Songs in the night

I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit (Psalm 77:6)

Sometimes I wake with a song silently singing in my mind. Old songs are just there, hymns and melodies resonant with the Love who is far warmer than sky-blue winter mornings. They wake my heart to the gift of a new day, and I smile back at this Love who is always there, no matter how long or dark the night.

It has always been so. Believers in the God who so loves us have long sung their joys and sorrows, hungry for words and melodies that fill their hearts and comfort their sadness.

Feeling lost and alone, the Psalmist wrote, “I commune with my heart in the night,” trying to remember what it was like to feel God’s love. Many translations render this verse, “I remember my songs in the night.” Of course. For our songs bear us into Love’s holy presence, healing our hearts and lifting us to laughter when nothing else can.

Sometimes only a song can say what needs to be said, so I’ll sing along, or least smile, when music opens my eyes.

David L. Miller

Just like them

Have … sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. (1 Peter 3:8)

I’ve come to the age of those I most wanted and needed when I was young. Their faces pass before my mind and bless me even though some are more than 40 years gone. And I wonder: Have I become more like these souls who showed me what it is to be human?

They’d all known hardship. Most had suffered losses that dampened their eyes long after the fact. But bitterness was unknown among them. They breathed kindness, a gentle humility that did not demand that life and others must go their way and do their bidding. Humble is the word. They needed less, demanded less and loved more, grateful for the gifts life had given.

I wanted to be just like them—still do. They left a great deal of joy and blessing in their wake, extending far beyond their time and place through the hearts they touched, like mine.

Love made them the way they were—are still are. Somehow, they looked around and knew: The fields and faces, streets and graces were all a sacrament of Love’s embrace. So, like them, I sit here in the presence of Christ’s great love, praying to be made human, like them.

David L. Miller

Circles of light & Sydney, too

When the wise men saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Matthew 2:1o-11)

I can’t let Mary go. Christmas has passed. The ornaments are stored in their boxes, but Mary remains. Her silent radiance still shimmers from the tapestry on the family room wall. Rapt in love, Mary’s eyes caress the infant Jesus, lying in the straw of a manger, while a shepherd leans on his staff to peer over her shoulder at the child.

One of the Magi kneels in adoration at the creche and offers his gift. Two others, gifts in hand, stand in reverence until it is their turn to kneel in the warm light around Mary and her child.

The shepherd, the magi … and me, all of us drawn to this circle of light that love might heal and restore our humanity.

Mary and this child, who is Love’s blessed face, is an icon, a holy image on which we gaze to be made human again. Drawn into this circle of light, we see and feel what God is doing in us and in everything. The Holy One is drawing us home into circles of love and light, circles of care and healing, where our vulnerabilities encounter Love’s great grace alive in human hearts and hands.

We are not and never were intended to be alone. Home is the circle of light that appears in every circle of care and belonging where love lives.

I see this sometimes when I watch the news and witness how human hearts gather around the needs of those who fall, who struggle or suffer outrageous fates, like a football player in the prime of life who collapses in cardiac arrest in front of a stadium full of people and millions of television viewers. Grown men kneel, cry and pray; paramedics rush to work their wonders, and watchers stand vigil at emergency room doors.

But I’m even more impressed by my young friend, Sydney, and the circle of light around her. It’s not just the little smile that crosses her lips as she works her phone and laptop from a hospital bed, but everything and everyone around her.

Eight days ago, she had a heart transplant, a harrowing experience for anyone, especially so if you are only 14. She is doing well and has every hope of being able to do things and live in ways that have not been possible for her.

It’s possible because of a host of people that daily surround her in this circle of light.

Nurses, doctors, therapists and specialist of many kinds: OT, PT respiratory, art therapy, psychological services: I neither know nor can name them all. But they’re all there, present in that circle with Sydney’s fantastic parents and twin brother, grandparents and family near and far; friends at work and school; members of her congregation and hundreds of others who have and continue to pray for her. And, most poignantly, there is a donor and family who gave an incalculable gift so that Sydney might live abundantly.

Quite some circle, all of it—all of them—aglow with light and life, love and hope, tears and joy, more beautiful than I have words to say, alight with the love that streams through the darkness of the centuries to this time, this place, this girl.

