Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
God raised Christ from the dead
and seated Christ at God’s right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.
—Ephesians 1.20-21
Tradition claims the Prince of Love
is ruler of the universe,
that forgiveness is above every power,
that grace overwhelms every dominion.
Skeptics demur. But what else sustains,
what else is worth it?
What but love bore Christ along,
and fueled his touch, his speech,
his dying breath? And what but grace
could make and use his rising?
If you’ve a better god, choose boldly.
Make sure it’s big enough for your whole life,
worth ruling you like your death.
In this world of seas and stars,
of music and the intricacies of your flesh,
of sundogs and tree frogs and memory,
of tragedy and the way its children survive,
even chaos is a feeble, flimsy thing,
and selfishness a bridge to nowhere.
I’ve seen sixty-one years
of a crazy world and all its wonders,
my dying and rebirth, forgiveness,
and what holds me in the wind.
The little candle in the darkness was love,
the strength that bore me was love,
my only failures a failure to love.
It’s the warp my life is woofed upon,
the only sense that everything makes,
the only reason that everything is.
You can have your randomness;
the old mosaics have it right:
even in the storm of chaos, the roar of evil,
love is the Lord of heaven and earth,
its teacher my sovereign, my truth.
It’s the little swaying bridge I’ll take
over the foaming, thundering chasm.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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