One little girl

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:4-6)

One little girl

She was five, as close as I could tell, but I am not a good guesser about such things. She sat on the concrete walk by a Spanish river as adults sipped wine at outdoor cafes long into the evening.

A cascade of jet black hair, full and free, fell across on her shoulders and nearly half-way down her back. Her attention fixed on the doll she held in front of her face. Eye-eye with her baby, she carried on a spirited conversation in a language I do not understand.

She never looked up at me. I doubt she ever realized I was standing there, less than 10 feet away, transfixed by her beauty. My existence was irrelevant to her.

I raised my camera to capture her, but immediately changed my mind and slowly lowered it, knowing I had almost committed sacrilege, breaking the trance of total trust and innocence, perhaps introducing fear into a beautiful heart absorbed in the joy of this single moment.

She was free. Anxiety had no place. It was banished. All that existed was her, her doll and whatever point of conversation moved her to hug companion to her heart a couple of times.

Her image comes back to me today, sharper than any photo I might have taken.

Although she never said a word to me, she speaks of the life that could be mine … and on some days actually is mine, a life where every fear evaporates in the warmth of knowing Love, where all that matters is being in the moment, eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, with the Love who speaks wisdom through little girls … in a world aflame with God.

Pr. David L. Miller

Real peace

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

Real peace

Peace, one word for which there appears no definition. Not of real peace that is so much more than the absence of conflict.

Peace is not an inside job. You cannot give it to yourself. You can strive for it, but when it comes you know it is a gift you’ve been granted by a Source you neither control nor begin to understand. It is a gift from beyond that one knows ever-so personally within.

Even now.

The breezeway beckoned this morning. Early morning sun slanted through the bushes and iron grates that frame this sanctuary, making a mottled light, golden patches and gentle shade dappled across the padded arm chairs and concrete floor.

The light warm, yet requiring loose sleeves for comfort, led to the chair and book, the coffee and quiet, to sit and know that I am within, not just here but everywhere, within the compass, encompassed everywhere, inside a Love that beckons me here that I might know … and know that this knowing is all I will ever need to live the life of blessing and being blessed that my heart wants beyond all else.

There are so many people I want to bless so that they know … what I know … here, in this light.

Peace, it seems, is about being within … and knowing it. It is not something produced or arising from deepest soul, but the ultimate well-being, the blessed and holy quiet the soul knows when it steps into the awareness of reality, which is not what we usually imagine that it is.

Reality is the Love who meets us in every love. Reality is the Love who speaks in dappled light, beckoning us to know, always, “I am with you and I will never let you go.”

Reality is the Love in whom we find our peace.

Pr. David L. Miller

Sanctuary

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

   beholding your power and glory. 
 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
   my lips will praise you. 
 So I will bless you as long as I live;
   I will lift up my hands and call on your name. (Psalm, 63:2-4)

Ronnie fell into my arms as we both wept tears of sorrow. We’d just laid his beloved Peggy to rest the previous week. He’d lost his partner of 65 years, wondering how he could ever go on.

Now, here he was, lumbering up the communion line to the front of the sanctuary, cane in hand, his miserable hip giving him pain with every step.

At the front, I wrapped the bread in the linen in which I held it so I could wrap him in my arms. The moment, the place, the intimacy of sharing the bread of life, provided a container, a holy vessel, where the bubbling cauldron of emotions we shared could spill out and be held in loving reverence.

Everyone present would understand even if they knew nothing of what Ronnie has just gone through.

For we were gathered in a sanctuary expansive and gracious enough to hold us and everything that is in us—pain, sorrow, confusion, hope, joy and especially love, great love that needed tears not words that could be shared in a place where they would be honored and considered holy.

This was the moment and this the place big enough, safe enough, gracious enough where great sorrow and great love could meet and be transposed into an even higher key where love shared becomes the Love who holds and heals every wound of ours.

This is Holy Communion where hearts shared know the Heart who shares everything truly good and loving with us.

Where else does this happen? Where else can it happen? In this cynical world, what other space—except maybe a 12-step recovery group—invites our vulnerability, offering sanctuary to our tears where great love and hope can be shared unashamed?

The sanctuary that held us was not a room but a people who gather to receive a grace and be made into grace that they might become the human beings they were always intended be and, at our best, that we actually want to be.

For a moment we were those people, Ronnie and me, and everyone present and looking on, too. We knew the Love who gathered us that we might finally become ourselves.

