Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 7:14

“The Lord God will give you a sign in any case: It is this: the young woman is with child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel.”

O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.

Come, Emmanuel; reveal your blessed nearness.

As an ordinary infant you came to us, in
your flesh bearing blest unity with divine wonder.
Moment to moment, soul-to-soul, you dwelt in undivided union with
that Love we cannot imagine.
Who can know the immensity of the divine heart,
the Loving Mystery who is
Immeasurable Mercy,
the Infinitely Transcendent Wonder who
casts the burning nebulae into the cold darkness of space,
the Far Near One who holds
all time--and us,
as a mother caresses her child’s tender nearness?

The Mystery all the world cannot contain, dwells
even in your infant flesh.
You, Emmanuel, you knew this One always,
in hidden depths of intimate communion.
You were and are eternally one with the One for
whom no name will do.
We look into your face and gaze into the depths of
the Eternal Wonder.

So come, Emmanuel. Come and stay near us.
We have no words to name what you bear.
We know only that we die without your nearness.
So come, and never leave us.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 24, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 9:1

“For a son has been born for us, a son has been given to us, and dominion has been laid upon his shoulders; and this is the name he has been given, Wonderful-Counselor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace.”

O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.

Come, Desire and King of the nations;
satisfy our hearts’ longing.

You are the great giving of God,
the hunger of every human heart.
In you the Holy One shares the treasure of
divine life with we,
the dying.
And die we do; a thousand times and more
while yet we breathe.

We crave your nearness, longing to be filled
with the Fullness of
you who are Life.

Come, free us from the melancholy of any moment
without you.
Fill the yawning emptiness that our precious tears of
joy may give you proper praise.
Draw us into your immense generosity that our
withered hearts and weary world may
wax fragrant with your beauty.

Come, Desire of the Nations. Fill our restless hearts

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 9:1

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; on the inhabitants of a country in shadow dark as death light has blazed forth.”

O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Come, O Dayspring, dazzling star of everlasting tomorrow.
Illumine our hearts that we may see your new age.
We weary of this one.

The challenges of our days drain us dry, sapping
our souls of the joy you crave for all you love.

Let us see the beauty of your blessed face and glimpse
he world’s future, our future, and know:
it is you.
You are the future, the rose-glow dawning of love
everlasting, which no death can hold.

So come, convince our souls that we belong to
your tomorrow that joy might fill our

frame, and your beauty may glow from our depths.
Draw us beyond our fears and exhaustion into
the world of your grace that we may ever watch for
the light that shines on those who dwell in deep darkness.

Come, O Dayspring. Illumine us with the light of your tomorrow that
we might live today.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 22:22; 42:6-9

The key of the house of David will I lay on his shoulder; and he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

I, Yahweh, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison-house. I am Yahweh, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to engraved images. Behold, the former things have happened, and new things do I declare. Before they spring forth I tell you of them.

O Key of David: Come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.

Come, Key of David; open the door that leads to life.

In the tender flesh of your incarnation you grace the tired Earth
with the freshness of divine embrace.

You take all that is and all we are into the warmth
of intimate embrace where no one
is a stranger and nothing is alien.

Our hearts fly open, and all that is in your divine heart
flows into us.
All we are, our confusion and sin,
our contradictions and failures,
our ideals and hopes, all
of it received and overwhelmed in
the immensity of your mercy.
All we are, lifted and liberated into
truest life as your heart fills and transforms
our own until we, too, radiate
the warmth of your divine embrace.

So come, Key of David, enfold us in the wonder of your incarnation.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 21, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 11:1,10

“A shoot will spring from the stock of Jesse, a new shoot will grow from his roots. ... That day, the root of Jesse, standing as a signal for the peoples, will be sought out by the nations and its home will be glorious."

O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

Come, Root of Jesse; free us from ourselves.
Peace escapes us. It lies beyond our grasp.
But that is our problem.
Our feverish souls struggle to grasp and gain what can be received only with open hands
Young, we learn life is about grasping what we want.
Life soon is defined by enlarging our territory, snatching
what we can and protecting it
from those who threaten.
The restless rhythm plays out on playgrounds and the planet’s bloodiest
streets, from Baghdad to Bethlehem, from Mogadishu to, well, Hyde Park.
And it kills us, teaching us to fear, reducing creation to a commodity to be consumed
And human beings to competitors.

Freedom and peace flow from your boundless divine generosity, Loving Mystery.
In the advent of your beloved, Jesus, you pour out your beauty and love that
our hearts may know the abundance you intend for all you have made.
May we savor the joy you take in giving yourself to us.
Only so, can we know you.
Only so, will gentle gratitude replace our feverish grasping.

So come, Root of Jesse. Free us from ourselves. We weary of war.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 11:4-5

“But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.”

O Adonai, Ruler of Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.

Come, Adonai, redeem our hearts and lives.
Teach our forgetful souls that we are precious in your sight.
We forget.
Shatter our hearts and make us whole.

I sit and watch from across a room.
A mother raises a tiny child to her lips,
a little girl I imagine, for all the pink, but
premature by any bodily measure.
She kisses one tender cheek and lays
the little head over her heart.
Fragile, she rests there, soothed
by the first sound she ever heard:
the rhythm of a human heart pumping
the warm blood of life into her,
a parable of your love, of
time and eternity.
I stand silent and unseen, fearing
to breathe,

lest I shatter the purity of a love freely given.
Mother and child, an ageless ritual, shimmering
with gentleness and peace flowing
ancient and sweet
from the impenetrable heart of eternity.

And from that dense darkness, you speak,
“You are precious.
You are mine.
Do not fear.
Do you imagine that I love you less?”

So come, Adonai; call us by name.

Pr. David L. Miller

Note: The O Antiphons, composed for monastic singing, are paraphrased in the hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The antiphons highlight seven titles for the Messiah, using prophecies from the prophet Isaiah. Prayers for these final days leading to Christmas will reflect upon these ancient chants.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Today's text

Isaiah 11:2-3

"The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord."

O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation


Come, Holy Wisdom.
The calendar turns. Advent comes. The soul longs … for more.
Our music assumes a minor key melancholy.
Darkness descends much too early. Earth cools.
Leaves, lately golden, fade and freeze to leaden earth.
We scurry from door to door, bitter chill chafing our cheeks.
From tasks half done, we dash to the next, racing to clear the desk before the holy
days, forgetting that all days are holy.

The world is too much with us.
Death stalks Darfur.
Hate stains the holy land
The way of peace escapes the wisdom of the learned and powerful.
Disease hunts family and friend, haunting memory and expectation.
The poor watch the mail box with dread, and the homeless shiver on our streets.
Secret loneliness broods behind suburban windows.
While e-mail abhors any vacuum where our hearts might remember
who we are and the love for which you intend us.
We come to sit in quiet pews for respite, to breathe, to find we are not alone.


