Month: October 2012

 
Heavenly Lover, Holy One,
you who are the dearness of the world,
and the dearness of my soul,

you are here, and I am in you;
this moment flows from your heart
like light from the sun.

I am the speaking of your Word,
this world is the singing of your song,
each moment the blossoming of your love.

I give you my mindfulness and all my heart,
that this moment, and all this day
I may be lovingly present to you.

Every sound calls me to prayer;
every silence is your speaking.
Clothed in all eternity, you are here.

I am the meadow where you play.
Each word and deed is your window
out of me onto the world.

You sing in me, and my living is my listening.
I live in harmony with your grace,
your light unfolding in me.

 

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Before God no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
—Hebrews 4.12-13

The “piercing” is not violent assault, but skillful surgery, perfect knowledge of what is inside us; the “dividing” is not cutting us apart but discerning, distinguishing between what is eternal and what is passing, what is true and what is false. The Word is God knowing us deeply. God’s Word is the act of paying attention, more like listening than speaking. The Word of God is a presence—indeed, a person— who knows you, who understands what moves you, who feels your reality form within you.

The Word knows the difference between what is truly you and what is false, imposed, and needing to be removed. God’s knowing presence, God’s judging, is not cruel, not against you (you’re still thinking of that sword). God looks on you only with reverence and love. God sees you, with the eyes of “mercy and grace,” of one who can “sympathize with our weakness… who in every respect has been tested as we are” (v. 16, 15). God’s Word is the living presence that loves you from the inside out.

I think of my sister’s cancer. She needs (and receives) from God a love that knows her true self, that treasures her soul, her absolute being—and who sees clearly and exactly what is false and life-diminishing in her, what is not really “her,” and needs to be removed. To have life and have it abundantly, she needs a listening Word that pays attention, a discerning Word that knows what it’s doing, a sharp Word that can cut out the killing stuff from her and set the rest free.

The living and active Word listens you you deeply. Let that Presence pierce you. Let that Listening lay bare the intentions of your heart, so that you can see yourself clearly, as God sees you. Let that Love sink deep to the marrow of your fears, the bone of your desires, not to cut you up, but to see what does not give you life and free you from it, so that you become more truly and wholly yourself, for the sake of your lovely, precious, holy life.

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

The word of God is living and active.
—Hebrews 4.12

 

Not a written down thing,
a carved somewhere thing,
an already told you thing.

More like a murmur that God
is still saying, still making up,
that you’re only now hearing,

if you’re listening now,
this moment, for what
God is saying to you, in you,

maybe a kind of word,
an idea you can name,
a feeling you can have,

but more likely like nerves waking,
a beauty rising in you,
a touch, a nudge, a look,

a moving in you like your unborn
kicking, like falling
in love, a certain way

of adoring you that God has.
A kiss, and the still moment
that follows. What God most wants

you to know just now, like
“Let there be light,” only more
like “Let there be you.”

Listen. God is only just now,
in this stillness,
speaking.

 

 

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

 

The tribes in you that thrived
before the others came and colonized,
the songs, the dances and the people
dancing them weren’t perfect, not at all:
they stole and fought and failed.
The histories they told that others buried,
the stories in the languages they banned,
the songs that someone other
than the prairies silenced
weren’t ones the others
should have traded for their own,
but they were true.
The fenceless land that spoke to them
was not some gilded Eden,
any more than they were those
the movies said they were.
It’s not that it was better,
though much of it was better,
but this: that it was yours,
and it was silenced.
That still the speaking land is there
beneath your paving and your walls,
a whole, great, vibrant people,
singing still, and dancing,
telling stories in your land.
That you don’t have to sell this island
one more time.
Walk this path and listen for them,
weeping, maybe, just at first,
along that trail of tears,
but singing, too, still singing,
dancing life in one great circle
in a song that all the armies in the world
can never conquer, never have.

 

 

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

To you, O Holy One, I give myself;I pour my soul into yours.

I am as safe as a star
shining in your sky;
the destroyers of my life
can never reach me.
Sitting with you in stillness
I fill with glory.
Those who would assault me leap
and fall into an abyss.

Beloved, you are my truth; lead me.
You are my path; take me.
Be my mind, my heart, my will;
for you alone are my life.
You are all I wait for;
every moment is an opening to you.

Heavenly Lover, your whole heart is mercy;
your will is steadfast love:
source of the world, it has never failed
in all of time or before it.

You see me not through my sins,
but through your steady love.
You are free from my past,
steadfastly faithful to your goodness.

I am alone in the room of my affliction,
yet you are present within me;
your grace breathes beneath my troubles
and bears me out of this narrow place.
You know the corpse in me.
Bring it to life.

You save us, O God,
in all our troubles.

