Friday October 18, 2013

 Today’s text

Psalm 121: 1-4

I lift up my eyes to the mountains; where is my help to come from? My help comes from Yahweh who made heaven and earth. May he save your foot from stumbling; may he, your guardian, not fall asleep! You see -- he neither sleeps nor slumbers … .

Reflection

An image appears in the mind and blesses the morning.

You float shapeless yet ever present, an angel wisp of substance, transparent yet unmistakably there, neither male nor female, yet gentle and vigilant as a mother hovering over her sleeping child, keeping watch.

A peace-filled smile of infinite tenderness looks down on a sleeping form, covering the sleeper, a silent vigil of love over the beloved.

The image returns to the mind in this early morning hour, and I recognize that it has been present, waiting for me to notice for a least a day since I piloted my car to the home of one threatened by dire disease.

The image of you watching, covering, smiling, tenderly looking over your beloved has lingered at the edge of awareness, but only now do I see what you were revealing to my heart.

This is who you are, and for some challenges, for some threats and suffering, the only answer, the only hope, the only peace is knowing--or in this case seeing--who you are.

Now I see. Thank you.

Now I know, one more time, you are there watching, waiting, loving, hovering and covering even when we suffer, even when death comes near.

You are Love, Love that never ends, Love that never sleeps, Love that in the end always gets its way.

So be there, with them, with me, with all of us. Cover us all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday October 16, 2013

Today’s text

Psalm 121: 5-8

Yahweh is your guardian, your shade, Yahweh, at your right hand. By day the sun will not strike you, nor the moon by night. Yahweh guards you from all harm Yahweh guards your life, Yahweh guards your comings and goings, henceforth and for ever. 

 Reflection

Guard our lives, O Lord. Keep us from dying.

There are so many ways we lose our lives and die. Days come when we feel the breath of energy and joy fleeing our hearts and failing our bodies.

You are the breath of life that flows within us. Don’t leave us.

Come fill us each morning, for you are the hope for joy and goodness, for meaning and laughter that stirs us to meet each day with expectation and eagerness.

We breathe you in and throw ourselves into the day, doing what you have given us to do in this life.

Turn our eyes from our weakness and failures. Turn us from our fears of not being enough for the challenges of our days. Protect our hearts from eroding despair that we may not receive what our hearts most need to live with joyful purpose and love.

Guard our lives from the forces and emotions that kill our souls and reduce us to empty husks.

Just breathe, O Lord; breathe the felt assurance of your nearness into our lungs with every breath we take. Smile at us in the faces that bless and fill us with the wonder of love and loving.

Guard our comings and going this day lest the weight of our labors or the fatigue at day’s end wither our life and joy.

For we want to live; we yearn to be filled with your breath and life.

We want to draw it into our lungs and feel it filling our hearts. We ache to breathe in the love you are and be filled with the assurance of knowing, always knowing that we are children of a great and eternal love.

And this, only this, is living, really living.

So let us feel your life in us, filling us, guarding us from all the ways death comes. Fill and guard us all, especially those most death most threatens.

We have known your breath within us, O Lord, and we cannot be satisfied with anything less. So please, breathe in us.

Pr. David L. Miller