Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Today’s text

John 3:3-4

Jesus answered: In all truth I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. Nicodemus said, 'How can anyone who is already old be born? Is it possible to go back into the womb again and be born?'

Reflection

The answer, of course, is ‘yes.’ We can return to the womb and be born again.

Each day we can retreat to the places of rebirth and wait as we did in the womb for birth to come to us … again.

Nicodemus’ absurd question points directly to what we need to find newness and grace, revival and peace each day. We return to the womb of ultimate compassion and know ourselves once more as beloved and, well, special--held, nourished, our uniqueness treasured and brought to life.

This place is everyplace the love of God in Christ envelops us whole and holds us near, the place … the places of knowing.

One biblical word for compassion is, quite literally, womb.

In the womb of divine compassion, of ultimate grace and safety, we are born from above, knowing a life that is new, freed from the barnacles of past that cling to our hearts and minds, tying us down.

These barnacles cling, ever re-attaching themselves to our hearts, stealing the newness Christ brings.

Still, there are precious moments, sometimes longer periods of time, even whole days when every cell of the body sings in newness, knowing freedom from every past sin and failure, from every wound and want, because we are surrounded and filled by the Love we have always wanted.

Praise of God is not forced or effortful in such times. Joy and gratitude become the essence of our being as we are made new, born from above, once more, in the womb of ultimate grace, unlimited love and perfect compassion.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday, May 25, 2012

Today’s text

John 16:13-15

However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.

Reflection

There is one who is complete, complete love, complete humanity, complete transparency to the heart of God.

The mystery of God is hidden in his heart but flows through his words and pores so that all he does bears the darkness of eternity into the light of time, our little moment of time.

We see him and feel his words within, and our hearts weep with the joy of knowing the Love beyond every love that is the Source of them all.

He is our brother, my brother. His name is Jesus, and all that is God is somehow in him, waiting to be given away, to flow into us so.

And it does so that the Voice deeper than all voices may speak in the depth of our consciousness, whispering of the Wonder who made us, the Love who holds us, the Hunger who wants us, the Healing that comes to us until we and all are whole..

Complete truth, Jesus calls this: all we need to live in love, bubble with hope and laugh as if all worries had departed. For, they have.

All that is in God is in him and being given to us.

And all that is in him is life. That is the first and last word, the complete truth. The temporal truths we know along the way of living--that life gets hard, that grief comes, that beauty fades, that summer ends--all this that passes for wisdom is but partial.

The complete truth: Love lasts, Life is forever, Beauty holds us and always will. So laugh until you cry. Your tears praise the One who is in you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Today's Text

Romans 8:26-27

And as well as this, the Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words;and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God's holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God.

Reflection

Come, Holy Spirit, give wings to our hearts.
Free us from the fears that possess us. Set our souls free to live.

Come, Holy Spirit, surprise us with your nearness.
Fill us with strength when we are weak. Renew us when we are worn and tired.

Come, Holy Spirit, you are the breath of our sighs, longing to be made new.
You are our wordless yearning when hope fails and needs press down.

Come, Holy Spirit, you are the fresh breath of each new morning.
You are the breath of all life and all love, the breath of hope within us.

Come, Holy Spirit, You are the breath of the love that fills us.
Fill us that joy may spill from our hearts and lighten our days.

Come, Holy Spirit, you are the oil of kindness poured on the wounds of the world
You are the oil of blessing reminding us that we are your beloved.

Come, Holy Spirit, you are the oil of anointing calling us to lives of care.
Move us to pour your mercy on the hungry and a world in need.
.
Come, Holy Spirit, you are the fire of love and conviction.
Ignite our passion that we may give our lives to your kingdom.

Come, Holy Spirit, You are the fire of passion. You hunger for us.
Stir our hunger that we may desire nothing less than knowing and loving you.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Today’s text

John 16:4-7

But I have told you all this, so that when the time for it comes you may remember that I told you. I did not tell you this from the beginning, because I was with you; but now I am going to the one who sent me. Not one of you asks, 'Where are you going? Yet you are sad at heart because I have told you this. Still, I am telling you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

Reflection

There is no time for sadness because there is no separation. Never.

You are here always and always will be. In this quiet place, I know you present and with me. No, the One you send is not with me, not beside or around me, but in the depth of the mystery of my own being, the Voice deeper than every other voice.

You are the Voice that renders all other voices irrelevant.

In the silence you speak the wonder of a Loving Presence who is the first and final truth of my life. And I flee there, to that place within where I might hear, even as gentle music of longing filters into consciousness from the stereo across the room.

As long as you were with the disciples, Jesus, they fixed on your nearness, eager to lean into your side as they walked along. And why not?

In you they knew a Holy Presence, a soul transparent to the mystery of God. Their hearts woke from sleep when they sat with you.

Could it be true? Could they know and feel the fullness of God so close that their skin tingled in delight?

Could they feel so alive and free that the anxieties and threats that surround life disappear? Could they feel a Love beyond all loves with their hands and heart? Could they feel it filling them, so that they knew this Love like their own breath and the warmth in their chest?

They didn’t need to ask such questions. They knew. In Jesus presence, they knew all this and more, although words mostly failed them when they tried to express what they knew.

Their sadness when Jesus was about to leave them was heavy, palpable, understandable … and unnecessary.

For as long as he was with them they would not and could not listen to the Spirit, the Voice within them and hear that same Voice and Spirit that filled Jesus and made him transparent to the Eternal God.