The warm circle of light around Mary and Jesus—and Sydney, too— reveals what our loving God has had in mind for us all along. And every time we find ourselves in such a circle, we are home, truly home … in the Light whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

 David L. Miller

 

 

 

A long night’s journey into life

A long night’s journey into life

I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:5-6)

Tears are telling. Warm as life and silent as night, they are the voice of your soul. They come to remind you that you are so much more than the thoughts you direct from one thing to another to navigate your days.

They sneak up on you, these tears, like at a moment when gratitude overwhelms the heart from a hidden reservoir rising within to wash away everything that is not love.

It is then we are finally ourselves, not the one you routinely show the world but the self the Blessed Source made as an emblem of Love’s holy image in time and space.

So it was as, we sat at a table in a hospital lounge, waiting for news of a heart removed and another implanted in a young girl. We waited, parents and grandparents, pastors and friends, seated in a holy temple of healing, knowing our beloved lay in the hands of hearts dedicated to preserve what only One can create.

And all the while, we knew: in another room, in another hospital, in another town another family wept tears of another sort while giving a gift of life to be winged over a Midwest prairie and rushed through Chicago streets to waiting hands who would sew life back into a girl named Sydney. Our Sydney.

Opening my mouth to speak only tears came out, gratitude for a holy place given to heal what is broken, for the hands who packed a heart for travel, for the pilot of the plane, and the driver of the transport car, for the 24-hour days and long years of study and practice that enable human hands to do what was once unthinkable, for a grieving family that suffered the unthinkable and still managed to give; and for the family at this table so palpably filled with fear, love and hope that we might burst amid the long hours of unknowing.

Words capture but a glimpse of what our hearts know. Tears do that job. And two words, thank you. Thank you … for all of it, for all of us, for the whole blessed mess of living and dying, all of it teaching us the beauty of loving and discovering we are more human and more like you, Loving Mystery, than we had imagined.

Thank you for the love wringing prayers of hope and healing from our hearts and for the tears that do the talking when nothing else can.

And thank you, Holy One, for the beauty of a life preserved. Our Sydney.

David L. Miller

 The healing we need

Joseph went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:5-7)

It’s Mary I notice most of all when I close my eyes to see. So young, a blanket clutched around her shoulders, she trudges her pregnant weight alongside a man, a bit older, staff in hand, along a dusky road, the two of them, alone.

Dark hair framing her face, half-hidden, two fearful eyes peer into the unknown wondering what is next, where they will rest, sleep, huddle against the chill of night.

I have seen her in other faces and refugee places; afraid of what was behind them, they flee into the fear of what lies ahead, hoping for shelter and perhaps … someday … to return home.

That’s how I see Mary. But then the whole scene changes to a lonely place where cries of birth, unheard in the night, bring forth the child, and the light of love beckons me near to see something more.

Mary swaddles the child, warm eyes down, loving the life she labored into the night, wrapping him in new cloth, holding him close as breath, seeing nothing but him. How can it be? He who comes from eternity into time learned love’s first lesson in Mary’s arms, cradled in her heart, the two of them a portrait of the mystery we each are invited to live.

I want only to kneel and savor the warmth of their beauty enveloping my heart. But Mary looks up and extends the child toward my arms that I, too, may hold him.

And just then, Love’s holy nearness floods my eyes as I hold him close, my anxious heart calmed and healed, not by looking on from outside, but as I hold the Love Mary holds, and feel an all-consuming Love filling me whole.

This is the healing all the world needs and for which I so daily hunger, to hold the Love who holds me, to know him within … warming and filling every empty place, chasing out every doubt and fear until my heart knows the beauty in Mary’s arms deigns also to live in me.

This is Christmas, the wonder, the joy of eternity in time. It is the reason we gaze at the beauty of a mother and child … and discover we are not so lost as we feared. Never were. Never will be.

David L. Miller

Paper prayers

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

Paper prayers

Call them the saints and martyrs of Iran, young women and men beaten in the streets and hung from construction cranes to warn others not to resist. Blessed are they, Holy One. I read their stories and life wells within me. Your life. Your Love. The Presence of a mystery I can neither define nor deny.

