Today’s text
Mark 9:30-32
After leaving that place they made their way through Galilee; and he [Jesus] did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, 'The Son of man will be delivered into the power of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.' But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.
Reflection
We know people like this, people who give themselves away in love and trust.
They love those they have been given to love, and they trust that the One, the Mystery who made them, will raise them up when they lose themselves, when for love’s sake they surrender to tasks that wither the life out of them … or even get them killed.
They are the souls who most clearly show us who Jesus is and what God is like, magnetically drawing us to be as they are and know what they know.
Names come to mind, great names, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., for example, but faces appear, too. And so many of those faces are not far away, nor are they people whose decisions and sacrifices show up in the daily news.
They are people who give themselves with care to the tiny tasks of the day, to each person they meet, to the situations that come, the needs that arise, and who struggle for patience and grace amid the set-backs, slights and frustrations that are part of living.
They are parents and grandparents who love us, the children who don’t run from the absorbing needs of aging parents, the teacher, the nurse, the helper, the friend or neighbor who cares for our loved one even as much as we do.
They are wives and husbands who forgive the failures of the imperfect people to whom they share their lives and who hang in there when the going is hard.
They are the ones who make food for the homeless and remember the lonely and forgotten who feel life has passed them by and no one cares.
They are us, not just the saints of old or the great ones whose deeds are known and celebrated by millions.
Jesus soul, the Soul of the all-merciful God, is different from yours and mine, yet this is the soul he seeks to give away and give to us, in two ways.
His soul is given to reveal God’s kingdom of divine love. He gives himself to this reality, this vision of a world not yet come, knowing his suffering and death will reveal it, making it real.
And he invites us to walk the path of loving, doing justice and giving ourselves in grace and care. Walking this path, the seed of the Christ Soul within us sprouts and grows so that we have and know the Soul who has us.
If you keep your eyes open, you just may see his great Soul, and amid tears you may find it within yourself.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Friday, September 21, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 9:35-38
So he [Jesus] sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.' He then took a little child whom he set among them and embraced, and he said to them, 'Anyone who welcomes a little child such as this in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.'
Reflection
A person sits down in the chair opposite me in my office. It is morning or evening, perhaps mid-day; it doesn’t matter. Each time is the same.
Their eyes may be moist or veiled by troubles they have yet to name. Sometimes they are full of joy at unexpected blessing or in expectation for life to begin with the young man or woman beside them.
Each time is the same even though their stories and emotions couldn’t be more different.
Each time I am invited to welcome them and enter to their story, however joy-filled or wracked with suffering I can do nothing about.
Each time I am invited to shut off the anxious, internal chatter in my mind and step into their world, hoping that somewhere in the process words, wisdom and grace will appear that will lighten their load or give reason and insight to help light their way.
Each time I wait for the Spirit to stir some clarity and blessing from the morass of my mind where I know I have very little in the way of wisdom or insight, although I do have a bit of grace to share.
Each time I am invited to welcome the child that sits before me.
No, they are not all children. Children seldom make it to my office for these kinds of conversations.
Yet they are children, as are all of us. They come with their humanity in their hands, leading with needs and wounds they can’t heal.
And I get to welcome them, enter their stories and embrace their humanity, which makes me one of the privileged.
Jesus placed a child before his friends and said, “Welcome this child, and you welcome me; you welcome the One Love who sent me.”
I know this is true. Our consciousness is transformed as we welcome the humanity of another.
Entering the world of another human being as needy as we are, we feel and know the open heart of Divine Love opening up in ourselves. Just so, we welcome the One who welcomes us and all, knowing a grace that goes beyond any we, ourselves, can give.
So take your time this day, and take care with each soul. Each person, each meeting, each need is the door through which we enter the Presence of the Heart who is our truest home.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 9:35-38
So he [Jesus] sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.' He then took a little child whom he set among them and embraced, and he said to them, 'Anyone who welcomes a little child such as this in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.'
Reflection
A person sits down in the chair opposite me in my office. It is morning or evening, perhaps mid-day; it doesn’t matter. Each time is the same.
Their eyes may be moist or veiled by troubles they have yet to name. Sometimes they are full of joy at unexpected blessing or in expectation for life to begin with the young man or woman beside them.
Each time is the same even though their stories and emotions couldn’t be more different.
Each time I am invited to welcome them and enter to their story, however joy-filled or wracked with suffering I can do nothing about.
Each time I am invited to shut off the anxious, internal chatter in my mind and step into their world, hoping that somewhere in the process words, wisdom and grace will appear that will lighten their load or give reason and insight to help light their way.
Each time I wait for the Spirit to stir some clarity and blessing from the morass of my mind where I know I have very little in the way of wisdom or insight, although I do have a bit of grace to share.
Each time I am invited to welcome the child that sits before me.
No, they are not all children. Children seldom make it to my office for these kinds of conversations.
Yet they are children, as are all of us. They come with their humanity in their hands, leading with needs and wounds they can’t heal.
And I get to welcome them, enter their stories and embrace their humanity, which makes me one of the privileged.
Jesus placed a child before his friends and said, “Welcome this child, and you welcome me; you welcome the One Love who sent me.”
I know this is true. Our consciousness is transformed as we welcome the humanity of another.
Entering the world of another human being as needy as we are, we feel and know the open heart of Divine Love opening up in ourselves. Just so, we welcome the One who welcomes us and all, knowing a grace that goes beyond any we, ourselves, can give.
So take your time this day, and take care with each soul. Each person, each meeting, each need is the door through which we enter the Presence of the Heart who is our truest home.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 9:30-32
After leaving that place they made their way through Galilee; and he [Jesus] did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, 'The Son of man will be delivered into the power of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.' But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.
Reflection
The gate to the kingdom of God’s holy love is the way of surrender. It is the way of giving yourself to the moments of your life, to the loves you are given to love, to the needs, great and small, of the precious souls life has given to you.
The kingdom opens before you as you refuse to flee the deep commitments of your life when they grow difficult or the way gets hard.
It is in such times that we begin to glow with the greatest beauty that shines from the human soul, the glorious light of losing yourself in love at the point of another’s need.
Just so, the needs of others, our commitments to one another as spouses and parents, our commitments to children and friends, relatives or strangers for that matter, are the door to resurrection and renewal.
I think of this every time I see a son or daughter standing fast at the bedside of their dieing mother or father, every time I see tears trickling down the cheeks of a parent burning with the desire to help their troubled child, knowing there is little they can do.
They shine with a glory beyond their own, having surrendered the idea that life is about seeking the most comfortable way--or that it is about making oneself important, … at least greater than the people to whom we tend to compare ourselves.
This is all gone. But it is not loss, as Jesus knows … and shows us.
In the surrender to love, for the sake of love, we throw ourselves into the Mystery of the Love who promises to raise us each time we fall, who assures that renewal and new life come exactly at the point where we seem to be losing what is most precious.
Jesus seeks to share this consciousness that is in him so that it might dwell also in us. Then, too, we can live each day with assurance, trusting the Divine Love who brings life out of death and new beginnings from ashes.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 9:30-32
After leaving that place they made their way through Galilee; and he [Jesus] did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, 'The Son of man will be delivered into the power of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.' But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.
Reflection
The gate to the kingdom of God’s holy love is the way of surrender. It is the way of giving yourself to the moments of your life, to the loves you are given to love, to the needs, great and small, of the precious souls life has given to you.
The kingdom opens before you as you refuse to flee the deep commitments of your life when they grow difficult or the way gets hard.
It is in such times that we begin to glow with the greatest beauty that shines from the human soul, the glorious light of losing yourself in love at the point of another’s need.