When Jesus left they felt bereft, alone and abandoned, but they were not alone, not ever. The Spirit of truth, the Helper, the Eternal Voice that is the Holy Presence of Love beyond all measure was there, given to them, in them.

And they, like us, needed to learn to listen at that deep place where speaks the Voice of Eternal Love telling us that we are not and never will be … alone.

There is never a moment when you, Holy Mystery, are not here.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, May 21, 2012

Today’s text

John 15:26-27

When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness. And you too will be witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

Reflection

We search the wrong places for the Spirit of truth if we listen to everyone and everything but ignore the voice within.

The Spirit is the breath and heart of the Father, the Loving Mystery whom our hearts know even though our eyes cannot see.

There is a place within, a point of convergence where You, Loving Mystery, and I, are one, two sides of a single coin, to quote an inadequate cliché.

When I quiet my heart and practice standing still other voices from within and without tire and fall away, and I can hear again, listening for that point.

I listen in the silence to the Silence and hear you speaking, for Silence is your most sublime language.

In the silence, I know. I am aware that all that is … is your breathing. I know you as Source of all life and my own. I know my life and all I see is the stream of life springing from a boundless fountain that never runs dry. I know all I see is but the surface of a great and bottomless sea of mystery.

There is within me a witnessing Spirit, the Spirit of your truth, no, the Spirit you are.

Your indwell me, and I hear a Voice, a Helper telling me again and again and again … it is Love who makes me and all that is, and it is love that I am at the depth of my being, for my being is but one manifestation of your own, and you are Love.

And I know … that the Spirit of truth within me, the One I hear so faintly, is the same Spirit who filled my brother, Jesus, who heard you so well. He heard so completely that his life and words seamlessly gave witness to the truth and beauty of all that you are, Loving Mystery.

Lead me into the silence, Holy One, that I may hear your Silence speaking clearly, even as did he.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday May 8, 2012

Today’s text

John 15:9-11

I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.

Reflection

I have loved you, as the Father loves me.

I am not sure if there is a more amazing statement in the entire Bible. I come here again to know the truth of your words, Jesus. There is no other reason, not really.

There is a love that awakens the soul to the beauty of all things and, yes, even to the beauty of its own soul self. Having tasted such love, all of life becomes a pilgrimage back to the places and faces, to the moments and yearning practices that open one’s heart to know what it most needs to know: that we abide in love, at all times and in every moment.

It is true every moment, but it is a truth lost to us most of our lives. We miss the holiness, the Presence of the One Love who is present in every love and in the deep mystery of every moment, moments that appear out of the darkness of nothingness to make a world where our hearts might discover the heart of the One from whom we all come.

We hunger for that heart, each in our own way, seldom knowing the rapture of being so enveloped that we know this One, this Love is the ultimate truth of our lives. We wander in deserts of our own despair and the drivenness of our craving to experience and know as much as we can, fearing life is passing us by.

But there is only One thing we truly need, One Love which evaporates our craving in a flood of fulfillment and surprising joy.

You, Jesus, tell me that you are rapt in joy when this happens. So you tell us to abide, rest, remain in the places and faces, the moments and practices where we know that we are loved as wholly and everlastingly as you are by the One Love, the Loving Mystery, you call ‘Father.’

So I flee again to this place to listen and prepare to enter again my daily pilgrimage into the wonder of the divine heart, praying but one prayer: that my heart may open and know One Love.

Pr. David L. Miller

Friday May 4, 2012

Today’s text

John 15:4-5

Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.

Reflection

This is my quiet space. My escape, my time … in a life when too little of my time seems my own.

None of my moments are mine, of course. It seems selfish and foolish to speak as if life is something I possess. I am not a possessor. Each moment is gift. The breath I breath is not my own.

In this quiet space where gentle music moves the heart, I know life, I know my heart and I know you, Holy One.

This is all the same knowing, not three separate things. I retreat here and my lungs expand, my heart grows quiet, and I am aware of a place I cannot see or describe but which I know is there, somewhere, somehow in me.

It is an intimate darkness where I know and feel your mystery. I know myself connected with you, no, not connected but part of you, inseparable, joined as a leaf in a vine, a flower on a stem.

And I am at peace. The noise of living and the voices of unfinished tasks do not disturb here. There is only me and you, and these tears that tell me I am well, at home and beloved.

My heart rests, knowing that this alone is life and that I should never settle for anything less.

So why, my brother, Jesus, should you tell me to remain, abide, live in the vine? I am part of the vine. My life flows from the vine. It is the essential and inevitable truth of every life.

But that’s it, right there. So many days I turn from the vine, the channel of infinite life and joy, of love unlimited.

Amid the anxiety that has driven me for years, I hurry about, failing to turn, quiet myself and enter that intimate darkness where I rest and watch and knowing I need to do nothing but receive and feel this oneness, this inseparable unity with you are the Source of my soul, of all life and love.

It is possible, even likely to live a life denying that we each a leaf on the vine, but it is a life of anxious striving and fear because it is lived without awareness of our essential truth: We are all part of the vine, who is the Source of our life and peace, our breath and joy.

You, Jesus, are the Source, the human face of the One, the Vine I know in this intimate darkness.

‘Remain, abide in me,’ you say. ‘Rest in me in me, for I am the vine of life. You will find the peace of an intimate quiet in which you will know the Love I am, the Love who wishes to flow in and fill you. Remain and dwell here in me, and your life will bear fruit.

It is from this restful awareness that life and beauty grows.

Pr. David L. Miller