Anne Marie Miller

Author: Anne Marie Miller

  • Merton Mondays #7 – Are You the Work if God?

    (From Irenaeus)

    “If you are the work of God, wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time…

    Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes you in…lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers.

    By guarding this conformity, you will ascend to perfection…To do this is proper to the kindness of God, to have done is becoming human nature. If therefore, you hand over to Him what is yours, namely, faith in Him and submission, you will see his Skill and be a perfect work of God.”

    (Merton, Journals, August 25-26, 1965, V284-85)

  • Merton Mondays #5 – I Need You

    I need to be led by you.

    I need my heart to be moved by you.

    I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer.

    I need my will to be made strong by you.

    I need the world to be saved by you and changed by you.

    I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow.

    I need you for all the crazy people.

    I need your healing hands to work always in my life.

    I need you to make me, as your Son, a healer, a comforter, a savior.

    I need you to name the dead.

    I need you to help the dying cross their particular river.

    I need you for myself, whether I live or die.

    I need to be your monk and your son.

    It is necessary.

    Amen.

    (Merton, Journals, July 17, 1956, III46-47)

  • Do You Feel Lonely?

    I went to a movie by myself the other night. It was the first time I’ve done that in a long, long time.

    Intentionally I slid through the doors late, after the movie had started, and was out and in my car before the first credit rolled.

    If people saw me alone, what would they think of me?

    Friendless?

    Unlovable?

    Awkward?

    Even though now, more than maybe any time in my life, I feel the arms and hearts of friends around me, sometimes I still feel lonely.

    My friend Jamie posted this video on Twitter last night. And it helped me realize that sometimes being alone is okay. In fact, it’s more than okay.

    Lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless.

  • The Story of Now

    I was having a discussion with a friend recently about how, when we share our stories, we often refer to things that have taken place in the past.

    I used to be addicted to drugs.

    My marriage almost fell apart.

    I was an alcoholic.

    My kids were headed down the wrong path.

    I was the most selfish guy you’d ever meet.

    Our stories are important. Nobody can argue the power of God’s faithfulness shown in our past.

    May I make a suggestion?

    Let’s also begin sharing The Story of Now.

    Let’s share the brokenness that is happening in our lives at this very given moment — The places we aren’t sure how God will heal, if he will heal them. The places that frighten us. The places that we think will make a great story in the future…but we don’t want to talk about them in the present tense.

    Do you recognize your Story of Now? I’ll go first.

    I am learning I am a terribly prideful person in a passive-aggressive way, so it’s not easily noticeable. It has been catching up to me in my relationship with God (“I don’t need you”) and others (“And I certainly don’t need you!”)

    Although I’ve never actually verbalized those words with anyone, my actions have spoken them. I need to find humility and express it in loving ways to the people around me.

    So, what’s Your Story of Now?

  • Merton Mondays #4: Questions

    What am I heading for?

    Where am I going?

    The answer to that one is:

    I don’t need to know.

    All these troubles come from mistrusting the love of God. Shall I start asking myself all those same questions all over again? God knows what He wants to do with me.

    Rest in his tremendous love – to know the savor and sweetness of God’s love expressed from moment to moment in all the contacts between Him and your soul – from outside in events in His signified will and will of good pleasure, from within myself by the flow of actual graces.

    Rest in that union.

    It will feed you, fill you with life.

    There is nothing else you need.

    He will show you the way to increase it, and, if necessary, He will lead you into perfect solitude in His own good time.

    Leave it all to him.

    Live in the present.

    (Merton, Journals, July 3 and 4, 1947, II.89-90)

  • Show Me How to Die

    We love stories of restoration. We love being unfettered and passionately full of life.

    But before freedom comes oppression; before redemption comes loss. We want to be rescued from our pain, but often prematurely.

    Do we know how to die? Are we willing to?

    Do we know how to fall soberly on our face and stay in the painful, the most incomplete place where we empty ourselves until we admit our own desires, our own comfort, our own abilities are useless?

    Do we truly take on the form of Christ’s sufferings, a suffering even to death?

    A friend recently said to me in an email, “This is the Gospel made practical. Everyone wants the power of the Resurrection. Few are willing to endure the crucifixion to get there.”

    Think about it.

    I played this song (lyrics below) 17 times on repeat a few days ago. I had to keep playing it, because I had to keep breaking down my heart little by little…

    “Show me how to die…”

    Before writing any blog posts, before any book is published, before any stage I step on or listening to any person I meet. Before I spend my money, before pretending to be perfect – to have it all figured out, before going to church, or calling a friend…

    Before any good or bad or noble thing…

    “Show me how to die…”

    ———

    You could plant me like a tree beside a river
    You could tangle me in soil and let my roots run wild
    And I would blossom like a flower in the desert
    But for now just let me cry

    You could raise me like a banner in a battle
    Put victory like a fire behind my shining eyes
    And I would drift like falling snow over the embers
    But for now just let me lie

    Bind up these broken bones
    Mercy bend and breathe me back to life
    But not before You show me how to die

    Set me like a star before the morning
    Like a song that steals the darkness from a world asleep
    And I’ll illuminate the path You’ve laid before me
    But for now just let me be

    Bind up these broken bones
    Mercy bend and breathe me back to life
    But not before You show me how to die
    Oh, not before You show me how to die

    So let me go like a leaf upon the water
    Let me brave the wild currents flowing to the sea
    And I will disappear into a deeper beauty
    But for now just stay with me
    God, for now just stay with me

    (“Show Me” – Audrey Assad)

  • Welp (Big Gulps)…

    It’s Monday, July 26.

