Category: Reflections

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Today the wisdom I pray for
is no more than to pay attention,
the wisdom of unknowing,

to listen like the earth
listens to the rain,

to notice and attend
to the smallest bird of you,
the faintest whiff of you,

not to stare at the ground
but to look up,

to hear your silence
shining
in what is almost said,

hidden, almost,
in every one,

to be as open as a lover
to your presence.

____________________
Weather Report

Clearing,
though partly clouded,
as a calm air of attentiveness
burns through
the a mass of preoccupations
obscuring visibility.
Highs near wonder.

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

          Now when all the people were baptized,                  and when Jesus also had been baptized
                  and was praying,
         the heaven was opened,
                  and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
                  in bodily form like a dove.
         And a voice came from heaven,
                  “You are my Son, the Beloved;
                  with you I am well pleased.”
                           —Luke 3.21-22

Chosen One, Beloved,
born of the water of Creation,
the river of a woman,

immersed in God,
plunged in human being:
submerge yourself in me.

Healing river of Christ,
wash over me,
flow in me.

Life-giving breath of God,
wind of first Creation,
breathe in me.

Holy flame of Spirit,
fire of love and justice,
burn in me.

Opening of heaven,
dove of light,
voice of mercy, speak:

“You are my child.
You are my Beloved.
With you I am well pleased.”

Send me on your wind,
flow me as you river,
breathe me into the world,

to love mercy,
to do justice,
to walk humbly with you.

__________________
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.
         
         
After the glut of sparkle and sentiment,
all that heavy gold and glory,
it’s kind of a relief to return
to an orderly house, a clean mantle,
a blue and white shirt, the regular dishes.

The world is plain, snow is crusted,
trees more bare than in November.
The marsh like the underside of a carpet,
the cattails bland and spent.
The asphalt road has nothing to say,
the gray sky shrugs and says, “Ditto.”

God stands there,
hands in the pockets of a drab jacket,
gazing at the brook’s blank of ice,
says, “Yeah, I like to hang out here.
It’s relaxing. Clears my head.”

I come home to a quiet house,
refrigerator humming. This too is holy.
I sit on the couch, gaze out at the yard.
“Huh,” I say. “What do you know?
Pockets.”

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.
         
         
I suppose it would have been no different
had I followed a star with kings or philosophers,
consulted the heavens and the emperor.

I would have finally found an ordinary house
in a little hill town with a kid and his mom.
I still would have paused and wondered

if this were really the One, but then
not by the star overhead but the light within
wouldn’t I have known anyway?

So it was that I saw her, maybe forty something,
in the third aisle, comparing red and kidney beans,
no star above us but the cluttered grocery ceiling,

but the heavenly eye in me suddenly awakened,
the treasure chest in my chest slid open
by no wisdom of my own, and I saw, I saw

the Near One, the Beloved, the Shepherding Presence,
here, in this one, now, radiant and divine
in her perfect unknowing being,

God coming to flesh in unmistakable anonymity,
as only God always does, indivisibly near,
in the holiness of the real her of her, and of all of us,

how hidden in the heart of things,
how invisible and fleeting the light,
how dependable.

And without any more sure sign than that
I was changed, in numinous company,
and I went home by another road.

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