Friday, March 28, 2008

Today’s text

John 20:24-29

Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, 'We have seen the Lord,' but he answered, 'Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.' Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them. 'Peace be with you,' he said. Then he spoke to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.' Thomas replied, 'My Lord and my God!' Jesus said to him: You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

Prayer

My Lord, I am Thomas. And it brings me no shame, only joy. I believe because I have seen and continue to see. Is not seeing … something … the source of faith for all us?

There are few of us who would not trade places with Thomas. I want to be the one who touches your ruined hands, who grasps your broken feet and gazes at your side.

I want to see you alive again. I hunger to hear your voice inviting me touch and know. My eyes ache to see the marks of love glorified and be moved, as now, to tears, which praise you in ways my mouth cannot. Thank you for them. They are your gift.

And thank you that, I, like Thomas, have seen you alive. I see the wonder of your resurrection in good and gentle souls who throughout my days have welcomed me to touch their hands and feet, souls and lives. There I touch and taste and know that you are good … and alive.

I keep bumping into a strange, translucent love in odds places and unexpected moments, in friends’ hearts and strangers’ smiles. And each time it fills me with a joy and an unwavering hope that evokes awareness of something that cannot be confined to our time, to any time.

It is the same joy and hope I know when I watch you speaking one word to your friends, “Peace.”

So I see, and believe, and say, “My Lord and My God.”

I am Thomas. And there is no shame in me, only joy.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Today’s text

John 20:19-23

In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, 'Peace be with you. 'As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained.

Prayer

I see now what holiness is, my Friend. Many spirits haunt human hearts. We see and feel them: the proud and arrogant, the humble and gentle, the fearful and melancholy, the joyous and generous.

You give the Holy Spirit, granting your beloved authority to forgive sins or retain them. But the desire of your holiness is clear. You hunger to release me into freedom. The Spirit that is Holy sets human hearts free to live. She enlarges the life in our lungs, and I have seen and known it.

It is a holy and precious thing to release a human soul from the weight of shame and guilt. I have looked them in the eye, Jesus, and spoken: Your sins are forgiven, full and free.

The words are powerful. They have effect.

Lightness of being enters the room where unholy heaviness just reigned. The soul straightens up and draws the fullness of breath into constricted lungs. They suck it in, unable to get enough. Their tight face relaxes. A small smile replaces the frown lately there and expands across their face. They are alive again, truly, and free.

You see this, Jesus, and smile. This is holy. This is the breath the Spirit breathes. Holiness is this human soul, fully alive. And holiness is the Spirit that seeks fullness of life and being for all you love.

Breathe this Spirit in us that we may be … and make free. Then we truly will glorify your risen name.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Today’s text

John 20:19-23

In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, 'Peace be with you. 'As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained.

Prayer

I do not know why we are not more proud of our wounds. We, too, have scarred hands, injured sides and broken hearts. We hide them mostly; fearing people will see our pain and know our weakness. Vulnerable we are, and we all know it. Yet, we hide.

But here you stand, Jesus, exposing the marks of your weakness. And there is no shame in you, no hiding. You offer your broken body as gift. And so it is, a gift of love.

Your ruined hands and gaping side are love’s wounds, won in the bitter battle of love with all that is not. You love much, so you suffer much. That’s the way it is for us, too, Jesus. It’s the human state.

Not even your resurrection removes your wounds. They remain, transfigured, but still there. Marks of love glorified, each speaking the compassion you are. They cannot be wiped clean without destroying your identity, your truth, the healing you bear.

And you shall bear your wounds through all eternity. And we? Our wounds move us to you for healing. Heal them, Jesus, but let love’s wounds remain. They are the best part of me.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, March 24, 2008

Today’s text

John 20:18-20

So Mary of Magdala told the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord,' and that he had said these things to her. In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord,

Prayer

You speak, Risen One, and the word is that for which our hearts pine: ‘Peace.’

Stillness fills the soul as I sit and listen to your voice: ‘Peace be with you.’

The quiet timbre of the word echoes through corridors of the mind. It exorcises the fevered rancor of daily living, emptying the noise, clearing space to be, just to be, setting all at rest.

And I sink into your words: Peace. Peace be with me. Peace be with me.

Peace: over and again, repeating your first risen word as the secret knowledge you impart to the soul. Peace: freeing me to humbly be that which you have made, neither more than less. The soul quiets, at rest.