Pr. David L. Miller

The Shepherd's voice

[T]he sheep follow [the shepherd] because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ (John 10:4-5)

The Shepherd’s voice

The shepherd’s voice resonates deep within us. We recognize the voice for it is the voice of a great and unsurpassable Love, a Love we know because our souls are made in Love’s image.

Soul, a word so impossible to define, is the presence of this Love within the human being, longing for communion with its unlimited Source. Only so, do we know ultimate safety and peace and freedom to be whatever it is we truly are.

The soul hears and recognizes the Love who is its Source in all that is born of Love—in kindness, in sacrificial acts of care, in heartfelt service, in true friendship, in those who carry on in hope when life is most difficult.

The voice of the shepherd is heard in all of this and more. Each such sounding of Love in our soul in some measure fills and fulfills our hearts, unless we have succumbed to the illusions of the world that suggest fulfillment is about personal victory and getting more than others.

Our souls are made by and for the Love who is creation’s Source. We can and do forget this. All of us do, and some never know.

There are those so abused or simply denied the Love the soul craves that they cannot hear or trust the deepest cry of their own hearts to know Love’s care and presence. Something must break through the hard crust around their souls before they know the beauty of their own creation and the One who seeks them in every love that comes their way.

For it is true: The Shepherd, the Christ, speaks in every love crying out for our souls. Love calls for the beloved. Calling us home.

Listen, just listen. Love seeks you. Everywhere.

Pr. David L. Miller

To know

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30)

To know

My soul grows quiet as Jesus surrenders his spirit to the Father. Tears form as he shows me how to live and die … and how truly safe I am.

He hands himself over to the Extraordinary Love who has animated him from the very beginning of his days. He knows that in death he will enter the fullness of this Love, whom he has trusted all along.

There is nothing new here. This is the culmination of what has always been. He handed himself over to this Love long before this moment. He has known this Mystery in his own heart, throughout his days.

So there is no panic amid his horrid end, no anxious fight for one more breath. There is only trust in the Love whom he has always know is always there.

He releases himself into the eternal mystery of Eternal and Everlasting Love who has filled his heart from the very start.

And for this, I say, Thank you, my brother. Thank you for showing me what I so often fail to trust.

You show me the way of living and dying, the way of trusting this Love who calls each of us and everything into being.

Handing over your spirit, you bid me to release myself, everything that I am, trusting Extraordinary Love will catch and hold me in every circumstance of life … and at life’s end, which is not the end at all.  

You want me to know the Love you know, the Love you are. 

And watching you, I know, more than ever.

Pr. David L. Miller 

The Truth he is

Saturday, April 20, 2019

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30)

To know

My soul grows quiet as Jesus surrenders his spirit to the Father. Tears form as he shows me how to live and die … and how truly safe I am.

He hands himself over to the Extraordinary Love who has animated him from the very beginning of his days. He knows that in death he will enter the fullness of this Love, whom he has trusted all along.

There is nothing new here. This is the culmination of what has always been. He handed himself over to this Love long before this moment. He has known this Mystery in his own heart, throughout his days.

So there is no panic amid his horrid end, no anxious fight for one more breath. There is only trust in the Love whom he has always know is always there.

He releases himself into the eternal mystery of Eternal and Everlasting Love who has filled his heart from the very start.

And for this, I say, Thank you, my brother. Thank you for showing me what I so often fail to trust.

You show me the way of living and dying, the way of trusting this Love who calls each of us and everything into being.

Handing over your spirit, you bid me to release myself, everything that I am, trusting Extraordinary Love will catch and hold me in every circumstance of life … and at life’s end, which is not the end at all.  

You want me to know the Love you know, the Love you are. 

And watching you, I know, more than ever.

Pr. David L. Miller 

Watch his hands

 Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God,⁴got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. (John 13:1b-5)

Watch his hands

Jesus takes off his outer robe, picks up a towel, ties it around his waist, lifts a pitcher and pours water in a basin and motions for his friends to sit by him.

Watch his hands. He touches and washes their feet, placing a heel in his palm and pouring water over each foot. He washes one, then another and another, until he has washed all of them, even Peter, even Judas, even those who will run away. He humbly does what only slaves could be required to do.

The moment is intense, intimate; words fall away. The only sound is the drip of water into a bowl. Jesus gives himself to his friends, lest they forget the love that pours from the Father through him and onto them.

Jesus’ hands tell us what he is doing as he allows himself to be taken and crucified. He is bathing us in a great love that makes our hearts new.

