Category: Reflections

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Into cardboard boxes goes everything I own,
sheets and teacups, books and wrenches,
the things I need, the pans, those handy pliers,
and the things I cling to, letters and pictures,
and the little carved box from Vienna.

You’d learn about me, sorting through
the poetry, the musical instruments,
the photographs of kids and kin, the gifts,
the art we hang, the art we keep in case
we ever have a worthy wall.

The movers, impressively, can wrap up anything—
chairs, skis, a painting easel, a wheelbarrow—
and fit it in. It’s all here, everything.
And what, insurers query, if the truck
should crash, catch fire and roll into the river?
All would be lost. A policy is wise. Sign here.
A bridge from this house to the next.

Yet, in between, in the homeless moment,
all my possessions elsewhere,
neither the boxes nor their dowry matter.
For a moment, I am free.

I stop and ask, so what?
What if the fire and river had their way
and there were no boxes, no furniture,
no plates or lamps or neckties?

There would be the other truck, of course,
driven by broad-shouldered angels, kind,
non-smokers every one, but strong as elephants.
I’ve never told them my address. They know.

I would settle somewhere calm and unpack
the prayers that have gone with me,
the blessings securely wrapped and tucked
into the suitcase of my heart,
the love I’ve dragged from home to home
and never once have lost.

I would unwrap and set upon the mantle of my mind
the bond, these decades old, I’ve kept with friends.
And here—oh look! I’d almost forgotten!—
the mystery of my divine belovedness.
I’d uncrate the gift of this very morning—
it’s raining now—
and set it out and gaze upon it lovingly.

Be done with cardboard, soul, sell everything.
The dearest things are those you don’t possess.

In the empty house of this moment
sit boxes you never filled, have never seen.
They’re yours.
Go ahead, now, and unpack.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
This is the day the Lord is making;
God is not finished creating it yet.
Let us rejoice and be glad.

God of Creation, God of new beginnings,
we open our hearts to you in this new day.
In all that is new and different
we look for your creating hand,
and wonder at your Creation still unfolding.
In all that is not as we are accustomed to
we confess our desire to control,
acknowledge our powerlessness,
and turn to you as our only Lord and Creator.
Bless our grief, and turn our hearts to your loving care.
In all that is unfamiliar remind us
to pay attention; to see what is,
not merely what we remember;
to see as if for the first time.
In our uncertainty, return us
to the certainty of who we are,
and to your sure and unfailing presence with us.
In all that is unknown, unwrap us
from the grave cloths of our expectations;
help us to be lovingly present to what is,
free from having to know,
free from needing to be comfortable,
poised to behold and to love without fear.
God of Creation, in this new day
we let go of all that we cling to,
and return to your Holy Presence
in this moment.
Help us to die and rise with Christ,
to become new people,
born not of our own will or knowledge,
but born anew of your Spirit, your delight,
your Moment.

This is the day the Lord is creating.
Let us rejoice and be glad.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Great Sun,
you climb up over the rim of the world
to see me, smiling. You greet me
with your wide hands.
The whole sky exults.

The day expands.
Anything could happen.
A gate swings wide within me.

All day long you follow me,
your hand on my shoulder.
Reaching long a brick wall,
through a window,
across the question of the sea,
without grasping you ask:
will you do this?

Free in the home of your sky,
radiate the light from within.
Shed splendor without apology.
Shine as you were meant,
and the world may go on without you,
within you, and so very with you.
Yes, do this, you say.
Let there be light.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Well, I’ve moved to a new place. New geography, new culture. Different rules, new license plates. Yesterday I heard a bird song I’ve never heard before. Today I start as pastor of a church I’ve only visited once. I still haven’t found some stuff I hope I packed. I’m a little disoriented. But I’m still here. Still in the Presence. Because we always are. The Holy Presence enfolds us, infuses us, embraces us, always and everywhere. Jesus said, “I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.” All that changes is our awareness. We forget the deeper reality, the Truly Real. So we stop, and practice being aware.

