. Even more, I know that you cherish this life and that nothing in me is to be held back. You want to hear it all as if you didn’t already know the inner voice of my soul even before I utter a word.

Speak each thought and word, you say, each emotion, frustration and joy, inviting me to come close to you with that smile that tells of your love.

And for reasons I will never understand, seeing, feeling your divine smile evaporates whatever weighs heavily on my heart. Tangled knots of emotion release their grip. The heart, suddenly free, floats … lighter, higher, joined as one in that smile of Love you are.

It is a great mystery to me how this happens, as are you.

But in that moment … in this very moment … I know I am heard. I know I am welcome. I know I am cherished. I know that my existence and well-being is important even in this world that grows more impersonal every year.

I know as the heart knows, so I call on you. For you are the Love who hears me.

Pr. David L. Miller

Every. Single. Time.

Jesus said "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:24-25)

Every. Single. Time.

I stand at the brink of a new time, a new chapter in which I may more fully (and finally!) become myself, that soul the Loving Mystery within aches for me to become.

There is excitement, anticipation of finding the great joy for which the soul most longs. But every new beginning starts with an ending, and endings are about letting go, something I have never done well.

There have been too many letting go moments, although no more than in any other life, I suppose. Those moments come to mind now, especially the painful ones—places I didn’t want to leave … ever, people with whom I spent precious times of joy and immense pain, moments that blessed me beyond every expectation … and still do.

I savor them in the graced halls of memory, wishing I could transport myself back in time to those people and places to laugh with them again and give proper thanks, holding them in the arms of the love the years have only burnished.

Bittersweet melancholy, however, does not obscure this undeniable hope for that great More the longing soul can never receive, except by opening hands and heart to what the loving Lord of our lives has yet in store.

Whatever comes, I know: It will be laced with the Great Love that has sought and found me on the journey despite my failures of faith and courage. That’s the way this Love is, this Wonder who holds us and always will.

Our lives are like this. We let go, however unwillingly. We turn the page to the next chapter, not knowing what that is. We experience thousands of little deaths, before our final one. And each time, every single time, Love has an answer, and that answer is the Love who fills us again and again with the life that is eternal, now.

Pr. David L. Miller

It's you

‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46)

It’s you

You are a pearl of inestimable value, priceless. Never doubt that. Never denigrate yourself. And never allow anyone to make you feel small. It’s a lie.

For you bear a mystery. Christ, the Infinite Love fully enfleshed in Jesus of Nazareth, lives in you. This is your truest identity, a treasure hidden in the depth of your soul, of every soul.

We can deny it, ignore it, bury it … or allow it to be buried … beneath thousands of distractions that prevent us from listening to our hearts. But the pearl of great price is always there, a gift hidden in the depths of our humanity, awaiting discovery.

Our deep joys lead us to the place this treasure is found.

What fills you with energy? What awakens generosity of spirit? When do hope, faith and love fill you? When does your heart swell with joy and exhilaration? When does gratitude for life spill from your lips … and perhaps your eyes, too?

Such questions open the treasure of your soul, revealing who you are … who Christ is in you.

Infinite Love lives in you, a Love who wants you to know how loved you are, a Love who longs to live through your life, a Love who shines from your face and fills you with the joy of knowing ... the treasure you are.

Pr. David L. Miller

Smiles of knowing

 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ (Luke 11:12-13)

Smiles of knowing

If we pray only for what we need or think we need … or to avoid something we fear, we miss the greatest gift.

The language of spirit sounds ethereal, unreal, something floating about or … woo-woo, especially in this age when only that which is material and measurable is considered real and worth examining.

You cannot nail spirit down. It is like the wind. It blows where it will, Jesus says, and you cannot control it.

But we surely know its presence. The presence of spirit is life and energy, vigor and confidence. The absence of spirit … to be dispirited … is a state of enervation, wasting, sadness. Verve and joy fade to gray.

But not today. Today, every day, the greatest gift is given.

The One who is Life and Love pours out Spirit that asking … we may receive ... and receiving … we may know Life and Love coursing through our hearts, as mysterious as it is immeasurable and unquantifiable, yet as real as the smile on our faces.

Smiles of knowing a Spirit most holy, from an ever-generous Source. Just ask.

Pr. David L. Miller