And to hope in you.
So come now, resplendent beauty, heal our tired eyes.
Reveal your face in the marriage of Spirit and mortal flesh.
Join our hearts to you who are wisdom from on high.
Come, Holy Wisdom. We want to live.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 11:2-6

Now John had heard in prison what Christ was doing and he sent his disciples to ask him, “are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect to someone else?” Jesus answered, “Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, the lame walk, those suffering virulent skin diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor; and blessed in anyone who does not find me a cause for falling.”

Prayer

Blessed are the eyes that see you and the ears that hear you. More: blessed is the heart that believes you are the awaited one, Jesus, for they alone enter the joy of the God’s future.

They alone have eyes to see and ears to hear the music of tomorrow amid the din of today. They alone see and hear the beauty of what you are doing in every time and place. They alone are able to join the celebration of hope that breaks through the dreariness of gray winter days.

So let us believe that you are the one, the face of tomorrow, that today we may savor the colors of a world to come, glimpsing eternity in the contours of the common where, even now, you cleanse and heal, lift and live.

Let us see and hear, for perceiving you infuses my tired arms and drug-dulled mind with the vigor of that day when all you are will strengthen every weak arm, when the fullness of your life explodes in translucent glory.

Open our hearts to believe that we may expect no one … but you.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come to every moment of our time and every place of our dwelling.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 14, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 3:10-12

[John the Baptist said]: “Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire. I baptize you in water for repentance, but the one who comes after me is more powerful than I, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out."

Prayer

Surprising and Unexpected One, do you startle even your messengers, hiding yourself from them even as they announce what little they know of you? John in his passion is as much wrong as right. He seems to expect a larger, more fierce version of himself. He is neither the first nor the last to confuse his way with yours.

Your appearance is more surprising and generous than he imagined, more gentle and subtle than his own. But he is also right: You appear in our flesh with world-shattering power to divide and heal, and to remake all things from the inside out.

Your appearance created deep distinction among souls, Jesus. Some welcomed you, making room for your birth into Mary’s arms. Some refused and feared your appearance, seeking to kill all that threatened to upset their world, so neatly ordered for their comfort.

People, like me, I suppose, made room for you as one more human soul, just one more traveler on life’s journey to the grave, expecting no more than this. They little imagined the world-shattering wonder they’d allowed access to their hearts. Certainly, I did not.

And you take that, Jesus, coming with Holy Spirit and fire to ignite us from lethargy into love, filling us with the same divine fire that willed your incarnation, burning us with that flame that does, indeed, burn off all that is not love, chaff indeed.

So come, Lord Jesus. Come with your fire. Our hearts grow cold.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 3:1-2, 5-6

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” …Then Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins.

Prayer

What moves human souls to surrender certain routine to seek an unknown in the unknown? They go to find John, a desert wild man whom most would avoid should they see him on the street. What did they expect to find? And why should we listen, Great Mystery?

They went and confessed their sins. I do not carry a burden of guilt, but all too well I know the incompletion of my humanity. Fashioned to be so much more--more love, more grace, more beauty, more generosity, I am less of these and more of fear, anxiety and self-absorption.

But souls do not go into the desert to confess unless there is hope of something more. Routine binds us, unless the heart flickers with the warm thought that, maybe, there is secret substance that can lift me above sin and incompletion; maybe I can know more than fear and inconsequence; maybe I can enter that mystery that niggles restless at depths of heart unreachable by mere mind.

In the heart lies awareness of a kind of life, a grace and beauty beyond that which we have seen and lived and been. It is that which moves us to your messenger to repent, to confess we have been so much less, crying, “Make us more. Make us the more you intend. Fill us with the More you are, for you made us in your image to bear the substance of your life.”

So we come. We come from the comfortable knowns of routine that we know can never fill our hearts with delight. We come to the unknown and unknowability of your mystery confessing our restless incompletion. We come in hope.

So come, Lord Jesus. Grace our lives with that love that lifts us above incompletion.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 10, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 3:1-4

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “A voice of one that cries in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’” This man wore a garment of camel-hair with a leather loin cloth around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Prayer

How shall I make your paths straight, O Lord, that you may come and excite your presence in the depth of this soul and live? You come in times and ways of your choosing, not mine. The visitation of your power depends not at all on me.

And yet, you call: “prepare my way.” Perhaps it is only so that I will not be asleep when you appear.

I sleep through much of my life. I miss your nearness, your constant coming. Preoccupied with my tiny self, its bumps and bruises, I seek to make life on my own terms, little seeing that every moment of life is laced with your appearance, your coming, the presence you who are life.

And I fall into melancholy and confusion, knowing you are near but unable to reach into the darkness of soul and touch--or be touched--by you whom I crave. So, again, how shall I prepare? For I hunger for your approach, and you do not ever avoid coming to me.

John went to a wilderness abandoning the comforts of the human city, seeking and serving you, freed from pursuits that preoccupy and drown out the cry of soul. Perhaps he heard that cry once he was beyond the bounds of the busy streets.

Perhaps he met your approach and knew your nearness in that deep cry of soul that he heard and released there in his wilderness, calling me, too, to hear. If so, lead me into my wilderness that I may hear and know and call out word of your coming.

Come to me this day. I languish lonely without you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 7, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 24:36, 40, 44

[Jesus said:] “But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father. … So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. … Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Prayer

I should not be surprised that we cannot know the day or the hour. It has always been so.

For I remember, Jesus. I remember the despairing years of unending grayness. I remember the desperate wanting when I needed you to come to my heart, withered joyless in your absence. And even then, you still showed up, at least from time to time, startling my soul to tears in moments I could neither predict nor manipulate

And now, again, I stand in ready need of your arrival. I always stand in such need, Jesus. But there are times and days when I lose myself in the winds of circumstance, times when I am not myself, never more, always much less than when I am in your nearness.

Today is such a time. There is too much to do and think and too little time to feel and know just exactly what is happening in this soul of mine. And you know: I only know myself when I know your nearness, when you come with love and mercy, and my soul releases its conflicts and confusion into the enveloping ocean of your immensity.

I hunger to be myself, that which I am only in your inscrutable nearness, your all-embracing love.

So come, Lord Jesus, and keep coming.

Come with the final revelation of your holy reign. And until then, open our hearts to the sweet nearness of you who are ever here.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 24:36, 40

[Jesus said:] “But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father. … So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming.”

Prayer

What do I know for sure, Dear Friend? Not much, and little can I know, save your promise. All else I touch and know is temporal, changing, finite. Too soon it will pass away, all we know, our times and all we’ve touched with mind and hand.

I wish not to be morbid on a cold winter morning. The day is challenge enough, and a chilled soul offers no comfort when the air we breathe burns our lungs and bites our flesh.

We need a word of warmth, too, when times change: when people and places we have loved--and which have loved us--are carried on in that ever rolling stream, thinning the daily landscapes with which we have grown familiar. All our times end, and with an end a beginning, ready or not.

