Category: Reflections

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         There were many lepers in Israel
                  in the time of the prophet Elisha,
         and none of them was cleansed
                  except Naaman the Syrian.
                  —Luke 4.27

The urge toward “us” and “them” is instinctive, as old as the split between neanderthals and homo sapiens. Religion is especially apt to be twisted into systems of privilege and exclusion. Such bias is built into our cultural, economic and political systems at the deepest level. Border walls, gated neighborhoods, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, voting rights, the idea of race or sexual identity, Indian Reservations, redlining, Jim Crow, nationalism, mass incerceration and so on— serve no purpose other than to define “us” and “them.”

But God has no favorites—or rather, there’s no one who isn’t God’s favorite. Jesus spends his ministry confronting systems of exclusion, bearing God’s grace especially to those who are systematically excluded by human injustice. “God is just as likely,” he says, “to choose a Syrian as an Israelite, because God includes everyone.” This enrages his privileged hearers: they try to throw him over the cliff. It doesn’t surprise him. Insiders are always threatened when you try to expand the circle.

There are always people who fall through the cracks. But the cracks are not there by accident. We who walk humbly with God are to love mercy and also to do justice: to reach out to those who fall through the cracks and also to fix the damn cracks. That will be hard for people who like the cracks that way.

Notice how privilege affects you and those around you— privilege granted some and not others because some are white or male, middle class, good looking, straight, healthy and so on. You can’t disavow your privilege; it’s given to you. But you can use it to confront and dismantle systems of exclusion.

What you do will likely anger someone. Reconciliation usually begins with the pain of seeing the truth. Trust the deeper process. Today be aware of your privilege and how you use it for the sake of God’s special love for those whom we leave out. After all, you, who do not “deserve” it, have been given infinite love and forgiveness and inclusion in God’s household. How can you not pass it on? Trust that even the pain is part of the healing.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
A mighty storm hit the mid Atlantic coast,
a blizzard in the wrong place.
Forty inches of snow in West Virginia,
and hardly anything up here in New England.
We have the road crews, the snow shovels—
but they got the snow.

                  •

We are small in this world,
and it is not in our hands.
Our plans are driven snow.

                  •

More than the way is is supposed to be
is the way it is.

                  •

We are invaded from beyond
by troubles, sickness, anxiety, grief,
but in the house, even without heat,
we flower into being.

We are not the weather we live in.
Even shame and despair will pass.

                  •

In the inner rooms
we sit with the great I AM,
who always comes from within.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

         
         
Great Spirit,
I am your vessel;
your Breath is flowing through me.

I am the hand;
you are the nerve,
you are the poem.

In my prayer I am your vessel.
As I rise and serve the world
I am your vessel,

as I talk on the phone,
eat my lunch, grateful for its taste,
bend over my shoes,

as I stand against evil,
embrace the outcast,
honor the cashier,

smile gently at a stranger,
pray for light and peace,
close the refrigerator door,

you see through my eyes,
you breathe compassion through me,
you create a world through me.

I become the flesh of your love,
the tissue of your desire,
the speaking of your Word.

Great Spirit,
your Breath flowing through me,
I am your vessel.

+

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.
                  —1 Corinthians 12.13

There is one atmosphere on this planet,
one air that we all breathe.
It is in me and you and our neighbor
and the stranger,
in the saint and the terrorist.
It is the whoosh of the whale’s breath
and the little puffs of cloud
of the song of the wolf.
It is the breath of God.
You may take it into yourself
but it is part of the One Breath we all share.

There is one life in us all.
In the one Spirit
we are all fingers of the same hand.

The love that gives us life
is the love that joins us to each other.
There is no other life.
There is no other wholeness.
When you love your neighbor,
when you love your enemy,
you return to your own,
you enter your wholeness.

There is only One Breath.
Return to it, and be made whole again.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         The body does not consist of one member but of many.
         The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.”
                  —1 Corinthians 12.14, 21

         
                           I

God has so ordered the symphony
that all the different notes are indispensable.
Your gift may be a note of the melody,
shouted out by the trumpets
or it may be the harmony from the third violins,
subtle but changing everything,
or the oboe quietly offering a countermelody.
Each is part of the song.

