Today’s text
From the Proslogian by Saint Anselm of Canterbury (bishop, 1033-1109)
Lord most high, what shall this exile do, so far from you? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and cast so far from your face? He yearns to see you, and your face is too far from him. He desires to approach you, and your dwelling is unapproachable. He longs to find you, and does not know your dwelling place. He strives to look for you, and does not know your face.
Reflection
The metaphor of exile is fitting to describe the feeling of those who hunger for God. We long for the One to whom we intuitively know we belong. We crave union with the Love from whom we feel separation, knowing no final peace on this earth until our tormented love is satisfied.
Saints and writers of every age have written of this experience, Christians, Jews, those of other faiths or of no faith at all. Awareness burns in the human heart, unsettling us, a restless knowledge that we are not at home until we are united with … something … someone.
We feel cut off from that mystery to which (to Whom) we ultimately belong. For the person without faith in God, this restlessness is an inescapable existential condition, the normal condition of the human heart living in a world in which one can never find the peace that the human heart is moved to seek for reasons it does not understand.
Although we find no peace here, we still want it, and we either live with the dis-ease of not having what we want, or we try to kill the desire with substances of constant busy-ness. We might tell ourselves that the unknown something we want is an illusion we had best ignore. Eat, drink and be merry, but don’t kid yourself: your hunger for final fulfillment is a false hope; it is chasing after the wind. You will never catch it.
But for the person of faith the yearning for the One to whom we belong is a search for home. It is the desire to return from the wandering of exile where we feel alone and lost, forgotten and perhaps forsaken, for we feel far removed from the One in whom rest and peace is found.
The Great Soul who is God, the One who loves and creates sentient beings out of an abundant store of love, creates us in order to share the boundless store of divine life and love with us, we who have life and love only by God’s gift.
God has fashioned our small souls so that in our exilic wanderings our hunger might moves us to seek to be reunited with the Mystery from whom we came, to return and find the holy union with the place, the Person, the home for which we have long searched, wondering at times whether it is even real.
It is, of course. It is real as are you, Loving and Holy Mystery. The pains of our wanderings through life are a great grace. They whisper in our ears that we belong to a Greatness which we cannot begin to imagine, the greatness of You, who made us for yourself.
So let us not run from the pain of our exile, nor kill or drown out the desire that moves us to search and long for union with the One who is always more. Our pain is a tormented love, moving us to search and watch for our Beloved, who continually draws us to the place where we might find oneness with the Source of our Being--and there, finally, to see the face of our Lord, face to face.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Sunday, December 04, 2011
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Today’s text
From a biblical commentary by Saint Ephrem (deacon, 306-373)
About that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son. It is not for you to know times or moments. He has kept these things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. If he had revealed the time of his coming, his coming would have lost its savor; it would no longer be an object of yearning for the nations and the age in which it will be revealed. He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations await him eagerly.
Reflection
Just so, yearning, not satisfaction, remains the larger part of our lives.
We are always oriented and drawn to something more, hoping that the goodness we have known is but a part, a sample of what will be. We also yearn that the injustice and suffering, which is part of every time and every life, will pass away like a bad dream in the dawning light of our Lord’s eternal morning.
St. Paul counseled that it is a holy and good thing to be content with what the possessions and wealth one has. But contentment with what we have known and experienced of Christ is a sickness unto death. It invites a sleepy lethargy, pathetic apathy, depression and timidity.
To be content with what we know and feel of Christ turns us from the grace he is eager to share. We no longer meet each day, no, each new moment and encounter with the hope that the face of the person before us may turn transparent to that Love who seeks our hearts. It deadens the mind to the possibility that we might glimpse signs of the kingdom of God’s peace breaking into our daily routines, stirring our hearts to gratitude for the One who is ever at hand, always near.
To be content with such fragments of Christ’s reign, as we now experience on earth, turns us from the plight of the poor and those who suffer injustice. It makes us content with the status quo so that we become a friend of death, no longer challenging the powers and injustices that feed poverty and starvation while protecting the rich, not to mention our comfortable lifestyles.
The suffering of this age and every death we see should stir us to pray, ‘Come Lord Jesus,’ moving also to watch and not lose heart. For Christ promises to come, and we should be eager for his appearance. We have seen and felt the pains he has promised to erase, when he comes to make all things new and wipe every tear from our eyes.
We are eager for his appearance not only because of our own and the world’s pains, but because we have seen the graciousness of his love in our brother, Jesus.
We have witnessed his coming in a thousand ways and places, a thousand days and faces where the One who is Love shows his beauty and awakens the same gracious loveliness within our hearts that it may flow from our hands and our words.
All this should well move us to be eager for Christ’s every appearance, looking for him in all the places of our lives. For he who is … is pleased to come to you.
Pr. David L. Miller
From a biblical commentary by Saint Ephrem (deacon, 306-373)
About that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son. It is not for you to know times or moments. He has kept these things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. If he had revealed the time of his coming, his coming would have lost its savor; it would no longer be an object of yearning for the nations and the age in which it will be revealed. He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations await him eagerly.
Reflection
Just so, yearning, not satisfaction, remains the larger part of our lives.
We are always oriented and drawn to something more, hoping that the goodness we have known is but a part, a sample of what will be. We also yearn that the injustice and suffering, which is part of every time and every life, will pass away like a bad dream in the dawning light of our Lord’s eternal morning.
St. Paul counseled that it is a holy and good thing to be content with what the possessions and wealth one has. But contentment with what we have known and experienced of Christ is a sickness unto death. It invites a sleepy lethargy, pathetic apathy, depression and timidity.
To be content with what we know and feel of Christ turns us from the grace he is eager to share. We no longer meet each day, no, each new moment and encounter with the hope that the face of the person before us may turn transparent to that Love who seeks our hearts. It deadens the mind to the possibility that we might glimpse signs of the kingdom of God’s peace breaking into our daily routines, stirring our hearts to gratitude for the One who is ever at hand, always near.
To be content with such fragments of Christ’s reign, as we now experience on earth, turns us from the plight of the poor and those who suffer injustice. It makes us content with the status quo so that we become a friend of death, no longer challenging the powers and injustices that feed poverty and starvation while protecting the rich, not to mention our comfortable lifestyles.
The suffering of this age and every death we see should stir us to pray, ‘Come Lord Jesus,’ moving also to watch and not lose heart. For Christ promises to come, and we should be eager for his appearance. We have seen and felt the pains he has promised to erase, when he comes to make all things new and wipe every tear from our eyes.
We are eager for his appearance not only because of our own and the world’s pains, but because we have seen the graciousness of his love in our brother, Jesus.
We have witnessed his coming in a thousand ways and places, a thousand days and faces where the One who is Love shows his beauty and awakens the same gracious loveliness within our hearts that it may flow from our hands and our words.
All this should well move us to be eager for Christ’s every appearance, looking for him in all the places of our lives. For he who is … is pleased to come to you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Today’s text
From a sermon by Saint Bernard (abbot, 1090-1153)
Keep God’s word in this way. Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life. Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread, or your heart will wither away. Fill your soul with richness and strength. If you keep the world of God in this way, it will also keep you. The Son and the Father will come to you.
Reflection
Come to us, O Lord and set us free from bondage to our fears and sorrows, our selfish sins and worried souls, anxious for the future. Come to us and remove every impediment that prevents our entry into the heaven of your nearness, the presence that sets our hearts to soar.
There are three comings of our Lord, Saint Bernard tells us. Two are visible, one is not. The first is the appearance of a child in Mary’s arms, come to win our hearts with the humble courtesy of God. Our Lord comes not to overwhelm but to awaken love in us. The Immortal and Incomprehensible One puts all that aside to touch our flesh with divine gentleness.
In the final appearance, our Lord will come in glory to lift every valley and make low every mountain, to raise up the downtrodden and judge the proud and indifferent, and make all things new. All will reflect God’s glory, and we shall see it. Not like now, when we see … but so dimly, as if through dirty lenses, and so occasionally as if God’s glory was not visible in all God has made.
These two comings of God are visible, but in between is a silent and hidden appearance as God comes to our souls and lives there, seeping through the pores of our being to reveal the Love that God is, however obscured by our faults and failings.
This coming of our Lord is a path, a way that we walk. Each day is an invitation to enter again the goodness of the One who is all goodness, to taste the Love of the One who is all Love, to witness the beauty of the One is all beauty. Each morning is an invitation to draw the breath of earth into our lungs and know every breath as the hunger of God to give us life as a holy and irreplaceable gift.
So I come again, O Lord, to the start of the day. I come seeking to hear and be blessed by your word, hungry to see, no, to feel the Love that is the boundless source of every love and all life, so that you may live and have greater place in me.
I have no idea how this happens. I cannot describe the way it occurs. I only know that when I listen to you, when I read the words you speak through prophets and saints and in the stories how you came to us in the gentle flesh of Jesus, when I do this I find a life of gentleness and grace that takes larger place in me.
And in this I know you, and I know that although I keep your word … it is you who are keeping me.
Pr. David L. Miller
From a sermon by Saint Bernard (abbot, 1090-1153)
Keep God’s word in this way. Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life. Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread, or your heart will wither away. Fill your soul with richness and strength. If you keep the world of God in this way, it will also keep you. The Son and the Father will come to you.
Reflection
Come to us, O Lord and set us free from bondage to our fears and sorrows, our selfish sins and worried souls, anxious for the future. Come to us and remove every impediment that prevents our entry into the heaven of your nearness, the presence that sets our hearts to soar.
There are three comings of our Lord, Saint Bernard tells us. Two are visible, one is not. The first is the appearance of a child in Mary’s arms, come to win our hearts with the humble courtesy of God. Our Lord comes not to overwhelm but to awaken love in us. The Immortal and Incomprehensible One puts all that aside to touch our flesh with divine gentleness.
In the final appearance, our Lord will come in glory to lift every valley and make low every mountain, to raise up the downtrodden and judge the proud and indifferent, and make all things new. All will reflect God’s glory, and we shall see it. Not like now, when we see … but so dimly, as if through dirty lenses, and so occasionally as if God’s glory was not visible in all God has made.
These two comings of God are visible, but in between is a silent and hidden appearance as God comes to our souls and lives there, seeping through the pores of our being to reveal the Love that God is, however obscured by our faults and failings.
This coming of our Lord is a path, a way that we walk. Each day is an invitation to enter again the goodness of the One who is all goodness, to taste the Love of the One who is all Love, to witness the beauty of the One is all beauty. Each morning is an invitation to draw the breath of earth into our lungs and know every breath as the hunger of God to give us life as a holy and irreplaceable gift.
So I come again, O Lord, to the start of the day. I come seeking to hear and be blessed by your word, hungry to see, no, to feel the Love that is the boundless source of every love and all life, so that you may live and have greater place in me.
I have no idea how this happens. I cannot describe the way it occurs. I only know that when I listen to you, when I read the words you speak through prophets and saints and in the stories how you came to us in the gentle flesh of Jesus, when I do this I find a life of gentleness and grace that takes larger place in me.
And in this I know you, and I know that although I keep your word … it is you who are keeping me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Today’s text
From a pastoral letter by Saint Charles Borromeo (bishop, 1538-1584)
The Church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts.
Reflection
It has taken years to know the longing in my heart as a longing that is not my own.
I hear the words and songs of the Advent season. Isaiah, in particular, moves me. He speaks of deep and universal longings for a world made whole and for souls healed by the restoring love the One who is Love and most lovable of all.
The prophet writes that the Lord shall judge among the nations, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. One nation will no longer raise the sword against their neighbors, nor shall they learn war again (Isaiah 2:4-5).
The words stir the heart, awakening longing to be the peace God brings, so that every interaction of my life becomes a moment for offering the peace and gentleness of God in Christ to every soul I meet, whether on the phone, in the coffee shop, at the hospital bed.
I hunger for my whole bearing to be peace, the peace of God, the peace of heaven, the peace that fills the heart when one knows all is well, all is wrapped in the embrace of God, the Father.
Peace comes in quietness when the rush of the daily world fades, and we can hear the voice our heart. We feel our wounds, our hunger for healing, listening also to the longings that reside within us for a life beyond the life we are living, a life more beautiful and good, more graced and gracing, a life in which we are ruled more by joy and hope than disappointment and criticism.
Such longing is stirred when we hear the words of those, like the prophet Isaiah, whose souls have heard the Voice of the Eternal One in their own heart … and spoken what they have heard.
But we miss the point if we think the longings within us for peace, for love, for rising to a new kind of life are our own creation. They are the presence of God, the reality of Christ again taking on flesh within our flesh to make us the peace of God, the blessing of God, the presence of God in our time and place, wherever we are.
For God is not pleased to take on human flesh only once, in a manger, the child of peasants, in a time far distant from our own. Christ is born a million times and more in every heart where inner longing becomes words of peace and acts of mercy in a world that needs this most of all.
Pr. David L. Miller
From a pastoral letter by Saint Charles Borromeo (bishop, 1538-1584)
The Church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts.
Reflection
It has taken years to know the longing in my heart as a longing that is not my own.
I hear the words and songs of the Advent season. Isaiah, in particular, moves me. He speaks of deep and universal longings for a world made whole and for souls healed by the restoring love the One who is Love and most lovable of all.
The prophet writes that the Lord shall judge among the nations, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. One nation will no longer raise the sword against their neighbors, nor shall they learn war again (Isaiah 2:4-5).
The words stir the heart, awakening longing to be the peace God brings, so that every interaction of my life becomes a moment for offering the peace and gentleness of God in Christ to every soul I meet, whether on the phone, in the coffee shop, at the hospital bed.
I hunger for my whole bearing to be peace, the peace of God, the peace of heaven, the peace that fills the heart when one knows all is well, all is wrapped in the embrace of God, the Father.
Peace comes in quietness when the rush of the daily world fades, and we can hear the voice our heart. We feel our wounds, our hunger for healing, listening also to the longings that reside within us for a life beyond the life we are living, a life more beautiful and good, more graced and gracing, a life in which we are ruled more by joy and hope than disappointment and criticism.
Such longing is stirred when we hear the words of those, like the prophet Isaiah, whose souls have heard the Voice of the Eternal One in their own heart … and spoken what they have heard.
But we miss the point if we think the longings within us for peace, for love, for rising to a new kind of life are our own creation. They are the presence of God, the reality of Christ again taking on flesh within our flesh to make us the peace of God, the blessing of God, the presence of God in our time and place, wherever we are.
For God is not pleased to take on human flesh only once, in a manger, the child of peasants, in a time far distant from our own. Christ is born a million times and more in every heart where inner longing becomes words of peace and acts of mercy in a world that needs this most of all.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, November 28, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Today’s text
From On the Contemplation of God by William of Saint Thierry (monk and abbot, 1075?--1153)
O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you?
Reflection
It is the gift of loving that I find most freeing, dear Friend. But I cannot separate this gift from the gift of knowing your boundless love. These are one gift, not two, two experiences of the same reality.
There are moments in which I feel the world loved, totally, fully, completely--and me in and with it. Creation shines more beautiful and graced than any words can say, as I feel Your immensity embracing me and all that is.
