Tuesday, January 23, 2018

John 17:20-23

‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 

Beyond belief

Sometimes I don’t believe in God. I don’t need to. When I feel rapt in Love there is no believing, only knowing.

Believing is directed toward something separate, apart from who you are.  Knowing is oneness, experiencing unity with something or someone … so that something of what they are is in you.

The Loving Mystery draws us beyond belief, beyond imagining a God, a Being, a Someone out there. The Mystery who is Love embraces us in moments of life, igniting the flame of Love, giving us a heart-to-heart knowing of Love Itself.

Moments of such knowing come and pass, but what they teach endures. We come to know Love is not a thing to be believed but a Heart we know in our hearts.

Having known this Heart, we crave more moments of knowing, the ecstasy of oneness that comes in a thousand ways, the light of a sunset, clouds on the wings of the wind, a flower, a scent, a smile, a tear.

Unity in Love is the glory which Jesus shared with the Father, and it is this for which he prayed for those who follow him.

I don’t think I will ever understand exactly how the experience of oneness with Love happens to us. I know only that it is this for which we are born. It is this that the Loving Mystery wants for us. This One, this Love who is God, desires us, even as we know the fulfillment of our desire in the Love Who Is revealed in Jesus and who chooses to speak to us … in everything.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, January 22, 2018

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

Held in open hands

White clouds, islands in the stream of time, flow across the January blue of an afternoon sky, reminding me again that life must be held in open hands.

Moments pass by like clouds. No hand can grasp and hold them fast. They slip through your fingers and continue on, carried in the current of time, replaced by those that follow.

Each one is unique, each to be received with thanks as they pass through your hands and continue on, leaving marks on your soul and memories in your heart.

We cannot stop the flow, and efforts to grasp and hold only cause pain. Wisdom … and faith … is to let go, knowing the Love who is will never abandon but will come in ways you cannot receive unless you hold each precious moment of living, each blessing, with open hands and a grateful heart.

Then what has been will bless and not bring sorrow, for you will know … Love is and always will carry you in that unending stream.

St. Paul was wrong …and right.

He thought the present world would soon come to a crashing end when you returned, Holy One. His expectations proved false.

But he was right. The present form of this world is always passing away, every moment. But the Love Who Is … and which we know … does not. Love is the current, Love is the stream who carries the clouds … and us … to grace unknown.

Trust and know.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, January 15, 2018

Romans 2:24-25

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes^* for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Saved by hope

Life-changing lessons must be relearned again and again. At least it seems so for me. And often, my teachers are those I go to help. They frequently turn the tables on me.

I recently visited a woman who has endured chronic, debilitating illness, physical and emotional suffering, and threats to her life from armed political forces which forced her to flee her country and come to the United States.

Middle aged, she may or may not ever walk well again. Debilitating medical conditions will be with her as long as she lives and will slowly strip of her of physical function during the next decades of her life.

But she is not worried about this. Nor does she seem to obsess about how much … or how slowly … she might improve through physical therapy.

I visited expecting we would discuss anxieties about the future or frustration over not yet being able to return home after surgery. But we spent almost no time on such things.

We talked about the future, of her hope to be useful, to teach others Spanish, her native tongue. We discussed her hope for her daughter and made plans to help those hopes happen, and finally we talked of her desire to give back to this country, knowing she will never be able to pay back as much as she’s received.

Her life and moods are controlled by her hope, not by her past or what she has lost. She is saved by hope. So are we.

Hope pulls us forward toward the goodness of what will yet come, of what we may yet give, of the joy that is yet to be.

Without this, we fall to the temptation, obsessing over what has been lost, or what might never be, or wallow in understandable sadness. It’s an obsession that sucks the joy and vitality from living.

I left her room realizing I forget to ask a question ... of myself and of those I serve: What are your hopes?

Hope saves us from ourselves, from obsession of what is lost, what we have suffered and the feelings of the moment. Hope opens our hearts to the future of what God will yet do in and through us.

Hope trusts the goodness of the One who gives us life each new morning. Hope says, “Yes, I’m on my way. God’s way for me. So let I be.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday December 31, 2017

Luke 2:30

 … for my eyes have seen your salvation …

Salvation

Thank you for eyes that see and a heart that feels much more than my words can say.

A lifetime is not nearly enough to find just the right words, with just the right sound. I struggle and long for words that resonate in the soul’s deepest chamber to speak the Love I see and know, the Love I feel … that I might give adequate praise to you.

I look upon all of Love’s creations, especially the lowliness of this peasant’s child, and I know who you are and what you think of us.

