Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
My morning walk in the woods glows with early sun and the warmth of God. But soon I’ll go to my study in the church basement and its papers and phone calls and a meeting at 9:30. Sometimes things sparkle with glory, sometimes we tingle with the feeling of God’s nearness. And sometimes it’s dull. But we’re not called to experience any particular feelings, but to do the work of love, even when it’s hard, or confusing, or even boring. Because it’s not about us. The point is that the world gets loved, whether or not we are rewarded in the loving. We reach our for God even when all we feel is Absence. We praise even when we’re discouraged. We love even when it’s not satisfying.
The problem is not that God is absent, or glory has withdrawn, or meaning has shriveled up inside itself and left us. It’s not that the world is dull: it’s that our senses are dull. And sometimes we’d rather feel loving than actually act loving. But in faith we love anyway, beyond our senses, beyond our knowing, with or without any thrill or understanding. The good news is, it’s really God’s great love, not our own, flowing through us. Sometimes we are simply clay vessels who neither taste nor appreciate the miraculous wine we bear. But we bear it, and even if we are not caught up in ecstasy, even if we have no way to know, God is pleased, and unknown to us, our lives do shine with glory.
____________________
Weather Report
Dull,
overcast and obscured,
though beyond the clouds
glory still swirls about us,
and within us,
as a vast front of grace
passes through our very lives
unseen.
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