Immediately, my soul flies open. A river of grace breaks loose in my heart, and my greatest joy is pouring that love into another life, onto another soul.
A flood of generosity fills me and flows from my smile, bursting free from a Source so deep in my soul that it is no longer my own soul, but yours. It flows in abundance from a dark and hidden place I cannot see, the place where my heart and your divine heart are one and the same.
This is salvation.
This word seldom crosses my lips, even in sermons. It’s so worn and weak it awakens no great thoughts or deep emotions in common conversation. I avoid it because it has no meaning for so many, no connection with felt experience.
But the experience of knowing great love and loving greatly, about this I cannot say enough. I crave this experience, for when I am in the midst of knowing the immensity of your love I become the Love you are. I am most human, most alive,
That is why I cling to certain stories of your ministry, Jesus. A leper kneels at your feet and says, “If you want to, you can make me whole.”
“I want to,” you say, as you reach to touch him.
And seeing this I fall in love with the Love you are. Love fills me again, freeing me every prejudgment and negative thought I have, thoughts about myself and even about those who hurt or dismiss me. Such thoughts cannot exist in the presence of Love.
The experience is fleeting, of course, but while it lasts I am free to be the person that hides so deeply within. I am free from wounds, anger and hatreds. I become your generosity, Holy One, knowing the Love you are in the Love that flows from my eyes, my face, my hands, my arms, my smile, my words.
And I know what salvation is: knowing You, knowing you as Love within my own heart and mind. It brings a sudden transformation into the image of God that I am, the image of the One who loves and always will.
This is salvation. One day I will enter its fullness. For now, I will allow whatever beauty and grace I know to awaken in me you, who are Love.
And I will look again and again into the face of Jesus, whose words and touch reveal your divine heart. He comes bearing a salvation we can feel in our flesh, a salvation that reveals who I am … and who You are.
Pr. David L. Miller
From On the Contemplation of God by William of Saint Thierry (monk and abbot, 1075?--1153)
O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you?
Reflection
It is the gift of loving that I find most freeing, dear Friend. But I cannot separate this gift from the gift of knowing your boundless love. These are one gift, not two, two experiences of the same reality.
There are moments in which I feel the world loved, totally, fully, completely--and me in and with it. Creation shines more beautiful and graced than any words can say, as I feel Your immensity embracing me and all that is.
Immediately, my soul flies open. A river of grace breaks loose in my heart, and my greatest joy is pouring that love into another life, onto another soul.
A flood of generosity fills me and flows from my smile, bursting free from a Source so deep in my soul that it is no longer my own soul, but yours. It flows in abundance from a dark and hidden place I cannot see, the place where my heart and your divine heart are one and the same.
This is salvation.
This word seldom crosses my lips, even in sermons. It’s so worn and weak it awakens no great thoughts or deep emotions in common conversation. I avoid it because it has no meaning for so many, no connection with felt experience.
But the experience of knowing great love and loving greatly, about this I cannot say enough. I crave this experience, for when I am in the midst of knowing the immensity of your love I become the Love you are. I am most human, most alive,
That is why I cling to certain stories of your ministry, Jesus. A leper kneels at your feet and says, “If you want to, you can make me whole.”
“I want to,” you say, as you reach to touch him.
And seeing this I fall in love with the Love you are. Love fills me again, freeing me every prejudgment and negative thought I have, thoughts about myself and even about those who hurt or dismiss me. Such thoughts cannot exist in the presence of Love.
The experience is fleeting, of course, but while it lasts I am free to be the person that hides so deeply within. I am free from wounds, anger and hatreds. I become your generosity, Holy One, knowing the Love you are in the Love that flows from my eyes, my face, my hands, my arms, my smile, my words.
And I know what salvation is: knowing You, knowing you as Love within my own heart and mind. It brings a sudden transformation into the image of God that I am, the image of the One who loves and always will.
This is salvation. One day I will enter its fullness. For now, I will allow whatever beauty and grace I know to awaken in me you, who are Love.
And I will look again and again into the face of Jesus, whose words and touch reveal your divine heart. He comes bearing a salvation we can feel in our flesh, a salvation that reveals who I am … and who You are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Today’s text
Luke 17:12-19
12As [Jesus] entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Reflection
Teach me to see, Holy One; then I shall be free. Then my heart shall soar, for all I see shall sing the praise of you who staggers my imagination and moves me to tears in the morning hours … and beyond.
Teach me to see with compassion; give that God’s-eye vision that it is penetrating mercy.
You looked and saw 10 lepers. You saw their need. They were not flawed human beings, their skin, peeling, ugly, sickly white. You were not repelled. You saw their isolation from the rest of society, from family and friends, from long evenings when human souls lay down the weight of their lives and laugh over wine and food, reveling in the company of those among whom they are at home.
They were at home no where, and nowhere were they welcome. Children ran from them at the edge of towns they could not enter. Unclean, unclean, the cry would go out, and human faces fled their sight.
Alone, they were. Alone, always alone, the craving for human nearness echoed in their hearts, taunting their souls. They ached for companionship they knew they could never have, the gentle hand of a mother upon their cheek, the kiss of a lover in night, the playful hug of four-year-olds around their neck. Never theirs.
This is what you saw, Jesus. You saw them they way the Holy Father sees them, not the way they saw themselves. You saw their need. You saw their impossible hope for healing, for the holy human communion that love is. You saw all their hopes, all their sad longing for what their lives could never be.
You saw, and that’s the message. You see … me, all of me: my hopes and fears, needs and yearning, laughter and tears, the unending, incessant craving to live with fullness, to exhaust the possibilities of living and loving in this world so that my soul may find the utter contentment of tasting the life of heaven, where in loving my soul is one with the One who is Love and nothing but.
You see, Jesus, and in your seeing I know how I am seen by the One whom no eye has ever seen.
You eyes are upon me, and I feel the Love Who sees me, and heaven comes, here and now with the contentment of knowing, just knowing the Love I was created to know, that every human soul was created to know.
And I see. I see like the one healed leper. I see that I am healed, or at least that healing is well underway.
I see that healing comes in knowing, feeling the Love who made me and all that is, the Love who sees me, the Love who wants my soul to know joy.
I look and see. I see the late autumn trees, sparse, dull brown leaves clinging fast to branches against cooling winds that hint the snows soon to fly. I see, and I know they stand in the soil of the Source of all Being. I see that all that is grows from the Impenetrable Love who loves life and whose one business is life, making, nurturing, growing and bringing it to flower.
I see that everything that is expresses its Source, the Love who sees, and I know all is well and will be.
I see and my seeing praises You, Holy One. I see and I thank everyone who ever taught me to see, and everyone in whom I ever saw the One who sees me. You.
I see, and I know my brother is the one leper who saw you, Jesus, and returned to fall at your feet in thankful wonder for a Love that sees.
I see, and I know I am in the best possible company, those who see the One who sees.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 17:12-19
12As [Jesus] entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Reflection
Teach me to see, Holy One; then I shall be free. Then my heart shall soar, for all I see shall sing the praise of you who staggers my imagination and moves me to tears in the morning hours … and beyond.
Teach me to see with compassion; give that God’s-eye vision that it is penetrating mercy.
You looked and saw 10 lepers. You saw their need. They were not flawed human beings, their skin, peeling, ugly, sickly white. You were not repelled. You saw their isolation from the rest of society, from family and friends, from long evenings when human souls lay down the weight of their lives and laugh over wine and food, reveling in the company of those among whom they are at home.
They were at home no where, and nowhere were they welcome. Children ran from them at the edge of towns they could not enter. Unclean, unclean, the cry would go out, and human faces fled their sight.
Alone, they were. Alone, always alone, the craving for human nearness echoed in their hearts, taunting their souls. They ached for companionship they knew they could never have, the gentle hand of a mother upon their cheek, the kiss of a lover in night, the playful hug of four-year-olds around their neck. Never theirs.
This is what you saw, Jesus. You saw them they way the Holy Father sees them, not the way they saw themselves. You saw their need. You saw their impossible hope for healing, for the holy human communion that love is. You saw all their hopes, all their sad longing for what their lives could never be.
You saw, and that’s the message. You see … me, all of me: my hopes and fears, needs and yearning, laughter and tears, the unending, incessant craving to live with fullness, to exhaust the possibilities of living and loving in this world so that my soul may find the utter contentment of tasting the life of heaven, where in loving my soul is one with the One who is Love and nothing but.
You see, Jesus, and in your seeing I know how I am seen by the One whom no eye has ever seen.
You eyes are upon me, and I feel the Love Who sees me, and heaven comes, here and now with the contentment of knowing, just knowing the Love I was created to know, that every human soul was created to know.
And I see. I see like the one healed leper. I see that I am healed, or at least that healing is well underway.
I see that healing comes in knowing, feeling the Love who made me and all that is, the Love who sees me, the Love who wants my soul to know joy.
I look and see. I see the late autumn trees, sparse, dull brown leaves clinging fast to branches against cooling winds that hint the snows soon to fly. I see, and I know they stand in the soil of the Source of all Being. I see that all that is grows from the Impenetrable Love who loves life and whose one business is life, making, nurturing, growing and bringing it to flower.
I see that everything that is expresses its Source, the Love who sees, and I know all is well and will be.
I see and my seeing praises You, Holy One. I see and I thank everyone who ever taught me to see, and everyone in whom I ever saw the One who sees me. You.
I see, and I know my brother is the one leper who saw you, Jesus, and returned to fall at your feet in thankful wonder for a Love that sees.
I see, and I know I am in the best possible company, those who see the One who sees.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:20-23
God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Reflection
The year draws to an end. For the church, the end is Christ, an end we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday, Nov.20.
Recent years have seen a spate of apocalyptic-tinged films offering cataclysmic visions of the end of the world--or at least the end of the ordered, civilized world as we know it.
Difficult times when social, economic and political structures seem to erode and crumble always spur speculation about the end of things. Most human speculation about “the end” is violent and fearful, pitting human strength and determination against irresistible destruction.
This tension provides fodder for movie plots with lots of explosions and improbable special effects that kill and maim, as lead characters employ their cunning and strength as they try to escape and thrive by force of their will.
Whether they survive or not, the “end of things’ comes as threat, and human beings are on their own. They must do the best they can without thought that other, more gracious forces are at work amid the crumbling of society and the shaking of Earth’s crust.
But this is not the end of things, nor is it our end.
The end is Christ. All things were made for him, in him, and by him. All is shaped by the life and power that is Being, Life and Love.
In the Church, the poor, confused, often failing Church, the grace and power of Christ is present, filling that broken body with the substance of grace and care, life and joy amid the pains and challenges of life.
Christ is filling the Church with the fullness of the Loving Wonder, the Eternal Mystery whom no eye has seen, except ours, of course, for we see him. We see him in every act of grace and goodness, in the morning sun across the autumn tress, in bread broken and wine poured of the Eucharist, in the eager and empty hands of those who receive this gift of the life Christ is. Knowing the limits of the life they hold, they long for that Life which is filling the Church … and will fill all until all that is left is Life.
And that’s the end--Life, the Life that shines in the face of Jesus Christ, the Life that is the Life of the Eternal One, filling all that is … and us.
No exploding buildings, no fearful violent destruction, just Life. Our end, the end of things … is only the beginning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:20-23
God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Reflection
The year draws to an end. For the church, the end is Christ, an end we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday, Nov.20.
Recent years have seen a spate of apocalyptic-tinged films offering cataclysmic visions of the end of the world--or at least the end of the ordered, civilized world as we know it.
Difficult times when social, economic and political structures seem to erode and crumble always spur speculation about the end of things. Most human speculation about “the end” is violent and fearful, pitting human strength and determination against irresistible destruction.
This tension provides fodder for movie plots with lots of explosions and improbable special effects that kill and maim, as lead characters employ their cunning and strength as they try to escape and thrive by force of their will.
Whether they survive or not, the “end of things’ comes as threat, and human beings are on their own. They must do the best they can without thought that other, more gracious forces are at work amid the crumbling of society and the shaking of Earth’s crust.
But this is not the end of things, nor is it our end.
The end is Christ. All things were made for him, in him, and by him. All is shaped by the life and power that is Being, Life and Love.
In the Church, the poor, confused, often failing Church, the grace and power of Christ is present, filling that broken body with the substance of grace and care, life and joy amid the pains and challenges of life.
Christ is filling the Church with the fullness of the Loving Wonder, the Eternal Mystery whom no eye has seen, except ours, of course, for we see him. We see him in every act of grace and goodness, in the morning sun across the autumn tress, in bread broken and wine poured of the Eucharist, in the eager and empty hands of those who receive this gift of the life Christ is. Knowing the limits of the life they hold, they long for that Life which is filling the Church … and will fill all until all that is left is Life.
And that’s the end--Life, the Life that shines in the face of Jesus Christ, the Life that is the Life of the Eternal One, filling all that is … and us.
No exploding buildings, no fearful violent destruction, just Life. Our end, the end of things … is only the beginning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 25:19-25
19After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’
Reflection
Ah, but you were wrong, so you lived in fear. You took no risks. You buried yourself, your soul in the field of your fears, missing the joy of your master, never nearing the entrance of the joyous life you might enter.
My heart sings these words again and again, moving joy in my morning heart.
I am filled with the joy the Holy One intends for all the beloved, and that is what we are: Beloved of the Loving Mystery, from all eternity.
I enter my master’s joy as I dare believe that the God of the heavens and the earth is not a harsh master, reaping where he did not sow. In utter delight, the master sows life and beauty, love and gifts to we who inhabit this good Earth, another generosity from the Eternal Giver.
Our lives begin as gift, and when we see this, when we feel it, we are gripped by the revelation that the Source of all Life is generous and good. The master gives being where there is none, breathing life into that which cannot know the joy of simply breathing … were it not for the One who if the Breath of all the living.
We are ever in the hands of the Eternal Generosity. Feeling this, we have already entered the master’s joy of being and giving life. We taste the joy of receiving from the Love who wills us into being, willing also that I should live beyond the fears that hem me into the half-life of never trusting, never risking.
What could happen? That I fail? That I lose? That the life I have been given be lost?
Fears, all of this, damning fears.
My life is the effluence of the One who sows freely, who gives gifts and life without me asking, whose joy is being Life and making life that I, too, may be.
So it is: You, Loving and Living One, invite me beyond the anxiety that my life hangs from a single thread, held by harsh hands, ready to condemn and release me to the darkness.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Fear flows from wrong faith, mistaken ideas about life’s master. Entering the joy of the master happens the moment we feel and know the master’s joy in being and giving life.
It happens everywhere and every time when we know, when we just know that Love holds us and always will, freeing our hearts to live and risk, to try and fail, to live as the selves we are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 25:19-25
19After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’
Reflection
Ah, but you were wrong, so you lived in fear. You took no risks. You buried yourself, your soul in the field of your fears, missing the joy of your master, never nearing the entrance of the joyous life you might enter.
My heart sings these words again and again, moving joy in my morning heart.