Taking our human form, you come to us that we might see your kindness and throw away our fears. I see his face, and salvation fills my heart; the Love you are fills me and we are one. There is no distance between us.

This is salvation … to dwell in union, oneness with you, where the Love you are fills me and leaves me with no words to speak, only tears of gratitude and a joy like no other.

I am speechless, and I feel your smile. For this is what you want me see and know and feel. This is why you come in a peasant’s child.

And this is why you invite me into the woods on cold winter days to watch the December sun set through the limbs of barren trees and feel the beauty of it all … and be saved once again.

You are the Love who comes and speaks in … everything … that we may hear and see and be saved. Every day.

There is so much more to say, but for now maybe two words are enough. Thank you … for eyes that see and a heart that feels salvation.

Pr. David L. Miller 

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Luke 2:36-38

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. 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.

New day

Praise to you for snow that blows and glistening white mornings. Praise to you for the sun, bright with promise in the endless blue. Praise for the joy of walking a winter path that leads always to you.

Praise for the new day kissed with light and for the joy of basking in sun spots that warm the heart with knowing … you.

This is a day for praise. Today, we know the joy of seeing the child of your favor.

Anna sees and praises. She raises her old lady voice and looks across the centuries, lifting her arms to direct our song of wonder and hope, of love and praise for the God who comes to favor us.

We need to praise more than anything else. The world is too much with us, in us, on us. Our hearts become laden with troubles near and far.

But the child of God’s favor has come. He breaks every power of sorrow or fear that would steal our joy. So surrender every trouble and worry to him. Lift your head, raise your arms to sky and join Anna’s song.

This is the song of saints and angels, the song of every soul who has ached to know the Love for which they were born. It is a song of laughter and unbridled happiness.

“Do not fear. Do not fear,” It goes. "Love is your day and Love your future. Love is your present and Love the light of each tomorrow.”

The child of God’s favor shines with the light of a new day that shall not end. Ever.

So lift your heart and join the song of the blessed. Your praise will chase away every sorrow. Your joy will crush the worries that bind you. Your voice will cast out demons of doubt and fear.

And all that will remain is the joy of basking in the light of a new day.  

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, December 29, 2017

Luke 2:21

After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

The name

I love to hear my name when spoken by someone who loves and respects me. I turn immediately and pay attention, wanting to with be them. I hear what I need in the sound of their voice, and I am eager to respond to what they need from me.

I also hear what I need—the Voice of Love—in the name given to our Lord, “Jesus.”

Names have meaning, and Jesus means, “God saves.” Speak this name in every moment of need. Hear his name in the deepest well of your soul where your hopes, fears and hurts all come together, and know … God saves.

God saves not once upon a time, but here and now every time we repeat the name and feel the mystery of his presence.

God saves every time we look upon the beauty of the earth and know gratitude for life and breath, filled with the privilege of seeing and sharing this life with others and the wonders of creation.

God saves every time we hear a voice speak our name with love and respect, for there, too, Love speaks to remind us that we are beloved by the One whose name we should speak in every moment of joy, hurt, crisis or want.

Jesus … God saves.

Use his name with greatest love and with hope in your heart. His name opens our future and lets us release the weights we carry. Jesus, God saves and will save us every time we call, filling and lifting our hearts so that we need not be crushed beneath past hurts or present fears.  

Perhaps his name should be our prayer … our only prayer. Repeated again and again, silently in our minds or whispered on the breath, we feel and know the Love he is and are carried into a place of peace.

He wants to hear his name on our lips … even more than I like to hear my own.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

John 1:9

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

Christmas Day

And this is how I see you … on a cold Christmas Day.

My feet find their way again to Feather Sound. Mid-afternoon sun lights white as crystal on the snowy path. My boots crunch through the crust.

Golden glare assaults my eyes from the pond’s frozen face as the sun, low on winter’s horizon, makes it way west, soon to settle behind the trees, completing its daily journey. But here, I pause.

Years have brought me to this place, to this pier on a shallow pond where I squint into the shimmering brilliance to see light coming into the world, warming my chest with a Love the bitter wind cannot chill.

The brightness may burn my eyes ‘til I’m blind. But I cannot look away. Never. And even blind I would see and know you, the Light who comes in every light and love—and most certainly in the face we see each Christmas day.

Laughter is my praise to you, laughter in the cold wind as I lift gloved hands to sky.

Thank you. Just thank you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 18, 2017

Luke 1:26-31

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 

The whole message

Who do you love? In the stories of Christmas the heart is overwhelmed because there are so many to love.

