Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood
of the Human One,
you have no life in you.
—John 6.53
Enough of your flimsy, amputated opinions about me. Enough quarantined speculations and ginger adorations, holding up my picture with latex gloves. No more words. Let me pass through your lips the other way.
Eat me. Take me wholly and grossly into yourself. What else do you do with the bread of life, bronze it? Consume me. Get me inside you. Let it be physical. Chew on my words and deeds; swallow my insistent, inescapable presence. Eat me up. Savor the intense flavors of my trust and courage and compassion. Suck in the juices of my gratitude and passion, even the too-spicy ones. Roll my forgiveness around in your mouth and swallow it, all of it. Wash it down with my blood, my throbbing, living presence, the passion of my self-pouring. Have at me. I will become you.
Let my flesh become your flesh, your actual body. Let the nerves of my movements become part of you. Let the muscles of my love and honesty move you. Whatever I say and do, whoever I seem to be to you, take it in. Let my being seep into your thoughts, your organs. Consume me wholly. Let nothing remain of me that is not in you.
Stop worrying about how it looks. Rip free what you can get hold of, slice it if you can, and gnaw on it. Take all day. Like beloved friends at a wedding, eat and drink, toast and feast. Don’t just admire me. Take me inside you.
Don’t you see how God loves you? What mother hasn’t said to her child, “I love you so much I could eat you?”
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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