Just so, the needs of others, our commitments to one another as spouses and parents, our commitments to children and friends, relatives or strangers for that matter, are the door to resurrection and renewal.
I think of this every time I see a son or daughter standing fast at the bedside of their dieing mother or father, every time I see tears trickling down the cheeks of a parent burning with the desire to help their troubled child, knowing there is little they can do.
They shine with a glory beyond their own, having surrendered the idea that life is about seeking the most comfortable way--or that it is about making oneself important, … at least greater than the people to whom we tend to compare ourselves.
This is all gone. But it is not loss, as Jesus knows … and shows us.
In the surrender to love, for the sake of love, we throw ourselves into the Mystery of the Love who promises to raise us each time we fall, who assures that renewal and new life come exactly at the point where we seem to be losing what is most precious.
Jesus seeks to share this consciousness that is in him so that it might dwell also in us. Then, too, we can live each day with assurance, trusting the Divine Love who brings life out of death and new beginnings from ashes.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 17, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 9:35
So he [Jesus] sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.'
Reflection
I don’t think this is quite true. I do not think we can make ourselves servants of all, transcending our culture’s fascination with winning and being number one.
Letting go of the need to make much of ourselves for others to admire is a lifelong occupation, and we cannot do it alone.
Every child is born into the world hungry for connection, for food and shelter, for love and belonging. We each belonged in our mother’s womb only to be separated, cast out, never ceasing to need intimate connection with a love that nestles and feeds us, warms and assures us that we are wanted and belong.
When family and friends, home and school fail to provide such safety and esteem we seek it in other ways, trying to get others to look at us--to see and admire us so we know we are important, that we matter.
In a culture that celebrates individual achievement as much as ours, we seek to excel, to do something, almost anything, that will make people take notice and validate our life, our value, our existence.
Only quiet souls, souls who know they are loved and treasured can look beyond the burning need within and surrender to others, giving themselves to each moment, gifting it with their presence.
Their inner need is at rest, stilled and at peace by the inner knowledge of Love that tells them they have nothing to prove.
The inner Voice of Love says more. Again and again it, whispers the awareness that the truly valuable thing we need to do is to be ourselves, giving that self to each moment.
For each of us is a unique expression of the One Love who made us as a partial expression of God, the Eternal Wonder who always is and is always Love.
Listen to the Voice, and be what you are, who you are, where you are. Do not seek to win, to impress or gain more attention than that which easily and naturally comes through the simple sharing of what is in you.
Breathe and know. You are enough, for the Eternal Wonder is in you seeking expression in ways only you can offer.
The beauty of your life is the beauty of the Life who is in you. Trust it. It is enough for you simply to share that which you are, for the life you bear is the life of the One who is Beauty Itself.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 9:35
So he [Jesus] sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.'
Reflection
I don’t think this is quite true. I do not think we can make ourselves servants of all, transcending our culture’s fascination with winning and being number one.
Letting go of the need to make much of ourselves for others to admire is a lifelong occupation, and we cannot do it alone.
Every child is born into the world hungry for connection, for food and shelter, for love and belonging. We each belonged in our mother’s womb only to be separated, cast out, never ceasing to need intimate connection with a love that nestles and feeds us, warms and assures us that we are wanted and belong.
When family and friends, home and school fail to provide such safety and esteem we seek it in other ways, trying to get others to look at us--to see and admire us so we know we are important, that we matter.
In a culture that celebrates individual achievement as much as ours, we seek to excel, to do something, almost anything, that will make people take notice and validate our life, our value, our existence.
Only quiet souls, souls who know they are loved and treasured can look beyond the burning need within and surrender to others, giving themselves to each moment, gifting it with their presence.
Their inner need is at rest, stilled and at peace by the inner knowledge of Love that tells them they have nothing to prove.
The inner Voice of Love says more. Again and again it, whispers the awareness that the truly valuable thing we need to do is to be ourselves, giving that self to each moment.
For each of us is a unique expression of the One Love who made us as a partial expression of God, the Eternal Wonder who always is and is always Love.
Listen to the Voice, and be what you are, who you are, where you are. Do not seek to win, to impress or gain more attention than that which easily and naturally comes through the simple sharing of what is in you.
Breathe and know. You are enough, for the Eternal Wonder is in you seeking expression in ways only you can offer.
The beauty of your life is the beauty of the Life who is in you. Trust it. It is enough for you simply to share that which you are, for the life you bear is the life of the One who is Beauty Itself.
Pr. David L. Miller
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 8:34-35
He [Jesus] called the people and his disciples to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
Reflection
This is not a terrible message. There is no dread here, but hope; however painful moments of loss, fear and change are for us.
No one wants to lose his life, the people and places to which we are most attached. We hold onto to things as they are, fearing the pain of letting go and entering a future we do not control.
The invitation of Jesus amid all such times is to trust, to trust more than we do, more than we believe we are capable of trusting. Trust and know.
Times of change and loss, of anxiety and uncertainty erode our ability to release our death-grip on what we have and all we think we need.
But every moment of life, and certainly our difficult moments, comes with the invitation to trust that every future lies in the hands of that Love that doesn’t let go of us, a Love who delights to bring resurrection, new life beyond the one to which we clutch.
“Let go, lose the life you have and trust me,” Jesus says. “Trust the divine Father who holds you and always will. That One opens doors you do not even see. But wait, you will.”
I remember meditating upon Jesus resurrection story in the Gospel of Mark several years ago. I imagined the scene in my mind’s eye for several days running, each day writing what I had seen.
Returning to those words now, I find great hope in Jesus words about losing my life for his sake. “Let go,” he says, “let go of all you think you need, all that you fear losing; trust, the way of the Spirit is the way of losing and finding, of dieing and rising.”
It is the way of letting go and letting God bring to my soul that which I need to live and breathe, love and know the Love for which my soul will always hunger--until the day I am fully enveloped in the Great Soul and my lifetime longing finds fulfillment that does not fade.
The image of resurrection which appeared in my long-ago meditations were of waves on the sea. Again and again, they lifted me, tossing me about, high and low then lifting again, joyously rolling me about until I laughed in sheer abandonment.
Drenched through, I was, with the awareness that nothing and no part of me is separated from the resurrected love of Jesus.
Soaked to the soul, I knew every moment is held, that I am held, in an eternal, all encompassing, restlessly joyous embrace.
Knowing this, there is no need to grasp the moment as if I must secure my future and its happiness. For Life awaits me on every hand, no matter what comes. Love will be there to fill the soul with tears, not of loss, but of unexpected joy.
That’s the promise of Jesus gospel. Trust and know. Always.
This is the only way to peace in a world where nothing is predictable and no future is controllable.
So we take up the cross of our lives, doing that which the Spirit has given us to do, giving up what is, what has been, what we now are, for what shall come, always knowing Life will come, and Love will fill our hearts.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 8:34-35
He [Jesus] called the people and his disciples to him and said, 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
Reflection
This is not a terrible message. There is no dread here, but hope; however painful moments of loss, fear and change are for us.
No one wants to lose his life, the people and places to which we are most attached. We hold onto to things as they are, fearing the pain of letting go and entering a future we do not control.
The invitation of Jesus amid all such times is to trust, to trust more than we do, more than we believe we are capable of trusting. Trust and know.
Times of change and loss, of anxiety and uncertainty erode our ability to release our death-grip on what we have and all we think we need.
But every moment of life, and certainly our difficult moments, comes with the invitation to trust that every future lies in the hands of that Love that doesn’t let go of us, a Love who delights to bring resurrection, new life beyond the one to which we clutch.
