Author: Steve

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
The woods this morning didn’t look any different from autumn: trees bare, grass brown, dead leaves on muddy ground. But spring is happening. The woods were thick with bird song. I saw the beaver who hides in the brook. I came upon a little marsh where some little critter was singing away, a single frog proclaiming its news. Others joined in, in a great chorus of peeping and screeching. I couldn’t see any of them. I stood there a long time and looked, but I couldn’t find one. I came nearer—and of course they all stopped. They knew I was there. And though I could not see them, I knew they were there.

Most of what goes on in this world is unseen. Planets orbit, flocks migrate, cells and organs work in the darkness. And love does its work. Skeptics look for proof of God, as if God were Bigfoot, as if The Holy One were any more provable than love or humor, as if paparazzi could somehow catch Spirit taking out the trash. No, God is The Unseen One. The closer we come the more there is only mystery. Fools never realize that when we stop knowing and can only wonder, we are seeing God.

We learn to tune our hearts to the invisible, to see with our souls, not just our eyes, to know that we live in a world and in the company of a Presence whose power and grace so far exceeds our capacity to know or see or understand that all we can do is wonder and trust. The world sings its song. God is at work. We come near, and listen with gratitude, and wonder and trust.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

“Never again,” we cry.
We wish.
We remember the six million,
we think the Nazis were cruel and crazy,
we think all that was so strange and faraway.
We look at the past, we look far off,
we look away.

That’s all it takes
for it to happen again.

We think ”them,”
not “us,” not “my people.”
We think, “Somebody else did that.”
We never think, “I’m part of that.”
But it happens all the time.

Jews, Gays, immigrants,
Palestinians, Indians, prisoners,
the infirm, the mentally ill,
victims of trafficking,
migrant workers, kid laborers,
the anonymous poor in Africa,
it doesn’t matter. If we can’t
think of them and say “us,”
we are doomed.
All it takes is the word “them”

to light the furnaces.

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

           “Blessed are those who have not seen,
         and yet have come to believe.”
                  —John 20.29

“On the third day he rose from the dead.”

I don’t have an idea what this means.
I have a trust, a gratitude, a courage,
but not an idea, an explanation.
Nobody got a picture.

Maybe Jesus suddenly took a breath,
sat up and walked out, squinting in the light
like a new-born baby.
Maybe God gave him a new resurrection body,
at first unrecognizable,
not earthly at all, but Something Else.
Maybe the Body of Christ is the community,
as Paul said. Maybe it was a heavenly vision,
a hallucination, a cover-up, a plot.
Or just warm fuzzy feelings.

I don’t know. What I know is this:
Before that day the disciples were fearful, ashamed,
broken, hiding and confused.
And afterward they were joyous, confident
and fearless, and gathered together
to proclaim what they had seen.
Somehow, the Living One met them
and called them out of old lives into new ones.
In whatever form he came, that is the Risen Christ.

Once I was broken, empty, ashamed
and without hope in the sham I called “myself.”
But a loving presence walked me into the darkness,
laid me down, made me over and brought me out.
Whatever that is, that Change, that Power—
that’s resurrection.

Whatever transforms you is resurrection.
Whatever mystery makes you let go of the old life
and makes you more loving, more joyful,
more hopeful, trusting and grateful,
is the power of God. It is all you need.
Whoever forgives you, whoever bears you over
is the risen Christ.
Stop trying to get an ID, to get a picture,
to explain, analyze, dissect it.
Let it be the wondrous mystery that it is.

Blessed are they who have not seen
and yet who have come to believe.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

 

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

.

.

.

You wake this morning
things look the same

but some kind of disturbance
behind you dark a thick net

an impossibility a trap sprung
now and harmless nothing so different

no drama but a not aloneness
a peace you can’t quite name

Things look the same but
what if this is how it looks

standing in the door of your tomb
looking out at the new life?

.
.
.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the people, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Loving One has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
         — John 20.19-23

Jesus did not return from the dead to make a point, or evoke belief. He came back to give the disciples his spirit. He breathed on them (breath and spirit being the same word in Greek) just as God breathed life into the dust of the earth at Creation and made a living human. Filling them with the Holy Spirit, he created them anew. This is John’s version of Pentecost.

In the grief and shame of confronting our sin, we get the wind knocked out of us. In God’s forgiveness our old spirit of fear and anxiety is blown away. Our old, tangled lives are wiped out and we begin fresh. God breathes a new peace into us, the peace of knowing we are loved and forgiven and free, the blessing of being deeply at peace with ourselves and God and the world. God creates us anew, with a new spirit.

It is God’s one spirit, the same spirit with which Jesus lived. Jesus tells us it is the powerful spirit of forgiveness. In his wounds he shows us it is the willingness to suffer for the sake of love. His peace is not mere “peace of mind;” it is the confident, courageous serenity that enables us to bear love into a hurtful world. By it we may cross all kinds of barriers, as if walking through walls. It isn’t anything we have to muster up; it is a gift. He breathes it into us.

And he sends us forth. You are sent in the same was he was, the very same way. Breathe deeply of the love of Christ. It is powerful enough to overcome death. It is in you. How will you live?

Peace be with you.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

         “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
         and put my finger in the mark of the nails
         and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
                  — John 20.25

Thomas, by brother, my teacher, my friend,
lend me your faith,
         the gift of your searching,
         your hunger for Jesus alone:
the faithfulness to seek the Living One,
         not just something somebody told you;
the love to touch the Suffering One,
         not some cheap dime-store Jesus
         who had a bad weekend but now he’s fine,
         but who deeply suffered for you,
         who has seen the inside of your grave;
the courage to face the Despised one,
         your shadow,
         who has borne your guilty shame,
         and all of ours;
the humility to seek the Forgiving One,
         who has not simply forgotten or overlooked
         your darkest rottenness,
         but blesses you with hands you tortured.
Thomas, give me your faith,
         to seek the living, bleeding Christ,
         not one untouched, unhurt, thus unforgiving.

Thomas, my elder, my guide— lend me your faith,
the goading shoe-stone of questioning
         that does not settle easily,
         that always wants more of God,
         that waits;
the fiery honesty that burns away
         all pride and pretense,
         all faith that’s merely laziness.

Dear faithful Thomas,
         you who bear our blame for “doubting,”
         no more than we, yet wounded by our epithet,
you, too, like Christ, have suffered for our sins,
         and in your grace redeem us.
Gentle Thomas, speak kindly to Christ of me,
         for, like you, I am only seeking Christ,
         restless for the Crucified and Risen One.
Amen.

 

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

God of life made new, made new,
         raise me up this day.
Easter morning, dawn in me;
         loving Christ, live, new, in me.
Light of new Creation,
         spread throughout my soul.
Confident morning of hope and faith,
         be my new and only world.

All that would entomb my love,
         all fear and pain, all doubt and shame
you have undone with love,
         and rolled the stone;
the light of love floods in.
         I am set free.
God of love, surpass all possibility;
         love be my only power, my deepest trust,
my courage to hope, to gently bless
         in the face of all evil and death.

My grave is open, by your grace:
         it is open to receive, but cannot hold.
Awaken me, this new-created day,
         O God of love, of life.
O anxious soul, still wrapped in death,
         come out. Walk free. Walk free.

.
.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Wait in this day of three days’ dark,
         a sabbath from knowing,

this forty hours’ wilderness, waiting
         without knowing we are waiting,

still, since nothing new is possible,
         sure of all we know, yet in the dark.

In dark all mysteries unfold:
         seeds grow, stars gleam, the sun

gathers itself to rise, roots touch,
         hearts beat, and love is made.

And in the still, dense dark great love
         says “Let light be.” The light shines

in the darkness, yes, this dark.
         The stone begins to roll away,

the light to rise, that we can’t see
         but only know.

.

.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
God is love; sin is denial of love:
denial of God’s love for us,
of our love for one another,
of love’s power over all other powers.
We deny the Lord, we say “I do not know you,”
when we substitute deserving or order,
efficiency or security for love.
Our denial of love can only lead us
to violence, to evil, to harm.
Ah, how we wound each other
trying to be Safe.

But in the face of our violence
the Gentle One comes to show us the way,
the way of love, the triumphant way of love.

His friends misunderstand him,
fail him, deny and betray him;
and he loves them,
and gives himself to them.

People accuse him and humiliate him,
assault and arrest him;
and he loves them, and heals them.

They judge him and condemn him,
attack him in a mob, beat him
and torture him to death;
and he loves them and forgives them.

He will not deny them love.
Nothing can overcome his love.
In the end their righteousness fails;
their evil and its power,
even death and its power
are swallowed up in his life-giving love.
This is resurrection.

He has already won the victory
and we are still fighting him.

We wrench ourselves away from God
and one another, but love still holds us anyway;
our rebellion comes to nothing.
Even our deepest evil is overcome,
and we are left helplessly, completely
and purely beloved.
In the end we are left with nothing at all
but love.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

         
         
         

Jesus, remember me
when you come into your kingdom.

When you gather your Beloved into your Realm,
the disgraced and ashamed,
the twisted and helpless,
         remember me.

When you pronounce your law,
“Blessed are the poor,
for the Empire is theirs,”
         remember me.

When you raise up the brokenhearted,
forgive the guilty, heal the broken
and redeem those who struggle and fail,
         remember me.

When you spread your mercy over the land,
and your grace conquers all evil,
your love reigns supreme
and violence, even mine, is conquered,
         remember me.

When you take your throne of suffering,
and accept your blood-jeweled crown,
when you marshal your troops
armed with self-emptying love,
         remember me.

When I must choose
between love and comfort,
         remember me.

Jesus, remember me
when you come into your kingdom.

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com