Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

After last night’s rain
the woods breathe gently on me,
soft radiance of green,
oak and beech and pine and vine
all in their own way
reaching for the light,
shedding on me the grace of life
received and given,
breathing out what I breathe in.
New mushrooms sprout,
these little friends, these humble workers.

They who scrub the air and tend the soil,
who shade and shelter life,
are not the only ones.
The whole world breathes the blessing,
life grown in soil’s dark womb,
in fists of mountains, lap of seas,
last night’s rain stretching back
those eons of blessing.

Just be among the living
and breathe deeply of the blessing,
song of bird and wind,
blessing pooled in puddles
along the path,
wrapped in small packages
in every passing soul on the road.

Breathe deeply of it all this blessed day.
It lasts.
In a breeze the limbs above
shower me.
Last night’s rain began
before the world,
will never end.

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.

         David danced before the Lord with all his might.
                  —2 Samuel 6.14

         When his daughter Herodias came in and danced,
she pleased Herod and his guests.
— Mark 6.22

Music is playing,
music with an aim, produced,
music of collusion and desire,
insistent and sexual.
Hard not to move with the music.
Hard not to fall into the rhythm,
seduce and be seduced.
But don’t slip on the blood
on the floor.

Other music plays,
silent, within.
Different feel, different band.
Music of a beating heart,
melody of tumbling water,
lullaby whispered for a lifetime,
song of hearts set free.
The Beloved cuts in.
“May I have this one?”

No one to impress, only to offend.
No one to dance for, only with.
Dance.
Let joy move you,
even in the face of evil,
let love move you.
Before the guns,
behind the prison bars,
on the gallows, dance.
Dance on your own grave.
When they threaten you, dance
the other dance that at last
will consume them as well.

Unseen, though you know within,
the Beloved takes you in steady arms.
Dance.

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
Blessed be God, who birthed real love among us in Christ,
and in that love has given us the blessings of heaven itself.
Since before Creation, in this love, God intended
that we would be holy, loved, and loving,
God’s own dear children.
In this love, so generously lavished on us,
we are redeemed, and all our wrongs are forgiven.
Stop and wonder at this grace, and give thanks!

If God gives us any wisdom or insight
it is to know that it is God’s delight
to always be gathering everything in Creation
into Christ, into the body of love.
This is is our destiny, God’s will, which is always fulfilled:
that we, who began by hoping in the Love that Fills the World,
would ourselves live lives that radiate that love.
When first heard this wonder, that you are part of the world’s salvation,
when you first opened yourself to this love,
it poured into you. God’s Spirit changed you.
Now you yourself are part of God’s promise.
The Spirit in you is the first bit of God’s redemption of the world.
That is God’s glory. Doesn’t it make you want to praise God?

__________________
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.

         When Herod heard [of Jesus’ disciples
         healing and casting out demons]
         he said, ”John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
                  —Mark 6.16

Herod has it all: cynicism, selfishness, lasciviousness, sexual abuse, cruelty, violence and the abuse of power. He uses people, even his daughter. But. He’s actually afraid. He likes to listen to John the baptizer—for entertainment, not for transformation. Maybe he’s attracted because John speaks with such power. All the more necessary, then, to have absolute power over John. Yet in his power he’s trapped. He’s afraid of his guests, afraid of his wife, obligated to his daughter, even afraid of the corner he’s painted himself into. And even after he has killed John, Herod realizes that he’s also still afraid of John, afraid of some power that transcends his own, that transcends even death.

That’s the context of our ministry, the context of resurrection. Resurrection isn’t about the happy reunion with your loved ones in the afterlife; that comes later. Resurrection is God’s answer to fear and violence in this life. We either live by the rules of Herod—the rule of fear and violence, and the necessary devaluation of others—or we live by the power of resurrection, the power of love, which transcends not just mortality but violence, cynicism and fear.