Thank you for living in me, born there long ago, breathing still though too many hours pass when your presence feels elusive and beyond my grasp. But that is exactly the problem. I try to grasp you who are Spirit and Life rather than waiting and watching, attending to moments that breathe life in my soul.

Today, it is seeing these young men and women crying for the freedom and dignity due every child of earth. It is you who cry aloud in their voices. All things come to be through you, bearing the mark, the shape, the echo, the hope, the beauty, the light and love you are. You are the light and hope brilliant in their sacrifice.

They are more alive in you, and you in them, than are so many of us who bear your name, O, Christ.

Still, their wounding and death open the deep inner door of my being, and you rush out, a torrent of passion and prayer demanding that you receive each blessed one of them into the arms of your eternal mercy where every child of earth knows their worth.

In a single moment, I feel your love flooding from the soul’s secret room where your heart and mine are not two but one. And with this I have what my chilly December heart needs, for I know you as the Love who holds me and those young souls, who abide in the rest that one day will receive me home, too.

Blessed are you, Holy One. You are the Unquenchable Light who shines in the hearts of great saints whose images grace my morning paper. You are the Love who awakens in our hearts and drives off the darkness. You are the Eternal Word who unveils your beauty in the child of Bethlehem.

Open our eyes to see and love you … wherever you choose to appear.

David L. Miller

 

Annunciation in the stockroom

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid….” (Luke 1:26-30a)

I’ve seen her before. She cut her hair. Most of the pink ends are gone or stuffed in the khaki stocking cap pulled low near her ears, a few dirty blond strands trailing out.

“What can I get you?’ she asks, a cheery voice for the first in line. She pokes at the computer screen on the counter then spins right to pour a large bag of coffee beans in the grinder; turning heel, she heads to the storeroom to grab another.

Imagination takes over, blessedly, and a thought: It could have been her, back there in the stockroom as she went about her work, little suspecting a vision and a voice would interrupt all that is normal.

“Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you,” the vision speaks. And she is; watching her work it’s clear: somewhere, someone already let her know she is favored. Only now, more. Startled, mouth open, speechless, she takes in the vision wondering who or what has come to this ordinary place on a gloomy Wednesday to announce what every heavy heart most needs to hear, “Don’t be afraid.”

But there is plenty to fear as this young woman, Mary, in my coffee shop vision, hears about bearing a child who bears the heart of heaven’s Unspeakable Love, a child who will break her heart in his desperate struggle to win ours.

That’s how it all starts, this Christmas we crave. It begins in the soul-deep craving in the heart of God for us, in an unspeakable longing for us to know, to be encompassed, finally home, in this Love who sends angels to young women in stockrooms.

Love craves for the beloved, hoping and hungry to enfold the whole bleeding world and our aching hearts in endless mercy, all the while whispering, “Do not fear.”

It’s not a hard thing to know. Rare is the heart who has never wanted to whisper those same words to a frightened child, a beloved friend, a soul on its final journey.

Such is the ache in the heart of God as Gabriel is dispatched to a young woman minding her own business in an out of the way place, telling Mary she would bear sorrow and beauty greater than any heart has ever known.

“Let it be it as you say,” Mary answered that long ago day, as does this young woman, reappearing from the stockroom to serve one more soul on a gloomy Wednesday, before kneeling at the display case to restock sandwiches and pastries, fruit juice and bottles of water.

It’s all so beautiful, the wonder of the whole story—of God becoming flesh, of a girl who said yes, of the Love who wants me and everyone who has ever longed for Love’s nearness. The whole mystery is right there, kneeling by the display case, begging me to notice.

Be born in me.

David L. Miller

 

The hunger of our hearts

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ (Matthew 11:2-3)

Our desires lead us home provided we are willing to trace them to their root. What, after all, or before them all, do we truly want—that root desire we hardly notice except in seasons like this when we admit … at least to ourselves … that there is more happening in our vast inner spaces than we normally dare explore let alone reveal?

Desires simmers there, finding expression in a thousand supposed wants and needs marketers are sure to exploit, none of which finally satisfy when achieved.

Beneath and before them all burns a craving for something too elusive to name; the desire for I know not want, several authors have named it.