And here, Jesus, you tell me that I cannot know when this current will reach its destination and pour into the sea. Neither do you know. We know only your promise that there is an end to time when the Holy One will make justice and be mercy.

How? Who knows? But your promise stands firm amid our changing times and transitions. And a quiet comfort and calm humility floats through the heart’s chambers when we release our fevers into the assurance of your promise: “I will come to you,” you say. “I will come wherever you are and wherever you go. The master will not abandon the beloved.”

That is enough for us.

Come, Lord Jesus. May we stay awake to all your comings.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, November 30, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.

Prayer

You are … you are … you are … the beginning. First born from death, you are the beginning of all we want, all for which we hope. You are the daybreak of eternity, the first light of our final tomorrow, the rose-glow sunrise of newest day that never grows old, unlike this heart of mine.

You are. You are the beginning of the end of death’s finality.

You are the beginning of your church, a people made new, born from the cold death that is this separation from your ever-abiding love.

You are the beginning of the new being, risen afresh from the leaden weights that drag us to earth so that we do not soar on wings of your risen life that lift us above the daily drudgeries of mere existence.

You are the beginning of bitter tears’ hope, the rising of the multitude who will follow you from death into life unimagined.

You are the beginning of all that will be when there will be nothing but you, for you will be all in all.

Be all in all in me this day, risen Christ, for I languish in listless melancholy. I hunger to taste the beginning of the end for which you made me and all. I want to live beyond the death that so often grips the soul.

Let me, this day, see you, lest my heart grow old. May the first light of your tomorrow shine in these, my eyes.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.”

Prayer

You are the beginning, O Morning Star, marking the dawn of eternal day. First born from death’s demise, risen from the end our hearts fear, you sign the start of everlastingness, joining all that is in the sweet marriage of divine Spirit and created matter even as they dwell together in you.

We start again the day, knowing little about how it will end or what smiles and desolations we may meet. We cannot see the end of the day, yet we see the end of days, the eternal tomorrow, for we have seen your risen face, Jesus. And we know: every one of our days begins under the sign of the Morning Star, marking the resurrection dawn of a love no death can hold.

We have seen the future, the world’s future--my future, and it is you. All that is, all that I am shall be joined in utter unity with all that you are. You shall be supreme in me and in all, and all shall be life, the life I see and know and taste in you.

Morning Star of everlasting tomorrow, let me taste your holy future today. I crave it like my next breath. Draw us from our divergent hearts into that great harmony of life and love, purpose and passion that is your future present, even here, even now.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-20

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together, and he is the Head of the Body, that is, the Church. He is the Beginning, the first-born from the dead, so that he should be supreme in every way; because God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth, by making peace through his death on the cross.

Prayer

You want your fullness to be found. This is your everlasting desire, Loving Mystery. You want to be known. You want me to find and bask in the fullness of what the eye cannot see, the ear cannot hear and the mind cannot imagine.

Your desire consoles my heart and elevates my soul this winter’s morning. I am warmed by the love revealed here.

For the day’s work called to me amid fitful sleep. It awakened my anxious heart to tasks that out number the hours of the day. But now I awake in a world where your extravagant desire out weighs the anxiety of unfinished tasks.

You hunger for me to find, today, the fullness of you who are the Fullness of life and love, to know you in my brother Jesus, the Christ, the human face of your divine immensity, the shining light of your infinite darkness.

You made me in him, through him, for him, shaping me body and soul that I should be capable of you, capable of wanting you, of knowing you, of finding you--and incapable of finding fulfillment for my restlessness anywhere but in the fullness of your divine generosity.

May I find it today, O Loving Mystery? Let me know the fullness of your divine heart in the grace that draws us beyond ourselves into the blessed harmony and oneness that you intend. Open my heart to the gallery of divine wonder and joy in the familiar faces and spaces of my day.

Then I shall know the love by which, through which and for which I was made. I shall know you. Then your everlasting desire and my restless hunger will find peace.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 26, 2007

Today's text

Colossians 1:15-17

He [Christ] is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers-all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together

Prayer

Morning breaks the darkness. Daylight ends the little death of sleep, and here we are again in the midst of life, finding the wonder life in the midst of our mortal bodies.

As at the beginning, we spring from the nothingness of nonbeing into the morning of life, appearing in this particular moment of time for reasons beyond our knowing. Suspended by invisible threads of being, we are joined in an intricate web of being, connected … somehow … to all that it is in a vast fabric of life, moving in indiscernible patterns we sometimes affect but never control.

Instinctively, we turn our eyes to the impenetrable darkness out of which we have sprung, somehow knowing this great obscurity is our Source and the fountain of all life. But the dazzling darkness reflects all vision back upon itself.

Until … until we see you, blessed Christ. For you step from the invisibility we cannot penetrate to reveal the source of our soul and all the soul of all that is.

You are the face of the Impenetrable Darkness, O Christ. You are the first, before all that it is. All that is comes to be through you: all things, each person, each element of creation, each spoonful of matter, each living, growing greenness. Each bears the mark of you who are love. Each is an expression of your life, your beauty, your incorrigible creative joy. Each lives with the life you are. Each finds its place and purpose in the love from which all life springs.

For you are love and life, and in your love you choose to make good and beautiful beings come to life and grow. We don’t know why you should make us or makes us as we are. Except, you love life, and love always has reasons the mind cannot enter.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 21, 2007, Thanksgiving

Today's text

John 6:32-35

Jesus answered them: “In all truth, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “give us this bread always.” Jesus answered them: “I am the bread of life. No on who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst.”

Prayer

It went away, Jesus. I can’t tell you exactly when or where. But it is gone, that gnawing anxiety at the pit of my stomach. I sought to extinguish it with food and drink, risk and work, learning and accomplishment, none of which provided adequate antidote, only momentary relief.

While I don’t know when it left me, I can tell you the how and why, Jesus. And may my telling be your praise. For you are the cure, the bread, that fills the fretful hunger. What I could not remove, you graciously heal, replacing my emptiness with a loving longing to know you, to lose myself in you and never return.

I have come to know you. I have spent just enough time gazing on your face, seeing your smile, your fierce love, your living labor, that I know the beauty that flows from your oneness with the Loving Mystery you call Father.

We, too, try to name that One. Mother, some say; others say Brother or Sister, Lover or Friend, Morning Star or Silent Cry, Flowing Fountain or Living Flame. In moments of shattering blessedness, we simply fall silent, enrapt in the immensity of that love which has no name. I think our praise is fullest then, and most true.

On this and every day of thanksgiving, we remember faces present and gone, blessings long past and others that endure. We wipe away sweet tears of gratitude for our lives and for the improbable reality of life itself. I mean, why is there anything at all? And why are there grandchildren whose hugs have such a curious, sacramental power to heal, and to render most else insignificant?

