Author: Steve

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

There was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. A widow kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”
          — Luke 18. 2-5

We have to confess: sometimes we judge; sometimes we neither honor God nor respect people. And God comes to us again and again, pleading for justice. All too often we refuse. But give thanks that God is continually coming, wearing us down with her grace.

God does not speak to us in thundering tones, through authoritative powers with clarion voices. God speaks in the quiet murmurs in our hearts, in gentle nudgings and nagging questions. While our imperious, judging egoistic mind is busy with its business, God speaks in subtle, unflagging leanings of our hearts, the widowed voices within us. And God speaks in the voice of the poor and dispossessed, the vulnerable and powerless, in the silence of those who have no voice. She wears us down with the truth, with slight but persistent invitations to pay attention to what is within us and around us, calling us to love, to justice, to courage.

Prayer is not our attempt to get God to pay attention; it is the attention we give to God. We are by nature hard of hearing toward God’s entreaties. So it takes time. We have to keep praying, keep listening. God’s Word calls us to love radically. It is often outside the range of our expectations or even our initial acceptance, so it takes courage to listen. We have to not lose heart. (“Will the Human One come and find faith on earth?”)

Be still and listen for the patient widow’s knock on your door. Listen for her voice. What might God be inviting you toward? How might God be seeking your attention? How is God coming to you now? Listen and wait; pray always and do not lose heart.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Ten lepers approached him…. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice…. Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?…” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
         — From Luke 17. 11-19

What constituted that man’s faith was gratitude. He didn’t believe anything other than what the others did. What distinguished him was his gratitude for what he had received. It was his gratitude that made him whole.

Gratitude is the heart of faith. Whatever we call “faith” that is not rooted in gratitude is really just an attempt to manipulate God.

Gratitude is not something you always feel. It is something you practice. Today, practice gratitude.

If all you do is live a life that says, “Thank you,” it will be a life well lived.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

If we have died with him
         we will also live with him.
                  — 2 Timothy 2.11

Give it all away:
your stuff, your blessings,
your good will, your love,
goodness yes, your love.
Give away yourself.
Give away your best things,
your favorite things.
Don’t hold back.
Pour it on, dump it out,
throw it all into people’s laps.
Let everything good
flow like a spring from you, a river,
all of it—though it multiplies
as you surrender it.
Spend it, lose it, neglect it, waste it—
waste it on the least deserving,
the least understanding, the least aware.
Don’t calculate, as if you have to budget.
Ridiculously extravagant, fearlessly,
recklessly, giddily generous,
mindlessly raid your own savings of grace
and abandon it to your neighbors—
all your stuff, and God’s as well,
until you have given away
the crumbs of your love,
your pictures, your house, your floor,
the ground beneath you,
everything,
even your life

until there is nothing left
but God,

and you will be really alive.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Gentle One,

I am battered.
I am tired.
Something in me deep is weary.
         Hold me.

I’m tired of swinging this oar
against the ceaseless waves
against these strong arms
that pound me drown me
pushing against what pushes against
keeping up defending
getting everything done.—
         Don’t make me have to survive.
         Relieve me.

Take this uniform, this costume,
this suit of adequacy. Take it away.
Take this life, another’s invention,
this skin I hardly fit into.
Strip me of all that,
till there is only myself,
naked and helpless and beloved
         lying in your hand.

Let me be you, asleep in the boat;
         let the storm go on on its own.

In the back of the boat,
hold me, rocking, rocking,
maybe even sing a little.
         Let me lie here and listen.

         Myself, I’ll lie here and listen.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

We loaded 47,650 pounds of pumpkins off the truck yesterday. Our church will sell them through October to raise funds for missions. I ended the day tired, sore and happy. My knees in particular went to bed with a keen memory of the work.

Work it was, picking up and passing (or tossing) 2,656 pumpkins down the line, out of the truck and into the church yard. Some weighed as much as 40 pounds. Deep in the bowels of the semi trailer, it was dark, dusty and sweaty. Pumpkins were tumbling down from the pile, flying through the air, swinging down the line. And in that labor there was joy. There was laughter. Had we not been grunting so much there could have been more singing. (There was a brief chorus of “47,000 pounds of pumpkins on the truck.”) There was a sense that we were passing more than fruit from hand to hand. (Yes, pumpkins are fruit.) And in the end there was the satisfaction of a job well done.

For a few hours we joined in the song of laborers, the dance of mind and muscle. We joined all those whose labor is their lives and their prayer: stevedores unloading ships; ranch hands bucking hay; trash collectors heaving out our garbage; bellhops carrying luggage; stonemasons hauling bricks; fruit pickers, fishermen, roofers and miners. And for a moment we also joined those for whom labor is not a joy but an oppressive burden, those who harvest our chocolate or sew our shirts or dig for our diamonds, whose labor is dangerous, and done under duress. I give thanks for all their labors, and lift them up as offerings to God.

Sometimes our prayers are wordy things; sometimes they are silent thoughts. But sometimes our prayer is labor, our shoulders put to the weight of the world, our hands laid upon the rough and the smooth, our backs familiar with the heft of life.

Give thanks for all that you can do. Give thanks for the strength of your flesh. Give thanks for the simple jobs in which you can praise God, serve your neighbors, and make the world a little more beautiful. And when you’re done, don’t forget to say “Amen.”

