As the year turns, see

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)\

Seeing him

Yes, we have seen glory, the glory of a Love of supernal proportions, and we dare believe this Love is our truest identity, our surest companion and the final destination of our being.

Jesus, the Christ, is the eternal Word God speaks that we may know the grace of the Everlasting Love who is forever for us.

He touched and healed, welcomed and blessed, bled and died, enduring human perplexity and hardness from friend and foe alike, forgiving their worst and inviting their best.

Seeing him enchants the heart, hungry as we are to know a Love beyond all others, a Love that frees from the fears that keep us from sharing the hope and hurt, love and joy hiding beneath the carefully curated faces we show the world.

Seeing him excites desire to know more, feel more, love more and crowd closer to his heart, for there we know we are safe. We know a truth that doesn’t change as the calendar page turns.

He is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

So we offer our New Year prayer to see him more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly in the year to come. It is this we most need, lest our souls grow cold in this world so desperately needing the warmth of his divine heart … and ours.

And we look for him in the faces of friends and strangers, hoping to see to see some reflection of the Love he is, needing to be reminded that he walks with us even when we are least aware of his nearness.

Seeing him awakens our love for the Love who is our hope every day … and especially as the years turn.

Pr. David L. Miller

Waiting & knowing

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age …. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:36-38)

We have seen God’s salvation. We have heard the tale once more and imagined Jesus’ infant face in a dark stable.

Having seen him, we remember the tenderness of our own children, tiny hands clutching our finger, the comfort of flesh-to-flesh, wordless love filling our eyes with tears of wonder and praise for the Source of life.

Those moments teach us salvation’s truth, the wholeness of a love that can fill the soul beyond any capacity. This is redemption of our humanity, the awakening of a love that fills every corner of our being, flushing out every doubt, all despair and any cynicism we feel about the emptiness of life or absence of God.

And now, having been touched again by the miracle of his love, we wait. This is our life, the life of faith. We see and know that God is faithful to the promise of presence. The Holy One comes in this child that we may see and fall in love with him that every broken place in our hearts and history might find healing.

We wait and hope, like old Anna, that this faithful God, who loves beyond our imagination, will come to us again … and again … and again ... long beyond our Christmas celebrations.

And like her we pray and watch, doing so as those who know, who have been graced with moments of Love’s fullness redeeming our humanity, forgiving every sin, lifting us from every failing, reminding us that the One who comes will again. 

Every day. Just watch. It’s a promise.

Pr. David L. Miller

Soul secret

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (John 1:1-3)

The human heart, our hearts, long for unity, for the peace that comes when we rest, one with ourselves, with the Love that we, each, essentially are.

For we, too, are words made flesh, having come to be through him, through this Love who shines in the face of Christ, through the Love that inebriates the heart during this holy season when we become more ourselves than we usually are.

Perhaps it is the act of giving gifts, the excitement of finding (actually, stumbling on) and buying that one thing, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, which symbolizes the love we know and share with another human soul.

Yes, maybe this is what puts us in touch with our deep inner selves, with the presence of soul that is Christ, the Love who resides in our deepest inner room, waiting release into the world through our words and acts.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, Christ says in this and every season. He is not outside your being but within, Love awaiting release.

This blessed season—its colors and cheer, haunting melodies of love and longing, the gifts through which we give ourselves—charms and enchants us until we release the anxieties that demand we do more, know more, earn more and have more.

The more we need is already ours, already within, a Love greater than any we’d dreamed knocks on the inner door our hearts, waiting for us to look and see, look and feel, look and know the beauty we hide within, the secret of our souls.

Christ. Christ is the secret of your soul. Deep within, you are the Love that shines in Jesus of Nazareth. Seeing him again, his birth in this blessed season, we see the wonder of God’s face and the face we hide within.

Christ comes, the Love he is, that knowing him, we might know and live the Love we are, at peace, finally, with the secret of our souls.

