The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,          patience, kindness, generosity,          faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.                   —Galatians 5.22-23

Spirit, may your love fill me.

Your joy lift me.

Your peace hold me.

Your patience calm me.

Your kindness purify me.

Your generosity flow through me.

Your faithfulness steady me.

Your gentleness soften me.

Your self-control guide me.

Spirit, live in me.

__________________ 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 when the Lord was about to take Elijah          up to heaven by a whirlwind,          Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.          Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here;          for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.”          But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live,          I will not leave you.”                   —2 Kings 2.1-2

Here’s a story about leave-taking. (It’s appropriate for a lot of United Methodist churches whose pastor may be preaching their last sermon there, or just did recently: most appointments run from July 1 to June 30). Oddly the lectionary skips a part, then picks up again. In the part it skips prophets from Bethel ask Elisha if he knows Elijah is about to go, and Elisha says, “Yes, I know. Keep silent.” Then he and Elijah go through the same routine they did earlier: “Say here.” “No, I’m coming with you.” They go to Jericho and prophets ask Elisha the same question and he answers the same: “I know. Keep silent.” Elisha and Elijah repeat their routine again and go on to the Jordan, where the lectionary picks up the story.

Why does the lectionary omit that part? The pathos? The repetition? But grief is like that. It comes in waves, it repeats itself, it asks what we don’t want to answer. And it’s a journey. It leads us on to a new place, then on again. It goes on longer than we think it will. We want to cut parts out. We do our best not to leave the ones we love, until we must. We experience it with the loss of a loved one, the departure of a beloved spiritual teacher, or really any significant change. Elisha is not in denial. He’s trying to stay in the present moment. He knows Elijah is going. But he’s not gone yet. If you spend in your energy grieving what hasn’t happened yet, it might as well have already happened. To have gone off mourning before Elijah left would have been for Elisha to have left. But he didn’t.

Don’t grieve the future. Enjoy the present. Receive the blessings and lessons of the present moment. The future will have lessons of its own. No experience is guaranteed to last forever. Be present, and enjoy it while you can. Give and receive what you can with your loved ones; learn what you can from your spiritual teachers while you have them. Listen, “mark, and inwardly digest” what you can take from them. Not only will you not have to grieve before they even go, you’ll lose less when they do, because you’ve taken more in. Say to the present moment, “I will not leave 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.          

         Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests;          but the Human One has nowhere to lay their head.                   —Luke 9.58

Creation, great Mother, provides for her children. We, her littlest ones, are still learning how.

         •

The Holy One is routinely crucified. If you follow don’t expect privilege.

Spiritual pride is a reservation at the Hotel of Illusions.

The Gentle One stands with the outcast. If you follow don’t expect shelter but in the Beloved’s heart,

which is the holy temple, the arms of 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.                    They entered a village of the Samaritans                   but they did not receive him.          James and John said, “Lord, do you want us                   to command fire to come down from heaven                   and consume them?”          But he turned and rebuked them.                   —Luke 9.52-55

It’s so easy and tempting and self-defeating to make enemies.

Last week the New England United Methodist Conference committed an “Act of Non-Conformity,” refusing to obey the denomination’s stipulations to discriminate against queer people. We are breaking a church law, hoping it stays broken forever, in obedience to the higher law of love.

In this act of ecclesial disobedience it’s tempting to want to call down fire on opponents, to make “sides” and create enemies and distance ourselves from them, and excuse ourselves from the command to love them. Bu we can’t. Especially in this struggle for inclusion and respect for all people, we have to practice it toward the very people who oppose it.

There is no “fire from heaven” to call down. There is only love that burns away our fear and anger. Jesus invites us into a way of reverence that harbors nothing but blessing and offers nothing but mercy, even toward the enemies of blessing and mercy. The way of the cross is to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, even as we break their rules. Even as we give voice to the the anger of the oppressed, we cry out with love.

The work of justice is always both inward and outward, to proclaim and to confess, to witness to God’s transforming grace in the world and to allow that grace to transform our own souls. It is God’s righteousness, not ours, that changes the world. Our repentance is the building material of the Reign of God. At our Conference session last week we began by wearing sackcloth and ashes and praying for repentance. It’s not a bad way to begin every day.

O God, we call down the fire of your love upon us. May we preach love with love in our hearts. May we cry sorrow with love in our hearts, cry rage with love in our hearts, demand justice with your love in our broken, radiant hearts, your love in our crucified, risen 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

         Now there was a great wind…                   but the Lord was not in the wind;          and after the wind an earthquake,                   but the Lord was not in the earthquake;          and after the earthquake a fire,                   but the Lord was not in the fire;          and after the fire a sound of deep silence.                            —1 Kings 19.11-12

Beneath the earthquake, wind and fire          that are always here I listen for your silence          that is always here, your deep, luscious silence          speaking to me, singing.

I listen to your deep silence          breathing in me. I listen for the sound of it,          its great sea moving,          its stars whirling. I listen into the deep          that welcomes me.

