Today’s text
Luke 16:23-26
In Hades, where [the rich man] was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
Prayer
Is there never a passing over, Jesus? Did you not pass from Earth to Hell before entering the Sublime, descending first to crush death and eternal bondage, freeing our first parents that all the daughters and sons of Eve might dwell with you? The icon on the wall shows you tramping death under foot, trashing the front gate of Hell and revealing it for the rickety shanty that it is.
I want even the rich man to know salvation, to pass over from eternal separation to dwell with you, making humble repentance for failing to love Lazarus at the gate. Can it yet be? Or will the divisions that torture earth do so through eternity? Is it impossible even for you to cross the chasm?
My faith says, ‘no.’
There is no place where you are not. There is no darkness beyond your reach; nowhere you will not bring eternal freedom that all that is restless may rest in you. Lazarus and the rich man may yet find reconciliation in a love larger than human apathy and more exquisite than human pain. They, too, shall celebrate the unfathomable. You.
But the celebration need not wait. For today we may enter, again, that larger love you are and ever shall be, a love that opens eyes to know the places you invite us to join the dance of your loving in time and space. Today, Lord Jesus, let me join your dance with Lazarus at the gate.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 16:19-25
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.”
Prayer
When do we see, Jesus? What opens our eyes? And to what?
Our blinkered eyes see with crystal clarity when we are consumed by distress, Jesus. Pain and desire sharpen our vision. Quickly, we focus on what we need--or want--to assuage our discomfort. We view surrounding faces through lenses that perceive only what they can do to quell the pulsing insistence of anguish or greed. We see what they can for us.
But do we see the other, the throbbing bundle of needs and fears, hopes and humanity they are? Can we imagine that we may be your answer the unspoken cries of their heart? Can we value them not for what they do for us but for the circle of compassion into which we may enter with them, giving and receiving, sharing the profundity of human neediness and making flesh the miracle of mercy?
How do I see, Jesus? Do the souls of women and men exist only to cool the flames of my body and soul? Or do I see my need and theirs as a holy invitation through which you draw me into common heart, where we might share a common mercy and yearning for the peace of God, your peace, Jesus?
Help me to see beyond my needs to your hope, Jesus. In the needs of others, help us to hear your invitation to a world of mercy.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 16:19-25
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.”
Prayer
When do we see, Jesus? What opens our eyes? And to what?
Our blinkered eyes see with crystal clarity when we are consumed by distress, Jesus. Pain and desire sharpen our vision. Quickly, we focus on what we need--or want--to assuage our discomfort. We view surrounding faces through lenses that perceive only what they can do to quell the pulsing insistence of anguish or greed. We see what they can for us.
But do we see the other, the throbbing bundle of needs and fears, hopes and humanity they are? Can we imagine that we may be your answer the unspoken cries of their heart? Can we value them not for what they do for us but for the circle of compassion into which we may enter with them, giving and receiving, sharing the profundity of human neediness and making flesh the miracle of mercy?
How do I see, Jesus? Do the souls of women and men exist only to cool the flames of my body and soul? Or do I see my need and theirs as a holy invitation through which you draw me into common heart, where we might share a common mercy and yearning for the peace of God, your peace, Jesus?
Help me to see beyond my needs to your hope, Jesus. In the needs of others, help us to hear your invitation to a world of mercy.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, October 01, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 16:19-22
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried.
Prayer
They both died, Jesus. Filthy rich or dirt poor—the same end claims both.
How shall we live when everywhere we turn we look into the eyes of the dying? Regardless of our circumstances, we carry the seeds of Adam’s disease so deep in our flesh no medicine of ours can hunt it down and kill the death that kills us.
From the earliest days of our breathing, we know the time is short. We know the clock ticks without pause or care, inexorably counting out our moments. So we must get on with it; much is missed if we dally. The day must be lived to the fullest lest we face our end bearing a mountain of regret.
So what shall we do, Jesus? Make sure we get ours? Or might we remind ourselves that every person we meet today will come to the same end as we? Will such sobriety remind us that anything less than mercy is profanity? That anything other than compassion disfigures time and poisons the day?
Help me remember, Jesus. I forget so quickly when passions of anger and fear drive me. Help me remember that all are flesh, like me. And my may heart dwell in compassion … for the dying. Just like your heart, Jesus.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 16:19-22
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried.
Prayer
They both died, Jesus. Filthy rich or dirt poor—the same end claims both.
How shall we live when everywhere we turn we look into the eyes of the dying? Regardless of our circumstances, we carry the seeds of Adam’s disease so deep in our flesh no medicine of ours can hunt it down and kill the death that kills us.
From the earliest days of our breathing, we know the time is short. We know the clock ticks without pause or care, inexorably counting out our moments. So we must get on with it; much is missed if we dally. The day must be lived to the fullest lest we face our end bearing a mountain of regret.
So what shall we do, Jesus? Make sure we get ours? Or might we remind ourselves that every person we meet today will come to the same end as we? Will such sobriety remind us that anything less than mercy is profanity? That anything other than compassion disfigures time and poisons the day?
Help me remember, Jesus. I forget so quickly when passions of anger and fear drive me. Help me remember that all are flesh, like me. And my may heart dwell in compassion … for the dying. Just like your heart, Jesus.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, September 28, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 16:1-6, 8
Then was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
We should thank you for this difficult story, Holy One, though it is hard to do. Most of us wouldn’t miss it had faithful scribes not preserved it for us to trip over. The tripping is good for us, or so we tell ourselves.
Jesus, your words invite us to take you seriously when our understanding is dark, and our minds find no familiar foot holds to leverage comprehension and buttress faith. We walk into this difficult story and enter a dense darkness that vision and understanding cannot penetrate.
And there you invite us beyond well-worn ways we have trod so often we walk them in our sleep. It is little wonder that souls who have loved you so dearly talk of dark nights and clouds of unknowing, of the hidden God and the negative way beyond where sign posts of sight and sound mark the journey.
The journey into you, Jesus, leads, sooner or later, into the darkness where we walk by naked faith or not at all. There come times when we do not see the way ahead and the way behind is closed to us, when the only choice is to freeze in fear or put one foot ahead of the other in hope that your light and gracious presence will again become sensible to our flesh.
The night can endure for an evening … or for years; it is a darkness of soul some of your great ones endured for decades. I doubt I have the faith for that, but I am glad for them. Their witness invites me deeper into your mystery. They light candles of hope in my soul.
There are days when I know that I know nothing and that nothing is my truest knowledge of you, and humble silence is greatest praise of your unspeakability. But today I will speak.
Praise the Holy and blessed Trinity. Give praise all creation, all the souls of earth lost in the darkness of your understanding. Shout out your praise for the darkness you enter is the embrace of Eternal Wonder.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 16:1-6, 8
Then was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
We should thank you for this difficult story, Holy One, though it is hard to do. Most of us wouldn’t miss it had faithful scribes not preserved it for us to trip over. The tripping is good for us, or so we tell ourselves.
Jesus, your words invite us to take you seriously when our understanding is dark, and our minds find no familiar foot holds to leverage comprehension and buttress faith. We walk into this difficult story and enter a dense darkness that vision and understanding cannot penetrate.
And there you invite us beyond well-worn ways we have trod so often we walk them in our sleep. It is little wonder that souls who have loved you so dearly talk of dark nights and clouds of unknowing, of the hidden God and the negative way beyond where sign posts of sight and sound mark the journey.
The journey into you, Jesus, leads, sooner or later, into the darkness where we walk by naked faith or not at all. There come times when we do not see the way ahead and the way behind is closed to us, when the only choice is to freeze in fear or put one foot ahead of the other in hope that your light and gracious presence will again become sensible to our flesh.
The night can endure for an evening … or for years; it is a darkness of soul some of your great ones endured for decades. I doubt I have the faith for that, but I am glad for them. Their witness invites me deeper into your mystery. They light candles of hope in my soul.
There are days when I know that I know nothing and that nothing is my truest knowledge of you, and humble silence is greatest praise of your unspeakability. But today I will speak.
Praise the Holy and blessed Trinity. Give praise all creation, all the souls of earth lost in the darkness of your understanding. Shout out your praise for the darkness you enter is the embrace of Eternal Wonder.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 16:1-6, 8
The Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
Tell me, Jesus, what is the point of comparison here? My mind reels and collapses upon itself in a ruined heap. Shall I look at the dishonest manager or at the master—or both? But then the message moves in such different ways that comprehension escapes me.
The manager is a scoundrel, but he acts with energy and passion when crisis comes. Do you then tell me to act as decisively in response to your words, your presence, your kingdom coming to upset the tidiness of my life?
Or do I look at the master who not only refuses to punish but praises the scoundrel--and imagine that normal standards of justice and order are abolished in your kingdom? I know and believe this, but your words so jar and disorient me that I am left wondering: Is there is anything in my life that must not come unhinged and unglued if I am to belong to you, once and for all, fully and whole?
Or is this your challenge and call to my soul? Must I surrender all that I am, my possessions, my will—my understanding of how life is? Is this strange tale, so resistant to common explanations, a call to acknowledge that you are God and I am not, and that I really know and understand nothing?
In your words, Jesus, I hear your holy prerogative to define reality—to shape who and what I am to be—though I may understand nothing of it and remain utterly in the dark about what you are doing and where you are leading. If so, grant me such faith to surrender all to you, knowing that it is your grace that leads even when all I see contradicts it.
Awaken in me a faith willing to endure the darkness of all understanding.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 16:1-6, 8
The Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
Tell me, Jesus, what is the point of comparison here? My mind reels and collapses upon itself in a ruined heap. Shall I look at the dishonest manager or at the master—or both? But then the message moves in such different ways that comprehension escapes me.
The manager is a scoundrel, but he acts with energy and passion when crisis comes. Do you then tell me to act as decisively in response to your words, your presence, your kingdom coming to upset the tidiness of my life?
Or do I look at the master who not only refuses to punish but praises the scoundrel--and imagine that normal standards of justice and order are abolished in your kingdom? I know and believe this, but your words so jar and disorient me that I am left wondering: Is there is anything in my life that must not come unhinged and unglued if I am to belong to you, once and for all, fully and whole?
Or is this your challenge and call to my soul? Must I surrender all that I am, my possessions, my will—my understanding of how life is? Is this strange tale, so resistant to common explanations, a call to acknowledge that you are God and I am not, and that I really know and understand nothing?
In your words, Jesus, I hear your holy prerogative to define reality—to shape who and what I am to be—though I may understand nothing of it and remain utterly in the dark about what you are doing and where you are leading. If so, grant me such faith to surrender all to you, knowing that it is your grace that leads even when all I see contradicts it.
Awaken in me a faith willing to endure the darkness of all understanding.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 16:1-6, 8
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
That you should find anything praiseworthy in dishonest dealing defies our logic, Jesus. But this may be the first sign that we have understood you properly, though we are totally confused and understand nothing at all. For your ways are not ours. Your reign contradicts the protocols that order our lives. And we know we have truly heard you when our dizzy minds implode in the gravity of vertigo.
A dishonest manager uses wealth not his own to ingratiate himself. He makes friends by giving away another’s property so they will help him when soon he is unemployed. The holy reign of God is like this, Jesus?
All the manager understood was that his time was up; he had to act decisively to save himself--now. It was time to burn his bridges, knowing the future could never be like the past.
Is this what made him shrewd, Jesus? Is this why you praise this scoundrel, because he knew the time?
Maybe. But if so, then may I be as shrewd as he, knowing that your holy reign has appeared, breaking the old protocols which ordered my life, shattering them when your resurrection exploded death and left it in tatters. A new time has come, and the unconquerable love I see in you is the face of the future and truest beauty in the present.
Tune my ear to the melody of your future that I might sing the songs of tomorrow.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 16:1-6, 8
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
That you should find anything praiseworthy in dishonest dealing defies our logic, Jesus. But this may be the first sign that we have understood you properly, though we are totally confused and understand nothing at all. For your ways are not ours. Your reign contradicts the protocols that order our lives. And we know we have truly heard you when our dizzy minds implode in the gravity of vertigo.
A dishonest manager uses wealth not his own to ingratiate himself. He makes friends by giving away another’s property so they will help him when soon he is unemployed. The holy reign of God is like this, Jesus?
All the manager understood was that his time was up; he had to act decisively to save himself--now. It was time to burn his bridges, knowing the future could never be like the past.
Is this what made him shrewd, Jesus? Is this why you praise this scoundrel, because he knew the time?
Maybe. But if so, then may I be as shrewd as he, knowing that your holy reign has appeared, breaking the old protocols which ordered my life, shattering them when your resurrection exploded death and left it in tatters. A new time has come, and the unconquerable love I see in you is the face of the future and truest beauty in the present.
Tune my ear to the melody of your future that I might sing the songs of tomorrow.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 16:1-6, 8
The Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
So quickly I identify with the dishonest steward, Jesus. The reason is as immediate and inescapable as my own body. I am well familiar with the rush of anxiety streaming through his veins as I scramble to fulfill what of this ministry I am capable, much of the time carefully calculating what is required for survival.
Yet my love of you does not wane, and it will not. I dwell in the knowing smile that crosses your face as I survey the jumbled clamor of my service. I bump and jolt along from one emergency to the next, one tight deadline to an impossible one, one improvisation to another, one struggling heart to the pains of others, and so it goes.
On I go, with little more than my wits, a smattering of knowledge and a smidgen of experience--and your love that refuses to let me go. You smile on my efforts even as I have smiled at the stumbling first steps of my grandsons. I understand them. My lurching about in your service, Jesus, is little different from their maturing efforts, only they learn more quickly than I do.
But if you can show kindness to the despicable who shrewdly seek to serve your glory—even while protecting themselves, then may your face continue to shine on me. And grant assurance that even my jumbled efforts please and serve the intention of love in which you hold all that is.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 16:1-6, 8
The Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit quickly, and make it fifty.’ … And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly ….”
