Month: September 2016

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Walk among trees who do not judge you,
who travel seasons in perfect meekness.

Leave the drumbeat of blocks and apartments,
hours and trains, lines and squares,
and return to the rhythm of living things.

Observe beings who live the life they are given.

Go at a pace you won’t trip over roots
while looking up.

Listen to the conversation the sun has with the grasses,
watch its slow labor among the trees.

Let your life become as purposeful as any wild thing.

Stay long enough to shed the illusion
that you are superior, that you are separate,
that this is not also your flesh.

Let your breath, prairie wind, sea breeze,
—amazing gift, moment after moment!—
carry you through the day.

Your own organs, your hands, your eyes,
let them infest this day of work.

Earthling, be of this earth.
Let it have 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.
         
         

Let this be your religion:
to share in delight.

Let this be your doctrine:
infinite love and grace in all things.

Let this be your law:
the generosity of all being.

Let this be your Scripture:
the blessing hidden in each moment.

Let this be your faith:
kindness greater than all suffering.

Let this be your heaven:
love, for love alone yields joy.

Let this be your worship:
to trust the abundance of grace.

Let this be your practice:
to reach out with open hands.

Let this be your discipline:
trust and gratitude, trust and gratitude.

         
         
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.
         
         
A rich executive had a manager who was squandering his property. So he decided to fire him. The manager summoned his master’s debtors one by one. He asked one, “How much do you owe my master?” They answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said, “Make it fifty.” He asked another, “How much do you owe?” They replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said, “Make it eighty.” And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.
                  —Adapted from Luke 16.1-8

The Torah prohibited the charging of interest (Ex. 22.25, Lev. 25.36-37) but in Jesus’ time wealthy business people designed an economic apparatus that got around that, and charged predatory interest rates. Jesus’ hearers may have been likely to assume the manager in this story was simply canceling the exorbitant interest and adjusting the debtors’ bills back to the actual amounts they originally owed. Maybe Jesus is critiquing economic injustice.

And maybe this: What if Christ is the dishonest manager, who is—isn’t it true?—really wasteful, squandering God’s love on us all? Christ runs around to everybody who thinks they owe God something and says to them, “You don’t owe God what the religious apparatus says you do.” And God approves of that.

That sounds like Jesus. Sure, you owe God your life. (Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.) But you have also prayed a thousand times, “Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Yeah, in the Greek it actually is debts.) Even our debts to God are erased. Sins are forgiven, lepers are cleansed, debts are canceled, the lost are returned, the dead are raised. Jesus seems to be all about erasing the past and starting new.

Maybe Jesus wants to cut us some slack. Maybe you don’t owe God what you think you do. It’s all a gift—what you get from God, and what you give back. Take out your bill. What does it say? What do think you owe God? What do you need to atone for? Well, you don’t owe God anything. Try that on for a day. See if it helps you feel “welcomed into the eternal homes.”
     
         
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

         
         No slave can serve two masters;
         for a slave will either hate the one and love the other,
         or be devoted to the one and despise the other.
         You cannot serve God and wealth.
                  —Luke 16.13

God in your mercy,
heal my desires.

I want you,
and I don’t want you.

I am torn between two lovers: you,
and what is not you:

the easy or familiar, the self-possessed,
the idol of my way, my control.

Yes, you are in everything. But let me see
when I desire something more than you.

I don’t need knowledge of all things,
just of when I am turning away from you.
         
In the beggar on the street, the career choice,
the morning light, let me turn toward you.

Work your grace in me:
transform my desires.

Set me to practice desiring you,
again and again to choose, to turn, to seek.

Let me hunger and thirst,
let me want you more than the next breath.
         
Teach me to want you.
Teach me desire.

         

__________________
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.
         
         

Why do you love the baby
who spits up on you,
cries in the night
and poops with abandon,
who is wholly selfish,
accomplishes nothing,
and cannot justify their existence
or do better?