Freedom comes at the sound of your voice bearing the first and most central word you would have me hear and know well: Peace.

You create in me this quiet space where I dwell at rest with you, where I can welcome all you love, where our joy together may abound.

So let me ever hear your first risen word.

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Today’s text

John 20:9-16

But Mary was standing outside near the tomb, weeping. Then, as she wept, she stooped to look inside, and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the feet. They said, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' 'They have taken my Lord away,' she replied, 'and I don't know where they have put him.' As she said this she turned round and saw standing there, though she did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?' Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, 'Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and remove him.' Jesus said, 'Mary!' She turned round then and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbuni!'-which means Master.

Prayer

‘I do not know where they have put him.’

No longer do they put you anywhere, Jesus. There is no where you can be put. You go where you please to all that you love, and you love all. It is your risen pleasure to go to all and in all places to appear in heart-rending surprise.

My heart cries with Mary, searching for you and not finding, only to be found by you, and then to cry again at the mystery of your risen nearness.

‘Who are you looking for?’ You ask.

I look for you, dearest Friend. I look for you in every face and on dreariest days. I look for you, thirsty for your presence. But you already abide in risen nearness in the depths of my confused soul. Your risen life plays in every face I see and every street I walk.

You are the source of my searching, the love that burns my soul fanning my thirst for More: more love, more presence, more of whatever you are in risen glory.

For you live. There just is no killing you, not now. For you are the life of eternity, searching dusty corridors of soul and unknown corners of the cosmos to break our hearts again. And you do, for you are that love that holds nothing back and holds all things together.

And you are risen.

I have no words on this Easter Day to give voice to the wonder of your life, nor for the surprise that you should appear also to me, here and now.

Accept my poor praise, the emblem of a grateful soul.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Today’s text

John 19:38-42

Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus--though a secret one because he was afraid of the Jews--asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away. Nicodemus came as well-the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time-and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, following the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried. Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Prayer

My heart breaks as I see them, Jesus. They make ready the place to lay you. They clean the cave, brush away the dust and lay out the spices and linens in which to wrap you.

They fumble with the dead weight of your body, turning it, holding you up, reaching under and around, winding the fabric about your form. Slowly your wounds disappear, your feet and legs, hands and side, chest and shoulders and then your face, the face they had learned to love, even though they never really understood you.

How could they? How can anyone? We don’t understand a love that loves to the end.

I understand only that I love them--and you--as they carry out their heart breaking work, laying to rest their fondest hopes, burying, too, the inexplicable yearning they knew in you presence.

Dead, now, all of it: you, the hopes for that kingdom not of this world, the unrequited longing you awakened in their depths. Dead and gone. Laid to rest. Surrendered to the dust.

All is quiet. The crowds have dispersed. Ancient blood lust has been satisfied. Now is the hour of regret and sorrow--and whispers in the silence.

That is all we have in the hour death, as hopes are dashed and blessed memories lie a crumpled in a heap on earth’s tired crust.

But, My Lord, it is not all you have.

So we wait in the stillness, daring to imagine that the garden of your tomb will bloom with everlasting tomorrow.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Today’s text

John 19:5-11

Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said, 'Here is the man.' When they saw him, the chief priests and the guards shouted, 'Crucify him! Crucify him!' Pilate said, 'Take him yourselves and crucify him: I find no case against him.' The Jews replied, 'We have a Law, and according to that Law he ought to be put to death, because he has claimed to be Son of God.' When Pilate heard them say this his fears increased. Re-entering the Praetorium, he said to Jesus, 'Where do you come from?' But Jesus made no answer. Pilate then said to him, 'Are you refusing to speak to me? Surely you know I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?' Jesus replied, 'You would have no power over me at all if it had not been given you from above; that is why the man who handed me over to you has the greater guilt.

Prayer

You are not from here, Jesus. You don’t act like we act. You don’t answer to powers that threaten to crush you. You don’t quail in fear. You refuse to speak until it suits you and the wild, holy purpose on which your soul is fixed.

That never leaves you. You never forget or lose track of who you are and what you are for. So you stand there, silent, making the powerful wait for your time, your pleasure, your voice.

And in silence we know: You are not from here. Your being naturally flows from a place we seldom visit, a region we do not inhabit. But you dwell there, and everything you now do reveals the realm of your abiding.

So tell me, where do you come from? Pilate’s question is mine for I, too, stand amazed. You stand in silent possession of your own soul, so unlike me. I want to know the place from which you come. For I wish to dwell there too.