You may also be in a new place, or at least a new “place.” Or you may be in a place you haven’t left for 40 years. Either way, where you are is Here. And the Holy Mystery is with you. In this moment, as you read this computer screen, God enfolds you, embraces you, includes you, with infinite delight. Stop everything else, just stop, and be here now. Stop as you stop to smell a lilac bush you are passing, stop as you would to see an arresting sight, and simply gaze. God is here, now, in this place, loving you. Soak that in for a while.

And as you go on, pray that no matter how busy you are today, no matter where you go, no matter how far you move from where you are this moment, you will still be here. Now, in the moment you are in. In the Presence.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Child of God,
beloved of God,
companion of God,

in all your journeys and becomings,
all your changes and challenges,
all doings and undoings and unknowings,

the Blessing One embraces you,
the Delighting One accompanies you,
The One enfolds you.

All that is holy and strong in you
cannot change or be taken;
it is eternal.

Your wholeness is unfolding.
Each day is a newness, a birth,
each challenge a chance to learn.

You will be well,
and a blessing to this earth.
Heaven travels with you.

Go in grace.
Go in blessing.
Go in peace.

Now—I’m off on an adventure,
and so are you!
See you in July.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
         “A little while, and you will no longer see me,
         and again a little while, and you will see me.”
                  —John 16.16

Jesus was not setting up some cheesy magic trick; he was simply inviting his followers to trust, and to pay attention.

More than once Jesus said, “Look. What do you see?” I began writing Unfolding Light ten years ago when I was campus pastor at Montana State University-Billings. The campus is right under the imposing 100-foot sandstone bluffs that rim the northern edge of the city (and much of SW Montana). I sent emails with announcements to students and faculty, including a little observation on “The Rims Today,” inviting folks to notice those great, ever-changing paintings of light and shadow, rain and snow and imagination. I just wanted them to look. When I moved here to Concord, NH, I reflected on the woods in much the same way.

The spiritual life is a process of waking up from taking things for granted, giving attention to what is before us. Things change, beauty happens, grace and mystery abound—but we miss most of it because we’re not looking. On the path I carved through these woods nine years ago, I sometimes meet a fellow walking his dog. He has earphones on. He doesn’t look up. I don’t imagine he’s seen the purple vetch or observed the brook among the ferns rising and falling after rains, or knows that there’s a fox with five kits whose den is not 40 feet from the path. (We stare at each other every morning and every evening.) He’s not looking.

When we get used to things we want to stop looking. Even if you already know what it looks like, don’t stop looking. Notice it. Let every day be new. Reality is not a static thing, but continually unfolding. This is the day the Lord is creating. Rejoice and pay attention.

Tomorrow will be my last post for a while as I take a break to move to Acton, MA—not a big move, like from Montana to here, but a move. I’ll resume some time after the 4th of July. “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” In the meantime keep paying attention.

Weather Report

New, despite its familiarity,
unfolding with what is,
as shifting clouds emerge
give way and disappear,
divine presence
just waiting to be seen.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
A prayer labyrinth is not a maze: you can’t get lost; there are no dead ends. It leads faithfully to the center, and back out again. This morning I walked the prayer labyrinth at our church one last time. In walking a labyrinth, you come to places where the circle doubles back, and you turn around and go the other way. Or at least it seems like the “other way”, although actually you’re still going forward, going toward the center, going toward the world. I love those places. I pause and attend to the turnaround, notice the letting go, savor the anticipation. I was going that way, and now I am going this way. This, too, is part of the journey.

The turnaround is a basic part of the path of life: a trip to the store and back… switchbacks up a mountain… you push the lawnmower this way and then that. Geese migrate south, migrate north. Even the earth itself swings from winter to summer, pauses, and tuns around. In the northern hemisphere today, June 21, is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the beginning of summer, the turnaround. In the southern hemisphere, of course, it is the opposite turnaround.