“Let go, lose the life you have and trust me,” Jesus says. “Trust the divine Father who holds you and always will. That One opens doors you do not even see. But wait, you will.”
I remember meditating upon Jesus resurrection story in the Gospel of Mark several years ago. I imagined the scene in my mind’s eye for several days running, each day writing what I had seen.
Returning to those words now, I find great hope in Jesus words about losing my life for his sake. “Let go,” he says, “let go of all you think you need, all that you fear losing; trust, the way of the Spirit is the way of losing and finding, of dieing and rising.”
It is the way of letting go and letting God bring to my soul that which I need to live and breathe, love and know the Love for which my soul will always hunger--until the day I am fully enveloped in the Great Soul and my lifetime longing finds fulfillment that does not fade.
The image of resurrection which appeared in my long-ago meditations were of waves on the sea. Again and again, they lifted me, tossing me about, high and low then lifting again, joyously rolling me about until I laughed in sheer abandonment.
Drenched through, I was, with the awareness that nothing and no part of me is separated from the resurrected love of Jesus.
Soaked to the soul, I knew every moment is held, that I am held, in an eternal, all encompassing, restlessly joyous embrace.
Knowing this, there is no need to grasp the moment as if I must secure my future and its happiness. For Life awaits me on every hand, no matter what comes. Love will be there to fill the soul with tears, not of loss, but of unexpected joy.
That’s the promise of Jesus gospel. Trust and know. Always.
This is the only way to peace in a world where nothing is predictable and no future is controllable.
So we take up the cross of our lives, doing that which the Spirit has given us to do, giving up what is, what has been, what we now are, for what shall come, always knowing Life will come, and Love will fill our hearts.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 10, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Today’s text
Psalm 116:5-9
Yahweh is merciful and upright, our God is tenderness. Yahweh looks after the simple, when I was brought low he gave me strength. Yahweh looks after the simple, when I was brought low he gave me strength. He has rescued me from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I shall pass my life in the presence of Yahweh, in the land of the living.
Reflection
You are tenderness, and in tenderness we know you as the Heart as the Universe who hungers for our hearts and is content with nothing less than healing.
To know you, Holy One, is to know the breath in our lungs as it returns when the heaviness of sorrow and fear lift in the light of love’s embrace.
To know you is to see and feel your smile radiating in the grace of faces that know and love you … and us.
To know you is to feel strength of soul as hope for the fullness of life returns, for without it our hearts remain unfinished and longing.
To know you is to know the love that cannot and will not release our hearts even when we have no strength left to hold on. You hold onto us. Always will.
In that knowledge, we live our lives and all eternity in the land of your Presence, the land of the living.
For there is no life, no real living without knowing and feeling, without awareness of the love you are, the tenderness of your divine heart.
So very different are you than those who thunder from pulpits and television screens announcing your judgment upon our failed humanity.
I turn from them more and more as the years pass. Once they held fascination. They seemed to know you better than I.
But in these latter days I listen to what I know within, paying pay less attention to outside voices that tell me who you are, what you want, how I should live, what I should say and how I should lead.
I listen instead to the voice of tenderness that returns the breath to my lungs so that I may live and breathe, hope and know that all lies in Love’s unfailing hands. Always will.
And simply knowing, I dwell in the land of the living. Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Psalm 116:5-9
Yahweh is merciful and upright, our God is tenderness. Yahweh looks after the simple, when I was brought low he gave me strength. Yahweh looks after the simple, when I was brought low he gave me strength. He has rescued me from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I shall pass my life in the presence of Yahweh, in the land of the living.
Reflection
You are tenderness, and in tenderness we know you as the Heart as the Universe who hungers for our hearts and is content with nothing less than healing.
To know you, Holy One, is to know the breath in our lungs as it returns when the heaviness of sorrow and fear lift in the light of love’s embrace.
To know you is to see and feel your smile radiating in the grace of faces that know and love you … and us.
To know you is to feel strength of soul as hope for the fullness of life returns, for without it our hearts remain unfinished and longing.
To know you is to know the love that cannot and will not release our hearts even when we have no strength left to hold on. You hold onto us. Always will.
In that knowledge, we live our lives and all eternity in the land of your Presence, the land of the living.
For there is no life, no real living without knowing and feeling, without awareness of the love you are, the tenderness of your divine heart.
So very different are you than those who thunder from pulpits and television screens announcing your judgment upon our failed humanity.
I turn from them more and more as the years pass. Once they held fascination. They seemed to know you better than I.
But in these latter days I listen to what I know within, paying pay less attention to outside voices that tell me who you are, what you want, how I should live, what I should say and how I should lead.
I listen instead to the voice of tenderness that returns the breath to my lungs so that I may live and breathe, hope and know that all lies in Love’s unfailing hands. Always will.
And simply knowing, I dwell in the land of the living. Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Saturday September 8, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 7:34-37
Then looking up to heaven he [Jesus] sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it. Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'
Reflection
Open our ears to the deep hunger of our souls that we may seek the fullness of your heart each day and find the healing and peace we so badly need. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Open our ears to the needs of the world and the hearts of friend and foe that we may hear with love and grace, as you hear us. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Open our mouths to bless and encourage others that hearts may be lifted and your church may grow into an ever-widening community of blessing. Bless all who teach and learn your gospel, all who witness and worship. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Open our eyes to the wonder of the heavens and the earth, the seas, and all that is in them, to forests, mountains and lakes and the gentle beauty of fawn and flower, that we may be moved praise you and care for the well-being of all you have made. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Open our hearts to the hungry and those who wither in poverty and want. Move us to share with those in need and seek your justice for those oppressed. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Open the gates of your healing compassion to all who are sick or in any need. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Open our arms to love our neighbors as ourselves. Open our hearts to care for the stranger and welcome every soul into your assembly with honor and dignity. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Open our souls to the loving witness of those who have gone before us that we, too, may inherit the kingdom you promise to whose who love you. Grant comfort and healing to all who mourn. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Hear our hearts, faithful God, and pour out your Spirit from the ever-flowing depths of your divine heart that filled with the love you are we may joyfully love and serve you and one another, through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, September 07, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 7:34-37
Then looking up to heaven he [Jesus] sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it. Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'
Reflection
No, it is not good. It is life. He is life, and they are missing it. Don’t miss life.
Let your heart be taken in by the life he is. Be captured by the wonder of what you see and feel in him. Your ears will open and you will hear and speak as never before.
How do you hear? How do you speak?
Jesus hears the world with grace, in all its sorrow, hunger and joy. Captured by his life, the life of the one who sighs with care and loving mercy, you will hear your life and life around you with this same grace.
He doesn’t want your admiration or approval. They mean nothing to him. What he wants is for you to see and hear as he sees, as he sees and hears you.
He hungers for you to be as he is. That is his purpose and joy, the fulfillment of his life and yours.
He sees you through eyes of penetrating grace, knowing all of you and loving all of it because it is you, because all of it shapes a soul so unique no other soul is quite like it or ever will be.
Your soul, your life can shine with grace and understanding, blessing and hope like no other that has or ever will exist.
You are a special vessel of life and grace intended for your time and place. Your words can bless and encourage, grace and gentle the heart of people no one else can reach.
Your ears can listen and hear people who hunger to be known and understood for what they are in all their beauty and woundedness. Your ears can hear and heal the soul that hides beneath surface words and actions.
You can listen with grace and share the joy and sorrows of human hearts, as Jesus knows and shares the depth of your heart.
You can speak words of blessing that link hearts-to-hearts and minds-to-minds, as Jesus blesses you and pours the elixir of his gracious life into yours, opening your ears to hear and your mouth to speak.
You can heal the discord of cliques and family rifts, of party spirit and political polarization, of racial and national divides.