So where are you from? Where do you dwell? Tell us.

But your words were always clear. You dwell in the bosom of the Loving Mystery. You come from God and now go to God. That Loving One is in you and you are enrapt in that Blest Mystery. This you know with silent certainty.

So go your ugly, brutal way, Jesus, ripped by the hands of hate. And with every word and act, with every silent knowing, show us where you are from, and we shall know the life you offer.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Today’s text

John 19:1-5

Pilate then had Jesus taken away and scourged; and after this, the soldiers twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on his head and dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him and saying, 'Hail, king of the Jews!' and slapping him in the face. Pilate came outside again and said to them, 'Look, I am going to bring him out to you to let you see that I find no case against him.' Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said, 'Here is the man.'

Prayer

Here is the man.

What do I see as you stand there, Jesus? Is your head up or down? Hanging down, I’m sure. I have seen human beings who have been beaten. Their heads always hang. Their eyes linger on the soil of earth to which they have been reduced.

They wear sadness like an old coat; unmitigated melancholy droops from their shoulders. Their lives are but a burden to born. Joy has left. Vitality has fled. They squirm in the rough grip of a malevolence they neither understand nor control. Life is a passion to be endured, not a gift to embrace.

That is how you look to me, Jesus. You are as clear to me as my fingers on the keys. You are the man, and tears mark my sadness over the many you resemble. You suffer the passion of human souls who want only to live, but cannot enter the silent promise of the goodness they once felt in their flesh.

You are the man, every man, every woman, creation itself in travail. Beaten and bloodied. Discounted and disparaged. Far separated from those dear who treasured your smile, your nearness. Gripped by hands that care nothing for you. Yet, standing among and with us all. And standing there you bring the revelation of Eternity to wordless fulfillment.

Thank you for the love that stirs my soul as I see you descending the depths of human sorrow. Thank you for the realization that I love you, a love awakened by the beauty of all you have allowed me to see in you.

Grant that we should never fail to see the mystery of divine beauty in the pains you suffer. For then our souls would be dead. And we want to live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, March 14, 2008

Today’s text

Matthew 21:6-11

So the disciples went and did as Jesus had told them. They brought the donkey and the colt, then they laid their cloaks on their backs and he took his seat on them. Great crowds of people spread their cloaks on the road, while others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in his path. The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed were all shouting: Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord! And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil as people asked, 'Who is this?' and the crowds answered, 'This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.'

Prayer

I look. I watch. And desire is awakened. To be with them, bowing down, spreading my coat on the road before you with dozens of denizens of this all-too-human race: There I am, in my place of belonging.

Bowing in humble reverence before your approach, I find myself, my heart, my home. And the soul grows quiet, needing nothing.

The scene reduces me to truest identity: one soul among many, humbly offering such small service, a silent act of humble worship filled whole by the sum of all that I am.

Bending down on the road, crumpled coat at my feet, I would smooth out the wrinkles that it may lay even and low as you pass, feeling nothing but greatest honor and joy that you should tread on my coat, the sacred emblem of a soul who loves you. And needs you.

Receive my worship; hear my silent praise as I stand dumb in wonder at the glory you are. For my soul does not ask who you are. I know. And there is no knowledge more blessed.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Today’s text

Matthew 21:6-9

So the disciples went and did as Jesus had told them. They brought the donkey and the colt, then they laid their cloaks on their backs and he took his seat on them. Great crowds of people spread their cloaks on the road, while others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in his path. The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed were all shouting: Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord!

Prayer

Yes, most blessed. My heart clambers for you. For you my spirit cries out with a voice vast as the sky. My silent heart restlessly calls in the morning, stirred by the craving of a thousand ages, speaking the desire as everlasting as the ancient hills you walked.

Come.

Come, you who bear the name of the Lord. Come bearing the secret source and resting place of the world’s anxious soul. Come convince our hearts that you want to come to us, to me, to be for us that secret someone without whom we cannot truly live.

Come.

Come and quiet the primeval protests of our souls insisting, as they do, that there must be more, something, someone who can answer the incessant question for which we have no words.

Come.

Come and free us from the agitation of our unsatisfied searching. Come, and our hearts will fly open and call out with a voice vast as the sky, ‘Hosanna. You do come, and to us. Let us see you, and know ourselves for the first time.’