I am filled with the joy the Holy One intends for all the beloved, and that is what we are: Beloved of the Loving Mystery, from all eternity.
I enter my master’s joy as I dare believe that the God of the heavens and the earth is not a harsh master, reaping where he did not sow. In utter delight, the master sows life and beauty, love and gifts to we who inhabit this good Earth, another generosity from the Eternal Giver.
Our lives begin as gift, and when we see this, when we feel it, we are gripped by the revelation that the Source of all Life is generous and good. The master gives being where there is none, breathing life into that which cannot know the joy of simply breathing … were it not for the One who if the Breath of all the living.
We are ever in the hands of the Eternal Generosity. Feeling this, we have already entered the master’s joy of being and giving life. We taste the joy of receiving from the Love who wills us into being, willing also that I should live beyond the fears that hem me into the half-life of never trusting, never risking.
What could happen? That I fail? That I lose? That the life I have been given be lost?
Fears, all of this, damning fears.
My life is the effluence of the One who sows freely, who gives gifts and life without me asking, whose joy is being Life and making life that I, too, may be.
So it is: You, Loving and Living One, invite me beyond the anxiety that my life hangs from a single thread, held by harsh hands, ready to condemn and release me to the darkness.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Fear flows from wrong faith, mistaken ideas about life’s master. Entering the joy of the master happens the moment we feel and know the master’s joy in being and giving life.
It happens everywhere and every time when we know, when we just know that Love holds us and always will, freeing our hearts to live and risk, to try and fail, to live as the selves we are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 22:1-10
Jesus began to speak to them in parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants with the words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding." But they were not interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his servants, maltreated them and killed them. The king was furious. He dispatched his troops, destroyed those murderers and burnt their town. Go to the main crossroads and invite everyone you can find to come to the wedding." So these servants went out onto the roads and collected together everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Reflection
I am interested, Lord. I want to eat the feast. That is why I am here, fingers on the keys, trying to chase down your heart and capture it within the tiny confines of my own.
“Quit trying,” you say. “You need not chase me, for I Who Am run after you. It is my heart within your own heart that moves your fingers to the keys. My Soul within your soul is the surging desire to satisfy the hunger that moves you.
“I am your hunger, and I am the feast that satisfies. I am the desire, and I am food that fills it. I will chase you down every pathway of your busy days until you stop running and eat the feast of eternal goodness amid laughter and tears of discovery, as you recognize how much I have always wanted you.”
You chase us Lord, yet so many go about their business, uninterested in your feast. Why do we turn away? Why do we turn violent, rejecting your invitation?
Perhaps we just don’t believe. Perhaps we can’t imagine that life is more than getting by, amusing ourselves as much as possible, distracting ourselves from awareness that one day we will die.
Perhaps we cannot imagine that every moment and morsel of earth’s bounty is a crumb from an eternal table of divine sharing: You, sharing the life that you simply are.
Perhaps we imagine that all we have and are must be made our own by the force of will and accomplishment, like bread ripped from a crusty loaf. Just so, we get what we can, never asking who baked the loaf in the first place.
Perhaps petty busyness is so much the normal condition of human souls that we cannot see life for the feast it is … and promises.
Perhaps I can and will never understand. But I do understand one thing, dear Friend.
I understand that boundless generosity is your normal condition. You give life and limitless love to me, whether I be good or bad, true or false, success or failure this day.
You want me to taste the feast that is life … and to know this is only the beginning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 22:1-10
Jesus began to speak to them in parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants with the words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding." But they were not interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his servants, maltreated them and killed them. The king was furious. He dispatched his troops, destroyed those murderers and burnt their town. Go to the main crossroads and invite everyone you can find to come to the wedding." So these servants went out onto the roads and collected together everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Reflection
I am interested, Lord. I want to eat the feast. That is why I am here, fingers on the keys, trying to chase down your heart and capture it within the tiny confines of my own.
“Quit trying,” you say. “You need not chase me, for I Who Am run after you. It is my heart within your own heart that moves your fingers to the keys. My Soul within your soul is the surging desire to satisfy the hunger that moves you.
“I am your hunger, and I am the feast that satisfies. I am the desire, and I am food that fills it. I will chase you down every pathway of your busy days until you stop running and eat the feast of eternal goodness amid laughter and tears of discovery, as you recognize how much I have always wanted you.”
You chase us Lord, yet so many go about their business, uninterested in your feast. Why do we turn away? Why do we turn violent, rejecting your invitation?
Perhaps we just don’t believe. Perhaps we can’t imagine that life is more than getting by, amusing ourselves as much as possible, distracting ourselves from awareness that one day we will die.
Perhaps we cannot imagine that every moment and morsel of earth’s bounty is a crumb from an eternal table of divine sharing: You, sharing the life that you simply are.
Perhaps we imagine that all we have and are must be made our own by the force of will and accomplishment, like bread ripped from a crusty loaf. Just so, we get what we can, never asking who baked the loaf in the first place.
Perhaps petty busyness is so much the normal condition of human souls that we cannot see life for the feast it is … and promises.
Perhaps I can and will never understand. But I do understand one thing, dear Friend.
I understand that boundless generosity is your normal condition. You give life and limitless love to me, whether I be good or bad, true or false, success or failure this day.
You want me to taste the feast that is life … and to know this is only the beginning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 22:1-4
Jesus began to speak to them in parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants with the words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding."
Reflection
You want me, Lord. You want all of us at the table, eating and drinking, celebrating the goodness of feeling alive.
Even now, I see myself gathered at the feast amid the commotion of many others. Smiles light every face. Hearts expand with startling joy, exceeding our expectation of what was possible to know and feel.
I raise my glass high to toast the raucous tumult of sheer abandonment.
So what is this, Lord, an image of the future?
I see into that future every time I lift the bread and the cup and speak of the day when we shall eat the meal in the fullness of your presence. I see it with my own eyes, sometimes tripping over myself to get to the table and exclaim the holy words again, hoping that a few others may see it, too.
I want this future now. I want to taste and feel it today amid whatever else may come.
I am hungry for the celebration and the laughter. I want the companionship and the complete and unwarranted acceptance of my and every soul at your table of grace.
I want this awareness to wash over my soul and cleanse me from every discouragement, every sadness, every wound that casts my eyes toward the dust.
I want to feel and be finally and fully alive. This can happen in only one place, and yet in every place: as I find myself at your table of feasting … even if I am driving my car, listening to another soul, working at my desk … or writing these words.
So let the feast of your blessed future begin here and now with me, in the awareness that, today, you want me, you hunger for me, you crave my nearness, my attention, my love, my joy. Today and everyday.
Today, you chase me along the ways of my life, hoping, praying that I may see that the banquet of your nearness is now.
And when I do, I can be joy and love amid the grayness that clouds human souls. And maybe they, too, can join the laughter of tomorrow … today.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 22:1-4
Jesus began to speak to them in parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants with the words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding."
Reflection
You want me, Lord. You want all of us at the table, eating and drinking, celebrating the goodness of feeling alive.
Even now, I see myself gathered at the feast amid the commotion of many others. Smiles light every face. Hearts expand with startling joy, exceeding our expectation of what was possible to know and feel.
I raise my glass high to toast the raucous tumult of sheer abandonment.
So what is this, Lord, an image of the future?
I see into that future every time I lift the bread and the cup and speak of the day when we shall eat the meal in the fullness of your presence. I see it with my own eyes, sometimes tripping over myself to get to the table and exclaim the holy words again, hoping that a few others may see it, too.
I want this future now. I want to taste and feel it today amid whatever else may come.
I am hungry for the celebration and the laughter. I want the companionship and the complete and unwarranted acceptance of my and every soul at your table of grace.
I want this awareness to wash over my soul and cleanse me from every discouragement, every sadness, every wound that casts my eyes toward the dust.
I want to feel and be finally and fully alive. This can happen in only one place, and yet in every place: as I find myself at your table of feasting … even if I am driving my car, listening to another soul, working at my desk … or writing these words.
So let the feast of your blessed future begin here and now with me, in the awareness that, today, you want me, you hunger for me, you crave my nearness, my attention, my love, my joy. Today and everyday.
Today, you chase me along the ways of my life, hoping, praying that I may see that the banquet of your nearness is now.
And when I do, I can be joy and love amid the grayness that clouds human souls. And maybe they, too, can join the laughter of tomorrow … today.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 21:33-35, 40, 41-43
'Listen to another parable. There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug a winepress in it and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When vintage time drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his servants, thrashed one, killed another and stoned a third. ... Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?' They answered, 'He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will deliver the produce to him at the proper time. 'I tell you, then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.'
Reflection
Is it me, Jesus? Am I the one who will lose the kingdom to those who produce its fruits?
You planted the word of your kingdom in my heart long ago. As I boy I already wanted you. I wanted to know you, to love you, to serve you. I prayed, ‘Lord, take away everything I most love that I may love you most of all.’
I think you answered that prayer and still are. This is good, since there is still much work to be done.
Insecurities about self and success can still make me anxious to impress and curry favor. Angers over minor frustrations and irritations spring more quickly from my lips than words of blessing or compassion for your troubled world. Harried days erode the trust that all is well, since all that is--and all I am--is surrounded and held in your gracious hand.
But even the knowledge of my failures to produce the fruit of your loving rule is, in fact, a sign of your determination that the seed you planted is still there, still alive, still seeking to produce the rich fruit you intend.
For I still hunger as I did as a boy. But now I know so much more. I have felt so much more. I have tasted you. I have sampled the fruit of peace and strength, of hope and love. I have known the blessed intoxication of the awareness of your all-surpassing care.
Despite every failure, the seed of the divine vineyard grows in my soul. And on my best days, my words and life speak and share fruit of your rule.
And then I know: my real failure and deepest temptation is the failure to trust that you who have planted will bring a harvest even in and through my life.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 21:33-35, 40, 41-43
'Listen to another parable. There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug a winepress in it and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When vintage time drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his servants, thrashed one, killed another and stoned a third. ... Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?' They answered, 'He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will deliver the produce to him at the proper time. 'I tell you, then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.'
Reflection
Is it me, Jesus? Am I the one who will lose the kingdom to those who produce its fruits?
You planted the word of your kingdom in my heart long ago. As I boy I already wanted you. I wanted to know you, to love you, to serve you. I prayed, ‘Lord, take away everything I most love that I may love you most of all.’
I think you answered that prayer and still are. This is good, since there is still much work to be done.
Insecurities about self and success can still make me anxious to impress and curry favor. Angers over minor frustrations and irritations spring more quickly from my lips than words of blessing or compassion for your troubled world. Harried days erode the trust that all is well, since all that is--and all I am--is surrounded and held in your gracious hand.
But even the knowledge of my failures to produce the fruit of your loving rule is, in fact, a sign of your determination that the seed you planted is still there, still alive, still seeking to produce the rich fruit you intend.
For I still hunger as I did as a boy. But now I know so much more. I have felt so much more. I have tasted you. I have sampled the fruit of peace and strength, of hope and love. I have known the blessed intoxication of the awareness of your all-surpassing care.
Despite every failure, the seed of the divine vineyard grows in my soul. And on my best days, my words and life speak and share fruit of your rule.
And then I know: my real failure and deepest temptation is the failure to trust that you who have planted will bring a harvest even in and through my life.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 21:33-35
'Listen to another parable. There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug a winepress in it and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When vintage time drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his servants, thrashed one, killed another and stoned a third.'
Reflection
They forgot. They don’t own it. Neither do I.
I don’t own the vineyard of your creation, Holy One. I don’t even own my own life. The breath in my lungs is on loan. Someday it will flee this mortal form, and I will return to the dust from which you made me.
But for now you give breath in my lungs, strength in my limbs and power in my soul.
You give the power to remember who I am--or to forget that all that I am and have is a miracle of a creation I did not fashion and cannot fathom.
I simply wake up in this world, surprised to be alive and existing, knowing only that I did not create myself but am the breath of the Mystery who is Life.
You are Life, and you freely give it, asking only that I do not forget you, the Giver, who makes life out of nothing and my life from the lives of those who have gone before.
Forgetting is the greatest tragedy. It is death. It is separation from you, the Source, the Eternal Fountain. To forget is isolation, loneliness and fear. It creates distance between my soul and the Soul who breathes life into all that lives in the vineyard of creation.
Little wonder that when I feel far from you my breath grows short and my heart feels alone and anxious.
But not today. Today, tapping raindrops of a grainy fall morning whisper, “Remember.”
Today, the laughter of gracious people still rings through my soul, as the joy of last evening lifts me to the awareness that the vineyard of life is not mine. I am here, sharing it with other souls who are gifts to me, as I to them.
We shared, laughed and felt alive. We didn’t forget that our lives and the shining moments of feeling alive--all of it--is gift … on loan from You, who breathed us out and who will take us back into yourself.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 21:33-35
'Listen to another parable. There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug a winepress in it and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When vintage time drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his servants, thrashed one, killed another and stoned a third.'
Reflection
They forgot. They don’t own it. Neither do I.
I don’t own the vineyard of your creation, Holy One. I don’t even own my own life. The breath in my lungs is on loan. Someday it will flee this mortal form, and I will return to the dust from which you made me.
But for now you give breath in my lungs, strength in my limbs and power in my soul.
You give the power to remember who I am--or to forget that all that I am and have is a miracle of a creation I did not fashion and cannot fathom.
I simply wake up in this world, surprised to be alive and existing, knowing only that I did not create myself but am the breath of the Mystery who is Life.
You are Life, and you freely give it, asking only that I do not forget you, the Giver, who makes life out of nothing and my life from the lives of those who have gone before.
Forgetting is the greatest tragedy. It is death. It is separation from you, the Source, the Eternal Fountain. To forget is isolation, loneliness and fear. It creates distance between my soul and the Soul who breathes life into all that lives in the vineyard of creation.
Little wonder that when I feel far from you my breath grows short and my heart feels alone and anxious.
But not today. Today, tapping raindrops of a grainy fall morning whisper, “Remember.”
Today, the laughter of gracious people still rings through my soul, as the joy of last evening lifts me to the awareness that the vineyard of life is not mine. I am here, sharing it with other souls who are gifts to me, as I to them.
We shared, laughed and felt alive. We didn’t forget that our lives and the shining moments of feeling alive--all of it--is gift … on loan from You, who breathed us out and who will take us back into yourself.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, September 23, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 21:28-32
'What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He went and said to the first, "My boy, go and work in the vineyard today." He answered, "I will not go," but afterwards thought better of it and went. The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir," but did not go. Which of the two did the father's will?' They said, 'The first.' Jesus said to them, 'In truth I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, showing the way of uprightness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him.
Reflection
Is it me, Lord? Is this the truth of my life and of the church’s life today?
Are we those who say, ‘Yes, we will go into your vineyard,’ but then refuse to do the work of your kingdom?
Meanwhile, are those who say they do not believe responding to your silent presence in all life and doing works of mercy and justice, the deeds of your kingdom?