You need only allow your heart to be taken in, held, captured and conquered by the one who hears your heart and loves all of you, … the one whose sighs speak volumes about what is in the heart of God … for you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 7:34-37
Then looking up to heaven he [Jesus] sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it. Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'
Reflection
No, it is not good. It is life. He is life, and they are missing it. Don’t miss life.
Let your heart be taken in by the life he is. Be captured by the wonder of what you see and feel in him. Your ears will open and you will hear and speak as never before.
How do you hear? How do you speak?
Jesus hears the world with grace, in all its sorrow, hunger and joy. Captured by his life, the life of the one who sighs with care and loving mercy, you will hear your life and life around you with this same grace.
He doesn’t want your admiration or approval. They mean nothing to him. What he wants is for you to see and hear as he sees, as he sees and hears you.
He hungers for you to be as he is. That is his purpose and joy, the fulfillment of his life and yours.
He sees you through eyes of penetrating grace, knowing all of you and loving all of it because it is you, because all of it shapes a soul so unique no other soul is quite like it or ever will be.
Your soul, your life can shine with grace and understanding, blessing and hope like no other that has or ever will exist.
You are a special vessel of life and grace intended for your time and place. Your words can bless and encourage, grace and gentle the heart of people no one else can reach.
Your ears can listen and hear people who hunger to be known and understood for what they are in all their beauty and woundedness. Your ears can hear and heal the soul that hides beneath surface words and actions.
You can listen with grace and share the joy and sorrows of human hearts, as Jesus knows and shares the depth of your heart.
You can speak words of blessing that link hearts-to-hearts and minds-to-minds, as Jesus blesses you and pours the elixir of his gracious life into yours, opening your ears to hear and your mouth to speak.
You can heal the discord of cliques and family rifts, of party spirit and political polarization, of racial and national divides.
You need only allow your heart to be taken in, held, captured and conquered by the one who hears your heart and loves all of you, … the one whose sighs speak volumes about what is in the heart of God … for you.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 7:32-37
And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside to be by themselves, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man's ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it. Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'
Reflection
We can hear these words on two levels. One is incomplete and shallow; the other reflects understanding and wisdom.
The crowd saw Jesus touch the deaf man and sigh. They were amazed that he was soon able to hear and speak. Their understanding was shallow. It never penetrated the surface of what happened right in front of them.
They spread the story, raising eyebrows and curiosity to be sure. But were their souls stirred to crave union with the one who sighs in wounded love for the world?
Do they want what is in him? Do they hunger to know his great soul in the depth of their own? Do they seek this transformation so that they, too, with sighs of love and sorrow, might touch and make the world more whole for their presence?
To want this is to possess Jesus, to have his soul flowing through your own, for his soul hungers for the world and broken hearts to be made whole.
Wholeness is not primarily physical but spiritual and emotional. There are those with fully-able bodies who will never be whole, and there are those who are losing their battles with cancer and disease, who are more whole than they have ever been.
It’s about connection. Those who are whole feel and know connection with the Great Life who does not die. Their bodies tingle in awareness that the Life and Love of God is in them, filling them with that otherwise elusive feeling that they are well, that all is well. They know all they are and all that is rests in Love and always will.
They know: Love works … constantly, in all, through all, with all. It always has the final word, and that word is life and peace, unity with the Loving Wonder for whom our hearts long.
Wholeness is the life that flows in us when we know and feel the truth: You dwell in the atmosphere of God who is love, the One who sighs out, “Be opened.
“Be opened, so you may know and be filled with the Spirit of Life and Love that I am. Be opened, and you will live.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 7:32-37
And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside to be by themselves, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man's ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they proclaimed it. Their admiration was unbounded, and they said, 'Everything he does is good, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.'
Reflection
We can hear these words on two levels. One is incomplete and shallow; the other reflects understanding and wisdom.
The crowd saw Jesus touch the deaf man and sigh. They were amazed that he was soon able to hear and speak. Their understanding was shallow. It never penetrated the surface of what happened right in front of them.
They spread the story, raising eyebrows and curiosity to be sure. But were their souls stirred to crave union with the one who sighs in wounded love for the world?
Do they want what is in him? Do they hunger to know his great soul in the depth of their own? Do they seek this transformation so that they, too, with sighs of love and sorrow, might touch and make the world more whole for their presence?
To want this is to possess Jesus, to have his soul flowing through your own, for his soul hungers for the world and broken hearts to be made whole.
Wholeness is not primarily physical but spiritual and emotional. There are those with fully-able bodies who will never be whole, and there are those who are losing their battles with cancer and disease, who are more whole than they have ever been.
It’s about connection. Those who are whole feel and know connection with the Great Life who does not die. Their bodies tingle in awareness that the Life and Love of God is in them, filling them with that otherwise elusive feeling that they are well, that all is well. They know all they are and all that is rests in Love and always will.
They know: Love works … constantly, in all, through all, with all. It always has the final word, and that word is life and peace, unity with the Loving Wonder for whom our hearts long.
Wholeness is the life that flows in us when we know and feel the truth: You dwell in the atmosphere of God who is love, the One who sighs out, “Be opened.
“Be opened, so you may know and be filled with the Spirit of Life and Love that I am. Be opened, and you will live.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 7:32-35
And they brought him [Jesus] a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside to be by themselves, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man's ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly.
Reflection
Be open. To what? To whom?
To the love that is in Jesus, to the Wonder whom he bears. Then, we will be united with inward center of his soul, through which flows the Soul of the Universe, the heart of divine creativity and joy, yes, joy.
Be open and receive from the divine source of whom your life is a physical expression. Your heart will soften, its emptiness will experience fullness and you will speak from your spiritual center, your inmost being.
Your words will truly ring with an authenticity and depth you have never known, bearing a love beyond your own.
It begins with being open. This does not come easily, and for some it never comes.
Jesus opens the man’s ears with a sigh, the sign of a great effort of soul. He seeks to pour out what is in his heart.
He surrenders to the need of the other, as he always does. He gives his heart to the deaf man, not knowing if he will hear, receive or even want what his soul hungers to give.
He sighs in vulnerability, risking rejection willing to make a fool of himself for the sake of the love within him, so willing is he to bless and give away what he has and knows.
Jesus knows utter intimacy, undivided unity with the Eternal Wonder who is love, the One from whom all creation flows, dazzling and perplexing our senses.
He truly knows the Infinite Source of all our bodies and souls need and crave. Divine hunger to give it all away stirs his soul beyond himself to reach and touch the souls of need that surround him at every hand.
He sighs and that which is in him passes to such a soul, a soul like mine and yours. He sighs, hoping our hearts might open so the total gift that is in him might fill our souls, too.
And when it does, in those graced moments of wonder, we, too, know intimate unity with the Unspeakable Love for which, for whom … even Jesus struggles for words. Sometimes only sighs say enough.
In this unity of soul with Soul, ours hearts with the boundless Heart, words of blessing and peace come to our lips without our usual stammer and struggle.
We speak, for once, the truth of the love that hungers for us, the love that can’t and won’t let go.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 7:32-35
And they brought him [Jesus] a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside to be by themselves, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man's ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is, 'Be opened.' And his ears were opened, and at once the impediment of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly.
Reflection
Be open. To what? To whom?
To the love that is in Jesus, to the Wonder whom he bears. Then, we will be united with inward center of his soul, through which flows the Soul of the Universe, the heart of divine creativity and joy, yes, joy.
Be open and receive from the divine source of whom your life is a physical expression. Your heart will soften, its emptiness will experience fullness and you will speak from your spiritual center, your inmost being.