Pr. David L. Miller

Love … and nothing but

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.’ (Matthew 1:22-23)

These are days of waiting, working, preparing … and hoping. Christmas is near, stirring hope that the holy season will fulfill its promise.

Moments come when our hearts stand in the open field of their emptiness longing for a moment of visitation, for a surge of inimitable Love to wash over and transport us into the joy and peace that fills the void within.

This season like the year that precedes is replete with noise and the restless rushing about with which we would fill that void. But in this season we are reminded that Love is the only rightful resident of that holy space.

Just so, we want … and need … to be carried away by the lights, by a song, by a poignant memory … by something  … to that space deep within where communion with Love happens ... that for at least one precious moment … we might know Love … and nothing but.

It is then that we know Emmanuel. We may not be able to describe it or say much about it. The Love Who Is has a way of lifting us into the sweet silence of knowing—knowing, too, that there is nothing better or more complete than this knowledge that can never be reduced to mere words.

So the days grow near for us to gaze again at the child who bears Love’s face, to see him in the manger and watch the shepherds in their bewildered stupor, transfixed, as are we, by Mary, his mother, whose “let it be” are the greatest words a human soul can ever say, an abandonment to Love’s holy will.

And we ask, hope and wait for him to fill every void, every dusty corner of our being that we, as she, might abandon ourselves to Love and nothing but.

Pr. David L. Miller

Love’s secret

And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.

 (Luke 1:31)

Love labors in the silent darkness, far from garish lights that blind our eyes to all that is truly holy. Love toils secretly where no one can see, working out its holy purpose that the wonder of every age may appear according to the inscrutable timing of the divine heart.

What was it, Holy One, that you should think, “Here and now, in this girl, I will fulfill my heart’s desire to live among human hearts with a human heart all my own, feeling everything life holds and every fear death stirs?

Your life stirred in the secret darkness of Mary’s young womb—she of no renown, living in a place the world would have forgotten long ago, if not for the child she birthed.

You chose Mary, which should spark a flame of hope in every human breast, especially when we wonder if our lives have mattered … or if they still can.

For in an out-of-the way place, in this peasant girl, eternity entered time. Through Mary, you blessed the world and every moment of history with a light that has never gone out … and never will.

And we who need the light of this child to shine in us, hunger to hear the divine promise to Mary ringing also in our ears.

“You will conceive.” Sounds strange, but each of us is pregnant with the light of God, eager to fill us and be born, bursting out in a love that fills our eyes with tears and our words with blessing for every broken heart and troubled space we encounter.

Sit in the silence and know … the Holy One, the Loving Mystery whom we will never understand, toils in the darkness of your soul, hidden, unknown, until those moments when you feel new life, Love, that is … stirring within for this weary old world, and oh-so blessedly for our own weathered hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

Say ‘yes’

Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:38)

Mary said, “Yes.”

She didn’t know what would happen to her or to her child. She had no idea of the elation and sorrow the years would bring. She couldn’t know she would experience the most searing pain a parent can ever know. She barely knew who she was at her tender age.

She knew only that her heart needed to say, “Yes,” to this divine messenger bearing strange and unexpected news, a request that comes to each of us, wherever we are and regardless of our age.

Love longs for your consent, your surrender to Love’s will to do in you what only Love can do.

Love, the Holy Mystery, speaks in our silence when the clamor of the daily fades away. In the quiet, we feel and know the whisper of truth … we are made for something more. Made for Love, we are, for this Love who took birth in Mary, the Mother of our Lord.

Nothing else finally satisfies—successes, happy times, the diversions, entertainments and substances with which we distract ourselves from the One who speaks in our silence. Nothing else is enough.

Only Love will do, the Love who longs to be born in you, to fill you, the Love whose voice gets drowned out by all the stuff our culture suggests is “really living.’

We are what we are, beings made by the Love who is born in human form from Mary’s “yes.’  Love speaks in your silence, longing for your “Yes.”

Most us, like Mary, don’t know who we are half the time. We don’t know exactly where we are going, and we haven’t a clue where our lives will end up.