Beneath the noise and rush and flame          your silence unfolds in me, the great rose of you           opening to my own silence and I become your silence          unfolding into 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

Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.           This morning our New England Annul Conference is considering a motion (overwhelmingly passed in a non-binding vote last night) that we “not conform or comply with the provisions of the Discipline which discriminate against LGBTQIA persons.” The Spirit is moving. I invite your prayers.

Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve

                           Praying with Psalm 42

As a deer longs for flowing streams,        so my soul longs for you, O God.

                  We cry out with those who long for justice,                   who long to know your mercy and your comfort,                   who yearn for a place of safety and belonging.

My tears have been my food day and night,        while people say to me continually,         “Where is your God?”

                  We hollow out a space in our hearts for those                   who are wounded by our words, our actions and inaction.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,          and why are you disquieted within me?

                  We mourn in solidarity and cry out in anger                   with those who suffer persecution and bigotry. By day the Lord commands steadfast love,           and at night God’s song is with me,           a prayer to the God of my life.

                  We give thanks for your love that prevails,                   that lives on in the hearts of the faithful,                   and we repent of our closed and stony hearts.

I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?           Why must I walk about mournfully            because the enemy oppresses me?”

                  We acknowledge the gifts of those who are oppressed,                   the beauty we have cast away from us.

Hope in God; for I shall again praise the Holy One,           my help and my God.

                  You give us the faith do justice;                   you give us hope in your grace;                   you give us love that we may love                   on earth as in heaven. Amen.

__________________ 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.

         As they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes.          a man of the city who had demons met him.                   —from Luke 8.26-39

Jesus meets a man under the power of something foreign to his own soul, but not just a man: a people, a world. But he sees the person beneath the demon.

The man lives among the dead, cherishes, perhaps, the aura of death. His demons lead to violence; all violence is demonic. They are “Legion.” There is more than one: it is an army (a Roman legion), a culture. Neither blaming nor curing one man will bring peace.

The demons cry out against Jesus. There is always resistance to healing, rage at the offer of mercy.

Jesus casts the demons into a herd of swine. Who would eat the meat of so many unclean beasts but a legion of the Roman army? Jesus casts the Roman Empire into the abyss.

The locals are afraid. They take up the demons’ cry and cast Jesus out. There is always resistance to healing, rage at the sight of love. The man, now restored, wants to follow Jesus but he sends him back to his city, his world, living proof of God’s transforming grace.

So many systems are at work, legions of demons, cultures, communities, armies of fear. The drama is local but the struggle is cosmic. Jesus, too, works with a power beyond his own soul, a power that heals people and cultures, love that sees persons beneath labels and sets them free, that sends fear into the sea, that re-orders the cosmos.

We face legions and their weapons; the enemy is never one man and his demons. But when Christ heals even one person the world tips and plunges evil into the sea. Love destroys what the Empire of Fear feeds on. We are at the edge of the abyss, the dark waters of Creation, where God calls forth light. And those who have been set free go through the city as the light of what God has done.

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.                    There is no longer Jew or Greek,          there is no longer slave or free,          there is no longer male and female;          for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.                   —Galatians 4.28

It is so hard to avoid categorizing, judging, labeling. I do so in anxiety about my own judgment. I want to be “the way I’m supposed to be.” I want to be “good enough.” So in fear I distinguish and judge. I hate in others what I fear in myself. I find others offensive so that I can feel acceptable. Without realizing I’m doing it I define “normal.”

I participate in systems — Legion — that distinguish, judge, define and dehumanize people. My language and culture devalues women, gays, foreigners, introverts, the traumatized, those whose bodies aren’t like mine. Cancer? You’re brave. Schizophrenia? You’re crazy.

And when my normativeness is religious — when I curse people on behalf of God — it becomes murderous. Someone deports a bus full of immigrants, or massacres a reservation full of Indians, or shoots a club full of gays or a church full of blacks, because for God I have already killed them.

God, I repent of my murderous distinctions.          I renounce normal. Help me shed my judgments,          extend only mercy, and stand against the evil of my own culture,          even my own church. Help me cast out the demons,          beginning in myself. Open my eyes that I may see only your children,          all your children.                            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

Your heart beats in my heart. Your breath flows through me.

I breathe in the sorrow of the world. I breathe out mercy.

I breathe in the fear of the world. I breathe out mercy.

I breathe in the pain of the world. I breathe out mercy.

I breathe in the rage of the world. I breathe out mercy.

I enter the Great Wound, and I breathe mercy.

You breathe mercy in me, breathe deep mercy in all 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

          My dear beloved, I hold you in my hands because I want to. You are my delight. You are perfect. You are perfect.

I love you more than you imagine ? how can you know, small as you are, what love I have for you that pours out of my heart without your asking? When you are hungry or upset how can you think of my joy in you? ? but there it is. I love you for no reason, no reason at all, and you can’t change it, your mood or your behavior mean nothing. You may cause distress for me and those who love you but you cannot disappoint me or make me turn away because I love you for no reason at all, and I will love you the same, now and always, no less than when you were newborn.

__________________ 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