No name seems adequate. Home? Love? Peace? Oneness with that mysterious something or someone who resides in the heart’s inmost room? Or (however unfashionable) shall we just come out and say it, God? Yes, not as a distant being somewhere out there looking in at our mess but the living Presence of Love closer than our breath and stronger than our fear.

And so, John the Baptizer, in prison, sends messengers bearing the lump in his throat to Jesus to ask the essential question of our humanity. Are you the one we are looking for? Are you the one who bears heaven to earth to still our ancient longing?

Crowds had gone out to John in the desert, wondering the same thing, moved by the question that bubbles to the surface as we look at our lights and remember Christmases past, wondering, too, how many more we shall have.

Many we may hope. I certainly do. But mostly I hope to know the Love who takes shape in this baby, this child, this man, this soul, this Jesus who touched and healed, opened closed eyes and unstopped ears, who loved to the last when the great hatred of the world crushed him, eager to destroy everything he ever said and did.

It is for him that our human hearts most long. Knowing him is the root desire hidden beneath the thousands of wants and needs that clamor for our attention, crowd our schedules and drown out the inner voice of desire for the Love he is.

For he is heaven on earth, the Mystery for whom we hope. He comes, now as then, to awaken the beauty he is in the hunger of hearts.

David L. Miller

 

Feeling Christmas

 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

Having loved a child, you never get beyond the longing to envelop them in your arms and love away their pain. Their age doesn’t matter, nor does yours. You hear struggle in their voice, and love’s longing springs to life, your heart aching to enfold them in a circle of love where burdens are shared and the load lightened.

It never goes away. The years do nothing to diminish the desire to bathe them in the love first awakened by their infant faces, those faces now lined with the anxious wear having lived, loved and lost.

Love’s longing is the truest, most noble and beautiful part of us, the most divine and the answer to my annual Christmas prayer, a prayer that has never gone unrequited.

Each year I pray to feel Christmas, ever hungry to be enveloped in the Love who comes to us, incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot abide the thought that Advent days would slip by without tears filling my eyes with the unspeakable beauty of Love’s sweet presence in the poverty of my heart, making me rich once more.

Some might argue this is a selfish prayer, self-indulgent and insensitive to the millions who will never enjoy the kind of life I take for granted. Or maybe it’s merely the yearning to escape the sad welter of the daily news where what bleeds … leads.

Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I think my prayer is as average as I am, normal, typical, the common longing of human hearts hungry for home, for the unfailing Love we each secretly crave.

So, I pray it ever year: Let me feel Christmas, Holy One; bathe me in the beauty of your heart. I hunger to feel what you feel for me and for the whole broken world, at least to what paltry extent that I can.

It’s an audacious petition. Who can feel what God feels, if it is even proper to attribute human emotions to the greatness of the Unimaginable One? But this year, again, I realize that the Holy One answered that prayer long ago in love’s longing for my own children and those others for whom I am moved to pray.

Love’s longing appears, even here, in this feeble heart of mine, as I think of my beloved ones, yearning to sweep each of them up and enfold them love’s healing circle. And each time it happens I feel Christmas once more. I feel what God feels, love’s holy longing, for me, for you, for this whole beloved world.

For the Holy One sees it all, all that we are, all this broken world with all its wounded souls and tortured places, longing to sweep us up in Love’s healing embrace.

Surely, we know the feeling.

David L. Miller

Love & power

 

The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ When Jesus heard him, he was amazed (Matthew 8:8-10a)

The story is simple enough. A Roman centurion, a commander of a hated and occupying army, comes to Jesus with his hat in his hand, hoping Jesus will heal his servant. But what impresses me is what is in his heart. First, his humility.

“I am not worthy,” he begins his plea. Humility is a strange posture for a man with a sword at his side and a cohort under his command. He doesn’t need to ask. He could demand, threaten and bluster, if he so chose. He could have his men take Jesus by the nap of his neck and drag him to his servant. But he does none of those things that come so easily and often to the powerful and well-connected, who use force to get their way.

He recognizes the mystery that surrounds Jesus, stories and rumors that he possessed a power over forces neither centurions nor emperors could command.

More moving, however, is the love coursing through his beating heart for a servant he could replace with the snap of his fingers. Perhaps, just perhaps, love for his ailing servant gave him eyes to see the love flowing through Jesus for wounded bodies and broken hearts.

