Monday, June 11, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 5:21

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Prayer

I resist endings, Eternal One, all endings. They remind me that I will come to an end. I am mortal flesh. I will pass away, disappearing into your eternity, hoping to awaken in intimate abiding with you have haunted me every day of my existence. But in this life every ending reminds me of all the others, the ‘going aways,’ the ‘good byes,’ the deaths and departures that have torn my soul.

And now I come to the end of this little book that has led my soul in prayer these months, leading me into lands previously unknown to me. I don’t want to go. I fear I will forget what you have written on my soul. I do not know or trust that you have inscribed it so deeply that it will stay and abide in my heart, teaching me what I need to know to live. For I want to live, not merely exist, and it truly consoles me that this is your desire too. Make it so, dear One, this day and always.

But now one last verse: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Here, too, you miss no opportunity to console and guide this heart of mind. I am your child, beloved, like all those others to whom you are so tender. And you would not have me walk outside the cloud of your enveloping love. I am to live in awareness of you who are true and eternal, who are all-possessing love.

Idols of self-indulgence and self-chosen principles, idols of goals and values, of gain and victories that would displace you in my heart--these are not you. They do not and cannot envelop me in the love that birthed the universe. They drain life and vitality from me, stripping me of the awareness and enjoyment of eternal life.

So I will cling to you, the true and eternal, the love illimitable, the infinite nearness, the intimate transcendence, the dazzling darkness, the One I name Loving Mystery, who abides, awaiting me each day like the morning sun with a holy invitation, whispering, “Come, stand in the warmth of my light. You will live.”

Thank you.

Pr. David L. Miller