God sends us to do the work of healing, to cast out out demons of fear and violence, demons of cynicism, domination and racism, demons of the love of money and power. In that work we will suffer the anger of those powers. Those who work for justice will be silenced, punished, jailed, and worse. Our prayers go out for all people who are political prisoners, who are tortured, who are used, who are silenced. But they, and we, are sustained by a greater power. Even in our powerlessness and suffering our love is raised up into an infinite blessing. We know resurrection. God energizes us with love to confront the powers and even to suffer injustice and answer it with resurrection, with love that transcends fear and violence, and even suffering and death.

With all his power, Herod is afraid. But in the spirit of the Crucified and Risen One, we are not afraid.

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.

The bee
backs out of the blossom,
blessed with nectar,
touched gold with pollen.
Another smiles,
secretly grateful for the exchange.

You do not know what blessings
the Beloved gives to you,
what blessings the Beloved
receives.

___________________
Weather Report

Gifts,
accumulating through the day,
as a warm front of grace
moves through your life,
resulting in downpours,
heavy at times,
of giving and receiving
unbeknownst to 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.

         He called the twelve
        and began to send them out two by two,
         and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
                  —Mark 6.7

Yes, you will face the demonic—
evil, injustice and oppression
in all its pleasant disguises.
And often you will shake
their dust from your sandals.

But don’t be afraid.
The joy of the Beloved
is poured into your veins
from a pitcher larger
than the world.

No depth of darkness
can put out the candle.

The sheer mass of blessing
in you
fear can’t budge
no matter how hard it trembles,
a small island
in the great sea of grace.

Don’t worry about the darkness.
Let there be light.

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.

      He could do no deed of power there…
      and he was amazed at their unbelief.
            —Mark 6.5-6

 

Not under obligation
to believe what does not come to me,
nor credited with clever faith,

but merely open
to what may unfold
beyond my familiarity,

I watch
for what miracles
you may perform:

this moment, sung to me,
a platter of joy and blessing
produced out of thin air,

the light that fills the eyes I open,
heavenly beings surrounding me,
yes these,

even my wondering,
even my breath,
even myself.

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.

I want to pray in peace, to pray for justice in this world, but I think of the the brutalized, the enslaved, the run-over … and I am in rage. I think of the tortured and exploited and rage rises in me like a fire and consumes my prayer. It is my prayer. I do not feel peace. I feel rage at our evil. Heat, burning.

So I sit with it so the rage that is powerlessness burns away from the rage that is love, so that it doesn’t become mere anger, mere resentment, even hate. I let the rage burn in the consuming fire of the love of God, the burning bush that called Moses, the pillar of flame that led them to freedom, the lamp uncovered on the stand, the zeal that turned over tables, the fire of Pentecost that sent the martyrs out into the flames of their world.

Until the rage becomes light. Heat, yes, and light.

This candle has ben burning for a million years.

I will go with a broken heart, and with compassion, humility, and mercy. I will go with courage, I pray, with passion unfading. And in God’s grace I will go with rage.

Do not let me have too much peace, God. Do not let the fire go out.

Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

Justice is not an ideal,
far off and longed for:
it is a power within you,
an unstoppable river.

The Empire of God
is among you.

Justice is already,
in the beating of your heart
with others, its leaning
out over the troubled street
to touch them.

The seed sprouts and grows,
you know not how.

Healing is not a future:
it is a flowering now,
a hand opening unseen.

We need not wait for justice:
it is a compassion flowing now,
a courage rising up in you now,
it is who we are already,
the electricity among us all
now emerging, always struggling,
always birthing, always,
now.

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.

How could they
to whom such monstrous things have happened
forgive so readily, so deeply, with such reach?
A man wanted to start a race war
and they diverted it into an outbreak
of forgiveness.
How did they do this?

Like the response team
rushing toward the burning building,
this is what they have been practicing
all their lives,
to love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
to be light amidst darkness,
to be a fountain of mercy
from the depths, always and no matter what:
to not have to “get to a place of forgiveness”
because you already live there.

They knew your Grace, O God;
it was all they had in their hands,
all they had to give.

God, fill me with your love,
let your mercy flow through me,
and help me to practice forgiveness
every day, every day, every moment,
so that at the time it is most needed
I too will be ready.

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