Believing in you has less to do with words than we imagine, a sobering thought for me as I relish words and what they move in me and others. Truly believing is not about my formulas or sentences, and it has less to do with reciting creeds or knowing Bible stories and proper theological clichés than most imagine.
It is about going and doing, entering the vineyard of creation and tending it with care. It is about loving as you love, Lord, giving as you give, healing bodies and souls and reconciling relationships.
It is about pouring out our lives in love as you poured yourself out for us.
Belief happens less in the mind than in the heart and intuition when we see people loving, nurturing and caring. It happens as our depths are moved to know that this is the truth of our life--and yours; this is that for which we were born; this is the face of the Loving Mystery of God.
The religious leaders saw people flock to John the Baptist and change their ways. They should have seen and known his actions--the affect he had on the human souls--bore the mark of God’s holy presence.
They should have seen that your healing touch, Jesus, flowed from that Eternal Source who hungers for the healing of all that is, including their own lives and commitments.
They should have seen divine authority at work in John and in you by the lives you made whole and free.
But the question is, do I?
Do I receive every moment as an occasion to pay attention to whatever mercy and justice is present--or needs to be? Do I see and celebrate the people who give life, who nurture love and beauty, joy and compassion, mind and strength?
And seeing, do I join them, working in the vineyard?
Every moment is a moment for seeing you, and joining the garden party.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 21:28-32
'What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He went and said to the first, "My boy, go and work in the vineyard today." He answered, "I will not go," but afterwards thought better of it and went. The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir," but did not go. Which of the two did the father's will?' They said, 'The first.' Jesus said to them, 'In truth I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, showing the way of uprightness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him.
Reflection
Is it me, Lord? Is this the truth of my life and of the church’s life today?
Are we those who say, ‘Yes, we will go into your vineyard,’ but then refuse to do the work of your kingdom?
Meanwhile, are those who say they do not believe responding to your silent presence in all life and doing works of mercy and justice, the deeds of your kingdom?
Believing in you has less to do with words than we imagine, a sobering thought for me as I relish words and what they move in me and others. Truly believing is not about my formulas or sentences, and it has less to do with reciting creeds or knowing Bible stories and proper theological clichés than most imagine.
It is about going and doing, entering the vineyard of creation and tending it with care. It is about loving as you love, Lord, giving as you give, healing bodies and souls and reconciling relationships.
It is about pouring out our lives in love as you poured yourself out for us.
Belief happens less in the mind than in the heart and intuition when we see people loving, nurturing and caring. It happens as our depths are moved to know that this is the truth of our life--and yours; this is that for which we were born; this is the face of the Loving Mystery of God.
The religious leaders saw people flock to John the Baptist and change their ways. They should have seen and known his actions--the affect he had on the human souls--bore the mark of God’s holy presence.
They should have seen that your healing touch, Jesus, flowed from that Eternal Source who hungers for the healing of all that is, including their own lives and commitments.
They should have seen divine authority at work in John and in you by the lives you made whole and free.
But the question is, do I?
Do I receive every moment as an occasion to pay attention to whatever mercy and justice is present--or needs to be? Do I see and celebrate the people who give life, who nurture love and beauty, joy and compassion, mind and strength?
And seeing, do I join them, working in the vineyard?
Every moment is a moment for seeing you, and joining the garden party.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 21:23
He had gone into the Temple and was teaching, when the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him and said, 'What authority have you for acting like this? And who gave you this authority?'
Reflection
Acting like what, Jesus? What were you doing to attract this challenge?
Those who obey the rules and follow the norm do not attract the interest of the big shots who run things. But you did something to threaten the daily order and those who control it.
Challenge was inevitable. Quickly, came voices telling you to stop, demanding, ‘who gives you the right to do this?’
The temple authorities were more interested in your authority to do things than in the things you were doing. But what were you doing to upset them?
You spoke, Jesus, and human hearts filled with hope. Wounded souls felt the loving goodness of the Father, the Loving Mystery who treasured them from all eternity.
You touched their bodies and souls, awakening freshness of heart and spirit in those whose ears were eager to hear. You called them to change their hurtful ways, and they turned to heal what was wounded between them.
Souls burdened and earthbound took flight in your nearness. Lighter than air, they took flight, basking in the crystal blue sky of the Father’s goodness. Their hearts swelled, and they knew that the joyous life that filled and surrounded them was the real truth of this life … and of their eternity.
This is what you did, Jesus. But by what authority?
The answer to their question should have been obvious: By the authority of the One, who wants us to live, the One who is Life, the Loving Mystery who takes pleasure in the death of no one.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 21:23
He had gone into the Temple and was teaching, when the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him and said, 'What authority have you for acting like this? And who gave you this authority?'
Reflection
Acting like what, Jesus? What were you doing to attract this challenge?
Those who obey the rules and follow the norm do not attract the interest of the big shots who run things. But you did something to threaten the daily order and those who control it.
Challenge was inevitable. Quickly, came voices telling you to stop, demanding, ‘who gives you the right to do this?’
The temple authorities were more interested in your authority to do things than in the things you were doing. But what were you doing to upset them?
You spoke, Jesus, and human hearts filled with hope. Wounded souls felt the loving goodness of the Father, the Loving Mystery who treasured them from all eternity.
You touched their bodies and souls, awakening freshness of heart and spirit in those whose ears were eager to hear. You called them to change their hurtful ways, and they turned to heal what was wounded between them.
Souls burdened and earthbound took flight in your nearness. Lighter than air, they took flight, basking in the crystal blue sky of the Father’s goodness. Their hearts swelled, and they knew that the joyous life that filled and surrounded them was the real truth of this life … and of their eternity.
This is what you did, Jesus. But by what authority?
The answer to their question should have been obvious: By the authority of the One, who wants us to live, the One who is Life, the Loving Mystery who takes pleasure in the death of no one.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 21:23-27
He had gone into the Temple and was teaching, when the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him and said, 'What authority have you for acting like this? And who gave you this authority?' In reply Jesus said to them, 'And I will ask you a question, just one; if you tell me the answer to it, then I will tell you my authority for acting like this. John's baptism: what was its origin, heavenly or human?' And they argued this way among themselves, 'If we say heavenly, he will retort to us, "Then why did you refuse to believe him?"; but if we say human, we have the people to fear, for they all hold that John was a prophet.' So their reply to Jesus was, 'We do not know.' And he retorted to them, 'Nor will I tell you my authority for acting like this.'
Reflection
And so it is in all ages: The powerful seek to maintain their power at the expense of truth, at the loss of soul.
Our lives shake in the winds of opinion and the changing styles and fads of the hour when position and status, reputation and influence replace our need to root our lives in the solidity of a truth that holds strong when all else is washed away.
Our conversations and our politics become empty and contentious (read the papers lately?) when our hearts seek standing, status, power and the good opinion of others more than the truth that satisfies the soul and creates common understanding and peaceful relations.
We are made to follow the scent of what is true, what is real, what is lasting, following it all the way into that Truth beyond all truths, all the way into the arms of One eager to receive us and give rest and purpose to our souls.
O Lord, may we seek what is real and lasting this day that we may fall into the arms of the Truth beyond all others. You.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 21:23-27
He had gone into the Temple and was teaching, when the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him and said, 'What authority have you for acting like this? And who gave you this authority?' In reply Jesus said to them, 'And I will ask you a question, just one; if you tell me the answer to it, then I will tell you my authority for acting like this. John's baptism: what was its origin, heavenly or human?' And they argued this way among themselves, 'If we say heavenly, he will retort to us, "Then why did you refuse to believe him?"; but if we say human, we have the people to fear, for they all hold that John was a prophet.' So their reply to Jesus was, 'We do not know.' And he retorted to them, 'Nor will I tell you my authority for acting like this.'
Reflection
And so it is in all ages: The powerful seek to maintain their power at the expense of truth, at the loss of soul.
Our lives shake in the winds of opinion and the changing styles and fads of the hour when position and status, reputation and influence replace our need to root our lives in the solidity of a truth that holds strong when all else is washed away.
Our conversations and our politics become empty and contentious (read the papers lately?) when our hearts seek standing, status, power and the good opinion of others more than the truth that satisfies the soul and creates common understanding and peaceful relations.
We are made to follow the scent of what is true, what is real, what is lasting, following it all the way into that Truth beyond all truths, all the way into the arms of One eager to receive us and give rest and purpose to our souls.
O Lord, may we seek what is real and lasting this day that we may fall into the arms of the Truth beyond all others. You.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:44
'The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off in his joy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.
Reflection
We understand nothing of this until we have known freedom of heart, the kind of freedom that stirs us to surrender ourselves, risking who we are or what we have to give ourselves to a grace and beauty we have discovered--or which has discovered us.
So much of life commences with calculated care. Closely counting costs, whether in time or money or energy, we ask if each new activity, commitment or relationship in our path is “worth it.” Do we want to spend ourselves, our precious time, or protect our resources for something later?
It’s a safe way to live, and much of our living requires such care. But there is an element of soul that cannot and will not be fulfilled, its joy stunted, until we know a beauty, a grace, a cause, a holy love to which we can give ourselves without counting the cost, our hearts knowing that this is right, this belongs to the essence of my soul and life itself.
The freest human souls I have ever known are those who had found--or been found by--the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price which moved them beyond lives of bean-counting calculation to act, to love, to given themselves to a great love even though it cost them pain, or perhaps the various currencies our society most values--money, status and power.
In this culture, we sometimes have trouble understanding those who choose to step away from high-powered posts, moneyed positions or safe, easy lives for other values, commitments and joys that are not so easily enumerated.
Jesus did, and he invites us to listen to the depth of our hearts. The key to the treasure is in the field of our souls. There is a pearl of great price hidden there that, once discovered, draws us beyond the calculated life to one of joyful freedom--and perhaps risk and pain, too, which are always part of loving.
Before I graduated seminary, I, like all ministry students of that place and age, faced a panel of faculty members who could ask anything to test our knowledge and fitness for ministry. I have forgotten all but two questions from that inquisition, and only one is perfectly clear: “What would you die for? For what are you willing to go to the wall?”
Age 27 and foolish, I muttered an absurdity about a theological doctrine with which I had recently been infatuated. I’m surprised they didn’t laugh in my face. But a few years later I met people who truly did and would go to the wall for a holy love, a cause, a person God had given them to love.
Then I knew: My seminary inquisitor had asked me to name the pearl of great price, the treasure in a field that was so essential to my soul, my heart, my love that it freed me to rise above a life of mere calculation to give my life freely in service of more than my own petty concerns.
Find your freedom, the place where you don’t count the costs, and you will know yourself, you will know God and the treasure which the Loving Mystery gives you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:44
'The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off in his joy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.
Reflection
We understand nothing of this until we have known freedom of heart, the kind of freedom that stirs us to surrender ourselves, risking who we are or what we have to give ourselves to a grace and beauty we have discovered--or which has discovered us.
So much of life commences with calculated care. Closely counting costs, whether in time or money or energy, we ask if each new activity, commitment or relationship in our path is “worth it.” Do we want to spend ourselves, our precious time, or protect our resources for something later?
It’s a safe way to live, and much of our living requires such care. But there is an element of soul that cannot and will not be fulfilled, its joy stunted, until we know a beauty, a grace, a cause, a holy love to which we can give ourselves without counting the cost, our hearts knowing that this is right, this belongs to the essence of my soul and life itself.
The freest human souls I have ever known are those who had found--or been found by--the treasure in the field, the pearl of great price which moved them beyond lives of bean-counting calculation to act, to love, to given themselves to a great love even though it cost them pain, or perhaps the various currencies our society most values--money, status and power.
In this culture, we sometimes have trouble understanding those who choose to step away from high-powered posts, moneyed positions or safe, easy lives for other values, commitments and joys that are not so easily enumerated.
Jesus did, and he invites us to listen to the depth of our hearts. The key to the treasure is in the field of our souls. There is a pearl of great price hidden there that, once discovered, draws us beyond the calculated life to one of joyful freedom--and perhaps risk and pain, too, which are always part of loving.
Before I graduated seminary, I, like all ministry students of that place and age, faced a panel of faculty members who could ask anything to test our knowledge and fitness for ministry. I have forgotten all but two questions from that inquisition, and only one is perfectly clear: “What would you die for? For what are you willing to go to the wall?”
Age 27 and foolish, I muttered an absurdity about a theological doctrine with which I had recently been infatuated. I’m surprised they didn’t laugh in my face. But a few years later I met people who truly did and would go to the wall for a holy love, a cause, a person God had given them to love.
Then I knew: My seminary inquisitor had asked me to name the pearl of great price, the treasure in a field that was so essential to my soul, my heart, my love that it freed me to rise above a life of mere calculation to give my life freely in service of more than my own petty concerns.
Find your freedom, the place where you don’t count the costs, and you will know yourself, you will know God and the treasure which the Loving Mystery gives you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:31-33
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.' He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.'
Reflection
For hours we sat in an emergency room last night. Our names are not important, only our anxieties and hope.
Two women, one man, waiting to find if a troubled body and soul could find the help needed to birth a new life (please God) in the stuffy box of a room where we sat and felt the walls close in on us.
Hours dragged on, medical staff made promises of updates seldom fulfilled, and we stood by, sometimes praying, sometimes working our phones, periodically stroking and reassuring the soul in the bed that she’d done the right thing to come to this room where agitation and sickness only seemed to grow as the hours wore on.
But we were there, standing by, doing what little we could, waiting for breakthrough moments when our words might penetrate the thicket of emotions binding the soul who made the difficult decision to come … finally … to the admission that life is too much too hard to handle all alone.
There were a few moments when our blessings and reassurance made it through, and this morning I am certain we are glad we stood there, providing presence if nothing else, because we cared for one troubled soul and for the mysterious leaven of God in our hearts moving us to hope that something new, fresh and alive might come.
Sometimes it’s hard to hope that the future can be different from the present. Troubles bear such crushing weight upon human hearts that there seems no way out. Trapped in the human condition, however that is for us, the future stretches out, holding nothing more inviting than the dismal repetition of present bondage.
But leaven was stirred into our souls somewhere, sometime, raising in us the desire to be in this dingy, cramped room, loving as best we can. The leaven worked its magic in us; we know not how, exactly. So why not now, again, here?
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:31-33
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.' He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.'
Reflection
For hours we sat in an emergency room last night. Our names are not important, only our anxieties and hope.
Two women, one man, waiting to find if a troubled body and soul could find the help needed to birth a new life (please God) in the stuffy box of a room where we sat and felt the walls close in on us.
Hours dragged on, medical staff made promises of updates seldom fulfilled, and we stood by, sometimes praying, sometimes working our phones, periodically stroking and reassuring the soul in the bed that she’d done the right thing to come to this room where agitation and sickness only seemed to grow as the hours wore on.
But we were there, standing by, doing what little we could, waiting for breakthrough moments when our words might penetrate the thicket of emotions binding the soul who made the difficult decision to come … finally … to the admission that life is too much too hard to handle all alone.