                           II

God is about healing, not wounding,
creating, not destroying.
Life for the body is its members joined,
not severed, not judged bad and good.
The healing of the world
is the mending of its tissues,
the weaving together of its peoples,
all of us.

                           III

The energy of the Spirit is harmony,
the togethering of different members.
The energy of judging and dividing
is the energy of evil.
The Spirit’s loving energy is more powerful
than fear and separation.
All the gifts you have been given
are for the sake of the healing of the world.
Even the smallest gifts are mighty.

                           IV

Everything belongs.
Your prayers, your conversations,
your riding a bicycle or a subway,
all are part of the symphony.
Religions are like that.
The observance of Torah,
the path to enlightenment,
keeping kosher, the hajj, the rosary, the fast,
the praise song, the compassion meditation,
each is a different gift,
but no less a part of the body.
Belong, and be at peace.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

         

         In recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Dear heart, stop and wait
at the street corner where the lie is told
until you hear, and know.

The society in my head won’t believe,
so it will take time to see through
the intentional fog

who I allow to be human
and who I exclude: black, white,
gay, straight, on and on,

how I wear the mask of normalcy,
but make them bear it for me,
and how deeply in their body.

And then, seeing, heart,
pray for courage to speak
because not to speak is the lie.

Silence is our shackle,
and truth telling the key,
one lock at a time.

The lie is in all of us
but when one starts telling the truth
all of us can begin to get free.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
                  —1 Corinthians 12.4

To one God has given the gift of good humor,
to another the gift of resilience, to another courage,
to another the appreciation of beauty,
to another truth-telling, to another soft-heartedness,
to another the ache for justice,
to another quiet presence, to another exuberance.

What gifts live in you? What passions and callings,
what energies consistently rise up in you,
leave people blessed in your wake,
lean toward the healing of the world around you?
They may seem small, odd or ordinary,
but they are the bricks with which God builds
the Realm of Joy and Justice.

God gives to each of us gifts of God’s choosing.
What gifts does the Spirit of love activate in you?
Name them, give thanks, and devote them this day
to the Great Work of the mending of the world.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
                  and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
         but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
                  and your land Married;
         for the Beloved delights in you,
                  and your land shall be married.
         For as a young man marries a young woman,
                  so shall your builder marry you,
         and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
                  so shall your God rejoice over you.
                           —Isaiah 62.4-5

We say of those who are difficult
that you have to love them
but you don’t have to like them.

But God actually likes you.
The Holy One is delighted with you,
the Source of your life takes pleasure in you.

God is not a Patron but a Lover.
You give God joy simply by being you.
You can do nothing to change this.

Your Heavenly Lover stays with you,
because she wants to,
pursues you because she desires you.

Today how might you direct your steps
to be most open to share God’s joy,
to let the Passionate One dance with you?

.
.
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

         
         
Beloved,
you make the water of my life into wine,
my ordinary into your holy.

You request miracles of me
the moment before I know I’m ready.

What was for purification of uncleanness
you make into celebration of beauty.

You change my despair to gratitude
in secret, my dark certainty to wonder.

You make this life into a wedding feast,
my faithful marriage to the Holy One.

Always you turn piety into a party.
And always the best is yet to come.

This wine is not for discussion.
It’s to drink. It’s good. It’s really good.

Let’s dance.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

         
         
Even on a perfectly still morning,
nothing moving,
trees frozen into the ground,
sky frozen to itself,
still, (how is this?)
here you are,
burgeoning into being,
the roaring sun
silent between the trees,
(everyone I meet, your blossoming!)
what is only just becoming
humming in becoming,
(the more still I am
the more vibrant it is)
everything thrumming with you
and the silence of your delight,
your anticipation
of what even you,
even now,
are just discovering,
—oh look!—
just becoming.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com