April 2010 – Page 2 – Unfolding Light

Stretch out your hands

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”

— John 21.17-18

But it’s not a belt,
nothing so solid and irrefutable,
more like silence,
more like a nudging, a slight vacuum,
an intent beyond our choosing,
a recognition rising slowly like fish.
We are led, allured, invited,
not yanked, by a wisp of grace,
a smell of food on a charcoal fire,
a possibility.

In silence, in the mystery, we are
taken from our lives,
—drawn up out of dark waters,
blessed by grace greater than ourselves,
—fed the bread and fish of miracles,
broken open to the our deepest hearts,
—confessing our love, and
given to the world,
—led by a belt of love.

And so we go.
We look up from our half-eaten fish,
recognize the One who has hauled us
in a net of mystery out of our disconnected lives,
and step into the new world.

So now, enter the stillness.
Stretch out your hands.
Stop trying to push yourself through life.
Wait, ’till, like a fish you are drawn up in darkness,
and led into the rising day.

Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Greening

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

In the woods, the smallest fingers of green
emerge from within.
What has seemed dead wood exults.
The little greenings are incarnations
of an eternal force, divine presence,
angels of a mighty heaven hidden within all things.

God is not some guy out there pulling strings to make things happen. God is the force of life within you, welling up to blossom and bear fruit. God does not coerce, control or punish, or “judge” from some high throne. God lives in you and gives life, like the power that lives in the grass and trees that are turning green.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) made up a word for it: viriditas, or “greening power.” It is God’s life-giving, creating energy, evident in all creation. She says, “The Word is all verdant greening, all creativity.” We are “showered with greening refreshment, the vitality to bear fruit.” When we are “shriveled and wilted” Christ brings “lush greenness” to us. “Greening love hastens to the aid of all. With the passion of heavenly yearning, people who breathe of this dew produce rich fruit.”

Let God give you life: rising, strengthening, increasing in grace and beauty. Be still, and sense this Spring rising in you, this power of divine grace transforming all things, this almighty, eternal, indomitable life swelling, promising, blossoming, bearing fruit within you. Let God green in you.

Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Breathe in me

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you… As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
— John 20. 19, 21-22

Breathe in me, risen Christ.
Revive me.
I inhale your presence.
Your light fill me,
your compassion warm me.
Your Spirit be my life.
My flesh absorb you,
dense with the weight
of your resurrection.
My body resonate with your energy,
my eyes radiate your love.
May I receive your grace,
breathe deeply of your life,
rest in your presence.

And then when it is time,
breathing in through me,
breathing out through me,
send me on your breath
into this wounded world,
this beautiful world,
present in your presence,
breathing in your grace,
and breathing out.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Unless I see

Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
—John 20.25

The drug dealer’s secret shame,
the car bomb widow, how she looks down streets,
the man with hollow eyes in the lock up unit,
everybody thinks it’s babbling, his praying,
the battered children and their fragile hands,
the illegal who cleans chickens and feeds her baby,
the father gradually forgiving himself
for failing his children,
and his children—
Thomas, you have only to reach out
and feel with your hand
the wounds of Christ
to behold your risen Lord

Risen today

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Christ is risen.
Right now.
Resurrection is about today,
not the day of your funeral.
Live today as if you know that
even if you die God will grant greater life,
that even if you give away all of yourself
God will create you anew,
that if you surrender yourself to a greater love
that will be miracle enough.
Live this day believing
that even in defeat and loss and failure
God creates unprecedented victory.
Live today knowing that when all seems hopeless
God transforms things.

Listen: When you sow seeds
God does not give them back,
but breaks them apart, pulls their insides out,
and turns them into beautiful plants.
(Taken… blessed… broken… given…)

Live today ready to be sown.
Live as if Christ is risen
in you.
Let your life—each moment of letting go,
each act of love, each breath—
be resurrection.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Christ is risen

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Christ is risen.
Don’t debate it, or try to prove it or understand it.
That’s like trying to prove that the moon is lovely.
Just let it be true.
Give up, and let it be.
Don’t try to guess (which is all we could do)
what kind of body, what sort of process.
Just let the sun rise.
Let God have the way of love and life.
Let goodness overpower evil,
love drive out fear, life defeat death.
Christ is risen.
Don’t try to make it into a theory;
let it be a mystery.
Let it haunt you, let it startle you,
let it push you out of bed in the morning,
let it draw you into love.
Christ is risen.
Let Christ rise in you.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Father, forgive

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
— Luke 23.34

God receives our fear and violence and betrayal and all that is in us that works against life; God receives it and does not return it. No one pays for this sin, no one atones. There is no exchange. God suffers, and is not avenged or compensated. God simply, willingly, completely forgives us. This is the grace that sustains our lives.

God inhabits our pain. The Eternal One endures our suffering. The Creator knows our fear and isolation. The Holy One lives inside our sin. God experiences our cruelty and inhumanity, our injustice and oppression. God embraces our sorrow, and is laid in our tomb. The cross is not the working out of some complex plan, nor is it a unique occasion. It simply God’s presence with us and for us, loving, blessing, forgiving. It is God’s way. This is the grace that sustains our lives.

Let this day be one of awe and reverence, humility and gratitude.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Jesus, remember me

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

The criminal crucified with him 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 23.42-43

Jesus, this is all I need to hear:
at the center of my ruined world,
whispered in the ashen wreckage,
this gentle promise, that I,
condemned and guilty,
afraid and mangled, belong.
Not a mere pronouncement,
not an achievable goal,
but an already gift,
a claiming, a receiving.
Into your mystery
that defeats pain and shame
you take me.
In my brokenness
you bless me.
In the certainty of my despair
you break me.
To your kingdom
you give me.
When everything had seemed meaningless—
O!—my failures mean nothing to you.
Here in my abandonment
you are present,
here in my hell is Paradise,
here in the heart of my oblivion
I am saved.

O Re-Creator, somehow in your bloodied hands
my life is a fine thing,
and its wings shine calmly.

I am honored to be a citizen
of your kingdom of gentleness.
May this ever be my prayer:
Jesus, remember me
when you come into your kingdom.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve