Category: Reflections

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
         Simon Peter answered him, ”Lord, to whom can we go?
         You have the words of eternal life.”
                  —John 6.67-68

Jesus has said too much. He does, sometimes. But it’s because he cares. Now they’re taken aback, bewildered, unsure. Again. But this isn’t a moment for the confident master to teach his befuddled neophytes. Jesus is the vulnerable one, needy and alone. He actually loves these people, and wants the whole of life for them. And he needs them. He needs their friendship, and their help. For a moment the awful possibility occurs to him that he might be all alone. He doesn’t want assent. He wants friendship. He may even be, as he rarely is, a little afraid. In his need and uncertainty and longing he is most human, and most like how God comes among us. He asks them, not as a clever teaching device, but in an earnest query, because he does not know. “Are you going to leave me?” Jesus is the unsure one.

And Peter is not. He blurts out as he usually does, “Where else can we go?” Peter, too, is hungry for life, searching for love and wisdom, waiting for the Lord. And he is certain in this, clear and confident in his quest and faithful to it above all others. Peter knows. “Where would we go? Who else makes things in us that are dead come alive?” The Peter who fearfully but willingly climbs out of the boat to walk on waves with his Lord, climbs out again. His tender longing is his great strength. It is what Jesus needs. In his yearning humanity, Peter also is most like how God comes among us.

The rest of us standing around realize how much our hunger for life and love and God and each other is worth to us, and to God. How much we need each other; how graced we are to be given one another. Blessed are they who are longing, they fulfill God’s longing.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

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write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         Put on the whole armor of God.
                  —Ephesians 6.11

God, give me grace
to allow you to be my only defense.
I ay aside my capacity, my wisdom, my faith.
I surrender my distractions and obsessions,
my being comfortable, my being right.
Strip me of any defensiveness, anger,
dishonesty or superiority I cling to.
Give me courage to let down whatever shields me
from being one soul with another.
Let me be unprotected against the truth,
against the pain of the world,
the griefs hidden in my soul,
the terror of the dark places,
the heart of the heart before me.
Let me be naked in the light
of being human and imperfect, of having a body.
Give me the power of powerlessness—
vulnerable, willing, sensitive and open.
Be my only shield, my only security.
Let love and truth keep me whole and alive,
your presence alone preserve me,
your delight alone be my weapon and my strength,
my fortress, my life.
God of Love, your light is my armor.

         
         
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 lone bird slips through the air.

You do not have to explain yourself.

The beating of your heart
is one with the vast, wordless song of the stars,
the great hum of the world.

Rivers murmur praise,
deserts and oceans chant their meditations,
cities recite their industrious psalms;
and in your cell, unheard, unknown,
the mystery of heaven unfurls
in your silence.

No one knows your place,
no one.
No one knows your precious belonging.
We can only believe,
or err.

The marigold by the roadside
never knows.
But it is true.

Your only work is to come to trust.

         
         
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.
         
         
                  
For a moment the curtain parted,
the radiant face unveiled,
the hands, pure light, caught still,
and in in a sweet moment of candor
the angel said—

“Oh, yes,
you do lay down that burden,
and here is freedom and light—
but still there is work to do,
and the weight of choosing love,
and though hearts are more woefully broken,
joy is so much more profound.
And we long, now and then, I confess,
for the taste of salt,
the smell of bread,
the feel of a hand on a cheek…”

—and then,
having said too much,
disappeared with a smile, lost in thought.

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.
         
         Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood
         of the Human One,
         you have no life in you.
                  —John 6.53

Enough of your flimsy, amputated opinions about me. Enough quarantined speculations and ginger adorations, holding up my picture with latex gloves. No more words. Let me pass through your lips the other way.

Eat me. Take me wholly and grossly into yourself. What else do you do with the bread of life, bronze it? Consume me. Get me inside you. Let it be physical. Chew on my words and deeds; swallow my insistent, inescapable presence. Eat me up. Savor the intense flavors of my trust and courage and compassion. Suck in the juices of my gratitude and passion, even the too-spicy ones. Roll my forgiveness around in your mouth and swallow it, all of it. Wash it down with my blood, my throbbing, living presence, the passion of my self-pouring. Have at me. I will become you.