But we know you are Love, Holy One, so please, be born in each of us.

Nothing else will do.

Pr. David L. Miller

That we may know

 At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. (Luke 10:21)

 Flood my soul with knowledge of you, heavenly Father. As you filled my brother, Jesus, with your presence, fill me to overflowing that I may know and serve you with fullness of heart in freedom and joy.

This is your will. I see it in Jesus’ joy as I study his face looking to heaven, thanking you that those he chose, so slow and plodding, should know the mystery for which every human heart longs.

We long to know … you. We long to feel you not as a separate entity, someone or something apart from ourselves, but within, to feel you one with our deepest heart, communing in a great love that fills our hearts and bursts from our lips in the only words that will do, Thank you! Thank you. Thank you.”

Thank you for exquisite moments of knowing sweet oneness with you, your heart wrapped around my own, holy union, giving rest and peace, stilling all desire for anything more.

What more can there be? This is the ultimate, the end fulfillment of every human soul and of your gracious will … that we should know and enjoy the wonder you are, lost in thanks to you who are the Love that moves the moon and the stars … and this heart.

Moments of blessed communion fade. Our hearts cool. What once was intimate grows distant. Such is our human lot and weakness. We are as slow and plodding as those Jesus first chose to know what he knew.

But even this blesses, moving us to pray again, “Flood my soul. Fill my heart. Wrap your love around me that I may know … you.”

This is your will and our greatest need.

Pr. David L. Miller

Speak the word

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion answered, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” (Matthew 8:5-8)

He knew, this Centurion. He recognized the desire at the heart of Jesus. As much as he understood Jesus’ power to heal, he trusted more this loving desire to make the broken whole, to free the paralyzed from distress.

I am not worthy of you, he says, but I know you will not hold this against me or refuse the one I love so much that I am humbly here asking for what you alone can give.

You do not look upon our worthiness, O Lord, but on the need of our hearts. You see our paralysis, the hurts and longings that imprison our hearts. It is for our freedom that you come to us, your heart open, eager to liberate us from everything that drains the energies of joy and hope.

We are not worthy of you, and we do not know how to receive you except by humbly asking you to speak the word.

Speak the word that frees our hearts from the grip of our fears.

Speak the word that heals wounds we have carried for so long that we despair of healing.

Speak the word that tells us you cherish us despite our worst selves.

Speak the word that lifts our hearts from gray haunts of sadness into the golden light of morning.

Speak the word of everlasting love that fills us as a glass overflowing until we know we are yours and always will be.

Speak the Love that fills your heart that ours may receive the healing you alone can give.

Pr. David L. Miller

Who knows?

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:42)

How many times have you come to me, Lord, and I missed you entirely, lost in living, unconscious amid the urgency of whatever the day requires?

I wonder, do you get lonely for me? Do you miss me when my heart wanders, and I fail to speak heart-to-heart with you?

Sometimes I picture you standing alone, waiting for me to notice, wondering when my loneliness will hurt badly enough that I beg you to come and pour your love into my heart and still the ache that tells me how desperately I need you.

But you do not wait. You come. You have been coming to me since the days I walked my dog to the fairgrounds and released her from the chain, and she ran, a blond blur of hair flying in the wind. It was there that I sang hymns and prayed prayers and longed to be as free as this beautiful creature romping across the broad field, daring me to catch her.

I’m not sure who was happier, me or my dog. Nor do I understand why this image from nearly six decades ago should impress itself on my consciousness, today.

Unless, you are trying to show me that you have been coming to me for my entire life, since I was a boy, hoping I would notice the Love who longs for me… and is this longing in me to know you, the Love who comes, who is my healing, my freedom, my joy.

Who knows how and where you come to us … or when we might notice? It’s always a mystery. We know only that you do … and always will.

So, thank you, dearest Friend, for coming to find and gather me in during those early days before I understood what was happening in me. Thanks for the ache in my heart that wakes me to you who comes to love … me.