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Autumn colors have an edge.
Shards of red and orange crackle
through the cracks and splintered ends
of summer’s gentle arc.
Behind the green and murmuring veil of bliss
death speckles every leaf and bark,
and colors spark and hiss.
Leaves turn the shade of blood,
the shade of bread, then die;
they bleed and wash the trees
with broken colors,
shadows radiant and bright,
‘till all is gathered and dispersed,
‘till all is white.
Death’s season; passion’s colors:
these hues are loose,
and not at our command,
but still not unforgiving:
undomesticated shades
only at the edges of our living.
Faith is such a luminous surrender:
the red transfiguration of the tree,
celebrant with unexpected brightness
pouring life, unshackled, to the wind.
Listen at the garden’s edge, dear child
of life and death, to this rustling oracle:
that what we call a miracle
is often simply wild.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.                     Rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.          — 2 Timothy 1. 6-7

At your conception God laid a creating hand on you and brought a gift of power and love into this world. At your birth your mother wrapped her strong hands around you and God’s gift in you sparkled in the light: the gift of being who you are, of letting your beauty blossom naturally, of belonging among us. At your baptism somebody laid a gentle hand on you; some human touch connected your heart with another, which was connected to all others. That hand touched God’s gift in you, the gift of the Spirit, the power to radiate God.

Since then much has threatened to bury that gift, to quench the flame. But take courage. Christ continually comes to rekindle the gift. There can be no more serious question for you than this: What do you need to do to rekindle the fire of God within you? Do it. And don’t finish answering too quickly. Keep listening.

Discipline yourself to care for your spirit of love and power so that in your own way you can abandon all cowardice and radiate God.

                    Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve

______________________ Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
         — 2 Timothy 1. 6-7

At your conception God laid a creating hand on you and brought a gift of power and love into this world. At your birth your mother wrapped her strong hands around you and God’s gift in you sparkled in the light: the gift of being who you are, of letting your beauty blossom naturally, of belonging among us. At your baptism somebody laid a gentle hand on you; some human touch connected your heart with another, which was connected to all others. That hand touched God’s gift in you, the gift of the Spirit, the power to radiate God.

Since then much has threatened to bury that gift, to quench the flame. But take courage. Christ continually comes to rekindle the gift. There can be no more serious question for you than this: What do you need to do to rekindle the fire of God within you? Do it. And don’t finish answering too quickly. Keep listening.

Discipline yourself to care for your spirit of love and power so that in your own way you can abandon all cowardice and radiate God.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
        

Don’t seek divine union,
not yet. That’s a lot to ask for.
Don’t seek wisdom or deep faith.
They take a long time to grow.
Don’t bother with feeling God’s presence.
Feelings are slippery things.
And to know the will of God,
well, that’s ridiculous.

Simply want this:
to be free with God.

The blackbird cries raucously,
lifts from the dead branch
and swoops over the driveway.
And the sky,
the blue and white sky
loves it.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

________________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

         O daughter Babylon, you devastator!                  Happy shall they be who pay you back
                  what you have done to us!
         Happy shall they be who take your little ones
                  and dash them against the rock!
                            — Psalm 137. 8-9
         

Many people feel uncomfortable with the Psalms that that pray for deliverance from and even violence toward our “enemies.” We often skip over those parts, both in public worship and private devotions. Here are some reasons not to.

1. The Psalms are not all about how we ought to feel or what we wish we believed.  They’re about who we really are.  And we do have angry thoughts & feelings that we need to honestly confess. Sometimes those Psalms express our secret anger. Expressing those feelings doesn’t mean we give our hearts to them; in fact usually saying those things out loud names what we renounce, and leaves us with an uncomfortable feeling: a deep need to repent right now.  These Psalms bring us to confession.
 
2.  Our “enemies” are not necessarily other people. I do not consider anybody my enemy, even some deluded terrorist who’d like to blow me up.  My real enemies are my fear, my hunger for approval, my desire for power & control, and so on.  And I do indeed dislike those enemies, and I wish God would destroy them.  To my anger or my self-centeredness I say, “Happy shall be they who take your spawn and dash them against the rock.” Sometimes I need to say that out loud—in the company of a community who can offer forgiveness, transformation and hope.
 
3.  The Psalms are not our personal Hallmark cards to God.  They are the cry to God of humanity as a whole.  The Psalms voice not only our own feelings, but also the cry for justice of all who are oppressed.  If these Psalms are more visceral and vengeful than we’re comfortable with that’s because they’re not our cry: they’re their cry of the oppressed against injustice. They were written by real people suffering real evil. In praying these Psalms we take their anguish seriously, we stand in solidarity with them and we lift up their prayer, even if it’s not how we would say it.

4. Although we do not wish personal harm to come to the perpetrators of injustice, we do oppose their evil, and we lament its fruits. The “enemies” in these Psalm are not necessarily individuals. “Babylon” is not a person; it’s a nation, a corporation, a system, a cultural mindset. We don’t pray for the destruction of people, but we do cry out for the destruction of what an unjust system generates, its “little ones.” Of course by our complicity we ourselves are also enemies of justice—which brings us back to the first two points about confession.

The Psalms, with all their reverence, anguish, joy, gentleness, sorrow, rage and hope help us embrace our whole experience, worship with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and stand in solidarity with the whole human family and all Creation.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net