So it is; love recognizes love. Selfishness, hate and apathy are blind to its beauty.

Through the cloud of his fear, the centurion recognized, however poorly, that Jesus was the rarest of realities, a soul in whom great power is harnessed to a surpassing love. Just give the command, the commander asked, trusting that Jesus not only could but truly wanted to give him the desire of his heart.

Hearing the man’s speech, Jesus is startled. One can imagine the two of them standing there, the centurion, his head slightly bowed before one who can do what he cannot; Jesus, startled, his mouth pursed in wonder at the beauty of the soul standing before him, the faith, the love, the perennial human hunger for healing. It’s all there.

Like so many biblical stories, this scene is not to parsed and wrung out for its meaning. It must be seen and savored, heard and felt until Love’s presence and power awakens a hope and joy you thought were beyond you.

David L. Miller

 

Withness

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding [Jesus] and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? … Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’ (Luke 23:39-40; 42-43)

Your presence is enough, I say to my beloved, Dixie, when she apologizes for falling asleep (again) in the middle of a movie. And it is. It is enough that she is here, with me, and I am not alone, bereft of the love that has enabled most of whatever it is that I am, have been and will yet be, a sacrament of the Greater Love whom I ceased trying to name years ago.

It is a kind of paradise to know yourself attended by a love you neither deserve nor imagined could be quite real because it seems too good to be true. But isn’t this what we want and need from the loves of our lives?

Our silent hearts, if not also our lips, speak the truth: Please, whatever happens, be with me. A more sincere prayer is difficult to imagine.

Little wonder, then, that Jesus’ words stir the heart “You will be with me in Paradise,” he promises. The two most important words are … with me, for with him we feel and know a Withness without limits. With him, we can walk the way of our lives, looking to our side, seeing him near, feeling the Love who inhabits him whole, knowing the Presence who stills our noisy hearts.

Such is my prayer many days. Let me feel and know myself with you, for with you everything is alright and without you nothing is right.

Perhaps this is why the death of the taunting criminal beside Jesus is most poignant on this winter day. For if paradise is to be with a great and ever-attending love, then despair, hell, is a closed heart no long praying, hoping and longing for whatever Love’s living presence might give in whatever place you find yourself.

Wherever that is, the promise of Jesus is that the Love you want and so desperately need wants you even more. Our hunger to be with a great and constant Love is the echo of God’s hunger in the mystery of our own hearts.

David L. Miller

Justice for Maurice’s children

 

And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ (Luke 18:7-8)

There is a cry in the heart of God, a cry for understanding, a yearning for us to know and finally realize the One who is Love seeks justice for us and for every beloved thing God has made.

Justice is not what most imagine. It is not retribution or punishment for wronging. It is the union of God’s desire with material reality. It is human hearts and our broken creation existing in oneness with the Infinite Love from whom all creation springs, an ever-flowing stream of life.

In other words, justice is you, Holy One. It is knowing you, being encompassed, enveloped and inseparably one with the Love you are. It is to know oneself inside, wrapped and rapt within the enveloping cloud, the encircling arms of your great love, delighting and treasuring us as we do our children, our grandchildren, our little ones and all those souls who loved and blessed us in ways and for reasons we never fully understand.

Today, I want this justice for Maurice’s children. They are not his children, except as his heart has adopted them in their crying need. He understands their hearts and hopes because he was once one of them, as when I first met him 30 years ago in a refugee camp in what was then southern Sudan.

He was a teenager, displaced and separated from his family by war and hunger as he would be for many years. Unable to go home, with no money and little to do, he approached a visiting journalist and asked if he could help. For the next few days, Maurice was my interpreter. In the following years, several of us supported him through boarding school and an agricultural college. We stayed in touch on and off, until now when our correspondence is very much on.

Southern Sudan is now South Sudan, an independent nation, and Maurice is back in Juba where he was a boy, working among orphans and vulnerable children with insecure food supplies and little chance at an education. Children like the child he was.

He provides food, safety and basic education, making do with meager resources, knowing what the justice of God is for children like these. It is to know the enfolding arms of love, to feel the goodness of warm food in their stomachs, to joy in the wonder of learning and to smile as they plant seeds in the ground that will produce a harvest of hope.