There were a few moments when our blessings and reassurance made it through, and this morning I am certain we are glad we stood there, providing presence if nothing else, because we cared for one troubled soul and for the mysterious leaven of God in our hearts moving us to hope that something new, fresh and alive might come.
Sometimes it’s hard to hope that the future can be different from the present. Troubles bear such crushing weight upon human hearts that there seems no way out. Trapped in the human condition, however that is for us, the future stretches out, holding nothing more inviting than the dismal repetition of present bondage.
But leaven was stirred into our souls somewhere, sometime, raising in us the desire to be in this dingy, cramped room, loving as best we can. The leaven worked its magic in us; we know not how, exactly. So why not now, again, here?
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
The day of the lilies has begun to fade. Their stems stretch five feet high, the ambitious a bit more. Many of the stems now are stumps, their orange and yellow blossoms having trumpeted their beauty, opening and closing with each cycle of the sun through summer skies.
Maroon and deep purple blossoms open now as dog days approach, and the mercury pushes 90. Their colors divert attention from crisp, faded remnants of the vivid orange that have had their day and now hang loosely from dozens of stems. They hang, poised for me or the next breeze to separate them from the veins through which their life blood flowed. They fall into the soil and become the hope of a tomorrow that I know will come.
It will come. I know this even as I savor the late colors and remember carefully pulling the weeds that, two months before, threatened to choke the young plants. Button weed, thistles, switch grass and a half dozen others I cannot name were stronger, more aggressive, and I pulled them, careful not to break off young lilies only beginning to throw their height.
Sometimes I was clumsy and broke one, which is heartbreaking. A unique created thing, God-fashioned to sing divine beauty, was denied its day in the sun--and I, such joy as it would have given.
My spring-time concern for the weeds appears overwrought now. What few weeds remain long since have been shouted down by the lilies insistence that they, not the weeds, are the rightful heritage of the flower beds. Their beauty is stronger than the early aggressiveness of their opponents in the soil.
Beauty wins again. So it is and will be next year … the next, forever. Let those with eyes … see.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
The day of the lilies has begun to fade. Their stems stretch five feet high, the ambitious a bit more. Many of the stems now are stumps, their orange and yellow blossoms having trumpeted their beauty, opening and closing with each cycle of the sun through summer skies.
Maroon and deep purple blossoms open now as dog days approach, and the mercury pushes 90. Their colors divert attention from crisp, faded remnants of the vivid orange that have had their day and now hang loosely from dozens of stems. They hang, poised for me or the next breeze to separate them from the veins through which their life blood flowed. They fall into the soil and become the hope of a tomorrow that I know will come.
It will come. I know this even as I savor the late colors and remember carefully pulling the weeds that, two months before, threatened to choke the young plants. Button weed, thistles, switch grass and a half dozen others I cannot name were stronger, more aggressive, and I pulled them, careful not to break off young lilies only beginning to throw their height.
Sometimes I was clumsy and broke one, which is heartbreaking. A unique created thing, God-fashioned to sing divine beauty, was denied its day in the sun--and I, such joy as it would have given.
My spring-time concern for the weeds appears overwrought now. What few weeds remain long since have been shouted down by the lilies insistence that they, not the weeds, are the rightful heritage of the flower beds. Their beauty is stronger than the early aggressiveness of their opponents in the soil.
Beauty wins again. So it is and will be next year … the next, forever. Let those with eyes … see.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What today am I to nurture? What goodness is here that I might seek to grow?
The questions are painful and pressing when one considers a loved one in pain, an adolescent living on the edge of trouble, a beloved soul who is hurting themselves--or the bottomless needs of the world’s poor strafed by evils of indifference, addiction, abuse or oppression.
It is so tempting to be angry at evil, to rail and condemn people, systems and forces that maim and deface human life. Evil fascinates the soul. It seduces us to imagine that it is more powerful than it is, and that we can and should try to reach into others lives--or our own--and pluck out such evil influences we see or feel are there.
But the life of faith, it appears, is not about fascination with evil and its destruction, whether in our souls, those of others or the systems of the world, although we must seek to change and improve what we can.
Real change, truest growth comes not from the elimination of life’s weeds but in caring for the wheat, trusting the seed of God implanted in one’s soul and in the soil of the world.
Even in the poorest of places, in the most troubled adolescents and yes, amid the brambles of our own souls, seeds of the kingdom, the tender plant of God’s precious life grows.
Fixing our eyes on the beauty of this growth, on the health that exists amid the brokenness, on the goodness that is present even amid its opposite, we see the beauty of God, the strength of seeds of life, the wonder of the kingdom.
Tend to this, and divine beauty uproots our fixation with what is wrong with life, peace replaces anxiety and hope pushes fresh stems through sadness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What today am I to nurture? What goodness is here that I might seek to grow?
The questions are painful and pressing when one considers a loved one in pain, an adolescent living on the edge of trouble, a beloved soul who is hurting themselves--or the bottomless needs of the world’s poor strafed by evils of indifference, addiction, abuse or oppression.
It is so tempting to be angry at evil, to rail and condemn people, systems and forces that maim and deface human life. Evil fascinates the soul. It seduces us to imagine that it is more powerful than it is, and that we can and should try to reach into others lives--or our own--and pluck out such evil influences we see or feel are there.
But the life of faith, it appears, is not about fascination with evil and its destruction, whether in our souls, those of others or the systems of the world, although we must seek to change and improve what we can.
Real change, truest growth comes not from the elimination of life’s weeds but in caring for the wheat, trusting the seed of God implanted in one’s soul and in the soil of the world.
Even in the poorest of places, in the most troubled adolescents and yes, amid the brambles of our own souls, seeds of the kingdom, the tender plant of God’s precious life grows.
Fixing our eyes on the beauty of this growth, on the health that exists amid the brokenness, on the goodness that is present even amid its opposite, we see the beauty of God, the strength of seeds of life, the wonder of the kingdom.
Tend to this, and divine beauty uproots our fixation with what is wrong with life, peace replaces anxiety and hope pushes fresh stems through sadness.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What quickly impresses me is the unperturbed response of the farmer to weeds in his fields. No startled exclamation or condemnation springs to his lips. He accepts the news as a matter of course. These things happen, and the best we can do is to wait and continue on without worry.
Who or what has disfigured the field is of no concern. He points no fingers and wastes no time trying to find or destroy the source of contagion.
The weeds will disfigure the field for now, getting in the way of the wheat. But the seed will produce its goodness in its time.
This is how it is, and it’s best to accept what is--evil and good, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, care and apathy inseparably mixed--as opposed to declaring war on the weeds, lest your violence destroy what is good.
Our job is not to root out evil, as if we could. Would to God that the makers of our nation’s foreign policy better recognized this, fewer innocents would get killed.
The same is true of too much Western Christianity, which historically (and especially in evangelical circles) has been more concerned with pointing out sin and impurity than with the goodness of the seed God sows everywhere in human hearts, celebrating and nurturing divine beauty in mortal hearts.
Trust is the word that comes to mind. Just trust. Good and evil, beauty, ugliness and all the rest are and will remain inseparably mixed in this world--not to mention in our own hearts.
Ours is not to sort it out, but to see and trust the beauty of God in the midst of it all.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 13:24-30
He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's laborers went to him and said, "Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?" He said to them, "Some enemy has done this." And the laborers said, "Do you want us to go and weed it out?" But he said, "No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn." '
Reflection
What quickly impresses me is the unperturbed response of the farmer to weeds in his fields. No startled exclamation or condemnation springs to his lips. He accepts the news as a matter of course. These things happen, and the best we can do is to wait and continue on without worry.
Who or what has disfigured the field is of no concern. He points no fingers and wastes no time trying to find or destroy the source of contagion.
The weeds will disfigure the field for now, getting in the way of the wheat. But the seed will produce its goodness in its time.
This is how it is, and it’s best to accept what is--evil and good, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, care and apathy inseparably mixed--as opposed to declaring war on the weeds, lest your violence destroy what is good.
Our job is not to root out evil, as if we could. Would to God that the makers of our nation’s foreign policy better recognized this, fewer innocents would get killed.
The same is true of too much Western Christianity, which historically (and especially in evangelical circles) has been more concerned with pointing out sin and impurity than with the goodness of the seed God sows everywhere in human hearts, celebrating and nurturing divine beauty in mortal hearts.
Trust is the word that comes to mind. Just trust. Good and evil, beauty, ugliness and all the rest are and will remain inseparably mixed in this world--not to mention in our own hearts.
Ours is not to sort it out, but to see and trust the beauty of God in the midst of it all.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Today’s text
Matthew 11:16-19
'What comparison can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place: We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't be mourners. 'For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He is possessed." The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.'
Reflection
It is not just Jesus’ generation. It is every generation.
Unrest distresses the soul. Deep at heart, we are confused about what we really want, better, what we truly need. So we keep ourselves busy, distracted, drowning out the echo of our inner emptiness.
And we look askance at the missions of the Spirit that come each day to our spirits, missing what is right before us.
Distrust colors the heart. We evaluate and discover what is wrong and flawed with what comes each day, missing divine beauty and invitation where they so regularly appears in words and faces and the new light of every sunrise, little asking: from what immensity, from what infinitely generous dimension does life (and my life) appear?
Blind to Spirit, we live dissatisfied lives, dismissing beauty, simple graces and moments of happiness and freedom as diversions or exceptions to “real life,” instead of invitations to truly living.
John appears, gripped by God’s overwhelming holiness, demanding a change of heart and action to honor the author of all life, and he is dismissed as a crazy man. Jesus parties with outcasts and no-counts--the well-heeled, too, and he is discounted as a party boy.
Both were an appeal of Spirit to human spirits, giving knowledge of the God who can never be fully known, the Mystery who seeks us in all beauty and comes in every small grace.
We discover what we want and need, amid surprising joy, as we give ourselves to the moment, to the now, receiving what is given there, ready to accept and receive rather than dismiss whatever the Spirit sends our way.
The Spirit’s missions of life come each day and in every moment. The wise do not dismiss but receive what comes, trusting that each is an invitation to know and become the Seeking Love who seeks them.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 11:16-19
'What comparison can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place: We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn't dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn't be mourners. 'For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He is possessed." The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.'
Reflection
It is not just Jesus’ generation. It is every generation.
Unrest distresses the soul. Deep at heart, we are confused about what we really want, better, what we truly need. So we keep ourselves busy, distracted, drowning out the echo of our inner emptiness.
And we look askance at the missions of the Spirit that come each day to our spirits, missing what is right before us.
Distrust colors the heart. We evaluate and discover what is wrong and flawed with what comes each day, missing divine beauty and invitation where they so regularly appears in words and faces and the new light of every sunrise, little asking: from what immensity, from what infinitely generous dimension does life (and my life) appear?
Blind to Spirit, we live dissatisfied lives, dismissing beauty, simple graces and moments of happiness and freedom as diversions or exceptions to “real life,” instead of invitations to truly living.
John appears, gripped by God’s overwhelming holiness, demanding a change of heart and action to honor the author of all life, and he is dismissed as a crazy man. Jesus parties with outcasts and no-counts--the well-heeled, too, and he is discounted as a party boy.
Both were an appeal of Spirit to human spirits, giving knowledge of the God who can never be fully known, the Mystery who seeks us in all beauty and comes in every small grace.
We discover what we want and need, amid surprising joy, as we give ourselves to the moment, to the now, receiving what is given there, ready to accept and receive rather than dismiss whatever the Spirit sends our way.
The Spirit’s missions of life come each day and in every moment. The wise do not dismiss but receive what comes, trusting that each is an invitation to know and become the Seeking Love who seeks them.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2010
Today’s text
1 Samuel 10:6
The spirit of Yahweh will then seize on you, and you will…and be changed into another man.
Reflection
I want this change. I want to be changed, not into some other person but into the man I am when the strong Spirit of God’s grace and goodness fills me. I want to bring out of my mind and heart the best I have, the best I have received from God through creation and all the days of my living.
Sometimes it happens, unleashing joy and immense freedom. I become what I am, powered by the Spirit of Love, who moves me into the fullness of my beauty and strength that I may pour it into the task of blessing and caring for the daily duties and people who have been given to me.
There’s no feeling like it in the world. The heart is filled with gratitude, and satisfaction of soul fills my being as I know that at least for one moment or hour I have done or said what I was born to say and do.
So it is when the Spirit of God fills us. Samuel, the Prophet, was sent to find and anoint Saul, a tall, strong, handsome youth who was traversing the hills of Palestine, looking for his father’s lost donkeys. Saul was to be king, the first one over Israel. But he could not lead until the Spirit seized on him and made him a different man, the leader God saw in him.
May it be so also for us.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 Samuel 10:6
The spirit of Yahweh will then seize on you, and you will…and be changed into another man.
Reflection
I want this change. I want to be changed, not into some other person but into the man I am when the strong Spirit of God’s grace and goodness fills me. I want to bring out of my mind and heart the best I have, the best I have received from God through creation and all the days of my living.
Sometimes it happens, unleashing joy and immense freedom. I become what I am, powered by the Spirit of Love, who moves me into the fullness of my beauty and strength that I may pour it into the task of blessing and caring for the daily duties and people who have been given to me.
There’s no feeling like it in the world. The heart is filled with gratitude, and satisfaction of soul fills my being as I know that at least for one moment or hour I have done or said what I was born to say and do.
So it is when the Spirit of God fills us. Samuel, the Prophet, was sent to find and anoint Saul, a tall, strong, handsome youth who was traversing the hills of Palestine, looking for his father’s lost donkeys. Saul was to be king, the first one over Israel. But he could not lead until the Spirit seized on him and made him a different man, the leader God saw in him.
May it be so also for us.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Today’s text
John 4:7-10
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.
Reflection
If you only knew … .
But I do know. I have drank the water of life and been refreshed by its sweetness. I have been lifted beyond the plane of earthly concern to know that everything I strive for on this earth is nothing compared with the ecstasy of being encompassed in the mystery of a love that has neither beginning nor end.
I know. I have dwelt in that delicious space where all earthly care is illusion and only you are real.
And I want to return, to flee this desert and rest at the well of life where all that matters is being with you, tipping high the cup until the water runs down my chin with no worries because there is always more.
It is hard to say what this water is. Divine presence? If so, it is a presence at once in me and surrounding all that is. It fills me with complete peace and freedom from every anxiety--and the knowledge that only this … flow of love … matters.
If you only knew ... .
I have known, yet the concerns of this age--human respect, accomplishment, reputation, the demands of time and work--replace you in my soul.
There is no time to sit and drink, no time for the refreshment of life, no time just to be with you at the well of life waiting for the moment when the waters of your soul fill my own and teach me again what I already know--and what I so desperately want to feel … again.
So again I pause from all doing and ask, “Give me something to drink. I want to live.”
Pr. David L. Miller
John 4:7-10
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.
Reflection
If you only knew … .
But I do know. I have drank the water of life and been refreshed by its sweetness. I have been lifted beyond the plane of earthly concern to know that everything I strive for on this earth is nothing compared with the ecstasy of being encompassed in the mystery of a love that has neither beginning nor end.