Prayer
So quickly I identify with the dishonest steward, Jesus. The reason is as immediate and inescapable as my own body. I am well familiar with the rush of anxiety streaming through his veins as I scramble to fulfill what of this ministry I am capable, much of the time carefully calculating what is required for survival.
Yet my love of you does not wane, and it will not. I dwell in the knowing smile that crosses your face as I survey the jumbled clamor of my service. I bump and jolt along from one emergency to the next, one tight deadline to an impossible one, one improvisation to another, one struggling heart to the pains of others, and so it goes.
On I go, with little more than my wits, a smattering of knowledge and a smidgen of experience--and your love that refuses to let me go. You smile on my efforts even as I have smiled at the stumbling first steps of my grandsons. I understand them. My lurching about in your service, Jesus, is little different from their maturing efforts, only they learn more quickly than I do.
But if you can show kindness to the despicable who shrewdly seek to serve your glory—even while protecting themselves, then may your face continue to shine on me. And grant assurance that even my jumbled efforts please and serve the intention of love in which you hold all that is.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, September 21, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 15:8-10
[Jesus said:] “Or what women having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in presence of God over one sinner who repents.”
Prayer
I long to be this beauty, Holy Laughter. I have stood on the outside looking in for much too long.
It is not enough for me just to see your beauty, though it is holiest sacrament, capturing sacred moments with word and image. I thought it was, but I was wrong, again. Nothing new there.
Transcendent joy lights the face of the woman, her tiny coin clutched fast in hand. But I see such joy not just in her, Jesus. I savor it in all who surrender to Love Itself, seeking to enfold their beloved, utterly given to the soul’s most needful search. They glisten with the purity of your heart, your search, your love, your joy.
And through them you have found me, again, just like a thousand times before.
But it is no longer enough to see, describe and celebrate. It is time to enter the transparency of sacred joy that illumines the heart that I, too, may glow with the discovery of my heart’s delight. Unashamed, unabashed, utterly given, surrendered in joy to the Joy who finds me on my wandering way.
Thank you. Light my heart; dissolve my fears. Let me shine with the beauty of that joy that you take in me and in all the lost you somehow manage to find, despite our most determined efforts.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 15:8-10
[Jesus said:] “Or what women having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in presence of God over one sinner who repents.”
Prayer
I long to be this beauty, Holy Laughter. I have stood on the outside looking in for much too long.
It is not enough for me just to see your beauty, though it is holiest sacrament, capturing sacred moments with word and image. I thought it was, but I was wrong, again. Nothing new there.
Transcendent joy lights the face of the woman, her tiny coin clutched fast in hand. But I see such joy not just in her, Jesus. I savor it in all who surrender to Love Itself, seeking to enfold their beloved, utterly given to the soul’s most needful search. They glisten with the purity of your heart, your search, your love, your joy.
And through them you have found me, again, just like a thousand times before.
But it is no longer enough to see, describe and celebrate. It is time to enter the transparency of sacred joy that illumines the heart that I, too, may glow with the discovery of my heart’s delight. Unashamed, unabashed, utterly given, surrendered in joy to the Joy who finds me on my wandering way.
Thank you. Light my heart; dissolve my fears. Let me shine with the beauty of that joy that you take in me and in all the lost you somehow manage to find, despite our most determined efforts.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 15:8-10
[Jesus said:] “Or what women having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in presence of God over one sinner who repents.”
Prayer
I saw her eyes, Jesus. Eternity appeared in an instant in the warmth of her ebony smile as she reached for her son, 13 or so, as peace was passed, person to person. Worshipers shuffled to greet familiar faces, unaware that the beauty of forever had just transformed a tiny sanctuary on 75th street into the gate of heaven.
These were mother’s eyes, delighting in a child her arms sought to enfold in the joy of your peace. I reached my hand to her, but I was blessedly invisible until those arms had completed their sacred mission, making flesh that love that refuses to turn right or left from the face of the beloved.
And then I didn’t want to take her hand. I wanted nothing that would break the rapture of beholding the beauty of such blessed sacrament. I wanted only to look at her—and know again that I dwell in a world haunted by Holy Presence.
It is enough for me, Jesus. Seeing her, I need nothing more. For I see you in the delight of her eyes and the reach of her arms, a beauty that refuses to fade though all else may pass.
I do not know why beauty moves me so; I only know that you are in it. And for today, that’s enough.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 15:8-10
[Jesus said:] “Or what women having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in presence of God over one sinner who repents.”
Prayer
I saw her eyes, Jesus. Eternity appeared in an instant in the warmth of her ebony smile as she reached for her son, 13 or so, as peace was passed, person to person. Worshipers shuffled to greet familiar faces, unaware that the beauty of forever had just transformed a tiny sanctuary on 75th street into the gate of heaven.
These were mother’s eyes, delighting in a child her arms sought to enfold in the joy of your peace. I reached my hand to her, but I was blessedly invisible until those arms had completed their sacred mission, making flesh that love that refuses to turn right or left from the face of the beloved.
And then I didn’t want to take her hand. I wanted nothing that would break the rapture of beholding the beauty of such blessed sacrament. I wanted only to look at her—and know again that I dwell in a world haunted by Holy Presence.
It is enough for me, Jesus. Seeing her, I need nothing more. For I see you in the delight of her eyes and the reach of her arms, a beauty that refuses to fade though all else may pass.
I do not know why beauty moves me so; I only know that you are in it. And for today, that’s enough.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 15:1-5
“Now all the tax- collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus] And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the other ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.”
Prayer
You words transport me a world away, Jesus. I remember the day in Kaya, Sudan. It is a long time now, but in my heart it happened on my last breath, an indelible image in that inmost hall of heart where I cherish all that keeps me human.
Refugees marched out of the bush in a long, serpentine column, covering the warm tan dust of the road side to side. An emaciated man wielding a cross led the column into town as they sang. And how they sang. He punctuated every beat, jabbing his cross of broken sticks as high as he might into the deep blue heavens in defiant ecstasy of death itself.
Around the bend they came, survivors of genocide and brutalities unspeakable, having lost, abandoned and buried too many on the way. They came looking for the lost--seeking children, parents, neighbors, family and friends--knowing their hearts would likely break again.
But for some came the joy of daybreak. They cupped beloved cheeks in their hands, tracing fingers across the smiles and brows of souls for whom they’d all but surrendered hope. A din of weeping rose to the seat of your mercy, Jesus, the sweetest praise heard anywhere on earth that day. And I watched, swept up in the melodies of heaven, giving thanks that I might witness a joy that has no name.
And none will do, dear Friend, for this is the joy of your divine heart, captured in single moment, enduring for eternity, where all that is lost is found at last.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 15:1-5
“Now all the tax- collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus] And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the other ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.”
Prayer
You words transport me a world away, Jesus. I remember the day in Kaya, Sudan. It is a long time now, but in my heart it happened on my last breath, an indelible image in that inmost hall of heart where I cherish all that keeps me human.
Refugees marched out of the bush in a long, serpentine column, covering the warm tan dust of the road side to side. An emaciated man wielding a cross led the column into town as they sang. And how they sang. He punctuated every beat, jabbing his cross of broken sticks as high as he might into the deep blue heavens in defiant ecstasy of death itself.
Around the bend they came, survivors of genocide and brutalities unspeakable, having lost, abandoned and buried too many on the way. They came looking for the lost--seeking children, parents, neighbors, family and friends--knowing their hearts would likely break again.
But for some came the joy of daybreak. They cupped beloved cheeks in their hands, tracing fingers across the smiles and brows of souls for whom they’d all but surrendered hope. A din of weeping rose to the seat of your mercy, Jesus, the sweetest praise heard anywhere on earth that day. And I watched, swept up in the melodies of heaven, giving thanks that I might witness a joy that has no name.
And none will do, dear Friend, for this is the joy of your divine heart, captured in single moment, enduring for eternity, where all that is lost is found at last.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 17, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 15:1-5
“Now all the tax- collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus] And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the other ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.”
Prayer
Cool autumn days descend. I return home in summer’s fading light and see him. A grey stone figure keeps watch by the fireplace where he has waited all summer long, watching for my return. His stands on the coarse red brick near the hearth: a small shepherd, his eyes turned down, bearing a lamb across his shoulders, heading home, I suppose, with the lost that has been found. And his face, Jesus, is yours.
With fall in my senses bearing a threat of early frost, the whiteness of my head signals that winter will come soon, too soon, to me too. And I light a votive candle at the shepherd’s feet. My heart swells with sweetest desire, an exquisite simple yeaning for you, Jesus.
I want the shepherd. I want the one who bears the world’s weight in loving embrace and carries it all the way home. For I want to come home, all of me wants to come home. A lost piece of my heart hungers to be carried to a place of final arrival where there is no need to look for another, for hoping has become healing.
There’s a word for this, Jesus: human. We yearn to rest in that love that draws us on until, at last, we arrive home, possessing whole the sweet substance of our yeaning. And it shall be. For our yearning is the resonance of your own.
At the heart of the universe, stands a shepherd whose desire carries us to that eternal belonging where all glows with belovedness and the shepherd’s joy is full. So we light our candles and hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 15:1-5
“Now all the tax- collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus] And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the other ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.”
Prayer
Cool autumn days descend. I return home in summer’s fading light and see him. A grey stone figure keeps watch by the fireplace where he has waited all summer long, watching for my return. His stands on the coarse red brick near the hearth: a small shepherd, his eyes turned down, bearing a lamb across his shoulders, heading home, I suppose, with the lost that has been found. And his face, Jesus, is yours.
With fall in my senses bearing a threat of early frost, the whiteness of my head signals that winter will come soon, too soon, to me too. And I light a votive candle at the shepherd’s feet. My heart swells with sweetest desire, an exquisite simple yeaning for you, Jesus.
I want the shepherd. I want the one who bears the world’s weight in loving embrace and carries it all the way home. For I want to come home, all of me wants to come home. A lost piece of my heart hungers to be carried to a place of final arrival where there is no need to look for another, for hoping has become healing.
There’s a word for this, Jesus: human. We yearn to rest in that love that draws us on until, at last, we arrive home, possessing whole the sweet substance of our yeaning. And it shall be. For our yearning is the resonance of your own.
At the heart of the universe, stands a shepherd whose desire carries us to that eternal belonging where all glows with belovedness and the shepherd’s joy is full. So we light our candles and hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:33
“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Prayer
This should be a somber song, Jesus, but I hear your words and smile, and I wonder: Do you, too, wear a wry grin as you speak them? You should.
I am possessed by desires and needs, wants and compulsions all of which leave me in anxious bondage. I wake in the wee hours wondering: how will I get my work done? How can I redeem my clumsy failures of speech and leadership? Why did say that” How could I forget this? Is there anything in me worth sharing?
I cannot keep this melancholy soul afloat when night demons cackle. They stir a restless sea of anxiety over status and ego, affirmation and failure, revealing again that I am possessed by what some lost part of me imagines is required to justify this life.
And you come along, Jesus, telling me to give it all up. Little wonder that your words make me smile. You invite me to drop what is in my hands that I may embrace you, and find, finally, the day break of love eternal before which my melancholy flies and night demons flee.
May this smile give you praise all the day long.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:33
“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Prayer
This should be a somber song, Jesus, but I hear your words and smile, and I wonder: Do you, too, wear a wry grin as you speak them? You should.
I am possessed by desires and needs, wants and compulsions all of which leave me in anxious bondage. I wake in the wee hours wondering: how will I get my work done? How can I redeem my clumsy failures of speech and leadership? Why did say that” How could I forget this? Is there anything in me worth sharing?
I cannot keep this melancholy soul afloat when night demons cackle. They stir a restless sea of anxiety over status and ego, affirmation and failure, revealing again that I am possessed by what some lost part of me imagines is required to justify this life.
And you come along, Jesus, telling me to give it all up. Little wonder that your words make me smile. You invite me to drop what is in my hands that I may embrace you, and find, finally, the day break of love eternal before which my melancholy flies and night demons flee.
May this smile give you praise all the day long.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:28-30
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”
Prayer
You trick us, Jesus, and your words are not fair. How can we count the cost of following you? We cannot read the future. Our eyes are too weak to penetrate time. The cost of serving you can never be counted in advance.
We have no advance warning system to alert us how breathtakingly difficult life can become. We possess no cup capable of measuring our sweat or tears in advance. We do not know what scenes we will be forced to watch or what suffering our mortal bodies will bear before we are done. Already I carry a host of images that break my heart, and I know there are more to come. Just what? Who can know?
Perhaps that is blessing. If we knew … could we live … now?
But I fear my questions miss the mark. It doesn’t seem to matter to you how hard or how much struggle will test our strength. For, there is no bait and switch with you, Jesus. You ask for all, for my life, from the beginning, so does it matter what is to come? Either I enter the struggle to give all--whatever comes--or I refuse it.
I entered that struggle long ago. That foundation was laid by loving souls who moved me to love you. Now, in the midst of life, I don’t know if I am a capable of finishing what they started decades past. I understand the weakness of human resolve all too well--and trust it thoroughly, especially my own.
I know neither the future nor my own strength, Jesus. But I do know you. And it is you, not me, who completes the tower. So take my fear and weakness, my uncertainty and questions, and melt them all in the heat of your love. That will be enough for me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:28-30
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”
Prayer
You trick us, Jesus, and your words are not fair. How can we count the cost of following you? We cannot read the future. Our eyes are too weak to penetrate time. The cost of serving you can never be counted in advance.
We have no advance warning system to alert us how breathtakingly difficult life can become. We possess no cup capable of measuring our sweat or tears in advance. We do not know what scenes we will be forced to watch or what suffering our mortal bodies will bear before we are done. Already I carry a host of images that break my heart, and I know there are more to come. Just what? Who can know?