My life has come to a turnaround. At the end of this week I will move away from this town forever, to take another church in a different town, in another state. I will cease being the pastor here, living here, walking these woods. I am going what feels like “another way,” but I am really still going forward. This is typical. We go through changes and reversals, graduations, losses and unexpected turns. We repent. New things seem strange, and we get disoriented. The weave of death becomes visible behind the fabric of life. We thought we were facing the visible world but we are facing heaven. We turn around.

Savor your turnarounds. Be of good courage. Take heart. This, too, is part of the journey. This is still the path, and you are still going forward. This is part of the blessing. Let all your letting go be blessed. Let this new chapter be a learning, a becoming, a birth. Let each solstice of your life be a gift. For even on the very day that the days cease growing longer and the earth turns toward the cold and dark of winter, summer begins.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Packing for the journey,
leaving much behind,
what shall I take with me?

I take mindfulness,
so that wherever I am
I may actually be there.

I take gratitude,
by which everything,
everything is a gift.

I take trust.
How much I can sow,
knowing the seeds will sprout!

I take freedom,
not from accountability,
but to live by my choices.

I take love,
my connection with all,
my only true power.

I take wonder.
There is always more.
It is all mystery, all grace.

I take courage
for all of life’s yieldings
and steadfastness.

I take gentleness and kindness,
a way of being a blessing
that cannot be taken away.

I take an open heart,
open hands, open eyes.
All else I leave on the curb.

Find me on the road,
and find The One
—I do not go on my own—

by whom
I myself
am taken.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
          — Matthew 28. 19-20

Baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit does not mean converting people to Christianity. It means immersing them in the love of a community that bears God’s Covenant to them and to the world.

To baptize you in the name of the Father is to honor you as God’s own, to see the Holy One in you, to acknowledge you as a sacred Being of God’s Creation and an embodiment of God’s presence. It is to say to you in words and in deeds, “You have your Father’s eyes.”

To baptize you in the name of the Son is to promise to love you as we have been loved, to honor you as one for whom Christ died, to demonstrate your forgiveness, to honor you as an equal in the Body of Christ, to entrust you to Christ’s healing, to listen with you for the Living Word in your life, to hold your living and your dying in the light of Christ’s resurrection, to teach you how to live in radical trust, compassion and gratitude as Jesus did, and you assist you in dying and rising with Christ. It is to say to you in words and deeds, “The peace of Christ be with you.”

To baptize you in the name of the Holy Spirit is to evoke the deepest power of God’s loving presence in you, to honor your holiness, to encourage you in discovering and giving your gifts, to show you how to breathe deeply, to engage you in loving as you have been loved, to bear witness to our oneness with you in the Spirit as members of the same body, fingers of one hand. It is to say to you in words and deeds, “You are the song and God is the breath.”

To baptize someone in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is to engage them in a Covenant with the One who goes into the world, who continually dies and rises to new life, and who is always with us. We do not convert them, but are ourselves converted. With Christ, we go on like a flowing river to new places, new realities, chapters. And always, the Loving One, the Healing One, the Empowering One is with us.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Mother, Son and Holy Spirit,
beyond words we bless you,

you who defeat our words, confound
our images, encircle our understanding,

who are not a thing to be described
but Being, Love, Presence, to be met.

You are this, and the opposite of that,
and something else altogether;

Being itself, and source of all Being,
all giving and receiving;

mystery mostly, and all grace,
a little light and a hand on the shoulder.

Your Being enfolds all creation, nebulae,
one heart at a time, in your arms.

No mode of being, no heaven nor hell
nor hidden heart place, is beyond you.

All is within you. The entire created universe
is the smallest beloved embryo in your womb,

and yet you walk beside us, speak to us
each by name, breathe in us, cell by cell,

inviting us into your blessing,
your delight, your future, yourself.

You live in our tininess, share our unknowing,
suffer our pain, tremble in us.

Moment by moment you create all things,
die and rise, enliven and enloven us to holiness.

Eternal mystery, indwelling presence,
infinite grace, we cannot name or picture you,

but only worship you. We cannot divide you,
nor ourselves from you, but only Be.

Mother, Son and Holy Spirit, all praise!
We are present to you in love. Alleluia!

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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