Come, Hosanna, love us with that love only eternity knows.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Today’s text

Matthew 21:1-5

When they were near Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go to the village facing you, and you will at once find a tethered donkey and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, “The Master needs them and will send them back at once.” ‘This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: Say to the daughter of Zion: Look, your king is approaching, humble and riding on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

Prayer

We wander into far countries of thought and emotion, humoring the internal dragons of our nature, feeding and indulging them. The thoughts we think, the words and scenes we play out in our minds: these, we know.

And we know our ways are not yours. Our indulgent angers and passions for personal victory over others are self-defensive tactics, protecting us from fears and wounds we refuse to face. And we continue to flee them, even when we know you await us precisely at the point of our fears. You are there, pleading, ‘come.’

How do you come to people like us, Jesus, the wandering wayward whose thoughts, plans and emotions are far from you?

Humble, you approach, refusing to stand on ceremony or principle. You come with grace and in grace. You offer God’s kindest embrace, and you offer it in utter gracefulness, not in disgust for what we make of ourselves and our souls.

You approach not in righteous indignation. That is our way. You draw near, seeking to melt our souls in the molten love of eternity that refuses to condemn, even me.

So let us hear and heed the voice of your humble wonder, for you ride on, silently whispering, “Come. Come near and know a love you will never understand. Come, and I will make you human.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, March 7, 2008

Today's text

John 11:38-46

Sighing again, Jesus reached the tomb: it was a cave with a stone to close the opening. Jesus said, 'Take the stone away.' Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, 'Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth day since he died.' Jesus replied, 'Have I not told you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?' So they took the stone away. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and said: Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer. I myself knew that you hear me always, but I speak for the sake of all these who are standing around me, so that they may believe it was you who sent me. When he had said this, he cried in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of material, and a cloth over his face. Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, let him go free.' Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what he did, believed in him, but some of them went to the Pharisees to tell them what Jesus had done.

Prayer

You are freedom, the unbinding of the body, the loosening of the soul. You are freedom, Jesus. In you there is no desire to bind the hearts of humankind, except to you, the one in whom we find perfect liberty.

You roll away stones of oppression from our hearts and bodies. Your name is life and peace. Your heart is given to release the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve from marauding death, the final enemy of our freedom.

In you we are free, called from tombs of isolation and fear by a love the grave cannot hold. In you we find the liberation of hope. Our souls fly open and free into a broad space wider than the sky, crystal blue and expansive as the love you are.

Surrounded, enveloped, lifted, encompassed by you on all sides, loving your beauty and seeing the beauty of you in all that is: This is freedom.

Speak to us, Liberator of Life. Speak to us from the depths of your eternal desire, and we, too, shall come out, stumbling from our tombs, our hearts finally free to know and be the love you are. Then we shall know the joy you have always intended for us.

You are freedom. May we live today in the perfect liberty of your love.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Today's text

John 11:30-37

Jesus had not yet come into the village; he was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were in the house comforting Mary saw her get up so quickly and go out, they followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Mary went to Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw herself at his feet, saying, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' At the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews who had come with her, Jesus was greatly distressed, and with a profound sigh he said, 'Where have you put him?' They said, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept; and the Jews said, 'See how much he loved him!' But there were some who remarked, 'He opened the eyes of the blind man. Could he not have prevented this man's death?'

Prayer

The tables turn. At the beginning, Jesus, you invited those who would follow you to “come and see” where you live. And now it is you who are invited to the place of the dead: “Lord, come and see.”

Yes, please do. Come and see the tombs of earth where we lay our dead. Come and see the hidden vaults of soul where lie our lost loves, vanquished hopes and oozing wounds.

Come and see the drug addict who struggles to keep his eyes open to talk with me in the coffee shop. Come and see where our relationships lie fractured and ruined. Come and see where hungry bellies swell and forgotten souls die.

Come and see where our hearts hate. Come and see our interminable warfare and inability to live in peace, nation to nation or soul to soul.

Come and see the place of the dead.

And you do. You see it all with holy eyes that weep with a love that refuses to be consoled. And in your tears we see the face of the Eternity, the Hidden Ground of Love who sees and loves it all without exception or pause.

Let us see your face, Jesus, that we may know the passion in which we and all are held. Fan our hope for resurrection into a living flame. Only you can.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Today's text

John 11:17-26

On arriving, Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days already. …When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.' Jesus said to her, 'Your brother will rise again.' Martha said, 'I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said: I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? 'Yes, Lord,' she said, 'I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.'

