Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
I’m off to Annual Conference, where we will spend most of our time talking about the Institutional Church, while the Risen Christ haunts us. We will talk about budgets and policies and resolutions, while all about us and within us the Overwhelming Presence deeply and quietly breathes. We will argue and vote and fret and take ourselves very seriously and when we are not looking, even in our dullness and oblivion, Life will give herself unceasingly to us. Love will happen, justice and injustice will arise before us, lungs will somehow turn air into blood, death will pass into resurrection, and upon acceptance of the Committee’s Report we will break for lunch.
So our consciousness proceeds, from duty to detail, while all around us Life unfolds, from miracle to wonder. Incarnation weds the mundane and the numinous. Holiness throbs right beneath the veil of outward appearances. So as you make your way through the brittle mechanics of our political and industrial culture, don’t be taken in by the ways of the world. Play the game but remember that that’s what it is. Argue your points, fill out your paperwork and by all means call the question on the substitution of the amendment to the original motion. Just remember to take yourself lightly. Remember that none of this is real. What’s real is in another dimension within, in the world of awe and miracle and gratitude. Stay mindful of the Passionate One who caresses us even as we fiddle with the knobs. Keep your heart tuned to the Mystery. Pay attention. Do the chores and keep your eyes peeled for the Light. It takes guts and wisdom, but stay faithful here: be ready at any moment to abandon the apparently necessary task for the crucial work of love and wonder.
I’ll be off tomorrow and Friday. See you Monday.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
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Copyright © 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com