Perhaps that is blessing. If we knew … could we live … now?
But I fear my questions miss the mark. It doesn’t seem to matter to you how hard or how much struggle will test our strength. For, there is no bait and switch with you, Jesus. You ask for all, for my life, from the beginning, so does it matter what is to come? Either I enter the struggle to give all--whatever comes--or I refuse it.
I entered that struggle long ago. That foundation was laid by loving souls who moved me to love you. Now, in the midst of life, I don’t know if I am a capable of finishing what they started decades past. I understand the weakness of human resolve all too well--and trust it thoroughly, especially my own.
I know neither the future nor my own strength, Jesus. But I do know you. And it is you, not me, who completes the tower. So take my fear and weakness, my uncertainty and questions, and melt them all in the heat of your love. That will be enough for me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:27
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Prayer
What is this cross I am to carry, Jesus? Do I know; will I ever? And why do I feel care slipping from my soul?
I have never believed that you call us to soul killing labor or lonely isolation that drains us of the spark of joy. Surely, struggle marks our life in you, since your ways are not ours. And it takes a lifetime of struggle to know them; even then we know next to nothing.
But I have long thought that even the crosses we carry, in their own way, stir faith, hope and love in us--and joy, that joy in giving and serving we know in moments when we are truly alive and vibrant. Such life is your desire for us.
I hunger for this buoyancy because joy slips through my fingers and my heart languors. But I wonder: is this yearning for elusive joy an avoidance of the labor to which you call me? Or is it a holy whisper telling me I am going the wrong way--that the cross that drains care from my soul is not mine to bear? I just don’t know.
All I know is that I need you, your presence, your nearness, your tenderness, your help my brother. Without you, I can carry nothing, certainly not the cross of divine love for the world that you bore in and out of troubled days.
Grant us clear vision of how we may best follow you, Jesus. And let our hearts drink the joy of your nearness, especially when we lose our way and lonely questions close upon us.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:27
“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Prayer
What is this cross I am to carry, Jesus? Do I know; will I ever? And why do I feel care slipping from my soul?
I have never believed that you call us to soul killing labor or lonely isolation that drains us of the spark of joy. Surely, struggle marks our life in you, since your ways are not ours. And it takes a lifetime of struggle to know them; even then we know next to nothing.
But I have long thought that even the crosses we carry, in their own way, stir faith, hope and love in us--and joy, that joy in giving and serving we know in moments when we are truly alive and vibrant. Such life is your desire for us.
I hunger for this buoyancy because joy slips through my fingers and my heart languors. But I wonder: is this yearning for elusive joy an avoidance of the labor to which you call me? Or is it a holy whisper telling me I am going the wrong way--that the cross that drains care from my soul is not mine to bear? I just don’t know.
All I know is that I need you, your presence, your nearness, your tenderness, your help my brother. Without you, I can carry nothing, certainly not the cross of divine love for the world that you bore in and out of troubled days.
Grant us clear vision of how we may best follow you, Jesus. And let our hearts drink the joy of your nearness, especially when we lose our way and lonely questions close upon us.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 10, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:25-27
Now large crowds were traveling with [Jesus]; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Prayer
You certainly know how to thin out a crowd, Jesus. Who can listen to this and want you? Many must have withdrawn from your side. Others, too enthralled with you to leave, surely scratched their skulls raw wondering if you meant it, and if so, how?
Is this a case of pedagogical exaggeration? I guess. But this takes the sting away too easily, glibly passing over the oddness I have always felt about you.
Loving you makes us odd, or at least it always has such effect on me. I hold fast the outrageous claim that you live, and live incarnate in the lives of all who love. I confess you as Lord of my and all life, believing that our lives do not belong to us but are to be lived faithfully in your service.
And I do this in a culture that celebrates the “cult of me,” worshiping king ego, sacrificing soul, substance even children to the fashionable whim of the moment with little thought of what endures. So much of it leaves me cold, a chill revealing the very good news that my heart belongs to a world that makes me strange in this one that so frequently lacks loving reverence for life.
So permit me to odd again, Jesus. For, I don’t find your words strange at all; arresting certainly, but beneath their surface flows the current of freedom carrying us to love what is Love and to find our home in what endures.
Fill our senses with the world of grace you bring, Jesus, that we may be the full expression your love intends in us. Freed and unhindered by the judgments of others, we will focus solely on what love and grace require. Strange it is, that any should find this odd.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:25-27
Now large crowds were traveling with [Jesus]; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Prayer
You certainly know how to thin out a crowd, Jesus. Who can listen to this and want you? Many must have withdrawn from your side. Others, too enthralled with you to leave, surely scratched their skulls raw wondering if you meant it, and if so, how?
Is this a case of pedagogical exaggeration? I guess. But this takes the sting away too easily, glibly passing over the oddness I have always felt about you.
Loving you makes us odd, or at least it always has such effect on me. I hold fast the outrageous claim that you live, and live incarnate in the lives of all who love. I confess you as Lord of my and all life, believing that our lives do not belong to us but are to be lived faithfully in your service.
And I do this in a culture that celebrates the “cult of me,” worshiping king ego, sacrificing soul, substance even children to the fashionable whim of the moment with little thought of what endures. So much of it leaves me cold, a chill revealing the very good news that my heart belongs to a world that makes me strange in this one that so frequently lacks loving reverence for life.
So permit me to odd again, Jesus. For, I don’t find your words strange at all; arresting certainly, but beneath their surface flows the current of freedom carrying us to love what is Love and to find our home in what endures.
Fill our senses with the world of grace you bring, Jesus, that we may be the full expression your love intends in us. Freed and unhindered by the judgments of others, we will focus solely on what love and grace require. Strange it is, that any should find this odd.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, September 07, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:12-14
[Jesus] said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But 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.”
Prayer
You do want not us to miss a single joy, do you Jesus? You want us to share the ancient elation that bubbles in your depths, lest we miss the divine delight by which and for which we are made. You want us to taste the ecstasy of God’s own heart that we know the One from whom our beings spring fresh each morning.
So you welcome, no, you urge us toward the joy of the blessedness of God. The Loving Mystery delights to give life to those who possess nothing to repay the divine majesty for the gift of being. We possess and are nothing but for the generosity of the Joyous Spring of Life of whom you, Jesus, are the face.
With the gift of being filling our lungs, you invite us to share God’s delight by giving as God lives, living as God loves, loving as God is. You invite us to share in the being of Being Itself by giving with no expectation of return, but for the crazy liberating joy of this divine madness.
And it would be madness, but for the tears that unexpectedly appear in moments of such loving, revealing a fulfillment of soul beyond human expectation.
So invite us far beyond what is expected, Jesus. There we will know you in the joy and freedom of God you are eager to share. We need and want nothing more.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:12-14
[Jesus] said to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But 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.”
Prayer
You do want not us to miss a single joy, do you Jesus? You want us to share the ancient elation that bubbles in your depths, lest we miss the divine delight by which and for which we are made. You want us to taste the ecstasy of God’s own heart that we know the One from whom our beings spring fresh each morning.
So you welcome, no, you urge us toward the joy of the blessedness of God. The Loving Mystery delights to give life to those who possess nothing to repay the divine majesty for the gift of being. We possess and are nothing but for the generosity of the Joyous Spring of Life of whom you, Jesus, are the face.
With the gift of being filling our lungs, you invite us to share God’s delight by giving as God lives, living as God loves, loving as God is. You invite us to share in the being of Being Itself by giving with no expectation of return, but for the crazy liberating joy of this divine madness.
And it would be madness, but for the tears that unexpectedly appear in moments of such loving, revealing a fulfillment of soul beyond human expectation.
So invite us far beyond what is expected, Jesus. There we will know you in the joy and freedom of God you are eager to share. We need and want nothing more.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:1,7-10
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. …When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you many come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place.’ And then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend move up higher;’ then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.”
Prayer
We are all beggars, aren’t we Jesus? We are all guests of a greater generosity which gives life and is Life. You are that generosity, the face of the ultimate hospitality that breathes life into all that lives. The only proper posture before you--and each other--is the humility of reality.
Only the humble recognize that our life, our being and presence on this planet, is the decision of a will not our own, the creation of a power we don’t manage, the residue of a Mystery whose joy is making life and movement and beauty.
The humble know that joy is not the power we possess or the status we hold in the eyes of others but the joy of just being at the banquet of life with you. You set the table that all may know your goodness, which we only sample at this end of the banquet table.
Soon enough, too soon, we graduate to that far end of the table where saints and martyrs, witnesses and faithful ones, dine with you face to face and tears have other meaning.
Until then, may our hearts savor the breath in our lungs, the gorgeous curves and sharp crevices of earth, the morning sun and autumnal shadows, the successes and set backs we meet, and more: the love shining in your face, Jesus. All this is banquet unending, and joy is just being there with you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:1,7-10
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. …When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you many come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place.’ And then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend move up higher;’ then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.”
Prayer
We are all beggars, aren’t we Jesus? We are all guests of a greater generosity which gives life and is Life. You are that generosity, the face of the ultimate hospitality that breathes life into all that lives. The only proper posture before you--and each other--is the humility of reality.
Only the humble recognize that our life, our being and presence on this planet, is the decision of a will not our own, the creation of a power we don’t manage, the residue of a Mystery whose joy is making life and movement and beauty.
The humble know that joy is not the power we possess or the status we hold in the eyes of others but the joy of just being at the banquet of life with you. You set the table that all may know your goodness, which we only sample at this end of the banquet table.
Soon enough, too soon, we graduate to that far end of the table where saints and martyrs, witnesses and faithful ones, dine with you face to face and tears have other meaning.
Until then, may our hearts savor the breath in our lungs, the gorgeous curves and sharp crevices of earth, the morning sun and autumnal shadows, the successes and set backs we meet, and more: the love shining in your face, Jesus. All this is banquet unending, and joy is just being there with you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 14:1,7-8
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. …When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host ….”
Prayer
I love your freedom, Jesus. Your opponents watch you, yet you boldly walk into the places of their strength, unbowed by the fears of judgment and rejection that send me running from myself … and you.
With assurance you step into your future, knowing who you are and what are to do. You are ready, even eager to reveal the shape of a new age that reflects the healing purpose of the Loving Mystery who consumes you. Nothing else matters, and that passion will, indeed, consume all that you are. It will bring your destruction.
Hence, our fear, Jesus. We flee such perfect passion as your own, cutting our conscience lest you lead us to stand before others with nothing to commend us other than the promise of your nearness.
Yet, we are here, starting again, ready to learn and, we hope, to be captured by your word and Spirit and led into places unknown. And that makes us afraid. So we ask: Give us the freedom of soul to we who, so often, are enslaved by fears of judgment, rejection and futures our eyes cannot penetrate.
Fill us with the wild passion for God’s blessed reign that filled you. We know this will certainly lead us into fear and uncertainty, but we will also know you. And that will be enough for us, even as we walk into this new day on our continuing journey in you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 14:1,7-8
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. …When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host ….”
Prayer
I love your freedom, Jesus. Your opponents watch you, yet you boldly walk into the places of their strength, unbowed by the fears of judgment and rejection that send me running from myself … and you.
With assurance you step into your future, knowing who you are and what are to do. You are ready, even eager to reveal the shape of a new age that reflects the healing purpose of the Loving Mystery who consumes you. Nothing else matters, and that passion will, indeed, consume all that you are. It will bring your destruction.
Hence, our fear, Jesus. We flee such perfect passion as your own, cutting our conscience lest you lead us to stand before others with nothing to commend us other than the promise of your nearness.
Yet, we are here, starting again, ready to learn and, we hope, to be captured by your word and Spirit and led into places unknown. And that makes us afraid. So we ask: Give us the freedom of soul to we who, so often, are enslaved by fears of judgment, rejection and futures our eyes cannot penetrate.
Fill us with the wild passion for God’s blessed reign that filled you. We know this will certainly lead us into fear and uncertainty, but we will also know you. And that will be enough for us, even as we walk into this new day on our continuing journey in you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, August 31, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:14-16
But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured her on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from bondage on the Sabbath day?”
Prayer
I want this day to be holy, blessed Friend. I want every day to be holy not just the sabbath. So come near to us, for there is no holiness without you.
Time and space, moments and years are made holy when they glisten with your presence. They are holy when, in blessed awareness, I stand in the presence of that which my mind cannot gather in, when I bask in this river of love and joy that overwhelms my senses and overflows the heart when I know your presence.
I have tasted your holiness, Jesus. And I know: Holiness is not marked by good order. It startles and surprises. It wears unsuspected and unsuspecting faces. It does not prefer convention. Nor does it appear on my time table or when we have carefully observed the protocols with which we try to ensure decency and respect. It has nothing to do with rules and regulations or with the moral and intellectual accomplishments of which we are unduly proud.
Holiness is revealed solely in who you are and the healing of life that blossoms in the warmth of your nearness.
You are holy, my Jesus, you alone, in the blessed Trinity of whose beauty you are the face. Days and moments, time and space share in your holiness as they are filled with your healing love. Divine love and the joyous freedom it unleashes are the marks of true sanctity; anything else is an imposter to be cast out.
So let your nearness wash over us, Jesus, that we may bask in that holiness of life and love that heals our hearts and the heart of a wounded world.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:14-16
But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured her on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from bondage on the Sabbath day?”
Prayer
I want this day to be holy, blessed Friend. I want every day to be holy not just the sabbath. So come near to us, for there is no holiness without you.
Time and space, moments and years are made holy when they glisten with your presence. They are holy when, in blessed awareness, I stand in the presence of that which my mind cannot gather in, when I bask in this river of love and joy that overwhelms my senses and overflows the heart when I know your presence.
I have tasted your holiness, Jesus. And I know: Holiness is not marked by good order. It startles and surprises. It wears unsuspected and unsuspecting faces. It does not prefer convention. Nor does it appear on my time table or when we have carefully observed the protocols with which we try to ensure decency and respect. It has nothing to do with rules and regulations or with the moral and intellectual accomplishments of which we are unduly proud.
Holiness is revealed solely in who you are and the healing of life that blossoms in the warmth of your nearness.
You are holy, my Jesus, you alone, in the blessed Trinity of whose beauty you are the face. Days and moments, time and space share in your holiness as they are filled with your healing love. Divine love and the joyous freedom it unleashes are the marks of true sanctity; anything else is an imposter to be cast out.
So let your nearness wash over us, Jesus, that we may bask in that holiness of life and love that heals our hearts and the heart of a wounded world.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:11-13
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Prayer
It is time again, Jesus, time to buckle our belts and leave summer’s languor, entering again the rigors of autumnal disciplines. We are seldom if ever ready for the change that sweeps too quickly over us, a wave of reality bearing us back to the duties from which we’d (at least) tried to distance ourselves for rest and Sabbath. Occasionally, we were successful, and we promise ourselves that we will do better next year. Right.
Now, we gather ourselves and begin again a new year, a new semester. There are new faces to learn and the challenge of knowing and trying to love each of them as best we can, while feeding the ravenous desire for paper of various bureaucracies which pretend to know us better than they do.
But only you know us, Jesus. And you know there are and will be days, too many to number, when we will desperately need you to touch us that we may stand straight and praise you. Praising you is born of the strength and startled joy that you alone bring to us.
We know your touch, for you have touched us body and soul in the past. We know what it is to be liberated from the ailments of heart and mind that weigh us to earth so that our hearts do not soar. And soaring is your will for us. Of that I am convinced.
So touch us again with the presence of that love we know no where else. Feed us with word and blessed sacrament; surround us with hands and limbs that are sacraments of your holy and surprising grace. We crave your touch. We don’t want a single moment when we experience separation from you.
Call our names, touch our hearts that we, too, may straighten to praise your unfailing mercies and live filled with the joy you intend for us and for all. That will be our best praise of the wonder you are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:11-13
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Prayer
It is time again, Jesus, time to buckle our belts and leave summer’s languor, entering again the rigors of autumnal disciplines. We are seldom if ever ready for the change that sweeps too quickly over us, a wave of reality bearing us back to the duties from which we’d (at least) tried to distance ourselves for rest and Sabbath. Occasionally, we were successful, and we promise ourselves that we will do better next year. Right.
Now, we gather ourselves and begin again a new year, a new semester. There are new faces to learn and the challenge of knowing and trying to love each of them as best we can, while feeding the ravenous desire for paper of various bureaucracies which pretend to know us better than they do.
But only you know us, Jesus. And you know there are and will be days, too many to number, when we will desperately need you to touch us that we may stand straight and praise you. Praising you is born of the strength and startled joy that you alone bring to us.
We know your touch, for you have touched us body and soul in the past. We know what it is to be liberated from the ailments of heart and mind that weigh us to earth so that our hearts do not soar. And soaring is your will for us. Of that I am convinced.
So touch us again with the presence of that love we know no where else. Feed us with word and blessed sacrament; surround us with hands and limbs that are sacraments of your holy and surprising grace. We crave your touch. We don’t want a single moment when we experience separation from you.
Call our names, touch our hearts that we, too, may straighten to praise your unfailing mercies and live filled with the joy you intend for us and for all. That will be our best praise of the wonder you are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
August 28, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:11-12
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Prayer
More than once, Jesus, I have wanted to say these words, more than a thousand times. So many that I lost track decades ago. I remember children in bereft countries and circumstances wasting, wasting away, in slow grinding want and dusty deprivation. I remember bedsides at which I have kept vigil, especially the stained white tissues twisted taut in the hands of the beloved who also waited alongside.
We needed to hear those words. We needed to speak them to each other. We needed to know that there was someone who could say them to us when we could not. Because we could not.
I lack whatever gift of faith and holiness, whatever empowerment from on high is required to fill the words with the power that never returns empty. So I refused to risk arrogance and mockery and remained as silent as the mute witnesses of suffering whom I have accompanied.
Or did I? For, I said your words of promised presence and freedom again and again. So often, in fact, that together we came to believe what we could not yet see.
Older now, I grow more bold or foolish. Words of forgiveness and absolution come quick to the tongue. Words born of the Spirit of freedom race to release captives, to assure and to bless, to love and reveal your divine nearness to souls who struggle to see and know you here. I know my words are more powerful than I’d imagined. I know words are so powerful that their only proper use is to bless and set free.
So it seems, Jesus, that you have set me free from my ailment. May I do the same.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:11-12
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Prayer
More than once, Jesus, I have wanted to say these words, more than a thousand times. So many that I lost track decades ago. I remember children in bereft countries and circumstances wasting, wasting away, in slow grinding want and dusty deprivation. I remember bedsides at which I have kept vigil, especially the stained white tissues twisted taut in the hands of the beloved who also waited alongside.
We needed to hear those words. We needed to speak them to each other. We needed to know that there was someone who could say them to us when we could not. Because we could not.
I lack whatever gift of faith and holiness, whatever empowerment from on high is required to fill the words with the power that never returns empty. So I refused to risk arrogance and mockery and remained as silent as the mute witnesses of suffering whom I have accompanied.
Or did I? For, I said your words of promised presence and freedom again and again. So often, in fact, that together we came to believe what we could not yet see.
Older now, I grow more bold or foolish. Words of forgiveness and absolution come quick to the tongue. Words born of the Spirit of freedom race to release captives, to assure and to bless, to love and reveal your divine nearness to souls who struggle to see and know you here. I know my words are more powerful than I’d imagined. I know words are so powerful that their only proper use is to bless and set free.
So it seems, Jesus, that you have set me free from my ailment. May I do the same.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, August 27, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:10-11
Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight.
Prayer
I see her Jesus. I would rather look at you watching her to see what passes across of your face, to notice the set of your brow, the color of your eyes, to record whatever emotion moves you. I look at you, but you let me see nothing of what I want, only a blank face I cannot read, and the message seems clear: “Look at her. If you would see me, look at her.”
But looking at the woman, bent and stooped, she grows transparent. I look not at but through her to faces, broken bodies and spirits I have known only too well, souls for whom I have cared and about whom I have written, including my own dear father, resting now in the immense mercy of your eternity.
Bless him this day, my brother. Bless all the broken ones like him, so ground down by life they cry to the lonely darkness for some presence, some Presence to whisper that they are not alone. I have seen their faces, and I know the terror of abandonment magnifies their sorrow beyond human endurance.
Bear them whole in your own divine heart that they may ever know they are in you. Whisper again that they are embraced in your all-enveloping love despite the sorrow that endures until broken by the morning light you alone bring to our souls, making us alive again.
Open our eyes to see them that we may be the whisper of your eternal morning amid their darkness. For in seeing them, we see you and know again your heart, broken for the love of them all, and of me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:10-11
Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight.
Prayer
I see her Jesus. I would rather look at you watching her to see what passes across of your face, to notice the set of your brow, the color of your eyes, to record whatever emotion moves you. I look at you, but you let me see nothing of what I want, only a blank face I cannot read, and the message seems clear: “Look at her. If you would see me, look at her.”
But looking at the woman, bent and stooped, she grows transparent. I look not at but through her to faces, broken bodies and spirits I have known only too well, souls for whom I have cared and about whom I have written, including my own dear father, resting now in the immense mercy of your eternity.
Bless him this day, my brother. Bless all the broken ones like him, so ground down by life they cry to the lonely darkness for some presence, some Presence to whisper that they are not alone. I have seen their faces, and I know the terror of abandonment magnifies their sorrow beyond human endurance.
Bear them whole in your own divine heart that they may ever know they are in you. Whisper again that they are embraced in your all-enveloping love despite the sorrow that endures until broken by the morning light you alone bring to our souls, making us alive again.
Open our eyes to see them that we may be the whisper of your eternal morning amid their darkness. For in seeing them, we see you and know again your heart, broken for the love of them all, and of me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:49-51
[Jesus] also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain;’ and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat;’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Prayer
The day begins. The time is now, the only time of which I can be sure. The past rushes in agitating minor anxieties about the future, which soon will rush into the present like a swollen stream; stopping for no one, its inexorable current flows quickly by, into the past, receding into the mists of memory, leaving me again with now.
The time is now. It is always now. It is all I have. And so are you, Jesus. You are now, always, and we always have you near.
So I know the time: the time is to breathe you into my lungs that breathing out I may issue a love eternal into every now that you give me.
For you are now, and you are here, and you are eternity’s great mystery as close as my breath.
So let it be.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:49-51
[Jesus] also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain;’ and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat;’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Prayer
The day begins. The time is now, the only time of which I can be sure. The past rushes in agitating minor anxieties about the future, which soon will rush into the present like a swollen stream; stopping for no one, its inexorable current flows quickly by, into the past, receding into the mists of memory, leaving me again with now.
The time is now. It is always now. It is all I have. And so are you, Jesus. You are now, always, and we always have you near.
So I know the time: the time is to breathe you into my lungs that breathing out I may issue a love eternal into every now that you give me.
For you are now, and you are here, and you are eternity’s great mystery as close as my breath.
So let it be.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:49-51
[Jesus] also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain;’ and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat;’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"
Prayer
What time is it Jesus? It is the time of your presence, the time of your in-breaking, the time when the sturdy links that inexorably bind past to present and future in continuous flow fail to hold time together. They pull apart and clatter on the floor, freeing mind and soul for a future no past can predict or control.
This is now, every now, eternally now, where ever you are present now. And you are the Eternal always present. Your nearness bears an invitation to leave what we have been and known for a mysterious future we cannot make, hold or guarantee. We can only let it unfold or refuse it altogether.
Your nearness is a constantly open door to realities undreamed, Jesus, except by that mysterious love-struck intuition whose only words are tears of awareness that there is a something more the soul must have. And, joy! That hovering awareness knows also a Giver who is pleased to pour that liquid grace into the dark corridors of soul that long for the light of day. My soul, Jesus.
With more of this life behind me than ahead, I awaken hungry for a future unlike any past I have known or lived. Freed, I would be, from the half-life I have lived, caged by my firm grasp of an empty self that is not love. And I have the audacity or naiveté to believe, more than ever, that such life is a breath away, and the secret is surrender to that hovering awareness of Spirit that is the now of your nearness, inviting me to freedom. Eternity begins now.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:49-51
[Jesus] also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain;’ and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat;’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"
Prayer
What time is it Jesus? It is the time of your presence, the time of your in-breaking, the time when the sturdy links that inexorably bind past to present and future in continuous flow fail to hold time together. They pull apart and clatter on the floor, freeing mind and soul for a future no past can predict or control.
This is now, every now, eternally now, where ever you are present now. And you are the Eternal always present. Your nearness bears an invitation to leave what we have been and known for a mysterious future we cannot make, hold or guarantee. We can only let it unfold or refuse it altogether.
Your nearness is a constantly open door to realities undreamed, Jesus, except by that mysterious love-struck intuition whose only words are tears of awareness that there is a something more the soul must have. And, joy! That hovering awareness knows also a Giver who is pleased to pour that liquid grace into the dark corridors of soul that long for the light of day. My soul, Jesus.
With more of this life behind me than ahead, I awaken hungry for a future unlike any past I have known or lived. Freed, I would be, from the half-life I have lived, caged by my firm grasp of an empty self that is not love. And I have the audacity or naiveté to believe, more than ever, that such life is a breath away, and the secret is surrender to that hovering awareness of Spirit that is the now of your nearness, inviting me to freedom. Eternity begins now.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:49-51
“From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Prayer
No! Don’t separate me from my family, Jesus. Don’t cut me off from my children, my grandchildren, my beloved. For I crave the presence of their faces. They are a most holy gift for which I thank you with my tears.
Our families have far too much division already, Jesus. We want … we need our relationships to be sacramental of the great Loving Mystery you are, bearing the welcome and love we crave. We wander the earth looking for soft places to land where we may be what we are without worry or pretense, no longer wondering if we shall ever know home. God knows, that journey has been long in my life, and in some ways it continues still.
And here you are, stirring up trouble, right where we most need and have reason to expect the comfort of arms that welcome and hearts that interlock with our own. Do you really need to do this? Is it necessary?
It seems so, Jesus. You have been an undeniable breaking point through the centuries, tearing at families and moving the misguided to take up arms in your name without a clue of the irony they commit.
But I keep coming back to you, Jesus. Despite the division, despite the fact that you are the distance I feel between myself and friends and family members who may never accept or grasp the deep places and commitments where you dwell in this soul of mine.
I pray for them to know the joy of knowing you, but my prayers echo and my careful words of witness fall flat, failing to speak the wonder you are and the beauty of the kingdom you desire. How I can I explain this attraction to them when I have such trouble understanding it myself?
Keep calling to me Jesus that I may never be alien to you, counted among those who do not know you. For knowing you is life. May I live as an emblem of your life even when divisions come and distance troubles.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:49-51
“From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Prayer
No! Don’t separate me from my family, Jesus. Don’t cut me off from my children, my grandchildren, my beloved. For I crave the presence of their faces. They are a most holy gift for which I thank you with my tears.
Our families have far too much division already, Jesus. We want … we need our relationships to be sacramental of the great Loving Mystery you are, bearing the welcome and love we crave. We wander the earth looking for soft places to land where we may be what we are without worry or pretense, no longer wondering if we shall ever know home. God knows, that journey has been long in my life, and in some ways it continues still.
And here you are, stirring up trouble, right where we most need and have reason to expect the comfort of arms that welcome and hearts that interlock with our own. Do you really need to do this? Is it necessary?
It seems so, Jesus. You have been an undeniable breaking point through the centuries, tearing at families and moving the misguided to take up arms in your name without a clue of the irony they commit.
But I keep coming back to you, Jesus. Despite the division, despite the fact that you are the distance I feel between myself and friends and family members who may never accept or grasp the deep places and commitments where you dwell in this soul of mine.
I pray for them to know the joy of knowing you, but my prayers echo and my careful words of witness fall flat, failing to speak the wonder you are and the beauty of the kingdom you desire. How I can I explain this attraction to them when I have such trouble understanding it myself?
Keep calling to me Jesus that I may never be alien to you, counted among those who do not know you. For knowing you is life. May I live as an emblem of your life even when divisions come and distance troubles.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, August 20, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:49-51
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
Prayer
The sorrow in these words weaves the texture of your life, Jesus--and ours, if we love you. Did you want the fire you ignited? Did you long for the conflict? Do you come to us itching for a fight? Or is conflict simply unavoidable when unalloyed life and love without limit appears amid the conditions of our bondage?
For we dwell in bondage to our sin and sloth, greed and apathy, while others around your earth scratch for food. Each day they search for a single moment when their life is something other than an intolerable burden. So there is bondage all around.
But your name is freedom. You are liberation from the oppressions of body and spirit that prevent each from supping the sacramental pleasures of earth, eating and drinking, justice and peace, the joy of life graced with your unlimited loving nearness.
This is your desire. The fire you cast is born of that holy desire burning in the heart of God, which you bear. And the divine heart bears you--and us--into conflicts we’d rather avoid. But we cannot avoid them, not if we are to stand with you, Jesus. For you stand as the holy emblem of the desire of God in the face of all that denies or limits the fullness God intends for every child of earth, and earth itself. And you invite us into your struggle.
I have little strength and often no stomach to go where your divine heart takes me, Jesus. So free me from my fear that I might be wholly yours. There is nothing else I really want.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:49-51
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
Prayer
The sorrow in these words weaves the texture of your life, Jesus--and ours, if we love you. Did you want the fire you ignited? Did you long for the conflict? Do you come to us itching for a fight? Or is conflict simply unavoidable when unalloyed life and love without limit appears amid the conditions of our bondage?
For we dwell in bondage to our sin and sloth, greed and apathy, while others around your earth scratch for food. Each day they search for a single moment when their life is something other than an intolerable burden. So there is bondage all around.
But your name is freedom. You are liberation from the oppressions of body and spirit that prevent each from supping the sacramental pleasures of earth, eating and drinking, justice and peace, the joy of life graced with your unlimited loving nearness.
This is your desire. The fire you cast is born of that holy desire burning in the heart of God, which you bear. And the divine heart bears you--and us--into conflicts we’d rather avoid. But we cannot avoid them, not if we are to stand with you, Jesus. For you stand as the holy emblem of the desire of God in the face of all that denies or limits the fullness God intends for every child of earth, and earth itself. And you invite us into your struggle.
I have little strength and often no stomach to go where your divine heart takes me, Jesus. So free me from my fear that I might be wholly yours. There is nothing else I really want.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:35-37
“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 they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when me comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.”
Prayer
You offer no threat in these words, dear Friend, only invitation and promise. You come, that’s the promise. You come; that’s your promise. You come and are eager to bless, giving yourself in holy and humble service to we who hold our breath for your arrival.
You are always coming, Jesus. You come to a virgin’s womb. You come to the unknown and unheralded. You come to the hungry and lost. You come to your friends and your enemies. And you come from your tomb, risen and new, so that your coming transcends time and space. You come to every time and place at once, past, future and now to me in this quiet space. You come and always will.
Your invitation is to light a lamp and keep our hearts and eyes open. For you appear at times and in guises we cannot predict: Maybe in the news that a faraway colleague has died that moves you to sudden tears and prayer. Maybe the guy who helps broken old folks into the clinic on 55th, or the vibrant voice on the phone that leaves you a little more alive. You often surprise me, Jesus, coming in word, a story, a face that glows with a grace transparent to the eternal.
You come. It does not matter how. What matters is opening heart and mind to receive you. For in receiving you, you serve us, giving life, healing heart and soul, feeding us with a bread that satisfies that hunger that finds fulfillment no where else.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:35-37
“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 they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when me comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.”
Prayer
You offer no threat in these words, dear Friend, only invitation and promise. You come, that’s the promise. You come; that’s your promise. You come and are eager to bless, giving yourself in holy and humble service to we who hold our breath for your arrival.
You are always coming, Jesus. You come to a virgin’s womb. You come to the unknown and unheralded. You come to the hungry and lost. You come to your friends and your enemies. And you come from your tomb, risen and new, so that your coming transcends time and space. You come to every time and place at once, past, future and now to me in this quiet space. You come and always will.
Your invitation is to light a lamp and keep our hearts and eyes open. For you appear at times and in guises we cannot predict: Maybe in the news that a faraway colleague has died that moves you to sudden tears and prayer. Maybe the guy who helps broken old folks into the clinic on 55th, or the vibrant voice on the phone that leaves you a little more alive. You often surprise me, Jesus, coming in word, a story, a face that glows with a grace transparent to the eternal.
You come. It does not matter how. What matters is opening heart and mind to receive you. For in receiving you, you serve us, giving life, healing heart and soul, feeding us with a bread that satisfies that hunger that finds fulfillment no where else.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:32-34
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven; where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”
Prayer
You are the unfailing treasure, Holy One. You are the One who never wears out and cannot be destroyed. It is you I need and would hold every moment in this purse, this soul of mine that holds also much of the detritus of ego-driven life.
If I could but hold you fast, touching your nearness, I would savor the thought of you at all times and in all things. You would fill me to overflowing with the unfailing fullness of your love. My words would be so different, more filled with grace, giving life in all circumstances, not just in rare moments.
But I am full of the cares of the day, decisions to make, deadlines to meet, disappointments with self and others, the drive to justify myself and to ferret out the “right thing” to do and say. There is a life to be lived and work to be done. It absorbs my consciousness, and I forget. I seek myself in all these things, not you, but I find no treasure there.
Turning turn from the heart-shattering awareness of your love, I devolve into something much less than the human soul I am when I am near and full of you.
Forgive me for fouling your earth with my pettiness. Don’t let me forget. Make my heart large and expansive like yours and fill it with your Fullness, which is truest treasure.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:32-34
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven; where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”
Prayer
You are the unfailing treasure, Holy One. You are the One who never wears out and cannot be destroyed. It is you I need and would hold every moment in this purse, this soul of mine that holds also much of the detritus of ego-driven life.
If I could but hold you fast, touching your nearness, I would savor the thought of you at all times and in all things. You would fill me to overflowing with the unfailing fullness of your love. My words would be so different, more filled with grace, giving life in all circumstances, not just in rare moments.
But I am full of the cares of the day, decisions to make, deadlines to meet, disappointments with self and others, the drive to justify myself and to ferret out the “right thing” to do and say. There is a life to be lived and work to be done. It absorbs my consciousness, and I forget. I seek myself in all these things, not you, but I find no treasure there.
Turning turn from the heart-shattering awareness of your love, I devolve into something much less than the human soul I am when I am near and full of you.
Forgive me for fouling your earth with my pettiness. Don’t let me forget. Make my heart large and expansive like yours and fill it with your Fullness, which is truest treasure.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, August 13, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:32
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Prayer
Do you smile when you say this, Jesus? Do joy and yearning fill you as you survey the faces before you? Do you look for a glimmer of understanding in their eyes? Do you wait to see if their minds will race and their hearts dance as it dawns on them that these are the happiest words ever spoken, the most joyous in all the world’s weary history?
Please know that my heart dances, Jesus, and I cannot sit still in my chair. For you bring news that is better than any that ever has been or will be. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give, and to give to me, and to give no small thing but the life of fullness and eternity, where every tear is wiped from every eye and death is no more, where all things are engulfed in your delight and fear dissolves in a bottomless sea of mercy: for all is well, and all is in you.
But I already knew this, my Beloved. I knew it is your joy to give, for you have woven that awareness into my soul, fashioned in your image and restored in your likeness. I find highest joy in blessing other souls with a word of care and hope, a word that awakens in them the awareness that they, too, are possessed by a love that renders them speechless. There is nothing better. It brings tears to my eyes.
To yours, too? Pardon me for speaking of you in such human terms. I know you are more, always more. I cannot comprehend you. But you let me taste your joy and know what brings you pleasure. And that alone is all I need to live in expectation and to die in hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:32
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Prayer
Do you smile when you say this, Jesus? Do joy and yearning fill you as you survey the faces before you? Do you look for a glimmer of understanding in their eyes? Do you wait to see if their minds will race and their hearts dance as it dawns on them that these are the happiest words ever spoken, the most joyous in all the world’s weary history?
Please know that my heart dances, Jesus, and I cannot sit still in my chair. For you bring news that is better than any that ever has been or will be. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give, and to give to me, and to give no small thing but the life of fullness and eternity, where every tear is wiped from every eye and death is no more, where all things are engulfed in your delight and fear dissolves in a bottomless sea of mercy: for all is well, and all is in you.
But I already knew this, my Beloved. I knew it is your joy to give, for you have woven that awareness into my soul, fashioned in your image and restored in your likeness. I find highest joy in blessing other souls with a word of care and hope, a word that awakens in them the awareness that they, too, are possessed by a love that renders them speechless. There is nothing better. It brings tears to my eyes.
To yours, too? Pardon me for speaking of you in such human terms. I know you are more, always more. I cannot comprehend you. But you let me taste your joy and know what brings you pleasure. And that alone is all I need to live in expectation and to die in hope.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, August 10, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:16-21
Then [Jesus] told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do for I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Prayer
What is it to be rich toward you, Holy Mystery? Is it not to reverence you in all places as the fountain of all life and blessing? Shall I not live in gratitude and humility, in soul recognition that every breath I take is the effluence of your unspeakable generosity?
I feel the sun and see how it opens the roses in their beds after the night rain. They praise you in electric red and whispering yellow. I delight in the curve of my grandson’s playful smile, so like his mother. Tears rise at the goodness of being alive, of knowing love and loving. I am startled and moved by the beauty of other souls. I am enlarged by the thoughts I receive as a gift from minds better than my own.
I could go on, Holy One; you know I can. I haven’t yet spoken of the love I feel in Jesus’ words, protecting me from the poverty of soul that withers so many. But you have taught my heart. I am a guest at the holy table of life, and you are the host who delights in giving, and in giving to me. This, I know, and it is richness and freedom.
For I know, too, what it is to be poor, small of soul. In poverty, I feverishly grasp what I can for myself. Fearing scarcity, I accumulate and accomplish what I can. I play the fool, vainly believing that I can secure my life and heart so that I will have enough, enough wealth, enough reputation, enough friends, enough of whatever I fear wanting. The soul closes in upon itself and implodes, disheartened and disconnected from the Holy Source of all that’s needful.
But today, I am not poor but rich in the love and blessing with which you would fill me and all that is. So let me, as my brother Jesus, pour the wealth of your generosity into every encounter and work I do that I may praise you as well as my roses.
Pr. David L. Miller
Today’s text
Luke 12:16-21
Then [Jesus] told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do for I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Prayer
What is it to be rich toward you, Holy Mystery? Is it not to reverence you in all places as the fountain of all life and blessing? Shall I not live in gratitude and humility, in soul recognition that every breath I take is the effluence of your unspeakable generosity?
I feel the sun and see how it opens the roses in their beds after the night rain. They praise you in electric red and whispering yellow. I delight in the curve of my grandson’s playful smile, so like his mother. Tears rise at the goodness of being alive, of knowing love and loving. I am startled and moved by the beauty of other souls. I am enlarged by the thoughts I receive as a gift from minds better than my own.
I could go on, Holy One; you know I can. I haven’t yet spoken of the love I feel in Jesus’ words, protecting me from the poverty of soul that withers so many. But you have taught my heart. I am a guest at the holy table of life, and you are the host who delights in giving, and in giving to me. This, I know, and it is richness and freedom.
For I know, too, what it is to be poor, small of soul. In poverty, I feverishly grasp what I can for myself. Fearing scarcity, I accumulate and accomplish what I can. I play the fool, vainly believing that I can secure my life and heart so that I will have enough, enough wealth, enough reputation, enough friends, enough of whatever I fear wanting. The soul closes in upon itself and implodes, disheartened and disconnected from the Holy Source of all that’s needful.
But today, I am not poor but rich in the love and blessing with which you would fill me and all that is. So let me, as my brother Jesus, pour the wealth of your generosity into every encounter and work I do that I may praise you as well as my roses.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:13-15
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge and arbitrator over you?” And he 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.
Prayer
There are many kinds of greed. I am certainly guilty of several varieties, most often I suppose the greed for reputation and status. I want to be considered smarter, wiser, better, more articulate, gracious and caring than I really am.
And isn’t that the crux of greed, to convince others we are more than we are, lest they see our smallness and discover the vulnerability, the uncertainty we hide? We clutch our fear and fragility and crouch behind the crumbling façade of accomplishment and accumulation that time, soon enough, erodes, exposing what we never needed to hide--our humanity.
For our vulnerability is always a secret grace, offering a paradoxical peace. The smallness we fear invites us to flee into the arms of other needy souls and the immensity of God’s grace, there to find that when we are weak we are strong.
We fly to God on the wings of our needs. The greeds that consume--for wealth or status, for reputation or even to accumulate books and relationships--impoverish the soul, leaving us more fearful and vulnerable. Greed isolates, refusing to walk the bridge of common human need into the receiving arms and unfailing grace of the One who always awaits us.
So let me be on guard for all kinds of greed, dearest Jesus. And may your grace flow through the open windows of my need.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:13-15
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge and arbitrator over you?” And he 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.
Prayer
There are many kinds of greed. I am certainly guilty of several varieties, most often I suppose the greed for reputation and status. I want to be considered smarter, wiser, better, more articulate, gracious and caring than I really am.