    A day that seemed so far in the future the first time I hopped on my bike and attempted riding it down Fair Street in downtown Franklin.

    A day I thought would never come, and at the same time, once the trip started, a day that I knew would come too soon.

    Most of the team has headed out – some by air, some with friends or cars or our support van…

    One by one we hug the departing teammate, our circle of remaining cyclists shrinking smaller and smaller.

    I’m about to get into my own rental car – I’ll be in Myrtle Beach an extra day and flying to Canada, of all places, tomorrow – thrown back into the real world and real life and real work faster than one can say “Eh?” – and then meeting back up in Minneapolis on Thursday to begin the drive back to Nashville.

    Last night we sat in a circle and attempted to process this insanely lovely trip in an hour.

    As impossible as it sounds, we finished early; nobody had many words to say.

    We’re left in a state of wonder about what just happened…a paradoxical time warp of two months that have flown by in slow motion.

    It seems surreal, but tan lines and broken hearts as we say farewell to each other prove to us this indeed was a very real, very powerful story that has taken hold of each of us in unique ways.

    For now, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the trip…I’m sure as time and space continue to hold me as I walk through the upcoming weeks in reflection, more layers of this adventure will be exposed.

    Packing up to Leave Nashville
    At the Pacific Ocean

     

    Beauty Was Not Absent at Any Point
    Dustin & I at the VLA
    My Longest Ride – 106 miles into Forrest City, AR
    The Girls Wore Tutus for the Last 20 Miles of the Trip!
    Girl Tan Lines :)
    Abandon

  • Self-Consciousness and Pride

    I only brought two books with me on the Ride:Well Tour: Mary Oliver’s Dream Work (my favorite collection of hers) and Walking on Water by Madeline L’Engle. I’m a fairly uncommitted reader, so I thought that would be enough.

    L’Engle refers to several books in Walking on Water, two of which I found myself desperately needing. One being her own A Circle of Quiet, and also Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. It just so happened that A Circle of Quiet is in my own library of books, and with two taps on my phone, I had Rilke’s on the way to meet me in Nashville when the tour stopped there.

    I finished Rilke’s the two nights I was home, and plucked A Circle of Quiet off the top shelf in my office to put in my messenger bag. Also, since my church (St. Bartholomew’s) was hosting me, from their bookstore, I picked up a copy of Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail – a book exploring the movement of protestants into the Anglican/Episcopalian tradition, since I currently find myself in such a transition.

    Only eleven pages into A Circle of Quiet, I came across these words I found quite worthy of sharing. I’d love your thoughts on them:

    The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. The great tragedians have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. We witness it in history in such people as Tiberius, Eva Peròn, Hitler.

    I was timid about putting forth most of these thoughts, but this kind of timidity is itself a form of pride. The moment that humility becomes self-conscious, it becomes hubris. One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time. Therefore, the act of creating – painting a picture, singing a song, writing a story – is a humble act? This was a new thought to me. Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.

    I tweeted this specific line a few days ago: “One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time,” and surprisingly received some negative feedback. I personally thought it was a brilliant, but others didn’t share the sentiment.

    Oswald Chambers hinted on something similar once:

    Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ…it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it.”

    Y tu? What do you think of humility, self-awareness, and self-consciousness and how they play together?

    When we notice how we are being humble, or sacrificing for one thing or another, I think that could be a form of pride. It’s in the unaware, subconscious moments we don’t notice when it’s truly God working through us, and we’re allowing him to by getting out of the way.

  • THANK YOU (Century Ride Update)

    Thank you guys so much for your prayers, support and pledges for the century ride! I am happy to report that with the support of my team and you guys we rode 106 miles from Little Rock to Forrest City, AR!

    AND…we had OVER $1000 pledged!!!!!!!!!!

    I must have been high on adrenaline because I didn’t hurt much at all (until I made it to the church) but everything is good and the heart rate behaved for the most part (Thanks, Dr. Moreland in Dallas for the medicine adjustment suggestions!)

    Anyway, here is the picture of my bike computer before and after. If you pledged (or even if you didn’t), you can make your donation by clicking here.

    Again — I am just so humbled and grateful for your support and willingness to pray for and financially support our amazing friends in Africa. Knowing that there are 19 people who now have access to clean water (and are now safe from being victimized on their way to find clean water) is just incredible.

    THANK YOU!