Reflections – Page 344 – Unfolding Light

Love poured out

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

God has poured out her love
into our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
whom she has given us.
—Romans 5.5

God, I am so small;
help me fathom this mystery:
that you have given me your eternal Spirit,
that the Spirit that hovered over the face of the waters
when you created all things
breathes deeply in me, deeply in me.

Help me to be mindful that the love
with which you create the world,
love that raises the dead,
you have poured into my heart,
flooding my being—
infinite love, infinite love.

Help me to trust that I can face all hardship,
endure all suffering and undertake all endeavors
with your love and spirit flowing through me.

Help me to trust
that you pour into me the infinite love and Spirit
with which to love this world,
with which to join with you
in creating and healing and blessing
this wondrous world.

Loving One, let this mystery fill me
and light my way.

Amen.

Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve

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The voice of God

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not concern myself with great matters,
things too marvelous for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.
— Psalm 131

When we listen for the voice of God, sometimes we “hear” something like advice.

“Take the job.”

“Forgive your sister.”

But more often we may hear something that’s harder to put into words, more like a movement than an idea.

“You are all right.”

“Here is your gift.”

It may be something closer to a feeling.

“Peace.”

“This is not right.”

It may simply be awareness.

“This sunrise.”

“I am.”

More often than not, God’s “Word” is not something that can be said at all. When we listen in stillness we hear the voice of God humming quietly, like a contented mother with her child in her arms. And that is enough.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Listening in tongues

Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” — Acts 2. 7-8

Maybe the miracle on that Pentecost day was simply that Jesus’ followers were given the ability to understand foreigners. Don’t underestimate the miraculousness of this. We usually don’t listen even to people who speak our own language, let alone a foreign one, enough to really understand them. Maybe the disciples simply gave enough attention to the foreigners that they came to understand what spoke to them. That might have taken longer than just rushing out into the street– but it’s no less impressive. Maybe the real Pentecostal gift is not one of speaking at all, but of listening.

We normally see things according to our own understanding, without taking into account other people’s experience or perspective. But when we listen to their story from their point of view and honor their experience, we learn a new language of reality. It’s like listening in tongues.

The Holy Spirit does not necessarily empower us to prophesy by doing all the talking, being right and convincing others. It enables us to listen, to receive, to connect deeply enough with people, even people who are very different from us, that we can discover what speaks to them. As Paul says, God searches our hearts with the mind of the Spirit (Romans 8.27). Listen in the power of the Holy Spirit. You maybe surprised at how many people there are for whom it will be truly prophetic.

_______________________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Speaking in tongues

“Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power?”

— Acts 2. 7, 11

When we think of “speaking in tongues” we usually mean glossolalia, ecstatic speech that is unintelligible, even to the speaker. But on that day of Pentecost the disciples did the opposite: they spoke in common languages to make the unfathomable grace of God clear to foreigners who otherwise would not have understood them. Real speaking in tongues is not a private, emotional act. It means communicating “God’s deeds of power” in someone else’s language, in a way that they can understand.

You don’t need to lose yourself in ecstatic prayer, or even learn a foreign language to communicate God’s love. You may not have to put it into words at all: you can make evident what God has done in your life. Become increasingly aware of God’s presence in you, mindful of how God’s love flows through you, changes you, blesses you, and flows on to others. Let this be your consciousness. Let this gift shine in you. Become transparent to God’s grace. Radiate God’s love. Extend compassion, delight and blessing even to the strangest people. Don’t worry; they’ll get it.

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

Things won’t work out

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

God, I’m worried that things won’t turn out
as I want them to.
So I’m grasping, clinging to little things,
little hopes, like remnants from a fire,
artifacts of an imagined world.
Meanwhile you pour out your presence to me.

What is this tinny little world I cling to?
Why am I hanging onto these trinkets?
What is this fear that I cherish so much?
Why am I afraid to stop and behold
your infinite abundance, laid secretly in my lap?

Does what I want lead me to abandon all things
and fall into your arms?
Is there something I want more than You?
What would it take for me to trade
what I am afraid of losing
for what can’t be taken from me?

I am standing by a clear, flowing river
nervously holding water in my cupped hands
that I have carried a long time.
Why don’t I drop it, walk in, and float away?

Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Good morning

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Wake up.
Be present to this world,
wakeful and attentive.

Rise from your bed.
Once again you are raised from death,
once again given the gift of life.

Throw back the curtains.
Let in all the light you can.
You have nothing to hide.

Look out the window.
Your purpose today is to witness
and to wonder.

Begin the day with gratitude,
just for this moment,
until it gets dark.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Holy One

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Holy One,
you are the softening of the dark
before the dawn,
you are my dawn, my light,
my day, my sight.

Divine Presence,
you are the thickness of things,
the substance of flesh,
the heft of tools,
the palpable earth,
my weight, my gravity.

Living Love,
you are all movement,
all flowing of breath and time,
of death and love
and scent and thought,
my blood and its lifelong
river pouring.

O Unseen Opening,
you are all wanting,
all thirst, receiving,
breathing in,
my hope.

O Mystery,
you are all emptiness,
silence, darkness and night,
my breathing out,
my death, and all
I will become
within you.

O Being
you are holy,
and I bow to you
in constant, humble joy.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

One

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

… That they may be one….
—John 17.20

Don’t be fooled by the illusion of distinctions,
the lie that we are separate,
that our either-or’s are real,
that we can think God and categorize What Is.
Don’t be taken by the theory that we are all
created by various gods from different worlds.

We are all fingers of the One hand,
words of the One song.
The Holy One contains us all.
We are one Body—not just believers
(who can judge, who can separate?)
or all who breathe long for God.
This whole universe, this one creation,
is but the speaking of God’s one Word.
In all its complex harmonies and flowings,
its growths and reflections, it is One.
There is only One thing,
and we all are of it.

We are bound with the stranger,
completed by our enemy,
blessed by the foreigner who practices
a strange religion, as they by us.
Unity is not a goal we strive for,
but the reality we struggle to see.

Holiness is not separation,
but deep belonging
to the Holy
One.

Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Ascension Day

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

—Luke 24. 50-51

Today is Ascension Day, 40 days after the resurrection when Jesus ascended to heaven. Clearly he has left. Yet he said, “I am with you always.” How do we make sense of this? It must be that Christ is with us in another form, not the body of Jesus of Nazareth. On Pentecost we will see the new form of Christ’s incarnation, the Body of Christ: not a person at all, but a community.

Christ is present, here, now. God, in love, is bodily present with you. Look around you. Look within you. Look slowly, and carefully. Let your prayer be a deepening, widening awareness. The Beloved will appear in forms you do not expect. Remember Jacob and his dream, and the disciples on the road to Emmaus: it is often only afterward that we realize that God has been present in ways we did not know. Christ doesn’t always look like Jesus. God doesn’t always look like God. The best we can do is to continually open the eyes of our hearts to the indwelling, surrounding, unseen presence of the Loving One.

Keep the eyes of your heart open.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

How to live

.
Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

When all is stripped away
what is left is not what you cling to
nor what you have accomplished,
but how you live.
This is what you are here to perfect.

Start with:
wonder, gratitude,
patience, humility,
courage and kindness.

Each moment, practice.

The more you do ,
the more you become
rich beyond measure.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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