The Green Foods Enterprise is the name of Maurice’s nascent organization. It is one small but irreplaceable expression of God’s justice for invisible and forgotten souls, who cry out day and night hoping to be heard. Maurice hears first-hand and has invited me in this holy work. Perhaps you hear this invitation, too. If so, let me know. Justice for the children can use all the help it can get.

David L. Miller

As graced as they

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Is it a prayer or a hope? Both, I suppose, for what is hope but prayer born in a place deeper than any we command? It appears in unexpected moments when the heart finally sees what it truly wants, the end which alone can satisfy the restless longing for that elusive something we can neither name nor attain.

But there it is, my heart’s earnest hope and truest prayer, appearing in an instant on a Facebook page, posted by a soul I knew 40 years ago and treasure still. Her post? A photo of an old man, Ed, shuffling across the sidewalk outside a Lincoln, NE church. I neither know nor have met him, though I have met his like many times and in places, near and far.

Hand in hand with a boy, 11 or so, he makes his way in sunlight far less radiant than his smile, to say nothing of the solicitous warmth of several who look on, likely concerned he will fall. A strong wind would surely topple him. But no worry creases his face, just joy in the moment, loving being loved by those he loves. What could be better?

I have no idea of the history these faces have shared beyond what the post tells. It seems Ed often woke at 4 a.m. to bake bread for friends, delivering it to their door. But his labor of love is over, complete. He has passed into the Blessed Source of the love and smiles that reach across the miles to moisten my eyes and console my heart with a vision of the beauty for which we are intended.

I want to be like Ed, like so many old souls I’ve known who learned Love’s lessons and lived them full ‘til the end of their days. This is my prayer, the beauty I long to be and share, giving and receiving the love of the Love who dwells within us. It has been my hope since I was a young man, blessed by souls nearing the end of their days who breathed the Love who lived in them.

So thanks, Jackie, for your post. And thanks, my Lord Jesus, for choosing to live in the likes of Ed and so many who have blessed me along the way. Thanks, too, Holy One, for the plains of Nebraska where once I lived among souls so much richer than mine. May I be, one day, as graced as they.

David L. Miller

Temple space

 In the year that King Uzzi′ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  (Isaiah 6:1-3)

It’s not a temple, just my usual spot in the southwest corner of Starbucks on 75^th and Lemont. My chair is round and orange, the day gray.

A ballet of baristas weaves behind the counter, fluid movement punctuated by the clang of a pot in a sink and the comforting whoosh of steam from the espresso maker.

Students locked into their laptops pay no heed to the murmur of orders passing voice-to-ear a few feet behind them. The girl at the next table momentarily looks up, wide eyes blank and weary from her work. She gazes across the two-generation divide between us, perhaps not even seeing me as I scribble in my journal seeking the center of my soul where holiness or something very like it dwells, waiting for me to arrive.

Traffic piles up at the red light outside the plate glass windows that meet in the far corner of the room. Outside, a Pace bus ferries commuters home though the mist, waiting for the green when a shaft of gold and burnt-red lances the fog, igniting car widows in an explosion of autumnal glory as October shouts a final chorus before  surrendering to the sobriety of November.

It’s all a gift, of course, a vision of wonder beyond the capacity of human hands to create, to say nothing of mortal words that stumble and fall mute as splendor transforms a coffee shop into a holy temple, where transcendent Love arrests the meandering mind with intimations of eternity and tears of gratitude.

Who knew it could be so? We all can, I suppose, as long as we remain capable of being overwhelmed by wonders that pierce the mundane as Love awakens us to the unlikely truth of our own existence ... and thanks for the grace of being alive.

And there’s more; there’s always more of the More who makes temples of common places, teaching our hearts that prophets’ visions of divine glory are not so far as we imagine or so rare as we fear. No, but here, hidden in the fog, eager to swamp our senses and engulf our hearts in the mysterious Love who wants us and wants us to know.

David L. Miller

 

As we are seen

Lead me in your truth, and teach me. (Psalm 25 5a)

The locust tree whispers, autumn gilding its leaves. A maple across the lawn replies in red. Not a word is spoken, but my heart hears and fills with silent love for the beauty of it all.