I know. I have dwelt in that delicious space where all earthly care is illusion and only you are real.
And I want to return, to flee this desert and rest at the well of life where all that matters is being with you, tipping high the cup until the water runs down my chin with no worries because there is always more.
It is hard to say what this water is. Divine presence? If so, it is a presence at once in me and surrounding all that is. It fills me with complete peace and freedom from every anxiety--and the knowledge that only this … flow of love … matters.
If you only knew ... .
I have known, yet the concerns of this age--human respect, accomplishment, reputation, the demands of time and work--replace you in my soul.
There is no time to sit and drink, no time for the refreshment of life, no time just to be with you at the well of life waiting for the moment when the waters of your soul fill my own and teach me again what I already know--and what I so desperately want to feel … again.
So again I pause from all doing and ask, “Give me something to drink. I want to live.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 17:1-3
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light.
Reflection
In a moment of graced awareness, they saw you as you are, Jesus, and they knew you as the light of heaven. I want to live in this awareness always.
My reasons are not noble, although they are quite human.
I have stood inside the light of your presence and known you as you are. Everything else goes away when I am in that space, and nothing else matters. I know everything, and I know nothing except that you are the love that holds all life … and me. And that’s all I need.
I want to live and die in that awareness. I have seen people do it. I always thought they were better than me. I suppose they were.
But I feel no shame in this, only an invitation to come to this place again and again, hoping that graced moments will come, and the light of heaven will wash from me all that is not awareness of you.
Then the light of your eternal day will illumine dark and anxious places of my soul, and I will know that the beginning and end of all things is love. My soul will breathe free, and for a fleeting time I will know the joy for which you created me.
And I will thank you, even as I do now, for this moment.
For again I come to you, and again the light of heaven warms a winter morning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 17:1-3
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light.
Reflection
In a moment of graced awareness, they saw you as you are, Jesus, and they knew you as the light of heaven. I want to live in this awareness always.
My reasons are not noble, although they are quite human.
I have stood inside the light of your presence and known you as you are. Everything else goes away when I am in that space, and nothing else matters. I know everything, and I know nothing except that you are the love that holds all life … and me. And that’s all I need.
I want to live and die in that awareness. I have seen people do it. I always thought they were better than me. I suppose they were.
But I feel no shame in this, only an invitation to come to this place again and again, hoping that graced moments will come, and the light of heaven will wash from me all that is not awareness of you.
Then the light of your eternal day will illumine dark and anxious places of my soul, and I will know that the beginning and end of all things is love. My soul will breathe free, and for a fleeting time I will know the joy for which you created me.
And I will thank you, even as I do now, for this moment.
For again I come to you, and again the light of heaven warms a winter morning.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 1:18-23
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us'.
Reflection
Your promise is always the same: Immanuel, God is with us.
Jesus, you are the sign of Immanuel, the flesh and blood mark of what is always true. You are the physical presence of the constant abiding of the One who knows no boundaries, the Mystery who is ever here, everywhere.
You invite me to enter the true state of things, to come out of illusion into the reality of Abiding Presence.
I may live as if life is what I make it. I may imagine that I am largely on my own on this green planet, save those nearest and dearest to me. I may dwell in the fantasy that I face my trials and sorrows alone and that my joys and small victories are shared only by those closest.
I may imagine, but imagining is not the reality that You Are. You Are everywhere I am and go. You Are grace that makes and savors life, my life with every true and false step on the way. You Are love embracing each moment of existence.
Your appearing in the arms of your mother and under the watchful vision of your confused earthly father speaks the truth I most need: Immanuel, God is with us.
In life and death: Immanuel. When I feel alone: Immanuel. When the load of my beloved is too heavy: Immanuel. When I am fail and sin: Immanuel.
Immanuel comes in a sign I can hold in my arms, with a tender face I can trace with my fingers.
He comes to save me from my sin, the most important of which is the big lie, the illusion that I live anywhere but in the presence of Immanuel.
Save me today. Make my heart dance to the music of Love ever near.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 1:18-23
This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being an upright man and wanting to spare her disgrace, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us'.
Reflection
Your promise is always the same: Immanuel, God is with us.
Jesus, you are the sign of Immanuel, the flesh and blood mark of what is always true. You are the physical presence of the constant abiding of the One who knows no boundaries, the Mystery who is ever here, everywhere.
You invite me to enter the true state of things, to come out of illusion into the reality of Abiding Presence.
I may live as if life is what I make it. I may imagine that I am largely on my own on this green planet, save those nearest and dearest to me. I may dwell in the fantasy that I face my trials and sorrows alone and that my joys and small victories are shared only by those closest.
I may imagine, but imagining is not the reality that You Are. You Are everywhere I am and go. You Are grace that makes and savors life, my life with every true and false step on the way. You Are love embracing each moment of existence.
Your appearing in the arms of your mother and under the watchful vision of your confused earthly father speaks the truth I most need: Immanuel, God is with us.
In life and death: Immanuel. When I feel alone: Immanuel. When the load of my beloved is too heavy: Immanuel. When I am fail and sin: Immanuel.
Immanuel comes in a sign I can hold in my arms, with a tender face I can trace with my fingers.
He comes to save me from my sin, the most important of which is the big lie, the illusion that I live anywhere but in the presence of Immanuel.
Save me today. Make my heart dance to the music of Love ever near.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Today’s text
Isaiah 35:4-6
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water.
Reflection
Our God comes not with vengeance but to restore sovereignty. Vengeance does not best capture the reality.
God is the power of deliverance at work in the universe. God’s delight is to save. God comes to reorder life, to set things right, to establish that God rules. God is the final and ultimate power over a cosmos that threatens to devolve into chaotic disorder.
The end is always joy. Sorrow may endure for an evening, but joy comes in the morning. This is the constant message, the profound hope that runs throughout all of Scripture. The reason is simple. This has been the experience of those who have looked and prayed for God’s deliverance in every age.
Deliverance may not come in the form we want. Our family struggles may not be resolved. Our cancer may not find healing. Death and pain may come to us and those we love.
But in the midst of human struggle, God comes.
That’s the message of hope to which we cling in all times. Joy starts the moment our souls begin to trust that God will come to deliver our souls from despair and dissolution.
Joy and strength do not return to reinvigorate our bodies when all we want or pray for finally happens. Our souls rise from dead when we are lifted by a simple, single truth: God comes to us and always will.
The living hope for appearance of the One who is the Power of Deliverance makes us strong in ways we doubt we could ever be. The strength we hold is not of our making, and it is more powerful than all that disfigures life and tempts to despair.
It lifts weak arms and troubled heads. It turns desert hearts into streams of living water. It gives silent souls songs to sing and moves lame legs to dance to the music of God’s future, which is life, always life.
Be strong. God shall come, and you will laugh.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 35:4-6
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water.
Reflection
Our God comes not with vengeance but to restore sovereignty. Vengeance does not best capture the reality.
God is the power of deliverance at work in the universe. God’s delight is to save. God comes to reorder life, to set things right, to establish that God rules. God is the final and ultimate power over a cosmos that threatens to devolve into chaotic disorder.
The end is always joy. Sorrow may endure for an evening, but joy comes in the morning. This is the constant message, the profound hope that runs throughout all of Scripture. The reason is simple. This has been the experience of those who have looked and prayed for God’s deliverance in every age.
Deliverance may not come in the form we want. Our family struggles may not be resolved. Our cancer may not find healing. Death and pain may come to us and those we love.
But in the midst of human struggle, God comes.
That’s the message of hope to which we cling in all times. Joy starts the moment our souls begin to trust that God will come to deliver our souls from despair and dissolution.
Joy and strength do not return to reinvigorate our bodies when all we want or pray for finally happens. Our souls rise from dead when we are lifted by a simple, single truth: God comes to us and always will.
The living hope for appearance of the One who is the Power of Deliverance makes us strong in ways we doubt we could ever be. The strength we hold is not of our making, and it is more powerful than all that disfigures life and tempts to despair.
It lifts weak arms and troubled heads. It turns desert hearts into streams of living water. It gives silent souls songs to sing and moves lame legs to dance to the music of God’s future, which is life, always life.
Be strong. God shall come, and you will laugh.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Today’s text
Isaiah 35:3-8
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water; the lairs where the jackals used to live will become plots of reed and papyrus. And through it will run a road for them and a highway which will be called the Sacred Way; the unclean will not be allowed to use it; He will be the one to use this road, the fool will not stray along it.
Reflection
The prophet speaks of the joy of returning home for a people long separated from the place they belong. This is one of the great stories of Hebrew Scripture, the deliverance return home of exiles.
I have seen the anguish of exile. As a journalist, I walked through refugee camps on more than one continent. The language, culture and skin color of the refugees were different in each case. But the single question on their lips was always the same: When can we go home?
Home may have been in shambles, ravaged by looting, bombs and fire. They may have known or suspected that their physical dwellings no longer existed. It didn’t matter. Their hearts’ desire was the same … home. I want to go home.
Every strange face of a journalist or aid worker was one more person to ask the sad question: When? Will it be soon?
I dreaded the question. I had no answer, and the answer I suspected might be accurate was depressing. I would shake my head, look at the ground and say, “No, not soon,” all the time wondering if the honest answer was, “not ever.”
Almost every person I met longed to return home. Their eyes said it without words, “I need to return to my place in the world, to the place I know, to the place that knows me. Until then, there is no peace.”
Such longing is the ground from which the prophet Isaiah’s joy springs. The land, the animals, all nature participates in the exiles’ joy as they walk the road home, a holy road that only the faithful could walk, only those who kept hope alive, only those who were not reduced to foolishness of despair by interminable waiting for a release they could never assume was coming.
When release comes all nature lights up with the joy of souls whose hearts’ delight is coming true. Such feeling is not unknown to us. We well know what happens in our hearts and in the entirety of our outlook when the sun comes out after a long or deep sadness.
The hopeful message is that God is the loving power of deliverance that seeks to bring us home to the joy for which we are intended, to the places we know and the places that know us, to our true home. Foolishness is failure to trust the good and gracious will of the One whose name is Deliverance.
I could speak of this as a physical coming home to a place we once knew or perhaps a place we never knew, until we stumbled into a somewhere that became a true home for us, after years of never really having a home.
Or we might speak of the home as the spiritual discovery that we have spent much of our lives wandering about, going places, doing work, living in ways that left our souls uneasy and dissatisfied.
There is a coming home, here, too, a return to the Love for which no name will do. When we begin to feel and know it’s stirring, our lame hearts leap in joy and streams of water flow in the wastelands of our hearts. And we know: This is the sacred way.
Pr. David L. Miller
Isaiah 35:3-8
Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees and say to the faint-hearted, 'Be strong! Do not be afraid. Here is your God, vengeance is coming, divine retribution; he is coming to save you.' Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy; for water will gush in the desert and streams in the wastelands, the parched ground will become a marsh and the thirsty land springs of water; the lairs where the jackals used to live will become plots of reed and papyrus. And through it will run a road for them and a highway which will be called the Sacred Way; the unclean will not be allowed to use it; He will be the one to use this road, the fool will not stray along it.
Reflection
The prophet speaks of the joy of returning home for a people long separated from the place they belong. This is one of the great stories of Hebrew Scripture, the deliverance return home of exiles.
I have seen the anguish of exile. As a journalist, I walked through refugee camps on more than one continent. The language, culture and skin color of the refugees were different in each case. But the single question on their lips was always the same: When can we go home?
Home may have been in shambles, ravaged by looting, bombs and fire. They may have known or suspected that their physical dwellings no longer existed. It didn’t matter. Their hearts’ desire was the same … home. I want to go home.
Every strange face of a journalist or aid worker was one more person to ask the sad question: When? Will it be soon?
I dreaded the question. I had no answer, and the answer I suspected might be accurate was depressing. I would shake my head, look at the ground and say, “No, not soon,” all the time wondering if the honest answer was, “not ever.”
Almost every person I met longed to return home. Their eyes said it without words, “I need to return to my place in the world, to the place I know, to the place that knows me. Until then, there is no peace.”
Such longing is the ground from which the prophet Isaiah’s joy springs. The land, the animals, all nature participates in the exiles’ joy as they walk the road home, a holy road that only the faithful could walk, only those who kept hope alive, only those who were not reduced to foolishness of despair by interminable waiting for a release they could never assume was coming.
When release comes all nature lights up with the joy of souls whose hearts’ delight is coming true. Such feeling is not unknown to us. We well know what happens in our hearts and in the entirety of our outlook when the sun comes out after a long or deep sadness.
The hopeful message is that God is the loving power of deliverance that seeks to bring us home to the joy for which we are intended, to the places we know and the places that know us, to our true home. Foolishness is failure to trust the good and gracious will of the One whose name is Deliverance.
I could speak of this as a physical coming home to a place we once knew or perhaps a place we never knew, until we stumbled into a somewhere that became a true home for us, after years of never really having a home.
Or we might speak of the home as the spiritual discovery that we have spent much of our lives wandering about, going places, doing work, living in ways that left our souls uneasy and dissatisfied.
There is a coming home, here, too, a return to the Love for which no name will do. When we begin to feel and know it’s stirring, our lame hearts leap in joy and streams of water flow in the wastelands of our hearts. And we know: This is the sacred way.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 3:5-9
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John the Baptist], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones.
Reflection
Come as you are, beyond all presumption. That’s what I hear, and it’s a good word, one I need.
The day arrives, and I see opportunities that promise growth and goodness, but a sinking feeling wafts through me as my mind enters the possibilities. Entering the future I perceive means more work, more dedication, more than time or energy allows.
Quickly, I am cast back upon my limitations, knowing the strength of my abilities and will are not up to the tasks that I see as most crucial. I need help. I cannot stand alone. Others must stand with me.
This makes me part of a crowd to which I want to belong, the crowd of faceless and nameless souls who made their way to John and Baptist to confess their sins, their failures of will, nerve and goodness.
He did not refuse them. No shaming tone colored his voice as they came. We are told nothing of what he said to them, only that he received them willingly with acceptance, it appears. And he baptized them as a sign of their desire to change and be more fully given to God’s dream for their lives.
He thundered no anger or denunciation upon them. That was reserved for the entitled and presumptuous, those who imagined they didn’t need what John offered.
But what is that, and why does it still draw … me?
John called people to stand in the river shallows beside him, without or fear or shame. He invited them to put away all arrogance or presumption that they had life figured out or that they were any but human and needy.
Through John’s bluster and demand, a deep whisper echoes. “Come, bring what you are, your weakness and need, your failed attempts to fulfill the promise of your humanity. Come stand with me. There is a place for you here, and you will never be cast out.
“Come and taste the rule of heaven.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 3:5-9
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John the Baptist], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones.
Reflection
Come as you are, beyond all presumption. That’s what I hear, and it’s a good word, one I need.
The day arrives, and I see opportunities that promise growth and goodness, but a sinking feeling wafts through me as my mind enters the possibilities. Entering the future I perceive means more work, more dedication, more than time or energy allows.