He is washing away the weight of shame and guilt, regret and sorrow, loneliness and despair. He is seeking every lost corner of our hearts where we imagine we are abandoned or of little worth.

He immerses us in an ocean of Love that we may feel the freedom of being saved and experience the radiant Spirit of Life and Love filling us.

He tells us to break bread together and wash each feet not so that we might remember him, but so we can experience him here and now, a present reality, touching us, entering our bodies, caressing and consoling our hearts with the warmth of infinite love.

In the intimate, tender acts of touching and breaking bread we share the union, the oneness, the closeness, Jesus shares with the heavenly Father that our hearts my know, truly know, the healing Presence for which we long.

Pr. David L. Miller

A Prayer for Notre Dame

A Prayer for Notre Dame

Loving God, in every age you have moved your people to acts of great reverence and devotion, stirring the hearts of the faithful to create music, art and symbols of beauty that have stirred the longings and prayers of countless millions. 

Look with mercy on the burnt embers of Notre Dame Cathedral where countless souls have been moved to prayer, praise and to seek you whom no human walls can contain. Console the people of France and Paris for whom the cathedral's beauty and noble spires have been a symbol of faith, pride and national identity. 

Send the Spirit of your love to all who mourn the immensity of this loss, and unite the hearts of all the faithful on this holiest of weeks that knowing your love we may trust ever-more greatly in you, who bring life from death and hope from the flames of destruction, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Pr David L. Miller

Tragedy to triumph

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,

   and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
   and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
   and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)

Tragedy to triumph

We stand on the brink of Holy Week when unholy things will occur. They occur every week, but this is the week when we consider the great tragedy of the human heart and history.

The gift of God’s own presence is refused and killed, hung on a cross. This is the rejection of the Love the human heart most needs, but most fears.

Fears? Yes, because receiving the Love who is our Source not only gives joy but moves us beyond ourselves in acts of great care. Knowing the Love Who Is carries us beyond our comfort zone. It asks us transform the world by caring for those who are difficult for us, forgiving what we don’t want to forgive and loving this world even when it is most unlovely.  

It coaxes us to release our delusional grasp on our futures and trust that Love, after all, is enough to hold and give us what we need in the great unknown that stretches before us.

This week, we watch Jesus pour himself out to death, receiving the brutality of those who do not want the world or themselves to be transformed by Love. He bears their abuse, refusing to pay back evil for evil, even praying for those who do not understand that they are trying to kill the very Love they most need.

But they cannot, of course. For the week that witnesses the great folly of the human race ends in startled wonder, as we see once more that Love, indeed, is stronger than every death that has ever been. 

Seeing this, our hearts will fill with life once more.

Pr. David L. Miller

Gentle Rider

Then they brought [the colt] to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! (Luke 19:35-38)

Gentle rider

Jesus knew exactly what he was doing when he mounted the colt and rode it into the Kidron Valley on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He was fulfilling God’s promise of the Messiah:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  (Zechariah 9:9).

He looked gentle, but his act was a threat to the Romans who occupied the city and to the authorities who ran the temple.

For the gentle rider on his colt was claiming to be the Messiah, which means “Anointed One,” who judges and shepherds the nations, brings light to those in darkness and mercy to the poor and oppressed.

The Messiah would command peace to the nations and break the instruments of battle into pieces.

Of course, this king will be rejected. We know how he was arrested, condemned and brutally executed. But we also know that the life that was in him could not be killed but rose again. The peace he proclaimed, the mercy he poured out, the care and justice he embodied has ruled the hearts of those who name him Lord and changed the entire course of history.

All the armies that have marched and navies that have sailed don’t begin to match the power of this Jesus, who still commands and makes peace flow from the hearts of those who know him.

And he will, until the day his peace covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Pr. David L. Miller

In your hands

But I trust in you, O Lord;

   I say, ‘You are my God.’ 
My times are in your hand;
   deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. 
Let your face shine upon your servant;
   save me in your steadfast love. (Psalm 31:14-16)

In your hands

To know salvation is to know a great and enveloping love surrounding, holding and filling you. It is to such everlasting love that the heart cries out and confidently declares, “My times are in your hand.”

Every hour of every day, past, present and future … “in your hands.”

I wrote a sermon using this phrase years ago when studying for pastoral ministry. Our professor assigned the task of writing a funeral sermon. I chose this text and wrote a funeral sermon … for my father, who was still alive at that time.

