Month: May 2013

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
         — Revelation 22.1-2

Beautiful Tree of Life! Thank you for your grace,
for your verdant strength, your generosity.

You grow in the middle of the street of the city:
our only way is through you.

You grow on this side, and the other side.
You straddle the nations.

As a grove of aspen: all one tree, many stems,
Mustard seed, Redwood, Baobab, apple.

In the city there is no sight of the noxious weed
of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Tree on which Jesus hung has risen from death,
has sprouted green, has borne life-giving fruit.

You sustain us. You gather us, you shelter us.
We drink from the River, we live on your fruits.

No one comes to you alone, but as family.
No one eats as enemies or foreigners, but Yours.

You are the vine and we are the branches.
We are your leaves, twelve tribes of healing.

All the world lives in your shade, nests in your branches.
All of us eat of your body. We belong to you.

Beautiful Tree, Mother of Life! Tree of justice!
Tree of Healing! We thank you for your grace. Alleluia!

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

         
         Those who love me will keep my word,
         and my Mother-and-Father will love them,
         and we will come to them
         and make our home with them.
                  — John 14.23

Heaven is not a distant country.
It comes to you.
It grows around you.
It is your home,
your your most inward, intimate place,
your deepest belonging.

To love your neighbor
is to welcome them
into the home of your heart
where God is.

You let the love well up in you
and it returns enlarged,
and you find yourself
embraced, en-webbed,
familied.

No matter what day comes,
what despair or undeserving,
you are still among
the Beloved ones
who gladly live with you.

Even in drought the well
is surrounded by flowers
and the greenest of grass.
         
         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
The geese traveling their distances above you,
the little swirls in the brook
making their way to the ocean
holding onto each other’s tails,
the green spikes pushing up into the light,
the breath rising through you into song,
the lifting unweight in you that leans
out across the tiny sea toward another person,

they are all saying the same thing:

come,
come with me,

come home.

___________________
Weather Report

Return,
as all things gather
from where they have been sown.
Expect occasional flurries of longing,
with scattered moments of recognition.
One hundred percent chance of arrival.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com