Your words will truly ring with an authenticity and depth you have never known, bearing a love beyond your own.
It begins with being open. This does not come easily, and for some it never comes.
Jesus opens the man’s ears with a sigh, the sign of a great effort of soul. He seeks to pour out what is in his heart.
He surrenders to the need of the other, as he always does. He gives his heart to the deaf man, not knowing if he will hear, receive or even want what his soul hungers to give.
He sighs in vulnerability, risking rejection willing to make a fool of himself for the sake of the love within him, so willing is he to bless and give away what he has and knows.
Jesus knows utter intimacy, undivided unity with the Eternal Wonder who is love, the One from whom all creation flows, dazzling and perplexing our senses.
He truly knows the Infinite Source of all our bodies and souls need and crave. Divine hunger to give it all away stirs his soul beyond himself to reach and touch the souls of need that surround him at every hand.
He sighs and that which is in him passes to such a soul, a soul like mine and yours. He sighs, hoping our hearts might open so the total gift that is in him might fill our souls, too.
And when it does, in those graced moments of wonder, we, too, know intimate unity with the Unspeakable Love for which, for whom … even Jesus struggles for words. Sometimes only sighs say enough.
In this unity of soul with Soul, ours hearts with the boundless Heart, words of blessing and peace come to our lips without our usual stammer and struggle.
We speak, for once, the truth of the love that hungers for us, the love that can’t and won’t let go.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 7:24-28
He left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there; but he could not pass unrecognized. At once a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and came and fell at his feet. Now this woman was a gentile, by birth a Syro-Phoenician, and she begged him to drive the devil out of her daughter. And he said to her, 'The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to little dogs.' But she spoke up, 'Ah yes, sir,' she replied, 'but little dogs under the table eat the scraps from the children.'
Reflection
Give me what you will, O Lord. Whatever you give will be enough because it is from you.
I do not seek the gifts or graces others have received from you. I beg no special favors, no great accomplishments, no celebration of my name.
I wanted these when I was young, and I sought them to heal inner wounds of early rejection and judgments that made me cower and feel small and weak.
Now I want to know the grace that fills the heart and heals every inner wound, evaporating all fear. I want you, your loving grace in me.
That’s no scrap, of course, but the true substance of life flowing through the heart so that I feel completely one with you, no separation between my heart the energy of Life and Love.
That’s why I am here once more, like a thousand times before, searching for the just the right words to express what I find within me so I can offer it as prayer to you.
When the right words come, the hidden door of my soul swings open, and you flow in and fill me, and I will feel … and be … fully alive.
This gentile woman--an outsider, considered unclean and unwanted, coming from a despised ethnic group and mothering a defiled daughter--found the words that opened the door of her being.
As she did, the Being of Jesus, the Soul of the Universe, flowed into her and her daughter, living waters of life cooling their fevers and fears and making them alive. The soul of Christ poured into them pushing out all that was not him.
It was just a scrap, of course. They did not yet possess the fullness of all he is that they would know when they entered into the fullness of God’s presence. That day would come for them as it does for all.
They would again feel the rejection of those who despised the color of their skin and the marks of their ethnicity. They would experience the fears and struggles of living like everyone else.
But they had eaten. They’d tasted the scraps of divine life. They found healing, and they knew they had what they needed. It was enough for them.
For us, too.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 7:24-28
He left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there; but he could not pass unrecognized. At once a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and came and fell at his feet. Now this woman was a gentile, by birth a Syro-Phoenician, and she begged him to drive the devil out of her daughter. And he said to her, 'The children should be fed first, because it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to little dogs.' But she spoke up, 'Ah yes, sir,' she replied, 'but little dogs under the table eat the scraps from the children.'
Reflection
Give me what you will, O Lord. Whatever you give will be enough because it is from you.
I do not seek the gifts or graces others have received from you. I beg no special favors, no great accomplishments, no celebration of my name.
I wanted these when I was young, and I sought them to heal inner wounds of early rejection and judgments that made me cower and feel small and weak.
Now I want to know the grace that fills the heart and heals every inner wound, evaporating all fear. I want you, your loving grace in me.
That’s no scrap, of course, but the true substance of life flowing through the heart so that I feel completely one with you, no separation between my heart the energy of Life and Love.
That’s why I am here once more, like a thousand times before, searching for the just the right words to express what I find within me so I can offer it as prayer to you.
When the right words come, the hidden door of my soul swings open, and you flow in and fill me, and I will feel … and be … fully alive.
This gentile woman--an outsider, considered unclean and unwanted, coming from a despised ethnic group and mothering a defiled daughter--found the words that opened the door of her being.
As she did, the Being of Jesus, the Soul of the Universe, flowed into her and her daughter, living waters of life cooling their fevers and fears and making them alive. The soul of Christ poured into them pushing out all that was not him.
It was just a scrap, of course. They did not yet possess the fullness of all he is that they would know when they entered into the fullness of God’s presence. That day would come for them as it does for all.
They would again feel the rejection of those who despised the color of their skin and the marks of their ethnicity. They would experience the fears and struggles of living like everyone else.
But they had eaten. They’d tasted the scraps of divine life. They found healing, and they knew they had what they needed. It was enough for them.
For us, too.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, September 03, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Today’s text
Mark 7:24-25
He [Jesus] left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there; but he could not pass unrecognized. At once a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and came and fell at his feet.
Reflection
Our pains and burning need have two opposite effects. Either they isolate us as we shun human contact, or they move us beyond the narrow circle of self into a wider world of souls where the love that is God can pour from them into us.
Isolation is the soul’s great enemy. In our aloneness, we believe lies and imagine healing is impossible. Only in the appreciative gaze of love do we find ourselves and the healing for which we hunger.
None of us was created to be alone, cut off from others by illness or need, shame or despair, prejudice or angers. The devilish thing (truly evil) is that all these pains and so many others move us to hide and shun the light of human contact.
It often happens at the point of our greatest need. A loved one dies, a relationship injures, illness or depression saps our strength, and we think we are not fit to be out in public. We stop seeing, talking and touching even those we have known for years.
Alone, pain magnifies and isolates. I have seen it a thousand times following a death, a disappointment, a wounding incident.
We desperately need each other, for God intends us to be sacraments of the Love who is God, bearing healing grace and the oil of kindness. It flows in normal human exchange as we flee our aloneness to touch and listen, to speak and laugh, to be blessedly human with each other.
Healing begins as the Love who is God--and our deepest, truest selves--flows in common conversation and daily care.
It was need that moved the woman beyond the prison of her fears to seek healing for her daughter. In isolation, disease and dread of the future were her closest companions. They are soul-killing company, but she fled them for the sake of life.
Just so, the pains that imprison human hearts are either barriers to wholeness or the bridge into the land of grace and healing.
She moved from isolation to the feet of Jesus, to the soul of all healing and grace. No longer was she alone, no longer a prisoner, no longer limited to her own resources. Her pain and need brought her to the place where Love might do its holy work.
Pr. David L. Miller
Mark 7:24-25
He [Jesus] left that place and set out for the territory of Tyre. There he went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there; but he could not pass unrecognized. At once a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him and came and fell at his feet.
Reflection
Our pains and burning need have two opposite effects. Either they isolate us as we shun human contact, or they move us beyond the narrow circle of self into a wider world of souls where the love that is God can pour from them into us.
Isolation is the soul’s great enemy. In our aloneness, we believe lies and imagine healing is impossible. Only in the appreciative gaze of love do we find ourselves and the healing for which we hunger.
None of us was created to be alone, cut off from others by illness or need, shame or despair, prejudice or angers. The devilish thing (truly evil) is that all these pains and so many others move us to hide and shun the light of human contact.