Gabriel, the angelic messenger to Mary, gets short attention in the story, but today … I see him. I feel him. I love him. Maybe I am him.

He stoops, craning his neck to look up into Mary’s eyes; her face is bent to the ground. His eyes seeks hers for she is troubled and confused, just like all the rest of us.

He wants to assure her that there is nothing to fear. … that the Great Love who always was and always will be favors her.

“Do not fear,” he says. “God delights in you. Out of all the women in the world you will bear the life who is Life, the love who is Love into this world.”

Tenderness flows through his soul for this young woman. He knows only love for Mary, for he is Love’s own messenger. He has one desire: “Mary, please believe. Please trust that Love has chosen you. Know that Love now grows within you.”

Gabriel’s pleading speaks the heart of the Love who chooses Mary … and each of us. Every one of us.

The angelic messenger cranes his neck. He bends to look you in the eye. He has only one message. “Please trust. Please know. The Heart of Love comes to live in you.”

“There is nothing to fear. Not again. Not ever.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 11, 2017

Isaiah 40:6-8

A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
   And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All people are grass,
   their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
   when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
   surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
   but the word of our God will stand for ever.

The grace of failure

I almost succeeded yesterday. I gave voice to the grace that is in me.

It is not my grace, but the grace of the One who is the Loving Mystery we have long labeled God. The word God, for me, gets in the way most of the time. I just know this Unspeakable One as Mystery and as Love who comes and flows through me and so many … and in so many places.

I seldom succeed to bring the Voice of Grace to the fullest expression, such as I am able. I usually stumble around and know how short I fall.

But yesterday I came close, or as close as I can come to speak the truth I know within.

But even this success falls woefully short. For the grace who comes and flows in us is eternal and steadfast. It does not waver. It is beyond every human capacity to express in word and act.

But it does not matter. For it is better to have struggled and failed at grace than to have succeeded in anything less.

Expressing the grace of God is our essential human endeavor. It is this that makes us human.

We always fall short. But our failures always bring us back to the wonder of grace who smiles at our every attempt to speak what can never be spoken.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Mark 1:7

John [the Baptist] proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 

The God who comes

Morning comes. I dress and stumble down the stairs. I put on my boots, a coat and hat and go for a walk. I walk two or three miles, setting a pace that takes me to a small pond, Feather Sound, in time to see the sunrise.

I need to feel the sun on my face. It stirs the joy of being part ... a tiny part ... of a universe where this wonder happens every day. The Love, the Mystery, from whom creation comes fills me and makes me feel alive, filled with hope for the new day.

Some days I do not walk. I go to my basement office, pour coffee beans in the grinder and make a pot of strong brew, steaming and black. I light the candle on my desk and turn on the computer.

I look at few verses from the Bible and listen to whatever thoughts and feelings come. Then I sit at the keyboard and write. And God comes ... at the tip of my fingers, as I write whatever hurts and hopes and joys are in me.

God comes. This is the message of Advent.

God came as the infant, Jesus, in Mary’s arms. That’s why we celebrate Christmas. But God is coming to us every moment because that is the way God is. God is Love and Love always hungers for the beloved, for us. God hungers to enfold us and fill us with the Love that awakens true joy.  

God comes whether we are seeking God or not. God comes when we have done everything wrong. God comes when we are confused and the word ‘God’ has lost all meaning for us. God comes when the very thought of God brings anger because of sorrow or disappointment. God comes when our days grow short and our hearts are broken.

God is always coming to us in utter love to comfort and care, to fill the emptiness with the love God is.

So do whatever you can to clear away the things that stop the flow of God’s love and life in you. Take a walk. Light a candle. Call your mother ... or an old friend.  Pray for someone on the news. Listen to music that opens your heart. Greet the strangers on the street. They’ll wonder what you’re up to. Sit in silence by the lights of your tree. Give a gift to someone in need. Make it generous.

Because Christ is coming. He comes wherever you are ... with comfort and care. Be ready to receive him.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Isaiah 40:3-5

A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and every mountain and hill be made low; and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ 

Coming home

There is wilderness without and within.

Wilderness is a trackless wasteland, a desert where the sky is always blue and a merciless sun scorches the rocks pale beige. A year can pass before a few drops of rain fall. It was through this that exiled Israel passed to return home from Babylon.

But there is also a more confusing wilderness, the twisted landscape of the human heart with all its conflicting emotions and the desires we imagine will lead to the joy for which we long. How to live? Which impulses and insights lead home?