I don’t know. I know very little. But I do know you, Jesus, and blessedly, I still can remember the anxious emptiness that is now gone, relieved by a bread that is food my soul need never live without. And for that, thank you. Thank you for my life.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Today's text

Luke 21:8-13

But Jesus said, “Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, ‘I am the one’ and ‘The time is near at hand.’ Refuse to join them. And when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for this is something that must happen first, but the end will not come at once.” The he said to them, “Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes and plagues and famines in various places; there will be terrifying events and great signs from heaven. But before this happen, you will be seized and persecuted; you will be handed over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and brought before kings and governors for the sake of my name—and that will be your opportunity to bear witness.”

Prayer

You do not count time as we do, Jesus. The time you describe is not one we welcome; it’s an evil time as we judge it. And each of us has known many such times we’d happily do without, times we would pass by had we the chance—and not repeat because once was enough.

We divide our days into good and evil time, painful and pleasurable moments, times to savor and times to run through as fast we can, times of joy and sorrow, of success and failure, of struggle and ease, of hope and despair, of beauty and ugliness. Our lists extend the length of a lifetime, dividing our days into two separable parts, one to be avoided and the other cherished.

And we miss half our life, Jesus. What is left is a kind of half-life in which we have cast aside much of what we are for the sake of comfort, missing, I fear, the deep truth of our days, which is you.

For you make no division. Bright summer days and the hours of tumult and terror are but one time for you, the time to reveal the faithful God who bears all our times in loving hands.

We never know what the times will bring, Jesus. Everything can turn in a single breath. Whatever our days bring, may we receive each moment as an opportunity to witness to you who hold us in every time.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 19, 2007

Today's text

Luke 21:8-11

But Jesus said, “Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, ‘I am the one’ and ‘The time is near at hand.’ Refuse to join them. And when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for this is something that must happen first, but the end will not come at once.” The he said to them, “Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes and plagues and famines in various places; there will be terrifying events and great signs from heaven.”

Prayer

Have you read the paper today, Jesus? Thousands of Bangladeshis died in a cyclone, and many more will die from too little food, tainted water, infection and disease. And that is one page, one story, one nation. Need I go on?

Your warnings of tumult, war and terror describe virtually any and every period of human history. The events to which you point destroy millions … every year. And still time wends its wearisome way without any end in sight.

Suffering continues unabated as feverish preachers sound the alarm saying that earth can’t endure much longer. But it does, and broken human souls must carry on, sorting through the mess we make of things. For the only end we see is the end of days for our beloved, and, too soon, for ourselves.

For some this stirs zeal for the end of things. Others descend to gray despair. And I? I hope. I bear a flame, however small, ignited by your words, Jesus. And it never goes out. Never.

“Do not be terrified,” you say. “Do not fear. Do not be distressed by the tumult around and within you. For I am. I live. And I will speak the final word on the welter of the world.”

So I hope. For I know: that word cannot be less gracious than your divine heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:34-38

Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.”

Prayer

You are God of the living, and all that know you are alive. None are lost, leaving no trace, no mark on your divine heart. All are cradled in your nearness, drinking the nectar of life.

And yet, there are places in my heart that do not know you, dead places where wounds new and old fester and breed resentment and anger. In me are barren landscapes where joy evaporates, where my heart withers in a desert of self-absorption, where I feel nothing but aggrievement and hunger for attention.

There is no freedom there, no life, vitality or joy, for those parts of me do not know you, Living One.

Come to me this day with the fullness of your love and life and let me live. Let me know the blessed rush of feeling truly alive. I weary of the deadness that too often crushes my heart so that I neither receive nor share your love in whole hearted abandonment. I long for that abandonment. It is the certain mark of freedom and joy.

So come, God of the living. Come to every dead place in my heart and to every place of death on this earth. Come. Give us today the life of your eternal tomorrow.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:27-36

Some Sadducees--those who argue that there is no resurrection—approached and they put this question to him, “Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man’s brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wide, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally, the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?” Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God."

Prayer

Death haunts our lives, Jesus. From our earliest moments we know we are timed and that time is short. It runs out before our human hopes and dreams are filled. So we strive to make a name, to leave a mark, so that our presence in this life is not insignificant or soon forgotten. And yet, millions die and leave little trace.

Even the clever and conniving souls who put you to the test with this silly story knew the tragedy of those who die with no progeny of flesh or creative labor. Even they seem to know the sadness of soul that settles upon us when we imagine that there is no one left to remember what we remember, no one remaining to carry on a name, a tradition, a bouquet of fragrant memories bearing what gifts they contain into the future’s unknown.

But you lift me beyond such sadness, Jesus, beyond the tragedy of the forgotten and overlooked who pass with little notice. You shatter the boundaries of imagination, directing my aching eyes to a space where death no longer haunts us, where all you love are children of the resurrection, sharing all the life that you are.

I am a child of the resurrection. Such is the knowledge you hunger for my soul. Thank you. For even now I breathe the fresh air of liberty, knowing life without limits, convinced that nothing is lost to you who have loved us from everlasting.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:27-36

Some Sadducees--those who argue that there is no resurrection--approached Jesus] and they put this question to him, “Master, Moses prescribed for us, if a man’s brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers; the first, having married a wide, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally, the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?” Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God.

Prayer

Forgive us our presumption, Jesus. Who are we to contend with you? What foundation for argument can we offer to you who dwell in intimacy with the Holy Wonder? What source shall I footnote to overwhelm your understanding and turn the tables on you?

Nonsense, all of this. Yet, you invite us to bring our arguments and objections, our deductions and highest flights of reason. Bring them all, you say. And it is well that we do. Our intellectual tussles with ourselves and you are doorways of relationship.

But what can we know of you and the mysteries of eternity that lie hidden in your soul? You abide in the One who is Love Eternal and Everlasting Surprise. You dwell in the One who is undivided and irreducible, despite myriad human attempts to confine her to human proportions.

Our intellectual thrusts never reach the heart of the matter. For the heart of the matter lies beyond all human understanding, wrapped in the mystery of everlasting love. And from there you invite us to expect a barrier-breaking resurrection and redemption beyond all human reason from the One who is Life.

We will continue our arguments as long as we breathe, Jesus, struggling to know what we can, for that is how the Holy One made us. But at the end of each day, may we lay our battles down and simply hope in a love that transcends our reach, there to find the peace that mere comprehension cannot provide.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Today's text

Luke 19:1-9

Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town, and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man. He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too sort and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully. They all complained when they saw what was happening. ‘He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house,’ they said. But Zacchaeus stood his group and said to the Lord, ‘Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times to amount. And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this too is a son of Abraham; for the Son of man has come to seek out and save what was lost.

Prayer

It is hard for me to imagine that Zacchaeus was truly lost, dear Friend. The Spirit of holy desire stirred his blood, and he surrendered to that hunger which brought him to you--and you to his house.