And isn’t that the crux of greed, to convince others we are more than we are, lest they see our smallness and discover the vulnerability, the uncertainty we hide? We clutch our fear and fragility and crouch behind the crumbling façade of accomplishment and accumulation that time, soon enough, erodes, exposing what we never needed to hide--our humanity.
For our vulnerability is always a secret grace, offering a paradoxical peace. The smallness we fear invites us to flee into the arms of other needy souls and the immensity of God’s grace, there to find that when we are weak we are strong.
We fly to God on the wings of our needs. The greeds that consume--for wealth or status, for reputation or even to accumulate books and relationships--impoverish the soul, leaving us more fearful and vulnerable. Greed isolates, refusing to walk the bridge of common human need into the receiving arms and unfailing grace of the One who always awaits us.
So let me be on guard for all kinds of greed, dearest Jesus. And may your grace flow through the open windows of my need.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:13-15
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge and arbitrator over you?” And he 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.
Prayer
You are not judge or arbitrator, are you Jesus? With the wave of a hand, you dismiss such nonsense and misunderstanding. You refuse any course that leads away from the desire that animates your every word and deed, the desire that is your identity. You know who are, what you are to do, and in utter freedom you reject every invitation to do or be something else, something less than the burning fire of divine love whom you are.
I admire your clarity and tenacity, your self-possession and assurance. I envy your reflexive refusal to undertake anything disconnected from the core of your being. I wish I were so single minded, so simple-hearted and clear about being that which the Loving Mystery has made me. For I, too, am fashioned to be and to bear that Love which has no name, that mystery to whom you are so utterly transparent.
Thank you for this transparency, for in you I taste the Love who refuses to be anything else, a taste that tells me Love will not let me go.
But I would be truer and more simple than I am. I long to be as clear and set upon living in and from the Love who enfolds and fills me, so that I, too, may not be so much less than you, blessed Jesus, intend. May it be so, at least for today. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:13-15
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge and arbitrator over you?” And he 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.
Prayer
You are not judge or arbitrator, are you Jesus? With the wave of a hand, you dismiss such nonsense and misunderstanding. You refuse any course that leads away from the desire that animates your every word and deed, the desire that is your identity. You know who are, what you are to do, and in utter freedom you reject every invitation to do or be something else, something less than the burning fire of divine love whom you are.
I admire your clarity and tenacity, your self-possession and assurance. I envy your reflexive refusal to undertake anything disconnected from the core of your being. I wish I were so single minded, so simple-hearted and clear about being that which the Loving Mystery has made me. For I, too, am fashioned to be and to bear that Love which has no name, that mystery to whom you are so utterly transparent.
Thank you for this transparency, for in you I taste the Love who refuses to be anything else, a taste that tells me Love will not let me go.
But I would be truer and more simple than I am. I long to be as clear and set upon living in and from the Love who enfolds and fills me, so that I, too, may not be so much less than you, blessed Jesus, intend. May it be so, at least for today. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 12:13-15
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge and arbitrator over you?” And he 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.
Prayer
In what does our life consist, dear Friend? You do not answer the question you beg, Jesus. You stand there, and the message is clear enough. Our life consists in you, in loving you but first in knowing you as the love of the Father’s heart made clear and mine.
You are my life. Apart from you I do not live, for I do not dwell that land of dreams where I know love eternal and uncreated filling and surrounding me, engulfing all that is in a wash of divine mercy. I do not dwell in a world where you, blessed Christ, are already Lord, where there is nothing to fear for I rest in a love I cannot comprehend.
I want to live in this world, daily, constantly, always, for this alone is life. All else is stumbling in the fog of fear and the confusion of illusion where I fail to know that life is being in the love you are. I live in exile too many days, feeling my way through a self-created grayness outside the circle of your light. I try to find a way to fill my emptiness when all I need is to see you standing there, not answering your own question.
Seeing you, Jesus, a love not my own fills me, teaching me again what I thought I knew. My life lies not in my unsteady accomplishments or the lack of them but in knowing you as the face of Loving Mystery.
Life, real life consists in daily, tiny episodes of knowing you at the heart of my heart, loving and being loved. In those moments, there is no confusion. I know what life is. Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 12:13-15
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge and arbitrator over you?” And he 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.
Prayer
In what does our life consist, dear Friend? You do not answer the question you beg, Jesus. You stand there, and the message is clear enough. Our life consists in you, in loving you but first in knowing you as the love of the Father’s heart made clear and mine.
You are my life. Apart from you I do not live, for I do not dwell that land of dreams where I know love eternal and uncreated filling and surrounding me, engulfing all that is in a wash of divine mercy. I do not dwell in a world where you, blessed Christ, are already Lord, where there is nothing to fear for I rest in a love I cannot comprehend.
I want to live in this world, daily, constantly, always, for this alone is life. All else is stumbling in the fog of fear and the confusion of illusion where I fail to know that life is being in the love you are. I live in exile too many days, feeling my way through a self-created grayness outside the circle of your light. I try to find a way to fill my emptiness when all I need is to see you standing there, not answering your own question.
Seeing you, Jesus, a love not my own fills me, teaching me again what I thought I knew. My life lies not in my unsteady accomplishments or the lack of them but in knowing you as the face of Loving Mystery.
Life, real life consists in daily, tiny episodes of knowing you at the heart of my heart, loving and being loved. In those moments, there is no confusion. I know what life is. Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, August 03, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 11:11-13
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you the, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
Prayer
I have no trouble giving to my children, Gracious One, or my grandchildren. It brings me pleasure, although they do wear me out.
Is that the point? Do you take pleasure in giving gifts to those who call upon you from their heart, and even when they don’t call upon you? For I sometimes give to my beloved before a request can be made. And how much more generous is your heart than mine?
I feel the warmth of your smile in these words, Holy One. Eager, you are, to give abundance of life to body and soul. For you give the Holy Spirit, who is that rippling rush of self-giving love that streams through your inner life, making green and vibrant all it touches.
It touches us, and you smile. The Spirit’s breeze embraces our flesh, cooling our fevers and filling us heart and lung with the life you live, the love you give, the hope you fan and the desire you are. That desire springs to life in every nation as you take pleasure in giving your Spirit, moving your children to heights and depths of love they thought far beyond them.
So give your Hoy Spirit, Dearest Lord, especially where sorrow and fear hang thick, for we need a love far beyond our own to complete our healing … and your joy. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 11:11-13
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you the, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
Prayer
I have no trouble giving to my children, Gracious One, or my grandchildren. It brings me pleasure, although they do wear me out.
Is that the point? Do you take pleasure in giving gifts to those who call upon you from their heart, and even when they don’t call upon you? For I sometimes give to my beloved before a request can be made. And how much more generous is your heart than mine?
I feel the warmth of your smile in these words, Holy One. Eager, you are, to give abundance of life to body and soul. For you give the Holy Spirit, who is that rippling rush of self-giving love that streams through your inner life, making green and vibrant all it touches.
It touches us, and you smile. The Spirit’s breeze embraces our flesh, cooling our fevers and filling us heart and lung with the life you live, the love you give, the hope you fan and the desire you are. That desire springs to life in every nation as you take pleasure in giving your Spirit, moving your children to heights and depths of love they thought far beyond them.
So give your Hoy Spirit, Dearest Lord, especially where sorrow and fear hang thick, for we need a love far beyond our own to complete our healing … and your joy. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 11:9-10
So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened.
Prayer
I am acutely aware, dearest Friend, that thousands are asking, searching and knocking as I struggle to write to you through this tired mind. They are far more weary than I, for they pray and hope for their beloved, whom they fear have perished in the swirling waters of a great river.
Dozens, certainly, search that murky water amid the twisted steel of a broken bridge in a city well known to me, and to you surely. They will do work no one else wants to do to bring people the worst news they will likely ever hear. They will find the bodies of beloved souls who went to work, to school, to the city, never imagining they would never again arrive home.
Bless the searchers, Blessed One, and those who wait with their hearts in their throats. Seek and find their hearts, knock until they open, ask that they might receive the consolation of your unceasing love, which is the only good and gracious news on days like this, and every day is like this for someone, dearest One.
For as much as we ask and seek and knock, you do so much more, hunting us down in our lonely places and seeking to love us into life. Let us never forget that our asking and seeking is but the resonance of your own search for us. So welcome our asking and searching, even as you welcome the souls of your beloved into unimaginable eternity. Amen
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 11:9-10
So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened.
Prayer
I am acutely aware, dearest Friend, that thousands are asking, searching and knocking as I struggle to write to you through this tired mind. They are far more weary than I, for they pray and hope for their beloved, whom they fear have perished in the swirling waters of a great river.
Dozens, certainly, search that murky water amid the twisted steel of a broken bridge in a city well known to me, and to you surely. They will do work no one else wants to do to bring people the worst news they will likely ever hear. They will find the bodies of beloved souls who went to work, to school, to the city, never imagining they would never again arrive home.
Bless the searchers, Blessed One, and those who wait with their hearts in their throats. Seek and find their hearts, knock until they open, ask that they might receive the consolation of your unceasing love, which is the only good and gracious news on days like this, and every day is like this for someone, dearest One.
For as much as we ask and seek and knock, you do so much more, hunting us down in our lonely places and seeking to love us into life. Let us never forget that our asking and seeking is but the resonance of your own search for us. So welcome our asking and searching, even as you welcome the souls of your beloved into unimaginable eternity. Amen
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 11:5-8
And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.’
Prayer
A sly humor rises from your face when I watch you, Jesus. You smile at the absurdity of your own words, comparing the infinite generosity of the divine heart with a sleepy householder too tired to get out of bed. Your humor is born of a knowledge I cannot have, or at least only in minute part.
You know, full and well, the length and breadth of divine generosity, dear Friend. It is woven into the fabric of your being. It is your heartbeat, your truth, your identity and vocation. You are this generosity incarnate, alive and breathing, the kindest of all hospitalities, eager to open the door and welcome the likes of me into the eternal embrace of an incomparable love.
You smile, Jesus, at the incongruity of your words. You know: the heart of God is as unlike the resistant friend as day is from night, as distant as your largesse from my narrow heart. Your irony tells me what I most need to know: the Holy One is eager to share the bounty of that eternal life and love of whom you are the face.
So let me live this day in full awareness that I am the object of your unimaginable generosity. Pour your inexhaustible life into the leaky vessel of my heart that your joy and mine might be complete. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 11:5-8
And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.’
Prayer
A sly humor rises from your face when I watch you, Jesus. You smile at the absurdity of your own words, comparing the infinite generosity of the divine heart with a sleepy householder too tired to get out of bed. Your humor is born of a knowledge I cannot have, or at least only in minute part.
You know, full and well, the length and breadth of divine generosity, dear Friend. It is woven into the fabric of your being. It is your heartbeat, your truth, your identity and vocation. You are this generosity incarnate, alive and breathing, the kindest of all hospitalities, eager to open the door and welcome the likes of me into the eternal embrace of an incomparable love.
You smile, Jesus, at the incongruity of your words. You know: the heart of God is as unlike the resistant friend as day is from night, as distant as your largesse from my narrow heart. Your irony tells me what I most need to know: the Holy One is eager to share the bounty of that eternal life and love of whom you are the face.
So let me live this day in full awareness that I am the object of your unimaginable generosity. Pour your inexhaustible life into the leaky vessel of my heart that your joy and mine might be complete. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 11:1-4
“[Jesus] was praying in a certain place and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
Prayer
Words so simple, they take but a moment to say. And you are eager for us to pray them, blessed Friend. But why?
What can it mean for us to hallow your name, you who are Love Illimitable unbound by time and space? Of what is mortal flesh capable that will make or keep your name holy when you are so far beyond human reach and imagination that every word we speak of you is false, a lie? Astounded silence would seem the only posture capable of honoring you.
Yet, you invite us to speak, blessed Jesus, addressing the Unimaginable, asking that the divine will be done, that you will provide our needs and forgive us the violations of our humanity and that of others, to say nothing of our blatant disregard of that glory you share with the Father.
Who are we that we should do this? It does not matter. What matters is that it is you who invites us to do so, welcoming us into that relationship in which we may find, finally, our truest humanity, hidden where it has always been: in the mystery of the love of God. Our life, free and full, is unlocked only by knowing that love inexpressible you pour out from the Father’s heart.
So you invite us to pray, to speak simply our need and hope, knowing all that we are is received by a warmth and welcome who, for eternity, has longed for our presence.
Beyond the words of the simple prayer you teach, blessed Jesus, may I hear the invitation into the eternally unfolding mystery of your love. For this is greatest mystery of all, not that you are love, but that I, with stumbling words and uncomprehending heart, may enter what cannot be spoken. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 11:1-4
“[Jesus] was praying in a certain place and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
Prayer
Words so simple, they take but a moment to say. And you are eager for us to pray them, blessed Friend. But why?
What can it mean for us to hallow your name, you who are Love Illimitable unbound by time and space? Of what is mortal flesh capable that will make or keep your name holy when you are so far beyond human reach and imagination that every word we speak of you is false, a lie? Astounded silence would seem the only posture capable of honoring you.
Yet, you invite us to speak, blessed Jesus, addressing the Unimaginable, asking that the divine will be done, that you will provide our needs and forgive us the violations of our humanity and that of others, to say nothing of our blatant disregard of that glory you share with the Father.
Who are we that we should do this? It does not matter. What matters is that it is you who invites us to do so, welcoming us into that relationship in which we may find, finally, our truest humanity, hidden where it has always been: in the mystery of the love of God. Our life, free and full, is unlocked only by knowing that love inexpressible you pour out from the Father’s heart.
So you invite us to pray, to speak simply our need and hope, knowing all that we are is received by a warmth and welcome who, for eternity, has longed for our presence.
