Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
As I write this I am looking out on the Atlantic Ocean. I am supposed to be concentrating at a training workshop, but I am looking out the window. No matter where I am I hear the sea waving at me. No matter what I do, the joyous sea flows in. Even in this room I am walking on the beach. I am standing on wet rocks watching the sunrise. I am baptized in the great depths.
I set to the work at hand, but the playful ocean pours in. A great wideness enters and opens inside me. No matter what I write it sounds like the chant of waves, it smells like salt air. No matter how carefully I take notes they are full of the cries of birds and the glimmer of sunlight on a ruffled sea. I close my eyes and waves keep leaping at my feet. Water swirls around the chairs, the speaker’s podium.
This is as it should be. No matter what we do, Spirit, the great Originating Sea, surrounds us, enfolds us, pours in and fills our lives. The great baptismal tide washes over us; the salt wind rushes in and out.
Prayer is opening the window, so that everything we do expands onto a broad shoreline, welcoming waves that have traveled far; every choice, every act smells of salt air and glimmers with the light of God on a ruffled world; and every word we speak rings with the cry of sea birds, sings of a wide and generous wind.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com