It often happens at the point of our greatest need. A loved one dies, a relationship injures, illness or depression saps our strength, and we think we are not fit to be out in public. We stop seeing, talking and touching even those we have known for years.
Alone, pain magnifies and isolates. I have seen it a thousand times following a death, a disappointment, a wounding incident.
We desperately need each other, for God intends us to be sacraments of the Love who is God, bearing healing grace and the oil of kindness. It flows in normal human exchange as we flee our aloneness to touch and listen, to speak and laugh, to be blessedly human with each other.
Healing begins as the Love who is God--and our deepest, truest selves--flows in common conversation and daily care.
It was need that moved the woman beyond the prison of her fears to seek healing for her daughter. In isolation, disease and dread of the future were her closest companions. They are soul-killing company, but she fled them for the sake of life.
Just so, the pains that imprison human hearts are either barriers to wholeness or the bridge into the land of grace and healing.
She moved from isolation to the feet of Jesus, to the soul of all healing and grace. No longer was she alone, no longer a prisoner, no longer limited to her own resources. Her pain and need brought her to the place where Love might do its holy work.
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, August 24, 2012
Friday, August 22, 2012
Today’s text
John 6:56, 67-69
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person.
Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?' Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.' and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.'
Reflection
Where do you live? We ask this question when first meeting someone, trying to place them in their state or neighborhood, thinking about how their life is similar or different from our own.
The biblical word is menein, abide. It asks, where do you live? Where does you heart dwell? Where are you at home? Where does your soul rest?
Where does peace appear, bubbling from depths of being even in surprising moments?
Where does the feeling of being wonderfully, beautifully alive, loved and wanted wash through you--even amid your brokenness, despite the pain or challenge of the day?
So many times we dwell in the land of our failures, or we abide and make our home in our anger and frustration over how life has gone for us.
Our minds and hearts travel well-worn roads back to the voices that diminished and defined us as unwanted and unworthy. We make our home in moments we felt judged. We dwell in the land of the lost, despairing beneath the weight of our brokenness, believing we can never be good and whole again.
We make our home in inhospitable lands that diminish our souls and wither the love and grace that is in us.
Jesus comes to us and all who need him bearing a land in which he bids us dwell, a land in which the love that fills him flows from his pores and every word telling us the truth and wonder of who we are.
We … you … are beloved and known, wanted and cherished, amid all your human imperfections and the wounds from the past and present.
“Come, to me,” he says. “Come and abide in me. Dwell in the circle of my nearness. This is your home. So come, receive and eat the truth. Take it into your body. Chew on it until it becomes part of your DNA.
“For what is in me is love without limit, a river of grace that never runs dry. Taste what is in me. Beauty and the joy of life will flow from your soul, and you will know, truly know, the life of eternity, right here and now.’”
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Today’s text
John 6:63
Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?' Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life.'
Reflection
Where do you go when in pain? What do you do when the world turns upside down or the details of the day make you dizzy?
Where is the portal through which you may step from the world of constant change into awareness of the eternal constancy, which gives rest to the soul and assurance that all is and shall be well?
The disciples heard Jesus and had an intuition. They felt his words flowing from a source beyond any they had ever known.
Jesus voice transported them beyond their fears and daily squabbles for bread and ego. They listened … and heard the Soul of the Universe inviting them to enter a world beyond their daily worries.
They were lifted into Love, feeling love and life bubbling up in them as if from a fountain deep within, a Source they didn’t know was there.
“Abide in me,” Jesus said to them. Come, rest in me. Listen to the silence of my voice. Quiet your struggle for a few minutes and just know what is in me.”
In this knowing, what was in him flowed also through them.
Life from an endless source, love that never runs dry pushed and surged from hidden depths to fill their chest and throat, warming them throughout, giving rest and utter assurance to their minds.
Their hearts then knew all that was needed to live and laugh that they might also pour themselves out for the sake of the startling love that surged within.
They tasted the life of eternity and knew what God had made them to know.
May you know it, too.
Listen to the voice that says, “Rest, my child. Rest, my friend. The Love I am seeks to fill you from within and touch you from without.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Today’s text
John 6:63
‘It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.’
Reflection
Moments of awareness come when you least expect them, but they come more often when you put yourself on the road they travel. Mine travel in books I read sitting on the back patio. So I sit there on sunny Mondays, basking in gentle suns of late summer.
I listen as voices rise from the pages, awakening an inner voice of love that invites me to sink into my deep inner self. There I find an awareness that this love is in me, waiting always for me to come home and know that this is my true being and my home.
This is who I really am, stripped for the moment of any thoughts of history or accomplishment, failures or frustrations. My being is this love, and for the moment I am one with this awareness; … I know this completely.
I know the Love who loves, and there is no doubt and certainly no fear in me. I am well through and through.
I do not know how or why the words on the page elicited this awareness, however fleeting it may be. Perhaps the writer shared an experience so close to my own that I knew I was not strange or alone. Perhaps her embrace of her life experiences, both jubilant and mundane, spoke a love for life that allowed me to love mine, too.
I simply know there is a spirit of love awakened within that heals and makes whole, stirred perhaps by the action of that same spirit in another human heart and mind.
When Jesus spoke his words flowed from his consciousness of oneness with Love. The Spirit of the All-Loving One filled him, inviting all who heard to know what he knew, to feel what he felt so they might enter the land he inhabited--the land of the knowing oneness with Love that can happen on back patios or wherever Spirit catches up with you.
His words offended many. He told them to eat his flesh, drink his blood, and he wasn’t necessarily talking about taking communion at church. He was inviting them to hear the spirit of his words, the Spirit that filled his conscious awareness, so this awareness might fill them, too.
He seeks to give the life of oneness he lived that we, too, might live.
So we listen to love that is in him, the love that loves his own and this broken world and our broken selves, loving them completely, to the end, leaving nothing out.
And maybe, if you go to places where awareness finds you, you may sink deeply into the Spirit that is in him, knowing what he knows, feeling what he feels that wholeness may come, and you may discover who you really are.
Pr. David L. Miller
John 6:63
‘It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.’
Reflection
Moments of awareness come when you least expect them, but they come more often when you put yourself on the road they travel. Mine travel in books I read sitting on the back patio. So I sit there on sunny Mondays, basking in gentle suns of late summer.
I listen as voices rise from the pages, awakening an inner voice of love that invites me to sink into my deep inner self. There I find an awareness that this love is in me, waiting always for me to come home and know that this is my true being and my home.
This is who I really am, stripped for the moment of any thoughts of history or accomplishment, failures or frustrations. My being is this love, and for the moment I am one with this awareness; … I know this completely.
I know the Love who loves, and there is no doubt and certainly no fear in me. I am well through and through.
I do not know how or why the words on the page elicited this awareness, however fleeting it may be. Perhaps the writer shared an experience so close to my own that I knew I was not strange or alone. Perhaps her embrace of her life experiences, both jubilant and mundane, spoke a love for life that allowed me to love mine, too.
I simply know there is a spirit of love awakened within that heals and makes whole, stirred perhaps by the action of that same spirit in another human heart and mind.
When Jesus spoke his words flowed from his consciousness of oneness with Love. The Spirit of the All-Loving One filled him, inviting all who heard to know what he knew, to feel what he felt so they might enter the land he inhabited--the land of the knowing oneness with Love that can happen on back patios or wherever Spirit catches up with you.
His words offended many. He told them to eat his flesh, drink his blood, and he wasn’t necessarily talking about taking communion at church. He was inviting them to hear the spirit of his words, the Spirit that filled his conscious awareness, so this awareness might fill them, too.
He seeks to give the life of oneness he lived that we, too, might live.