Prayer

You are life, dearest Friend. Where you are the dead breathe. And I know it.

There are dead places in me, my Friend, scorched stretches of soul burnt lifeless. I have a hard time saying the reasons how or why. The days wound us in a thousand ways.

Voices from within and without penetrate the heart and taunt, whispering, sometimes shouting that I am hopelessly flawed and constantly failing, that I will never reach the measure of that unknown something I think I should be, that I am doomed to lose what I need, living a half-life. At best.

My soul believes the voices, and I die.

Such is not a death unto life, just death, scorched flesh, red-brown and brittle, empty husks of yester-life, dried milk weed in the dead of winter.

And then.

And then I know you near, surrounding and enveloping me, husk and all. Scorched flesh grows soft and supple as the nectar of your love fills each tiny vein. And sweetest air fills the lungs with the freshness of new day.

And I believe the truth, not mere lies: You are the resurrection. In you, I do not die. And never will.

So let my heart not wander from you. I want to live with the life you are. Dear friend, fill every vein.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Today's text

John 11:1-7

There was a man named Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha, and he was ill. It was the same Mary, the sister of the sick man Lazarus, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent this message to Jesus, 'Lord, the man you love is ill.' On receiving the message, Jesus said, 'This sickness will not end in death, but it is for God's glory so that through it the Son of God may be glorified.' Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he heard that he was ill he stayed where he was for two more days before saying to the disciples, 'Let us go back to Judea.'

Prayer

Your spirit is calm, Jesus. Your mind is quiet. Invite me into the oasis of peace that you inhabit. I want to be with you there.

I long for your assurance. You did not rush off to your friend’s side at word of his illness. That could mark you as cold. But that is not what I see.

I see self-possession and certainty. I see deep interior knowledge of what is and what will be. Your soul is a great well filled with this knowing, a liquid assurance that caresses every corner leaving no empty pockets of nagging anxiety.

So you wait, knowing death will not finally deface your friend. You wait, quietly certain that the Loving One will be glorified in you, through the only thing that can glorify the Loving One--an act of astounding love.

That is you assurance, my Friend. You abide so close to the heart of the Loving Mystery that you know that the end is always glory. The end is the revelation of the Love who abides and always will.

Such is the secret of your composure. So let us live so near to your heart that we, too, may know and dwell in your peace.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, February 29, 2008

Today's text

John 9:11-16

He answered, 'The man called Jesus made a paste, daubed my eyes with it and said to me, ‘Go off and wash at Siloam;’ so I went, and when I washed I gained my sight.' They asked, 'Where is he?' He answered, 'I don't know.' They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. It had been a Sabbath day when Jesus made the paste and opened the man's eyes, so when the Pharisees asked him how he had gained his sight, he said, 'He put a paste on my eyes, and I washed, and I can see.' Then some of the Pharisees said, ‘That man cannot be from God: he does not keep the Sabbath.' Others said, 'How can a sinner produce signs like this?' And there was division among them.

Prayer

There are signs of your nearness that are unmistakable, Jesus. They cannot be faked or manufactured by act of will.

Joy is central among those signs. You appear, and there is joy. You heal, and there is joy. You stir this soul of mine in the morning hours, and I am lifted into unnatural joy.

Unnatural? Yes, for it is disconnected with and unrelated to any outward circumstances. It comes not in the absence of struggles but in their midst. I sense you near and all that weighs the soul evaporates in a sea of joyous Presence and liberty of soul.

There is no obvious word of joy for this man given his sight, but how could it be otherwise? You touched him and opened his eyes to the color of the world and the contour of your gracious face. Who can look on these and not know joy?

Well, there are some. Kill joys they are, who cannot abide the joy of hearts you exalt because it would mean the end of their systems and ascendancies, their power and their control. The hunger to destroy the joy of souls is also unmistakable. It is born of the enemy of our souls, your enemy, living also within us.

May your morning joy evict this assassin from our hearts. You made us for the liberty of joy in your presence. May our hearts brim with the unmistakable mark of your nearness.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Today's text

John 9:7-11

Having said this, [Jesus] spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man, and said to him, 'Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam' (the name means 'one who has been sent'). So he went off and washed and came back able to see. His neighbors and the people who used to see him before (for he was a beggar) said, 'Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?' Some said, 'Yes, it is the same one.' Others said, 'No, but he looks just like him.' The man himself said, 'Yes, I am the one.' So they said to him, 'Then how is it that your eyes were opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made a paste, daubed my eyes with it and said to me, "Go off and wash at Siloam"; so I went, and when I washed I gained my sight.'