But he was failing. His health failed for years as post-polio syndrome wore him down to a crumpled, frail shadow of a man, whom I still love greatly as my tears attest. A small photo of the two of us is on my desk, right in front of me as I write.

I thought of my father’s days as I wrote that sermon years ago, a few lines of which I used when Dad finally passed. His days were bright until 29 when polio struck him down in a single day. All the days that followed, until we laid him to rest on a hillside outside our little town, were marked with more struggle than most ever endure.

At the end, when all strength had failed and the loneliness of dying weighed heavily on his heart, I marked his head with the sign of the cross and assured him that he rested in the arms of an everlasting mercy … who held every moment of every day he’d ever lived.

I wanted for him what I want for myself and every soul I have ever counseled, consoled or comforted: Know this, precious heart, everything you are, everything you lost along the way, everything you suffered and every joy that sparkled in your eyes—all of it—rests in the hands of an everlasting love. Now and forever.

Pr. David L. Miller

Great souls & rainbows

But while [the prodigal] was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:20)

Great souls & rainbows 

We are called to greatness, everyone one of us, and every one of us can be great regardless of status or station, age or health, learning or lack.

True human greatness has nothing to do with how much money you make, how large your house is or how important others think you are. In fact, health and wealth can be the greatest obstacles.

The Spirit within our spirit draws us toward becoming magnanimous … great souls, which is the most literal sense of the word.

Great souls are large and embracing. They welcome life in its fullness, eager to love every moment, to see good and grace, beauty and wonder on days others merely slog through. They receive each day, however mundane, as a gift of grace in which something special will happen, something that will touch and fill your heart.

Great souls are expansive, with room for others to be themselves, and they are full of blessing. Having savored much of life’s fullness, they have much to give. They are rainbows in the gray skies of other lives, finding joy in every act and word of blessing they share.

The father of the prodigal son runs to greet his wayward child when he returns home from wasting his life. The old man enfolds him in his arms and holds him near.

This is a great soul, an embracing heart who has long ached for the moment of return when sadness becomes ecstasy to be shared in exultation with everyone near. The beloved has come home where he can touch and bless and let him know how precious he is … and always will be.

The father is the image of who God is … and of what we are to become. Becoming like the father, a great soul, is the final stage of spiritual growth. It takes a lifetime of love and longing, giving and receiving, enduring pain and disappointment … and believing that love never ends and is all that truly matters.

Pr. David L. Miller

Coming home

But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father … (Luke 15:17-18a)

Coming home

It is to myself that you call me, dear Friend. And I return, home.

It is not a place, although this place of quiet is especially blessed to me, and I pray it will always be: a desk littered with papers, books partially read, notes for articles yet to be written, a red candle (of course), and the chant of gentle voices across the room.

This is the place of retreat where I come to find you … or shall I say where you find me … and take me home?

Love … is my home, which is to say you, my Lord, for what are you if not this Love that aches in me until I come here to be with you, alone?

You call me to come back to myself, to release all pretension, all effort, all striving and know one thing … this Love, you, who dwell within.

Life is a prodigal journey where we get lost. We lose ourselves, wasting ourselves, our years and talents, expending vast amounts of energy trying (much too hard) to be something other than what we are, something we imagine others require or demand or expect of us.

Being what we are not, we live far from the center of our souls, far from the deep, inner connection with the mystery of our own identity and the mystery of your indwelling. These two are one and the same. For what are we if not expressions of you who are Love, each so unique and precious?

To find love within is to find you. To feel the ache of love and the ache for love is to know you. To discover something that gives joy and frees you to give a piece of your heart back to this world … this is what it means to come to yourself, to remember and feel who you truly are and know: Love, this Holy Mystery living through the particular shape of your life.

Find what fills your heart and frees you to touch the world with grace. Let go of the delusion that you need to do or be anything else. You will know yourself … and the Love who lives in you … in the very same moment.

Love will take you home.

Pr. David L. Miller

Who you are

The father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” (Luke 15:22-24)

Who you are

Anyone who has ever lost a child in a shopping mall understands the heart of God.

Sorting through a rack of clothes, you look down, and a cold, hollow chill twists your stomach. Turning one way, then another, she is not there. Feverish, you rush down one aisle and up another. Where did she go? She was here a moment ago. Is she still in the store? Did she run into the mall?