And while I’m at it, thank you for coming here and now, today.

Pr. David L. Miller

Fields of gold

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)

Thanksgiving meant more to me on the plains of Nebraska than at any other time, or so it seems as I look back. It was only for five years, but the annual cycle lived there still lives in me.

We lived and died in concert with nature. Autumn was the time of sowing wheat, hoping it would soon spring up before falling asleep under ice and snow, as bitter winds bit your cheeks and made you wonder how anything could live through winter’s blast.

As nature slept, we waited in hope for the day green shoots, still sheathed in ice, would appear alive and luminous to excite our hearts with the wonder that life didn’t die in the dead of winter.

You knew it was coming. It happened every year, but you never took it for granted. It never got old. It was an extraordinary joy. Hearts brimmed with hope at the greening of the earth, making us fresh and new as the wonder of life’s unspeakable goodness.

Anxious days were not done. Would rains come? Would insects devour? Would hail destroy the crop on the eve of harvest? Too often, it happened. And then, would the price per bushel drop? So little control over any of these things.

I suppose this is why there are few sights in nature more beautiful than waves of golden wheat flowing in the wind across broad fields as harvest draws near. Anxiety over the seed, winter, drought, insects, hailstorms and disease fades, and hearts get antsy, eager to gather it all in and run fingers through harvested grain, seeds flowing between your fingers, feeling the gift of it all and the glory of participating in the miracle of every single grain.

No one had to tell you to be thankful; you just were … for the privilege of sharing in the wonder of life and the holy goodness of seedtime and harvest.

As years pass, I have come to see that I am like the wheat, all of us are. We are seeds planted in the soil of an uncertain world where threats are as real as hope, God’s hope, that with time and care, our lives will produce a harvest as beautiful as the fields that call out to me, today.

Thank you, blessed Lord, for all they gave me.

Pr. David L. Miller

Today & every day

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." (Luke 19:5-7)

I must stay with you today. And then tomorrow, and then the next and then ….

That’s me. My heart leaks, which means I must return to you every day or be content with the ache that comes when I feel far from you. But this is not how you want me or anyone to live.

This gives me a clue about that must in your heart.

Zacchaeus needed you, Jesus. His life was a crooked mess. You invited yourself to his dinner table to let him know something he’d forgotten, but which I suspect he wanted back.

He’d forgotten himself, his identity. He’d cooperated with oppressors for so long, collecting their exorbitant taxes, that he didn’t know who he was, a child of God’s promise who was blessed to be a blessing, intended to know the exquisite joy of love passing through his being.

You knew this joy and wanted it for him, Jesus. I must bless this man, this lost heart, and bring him home. The voice of the Great Love in your heart moved you to call Zacchaeus down from his tree and back to himself.

Zacchaeus is a stand-in for every one of us. His need is ours. We lose ourselves. Amnesia absorbs our hearts, and we totally forget that we are children of the Great Love who calls us home that we might become ourselves.

And that is why I must be here, and it is why you are here, for me, for every one of us. Today and every day.

Pr. David L. Miller

In your presence

As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. … Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘Lord, let me see again.’ (Luke 18:35, 40-41)

The blind man wanted to see. And I? I want to be.

I want to be in your presence, Jesus. I want to know you, your life and heart filling me with peace and gentle joy so that I need and long for nothing more … than more of you.

Come to me, you once said, and I will give you rest. Most of the time I feel not rest but restlessness, my life incomplete and unfulfilled, failing whatever hope and promise you had in me and that I once had for myself.

Accusing voices rise from dark unconscious in the wee hours, taunting and reminding me again of how little I have given and brought into this world.

I know those voices come from the evil one, the enemy of our souls, and I know that morning light will scatter the darkness and send the voices back to whatever dusty, unredeemed corner of my heart from which they rose.

I know this. I truly know this. But ... there are nights the voices still haunt me, now well into my seventh decade when there is far more of this life behind me than ahead. Nothing I have done or can do silences them, even though they are less frequent now.