Surely, salvation has come to him, for you ate at his table, drank from his cup. You shared fellowship with him and his beloved. But lost? His heart was near and ready for you well before your arrival, supple and eager to receive whatever you should bring. And you bring salvation, which is but another way of saying ‘you,’ for you are the full heart of the All-Loving Mystery, who has no name.

You bring the presence of the One whom we cannot speak, the One our hearts constantly desire. And in your presence, hearts overflow with generosity, not from fear of condemnation but from the nearness of overwhelming love and desire.

Bring such salvation to us this day. Come near and fill our hearts that they may spill over and water the landscapes of our lives with the generosity released by the joy of your nearness.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Today's text

Luke 19:1-6

Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town, and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man. He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too sort and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully.

Prayer

Tell me, Jesus, does Zacchaeus remind you of anyone? Do you smile in recognition at his anxious antics? You should, my Friend, because you know well that holy and crazy desire to which he abandons himself.

I can’t get beyond the smile I see in you as you watch him. A smile of delight and divine pleasure? To be sure. But more: a smile of recognition. You know him. You know what moves him. You know the uninhibited surrender to a Spirit truly holy to whom you will give everything because nothing else much matters.

You bear and are moved by the Spirit that makes short men climb trees just to see you. Your life is totally given and utterly transparent to that Spirit of divine love and holiness. Just so, you are crazy in love with this world, willing to love it—and me—to the end of all you are.

An act of surrender? Truly. But also of mad, outrageous love that knows no satisfaction but in the presence of the beloved. So you, too, will climb your tree in utter abandonment to a world you love, and in total trust that the All Loving One is stronger than death itself.

Thank you.

May I be so given as you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 5, 2007

Today's text

Luke 19:1-6

Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town, and suddenly a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man. He kept trying to see which Jesus was, but he was too sort and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I am to stay at your house today.’ And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully.

Prayer

A smile tugs incessantly at the corners of my mouth, Jesus. Does it not mirror your own? You stop on the road to watch this little man climbing his tree to gain bird’s-eye vision of your approach. And you smile.

Your smile is silent grace, speaking louder than any words, a holy blessing on the divine craving that stirs our blood.

You delight in the transparent desire of Zacchaeus’ soul, his uninhibited hunger for your heart. Bemused, you are, at his impetuous, shameless scamper up the tree, utterly unconcerned at making a spectacle of himself.

It does not matter. All that matters is seeing you, Jesus. Swept up in the Excessive Spirit of holy craziness, Zacchaeus finally comes to his senses and knows what, no who, his heart must have.

And you smile, Jesus, at the extent to which we humans go when we see what we must have to live. We need you.

May I give myself utterly and excessively to that need this day, dear Friend? For I want to be the secret of your smile. I want you to delight in my impulsiveness, my impetuosity, my shameless scamper to stay near you. For I need you no less that this little man. And I want to see your smile raining blessing over the hunger of this heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, November 2, 2007

Today's text

Luke 6:20-21

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled."

Prayer

I am filled, and I hunger. My hunger is not that of the myriad whose cries rend your divine heart as they call to you for food and justice. They suffer and die for want of the grace of simple human kindness.

Needs of food and shelter are more than well cared for in my case, and I thank you for the goodness of your earth. But I have another need, connected, I believe, with the need of the multitude for tender mercies.

I long to have my heart filled with you. You, Gracious, Surprising Mystery have opened my heart to “get it,” to know a fullness of soul and love not made by human hands.

You have filled me, and filled, I long for more of you, who are the Infinite More. Nothing else satisfies my heart so that I fall quiet and calm, generous and whole-hearted, even as you are whole hearted, loving good and evil alike.

You invite, indeed, you coax me to know the More you are. You draw this stubborn and timid heart into whole-hearted loving surrender to a world of need, to the soul cries of the many, to the next human heart waiting at the door.

“Look there,” you say. “Surrender to this, and you will be filled. Come and know me.”

Pr. David L. Miller

November 1, 2007 All Saints Day

Today's text

Luke 6:20-21

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kigdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled."

Reflection

It happened again, Sunday. The front wall of the sanctuary disappeared. Standing behind the table, the pastor raised her hands lifting the bread, then the cup. Suddenly, the bricks behind her were not there anymore, obscuring my vision of eternity. Instead, I saw those who have gone before and now enjoy clear vision of the One whose name is mercy, the blessed God whom I glimpse but in bits and snatches.

I saw them, and their eyes, too, rose as the pastor lifted the holy gifts of God’s constant giving. A great crowd with smiling eyes and moist cheeks, they looked back at us, the living congregation among whom I stood.

We were not two, but one congregation: Here and there, in time and eternity, living and … well, living. One part shining in glory, the other struggling and confused, yet all sharing “mystic sweet communion” with the One we receive at the Lord’s Table.

I saw Grandma Lavina and my beloved father, as gentle an s ever. I saw strangers and faces I have known in the death camps of Sudan and Somalia, the deserts of Namibia and the hovels of Nicaragua to those I knew and loved on the sun-baked plains of Nebraska, Magdalena and Eilert and all the rest, all of us gathered around the table, receiving God’s inexhaustible, eternally abundant life.

My vision, like the holy table, is not an illusion. It is reality. It is now. And it is the future to which the risen Christ is drawing all things, you and me and the beloved for whom our hearts long.

We gather around God’s eternal table of grace, those in time and eternity, those here and those who gaze upon the beauty of God.

We stand together, with all the hosts of heaven, with saints of every time and place, with all the missing faces for whom we light our candles. With them, we hold out empty hands and taste eternity, even now, even here, at this table.

The body and blood of the One who is life is here for us all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Today’s text

John 8:31-36

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free.” They answered, “We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean ‘You will be set free?’” Jesus replied: “In all truth I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave. Now a slave has no permanent standing in the household, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will indeed be free.”

Prayer

Your freedom is like no other, Dear Friend. Abiding, resting, dwelling in the heart of your love for me, the soul opens up in a generosity of spirit known no where else.

The heart becomes a wide open space with room for many visitors and grace for all who come, a comfortable room where the souls of others may take their rest, a broad oak giving a circle of shade where the heat of rush and the enslavement of ‘have-tos’ and ‘must-dos’ filters away in the breeze.

Resting in the Eternal Love, the divine Word whom you are, the soul comes to such rest and is filled with the awareness that “I belong.” Indeed, for the heart arrives home. Why do we ever leave this space? Why do we imagine there is need for us to labor and earn some kind of self-justifying meaning, when being in your love is the fulfillment of the heart and of all that is?

This is the freedom you give, and which you allow me to enter even as I write these few words. The words themselves bear me into you, my home, where sin is replaced by sonship, enslavement by freedom, and the heart wants only to know and be the love that makes free.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Today’s text

John 8:31-24

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free.” They answered, “We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean ‘You will be set free?”

