Today’s text
3 John 1:11a-12
“Whoever does what is good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Everyone has testified favorably about Demetrius, and so has the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.”
Prayer
Who is this faithful soul to whom the truth and your beloved saints testify? Is he a community leader? Perhaps the messenger who carried this little letter into the congregation? Is he just one more faceless name in 20 centuries of those who have loved and hoped in you, dearest Jesus?
But he is not faceless is he, Holy Mystery? His faithfulness and care, his love and service shine with the crystalline illumination of your holy face, a face no one has seen.
Yet I have seen. We have seen you many times in the care and justice, love and peace of faithful souls alight with your wonder. Their faces shine in our hearts and memories. We have been loved into life by them, and through them we have received you, grace upon grace.
So if may, my Lord, let me speak to Demetrius and to all who now rest in paradise with you, enjoying that beatific vision that is yet denied me: Thank you for your faithful witness. Thank you that your lives shined with a love as ancient as eternity. Thank you that your flesh became for me the flesh of my friend and brother Jesus. Thank you.
And thank you, Loving Mystery, for taking flesh and soul in the lives of your beloved, from Demetrius through all generations, and in me. I, too, bear your wonder. Thank you. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:11
“Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
Prayer
All rests upon seeing you, Blessed Goodness. The shattering image of absolute goodness, whole and true, pure and undiluted dissolves and washes clean the encrustations of evil on the human heart.
You are whole-hearted and full, given utterly to life itself, taking delight in all that is, weeping tears of joy at the beauty of earth and its sorrow, wanting nothing more or less than to wrap all that is in the loving joy ecstatically dancing in your inner life.
I have no words for this. How dare I speak of your inner life, for you have no inner or outer? You are pure Being Itself, life without limit. You simply are. And you are goodness, that eternal ecstatic dance of love within and beyond our human time and space. Forgive my presumption, my daily assaults on your immense majesty, my constant failure to bring to words the loving wonder of your goodness.
But how can I not speak of that intuition of your loving presence that never goes away? It is always there, however vague or obscure. How can I not seek to capture the dancing fire of your life, since it is my greatest need, a need you fashioned in my depths?
I hunger to see and snare with words the goodness you are. When I see you I am free and full and finally myself, that expression of your love that you intend in creating me, light of heart and walking lightly upon your earth.
So let me capture with mere words something of your undiluted goodness, that, seeing you, I may join the dance of your delight in my little moment of your eternity. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:11
“Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
Prayer
All rests upon seeing you, Blessed Goodness. The shattering image of absolute goodness, whole and true, pure and undiluted dissolves and washes clean the encrustations of evil on the human heart.
You are whole-hearted and full, given utterly to life itself, taking delight in all that is, weeping tears of joy at the beauty of earth and its sorrow, wanting nothing more or less than to wrap all that is in the loving joy ecstatically dancing in your inner life.
I have no words for this. How dare I speak of your inner life, for you have no inner or outer? You are pure Being Itself, life without limit. You simply are. And you are goodness, that eternal ecstatic dance of love within and beyond our human time and space. Forgive my presumption, my daily assaults on your immense majesty, my constant failure to bring to words the loving wonder of your goodness.
But how can I not speak of that intuition of your loving presence that never goes away? It is always there, however vague or obscure. How can I not seek to capture the dancing fire of your life, since it is my greatest need, a need you fashioned in my depths?
I hunger to see and snare with words the goodness you are. When I see you I am free and full and finally myself, that expression of your love that you intend in creating me, light of heart and walking lightly upon your earth.
So let me capture with mere words something of your undiluted goodness, that, seeing you, I may join the dance of your delight in my little moment of your eternity. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
We are guests here, my Lord. The earth is not mine. I did not make it. The soil with its fruit and flowers of myriad and unlikely color, the sun’s warm caress, the rain wearing resistant rock into rich loam, gentling the ground that seed may spring from the darkness: all this awaited my appearance in time and space, carefully prepared by your genius through unnumbered millennia that life might spring forth in abundance, delight to the eye and strength for body and soul.
Nor did I create the structures of society that allow my common and ordered life. Long generations preceded me, struggling against chaos with the mind and good will that is the breath of your Spirit in every generation, moving us to seek that More for which we know we are made.
And the community of faith in which my hungry heart finds its home, there, too, I am a guest. I receive what you have done in loving hospitality through the resurrection of my brother, Jesus, welcoming me to know the life that appears in him, ever inviting, “Come you who labor. Abide in me.”
And I come, finding again the hospitality that meets me in every place of my habitation, discovering again that I am always a guest, dependent on an unnamed hospitality for each breath, each step, each of the millions of tiny acts and occurrences that make my life possible and worth living.
Thank you. Those two words are the quintessential prayer. I know of no better. Thank you, dearest Loving Mystery, for your immense hospitality throughout all ages, creating life abundant and giving your life eternal through Jesus, our brother. Your great and continuous giving fills me with gratitude that I, with all your saints, may become the face of your resplendent hospitality, shining in the face of Jesus the Christ, your beloved and mine. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
We are guests here, my Lord. The earth is not mine. I did not make it. The soil with its fruit and flowers of myriad and unlikely color, the sun’s warm caress, the rain wearing resistant rock into rich loam, gentling the ground that seed may spring from the darkness: all this awaited my appearance in time and space, carefully prepared by your genius through unnumbered millennia that life might spring forth in abundance, delight to the eye and strength for body and soul.