Quickly, I am cast back upon my limitations, knowing the strength of my abilities and will are not up to the tasks that I see as most crucial. I need help. I cannot stand alone. Others must stand with me.
This makes me part of a crowd to which I want to belong, the crowd of faceless and nameless souls who made their way to John and Baptist to confess their sins, their failures of will, nerve and goodness.
He did not refuse them. No shaming tone colored his voice as they came. We are told nothing of what he said to them, only that he received them willingly with acceptance, it appears. And he baptized them as a sign of their desire to change and be more fully given to God’s dream for their lives.
He thundered no anger or denunciation upon them. That was reserved for the entitled and presumptuous, those who imagined they didn’t need what John offered.
But what is that, and why does it still draw … me?
John called people to stand in the river shallows beside him, without or fear or shame. He invited them to put away all arrogance or presumption that they had life figured out or that they were any but human and needy.
Through John’s bluster and demand, a deep whisper echoes. “Come, bring what you are, your weakness and need, your failed attempts to fulfill the promise of your humanity. Come stand with me. There is a place for you here, and you will never be cast out.
“Come and taste the rule of heaven.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 3:1-3
In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judaea, 'Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.' This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said: A voice of one that cries in the desert, 'Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'
Reflection
For what should I repent? I can list a dozen things, but my heart is in none of them.
I really don’t want to change. I am attached to the way I live and see things. The thought of changing how I see (and pigeon-hole) people and situations is harder work than I care to do. I am comfortably stuck in patterns of living that feel better than any alternative, if only because I know them. They are my ruts, familiar and well-worn.
My heart knows I can’t change anyway. I am stuck with the same sadness and fears that long have hemmed in my life. As much as I want to be happier, stronger and less able to be hurt, nothing will change unless you change me, O Lord.
Fear holds me back, which proves that again that I am 100 percent human. Fear is always the root of our problems and sorrows, our hatreds and our resistance to grow into your dream of what our lives could be. There is no greater enemy.
Fear keeps us from letting down our guard to enter a new way of life, a new way of being. John the Baptist (Jesus, too) called it the kingdom of heaven, the administration of the heavenly king, a rule quite unlike governments we know.
John describes this kingdom as a threat to all that resists it. This new godly administration will violently wipe away everything that is contrary to its way.
I don’t think John got it right. He understood a new king, a new rule was coming, but he failed to grasp how radically different the rule of heaven is from anything we have ever known or felt.
God’s new kingdom strikes at the root of our problem: our fear of each other, our fear of being hurt, our fear of losing what we think we most need, the fear moves us to strike at others, the fear that stops us from opening our hearts and being truly human with each other so that we may grow into God’s dream for our lives.
The kingdom of heaven, unlike earthly kingdoms, rules not by force but through the persuasion of love. The king appears in the form of Jesus, our brother, inviting us to enter a circle of blessing. The mercy of forgiveness and unmerited grace pours through him from the heart of God, drawing us into a new arrangement of things where each passes along blessing and grace, receiving the same in return from others. The circle of blessing melts away our fears, whispering that the rejections and pains we feel, the threats to our life and health, the sorrows we know do not finally matter.
They don’t matter, for heaven rules, and heaven is this circle of blessing with neither beginning nor end. When you get caught up in this circle, in God’s kingdom--if only for a moment, you feel the freedom from fear that changes you from the inside out. You know: the circle of blessing is more real and powerful than anything you fear.
The kingdom of heaven is near, always. The only thing it threatens is your fear.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 3:1-3
In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judaea, 'Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.' This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said: A voice of one that cries in the desert, 'Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.'
Reflection
For what should I repent? I can list a dozen things, but my heart is in none of them.
I really don’t want to change. I am attached to the way I live and see things. The thought of changing how I see (and pigeon-hole) people and situations is harder work than I care to do. I am comfortably stuck in patterns of living that feel better than any alternative, if only because I know them. They are my ruts, familiar and well-worn.
My heart knows I can’t change anyway. I am stuck with the same sadness and fears that long have hemmed in my life. As much as I want to be happier, stronger and less able to be hurt, nothing will change unless you change me, O Lord.
Fear holds me back, which proves that again that I am 100 percent human. Fear is always the root of our problems and sorrows, our hatreds and our resistance to grow into your dream of what our lives could be. There is no greater enemy.
Fear keeps us from letting down our guard to enter a new way of life, a new way of being. John the Baptist (Jesus, too) called it the kingdom of heaven, the administration of the heavenly king, a rule quite unlike governments we know.
John describes this kingdom as a threat to all that resists it. This new godly administration will violently wipe away everything that is contrary to its way.
I don’t think John got it right. He understood a new king, a new rule was coming, but he failed to grasp how radically different the rule of heaven is from anything we have ever known or felt.
God’s new kingdom strikes at the root of our problem: our fear of each other, our fear of being hurt, our fear of losing what we think we most need, the fear moves us to strike at others, the fear that stops us from opening our hearts and being truly human with each other so that we may grow into God’s dream for our lives.
The kingdom of heaven, unlike earthly kingdoms, rules not by force but through the persuasion of love. The king appears in the form of Jesus, our brother, inviting us to enter a circle of blessing. The mercy of forgiveness and unmerited grace pours through him from the heart of God, drawing us into a new arrangement of things where each passes along blessing and grace, receiving the same in return from others. The circle of blessing melts away our fears, whispering that the rejections and pains we feel, the threats to our life and health, the sorrows we know do not finally matter.
They don’t matter, for heaven rules, and heaven is this circle of blessing with neither beginning nor end. When you get caught up in this circle, in God’s kingdom--if only for a moment, you feel the freedom from fear that changes you from the inside out. You know: the circle of blessing is more real and powerful than anything you fear.
The kingdom of heaven is near, always. The only thing it threatens is your fear.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Today’s text
Matthew 3:5-10
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire.
Reflection
Long ago an image appeared in my prayer, a tree. It stood in the back field behind my aunt’s home, across the street from where I went to grade school. A small yard surrounded her house, and then the land dropped precipitously to a narrow stream that cut across town from the northeast to the southwest, on its way to the Apple River.
In my meditation, I saw that tree, thick at the trunk, tall and strong, an oak or spreading maple. It rose from the grassy field around the creek, limbs stretching wide, its foliage so thick with wide green leaves that the sun could not reach the ground beneath it.
But there was no tree in that field behind my aunt’s home. It appeared only in my prayer. In the inner eye of heart, I saw people coming out of the sun to rest under the tree, finding shelter from the sun’s searing blast.
I did not go there. I was the tree. This was the desire of my heart and the call of God to me. Somehow I was to be that tree, a place of shade and rest from the heat of life. Souls could come and just be there, free from the wearing heat of the day, at home in the calm shade of grace, strong and unwavering as that tree.
That was--is--the good fruit that my Lord commands me to bear. It is written on my soul, and I cannot escape it. The voice of one’s inner purpose can get drowned out amid the noisy distractions of living. We can ignore it. We can pretend God’s call is romantic nonsense.
But (I think) it never goes away. It is always there amid the myriad voices in one’s mind. It stirs feelings of restlessness and longing when we move too far from it, and it calls us home through that nebulous, vague sense that somewhere along the line we have lost something important--ourselves, the core of what the Loving Mystery has written on our hearts. As long as that voice niggles deeply in us we are not totally lost; we can still hear our Lord speaking, calling us to peace.
I don’t know if the Pharisees and Sadducees felt this niggling any longer or if they had ignored the calling of Spirit in their lives for so long that that their ears could no longer hear. They were trees of God’s shelter for the people, and John was calling them back to themselves, calling them to produce the fruit of blessing, help and hope for which they had been fashioned.
As harsh as John’s voice sounded in their ears, I hear also a call of grace from the wounded heart of God, and a promise: God will cut down that which doesn’t bear fruit. There is much too much in me that needs cutting down and clearing away so that this one tree, the one in my aunt’s grassy field, may grow strong again.
John’s harsh message sounds like grace to me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Matthew 3:5-10
Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him [John], and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. But when he saw a number of Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism he said to them, 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming retribution? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father," because, I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so that any tree failing to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire.
Reflection
Long ago an image appeared in my prayer, a tree. It stood in the back field behind my aunt’s home, across the street from where I went to grade school. A small yard surrounded her house, and then the land dropped precipitously to a narrow stream that cut across town from the northeast to the southwest, on its way to the Apple River.
In my meditation, I saw that tree, thick at the trunk, tall and strong, an oak or spreading maple. It rose from the grassy field around the creek, limbs stretching wide, its foliage so thick with wide green leaves that the sun could not reach the ground beneath it.
But there was no tree in that field behind my aunt’s home. It appeared only in my prayer. In the inner eye of heart, I saw people coming out of the sun to rest under the tree, finding shelter from the sun’s searing blast.
I did not go there. I was the tree. This was the desire of my heart and the call of God to me. Somehow I was to be that tree, a place of shade and rest from the heat of life. Souls could come and just be there, free from the wearing heat of the day, at home in the calm shade of grace, strong and unwavering as that tree.
That was--is--the good fruit that my Lord commands me to bear. It is written on my soul, and I cannot escape it. The voice of one’s inner purpose can get drowned out amid the noisy distractions of living. We can ignore it. We can pretend God’s call is romantic nonsense.
But (I think) it never goes away. It is always there amid the myriad voices in one’s mind. It stirs feelings of restlessness and longing when we move too far from it, and it calls us home through that nebulous, vague sense that somewhere along the line we have lost something important--ourselves, the core of what the Loving Mystery has written on our hearts. As long as that voice niggles deeply in us we are not totally lost; we can still hear our Lord speaking, calling us to peace.
I don’t know if the Pharisees and Sadducees felt this niggling any longer or if they had ignored the calling of Spirit in their lives for so long that that their ears could no longer hear. They were trees of God’s shelter for the people, and John was calling them back to themselves, calling them to produce the fruit of blessing, help and hope for which they had been fashioned.
As harsh as John’s voice sounded in their ears, I hear also a call of grace from the wounded heart of God, and a promise: God will cut down that which doesn’t bear fruit. There is much too much in me that needs cutting down and clearing away so that this one tree, the one in my aunt’s grassy field, may grow strong again.
John’s harsh message sounds like grace to me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Today’s text
Colossians 1:15-16
He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers -- all things were created through him and for him.
Reflection
Formless substance passes through you and becomes a world, a universe of relationships and order, purpose and beauty. No, I say, more: Substance itself flows from within the Mystery you are into surprising existence.
All is made in you, an expression of your own life, of you who are Life, the flowing fountain of Being. All passes from and through you, bearing the gift of existence because you will it; you want it.
It is your nature that life should be, that the substance of your hidden heart, the content of your all-surpassing mind should be shared with that which doesn’t yet exist, so that it may exist.
This tells me all I need to know of your nature. You live to give life, to make life, to share the Mystery which you are so that we and every twig and tree in the stark autumnal woods should be.
So the face of my brother, Jesus, shouldn’t surprise, the face of one given, of one who loves his own and loves them to the end, whose heart is fixed on healing a world that threatens at every point to separate from the Source (you) from which it springs eternally every moment.
He is the Image of the Eternal Giver, the face of the Eternally Given, and the life we are is, too.
Words fail. I have none to capture the mystery of what I see and feel. My hopeless meanderings of thought cannot corral the wonder you are.
I stand in awe, constant and holy wonder knowing that all I see--and am--flows from the hiddenness of your divine being, each an expression, a clue to the Mystery of every age: Who are you? From what do we--and all life--spring?
You are the all-generous Source who gives life to what is not. I am that which is not life, given life as holy gift.
It is your nature to give. It is your work to create life, life that shares in your nature, your image in multifarious manner and expression.
You are giver, and you are gift, the gift we have simply by existing. By existing we are alive with the life of you, O Infinite Source, Flowing Fountain, Unceasing Generosity.
This is how I name you, words of praise for you whom I have no chance of ever understanding. May my overwhelmed wonder and tortured prose praise you.
It’s all I’ve got.
Pr. David L. Miller
Colossians 1:15-16
He is the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers -- all things were created through him and for him.
Reflection
Formless substance passes through you and becomes a world, a universe of relationships and order, purpose and beauty. No, I say, more: Substance itself flows from within the Mystery you are into surprising existence.
All is made in you, an expression of your own life, of you who are Life, the flowing fountain of Being. All passes from and through you, bearing the gift of existence because you will it; you want it.
It is your nature that life should be, that the substance of your hidden heart, the content of your all-surpassing mind should be shared with that which doesn’t yet exist, so that it may exist.
This tells me all I need to know of your nature. You live to give life, to make life, to share the Mystery which you are so that we and every twig and tree in the stark autumnal woods should be.
So the face of my brother, Jesus, shouldn’t surprise, the face of one given, of one who loves his own and loves them to the end, whose heart is fixed on healing a world that threatens at every point to separate from the Source (you) from which it springs eternally every moment.
He is the Image of the Eternal Giver, the face of the Eternally Given, and the life we are is, too.
Words fail. I have none to capture the mystery of what I see and feel. My hopeless meanderings of thought cannot corral the wonder you are.
I stand in awe, constant and holy wonder knowing that all I see--and am--flows from the hiddenness of your divine being, each an expression, a clue to the Mystery of every age: Who are you? From what do we--and all life--spring?
You are the all-generous Source who gives life to what is not. I am that which is not life, given life as holy gift.
It is your nature to give. It is your work to create life, life that shares in your nature, your image in multifarious manner and expression.
You are giver, and you are gift, the gift we have simply by existing. By existing we are alive with the life of you, O Infinite Source, Flowing Fountain, Unceasing Generosity.
This is how I name you, words of praise for you whom I have no chance of ever understanding. May my overwhelmed wonder and tortured prose praise you.
It’s all I’ve got.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Today’s text
Ephesians 1:17
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.
Reflection
I fell into a pattern of prayer more than a year ago that continues to appear from time to time. I was writing a small book when I first noticed I kept returning to a particular phrase.
I did not want the book to flow from my mind, but from a deeper and truer place in my being. I wanted to experience oneness with the words and ideas that flowed from the end of my fingers, so that there was no distance, no separation between what appeared on the page and what I felt within.
The words needed to express what my soul knew by way of deepest feeling and intuition. So, each morning I knelt in the place of my writing and prayed: “May I hear the voice within the voice that renders all other voices irrelevant.”
I sought that voice that speaks within my own being that, when I hear it, all else flees my heart, all anxiety and uncertainty, all other truth and awareness.
Following this prayer, I would write.
I do not know if I can describe the sensation or awareness that frequently arose from within me in this process of putting fingers to the keys. I always knew when the words were forced, coming from mere thought and not from some hidden point within me where my spirit and the divine spirit rested comfortably within each other, abiding.
I could feel it. I knew when the words where right, and when they were clever ideas but not the expression of that deeper voice. When I heard it I did not need to ask whether the words were true, for they resonated with the calm of a grace-filled love that filled the soul with the sublime sweetness of utter peace, often with tears.
In such moments, the voice I heard within, the voice that spoke back to me from the computer screen, was so much greater than my own, more calm, utterly certain and unperturbed.