For the same reason of no reason,
God loves you,
with the same delight,
the same devotion,
the same tender care,
the same no reason.

         

         
         
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.
         
         
Fifteen years after 9/11
what is worth remembering?

How fragile we are.

How deeply we need each other.

How little our differences matter.

That in our vulnerability
we are most human.

That we can always respond to violence
with violence or with peace.

That violence begets violence.

That in danger, chaos and trauma
we can choose to come together.

That you always have a choice
to contribute to the world’s hurt
or its healing.

That we are one.

That entering into the world’s suffering
is divine.

That the world is not ending yet.

How beautiful it is
when we care for each other.

         

         
         
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.

         
Yes, God is mysterious as fog,
but please, don’t give me that stuff
about God playing hard to get.
She is so into you
I can’t believe you don’t see it.
She’s flagrant about it.
She writes you the steamiest letters
in the colors of sky and leaf,
in stone and sea and child,
her hands are all over you,
she has moves that—admit it—
make you blush.
He’s in your dreams,
whispers to you when you aren’t listening.
You think those scriptures are some dry text
but it’s him, fawning all over you,
saying your name.
She wears the most revealing outfits,
struts her stuff, begs for attention.
They’ve always been like that.
Going on singles cruises,
trolling the skankiest bars in town,
hoping for luck.
She has no shame, no holding back.
I’d take her aside and talk to her
about decorum and such,
but golly,
I can’t even get in the same room with her
without her climbing all over me.
She’s yours, mate.

Yeah, it’s a little wild. Razor’s edge.
I get why you pull back.
But listen.
Secretly, so in the dark you don’t even know,
it’s your own heart that’s flirting
with everything that moves.
She’s the one
who’s holding you quietly, calmly, murmuring,
“Easy. Easy. I’m right here.
You’ve got me. It’s OK.”

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 unfoldinglight (at) gmail.com.

Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.                    Having a hundred sheep and losing one,          you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness          and go after the one that is lost until you find it.          When you’ve found it you lay it on your shoulders          and rejoice.                   —Luke 15.4-5

You must leave a lot behind for your life to become whole.

What the Beloved lets go of to have you!

If there were a hell God would always be there carrying people out.

There is a flock that is not well without you.

When you think you’ve run away, proud of your independence, you’re really just lost. You need each other.

All of life is God’s party at having found you. Or maybe, today, another.

Don’t be ashamed to be brought in on the shepherd’s shoulders: you got lost in the best possible way, looking for God.           Remember each of the other ninety-nine came the same way.                      

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.                    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?                   —Luke 15.8

In the dark must, the dingy back alleys, under things, in dust, She is looking for you. She knows where to find you, even in the waste and scum of the city of all your plans gone bad, in the tumbled, shattered desert of your loneliness and exile, in the tangles and brambles of your shame, among the slot machines of your distractions, in the dense fog of your not even looking she knows where you are.           You are not some dull penny for spending. You are her dowry, her treasure. You are worth your worth, and she will not give up on you. Always she is looking, always she is finding. The light you walk by is her lamp.

When, unthinking, an unsayable joy enters your heart it is her, having found 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                   

                   Come to me, all you that are weary                   and are carrying heavy burdens,          and I will give you rest.          Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;                   for I am gentle and humble in heart,          and you will find rest for your souls.                   For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.                            —Matthew 11.28-30

For those who labor, God, grant rest. For those without work, grace. For those too privileged to work, humility. For those who do forced labor, liberation.

God of mercy, give us the gift of gratitude for those who contribute for our sake, who by their hands have built our world. God of justice, keep us mindful of those who sew our clothes, pick our fruit, bear away our trash, clean our rooms for us. Keep our faith honest, that we may labor for justice for those who labor for us.

Give us what work we best may do with our hands or our hearts, for the sake of your Empire of Grace, and grant us the Spirit to do it.

We pray to you, Holy One who labors each moment to give us life.

__________________ 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