Daily Reflections and Worship Resources
River of God,
carry me
to your sea of blessing.
Breath of God,
bear me
on your brave wind.
Earth of God,
carry me
in your gentle bosom.
Light of God,
bear me
on your strong hands.
Beauty of God,
carry me
without my knowing.
Love of God,
carry me,
carry me.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
I pray for what I’m seeking, Lord,
those things that can’t be bought—
and yet those trinkets leave me— Bored—
I rather would be sought.
I tell you my desires, as if
it isn’t— Vanity
to crown my wants— and be so deaf
to your desire— for me.
I spend my anxious heart in fear,
searching all around—
but, Lord, instead, I’ll sit still, here—
and let myself— Be found.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Some people are oblivious
to the Love in everything.
There’s no center to their lives.
They can’t imagine real goodness.
The Beloved looks out at the world
from inside them,
knows what they are searching for,
recognizes their hunger for her.
When we’re so cut off
we’re nothing but hurtful.
We can’t create love or beauty from there;
we can’t even do a kind thing.
Our desperate grasping blindfolds us.
We have no idea we’re eating people,
calmly consuming our happy meals.
We are deaf to the voice inside
crying out to God,
living in hard little shells of fear.
But the Beloved is with us,
and those who are in love know it.
The poor, who find their way blocked,
can’t be held back from the Holy One.
Ah, the day is coming
when we fall back in love with God—
how amazing, our good fortune!
When we open our eyes to that,
well, what else could deep joy be?
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
Great towers have fallen.
Their shadows keep falling.
Rage and sorrow burn in us
until we fall.
Dust and ashes billow
through the streets,
choke our weeping throats,
cover trembling faces
with each other’s dust
until we all are dust,
we all are ashes,
alike,
indistinguishable
from each other.
In the clay we are one,
and there is no possible way
to live
but to be gentle
with each other,
who bear our ashes.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
What woman having ten silver coins,
if she loses one of them,
does not light a lamp, sweep the house,
and search carefully until she finds it?
When she has found it,
she calls together
her friends and neighbors,
saying, “Rejoice with me,
for I have found the coin that I had lost.”
— Luke 15.8-9
The churning you feel,
no placid saint,
the yearning, leaning—
this is not your own,
but the longing of God
burning in you,
the fierce desire
of the Beloved
who will turn the world
upside down
to have you.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
How to speak of this?
There is light, resting on you,
wrapping everything, creating height,
slipping down and up each wall
even cupping undersides in soft white hands.
The bird, whose language no one
understands, how does it choose
just where it flies, it sings, it lands?
There is heat, murmured, a glue that holds you
to everything, makes you all
one word. And silence, yes,
bestowed, not left: tendered, its weft
woven with the warp of tiny threads,
little sounds that give it definition.
Shadows, echoes, little flaws.
You find your place.
A story, never told, but clear, though not to us.
There is water, moving with its usual grace
and understated wisdom. And things growing,
yes, that’s it, growing toward something,
about something, lifting themselves up.
Ah, and gravity, there’s that, too, the struggle,
the embrace, the encounter, the return.
The home. The belonging. The name.
And there’s you, within this with the spiral
galaxy of your mind slowly turning.
Perfectly repeating all this within.
Yes, there is all this.
And yet—
how to speak of this? There is, yes,
something more.
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.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
—from Psalm 139
O Love, you dwell within me.
You know me from the inside.
When I am far from those who love me
I am still nestled in your love.
If I am lost and wandering in error
you walk with me.
When I am sure of myself, in my own little world,
you do not abandon me to my pride.
In the deep night of despair or depression
you quietly sustain me from within.
When I am among strangers, even familiar ones,
you embrace me.
When I question my faith, when I have no faith,
your faith in me is not shaken;
your tender love does not slacken.
If I think I have escaped you, rejected you, annihilated you,
here you are, in gentle love.
Great Love of Heaven, Great Spirit within,
you breathe in me, and give me life;
you make me one with all of your flesh,
all your beloved, who live inside you.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
Your voice,
fashioned in your intimate flesh,
the moment you speak
is what leaves you.
The body of lovemaking
in dark inner tenderness,
the note you sing
is formed escaping your lips.
Your speech
becomes your self-giving
when you send it away
and do not call it back.
Lord,
I will be your Word,
abandoned
into the resonant world.
Deep Blessings
Pastor Steve
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com.
Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
—Jeremiah 18.6
Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me
cannot be my disciple.
None of you can become my disciple
if you do not give up all your possessions.
—Luke 14. 27, 33
What you cling to is not household goods,
that’s not likely what you need to let go of.
What you carry is not the silver cross, stylish,
matching your outfit, fitting well with your life already.
Not the wooden one, stained with blood and drama,
not the annoyance, the “cross to bear.”
No: enter the suffering of the world;
bear it one person at a time.
Accept the weight of powerlessness, and its power;
surrender your own way that you want to get.
Let the potter reshape you
into a form not of your choosing,
a life that’s not yours,
a struggle not for you to win.
What you let go of may seem as life itself.
Let the new life be given to you.
The little cry of grief
is the weight of the hand on the clay.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com
Lord,
drown out our noise
in the thunder of your silence.
Wash away these chattering thoughts
in the sea roar of your wordless presence.
Erase our shouts and incantations,
the carnival barkers of my prayers.
Flood me with the river of you,
water up to ceilings, houses carried off.
Saturate this world with your silence
and hide it in every little thing.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
To receive Unfolding Light by daily email, write to me at unfoldinglight (at-sign) hotmail dot com.