Month: March 2015

      
         Unless a grain of wheat
                  falls into the earth and dies,
         it remains just a single grain;
                  but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                           —John 12.24

         
This is faith in resurrection,
not some speculation on the future,
but the trust to die in love.

Why be afraid to give myself away
when You have come
and died in my arms
and now live more vividly
than before?

You have poured out yourself like drink
and only afterwards
did I realize how I was feasting.

Why be afraid to disappear
into love?
Why not be nothing but love,
and so only life?

To get over my self-clinging
and become a seed in the hand of God,
be flung, be burst, become the opened grave
from whom the tender stalk of Christ
emerges and grows and becomes me, new.

To be a gift that is not returned,
light that sinks into a stone heart,
a luscious taste on the tongue of the world.

         
         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

      
         
                 
Eternal Beloved,
bring me deeper:
not to mere insight,
but to presence;
not to feelings,
even feelings of your nearness,
but deeper presence
for you
and for your stirrings in me,
compassionate presence
for my neighbor
and for all the world.

By your presence in me,
deeper presence.

By your grace…
presence.

         
         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      
         Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
         so must the Human One be lifted up,
         that whoever believes in the Beloved may have eternal life.
                  —John 3.14

“Lifted up,” honored, looked up to.
We keep our yes on Jesus, and it gives us life.

“Lifted up” like the bronze serpent: on a pole.
Lifted up on a cross, not in honor but disgrace.
Jesus exposes our violence by suffering it
without cause, without recrimination,
exposes our fear
and our poor, snake-bitten need for healing.
Just suffers and forgives.
And that grace brings us to life.

We trust the power of God’s forgiveness for us,
and forgive and trust its power,
and we are truly, deeply, infinitely alive.

“Lifted up,” raised from the dead.
We give of ourselves,
suffer for the sake of love,
and we are lifted up,
lifted out of all suffering,
raised up to such deep life
that nothing can put us down,
not even death.
It’s solid. It’s absolute. It’s eternal.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      
         

You used to be dead.
You were trapped in life-stealing ways:
under the sway of this world
you thought you could force your way,
write your own cosmic laws.
We all do it.
We act like little self-contained body-pods,
slaves to our ego’s fearful desires,
children of fear and despair. All of us.

But God, rich with mercy,
loves us with this huge, heartbreaking love,
even when we drive our life into a fatal crash,
and makes us alive,
raising us up out of the grave
arm in arm with Christ.

You’ve been saved, kid: pulled right out
of the wreckage of your life.
God raises us up and sets us gently
right next to Christ,
at the center of Life, in Christ’s heart.
Only afterwards will we begin to see
just how immensely deep God’s grace is,
in showing us such kindness in Christ Jesus.

You have been saved by God’s grace.
Just trust this.
This is not your own doing;
it’s totally a gift from God.
It’s not anything you can even influence.
Nobody can claim that.
There’s no such thing as a self-made person:
we are what God made us,
which is God’s Beloved,
created for the purpose of goodness.
This is your destiny, your identity,
your whole life.
Get used to it.

         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

             
In the desert Moses lifted up an image of healing;
so the Human One is lifted up
so that we can trust,
and receive the life that flows forever from God.  
For God so loved the world
that God came as the Beloved Child among us,
so that in trusting in God’s love,
we would not be limited by death,
but live that life that is infinite.
God came as the Beloved into the world
not to condemn anybody,
but to save the whole world with Love.
Trusting in love, we lay hold of life;
without that trust, we waste away—
trust that God has actually come among us in love.

This is the Truth,
and it shines among us like light.
Of course we try to hide our brokenness in the dark;
we want to stay out of the light,
and avoid seeing our evil exposed.
But the truth draws us into the light,
so that we can see clearly,
see that who we are and all we do
comes from God.

         
         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      
         
                  
God has no plan for the trappings of your life,
bears no preference for your surroundings,
or the place where you are set.

God has no intention for what happens to you,
whether it be lovely or painful, easy or hard.

God’s plan is for your soul,
not for what is beyond it.

God’s delight is that you be this particular divine self
no matter what befalls you;
that in pleasure or suffering,
light or shadow, wherever you are
you be this unmatched, gleaming beauty,
this unrepeatable, precious beam
of God’s own light.
To that end God devotes God’s very being.

God has made you the little boat
God will ride down the great, turbulent river,
made you by hand,
lovingly, with infinite art and skill,
trusting you are lovely and sturdy enough,
whatever may come,

knowing that in another life
God is also the stream.

        
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

      
         This is judgment:
         that light has come into the world.
                  —John 3.19

Light of Love,
shine your light into me.

May I see myself by your light,
see by love, not fear.

May I see what is, not what I wish,
or what others want to see.

May I see what is in shadows,
brought to light in your love.

May your light shine in me,
not to judge but to shine.

Light of Love,
may your light shine out from me.

         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      

         
And God spoke all these words:

I am Love, your God, who set you free. I never give you less than freedom.

I exceed your imagining.

I am too great to manipulate or control.

I give you time and space to simply be yourself.

I surround you with unconditional love and faithfulness.

I only give life, not take it.

I am faithful.

I give and do not hold back.

I reveal What Is to you.

I desire only your blessing, not for my sake, but for yours.

And you: what will you do?

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      
          God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom,
          and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
                  —1 Corinthians 1.25

God, forgive me
for trusting my certainty
against yours,
for thinking it weak or foolish
to show your grace,
to love and love alone
as radically as on the cross.
When I get mad or insist on my way
I cling to my foolishness.
When I am anxious about being powerless
I covet a strength that doesn’t exist.

Spirit, wean me of this foolishness.
Let me be unknowing
and loving
rather than wise and cruel.

O Christ, when others think
I’m weak and foolish
help me find my strength in you
who were even weaker
and more foolish than I.

     
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      
         “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
                  —John 2.16

I don’t want to have had to beg.
I’ve brought my offering, fair price.
The unknowing face, the curing knife,
the little cry, the pang, parceled out,

not great, but enough to satisfy,
the dark lump in my rough basket.
(Its weight can’t be dismissed,
how it knocked against the crowd.)

But it’s taken at the door,
I have nothing to offer now.
The market’s empty.
There’s no exchange,

only a stillness
in which all is well, already well,
the wound received, unpaid.
a longing met, two hearts rejoined.

There is no market. Just presence.
Only now do I kneel,
with hands less empty than at first,
my priceless heart, my eyes of light.

        
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at)gmail.com