Author: Steve

                  
We pray for exiles and refugees;
for those who have been displaced by war,
poverty, discrimination, poison or violence;
for those who have fled their homelands
for safety, for work, for hope,
for those who have been taken from their homes
into slavery.
We pray with them and join in their song.

         By the rivers of Babylon—
                  there we sat down and there we wept
                  when we remembered Zion.
         On the willows there
                  we hung up our harps.

We pray for all oppressors,
that their eyes may be opened,
that their hearts be changed,
that they find their own true, deepest longings for life.
We pray for them and plead for their conversion.

         For there our captors
                  asked us for songs,
         and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
                  “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

We lament the families that are broken,
the cultures that are destroyed,
the traditions that are lost,
the voices that are silenced.
We weep with them and join in their song.

         How could we sing the Lord’s song
                  in a foreign land?
         If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
                  let my right hand wither!
         Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
                  if I do not remember you,
                  if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

We join in their grief.
We honor their terror.
We accept their anger.
We lift their cry.
We stand with them and join in their song.

         Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
                  the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
         how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
                  Down to its foundations!”

We pray for the end to all violence
and the end to all the offspring of injustice,
that evil itself be demolished
and its spawn eliminated,
that every human heart be free of fear.
We rage with all victims of injustice
and join in their song.

         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!

We pray for exiles and refugees.
We are among them:
for until our sisters and brother are restored,
our home is not whole or safe.
We pray with them, and join in their silence.

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Among darkening mountains
sending roots down
into your despair
         
only a small thing in your hand
a rowboat among battleships
a soft song shredded by wind
         
What equals the wheelbarrow
before you full of laundry
or papers or stained bed sheets?
         
How does the bird find her way
to the Patagonian plains
or the salmon up the impossible stream?
         
What raises the oak?
What fills the moon so full? The sea?
Close your eyes and look around
         
the fingerprinted clay molded into you
along the bones of your years
the decaying soil of your will
         
beneath your continent
something shimmers
nothing more than a word
         
drawn up like a tide, a forest
a song sung by generations in harmony
a root that cracks the mountains
         
not the least bit anonymous
someone holds you close
in this umbilical world
         
a warmth is given
a rain falls on something
no greater than a mustard seed

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

         
My dog lives in eternal prelude
to something glorious,
each moment a resurrection.
Whenever I get up from a chair he is sure
something great is about to happen.
The wings of his ears fly toward the smallest sound.
The click of the back door opening gets him panting,
his ears pointy. The doorbell or a car in the driveway
is occasion for eager frenzy.
The rattle of dog food pouring into a plastic dish,
the leash slipping off its hook, or the word “out,”
are springs of an ecstasy already granted.
Whenever I stand before my closet I might be
changing clothes. Surely those are running duds.
He sniffs every piece prayerfully.
Despite how often he is wrong, he is sure.
At dinner time in the basement he clatters
ahead of me to the bottom of the steps, turns around
and dances—dances, I tell you—leaping straight up,
David dancing before the ark—
elegant, righteous leaps, outbursts of hope
in holy celebration of the feast to come.
When he wants something—food, or going out—
even his longing is robust and confident,
trusting in things unseen, believing in me,
praying as if he has already received it, as if
even before your wishes are granted joy is possible.
What higher, troubled thinking might I shed,
what regret or calculating quit,
to attain this purity of hope?
Outside, for no worldly reason, suddenly
he drops his hips and fires off in a rocket run,
doing joy circles, for-the-love-of-it laps,
rhythmic explosions in his hind quarters,
ears a-wag, tongue a-flap, tail asunder,
outgunning all possibility of despair.
He rounds the field and heads back toward me;
his ears streaming flags, his tongue a scarf,
eyes shining with the glee that this moment—
this—
he has never done before in his life
and it’s his favorite part.

         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

         

                 
         

If you totally trust God,
          you’re already in heaven.
You’re inside God,
         and nobody can take you out.

God stands between you and what scares you,
         between you and all the dangers.
Like a mother bear,
         she’s got your back,
something serious.
         Don’t worry.
Spend no fear on the terrorist from afar
         or the cancer from within,
the fretting that wakes you in the night,
         or the bridge you know will collapse.

Yes, suffering closes in around you at times,
         and tragedy walks your neighborhood.
But this is not the title of your story,
         not your end.
Learn to see with clear eyes
         how love never loses.
When you live inside the Beloved,
         and the world is a house that is God,
evil can’t define you, can’t change you,
         can’t find you at all.

The Creator of the world fills it
         with those who bear her love to you.
They hold you in their invisible arms,
         they secretly catch you when you fall.

So stand up to what overpowers,
         don’t flinch from what scares you.
You will meet monsters, learn their names
         and tame them with love.

Love says, “Here. Come settle in my heart.
         Nothing can take you from me.
When your soul cries out, don’t worry—
         I’m already holding you.
In your worst trouble, I’m with you.
         I set you free. I honor you.
I give you the joy of life lived deeply.
         You will shine in me forever.”

         
         

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

We sit at our tables
things falling off
hungry
for the deep hunger we’ve lost
the one we were born with
for life, all of it, and earth,
and humanity,
all of it,
outside the gate.

We feed ourselves insatiably,
growing hungrier by the mouthful
tasting less
seeing, hearing less and less
lest we see through the gate,
lest we see Lazarus,
reclining in the gutter
of Abraham’s bosom,
lest we see all of this wide life
in his tear-drained eyes,
lest we see this terror
that we’re dying of hunger.

Safe in our torment
on this side of the great chasm
we still long for a drop of heaven’s water.
Hungering for compassion, we have none.
Starving to live life, we don’t.