Prayer

I am the man. The one who cannot see, the one healed, the one who is confused, the one who has no good answer for how it happened: I am the man.

I am startled by the joy of being illumined by unspeakable grace, no longer needing to wonder who or what has made me and thrown me into existence, no long wondering what Earth is for or what is intended for me, for all. No longer distracted by unanswerable questions that agitate the heart and keep me far from home.

I see you Jesus and am swept into the joy of knowing, not facts or ideas but Presence Abiding. All you are and intend is here for us, not in a long ago story but in revelation of what is … now.

You are the light of the world, the great work of the Loving Mystery no eye has seen. We see you and see what is, the love that envelops our lives in all things and times.

So let us see. Let us see you. And seeing you, let us see all that is and all we are floating in the sea of your eternal mercy.

Illumine our hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Today's text

John 9:4-7

'As long as day lasts we must carry out the work of the one who sent me; the night will soon be here when no one can work. As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world.' Having said this, [Jesus] spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man, and said to him, 'Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam' (the name means 'one who has been sent'). So he went off and washed and came back able to see.

Prayer

In seeing you, I see. All else is blindness.

So I look and what do I see? You send a blind man to wash his mud-caked eyes. It is a fitting metaphor for our normal sight. We are blinded by the encrusted accumulation of living, of sighing through the days, of tripping unaware over the wonder of our lives, of failing to reverence the holiness of every face we meet.

The day comes, and we foolishly imagine it is nothing special, not feeling the love that breathes us, not seeing the light in whose illumination all is hope and gift.

You are the light of the world, the light of the soul, the illumination of heart and mind in which we see and know ourselves and peer through the tangled enigmas of our existence to know, finally, that all is well.

You are light, and in you we see who made us and for what we are made. In your illumination, we glimpse the glory that is every human life and life itself. In the warmth of your glowing, we feel the destiny for which you intend us.

So let me look at you, Jesus, and see. All else is blindness.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, February 25, 2008

Today's text

John 9:1-3

As he went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should have been born blind?' 'Neither he nor his parents sinned,' Jesus answered, 'he was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him.

Prayer

So that the works of God might be revealed: For what are we born if not this?

You liberate my heart, Jesus. Your words send me soaring. Great riddles are rendered insignificant. The enigma of suffering is transcended, no long tripping the mind or freezing the heart.

You ignore, too, the distinctions to which self-justifying ego cleaves; skill, intelligence, accomplishment, gender, race, status--they make no difference to you.

Nor, it seems, do the outward circumstances of our lives. Am I sick or well, strong or weak, comfortable or poor? Is my work hard or does it flow like water? Do my senses fail me, or are they sharp as when I was 21? Do I enjoy others favor or am I the object of disdain?

You make no distinction. Regardless of circumstances, I was born for this: that your works, Loving One, might be revealed in me.

Do you cause our weakness, our blindness, our sickness, our disrespect, our struggles, our failures of body and soul?

You do not answer, Jesus. You know: Our questions are mere side shows of human wondering. They distract from the center: I am here to do your works, to glorify your name, to lift high the love that lifts me.

Free us from unanswerable enigmas that our hearts may soar free and our lives may be filled with the works for which you made us.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Today's text

John 4:21-24

Jesus said: Believe me, … the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour is coming-indeed is already here-when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.

Prayer

I cannot give you proper worship, Holy One, except that you will it and fill me with the Spirit you are. And you do so will. And you do so fill.

It is not my spirit that calls to you each morning. Even my fevered cries for help are not the longing of a human soul: no, they are the Soul of Eternity within, stirring and calling from my depths to the depths of your immensity.

A circle is formed: your Spirit within calls to you who are ever beyond me. And you who are beyond respond in love to you who abide within.

A circle: you within and you beyond. Your voice within me calling with my voice to you who seek my life, my worship, my gratitude that I may live, abundantly.

Your indwelling Spirit speaks from my depths, to cry to you, give you praise and seek your intimacy that you and I may be caught up in a circle of loving nearness.

Such is worship in spirit, and it is truest worship. And my fondest thanks is to wake each day to discover again your Spirit within calling, seeking, longing for you who are that Spirit beyond.

This day, let my enduring gratitude give you proper praise.

Pr. David L. Miller