Yet, it was my own voice, speaking divine wisdom and truth through my experiences and struggles, which had become the medium for the voice of the Loving Mystery who was pleased to join divine Spirit with my frail and mortal spirit … to speak.
And, I think, this prayer of Ephesians was answered: “May … the Father of glory give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.”
There was a voice inside of my own to which I listened. It spoke wisdom I do not possess and gave knowledge, however full, of the Unimaginable One, of you my Lord, Holy and Loving Mystery.
In that time, nothing else mattered. All other voices were irrelevant. All that mattered was hearing, listening, feeling and speaking from the point of soul where my spirit and your own merged into a single speaking of total love for a crazy world … and for me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 1:17
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.
Reflection
I fell into a pattern of prayer more than a year ago that continues to appear from time to time. I was writing a small book when I first noticed I kept returning to a particular phrase.
I did not want the book to flow from my mind, but from a deeper and truer place in my being. I wanted to experience oneness with the words and ideas that flowed from the end of my fingers, so that there was no distance, no separation between what appeared on the page and what I felt within.
The words needed to express what my soul knew by way of deepest feeling and intuition. So, each morning I knelt in the place of my writing and prayed: “May I hear the voice within the voice that renders all other voices irrelevant.”
I sought that voice that speaks within my own being that, when I hear it, all else flees my heart, all anxiety and uncertainty, all other truth and awareness.
Following this prayer, I would write.
I do not know if I can describe the sensation or awareness that frequently arose from within me in this process of putting fingers to the keys. I always knew when the words were forced, coming from mere thought and not from some hidden point within me where my spirit and the divine spirit rested comfortably within each other, abiding.
I could feel it. I knew when the words where right, and when they were clever ideas but not the expression of that deeper voice. When I heard it I did not need to ask whether the words were true, for they resonated with the calm of a grace-filled love that filled the soul with the sublime sweetness of utter peace, often with tears.
In such moments, the voice I heard within, the voice that spoke back to me from the computer screen, was so much greater than my own, more calm, utterly certain and unperturbed.
Yet, it was my own voice, speaking divine wisdom and truth through my experiences and struggles, which had become the medium for the voice of the Loving Mystery who was pleased to join divine Spirit with my frail and mortal spirit … to speak.
And, I think, this prayer of Ephesians was answered: “May … the Father of glory give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him.”
There was a voice inside of my own to which I listened. It spoke wisdom I do not possess and gave knowledge, however full, of the Unimaginable One, of you my Lord, Holy and Loving Mystery.
In that time, nothing else mattered. All other voices were irrelevant. All that mattered was hearing, listening, feeling and speaking from the point of soul where my spirit and your own merged into a single speaking of total love for a crazy world … and for me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Today’s text
Jeremiah 31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Reflection
They will all know me.
What is it to know you, Holy One? How can I say that I know you any more than the squirrels scampering across the patio can know me?
They bark curses at me when I rake up their autumnal bounty or startle them. Standing off, they assume a belligerent stance, protecting their turf, ready at my slightest twitch to scurry up the backyard birch, toenails ripping through peeling bark.
Do they know me? I suppose, but only as the alien who invades and occupies their space from time to time--and only as threat, a beast of which to be wary.
But they don’t know me any more, I suppose, than I can know you.
But somewhere and somehow I have come to faint knowledge that you are not threat, though you are always alien to me.
No, maybe you are a threat. You threaten the understanding of life and self that I fall into every time I think I am alone, every time I feebly imagine that life is only what I make of it, that we are cast-offs here on this minuscule but oh-so-wondrous planet.
And you are as alien to me as I to my squirrels, as they keep sentry over the bonanza summer’s sun has yielded, sustenance for winter’s long cold.
You are alien because you are love and unending mercy, who casts my failures and sins into the deep from which they shall never reappear. My soul is alien to such love, or is it?
Even now I know a love--for myself, for this beautiful earth and for this screwed-up rat race of a world where fear and callous meism moves so much of what we do.
Even now, I love it, and I love it with a love that is here, in me, alien though it is, for it is born of higher and infinite heart, so far beyond my own that I am reduced to the status of the squirrels.
Yet, it is your pleasure that I should know this moment, this love … you, … and fulfill again, your promise.
Pr. David L. Miller
Jeremiah 31-34
'Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah), but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, even though I was their Master, Yahweh declares. No, this is the covenant I shall make with the House of Israel when those days have come, Yahweh declares. Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind.'
Reflection
They will all know me.
What is it to know you, Holy One? How can I say that I know you any more than the squirrels scampering across the patio can know me?
They bark curses at me when I rake up their autumnal bounty or startle them. Standing off, they assume a belligerent stance, protecting their turf, ready at my slightest twitch to scurry up the backyard birch, toenails ripping through peeling bark.
Do they know me? I suppose, but only as the alien who invades and occupies their space from time to time--and only as threat, a beast of which to be wary.
But they don’t know me any more, I suppose, than I can know you.
But somewhere and somehow I have come to faint knowledge that you are not threat, though you are always alien to me.
No, maybe you are a threat. You threaten the understanding of life and self that I fall into every time I think I am alone, every time I feebly imagine that life is only what I make of it, that we are cast-offs here on this minuscule but oh-so-wondrous planet.
And you are as alien to me as I to my squirrels, as they keep sentry over the bonanza summer’s sun has yielded, sustenance for winter’s long cold.
You are alien because you are love and unending mercy, who casts my failures and sins into the deep from which they shall never reappear. My soul is alien to such love, or is it?
Even now I know a love--for myself, for this beautiful earth and for this screwed-up rat race of a world where fear and callous meism moves so much of what we do.
Even now, I love it, and I love it with a love that is here, in me, alien though it is, for it is born of higher and infinite heart, so far beyond my own that I am reduced to the status of the squirrels.
Yet, it is your pleasure that I should know this moment, this love … you, … and fulfill again, your promise.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Today’s text
Psalm 84:2-3
My whole being yearns and pines for Yahweh's court. My heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, the swallow a nest to place its young: your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my King and my God.
Reflection
The place of your presence is hope, my abode, my home. So why do I wander so far, driven by forces, from within and without, that I neither understand nor command?
I long for home. Bring me to that inner palace where I feel and know myself surrounded by eternal arms of unfailing mercy.
Even now, through the grayness, this home calls me to my heart’s desire. I see, within my hidden soul, a life, my life, surrounded in the darkness by your embracing presence, a watery cushion conformed to the contours of my life, lest any part of me slip beyond the divine circle of your care, constant and silent, ever there.
And I lie within your constant silence, an orb, an ellipse of life within your Love, and within myself stretches a child, arms and eyes reaching for daylight; an infant within, waiting to be born.
It lives. It is me, O Lord, that deepest element of the life that I am, awaiting full birth into whatever glory your divine DNA encoded into the mystery of my life.
I see all this, clearly, yet my soul is a wandering vagabond, coursing the earth and despairing days as if it has no home, no identity except that assigned to it by others, some in care others not.
And all the while, this inner palace awaits my return, calling to me, whispering my name--the one I forget--until I return to the one place where I may know the joy of the sparrow upon her nest.
So with these few words I step toward home, the inner palace where all that matters is you and me in the secret silence, where I am born … anew.
Pr. David L. Miller
Psalm 84:2-3
My whole being yearns and pines for Yahweh's court. My heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, the swallow a nest to place its young: your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my King and my God.
Reflection
The place of your presence is hope, my abode, my home. So why do I wander so far, driven by forces, from within and without, that I neither understand nor command?
I long for home. Bring me to that inner palace where I feel and know myself surrounded by eternal arms of unfailing mercy.
Even now, through the grayness, this home calls me to my heart’s desire. I see, within my hidden soul, a life, my life, surrounded in the darkness by your embracing presence, a watery cushion conformed to the contours of my life, lest any part of me slip beyond the divine circle of your care, constant and silent, ever there.
And I lie within your constant silence, an orb, an ellipse of life within your Love, and within myself stretches a child, arms and eyes reaching for daylight; an infant within, waiting to be born.
It lives. It is me, O Lord, that deepest element of the life that I am, awaiting full birth into whatever glory your divine DNA encoded into the mystery of my life.
I see all this, clearly, yet my soul is a wandering vagabond, coursing the earth and despairing days as if it has no home, no identity except that assigned to it by others, some in care others not.
And all the while, this inner palace awaits my return, calling to me, whispering my name--the one I forget--until I return to the one place where I may know the joy of the sparrow upon her nest.
So with these few words I step toward home, the inner palace where all that matters is you and me in the secret silence, where I am born … anew.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Today's text
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
Reflection
It is important to know your place.
Everything Sunday morning a ritual is acted out on the step at the front of our sanctuary. Readings from the Bible are read, and children are invited forward to sit on this step to hear the children’s sermon.
Children rush … they run forward to beat me to this step because I have a place, my place, right there in the middle. But I am too slow. They beat me to it. They look at me and giggle.
I try to squeeze in, and they push their skinny butts together so that I can squeeze in. But I can't, so I must sit on the floor in front of them. This is my place they tell me.
So I sit on the floor and talk to children, as they line up on that step and sit with me. In mock anger,I shake my finger at them and say, “You’re in my place.” But they just laugh … because they are in their place. It belongs to them, and they know it.
We are all in our place: We belong there. We are safe there; we are wanted there … and cherished. So we tell stories and laugh, and they make fun of me, and between the lines of all that happens we realize how much we love each other.
And the love that we share there, sitting together, is not ours, but flows from the reservoir of an infinite love that draws and holds us together.
Whether the congregation knows it or not, whether they see and recognize it or not, whether they have ears to hear what is happening, we are a living sacrament, sitting right there before them. We act out and make present the central truth of our lives. The truth: There is a love that is for us, a love that always has a place for us, a place with our name on it.
Right there on those steps … heaven appears. The love of Jesus enfolds us and silently whispers in our ears: 'You belong. You belong to me. In my love there is a place just for you … and it is yours forever.'
This day, O Lord, let us know our place.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
Reflection
It is important to know your place.
Everything Sunday morning a ritual is acted out on the step at the front of our sanctuary. Readings from the Bible are read, and children are invited forward to sit on this step to hear the children’s sermon.
Children rush … they run forward to beat me to this step because I have a place, my place, right there in the middle. But I am too slow. They beat me to it. They look at me and giggle.
I try to squeeze in, and they push their skinny butts together so that I can squeeze in. But I can't, so I must sit on the floor in front of them. This is my place they tell me.
So I sit on the floor and talk to children, as they line up on that step and sit with me. In mock anger,I shake my finger at them and say, “You’re in my place.” But they just laugh … because they are in their place. It belongs to them, and they know it.
We are all in our place: We belong there. We are safe there; we are wanted there … and cherished. So we tell stories and laugh, and they make fun of me, and between the lines of all that happens we realize how much we love each other.
And the love that we share there, sitting together, is not ours, but flows from the reservoir of an infinite love that draws and holds us together.
Whether the congregation knows it or not, whether they see and recognize it or not, whether they have ears to hear what is happening, we are a living sacrament, sitting right there before them. We act out and make present the central truth of our lives. The truth: There is a love that is for us, a love that always has a place for us, a place with our name on it.
Right there on those steps … heaven appears. The love of Jesus enfolds us and silently whispers in our ears: 'You belong. You belong to me. In my love there is a place just for you … and it is yours forever.'
This day, O Lord, let us know our place.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Today’s text
Luke 18:1
Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. 'There was a judge in a certain town,' he said, 'who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a Widow who kept on coming to him and saying, "I want justice from you against my enemy!" For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, "Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face." ' And the Lord said, 'You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?'
Reflection
A comic appeared in last Sunday’s paper, a single frame. A thick, muscled arm descends from a cloud, setting an enormous elbow on the ground. A huge hand extends to a stump where a small person grasps that hand and says, “On the count of three.”
There was nothing funny about the cartoon. I suppose the artist sought to comment on the lunacy of arm wrestling with God, “on the count of three” or any other count.
But such contests are not quickly over and done as the drawing suggests. They go on … and should.
Oh, we lose every skirmish. We are not going to wrestle God to the ground and demand whatever it is that we want.
But in the struggle with God we might find ourselves in the presence of a Mystery worthy of our worship, a mystery who in the end is Love, even when our heart’s desire doesn’t happen, even when what we fear becomes the bitter crust of our reality.
It is not uncommon for me to sit with souls who rail again heaven for the injustice and pain in their lives. Often as not, heaven has nothing to do with their pain, which has obvious causes closer to home.
Even then, we want what we want, an end to pain, relief from threats to those we love and healing from whatever illness, misfortune or just plain bad luck that makes life hard.
“Step in God. I demand that you do something about this. I’m talking to you God.”
For the strong ones, the blessed ones, the fight against heaven doesn’t soon end. They persevere. They press on, pressing home the justice of their cause, their honest need for blessing and relief from their unending run of miserable luck.
Blessed are they, for you, my most holy Lord, are real to them, even when your silence brings them pain.
Blessed are they, for they will wrestle with you (losing every skirmish) until the mystery of your love breaks their heart, and they stand, like Job, before the inscrutable chances of life, blessing you for being a God who refuses to be reduced to our size.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 18:1
Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. 'There was a judge in a certain town,' he said, 'who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a Widow who kept on coming to him and saying, "I want justice from you against my enemy!" For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, "Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face." ' And the Lord said, 'You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of man comes, will he find any faith on earth?'
Reflection
A comic appeared in last Sunday’s paper, a single frame. A thick, muscled arm descends from a cloud, setting an enormous elbow on the ground. A huge hand extends to a stump where a small person grasps that hand and says, “On the count of three.”
There was nothing funny about the cartoon. I suppose the artist sought to comment on the lunacy of arm wrestling with God, “on the count of three” or any other count.
But such contests are not quickly over and done as the drawing suggests. They go on … and should.
Oh, we lose every skirmish. We are not going to wrestle God to the ground and demand whatever it is that we want.
But in the struggle with God we might find ourselves in the presence of a Mystery worthy of our worship, a mystery who in the end is Love, even when our heart’s desire doesn’t happen, even when what we fear becomes the bitter crust of our reality.
It is not uncommon for me to sit with souls who rail again heaven for the injustice and pain in their lives. Often as not, heaven has nothing to do with their pain, which has obvious causes closer to home.
Even then, we want what we want, an end to pain, relief from threats to those we love and healing from whatever illness, misfortune or just plain bad luck that makes life hard.
“Step in God. I demand that you do something about this. I’m talking to you God.”
For the strong ones, the blessed ones, the fight against heaven doesn’t soon end. They persevere. They press on, pressing home the justice of their cause, their honest need for blessing and relief from their unending run of miserable luck.
Blessed are they, for you, my most holy Lord, are real to them, even when your silence brings them pain.
Blessed are they, for they will wrestle with you (losing every skirmish) until the mystery of your love breaks their heart, and they stand, like Job, before the inscrutable chances of life, blessing you for being a God who refuses to be reduced to our size.
Pr. David L. Miller
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