And this if the core truth. I cannot stop them. But you can. And have. And will again. This I know.

What do you want? You ask me … and all of us. What do you really want?

Only this, to see you, to know you, to feel my heart always in your presence, to know this inimitable Love filling me complete so that I long and need nothing more. Than you.

Pr. David L. Miller

I want you

Jesus said to his disciples, "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; later you may eat and drink'? (Luke 17:7-8)

It is not to ease that our Lord calls us but to follow him, to share his work, his life, his heart, to see as he sees, feel what he feels and serve as he serves.

I stand among you as one who serves and gives his life as a ransom for many. Such are the words of Jesus, whose purpose and mission is to live the Everlasting Love that flows through his being.

This is the purpose of all who are fashioned in the image of the Love Who Is, the great Loving Mystery who reveals himself in Christ, the servant, who invites us to follow.

I want you with me. These are his words to you. I want to share everything I am and know and feel with you, the pain and glory, the frustration and ecstasy of loving the way that I love.

It is our privilege to follow him, to live the Love he is such as we are able, always faltering, frequently failing, constantly confronting our internal resistance to giving ourselves away in love … to someone or something that our Lord would serve through us.

He knows all this, of course, but invites us to come along anyway, sharing whatever light and joy knowing him awakens in our hearts.

It may not be easy, but being with him is worth the trouble.

Pr. David L. Miller

Our deepest need

Jesus said to his disciples, 'Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. (Luke 17:1-2)

Harsh as these words sound, listen closely and you will hear the voice of love speaking to the deep needs of our hearts to be together in a communion of blessing.

We are not made for ourselves but for each other. Independence, self-reliance, is a myth we engage when we feel the need to pretend we are or should be stronger than we can be.

But truth is written deep within and cries aloud from our first moments as we cry to be fed, to be held, to be comforted and warmed in arms that cradle our hearts as securely as our bodies. Failing this, we do not live and never thrive.

Our needs change through the years; nevertheless our lives are communal from start to our final breath. I need you, and you need me … and we each need to hold each other up lest we stumble and forget we are precious children of a Great Love.

Jesus draws us into a community, centered round the Love he is, where we each receive and share the warmth of grace which our hearts have craved since the moment of our birth.

Gathered around the warm sun of his heart, we welcome each other with open arms, honest joy and words of care.  We do not stumble but walk together in that communion of blessing, the crying need of every heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

The circle of your care

‘When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’ (Luke 12:13-14)

May your soul be large, spacious, with a place for every life you meet. Blessing lies hidden behind the eyes of every single soul you encounter. So welcome each one into the circle of your heart.

Isn’t this what you tell us, Jesus?

You invited the poor into your soul, the sick and broken, the fearful and those made lame, injured in heart and limb by the inevitable bruises that come to every life.

This is how you lived. Your soul was large, immense. There was and still is room for each of us. You welcomed the souls of those you met that each might commune with the wonder of your heart and mind.

You drew human hearts into the circle of your presence that they might shine in the warmth of divine love embracing them whole, no matter that they be poor, lame or broken by life.  

Enlarge the circle, this was your mission … and the charge you give to us. Make it bigger. Release the love in you. Let it flow and embrace the world. Look upon everything you see and everyone you meet and know it is there for you to love.

Sit in the circle of Jesus’ blessed presence until warmth stirs within and overflows the cup of your soul.

Your heart will grow large, spacious and free, and you will know … the Love he is.

Pr. David L. Miller

I choose you

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them …. (Luke 6:12-13)

Slow down, you say, Jesus. Be still. Spend this time doing nothing but being here … with me. Breathe and know I am here with you.

You need this today. Your mind, anxious about many things, jumps here and there, finding nowhere to lay your heart and rest.

I offer you this gift. Sit on the mountainside with me in the darkness that is not dark at all, for I am here and wherever I am there is the light of a Presence that will fill you with the assurance that all is well and will be well.

But you will never know this, never feel it filling your soul unless you spend time with me sharing the darkness within you, the anxious thoughts that feed your insecurity and erode your peace.