So we listen to love that is in him, the love that loves his own and this broken world and our broken selves, loving them completely, to the end, leaving nothing out.
And maybe, if you go to places where awareness finds you, you may sink deeply into the Spirit that is in him, knowing what he knows, feeling what he feels that wholeness may come, and you may discover who you really are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Saturday, August 17, 2012
Today’s text
John 6:51
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.
Reflection
What shall we eat for lunch? Whatever else we eat Jesus invites us to take into our substance the substance of his soul, a soul who is the heart of the Mystery from which all wonders flow.
That Mystery is the One who is Love, the Ultimate Mystery. God is not a being, not a man or woman, old or young, bearded or sitting on a throne. All such language is poetry grasping our imaginations and drawing us beyond what we think or imagine that we might feel gape-jawed wonder at the mystery of our lives.
The Loving Mystery has called us into being and placed us here to know and be the Love God is. We did not choose this. We simply find ourselves here, alive, with the breath of God in our lungs and a niggling awareness that our lives are connected to a great wonder whose name we can’t quite speak or remember.
We feel this in our bones late in the night or when we stand amid the pines or hard woods, captured by the unique beauty of each tree as it grows from hidden depths, reaching skyward for that something without which our hearts remain restless, homeless, lacking peace.
The trees, too, hunger, just like our souls. We strain toward the substance that will fill our hearts so that fear fades and joyful giving and laughter overflows our boundaries, spilling onto the earth around us … and any who might be standing there.
We hunger to be filled with living bread, the substance of life, the hidden manna from the Source of our souls that completes the heart. There is no peace until we are one with the One from who we came, the One we most need, the One who is the love for which the soul hungers.
Jesus speaks simply to our restless hunger. “Come, eat the substance of this my soul, my flesh and blood. Come, eat and know what your heart needs to know. For, my soul is one with the One you need, the One who is all love, the One who is your Source and Home. Come eat my words; consume the bread I give, the wine that is my lifeblood.
“Taste and see the substance of my soul is the Love that draws you. Come and know. I am your peace. Always.”
Pr. David L. Miller
John 6:51
I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.
Reflection
What shall we eat for lunch? Whatever else we eat Jesus invites us to take into our substance the substance of his soul, a soul who is the heart of the Mystery from which all wonders flow.
That Mystery is the One who is Love, the Ultimate Mystery. God is not a being, not a man or woman, old or young, bearded or sitting on a throne. All such language is poetry grasping our imaginations and drawing us beyond what we think or imagine that we might feel gape-jawed wonder at the mystery of our lives.
The Loving Mystery has called us into being and placed us here to know and be the Love God is. We did not choose this. We simply find ourselves here, alive, with the breath of God in our lungs and a niggling awareness that our lives are connected to a great wonder whose name we can’t quite speak or remember.
We feel this in our bones late in the night or when we stand amid the pines or hard woods, captured by the unique beauty of each tree as it grows from hidden depths, reaching skyward for that something without which our hearts remain restless, homeless, lacking peace.
The trees, too, hunger, just like our souls. We strain toward the substance that will fill our hearts so that fear fades and joyful giving and laughter overflows our boundaries, spilling onto the earth around us … and any who might be standing there.
We hunger to be filled with living bread, the substance of life, the hidden manna from the Source of our souls that completes the heart. There is no peace until we are one with the One from who we came, the One we most need, the One who is the love for which the soul hungers.
Jesus speaks simply to our restless hunger. “Come, eat the substance of this my soul, my flesh and blood. Come, eat and know what your heart needs to know. For, my soul is one with the One you need, the One who is all love, the One who is your Source and Home. Come eat my words; consume the bread I give, the wine that is my lifeblood.
“Taste and see the substance of my soul is the Love that draws you. Come and know. I am your peace. Always.”
Pr. David L. Miller
Friday, August 17, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
Today’s text
Ephesians 5:18
Do not get drunk with wine; this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit.
Reflection
The wind carries the song of the Spirit. Listen. You may hear.
The voice of your Dearest Friend may fill your heart with wordless speech that tells you all you need to know, lifting your soul into the rapture of true knowing: all things were made by Love to awaken the hidden beauty of the Love who abides in our hidden depths.
All creation is God’s holy speech. A red cardinal splits the range of my vision, slicing through the evening breeze that cools the earth. He settles into dense pine boughs, thick with needles, disappears, hidden and safe in his home.
The breeze silently whispers the name of the Holy One, the Creator of soft summer nights, the Source of the cardinal’s gaudy plumes and of the greening meadow, re-awakened to life by late rains that bring resurrection from scorching drought.
What a wonder this earth is. Not a word is spoken, yet everything speaks the wonder the Loving Mystery, the Infinite Source, the One who is Being and gives Being to all that is, and us, out of sheerest generosity.
The Lord is a singer of songs intended to seduce the heart to love the Love who in love breathes life into all that live.
Hearing the divine song, wherever it is sung, awakens love and life, filling even troubled hearts with the Divine Spirit, so that praise and gratitude requires no effort. It is as natural as breathing. We draw in the life that is Life, and we live, as surely resurrected as the green meadow from harsh summer’s burning.
So listen … and look. Life, that One, is there. Always.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 5:18
Do not get drunk with wine; this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit.
Reflection
The wind carries the song of the Spirit. Listen. You may hear.
The voice of your Dearest Friend may fill your heart with wordless speech that tells you all you need to know, lifting your soul into the rapture of true knowing: all things were made by Love to awaken the hidden beauty of the Love who abides in our hidden depths.
All creation is God’s holy speech. A red cardinal splits the range of my vision, slicing through the evening breeze that cools the earth. He settles into dense pine boughs, thick with needles, disappears, hidden and safe in his home.
The breeze silently whispers the name of the Holy One, the Creator of soft summer nights, the Source of the cardinal’s gaudy plumes and of the greening meadow, re-awakened to life by late rains that bring resurrection from scorching drought.
What a wonder this earth is. Not a word is spoken, yet everything speaks the wonder the Loving Mystery, the Infinite Source, the One who is Being and gives Being to all that is, and us, out of sheerest generosity.
The Lord is a singer of songs intended to seduce the heart to love the Love who in love breathes life into all that live.
Hearing the divine song, wherever it is sung, awakens love and life, filling even troubled hearts with the Divine Spirit, so that praise and gratitude requires no effort. It is as natural as breathing. We draw in the life that is Life, and we live, as surely resurrected as the green meadow from harsh summer’s burning.
So listen … and look. Life, that One, is there. Always.
Pr. David L. Miller
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Today’s text
Ephesians 5:16-17
Make the best of the present time, for it is a wicked age. This is why you must not be thoughtless but must recognize what is the will of the Lord.
Reflection
You have today. That is all you can be sure of, and you cannot be sure that all of this day will be yours.
There was a time when this thought brought human minds into sharp focus. Not so much anymore.
We live longer; the accidents and diseases, the happenstances that threaten life were more common and not as easy to avoid when I was a boy, to say nothing of earlier ages and centuries when the certainties of life were, well, much less certain.
Today, we readily assume that this day and the shape of our lives is secure, believing we will work and live through the day, rising tomorrow to receive another.
But there is another sense; a deeper awareness of the present moment, for it is all we really have: this moment. Right now
In an instant, the moment is gone, replaced by another as what just happened, what was said and done is carried into the past by an ever-flowing current none of us can stop.
The future moment, the next hour, tomorrow? These we do not yet have. What we have is now, a moment to be received in all its complexity and perplexity, a moment in which we can receive and bless, act and speak or choose silent watching as the better part of wisdom.
