Category: Reflections

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
      
         “Hosanna!
         Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
         Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
         Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
                  —Mark 11.9-10

“Hosanna!” “O, Save!”
Once a desperate cry for help,
became a confident cry of praise.
Because the One we cried to
did save. And will save.

And who is this who saves?
The Humble One, riding on a donkey,
the Loving One, pouring himself out
for us.

Even as our mouths cry out for triumph
and our hands grasp for power and glory,
they will not save us.
Our hearts know this,
even as they prepare to betray and deny:
only love will save us.

Hosanna!
O Love, you who save us
from all that we want,
to you alone
we give our hearts.

         
         
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.
      
         Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
                  Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
         Lo, your king comes to you;
                  triumphant and victorious is he,
         humble and riding on a donkey,
                  on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
                           —Zechariah 9.9

Here comes Palm Sunday.
We will wave our palm branches for Jesus,
our King, our Savior, riding on a….
really, a donkey?

Yes, in the tradition of the ancient prophets,
Jesus mocks our love of domination.
The ruler of the word comes riding a tricycle.
It’s not just a gesture. He means this.

He will mock our pompous judgments,
mock our unblinking trust in violence,
catch us taking ourselves so seriously.
He will not fall for our adulation.

He makes foolish our wisdom, overturns
power and sovereignty. Look how he turns
the world upside down and confused
and afraid we hang on, waving palms.

This is how he will be our king.
He will give away his last meal.
He will be humiliated, be wrong and and weak,
for our sake he will be what we hate the most.

Because he can.
Because he is greater than all that.
Because none of that matters.
He will show us how little it matters.

Ride a donkey through our pride.
Wash our fickle, kicking feet.
Die of our own embarrassment.
And count to three.

         
         
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

      
         Cast me not away from your presence,
         and take not your Spirit from me.
                  —Psalm 51.11

         I pray:
God, it is I who cast myself away.
Call to me.
Don’t be so quiet and patient with me;
I am dense. Shout.
Draw me with irresistible forces.
Bring me home
by means of earthquakes and strong winds.
Do not ask me to come home:
break my resistance. Capture me.
Pick me up like Dorothy in the tornado.
Overthrow me. Claim me.

I know you claim me and accept me and serve me.
The only question
is whether I will accept you, and serve you.
The hard thing about faith
is always questioning my own faithfulness.

         And you answer:
I will not force you.
You are already overwhelmed.
You are already home.

You are here.

Beloved, here.

         
         

__________________
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 who live temperate zones,
who haven’t lived through these months here
of cold, shoveling snow, shoveling more
snow, living in box canyons of snow,
under worried roofs, dripping walls,
chipping ice, walking stiff-kneed on ice,
dressing complicatedly for every sojourn,
the layers, the precautions, things matted,
frozen shut, the dark skies,
skies continually falling, dark,
if you haven’t looked out windows
trying to remember what a yard looks like,
trying to guess where the ground is,
longing for green, longing for smells,
longing to walk across grass, to be outside
and not hurt, longing for something
to be easy—do you know this yearning
for light, for warmth, for beauty, for release,
do you know this ache?

I believe you know it
with or without the metaphor in your yard.
It’s the ache for the new world,
for the old life to close its winter eye,
the ice grave to crack wide open,
for your true self to walk toward you
out of the darkness. It’s the ache
for freedom, the long, dark ache for Easter.

It’s not a bad thing
to live in the longing, with even grace
not merely laid at your feet yet,
not of your doing, but purely gift.
To know you are waiting,
and what you are hungry for.
And how deep is your longing.
And that it is coming.

Today is the first day of spring.
The forecast is for snow.

I am filled with hope.

         
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

A paraphrase

Be gentle with me, O God,
         hold me in your constant love.
With your abundant mercy
         free me from my sins.
Wash away the grime
         that covers your image in me.
I know I don’t live the life you give me;
         you know the difference.
My love is not perfect;
         this you see.

But you lead me to live in harmony
         with my inner truth,
to be transparent
         to your presence within me.

Purge me with your love,
         that I may be pure love.
Fill me,
         that I may be pure light.