Dark fears race through the mind and a wave of nausea sickens, as you turn wildly about, looking. Until. Until you hear the sing-song of a tiny voice and see the curve of a familiar cheek, or perhaps you hear her tearful lament as she cannot find you, and you fly to enfold her in your arms, a tear of relief in your eye because the lost is found. 

Fear evaporates … for both of you … as you stroke her hair and cradle her close. “Where were you? I didn’t know where you were. You scared me.”

The words are not spoken in anger but in love, joy and relief, and you return to your shopping but shaken, promising yourself you will never turn away again.

Hold this moment. Listen to everything it has to teach. For in this moment, you know who God is; you know the Love you are created to enjoy, the Love to whom you can return every time you feel lost or alone, empty or afraid.

You are a child of a Great Love who longs for your nearness. This Love is your home, a home from which we wander like the prodigal son, creating pain in our hearts and in the heart of God.

Every day should end with a few quiet moments alone with God, reconnecting with your home that you may remember who you are … and rest in the Love who hungers for you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Better than life

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. (Psalm 63:2-3)

Better than life

Grant us spacious places, Holy One,

where our hearts roam free,

where the chattering mind

quiets, where consciousness is but

a blank, an empty screen, calm,

waiting for thought, image, emotion

to appear from hidden depths, telling

us what is deep within, waiting,

eager to be born, to live, in us, inviting

us to know the joy of being

who we truly are, expressions

of your holy love, given

to earth that Love may live,

that Beauty may shine, breathing

life through our lives, always

more precious than we know.

Each one, every one, unique, appointed

for a holy purpose, to speak, to shine

with the Love who is better than life.

Go now, into your day, every day

knowing the Love you seek … seeks

you. Earth and stars, the sanctuary

of the Illimitable, bid you open

your heart to see and know and

enter the ecstatic praise of the angels.

Pr. David L. Miller

Under the umbrella

Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them. (Luke 22:3-4)

Under the umbrella

Morning comes. The sun shines, and what is this ... hope? Joy? Yes, both. They are always connected.

From what miraculous source comes this uplift that fills the soul from earliest morning hours?

Even the gloomiest of Old Testament prophets could write, “Sorrow endures for an evening, but joy comes in the morning.” And so it does. Because that is who God is and what God does.

Joy arises from darkness of soul, and hope from the despair of losing yourself, the person you know you are and can be. It happens as the light of the Love Who Is Everywhere somehow touches and awakens that same Love living in the deepest recesses of our souls.

Whatever happens to us, no matter how lost we may feel sometimes, this Love remains. This Light still shines, however obscured at the moment.

The encroaching darkness of Lent daily moves us closer to hearing the greatest tragedy in human history. The evil one enters the heart of Judas who betrays Jesus to those who hate him. We know what follows: The One who is truly good and fully God among us is rejected, beaten bloody and hung out to die.

But even this happens under the umbrella, within the compass of God’s enduring love and power. 

Evil has power in this life, but a Greater One works in all this. The One who is Love is always at work to make light shine out of darkness, to bring joy and hope from deepest night. In Jesus’ story … and ours.

That is the way God is. Always. And always will be.

Pr. David L. Miller

With gratitude and hope

Now the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people. (Luke 22:1-2)

With gratitude and hope

We are people of gratitude and hope. As Christians, this is our orientation to life no matter what is happening to us. Whether present circumstances are sunny and bright or threatening and cold, we face each new day and every fresh circumstance with these attitudes.

Because we know ... God. We know the Love God is. We know what God has done and promises to do.

At the end of his life and ministry, Jesus prepares to celebrate Passover with this friends, the 12 he had chosen as disciples on brighter days back home in Galilee.

Passover is a meal of identity and hope. It recalls and celebrates the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egyptian slavery. This event marked their identity as a nation, a people chosen and cherished by God.

Passover also looked forward to the appearance of the Messiah, the Promised One who would usher in the rule of God’s mercy and justice, filling the earth with God’s holy Presence even as the waters cover the sea, the prophets said.

It was a meal of gratitude for everything God had done to choose, love, guide and abide with the people, and a meal of hope for a world so much better than the one we experience.

Knowing he will soon suffer rejection and death, Jesus prepares for the Passover meal where he will renew God’s ancient covenant with Israel and extend it beyond one nation to every nation.

He will expand the promises of God beyond one people to every soul ever born ... that we may greet every day with gratitude for the immensity of love God pours out on us... and with hope for total union with the Love who wakes us each new morning.

Pr. David L. Miller