For it is home that we want, home that we need. And home is to be in the Lord, in the Love who alone fills the soul. Home is to be filled with this Love so that we are one with this Mysterious One for whom we long.

But how are we to prepare a way, leveling the mountains and raising the ravines that get in the way of our journey back into the arms of the One Love who first sent us out on this earthly trek where we got lost?

And we get lost all the time.

All of life is a journey in search of home. But where is it, and how do we get there? The voice calls in our wilderness, “Prepare.” But how?

Maybe confusion and longing are the path. Maybe the way home is to admit to ourselves and each other that we do not know the way, that we need fellow travelers who accept our confusion and neediness because they, too, are struggling to find their way.

Maybe it is then that Love finds a space to breathe in us, and we realize home is closer than we thought.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Mark 1:7-8

John [the Baptist] proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

He is coming

There is no shortage of expectation as Christmas draws near. The sources are too many and too obvious to name: presents, parties, time with family and friends, the arrival of faces we see too seldom.

Tears are closer this time of year, too. Colored lights and old, familiar songs stir memories and moisten eyes. Longings long buried bubble to the surface in unexpected moments even as we dismiss them as ‘just something in my eye.’

That’s a lie, of course. It something in our soul. No, it is our soul calling us home to ourselves and to a Love much greater than we can ever fully know.

So listen to the voice of your longing. Welcome the ache of yearning. Let it wound you, for only then do you realize you were made for much more than you imagined.

You were made to know a Spirit Most Holy bathing your restless heart in peace until quiet knowing fills you and silences every anxious voice within.

He is coming. He is always coming, as near the voice of your longing.

So name the ache inside. Speak the desire of your heart. Cry out with joy when delight fills you at the wonder of feeling alive and loved. Pour out your hunger for a Love that seems always beyond your reach.

It is not. For he is the longing, the tear, the expectation, the joy, the peace and the unrest that refuses to let you settle for anything less than the Love he is.

And there never has been a moment … nor ever shall be … when he is not coming to you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Luke 21: 34

'Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly.

The eternal smile

Morning comes, and I feel you within, so deeply. ‘Come closer,’ you say without speaking a word. ‘Sit here with me and feel the Love that cures the longing deep within you. I Am that Love.

‘Rest with me for a while, and my smile will fill you with quiet joy and peace. You will know me and remember who you really are.

‘For you are the Love that flows in your tears and echoes in your laughter when your heart is full. You are the smile that fills every part of you when you know and feel me within. Don't ever forget the beauty I Am in you.

‘Release every worry about money and budgets, about work and time. Forget the opinions and judgments others cast on you. Let go of the rejections and wounds you suffer. The noise of their voices drowns out your deepest self, the Love I Am and long to be in you.

‘Return here to sit with me whenever you get lost and forget who you are. For I am everything you need. I am the smile of Eternal Love that is your freedom, your joy and peace that passes all understanding.

‘When you know me … the Love I Am in your secret depths … my smiles will fill you and you will have what you need for this and every day.’

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, November 24, 2017

Revelation 21:6

Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 

Thanksgiving redux

More than the past, the future most moves me, hopes unrealized, joys yet to be, a me I know is there but is not yet despite 65 years.

I walk among the trees, drawn to water, a stream, as if to drink with the creatures who shyly emerge from the brush. This day the stream is high, the current swift. Rocks in its course divide it into three cold, silver currents that merge into one a few yards downstream.

The sun repeats itself in the silver flow as the stream continues south among the trees, disappearing from sight while the creatures and I refresh ourselves with living water.

Why is it that you speak to me in such places? I cannot make it happen.

There is a place in me to which only you have access. My boots made the bend toward the bridge, and hope, honest hope filled me, rising from a place deep within, beyond the reach of mind and will.

I felt a future I cannot see and tasted tears of a joy, knowing it will be fulfilled.

I know: The day will come when I will be more of what I am, that is … of what you are in me, this Love, this joy, this wonder that you and I are one and always have been.

This day is set aside for remembering and knowing the gratitude of love fulfilled, of promises realized, of graces given and received. There are and have been many.

But the silver current and a house full of laughing grandsons turn my mind from the past.

Joy is now, and this heart will yet find itself full and complete in the Love who finds me and speaks in living water that flows on.

Pr. David L. Miller

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Psalm 65:8

Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy. 

Face the light

Give us songs of praise that speak what is in our hearts, Holy One. For only songs can say what our hearts know: The goodness of love, the beauty of earth, the joy of watching the curve of the sun appear, a sliver of light above the dark waters and purple horizon.