Let my flesh become your flesh, your actual body. Let the nerves of my movements become part of you. Let the muscles of my love and honesty move you. Whatever I say and do, whoever I seem to be to you, take it in. Let my being seep into your thoughts, your organs. Consume me wholly. Let nothing remain of me that is not in you.

Stop worrying about how it looks. Rip free what you can get hold of, slice it if you can, and gnaw on it. Take all day. Like beloved friends at a wedding, eat and drink, toast and feast. Don’t just admire me. Take me inside you.

Don’t you see how God loves you? What mother hasn’t said to her child, “I love you so much I could eat 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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         

         God said, “Ask what I should give you.”
         And Solomon said, “Give your servant
         an understanding mind to govern your people,
         able to discern between good and evil;
         for who can govern this your great people?”
                  —1 Kings 3.5,9

“Ask what I should give you.”
God, you give me this power,
to name the request.
Grant me grace to ask wisely.

Give me wonder and gratitude
that you so humbly offer.

Give me a discerning mind to hear
what to ask of you.

I ask not for favors
but for wisdom: to listen.

The truth is neither mine nor yours
but emerges between us.

You ask. You listen. You wait.
I ask. I listen. I wait.

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.

Travel resolutely to the sea
until it offers truthfully
what signs can only promise:
a salt marsh, a little rise,
a bluff of grassy sand and then—
you are here, now.

•

Sitting by the ocean,
going nowhere,
breathing in its distances
I am as happy as the sea.

•

How slippery it is!
How easy to be elsewhere
solving problems
so far removed from what
the waves are teaching me.

•

Rank upon rank of
monks in blue and green robes
process toward me,
repeating the ancient chant,
and prostrate themselves at my feet.

•

A lone bird sits still,
gazes seaward, unmoving, then—
flaps, rises, begins.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

 

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

Bless this new day whatever it may bring.
Bless my body and my mind
and all in me that is unknown.
Bless these woods I walk in.
Bless the trees and all
who seek shade and shelter there.
Bless these little mushrooms,
bless this dear little yellow one.
Bless the birds that tarry here,
and all the places they travel.
May the ducks on the brook carry
blessing to their farthest journeys
and bless those ponds as well.
Bless this path and all who walk on it.
Bless this road and all who drive by.
Bless the commuter train as it passes,
and everyone inside, and their days,
and their workplaces and all who meet them,
so the blessing spreads throughout the city.
Bless these people I pass on the road.
Bless whoever is beyond the ringing phone.
Bless my co-workers, and the strangers who walk in.
May everyone who touches whatever I do,
even enemies, know blessing.
Bless you, giver of all this blessing.
Bless me, that I may be a fountain of blessing,
a light of grace, all this day.
And at its end may I bless this day,
whatever it has brought,
and let you bless me to sleep.

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.

Sometimes wondering
is the only way to know.

Sometimes letting go
is the only form of mastery.

Sometimes forgetfulness
is the only way to pray.

Sometime silence
is the only precise language.

Sometimes disappearing
is the only way to be here.

This is also true
for God.

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.

Returning from a couple weeks of vacation I know now I’m supposed to get back to work. I’m supposed to jump back into the busyness and noise and anxiety we call normal. But the sea still chants in my ears; the lake still holds me in its soft hands. The purpose of a vacation, or sabbath, or a lunch break, is not to gather steam for the next chore. It’s to be fully alive. This is the purpose of life, and attempting anything else harms us.

So I will return to this setting where I work, but I won’t speed up, get anxious and identify with my accomplishments. I will be fully present here, just as I was swimming in the ocean, feeling the dance of the waves. I will be as attentive as I was floating on the lake, listening to loons and watching the clouds. I will be as immersed in the holy amid phone calls and program planning as I was underwater in the lake in Maine. And at the end of the day I will quit and go home and be there, too.

Of course I will often lose focus and forget my purpose and start to identify with my work and try to be in two places at once, or try to be someone I’m not by doing something I “ought to.” So I will stop now and then to remember. I will come back to my prayer seat over and over to keep practicing. Whether I’m hither or yon, the point is to be here, fully and deeply present. After all, holiness is everywhere; the divine enfolds us every moment. All we have to do is go slow enough to pay attention.

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