Beyond the words of the simple prayer you teach, blessed Jesus, may I hear the invitation into the eternally unfolding mystery of your love. For this is greatest mystery of all, not that you are love, but that I, with stumbling words and uncomprehending heart, may enter what cannot be spoken. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, July 30, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
(Note: For the next several months Praying the Mystery will focus on the Gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, each day taking up a few verses from the reading appointed for the previous Sunday.)
Today’s text
Luke 11:1-2
“[Jesus] was praying in a certain place and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.”
Prayer
I feel your desire blessed Friend. Your friends come with a request. And your desire tells me there is no appeal nearer to your divine heart, which leaps at their words, “teach us to pray.”
But it is not human hearts but yours that captures my mind moves me to love you, Jesus. I watch you. I see your face. I feel the joy that warms you. I experience your fullness of heart as you turn to share the mystery of divine relationship with souls who do not yet know they have fallen into a well as deep as eternity and as warm as life, where untold suffering and unimaginable love awaits them.
In the flash of this moment, I know you. I know you want to teach them to pray. You want them to enter the mystery the Loving Mystery, the divine I AM, of whom you are the blessed face. You want them to share exquisite intimacy with the Father, in whom you constantly dwell, sharing undiluted unity of heart so that your every word and act is transparent to that Love.
You want them to know this loving unity, which is the heart of your joy and the fountain of your desire that they--that I--should taste the Eternal One who is Love Inexpressible. I know you in this desire. I know a love that will not let me go. Your desire tells me all I need to know to love and trust you, and the One you call Father.
Let me trust your loving desire for me and all you love that I may live with peace and assurance, listening for any the least word of instruction or encouragement you may speak. However small or insignificant, they spring from your desire to bless me with more than I can ask. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Today’s text
Luke 11:1-2
“[Jesus] was praying in a certain place and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.”
Prayer
I feel your desire blessed Friend. Your friends come with a request. And your desire tells me there is no appeal nearer to your divine heart, which leaps at their words, “teach us to pray.”
But it is not human hearts but yours that captures my mind moves me to love you, Jesus. I watch you. I see your face. I feel the joy that warms you. I experience your fullness of heart as you turn to share the mystery of divine relationship with souls who do not yet know they have fallen into a well as deep as eternity and as warm as life, where untold suffering and unimaginable love awaits them.
In the flash of this moment, I know you. I know you want to teach them to pray. You want them to enter the mystery the Loving Mystery, the divine I AM, of whom you are the blessed face. You want them to share exquisite intimacy with the Father, in whom you constantly dwell, sharing undiluted unity of heart so that your every word and act is transparent to that Love.
You want them to know this loving unity, which is the heart of your joy and the fountain of your desire that they--that I--should taste the Eternal One who is Love Inexpressible. I know you in this desire. I know a love that will not let me go. Your desire tells me all I need to know to love and trust you, and the One you call Father.
Let me trust your loving desire for me and all you love that I may live with peace and assurance, listening for any the least word of instruction or encouragement you may speak. However small or insignificant, they spring from your desire to bless me with more than I can ask. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, July 27, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:15
“Peace to you. The friends send you their greetings. Greet the friends there, each by name.”
Prayer
We are to each other what you are to us, friend. Captured in the encompassing embrace of your all-possessing love, we are yours, sharing in your eternal triune joy, basking in the delight that is your good pleasure to shower upon your beloved, upon me.
You are dearest and truest Friend, revealing and pouring out your love in our brother Jesus. You show us your joy, your divine hunger that we should know you full, the length and breadth, height and depth of all you are, and you are love, top to bottom, now and tomorrow, uncreated and unceasing, unimaginable wonder.
Your friendship joins us with all you embrace in your impossible immensity. Joined, we are, with those we know well or not all, those sitting beside us or a world away in places we shall never see, those dear and those we prefer to avoid.
You join us in your holy friendship where we taste and enjoy you in every shared smile or burden, every common kindness, every knowing glace, in common work and hope. All of it a sacrament of holy friendship in which we know, finally, the Loving Mystery we have always wanted. You.
So let us greet and care for each other, whether near or far, sharing in your divine friendship, knowing you in the sacrament of common words, work and life, speaking that truth you hunger for us to share, “Peace.” Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:15
“Peace to you. The friends send you their greetings. Greet the friends there, each by name.”
Prayer
We are to each other what you are to us, friend. Captured in the encompassing embrace of your all-possessing love, we are yours, sharing in your eternal triune joy, basking in the delight that is your good pleasure to shower upon your beloved, upon me.
You are dearest and truest Friend, revealing and pouring out your love in our brother Jesus. You show us your joy, your divine hunger that we should know you full, the length and breadth, height and depth of all you are, and you are love, top to bottom, now and tomorrow, uncreated and unceasing, unimaginable wonder.
Your friendship joins us with all you embrace in your impossible immensity. Joined, we are, with those we know well or not all, those sitting beside us or a world away in places we shall never see, those dear and those we prefer to avoid.
You join us in your holy friendship where we taste and enjoy you in every shared smile or burden, every common kindness, every knowing glace, in common work and hope. All of it a sacrament of holy friendship in which we know, finally, the Loving Mystery we have always wanted. You.
So let us greet and care for each other, whether near or far, sharing in your divine friendship, knowing you in the sacrament of common words, work and life, speaking that truth you hunger for us to share, “Peace.” Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:14-15
“I hope to see you again soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends send you their greetings. Greet the friends there, each by name.”
Prayer
We say to each other what you say and are to us, “Peace.” You, Loving Mystery, are the most gracious of hospitalities. You force no one to love or acknowledge you but offer unceasing welcome into your blessed nearness. Through your flesh, the body of our brother Jesus, you never tire of inviting us to abide, rest and find home in you.
Peace is your word to us, spoken by our resurrected Christ to frightened souls hiding behind closed doors lest they, too, meet their end in the executioner’s art. Since that moment, you continuously speak this most welcome word through all eternity
‘Peace, I am your home, your place of arrival amid arid wanderings where you find no water. Come, quench your thirst.
‘Peace, I am the place of eternal welcome where your restless wanderings may cease.
‘Peace, I am the home you have always wanted, the smile you seek in every face, the laughter that does not end, the answer to the nagging question your confused heart does not know how to ask.
‘I am your peace; there is no other.’
And there is no other who can speak the promise of peace that death cannot still and life cannot kill.
Blessed are you, Holy One, for you are our peace. May your peace be our first word to each other as meet face to face. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:14-15
“I hope to see you again soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends send you their greetings. Greet the friends there, each by name.”
Prayer
We say to each other what you say and are to us, “Peace.” You, Loving Mystery, are the most gracious of hospitalities. You force no one to love or acknowledge you but offer unceasing welcome into your blessed nearness. Through your flesh, the body of our brother Jesus, you never tire of inviting us to abide, rest and find home in you.
Peace is your word to us, spoken by our resurrected Christ to frightened souls hiding behind closed doors lest they, too, meet their end in the executioner’s art. Since that moment, you continuously speak this most welcome word through all eternity
‘Peace, I am your home, your place of arrival amid arid wanderings where you find no water. Come, quench your thirst.
‘Peace, I am the place of eternal welcome where your restless wanderings may cease.
‘Peace, I am the home you have always wanted, the smile you seek in every face, the laughter that does not end, the answer to the nagging question your confused heart does not know how to ask.
‘I am your peace; there is no other.’
And there is no other who can speak the promise of peace that death cannot still and life cannot kill.
Blessed are you, Holy One, for you are our peace. May your peace be our first word to each other as meet face to face. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:13-14
“I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; instead I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.”
Prayer
Safe within my cell, I write these words to you, Great Mystery. Playful music dances in thin air, a wordless prayer for you to come into this space to make words appear in my emptiness, words that will wing me into your nearness.
I like it here, alone, away from the feverishness of the day. All that matters is listening and being true to what you give, or at least to what I perceive you want me to share. There are days I never want to leave this space. It is holy and quiet, and the music bears me into you where I taste again that which I love best.
But there is work to do, faces to meet, books to read, documents to craft, consolation to share with souls needier than mine. And you made me for this work. So I go, however reluctantly, from this quiet place into that tiny corner of creation on which you would have me pour the oil of care and gladness that souls might be healed.
I wish I were as eager to move from solitude into daily encounters as are those who serve you better than I can. But that it is not how you made me. Yet I pray, Loving One, let me bear the love I know here into my every encounter with your saints, your world. Move me again from blessed solitude to reveal to each face just how beloved they are to you.
Let me speak face to face that love I savor in this silence that I might be true to the words that appear in my emptiness. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:13-14
“I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; instead I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.”
Prayer
Safe within my cell, I write these words to you, Great Mystery. Playful music dances in thin air, a wordless prayer for you to come into this space to make words appear in my emptiness, words that will wing me into your nearness.
I like it here, alone, away from the feverishness of the day. All that matters is listening and being true to what you give, or at least to what I perceive you want me to share. There are days I never want to leave this space. It is holy and quiet, and the music bears me into you where I taste again that which I love best.
But there is work to do, faces to meet, books to read, documents to craft, consolation to share with souls needier than mine. And you made me for this work. So I go, however reluctantly, from this quiet place into that tiny corner of creation on which you would have me pour the oil of care and gladness that souls might be healed.
I wish I were as eager to move from solitude into daily encounters as are those who serve you better than I can. But that it is not how you made me. Yet I pray, Loving One, let me bear the love I know here into my every encounter with your saints, your world. Move me again from blessed solitude to reveal to each face just how beloved they are to you.
Let me speak face to face that love I savor in this silence that I might be true to the words that appear in my emptiness. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, July 23, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:13-14
“I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; instead I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.”
Prayer
Arrivals and departures mark our days, Eternal One. Beloved friends and family move far to fresh places and chapters. Others come into our days, or they return from time away. We hope to know them still, and that they will know us, too, in the comfortable ways we once shared.
Every coming and going emblazons a bittersweet truth in my soul, as If I had to learn it anew. Nothing is forever. I know it all too well; must life or you keep reminding me, Ancient One?
The goodness I now know, the faces and laughter, the gentle moments with beloved will not endure. Nor will I. And my efforts to share the depth of my heart with those you have given me fail miserably and often. Face to face, I would speak the love I have known in them and the love in which I treasure each one, words too often unspoken or poorly so.
Help me, dearest One, to speak the love and wisdom you have given me to share, that the life I share with others may be life indeed, rich in the incarnation of your divine heart. May needed words be spoken that your joy and ours may be complete.
And remind me, too, that even my missed and failed opportunities are not lost in your eternity. You redeem every moment, joining each one with the dancing love of your life that even our bitterness might be kissed with your joy. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:13-14
“I have much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; instead I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.”
Prayer
Arrivals and departures mark our days, Eternal One. Beloved friends and family move far to fresh places and chapters. Others come into our days, or they return from time away. We hope to know them still, and that they will know us, too, in the comfortable ways we once shared.
Every coming and going emblazons a bittersweet truth in my soul, as If I had to learn it anew. Nothing is forever. I know it all too well; must life or you keep reminding me, Ancient One?
The goodness I now know, the faces and laughter, the gentle moments with beloved will not endure. Nor will I. And my efforts to share the depth of my heart with those you have given me fail miserably and often. Face to face, I would speak the love I have known in them and the love in which I treasure each one, words too often unspoken or poorly so.
Help me, dearest One, to speak the love and wisdom you have given me to share, that the life I share with others may be life indeed, rich in the incarnation of your divine heart. May needed words be spoken that your joy and ours may be complete.
And remind me, too, that even my missed and failed opportunities are not lost in your eternity. You redeem every moment, joining each one with the dancing love of your life that even our bitterness might be kissed with your joy. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, July 20, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:11a-12
“Whoever does what is good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Everyone has testified favorably about Demetrius, and so has the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.”
Prayer
Who is this faithful soul to whom the truth and your beloved saints testify? Is he a community leader? Perhaps the messenger who carried this little letter into the congregation? Is he just one more faceless name in 20 centuries of those who have loved and hoped in you, dearest Jesus?
But he is not faceless is he, Holy Mystery? His faithfulness and care, his love and service shine with the crystalline illumination of your holy face, a face no one has seen.
Yet I have seen. We have seen you many times in the care and justice, love and peace of faithful souls alight with your wonder. Their faces shine in our hearts and memories. We have been loved into life by them, and through them we have received you, grace upon grace.
So if may, my Lord, let me speak to Demetrius and to all who now rest in paradise with you, enjoying that beatific vision that is yet denied me: Thank you for your faithful witness. Thank you that your lives shined with a love as ancient as eternity. Thank you that your flesh became for me the flesh of my friend and brother Jesus. Thank you.
And thank you, Loving Mystery, for taking flesh and soul in the lives of your beloved, from Demetrius through all generations, and in me. I, too, bear your wonder. Thank you. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:11a-12
“Whoever does what is good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Everyone has testified favorably about Demetrius, and so has the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.”
Prayer
Who is this faithful soul to whom the truth and your beloved saints testify? Is he a community leader? Perhaps the messenger who carried this little letter into the congregation? Is he just one more faceless name in 20 centuries of those who have loved and hoped in you, dearest Jesus?
But he is not faceless is he, Holy Mystery? His faithfulness and care, his love and service shine with the crystalline illumination of your holy face, a face no one has seen.
Yet I have seen. We have seen you many times in the care and justice, love and peace of faithful souls alight with your wonder. Their faces shine in our hearts and memories. We have been loved into life by them, and through them we have received you, grace upon grace.
So if may, my Lord, let me speak to Demetrius and to all who now rest in paradise with you, enjoying that beatific vision that is yet denied me: Thank you for your faithful witness. Thank you that your lives shined with a love as ancient as eternity. Thank you that your flesh became for me the flesh of my friend and brother Jesus. Thank you.