The reeds and bearded grass light gold in the early glow as the great circle of fire rises, half now above its eastern shore.

‘Ah,’ I say, ‘you let it out again.’ The sun that is.

Caged, it was in the darkness until you opened the gate sent it here to me, one more day, one more blessed day to know the blessing of life and love, of joy and hope, of work that lets my heart come from its hiding to be itself, the love you made me to be.

Two words: Thank you. Just, thank you.

Let the morning praise you. Let everything that has breath face the light and see its rising that every face may be warmed by the Love you are. Maybe then we can sing your praise … together … knowing no fear, only the truth of a Love that rises new … every day.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 13, 2017

Psalm 33:6

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

   and all their host by the breath of his mouth. 

Breathe

I come to this space to see the deer … and breathe. The deer refuse their Sunday afternoon appointment with me this rainy day, so I breathe the air, fragrant with fallen leaves I shuffle through just as when I was a child.

Leaves delight, rust and red, gold and yellow, green ones that fell before the Artist could paint them. But they, too, contribute to the kaleidoscope of color rustling around my boots scuffling on the cinder path.

The earth is covered, coated complete with leaves that once hid the sun in this place even on brightest days. Today is pale gray, inspiring no rapture. The low sky stretches beyond bare limbs to the far horizon, telling me that I enter a future I cannot see or even imagine.

I will leave that future to the One who knows and loves me better than I can possibly understand.

Today, it is the leaves that awaken the heart. Millions of them … billions … blanket the ground, covering everything, their glory fading in the drear drizzle.

But their fate brings little sadness. Creation’s Author breathes out color and light and draws it back in again, only to breathe life into all that is from what has fallen.

I stand here, hoping the deer might join me, yet with every breath receiving the gift no mortal can make.

I am here … breathing. I belong, part of the breathing of God who invites me here … to know … and breathe.

So just breathe … and know.

Pr. David L. Miller

Saturday, November 12, 2017

Psalm 90:14

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
   so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

November dawn

Cold November dawns deep blue and purple on Feather Sound. What yesterday glistened gold, the rapture of autumn reflecting on the water’s face, has become a harbinger of what is soon to come. One day, everything changes. The season of falling loses its luster as winter descends.

But even here is hope as clouds part, and a thin shaft of light pierces the low purple shrouding this stop on my morning journey. Then, another ray, narrower still, appears through a break in the gloom to light the glassy surface by reeds and cattails, coated with frost, rustling stiff in the breeze.

I stop to watch the play of water and light, expecting or at least hoping the light will excite a moment of joy and knowing ... and salve wounds the decades don’t heal.

The light is enough, just enough, to flicker warmth within and let me know that Love brought this into being and Love wants me even when I feel utterly lost and alone, wondering where I am going and what will be, having no clue, at least none I want to accept.

The two narrow streams of light flow from the heavens and transform the sound. The horizon disappears. My eyes cannot find where water ends and sky begins.

The pond, dark and smooth as glass, seamlessly reflects the purple and mottled blues of lumpy cumulus, pierced by November dawn. The water now an artist’s canvas catches every shade and hue, capturing each contour of cloud awakening an old hope.

Earth and sky are one. So maybe I, too, can know oneness with the One who makes such mornings and paints the day with the colors of love and hope. Maybe then my heart and life will be as seamlessly one as water and sky.

Maybe here the heart of Jesus reaches to heal what nothing else can. Maybe he has been waiting for me here all along, waiting to share November dawn. Maybe it is a voice more holy than my own that whispers, “Just stand here.”

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, November 6, 2017

Revelation 7:9-10

 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ 

Standing

I saw my father yesterday. It was remarkable since he died in late September 2003. But I saw him clearly and full of life.

He wore those rimless spectacles that were so common in the 1940s and a blue shirt open at the collar. A wave of his still-black hair curled and fell across his forehead as it did in the years before it thinned out.

He was no longer weak, in bed, his legs and body wasted from polio, calling for my mother because he was dying and couldn’t stand to be alone.

He was young. It was still those years before my sister and I were born, years I know only from weathered photos. But there he was … standing, among a great crowd, looking surprised at the commotion of ecstatic joy surrounding him.

He tried to join whatever it was they were singing, his soft bass voice stronger than in the years it was barely a whisper for the damage disease had done to his lungs. But now he sang, startled by the sound of his own voice, startled to be there ... free from everything that had bound him.

And I saw him, my All Saints gift, standing again as once he had, his sorrow long gone, the distance between us no longer great. Then I stood, with him, and sang of a Love that will not let us go.

Pr. David L. Miller