(Ps. 25.1-7, 16-18, 22)

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

 
  “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them;
for it is to such as these that the realm of God belongs.
Truly I tell you, whoever does not
receive the realm of God as a little child
will never enter it.”
—Mark 10.14-15

 

Mother of the Universe,
Father of the Poor,
Lover of the Little Ones,
I am one of them; I am yours.

I pray that I may be playful
on the knee of your delight;

helpless and dependent
in the arms of your grace;

hungry, receptive, grateful
at the breast of your world;

vulnerable, trusting in your hand
in this rough place;

learning voraciously
in your shadow as you work;

your toddler, one hand high in yours,
learning to walk;

belonging without question
to your love.

Birth me again this moment,
born into your hope.

My source, my life, to you I pray,
I and all your children,

all your children,
your image and flesh,
offspring of your grace,
joy of your womb.

 

 

 

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

  “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God,
and not receive the bad?”
—Job 2.10

How is it that within days we’re anticipating our son’s wedding, full of joy and blessing, and at the same time holding for dear life onto my sister who suddenly has cancer? Who pressed these two strange worlds to dance with each other? Sometimes it seems life pulls us in opposite directions at once, as if two gods have thrown us joy and sorrow, for us to find our way between the two. How different it appears our various realities are.

But there are not multiple realities, or kinds of life, or gods. Life is One, flowing from the One Source. It’s all gift. There is only blessing. It is an illusion, the craziness of thanking God for this blessing and begging God to avert that curse, as if God is tragically unfaithful—and sadly bipolar. You can miss your life judging it instead of receiving it, trying to pick and choose which parts of life are good or bad, which to accept or resist.

God is not so divided. God is all Love, not partly. God is all Life, one galaxy of stars and darkness, a Spring that gushes blessing, and from it flows a mixed and wondrous mystery that sometimes pleases and sometimes frightens us, but is always blessed and holy and radiant with God’s presence. Dread and happiness, rage and sorrow— these are not the world, but merely our reactions. The world is one gift, with deep beauty, sharp edges and infinite love. We are given the whole thing.

The good news is, God does not excuse herself from our suffering. The Risen Lord holds this whole tender, mangled world in shining hands with holes in them. It connects us to ask for God to bless the newlywed or the sick, but God is not waiting. God is already blessing both, already cradling both in pure, unalloyed grace. We pray, not to tell God what to do, but to open ourselves to what God is already doing. We pray until both getting married and getting sick belong to life. We pray until we are overwhelmed by the one vast love that is so much greater than our fears or desires that it transforms them, becoming all of who we are, transfiguring our very flesh. We pray until we know the One Love that dwarfs all love and loss, all joy and sickness, all life and even death, until we are filled with its life-giving life. We pray until all things are taken up in hope, and it heals us beyond our knowing

Death dances at the wedding. The happy couple welcome him; he toasts their long and hardy bliss. The blushing bride, the sorrowful mother, the man in prison, the running child: we are one, our lives are one. Unseen for now, the One Blessing transforms us all, our graves, and all the flowers on them opening to the sun. This I know: we shall all dance together, in joy.

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

The leaves are turning now,
turning the color of the sun, the color of joy,
the color of letting go without regret.

It will turn cold,
and some here in the north will go inside.
But for my desert friends it’s cooler now,
and now they can go out,
while for my friends Down Under, now it’s spring;
the earth is turning green.

Life keeps turning; what for one is toward
for another is away.

The colors of death are also beautiful.

Trees turn in their gradual dance
toward winter, the season of hope,
toward the muted color of branches stripped
and patient, the color of steadfastness
that endures all loss, outlives mere pleasantries,
trusts beyond all passing dark
this autumn’s unseen spring.

My wife and I look for autumn decorations
for our son’s October wedding,
a promise of long love amid falling leaves,
as the sister I love lies beneath a metal tree
dripping chemo through a tube.

The turning leaves, they glow so briefly.

The edge is at the center.
We keep turning.
Every moment gives way.

Whichever way we spin the ball,
the other side is turning, too.
The healing tear, the coveted surrender,
we are bathed in our prayers for one another.

The vow we turn toward, each one of us,
is faithfulness, whichever way we turn,

all of us, in our own places,
turning toward the light.

 

 

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

The Beloved says:

Be at peace;
I am the strongest thing in you.

Over your dark, formless waters I brood;
in your void I speak my Word.
You are my river and I am your flowing;
you are my water and I am your sea.

I am the spark from nerve to nerve;
the drumming of your heart.
I am your blood’s dark alchemy
creating life, this moment, life.

In the night I am your nest;
in the storm, your steadfast earth.
In the raging waters I am your breath;
in your death I am your life.

I am the First thing in you,
and I will be in you
when the rest of you is gone.
When your bones are shadows
and your sinews wind
a hundred years from now
I will still be in your place,
rejoicing.

Nothing is deeper than my desire for you;
nor stronger than your belonging in me.
I am your Realm, and your power, and your glory.
Be at peace.

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