So be where you are; occupy the present moment, undistracted and undisturbed by anxieties or anticipations of tomorrow. These divert your eyes from what is before you now, the needs, the faces, the labor, the opportunities to bless and love, to grace and make this moment more alive.
You can grace this moment with the Life who is in you, the life and love that is the Loving Source of every moment.
You have today. Give yourself to it. Surrender your heart to the now. It holds treasures that bless, surprises that grace, pathways to become more human and beautiful than you know.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 5:16-17
Make the best of the present time, for it is a wicked age. This is why you must not be thoughtless but must recognize what is the will of the Lord.
Reflection
You have today. That is all you can be sure of, and you cannot be sure that all of this day will be yours.
There was a time when this thought brought human minds into sharp focus. Not so much anymore.
We live longer; the accidents and diseases, the happenstances that threaten life were more common and not as easy to avoid when I was a boy, to say nothing of earlier ages and centuries when the certainties of life were, well, much less certain.
Today, we readily assume that this day and the shape of our lives is secure, believing we will work and live through the day, rising tomorrow to receive another.
But there is another sense; a deeper awareness of the present moment, for it is all we really have: this moment. Right now
In an instant, the moment is gone, replaced by another as what just happened, what was said and done is carried into the past by an ever-flowing current none of us can stop.
The future moment, the next hour, tomorrow? These we do not yet have. What we have is now, a moment to be received in all its complexity and perplexity, a moment in which we can receive and bless, act and speak or choose silent watching as the better part of wisdom.
So be where you are; occupy the present moment, undistracted and undisturbed by anxieties or anticipations of tomorrow. These divert your eyes from what is before you now, the needs, the faces, the labor, the opportunities to bless and love, to grace and make this moment more alive.
You can grace this moment with the Life who is in you, the life and love that is the Loving Source of every moment.
You have today. Give yourself to it. Surrender your heart to the now. It holds treasures that bless, surprises that grace, pathways to become more human and beautiful than you know.
Pr. David L. Miller
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Today’s text
Ephesians 5:19-20
Sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs among yourselves, singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts, always and everywhere giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Reflection
Sing the song of the soul’s delight. Sing the praise of the Unknowable Wonder who is always at hand.
Forget the pettiness with which you pick at all you find wrong with your life and the lives that brush against your own. Turn quickly from the seeming smallness of the present moment that feels insignificant compared with the lives of others or the life you dreamed.
Be here and now in this moment, which is more full of wonder and life, joy and holy purpose than you imagine. Be here to see and sing the glories of the day. Live the life you have been given to live
Enter now this great and beautiful day. You are summoned to a Wednesday, of all things, with eyes wide open and hearts filled with expectation, knowing that every where you look this day you can see and find grace.
You will know the beauty of human souls, the comfort of community and the greening of nature. You will witness with wonder that all things, all hearts and minds--yours, too--are fashioned to grow and thrive, to discover the beauty that is within them.
The beauty and life that lies within seeks hidden pathways from the dark intuitions of potential to the light of day, for the Creative Spirit whose Life fills all things, stirs in you, in all you love and in everything your eyes will see.
So look gently and intently on all that comes. Let thirsty eyes drink in the faces and places, the situations and challenges, the joys and tears, the laughter that sparkles and the fears you’d flee but cannot escape. Welcome the pains of moving from where you are to the unknown of what will yet be.
For the Living One is there amid it all, yes, all. No moment of time is forgotten, no hidden corner of creation is forsaken, no secret of your soul is beyond reach.
Know this, and keep your eyes open. The love that is present in every moment will find you--bursting also from hidden springs deep in our hearts. And you will sing the song of the soul’s delight.
Pr. David L. Miller
Ephesians 5:19-20
Sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs among yourselves, singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts, always and everywhere giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Reflection
Sing the song of the soul’s delight. Sing the praise of the Unknowable Wonder who is always at hand.
Forget the pettiness with which you pick at all you find wrong with your life and the lives that brush against your own. Turn quickly from the seeming smallness of the present moment that feels insignificant compared with the lives of others or the life you dreamed.
Be here and now in this moment, which is more full of wonder and life, joy and holy purpose than you imagine. Be here to see and sing the glories of the day. Live the life you have been given to live
Enter now this great and beautiful day. You are summoned to a Wednesday, of all things, with eyes wide open and hearts filled with expectation, knowing that every where you look this day you can see and find grace.
You will know the beauty of human souls, the comfort of community and the greening of nature. You will witness with wonder that all things, all hearts and minds--yours, too--are fashioned to grow and thrive, to discover the beauty that is within them.
The beauty and life that lies within seeks hidden pathways from the dark intuitions of potential to the light of day, for the Creative Spirit whose Life fills all things, stirs in you, in all you love and in everything your eyes will see.
So look gently and intently on all that comes. Let thirsty eyes drink in the faces and places, the situations and challenges, the joys and tears, the laughter that sparkles and the fears you’d flee but cannot escape. Welcome the pains of moving from where you are to the unknown of what will yet be.
For the Living One is there amid it all, yes, all. No moment of time is forgotten, no hidden corner of creation is forsaken, no secret of your soul is beyond reach.
Know this, and keep your eyes open. The love that is present in every moment will find you--bursting also from hidden springs deep in our hearts. And you will sing the song of the soul’s delight.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Today’s text
Ephesians 5:15-16
That is why I, having once heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love for all God's holy people, have never failed to thank God for you and to remember you in my prayers.
Reflection
Too often, prayer for all those I serve is missing. As a result, I miss the fullness of gratitude and joy that is God’s hunger for every heart.
Lacking gratitude, I miss the power needed to live with anticipation, descending instead to the land of disappointment and petty aggrievement. Not today.
Today, I begin by lining up the faces that I saw at worship on Sunday. I go through them as best I can, too many to remember, but I remember some.
I think, too, of those whose faces I haven’t seen for a long time, those whom I hunger to have back in the assembly of hope that draws me back each Sunday to hear and claim a word of grace.
And I say two words, which are the only words necessary for prayer, “thank you.”
Thank you for the privilege of doing this work. Thank you for the privilege of bowing at the altar, of steering tennis-shoe clad acolytes through the service and joking with nervous assisting ministers on the leader’s bench. Thank you for the joy of singing.
Thank you for letting me stand at the head of a line of the needy with a loaf of bread in my hands and being able to give as you give, to love as you love, to share as you share, to bless their children, look into their eyes and feel their gratitude for receiving a gift that reawakens their faith that your love has not and will never lose them.
Thank you for each of them--the knowing and the unconscious, those just going through the motions and those who receive the bread and a hearty ‘amen,’ or a relieved ‘thanks be to God.’
Thanks for the ones that I don’t think like me much and those who hang on every word I speak. Thank you for the petty and the generous, the half-committed and those who can’t wait to get to their cars and flee the lot.
Thank you for each life, the breath they breathe and for their presence in my life. Thank you for what they might become if they truly knew you. Thank you for the love I know from and in them, the love I see in them for their children, their families and friends. Thanks for letting me see and hear the places where that love spills beyond their narrow circle of care to others. Thank you for their decency and the desire you have put in them to be the gracious souls you would have become.
Thank you for the sins and failures and wounds that awaken them to the love you are and always will be. Thank you for all of them, whether they be pleasant or a great challenge for me to like and love them.
Thank you for each of them and the community I am privileged to lead and serve.
My morning prayer of thanks now given I go to my day, not defeated or afraid, not dreading routine duties that pile up.
I come with joy and gratitude, knowing I am part of something wondrous and beautiful, a beauty I just may see once more so long as prayer keeps my eyes open to what is before me on every hand.
Pr. David L. Miller
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