Prayer

In your word, your substance, the delight of your giving, we know you, Dearest Friend. We know you and are free. And it is you I want to know beyond all else. If I do not know you, I lack the one needful thing, the secret substance that transforms all other knowledge and learning into praise and joy.

Without you my soul languishes in sorrows of my own making. But resting in you, in the words of beauty and belovedness that you constantly whisper in my soul (if I would only stop and hear), all is well, no matter what is, no matter the outward circumstance.

For I dwell in you, this geography of grace, an open space where light floods the soul and life’s duties become blessed play in meadows of freedom, where the sheer delight of being alive lifts the heart beyond all drudgery.

I am at home in you, walking in the atmosphere of divine delight, in the joy you take in loving and giving your own heart to me. This is freedom, anything less is the drudgery of labor east of Eden. So I give you thanks, and I pray let me not wander this day from this holy space where I know you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, October 29, 2007

Today’s text

John 8:31-24

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free.” They answered, “We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean ‘You will be set free?”

Prayer

This is not my question, Holy One. I know what it is to be enslaved to fears and questions for which I have no answers. I know the shame that I can no more slip than I can shed my own skin. But I also know you, and you are freedom.

I do not know how you unloose my soul that I enter sweet liberty. But it happens. My soul enters a broad and open space when I look at your face and see eternal compassion looking wordlessly upon me. It happens as I listen to all you say and are, Jesus. It happens when I sing the mystery of your love for me.

“Enter my freedom, enter my freedom,” you say. But how can I do that? My soul is tied to earth, held fast by anxieties and internal conflicts that have haunted me since the earliest days of my memory.

But not when I am with you. I sit with you, see your face and hear your words. I come near and see myself walking with you, and my fears fade into illusion. Anxiety and shame flee the scene and the landscape of soul opens into green fields of play, where joy and release chase off all constriction of thought, emotion and imagination.

Only in awareness of your nearness do I enter freedom. Only there do I discover the Spirit of freedom that you bear percolates also in my soul, awaiting its release that I may be, finally, human, that self that appears only in the atmosphere of your presence.

So let me dwell near your heart this day that I may see your face, hear your voice, and walk in the open fields of blessed liberty.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, October 26, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said, “who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face.’” And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”

Prayer

Two words turn my heart again to you, O God: “his elect.” They speak a grace and consolation sufficient for the day, for every day. For I know: I belong to your elect, to you.

The words speak of ownership, and that is just fine with me. I want to be owned by you, for you are Great Mercy and Holy Passion. Such are the names my faltering mind assigns to your unspeakable glory. But these, inadequate as they are, speak the zeal and fervor you have for those that are yours, the elect, the chosen, the claimed, the beloved, … me.

I name you Lord, for I am not my own. I am yours, part of that people your Beloved won for you in the pains of bitter woundedness. This not always a comfortable place to be. You lead me to places I do not want to go and refuse to be content with my resistance to the call of your love. You, who are roundly rejected, seek to be visible in my flesh, and I know what that means.

But every day I struggle with my finitude, my limits, my fears, and every day you tell me that I belong to an everlasting love who has loved me everlastingly. I belong to a Lord who holds fast to the elect with a holy zeal and fervent ardor that refuses to let me to face my life alone. And that’s good news, Dear Friend. I learned long ago that independence is overrated.

And you won’t have it. Again and again you whisper: “You are mine. Nothing and no one else can have you.” I am father and a grandfather; I understand such love, even if mine is but finite.

Thank you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said, “who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face.’” And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”

Prayer

It is for your sadness that I love you today, Dearest Friend. The image of your face is cut into the rock face of my mind, and I read the sorrow engraved there as you ask: will I find faith on earth? Grief drips from every word. Each drop glistens with the fullness of the divine heart, longing for blessed communion with all who have yet to arrive home.

If there is no faith to greet you, Jesus, human souls miss the mercy of divine embrace and indwelling. And your heart does not find completion in that holy communion for which the Loving Mystery has hungered through all eternity, soul to soul, divinity to humanity, Creator to all creation, a blessed circle of love in which your fullness fills all that we are and all you have made.

Until then your divine heart mourns and longs for the lost, including the lost regions of this troubled soul, looking for the faith, the desire that welcomes your nearness so you may bring the healing of love immeasurable.

I see your sadness, Jesus, and I taste the sweet sorrow of eternity. I hear your voice, and I know without any doubt what lies at the heart of the cosmos: the sorrow of a wounded heart, yearning for the beloved, for one such as me.

I love you for your sadness, Jesus. It speaks to depths of heart nothing else can reach and heals me as little else can. May the faith you awaken in me assuage your beloved sorrow.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, October 23, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said, “who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face.’” And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”

Prayer

You make me smile so early on a Monday, Jesus. Your words conjure a bag lady chasing a self-satisfied soul in a three-piece suit down the street. He trips along quickly as he can, looking over his shoulder, distress in his eyes, while she wields a brown paper bag of clothes and aluminum cans. She strains to catch up and bop him across the head, seeking to gain justice for herself.

The reversal of power and powerless is as ironic as it is pointed. Surely, I have no more power over you than the widow has over the judge, less in fact. But surely, God does not refuse mercy until I pound on heaven’s door to wake the divine majesty from underachieving lethargy.

For the Loving Mystery is as far removed from the self-serving judge as your heart is from mine, holy Jesus. Your mercy and justice soar to heights unknown by the wings of my imagination.

Yet, you urge me to pray and pray again, to enter the intimate relationship of holy longing with you who are Mercy Unbounded. You invite me to bring all that I am, not to win your attention or favor but simply that I might know you, who are the secret desire of every prayer.

So I come to you again and again, pounding on your door, not to wake you from slumber, for you neither slumber nor sleep. I return that the desire of my heart may find its final answer in you who are the fullness of the Fullness.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:11-19

Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem Jesus was traveling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.” And he said to the man, “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.”

Prayer

Salvation happens when our desire and yours meet, Dearest Friend. You want all to return to give thanks, to know you, to hear your blessing. Your heart is not complete, not at rest, until the missing nine appear. Only then is the primal connection of life complete, the divine intention fulfilled.

Your desire for us and our desire for you meet and dwell together in mutual harmony, completing the divine circle into which you draw all creation. Until then creation remains unfinished, human hearts unfilled.

So your heart rises as a bird, circling upon currents of Spirit, whispering to every heart, “Come close. Come close. Stand not far off. Fly to the heart of the universe. Love Itself eagerly awaits your return, ever watching for the other nine.”

You hunger for our nearness, and we die without yours. Your desire and ours, not two, but the voice of a single Spirit.

And the faith that saves? Is it not following the desire that brings us to you?

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:11-19

Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem Jesus was traveling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.” And he said to the man, “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.”