And thank you, Loving Mystery, for taking flesh and soul in the lives of your beloved, from Demetrius through all generations, and in me. I, too, bear your wonder. Thank you. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:11
“Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
Prayer
All rests upon seeing you, Blessed Goodness. The shattering image of absolute goodness, whole and true, pure and undiluted dissolves and washes clean the encrustations of evil on the human heart.
You are whole-hearted and full, given utterly to life itself, taking delight in all that is, weeping tears of joy at the beauty of earth and its sorrow, wanting nothing more or less than to wrap all that is in the loving joy ecstatically dancing in your inner life.
I have no words for this. How dare I speak of your inner life, for you have no inner or outer? You are pure Being Itself, life without limit. You simply are. And you are goodness, that eternal ecstatic dance of love within and beyond our human time and space. Forgive my presumption, my daily assaults on your immense majesty, my constant failure to bring to words the loving wonder of your goodness.
But how can I not speak of that intuition of your loving presence that never goes away? It is always there, however vague or obscure. How can I not seek to capture the dancing fire of your life, since it is my greatest need, a need you fashioned in my depths?
I hunger to see and snare with words the goodness you are. When I see you I am free and full and finally myself, that expression of your love that you intend in creating me, light of heart and walking lightly upon your earth.
So let me capture with mere words something of your undiluted goodness, that, seeing you, I may join the dance of your delight in my little moment of your eternity. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:11
“Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.”
Prayer
All rests upon seeing you, Blessed Goodness. The shattering image of absolute goodness, whole and true, pure and undiluted dissolves and washes clean the encrustations of evil on the human heart.
You are whole-hearted and full, given utterly to life itself, taking delight in all that is, weeping tears of joy at the beauty of earth and its sorrow, wanting nothing more or less than to wrap all that is in the loving joy ecstatically dancing in your inner life.
I have no words for this. How dare I speak of your inner life, for you have no inner or outer? You are pure Being Itself, life without limit. You simply are. And you are goodness, that eternal ecstatic dance of love within and beyond our human time and space. Forgive my presumption, my daily assaults on your immense majesty, my constant failure to bring to words the loving wonder of your goodness.
But how can I not speak of that intuition of your loving presence that never goes away? It is always there, however vague or obscure. How can I not seek to capture the dancing fire of your life, since it is my greatest need, a need you fashioned in my depths?
I hunger to see and snare with words the goodness you are. When I see you I am free and full and finally myself, that expression of your love that you intend in creating me, light of heart and walking lightly upon your earth.
So let me capture with mere words something of your undiluted goodness, that, seeing you, I may join the dance of your delight in my little moment of your eternity. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
We are guests here, my Lord. The earth is not mine. I did not make it. The soil with its fruit and flowers of myriad and unlikely color, the sun’s warm caress, the rain wearing resistant rock into rich loam, gentling the ground that seed may spring from the darkness: all this awaited my appearance in time and space, carefully prepared by your genius through unnumbered millennia that life might spring forth in abundance, delight to the eye and strength for body and soul.
Nor did I create the structures of society that allow my common and ordered life. Long generations preceded me, struggling against chaos with the mind and good will that is the breath of your Spirit in every generation, moving us to seek that More for which we know we are made.
And the community of faith in which my hungry heart finds its home, there, too, I am a guest. I receive what you have done in loving hospitality through the resurrection of my brother, Jesus, welcoming me to know the life that appears in him, ever inviting, “Come you who labor. Abide in me.”
And I come, finding again the hospitality that meets me in every place of my habitation, discovering again that I am always a guest, dependent on an unnamed hospitality for each breath, each step, each of the millions of tiny acts and occurrences that make my life possible and worth living.
Thank you. Those two words are the quintessential prayer. I know of no better. Thank you, dearest Loving Mystery, for your immense hospitality throughout all ages, creating life abundant and giving your life eternal through Jesus, our brother. Your great and continuous giving fills me with gratitude that I, with all your saints, may become the face of your resplendent hospitality, shining in the face of Jesus the Christ, your beloved and mine. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
We are guests here, my Lord. The earth is not mine. I did not make it. The soil with its fruit and flowers of myriad and unlikely color, the sun’s warm caress, the rain wearing resistant rock into rich loam, gentling the ground that seed may spring from the darkness: all this awaited my appearance in time and space, carefully prepared by your genius through unnumbered millennia that life might spring forth in abundance, delight to the eye and strength for body and soul.
Nor did I create the structures of society that allow my common and ordered life. Long generations preceded me, struggling against chaos with the mind and good will that is the breath of your Spirit in every generation, moving us to seek that More for which we know we are made.
And the community of faith in which my hungry heart finds its home, there, too, I am a guest. I receive what you have done in loving hospitality through the resurrection of my brother, Jesus, welcoming me to know the life that appears in him, ever inviting, “Come you who labor. Abide in me.”
And I come, finding again the hospitality that meets me in every place of my habitation, discovering again that I am always a guest, dependent on an unnamed hospitality for each breath, each step, each of the millions of tiny acts and occurrences that make my life possible and worth living.
Thank you. Those two words are the quintessential prayer. I know of no better. Thank you, dearest Loving Mystery, for your immense hospitality throughout all ages, creating life abundant and giving your life eternal through Jesus, our brother. Your great and continuous giving fills me with gratitude that I, with all your saints, may become the face of your resplendent hospitality, shining in the face of Jesus the Christ, your beloved and mine. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
What greater blessing is there than to lose ourselves in you, free, free, free from ravages of driven ego? What greater grace can I enjoy than to disappear in you so that all I know is your encircling love, stilling all want and desire in a holy nearness where we are one and anxious need is abolished?
Fully encompassed within your enveloping embrace, most of what I think I am disappears. All that remains is that which holds and is held by your loving, and I am that loving.
I occupy less space than I normally require in my daily places and conversations. Rapt in you, I grow small but real, secure but brave, gentle but capable of greatness, for I am that which I am only in your love, filled with the substance of your divine life, able to give whatever your abiding grace requires of me.
And the need to be first evaporates; the urge to exclude that I may be greater dissolves vaporous illusions. For I know what is real and true, and that is you who are love, who fill me and all that is with life unimaginable, known now in moments of graced oneness, exquisitely heralding eternity in your embrace. Thank you that I should taste eternity and know the freedom you intend. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:9-10
“I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church.”
Prayer
What greater blessing is there than to lose ourselves in you, free, free, free from ravages of driven ego? What greater grace can I enjoy than to disappear in you so that all I know is your encircling love, stilling all want and desire in a holy nearness where we are one and anxious need is abolished?
Fully encompassed within your enveloping embrace, most of what I think I am disappears. All that remains is that which holds and is held by your loving, and I am that loving.
I occupy less space than I normally require in my daily places and conversations. Rapt in you, I grow small but real, secure but brave, gentle but capable of greatness, for I am that which I am only in your love, filled with the substance of your divine life, able to give whatever your abiding grace requires of me.
And the need to be first evaporates; the urge to exclude that I may be greater dissolves vaporous illusions. For I know what is real and true, and that is you who are love, who fill me and all that is with life unimaginable, known now in moments of graced oneness, exquisitely heralding eternity in your embrace. Thank you that I should taste eternity and know the freedom you intend. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, July 16, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:6b-8
“You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ; accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people so that we may become co-workers with the truth.”
Prayer
What is truth that we should become coworkers with it? How shall we discern between truth and appearance, except through time? The true is solid and lasting, dependable and enduring. It is solid rock on which we plant our feet, assured the ground will not shift beneath us.
But what is truth; what can it be, if not you? And what are you, if not this mad and gentle love that wears the face of my brother Jesus?
This love neither fails nor fades. It endures from eternity to eternity, stretching through my little moment of time, connecting me with that which is ever certain, unending, unfailing, unceasing, a constantly flowing stream through all reality and time.
All else fades, fails and crumbles. The years roll on, crushing the goods and passions that demand our attention and exhaust our labors. But today’s necessity soon disappears, dropped and forgotten in an infinite sea of eternity.
But you, your incarnate love, full of grace and truth, remain. You always remain. You are truth, and your truth is that love that ever flows: an eternal, life-giving spring that runs not dry. When all I depend upon seems uncertain and all my certainties dissolve in the shifting currents of time, you are. You are truth. And you are mine.
So let me dwell in your truth and do the truth you are, expressing your mad and gentle love in my flesh. Though it may seem foolish and out of touch with the fashions of the day, I hunger to labor with you, Gentle and Eternal Love. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:6b-8
“You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ; accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people so that we may become co-workers with the truth.”
Prayer
What is truth that we should become coworkers with it? How shall we discern between truth and appearance, except through time? The true is solid and lasting, dependable and enduring. It is solid rock on which we plant our feet, assured the ground will not shift beneath us.
But what is truth; what can it be, if not you? And what are you, if not this mad and gentle love that wears the face of my brother Jesus?
This love neither fails nor fades. It endures from eternity to eternity, stretching through my little moment of time, connecting me with that which is ever certain, unending, unfailing, unceasing, a constantly flowing stream through all reality and time.
All else fades, fails and crumbles. The years roll on, crushing the goods and passions that demand our attention and exhaust our labors. But today’s necessity soon disappears, dropped and forgotten in an infinite sea of eternity.
But you, your incarnate love, full of grace and truth, remain. You always remain. You are truth, and your truth is that love that ever flows: an eternal, life-giving spring that runs not dry. When all I depend upon seems uncertain and all my certainties dissolve in the shifting currents of time, you are. You are truth. And you are mine.
So let me dwell in your truth and do the truth you are, expressing your mad and gentle love in my flesh. Though it may seem foolish and out of touch with the fashions of the day, I hunger to labor with you, Gentle and Eternal Love. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, July 13, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:6b-7
“You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ; accepting no support from non-believers.”
Prayer
What can we possibly do that is worthy of you, Gracious One? What work of hand or heart qualifies? You are ever more, beyond reach of our humanity. Our thoughts are always sullied by sin, and our finest deeds are double-minded. They do not measure against the single-hearted holiness that is full and complete in all that you do and are.
You are love, and all that you do is love, full-hearted, undiluted, undivided, totally given in grace to such as us. You extend the hospitality of your own life, inviting us to come and rest, abide and know that you desire to share all that you have and are with us, all love, all forgiveness, all mercy, all wisdom, all justice, all compassion, all eternity, all.
You invite us into your own being, which is love itself, where we know, finally that we have arrived home, our final destination. There, you transform us, mind and soul, that we might become the great generosity you are, extending that hospitality of love and life we find in you.
Just so, your life shines in our inhospitable world, fulfilling your holy desire to be all in all. May it come soon, My Lord, for that will mean the salvation of all has arrived. Until then, may we reveal its coming in deeds of grace and hospitality that your joy and ours may be complete. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:6b-7
“You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ; accepting no support from non-believers.”
Prayer
What can we possibly do that is worthy of you, Gracious One? What work of hand or heart qualifies? You are ever more, beyond reach of our humanity. Our thoughts are always sullied by sin, and our finest deeds are double-minded. They do not measure against the single-hearted holiness that is full and complete in all that you do and are.
You are love, and all that you do is love, full-hearted, undiluted, undivided, totally given in grace to such as us. You extend the hospitality of your own life, inviting us to come and rest, abide and know that you desire to share all that you have and are with us, all love, all forgiveness, all mercy, all wisdom, all justice, all compassion, all eternity, all.
You invite us into your own being, which is love itself, where we know, finally that we have arrived home, our final destination. There, you transform us, mind and soul, that we might become the great generosity you are, extending that hospitality of love and life we find in you.
Just so, your life shines in our inhospitable world, fulfilling your holy desire to be all in all. May it come soon, My Lord, for that will mean the salvation of all has arrived. Until then, may we reveal its coming in deeds of grace and hospitality that your joy and ours may be complete. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Today’s text
3 John 1:5-6a
“Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the friends; even though they are strangers to you; they have testified to your love before the church.”
Prayer
I give you thanks, Gracious One, for words of gratitude about your beloved. You privilege me to live among a community of your saints, a favor I value too little. Forgive me for dishonoring and discounting this gift that surrounds me day to day.
You allow me to hear words of appreciation and gratitude for your saints. The words often surprise, expressing joy and praise for souls I had disregarded or discounted, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.
The words and laughter of gratitude for these souls startles me into repentance. They undermine my assumptions and quick conclusions about those whose beauty, truth and faithfulness I refused to see because I was so sure that I understood. I could not see because I was so certain that their weakness or fault defined them.
Just so, I missed seeing you alive in their flesh, stirring their struggle to be that which you would bring to life in them. Others see what I did not. And you used their words to reveal my cold stony heart and to turn me from the way of death. Thank you.
Give me a heart slow to judge and eyes eager to see and celebrate the beauty and faithfulness of your children, especially those who are difficult for me. Let me peaceably and faithfully do for others the work you have appointed to me. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
3 John 1:5-6a
“Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the friends; even though they are strangers to you; they have testified to your love before the church.”
Prayer
I give you thanks, Gracious One, for words of gratitude about your beloved. You privilege me to live among a community of your saints, a favor I value too little. Forgive me for dishonoring and discounting this gift that surrounds me day to day.
You allow me to hear words of appreciation and gratitude for your saints. The words often surprise, expressing joy and praise for souls I had disregarded or discounted, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not.
The words and laughter of gratitude for these souls startles me into repentance. They undermine my assumptions and quick conclusions about those whose beauty, truth and faithfulness I refused to see because I was so sure that I understood. I could not see because I was so certain that their weakness or fault defined them.
Just so, I missed seeing you alive in their flesh, stirring their struggle to be that which you would bring to life in them. Others see what I did not. And you used their words to reveal my cold stony heart and to turn me from the way of death. Thank you.
Give me a heart slow to judge and eyes eager to see and celebrate the beauty and faithfulness of your children, especially those who are difficult for me. Let me peaceably and faithfully do for others the work you have appointed to me. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
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