Deep within me, in your light,
          I discover joy,
gratitude even for bones broken
         to be reset.
When you look at me you don’t see sins;
         you see love.

Create me all over again, O God;
         breathe your life-giving breath in me.
Hold me close
         and give me your loving spirit.
You are the joy that sustains me;
         you give me my willing heart.
O Beloved, when I open my lips,
         my mouth will sing praise, only praise.

I can’t offer a thing to please you,
         can’t determine your love for me.
What delights you is just me,
         this broken heart,
         this true, simple heart.
Use me as I am to love the world.
         That will be gift enough for both of us.

         

__________________
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 will put my law within them,
                  and I will write it on their hearts.
                  —Jeremiah 31.33

Steady my wandering heart, O God,
long enough to write your love.

On my heart, frail and loose,
write your steady love.

Deep in my beating heart,
your breathing love.

In my heart,
your love.

         
         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily email
write to me at unfoldinglight (at) gmail [dot] com

      
         Unless a grain of wheat
                  falls into the earth and dies,
         it remains just a single grain;
                  but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                           —John 12.24

         
This is faith in resurrection,
not some speculation on the future,
but the trust to die in love.

Why be afraid to give myself away
when You have come
and died in my arms
and now live more vividly
than before?

You have poured out yourself like drink
and only afterwards
did I realize how I was feasting.

Why be afraid to disappear
into love?
Why not be nothing but love,
and so only life?

To get over my self-clinging
and become a seed in the hand of God,
be flung, be burst, become the opened grave
from whom the tender stalk of Christ
emerges and grows and becomes me, new.

To be a gift that is not returned,
light that sinks into a stone heart,
a luscious taste on the tongue of the world.

         
         

__________________
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

      
         
                 
Eternal Beloved,
bring me deeper:
not to mere insight,
but to presence;
not to feelings,
even feelings of your nearness,
but deeper presence
for you
and for your stirrings in me,
compassionate presence
for my neighbor
and for all the world.

By your presence in me,
deeper presence.

By your grace…
presence.

         
         

__________________
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.
      
         Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
         so must the Human One be lifted up,
         that whoever believes in the Beloved may have eternal life.
                  —John 3.14

“Lifted up,” honored, looked up to.
We keep our yes on Jesus, and it gives us life.

“Lifted up” like the bronze serpent: on a pole.
Lifted up on a cross, not in honor but disgrace.
Jesus exposes our violence by suffering it
without cause, without recrimination,
exposes our fear
and our poor, snake-bitten need for healing.
Just suffers and forgives.
And that grace brings us to life.

We trust the power of God’s forgiveness for us,
and forgive and trust its power,
and we are truly, deeply, infinitely alive.

“Lifted up,” raised from the dead.
We give of ourselves,
suffer for the sake of love,
and we are lifted up,
lifted out of all suffering,
raised up to such deep life
that nothing can put us down,
not even death.
It’s solid. It’s absolute. It’s eternal.

         
         
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 used to be dead.
You were trapped in life-stealing ways:
under the sway of this world
you thought you could force your way,
write your own cosmic laws.
We all do it.
We act like little self-contained body-pods,
slaves to our ego’s fearful desires,
children of fear and despair. All of us.

But God, rich with mercy,
loves us with this huge, heartbreaking love,
even when we drive our life into a fatal crash,
and makes us alive,
raising us up out of the grave
arm in arm with Christ.

You’ve been saved, kid: pulled right out
of the wreckage of your life.
God raises us up and sets us gently
right next to Christ,
at the center of Life, in Christ’s heart.
Only afterwards will we begin to see
just how immensely deep God’s grace is,
in showing us such kindness in Christ Jesus.

You have been saved by God’s grace.
Just trust this.
This is not your own doing;
it’s totally a gift from God.
It’s not anything you can even influence.
Nobody can claim that.
There’s no such thing as a self-made person:
we are what God made us,
which is God’s Beloved,
created for the purpose of goodness.
This is your destiny, your identity,
your whole life.
Get used to it.

         

__________________
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