Month: July 2016

Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.                    

As deftly and finally as one pulls out a thread someone is weaving them, gracefully tying them, minute and irreversible.

In the towering sky, even under the fortress, root tendrils muscle in and bind ligaments through an abyss we had been told was absolute.

No enormity of terror can keep up with the steady, unseen healing.

Before the assault, the horrible wound, gaping and exposed, the stitching has already begun.

Even as we sigh in our own world, moving on, separate, we are being sewn in.

In the earthquake, the collapsing mountains, not a bit of rubble falls on the path from the temple.

If you could hold your immortal soul in your hands, you would hardly recognize it from one moment to the next.

Your grave is already empty.

          Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve

(2006) __________________ Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net

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Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.                    Martha, Martha, you are worried                   and distracted by many things;          there is need of only one thing.                            —Luke 10.41-42

No matter the results and outcomes,      the thousand possibilities,           you are here now.

Why even try to trace      what the beggar will do with your money?           Let your giving be the whole horizon.

Be lovingly present      and wars and stars and grief and cats alike           will be unable to trouble you.

At the center of the world and in each breath      this is the holy temple, the birthing moment:           giving and receiving love. That is all.

This is the sacred point,      the love in you           meeting the love in the world.

However broken or weary you are,      bring yourself here, in love,           now.

                             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.                    Mary sat at the Lord’s feet          and listened to what he was saying.                   —Luke 10.39

         Where your treasure is,          there your heart will be also.                   —Luke 12.34

What matters to us is what we pay attention to. When nobody pays attention to people, when they are not heard, they get the message that their life does not matter.

If their lives matter they must first matter to you. Today you will encounter someone who’s gotten the message their life doesn’t matter. You can show otherwise by listening to them. You can hear their story, hear their heart, listen to what they are saying.

And if it really matters to you, speak up for them that they may be heard, give them the microphone, that they may bear that treasure into the world.

Until they are heard their lives matter only to God.

             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.                     Some mornings I wake up a king, anointed, anticipated, shining.

Some mornings I wake up a pilgrim, on a journey yet unseen, but on a road laid out with adventures to be met.

Some mornings I wake up a mule. No power to wield, nowhere to go, just me, just here, dull and pointless.

Those days I must be most vigilant and ready, for my master is a good samaritan and I never know when I will be needed for something luminous.

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.                    Martha, Martha, you are worried                   and distracted by many things;          there is need of only one thing.                            —Luke 10.41-42

There will be the clutter and clatter of pans, the rumble and jumble of traffic and trains, the brambles of papers and lists and calls, the beaten paths, the errands, the chores.

You don’t have to rattle and run with them. You can do one thing at a time.

You can stop and sit at the feet of the moment, pay reverent attention to whatever it is, and listen to the silence beneath the hum, and simply be in the the presence of the presence.

In all your doing that you surely must do, you still can just be. And your being will become what you do.

In the stillness within the action sits the Beloved who is not distracted with many things, but only wants to sit awhile with you.

                           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 grant you the eyes of heaven          to see each person’s divine belovedness                   and so find joy.

God grant you a listening heart          to hear the cries of the silenced,                   and so gain wisdom.

God grant you humility          that unburdened by yourself                   you may be free.

God grant you courage          to enter the world’s dark wounds,                   and so bring healing. 

God grant you patience,          to know the strength of the long journey,                   and so be given hope.

God grant you a heart of love,          to be moved to action,                   and so receive deep peace.  

God grant you God’s own spirit          to share in the healing of the world,                   and so know God’s deep delight.

                    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

God of Love and Justice, I do not pray for peace. I pray for rage, rage at the ways of evil and injustice, rage that burns and transfigures this sick world. I do not pray for mercy, but wrath upon us who have power to speak and do not. I do not pray for comfort, but for disturbance that will not let us rest or wait, but make us work and witness until we are done. I do not pray for safety but fear, fear for the souls of all of us who shelter ourselves behind violence, whose prayer shawls are soaked with the tears of the oppressed. I do not pray that you save us from our evil. Let it burn in our hands until we renounce it. Let us who have exiled ourselves suffer our loneliness until we re-unite with those we have dismissed. Let us stand outside the gates of paradise until we enter the lives of those who suffer. O God, you are today no Good Shepherd but the Crucified Prisoner, God of love and Justice, for the sake of love and justice, disturb us.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily email write to me at unfoldinglight (at) gmail.com

                   Which of these three, do you think,          was a neighbor to the man          who fell into the hands of the robbers?”                   —Luke 10.36

I lie in beds my enemy has paid for. A foreigner has healed my wounds. One I despise has rescued me. I need to lie here a while.

The Beloved says, I come to you from the Other Side, I come to you from within. This paradox you hate is what you love about me. Have you not disguised your own deepest self as your enemy? Befriend us, friend.

Only one who is not your kind can save you. Only a stranger can make you a home.

I touch you from so deep within you it is far away. I touch you and heal you.

__________________ 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

                   As I pray I give thanks for the saints who have not ceased praying for me.

God, grant me awareness of your delight, and deep spiritual wisdom and understanding. May I live life in harmony with Christ, life that gives you delight. May I bear fruit in every good work, and deepen my mindfulness of you.

Give me strength with all the strength that comes from your glorious power, and the patience to endure.

Holy One, I give you my deep gratitude and joy, for you have included me with all the saints, inheriting your light. You have rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Realm of the Beloved, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Alleluia!

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily email write to me at unfoldinglight (at) gmail.com

On this day of independence I give thanks for my freedom, and pray for those who are not free: for those in prison or living under oppression, for the poor and exploited, for those robbed of land and culture for the sake of mine, for those who labor under heavy burdens for the sake of my comfort, for those who are imprisoned to satisfy my race’s hunger for superiority, for those who fear for their safety because of their bodies.

I confess I pretend independence from those who suffer, or are different, so I need not care, I need not see them as myself. I repent of my independence. May their unfreedom weigh upon me. May my love of freedom be not glib or abusive. Deepen my gratitude, humility and longing for justice. Deepen my resolve not just to flaunt my own freedom but to work for the freedom of all. For until we all are free, none of us is free. God of life, set us free. Amen.

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