They are my teachers today. They lead me into God’s own truth, which is not a list of beliefs or a moral code. It is to see through eyes of love, for God is love and only love sees the truth.

The truth will break your heart at the suffering of children, the brutalities of war or the death of a friend. But it will mend it again when the beauty of kindness takes your breath away.

If you want to know the truth, do something that awakens love deep within. Then, think of friends and enemies, the mess of the world, people who annoy you, a child or grandchild. Recall memories that make you wince because you were unkind, foolish, insecure or arrogant. Let the love you feel pour over every memory, every person, every pain.

Look back with love, and see ... as God sees.

David L. Miller

Disarmed

 Unless you ... become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)

Sonia caught my eye as I turned to share the peace during worship. Seven, I suppose, she stood close to her mother, shy eyes peering through a thick cascade of dark hair. I bent low and extended my right hand to share what the words say, “Peace.”

She smiled and took my hand, before holding a small stuffed animal out to me. “What’s her name?” I asked. “Tara,” she whispered, clutching it again to her chest.

With this, I was undone, my heart totally disarmed. Love surged through me for the preciousness of her heart, so totally open to receive and share a simple moment of grace and care.

I wanted to extend the gift of God’s peace to her, but she became a sacrament, awakening the great love God is flowing within and between us. My heart became as unguarded as hers, ready to receive and share the holy kindness of God. 

It was only a moment, soon past. But I will be looking for her again next Sunday. She helped me enter heaven’s kingdom.

David L. Miller

So good

 How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head ... . It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore. (Psalm 133)

From one point of view it was an evening with friends. From another, it was water for the soul.

Eight of us gathered bearing food and drink to share. Talk led to eating and eating to longer conversations in twos and threes or fours until the night was full and our bodies tired. Gathering bowls of leftovers, hugs are shared as we linger at the door and go to our cars, our hearts lighter than when we came.

Sinking into the seat, there comes a sigh and oft repeated words. “I needed that. It was so good to be together.” I whisper the words of this Psalm every single time.

But it is better than good. It is a holy sacrament, the sweet savor of the everlasting life, the peace and mutual love the Holy One gives even now and will forever.

It is like the oil of anointing that freshens the fragrance of living. It is like water on the mountain side, flowing down into rivers to quench our parched hearts and make us glad again. A holy gift. Thanks be to God.

David L. Miller

A better world

‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard ... .’ (Matthew 20:1)

My middle grandson, Ben, sits across the room in my rocking chair, describing college visits as we brainstorm ideas for his application essay. He’s visited six public universities, all in the Midwestern United States, with two or three more to go.

“Every one of them says we want only the highest grade point averages, the tippy-top most ACT and SAT scores, every one of them,” Ben repeats, his arms spread wide, amplifying the meritocratic message driven home by admissions officers.

This message, I suspect, is exaggerated, both by Ben and by the universities themselves, which polish their image while fueling the anxiety of people like Ben, who do well but don’t have the highest grade point average or tippy top scores on entrance exams.

Frankly, Ben will grace, humanize and lift the level of conversation on whatever campus he appears next fall, not to mention the infusion of playful humor that is natural to him. But grace and thoughtfulness, humanity and humor are not quantifiable and do not much appear on entrance exams.

From where I sit, as the grandfather of a young man whom I love fiercely, college admissions looks like a deeply flawed, brutal, dehumanizing process where a precious few are wanted and vaunted and the rest—and most of us are, overwhelmingly, the rest—are “less than.”

Of course, this process is just a more obvious expression of deep culture forces that suggest our worth, value and truth are directly related to the score—in points, money, status or fame—that we or others assign to us. Allowing this poison to saturate your heart kills your soul and steals your joy, a truth I have too often lived and observed in others.

Perhaps this is why Jesus’ story of the landowner hits me hard. The story brings me to tears. It goes this way.

A landowner went into the marketplace at daybreak to hire workers. He went out again at nine, then at noon and three. By 5 p.m. people were still standing around, waiting to be hired. Perhaps they slept late or were lazy or not as hungry as those who woke early to be first in line. Didn’t matter. The landowner hired them, too.

He didn’t ask for resumes or test scores. He doesn’t weed them out and take only the best. He seeks all to participate in the goodness of creation, generously sharing the fullness of life. At the end of the day, they all receive the same pay. The early birds understandably grumble about the injustice of the boss’ generosity ... or stupidity.