Nor did I create the structures of society that allow my common and ordered life. Long generations preceded me, struggling against chaos with the mind and good will that is the breath of your Spirit in every generation, moving us to seek that More for which we know we are made.
And the community of faith in which my hungry heart finds its home, there, too, I am a guest. I receive what you have done in loving hospitality through the resurrection of my brother, Jesus, welcoming me to know the life that appears in him, ever inviting, “Come you who labor. Abide in me.”
And I come, finding again the hospitality that meets me in every place of my habitation, discovering again that I am always a guest, dependent on an unnamed hospitality for each breath, each step, each of the millions of tiny acts and occurrences that make my life possible and worth living.
Thank you. Those two words are the quintessential prayer. I know of no better. Thank you, dearest Loving Mystery, for your immense hospitality throughout all ages, creating life abundant and giving your life eternal through Jesus, our brother. Your great and continuous giving fills me with gratitude that I, with all your saints, may become the face of your resplendent hospitality, shining in the face of Jesus the Christ, your beloved and mine. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
What greater blessing is there than to lose ourselves in you, free, free, free from ravages of driven ego? What greater grace can I enjoy than to disappear in you so that all I know is your encircling love, stilling all want and desire in a holy nearness where we are one and anxious need is abolished?
Fully encompassed within your enveloping embrace, most of what I think I am disappears. All that remains is that which holds and is held by your loving, and I am that loving.
I occupy less space than I normally require in my daily places and conversations. Rapt in you, I grow small but real, secure but brave, gentle but capable of greatness, for I am that which I am only in your love, filled with the substance of your divine life, able to give whatever your abiding grace requires of me.
And the need to be first evaporates; the urge to exclude that I may be greater dissolves vaporous illusions. For I know what is real and true, and that is you who are love, who fill me and all that is with life unimaginable, known now in moments of graced oneness, exquisitely heralding eternity in your embrace. Thank you that I should taste eternity and know the freedom you intend. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
What greater blessing is there than to lose ourselves in you, free, free, free from ravages of driven ego? What greater grace can I enjoy than to disappear in you so that all I know is your encircling love, stilling all want and desire in a holy nearness where we are one and anxious need is abolished?
Fully encompassed within your enveloping embrace, most of what I think I am disappears. All that remains is that which holds and is held by your loving, and I am that loving.
I occupy less space than I normally require in my daily places and conversations. Rapt in you, I grow small but real, secure but brave, gentle but capable of greatness, for I am that which I am only in your love, filled with the substance of your divine life, able to give whatever your abiding grace requires of me.
And the need to be first evaporates; the urge to exclude that I may be greater dissolves vaporous illusions. For I know what is real and true, and that is you who are love, who fill me and all that is with life unimaginable, known now in moments of graced oneness, exquisitely heralding eternity in your embrace. Thank you that I should taste eternity and know the freedom you intend. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, July 16, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:6b-8
“You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ; accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people so that we may become co-workers with the truth.”
Prayer
What is truth that we should become coworkers with it? How shall we discern between truth and appearance, except through time? The true is solid and lasting, dependable and enduring. It is solid rock on which we plant our feet, assured the ground will not shift beneath us.
But what is truth; what can it be, if not you? And what are you, if not this mad and gentle love that wears the face of my brother Jesus?
This love neither fails nor fades. It endures from eternity to eternity, stretching through my little moment of time, connecting me with that which is ever certain, unending, unfailing, unceasing, a constantly flowing stream through all reality and time.
All else fades, fails and crumbles. The years roll on, crushing the goods and passions that demand our attention and exhaust our labors. But today’s necessity soon disappears, dropped and forgotten in an infinite sea of eternity.
But you, your incarnate love, full of grace and truth, remain. You always remain. You are truth, and your truth is that love that ever flows: an eternal, life-giving spring that runs not dry. When all I depend upon seems uncertain and all my certainties dissolve in the shifting currents of time, you are. You are truth. And you are mine.
So let me dwell in your truth and do the truth you are, expressing your mad and gentle love in my flesh. Though it may seem foolish and out of touch with the fashions of the day, I hunger to labor with you, Gentle and Eternal Love. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:6b-8
“You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ; accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people so that we may become co-workers with the truth.”
Prayer
What is truth that we should become coworkers with it? How shall we discern between truth and appearance, except through time? The true is solid and lasting, dependable and enduring. It is solid rock on which we plant our feet, assured the ground will not shift beneath us.
But what is truth; what can it be, if not you? And what are you, if not this mad and gentle love that wears the face of my brother Jesus?
This love neither fails nor fades. It endures from eternity to eternity, stretching through my little moment of time, connecting me with that which is ever certain, unending, unfailing, unceasing, a constantly flowing stream through all reality and time.
All else fades, fails and crumbles. The years roll on, crushing the goods and passions that demand our attention and exhaust our labors. But today’s necessity soon disappears, dropped and forgotten in an infinite sea of eternity.
But you, your incarnate love, full of grace and truth, remain. You always remain. You are truth, and your truth is that love that ever flows: an eternal, life-giving spring that runs not dry. When all I depend upon seems uncertain and all my certainties dissolve in the shifting currents of time, you are. You are truth. And you are mine.
So let me dwell in your truth and do the truth you are, expressing your mad and gentle love in my flesh. Though it may seem foolish and out of touch with the fashions of the day, I hunger to labor with you, Gentle and Eternal Love. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
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