So come and share this time. Do not rush off to whatever comes next. There is nothing you need more than to be here, releasing whatever burdens you bear as you sit beside me. For I come here to pray and know the Presence of the One who can never be named, except as the Love Who Is.

From this Love, I say what I say, do what I do and choose what I choose. And I choose you.

Do you not know this? If not, be here with me a little while longer. Sit in the silence with me. Name your darkness, your sin, your fear, your need, your hope … and listen.

Listen to the silence where I speak to your heart. You will hear my voice.

I choose you … and always will.

Pr. David L. Miller

The moment of enfolding

‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks’  (Luke 12:35-36)

Joy is opening a door to that face you most want to see, the face whose smile is your smile, whose arms eagerly await the moment of enfolding you in an embrace that tells you everything your heart needs to know.

The One who is Love comes; every morning he comes and every evening he keeps silent watch over you, the beloved, whom he longs to wake to another day that you might know what is in his heart … for you.

Open the door. Open your heart. Open the protected portal of your being where you bury your wounds and hide in fear.

Pour out every need. Name every last way you have failed to live for others and betrayed your own soul because you were selfish or afraid. Release every self-judgement and the damning ways others named you that still sting.

The only one who knows you well enough to name you is this One, this blessed face who waits for you to open your deepest heart to the Love he is.

So open the door. Joy awaits you. The One who knows and loves you through and through is there, always, eager for the moment of enfolding.

He stands at the door, knocking, his great divine heart in his throat, wanting to love you with the love you have always wanted.

Open the door, a smile of holy welcome awaits you.

Pr. David L. Miller

This is life

And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ (Luke 12:15)

In the silence of my basement room, still I see the red-golden leaves, tinged brown on every edge, of the little tree on the southwest corner of the lot—and am moved.

Life is seeing, really seeing this tree in this one moment of eternity—its beauty unlike any tree that ever was or ever will be—on this October day when wind and rain threaten to rip away leaves it is not quite ready to surrender.

Hold on, little tree. Let me savor you just a little longer. True, you will be beautiful when the snows come to adorn your branches. But, for now, you witness to the Love who speaks to me in odd moments when, for reasons unknown, my soul opens to what is right in front of me.

And I know, yes, I know it is you. It is you whose smile shines from my little tree, you who are Creator of my beating heart that in more recent years has learned to love beyond what I had thought possible.

And today, I love you more … for this little tree, branches dancing in gusty-gray winds as it hangs onto the beauty it is, little knowing another beauty will surely come.

But I do. I know. The Love you most assuredly are, Holy One, will seek and delight my heart far beyond this October day, touching me on colder mornings until, ah, the wonder of another Spring I hope to see.

This, knowing you this way, dearest Friend, is life.

My joyful tears praise you in every season, knowing that little tree is my life.

Pr. David L. Miller

The place of knowing

Thursday, October 17, 2019

“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering." (Luke 11:52) 

Grant, Holy One, that I should know you and share what little I am able to understand, which is very little indeed.

But this much I know: The soul’s knowledge of you is not a pedestal from which to look down upon others, imagining one is more advanced in some way.

That is the great sin of the proudly “religious,” anxiously imagining they are “right” or somehow better than those they critique.  

There is no such advancement in me. I remain forever a beginner in this life, so often falling back on myself, failing to live and love what you have been so willing to share with me of your own divine heart.

This is why I so desperately return to this, my holy space, where you seem so pleased to meet me, and I am so blessed to know that I am always welcome, I … such as I am.

So I return and ask: Tell me again. Speak to my heart once more. Give me that knowledge that is you, and I will struggle (it’s the best I can do) to share what this heart knows, if only I can find words and ways to express the mystery that inexplicably lives in my heart.

The ways and words of others who love you have been the door though which I entered the wonder of your loving presence.

May I, too, in this time of my life, be a door through which others may enter the place of knowing.

Pr. David L. Miller