Prayer

“Don’t be surprised,” you say to me this morning. “Don’t be surprised when you find hearts that believe and souls open to my great giving. You will find gracious hearts in unexpected places where I have been working long before you arrived. Open your eyes; look. Don’t imagine you are alone. Many love me more than you can though they know and have far less than you.”

Your words are not harsh in my ears, Jesus. They humble me, and that is grace. You keep me from imagining that my faith, my way of thinking, believing and serving is somehow privileged above others. Your words remind me that I stand among millions, billions who bear your call, your mark of wounded love on their hearts.

And many of them are people I consider beneath me in experience or intelligence, in insight or sophistication. Many I might find uncouth or simple, holding the wrong opinions or politics, bearing such flaws of character and neuroses that make it easy to dismiss them, imagining I am superior.

But I am not. I am one more needy soul who cries to you in the morning for mercy, weary of my perennial sins, sick to death of the cracks in my character through which vitality and joy seep away.

I stand among the immense throng who need and call upon you. There are no foreigners in this crowd, no aliens, just people who, at their best, know the great truth: your grace crosses every boundary we establish. Try as we might, we can’t keep you from going where love pleases. Thank you for such gracious disrespect.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:11-19

Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem Jesus was traveling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.” And he said to the man, “Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.”

Prayer

Is it praise that saves us from ourselves, Holy Darkness? Does praise push us to our knees and lift us to the heights of humanity? Is adoration the central mark of a faith that dwells in gratitude, knowing life and breath, freedom and joy are gifts flowing from the impenetrable depths of your goodness?

If so, let my morning praise rise to you that, I too, may be the human soul, the heart of flesh, you intend. Thank you for the gratitude of my unseeing eyes. I cannot penetrate your mystery. I understand nothing of what you must be. Yet at the break of day I stand before you wanting to be no nowhere else, knowing you are love, my silent lips giving praise for the wonder of that singular awareness.

Thank you, I say again. I have nothing else to bring.

Blessed Jesus, you are the face of the Impenetrable Darkness no eye can behold. In your joy in healing, in your hope that all will draw close to receive what you would give, I perceive the love no heart can contain. The beauty of your face casts me into the dirt and lifts me that truest humanity known only by hearts filled with gratitude. Thank you for making me a human … being.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, October 15, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:11-14

Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem Jesus was traveling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Now as they were going away they were cleansed.

Prayer

I notice the immediacy your care, Jesus, and of my neediness--though I try hard to deny it.

I, too, stand far off. But unlike those bereft of self and its resources, I soldier on, keeping the necessities of life adequately together. But all the while I hope for something more, something far beyond the soul numbing routines required just to get by.

Not so with the ten who, seeing you, called immediately for mercy. They have nothing of their own to commend them, nothing to make them acceptable to the powers that be. I, on the other hand, live with the illusion that self justification is possible. I remain enrapt in the fantasy that I can create the depth of heart and peace that I crave, birthing the soul that whispers in my depths.

So I do not immediately fly into the arms of your mercy. I trust the strength of human mind and heart: “If I could work a bit harder, try this, do that, be more serious about my disciplines … then I would enter the home for which my heart hungers.”

But I never enter until, disgusted with myself, I surrender. Giving up my illusions and efforts, I plea for the mercy brimming in your divine heart: Take pity, dear Friend. Take pity on a fool who forgets the truth of his own soul.

I am made for you. I come to life only in the presence of a love I can neither control nor summon. Today, may I seek with all my heart that which your heart is so eager to give.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:7-10

[Jesus said,] “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?’ Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves, we have done only what we ought to have done!’”

Prayer

The words of slaves fill me: “we have done only what we ought to have done.” I sink into the space they create, and peace floods my being. Why, Jesus?

I know; it’s simple: I crave their freedom.

In graced moments, I taste the sweet liberty of expecting nothing, no thanks or praise, no special recognition or reward. It matters not if any one notices or speaks words of respect or appreciation.

None are needed, for I have you. And it is sufficient to know you in the invisible graces of daily duty, even if all that comes is criticism.

This is a strange freedom, one that you alone grant, Jesus. It is the liberty of the flowers that bloom whether or not anyone stops to notice. They do what you fashioned them to do, content to strew your prodigal beauty along the way, unbothered by human passions for significance.

They reveal a way beyond the frustrated cravings of human souls for recognition or affirmation. I long to dwell in this land always, not just make occasional visits.

For there the rare clarity of air fresh and free fills my lungs, even as you fill my heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:5-6

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Prayer

What do you mean, Jesus? I want to see your face. Do you say this as if your friends--and I--have no faith at all? Or is that a wry grin that flashes across your lips, suggesting that we should stop worrying, since we have what we need?

We read your word and encounter your otherness, often unable to make comfortable sense of you and what you are saying. But most often I cannot hear your heart because I am in the way. I read through eyes clouded with self-concern. I hear through my anxieties about my acceptability, my unlovliness, my intuitive awareness that I am not much.

And that’s just the problem, isn’t it Jesus? I am so busy seeing myself I fail to see you. I am so preoccupied with my paucity that I can’t perceive your immensity. You would soak me to the soul in your boundless ocean of love and grace were I not captive in this capsule of self.

My faith is small, but that is not your concern, is it? Nor is it the point. You would have me see you, know you, allowing my tiny heart to be loved into self-forgetfulness by your great heart. You care not a wit for the size of my faith but with joy and laughter would enlarge my heart to hold more of you, if only: if only I will look at you and not at myself.

So let me look, and looking see, and seeing love, and loving know … you, who are so much larger than my heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, October 8, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 17:5-6

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Prayer

The morning comes too early, Jesus. The restless night of tossing fogs my mind with fatigue. Each thought comes encased in cloud. It is Monday, and my body cries for sleep.

If I had faith as a grain of mustard seed, would sleep so easily evade me? Would I quietly rest when I lay my head on the pillow? Would my soul release its obsessive frets, assured that your abundance will amply supply no matter what awaits me? Would my sleep then be an act of worship, offering holy praise of your goodness?

Yet, I know, Holy One: I face nothing alone, for even such small faith as mine bears a treasure—You. What is faith but your presence, your Spirit, in the soul turning my eyes toward Home?

You, whom all the world cannot contain, dwell in this anxious soul. Even on my tired days, You grant such faith that I may hear it whisper, “I am enough for you. You have what you need to know me, to love me, to serve me, to rest in my immensity.”

So I will not pray, increase my faith, Dearest One. No, let me attend such faith as dwells in this soul that I may hear you and know that you are always sufficient to the day.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, October 5, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:27-31

So he said, “Father, I beg you then to send Lazarus to my father’s house, since I have five brothers, to give them warning so that they do not come to this place of torment too.” Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.” The rich man replied, “Ah, no, father Abraham, but if someone comes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Then Abraham said to him, “If they will not listen either to Moses or to the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead”

Prayer

Not even from the dead? What does it take before our hearts will listen to the voice that speaks life and mercy? The answer is clear enough. We know it well in our personal histories, Jesus: pain. We listen when torments of body and soul attack our flesh, turning over our tidy plans, revealing again that little of life is at our command.

