Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
God says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”
See, now is the acceptable time.
Look!— now is the day of salvation!
—2 Corinthians 6.2
Your salvation is not a possibility, but a reality,
not a reward but a gift,
not a final chapter after you die but the essence of your life,
not some happy ending when everything looks dire
but every moment’s worthiness, and yours.
It’s not that you’ve escaped your sentence
but that there is no condemnation.
It’s not that you are good enough, but that you are beloved,
no that you have attained some state or other,
but that the Holy One is perfectly happy with you.
Your salvation is that that’s all you need.
You are saved from your own self-definition
because God includes you.
Your salvation is the belonging that makes your life essential
no matter how it turns out;
it’s God’s regard that saves the deluded
from their self-importance and their self-unimportance,
the presence that saves the depressed
from being measured by their despair,
the deep peace that saves the enraged
from their self-consuming bitterness.
It’s the reverence that saves the doubting
from having to prove themselves,
and the prideful from thinking they could.
It’s the love that enfolds the wasted and deranged
and despotic in their various hells,
and you the same.
It’s the gutsy love of the One
for whom your every moment is precious,
the deep-throated cry of desire and delight
that makes even your failures and desolations a gift.
It is the Living One breathing in you,
right now, this breath.
It is the attentiveness of the Listening One hovering,
the ear just inches from you, ready for your whisper.
It is the outpouring presence of the Faithful Mystery
who loves you like a mother watching her sleeping child,
loving him no matter what he dreams,
no matter what.
This moment, from all that diminishes life,
by her loving presence,
you are being saved.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net