O soul, in your familiar flames,
heaven is right here.
Go through the gate.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Summer’s turned her face toward
the way she’ll go, but hasn’t yet.
It’s I who turn, before the trees,
to thoughts of losses and regret.
But she reminds me, in the way
she offers up this gift, to let
the light move without effort, dread,
remorse or clinging through the leaves
(that are not dead today) and so
to move, attend, and still believe
this is a summer day—this day—
that I can cherish and receive,
each moment given, full
of that one moment’s miracle.

________________________

Weather Report

Expect today today.
Tomorrow may form upwind of us
but it will remain consistently today
all day. Conditions will remain steady
and prevail into tomorrow.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

As you sit in prayer
and try to remain mindful of God,
failing because your thoughts wander,
remember this:
that God is perfectly mindful of you always,
attentive to your being and your doing,
never straying from your heart,
not missing a single breath,
or forgetting a single heartbeat.
God is never distracted, never forgets.
Without neglecting anything else in Creation,
for all of Creation is present in God,
God is fully present to you,
seeing not from afar but from within
your journeys, thoughts and feelings,
holding tenderly your sins and wounds,
delighting in your gifts and beauties,
fully aware of what you yourself
only dimly suspect deep within you.
God is in all that you see, and in your seeing,
in what you hear, and in your hearing,
in your wondering, in your sorrow, in your awe.
God is grateful for you, and delights in you.
God longs in you, grieves in you, exults in you.
God’s gives full, peaceful, loving attention to you
all your day and all through the night,
not controlling or manipulating,
just beholding, blessing, loving
and breathing life into you,
powerful, joyful, beautiful, infinite life,
granting you mindfulness
and mindful always of you.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
       

  
         Psalm 4

O Love, you believe so surely in me!
         You hear my soul, my silences.
When I have been hemmed in,
         you have set me free.
Hold me in your smiling gaze and hear,
         what I haven’t spoken even to myself.

How long will I lose myself
         in other people’s lies and delusions?
Holy One, I trust that you gather all to yourself;
         gather me now, gently.

When troubles disturb the pond’s surface,
         the depths need not stir.
I will not find peace or truth in worry
         but in silence.
Love, I trust in you;
         Holy One, I offer myself to you.

Some clamor for obvious signs,
         for God’s face to look like their wishes.
But it couldn’t be any clearer:
         your joy that blossoms in my heart
is more real than all their successes.
         Your face is my sun.

I can relax. I can even lie down.
         I can close my eyes in peace and sleep.
O Devoted Presence, you alone
         let me release myself into you.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
“There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property….” Jesus tells this story (Luke 16.1-13) in which the manager, about to be fired, continues to squander his master’s property, reducing all the man’s accounts receivable. But the master ends up praising the dishonest manager! Weird, huh?

People have have a hard time making sense of what lesson we are to take from this tale. But what if it’s not a lesson, but a snapshot? I imagine that God is the one who is “rich” in love, and Christ is the ridiculously generous manager, and he is indeed squandering God’s love, forgiving God’s debtors, and losing capital for the sake of relationships. Jesus says you can’t serve two masters, and he himself chooses love over profit.

What if God is perfectly happy to be ripped off, and praises those who squander divine love? What if being unable to serve two masters (or purposes) applies to God, too—and God chooses forgiveness over getting what is “owed” to God? What if God prefers relationships over profit, and love over deserving? What if God finds it satisfying when we forgive debts, even—especially— debts that (we suppose) are owed to God? What if we were to emulate Jesus and convince people that they are not so ding dang indebted to God, but really just beloved? What if in fact God does not want people’s business, but their friendship?

It could get confusing. Like Jesus’ parable. We could find ourselves so tangled up trying to understand it all that our only hope is for the manager to come along and excuse us from having to get it. “Forget all that righteousness stuff,” he says, “or having to ‘get’ the parables or understand or even believe in God. Write it off. Just be sure and say ‘Thanks’ next time you see God.”

        
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

                  
Whatever hand or stream that bears this world,
whoever wove the nebulae of stars
and lungs and dreams, who gives such wonder flesh,

whoever draws the holy geese to flight,
whatever makes the trees to reach for light
and roots for hidden springs, and me for you,

whatever presence makes and breathes within
the weeping child, the child who looks and clings,
whatever makes her dance, or sing, or try,

whoever drums the silent march of hope
in those who persevere to overcome,
or give their tender hearts away in love,

who made this flesh to throb with life and light,
the fallen tree insistently to sprout,
the pond to reek and swell and chirp and thrive,

whatever wonder sparks this fire in us,
whatever grace conspires to set things free,
and grows our branching lives from common shoots,

who made the human heart—this heart—to throw
its rising, falling waves against the shore
of this slow-yielding, rough, but wondrous life,

whoever gave to me these tears and doubts
like gravity that pull me down toward
your unseen bosom, waiting, unfelt arms,

whoever is the mystery beyond
all things, within me, in whose beating heart
and breath in me I am within all things,

whoever made this soul to ache for you,
this burning soul that is not sure of you,
that, whelmed, devout, unknowing, dies for you,

Thou, whose only absence, out of all
imagined things, alone can break my heart:
Thou art the one, the one, I long to love—

yet do not find, or hold, or know, or sense.
Your voice and mine a perfect silence make.
What is this rising, then, in me toward you?

It is the only name I have for thee,
this cry, this open-handed leap of doubt,
thou mystery, whoever you may be.

So I will let my longing be your praise.
And I will let my yearning be your voice.
And I will let my wonder be your will.

And I will let your calling be my call,
the love that I did not conceive, yet bear,
your arms around me: love for you, for all.

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