But this misses the point. Jesus’ story startles our assumptions and upends our sense of justice to invite us into a different world, a world of grace.

Reading the story, I meet the reality of a Love, a Heart, who wants me ... and Ben ... and every last one of us. We meet the Love who doesn’t ask for resumes or test scores, but is moved only by an overwhelming generosity. We encounter an Embracing Heart eager for us to share its work and bask in the only reward Love has to offer, which is Love itself.

All in all, Jesus invites us into a better world, a much richer way of being ... where life is gift, giving is gain and gratitude graces our days.

David L. Miller

 

 

 

More than enough

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18-19)

It was our last conversation, 12:26 p.m., Central Daylight Time, April 15, 2021. Fifteen days later my friend, Grace Adolphsen Brame, passed into the Loving Mystery who had beguiled her heart and mind since childhood.

She had been and done so much in her 91 years, a choir director, opera singer, beloved spouse, good will ambassador, author, professor, retreat leader, and an expert on Evelyn Underhill and Christian mysticism.

But age and illness had exhausted her characteristic verve and exuberance, including Grace’s startling proclivity to break into an aria in the middle of one of her presentations.

“David,” she breathed when her aide handed her the phone, “there is not much of me left.” Her voice laden, syllables dragging through long seconds, I strained to hear, willing her to complete each ... labored ... breath.

She was right, of course. There wasn’t of her much left. But what remained was profound and beautiful, and she needed to give it away, one more time.

 “I love you,” she murmured. “Thank you for being my friend. You are God’s friend ... and mine.”

As blessings go, it is hard to imagine one much better. But her blessing didn’t end with these words. There was one more agonized sentence that drained the remainder of her energy. “You are the only one who understood me,” she mumbled.

The only one? A bit of exaggeration, I suspect. We had been friends since meeting at the back of a conference hall 31 years before. We rarely met after that but regularly spoke on the phone, telling stories, sharing insights and planning writing projects, two of which evolved into books.

Through it all, there was one central truth, one awareness that was present from that first conversation. Grace and I shared a deep desire to know the Love who is and was and always will be—and to share the Healing Mystery we knew, however obscurely, in the depth of our being.

She struggled throughout her professional life to share the gift of contemplative prayer and awareness with a resistant church that did not know what it was missing, a decades long frustration.

In her final words to me, she said I would receive a gift in her will. Use it, she said, to “carry out my mission.”

Softly, I asked if she had any specific suggestions, but she didn’t answer. She drew another heavy breath and said, “You know me.”

It was more than enough. I knew what to do.

 David L. Miller

Doors

 

Be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. (Luke 12:36-37)

Jesus’ parables always give us something to see. Here, it is a man, a landowner, returning home from a wedding, filled with good food and fine wine, eager not to be served by his minions but to share the joy.

For me, the story awakens an image of Jesus hurrying home. Hungry to be with him, I throw open the door and our smiles meet with a tear of loving recognition.

For it is not just any wedding from which he returns. It is his wedding, the marriage of time and eternity, heaven and earth, mortal flesh and Eternal Love.  

He comes, eager for us to open the door to Love’s living appearance wherever and whenever we feel him nudging our hearts from slumber. Heaven and earth are wed, a union known in every moment of love and beauty, grace and hope, care and wonder.

Yes, ugliness endures, and hatreds rip the loveliness of life asunder. But the wedding has happened. Earth and heaven are joined to save us from ourselves and our cynicism.

Jesus approaches in every love and beauty, grace and care, hoping that we just might open the door and embrace him so the joy in him might infuse our souls with the Life who is Life.  

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” Jesus says in another place in Christian Scripture. Yes. Always.

Our task and hope is to watch, pay attention, like at Christmas or Thanksgiving, or when we are waiting for a certain car to enter the drive, listening for the scuff of shoes on the walk, the knock on the door and the arrival of a heart for whom our hearts long.

He comes every time your heart warms in love and gratitude, care and hope. He knocks in our longing for the beauty of heaven to shine amid this world’s troubles.

Open the door. Embrace the moment for all your worth. He’s inviting you to the feast.

David L. Miller