We reach for good things for ourselves and families. We build foundations for living upon what we are given by circumstances of birth, talent and our good work. We celebrate our occasions--birthdays and anniversaries, new babies, graduations and promotions, seldom thinking that the next day, the next hour, the taste of our salty tears may turn bitter.

Then we are ready to listen to a voice far beyond ours to learn life again, or for the first time. Jesus, I am forever learning life again … and again. How many times must I relearn what makes for life?

And what, Jesus, would the dead tell us if we had ears to hear? Would they remind that all flesh is grass? Would they say that the Holy One created time and space as an arena for mercy? Or maybe they’d tell us, “Listen to the pain of your heart, and you will know every heart. Your pain separates life from the illusions you try to live. It frees you to hear the One you most need.”

That’s the way the dead speak to me, Jesus, as do you, who are the living and the dead and the risen again.

So let me not move far from the pains of my failures and weaknesses, Jesus. Let me live in gratitude for each of them, for they are the wings that fly me to you.

Great Mercy, hear my prayer.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:23-29

In Hades, where [the rich man] was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us. He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.” Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.”

Prayer

Where, Merciful One, do prophets cry out, calling us beyond prudence to passion for your holy reign? Your voice is present in all the Earth. You never leave us without voices that love you and your blessed future far more than personal victory, far beyond the fading joys fashioned by human hands.

Helps us to hear the voices of your prophets, the abused child or spouse, the hungry deprived of bread and simplest human decency, the souls who invite us beyond every violence of hand and speech into which so much of our conversation degenerates.

Even the cries of our own souls are your prophets, Inescapable One. They whisper deep truth in our unguarded moments, telling us … again … that all we consume cannot fill the empty ache that is your insistent voice. You call to us at that unreachable point of our souls where your holy desire and our deepest need for real bread speak with a single voice.

You never leave yourself without a voice, Holy One. Moses and a multitude of prophets speak what your love gives and requires. Close my busy lips that I may hear. I make too much noise. I fear losing you amid the clamor. Call to me in silence.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:23-26

In Hades, where [the rich man] was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”

Prayer

Is there never a passing over, Jesus? Did you not pass from Earth to Hell before entering the Sublime, descending first to crush death and eternal bondage, freeing our first parents that all the daughters and sons of Eve might dwell with you? The icon on the wall shows you tramping death under foot, trashing the front gate of Hell and revealing it for the rickety shanty that it is.

I want even the rich man to know salvation, to pass over from eternal separation to dwell with you, making humble repentance for failing to love Lazarus at the gate. Can it yet be? Or will the divisions that torture earth do so through eternity? Is it impossible even for you to cross the chasm?

My faith says, ‘no.’

There is no place where you are not. There is no darkness beyond your reach; nowhere you will not bring eternal freedom that all that is restless may rest in you. Lazarus and the rich man may yet find reconciliation in a love larger than human apathy and more exquisite than human pain. They, too, shall celebrate the unfathomable. You.

But the celebration need not wait. For today we may enter, again, that larger love you are and ever shall be, a love that opens eyes to know the places you invite us to join the dance of your loving in time and space. Today, Lord Jesus, let me join your dance with Lazarus at the gate.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:19-25

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.”

Prayer

When do we see, Jesus? What opens our eyes? And to what?

Our blinkered eyes see with crystal clarity when we are consumed by distress, Jesus. Pain and desire sharpen our vision. Quickly, we focus on what we need--or want--to assuage our discomfort. We view surrounding faces through lenses that perceive only what they can do to quell the pulsing insistence of anguish or greed. We see what they can for us.

But do we see the other, the throbbing bundle of needs and fears, hopes and humanity they are? Can we imagine that we may be your answer the unspoken cries of their heart? Can we value them not for what they do for us but for the circle of compassion into which we may enter with them, giving and receiving, sharing the profundity of human neediness and making flesh the miracle of mercy?

How do I see, Jesus? Do the souls of women and men exist only to cool the flames of my body and soul? Or do I see my need and theirs as a holy invitation through which you draw me into common heart, where we might share a common mercy and yearning for the peace of God, your peace, Jesus?

Help me to see beyond my needs to your hope, Jesus. In the needs of others, help us to hear your invitation to a world of mercy.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, October 1, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:19-22

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried.

Prayer

They both died, Jesus. Filthy rich or dirt poor—the same end claims both.

How shall we live when everywhere we turn we look into the eyes of the dying? Regardless of our circumstances, we carry the seeds of Adam’s disease so deep in our flesh no medicine of ours can hunt it down and kill the death that kills us.

From the earliest days of our breathing, we know the time is short. We know the clock ticks without pause or care, inexorably counting out our moments. So we must get on with it; much is missed if we dally. The day must be lived to the fullest lest we face our end bearing a mountain of regret.

So what shall we do, Jesus? Make sure we get ours? Or might we remind ourselves that every person we meet today will come to the same end as we? Will such sobriety remind us that anything less than mercy is profanity? That anything other than compassion disfigures time and poisons the day?

Help me remember, Jesus. I forget so quickly when passions of anger and fear drive me. Help me remember that all are flesh, like me. And my may heart dwell in compassion … for the dying. Just like your heart, Jesus.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, September 28, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 16:1-6, 8

Then was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”

Prayer

We should thank you for this difficult story, Holy One, though it is hard to do. Most of us wouldn’t miss it had faithful scribes not preserved it for us to trip over. The tripping is good for us, or so we tell ourselves.

Jesus, your words invite us to take you seriously when our understanding is dark, and our minds find no familiar foot holds to leverage comprehension and buttress faith. We walk into this difficult story and enter a dense darkness that vision and understanding cannot penetrate.

And there you invite us beyond well-worn ways we have trod so often we walk them in our sleep. It is little wonder that souls who have loved you so dearly talk of dark nights and clouds of unknowing, of the hidden God and the negative way beyond where sign posts of sight and sound mark the journey.

The journey into you, Jesus, leads, sooner or later, into the darkness where we walk by naked faith or not at all. There come times when we do not see the way ahead and the way behind is closed to us, when the only choice is to freeze in fear or put one foot ahead of the other in hope that your light and gracious presence will again become sensible to our flesh.

The night can endure for an evening … or for years; it is a darkness of soul some of your great ones endured for decades. I doubt I have the faith for that, but I am glad for them. Their witness invites me deeper into your mystery. They light candles of hope in my soul.

There are days when I know that I know nothing and that nothing is my truest knowledge of you, and humble silence is greatest praise of your unspeakability. But today I will speak.

Praise the Holy and blessed Trinity. Give praise all creation, all the souls of earth lost in the darkness of your understanding. Shout out your praise for the darkness you enter is the embrace of Eternal Wonder.

Pr. David L. Miller