Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         When I look at your heavens,
                  the work of your fingers,
                  the moon and the stars that you have established;
         what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
                  mortals that you care for them?
                           —Psalm 8.3-4

My sister has finished her long journey of healing from lymphoma, through chemo and laughter and agony and drudgery and pain and wonder and prayer and shingles and friends, lots of loving friends, and here she is, healthy and whole. It’s pretty splendid. Meanwhile my wife is back in North Dakota going through her sister’s belongings, the little sister who died suddenly at Christmas and really ought to be alive. It’s pretty sad.

What do we say, that God has chosen this one and not that one? Or that God is not paying attention, that God is too busy spinning galaxies to notice our little lives and we’re on our own, good luck? No, the mystery is that the Holy One who holds the universe in strong and gentle hands also holds us, and cares for us, and accompanies us. The Beloved is with us. In death or life, joy or sorrow, the Compassionate One walks with us, breathes in us, suffers with us, and gives us the life we have. And that life, that amazing gift, is holy, precious and worthy of our wonder, no matter how long or pretty it is.

Our range of vision is so often limited to our desires— how fully we manage to cling to what we want and avoid what we fear— that we can’t see our lives from the perspective of the heavens: the sacred Oneness that our lives rise out of, the holy miracle of life in each moment, the magnificent mystery of which each of us is a spark, a blossom, a note. The promise is not that your life will be long or easy, but that it will be holy.

Treasure this gift of life. Notice the marvelous gift of breath and thought, love and beauty. Whether you are at ease or in pain, relief or grief, the Creator of the Universe is your intimate partner, giving you life, holding you in love. Whatever struggles you have, whatever brokenness, imperfections and even evil you suffer, it is the Beloved who gives you each breath, who carries you each moment, who pours love into your heart no matter what.

From the view of the heavens, all our lives are vanishingly short, but graciously given, magnificently beautiful, infinitely precious and mysteriously blessed. Whether long or short, hard or easy, your life is holy. Your life is a gift. And you are not alone. You are Beloved. Be in wonder, and give thanks.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

How do you spell
the sound you make
when you have an orgasm?

         Now you see the difficulty of poetry.

Take a scale and calibrate it
to exacting standards, and tell me
which weighs more: Mozart’s requiem
or your feelings when your mother died?

         Now you see the problem with art.

Tell me: what did God mean
in creating the sea?

         You see, don’t you,
         the temptation of prayer,
         and its pure and holy uselessness?

People say, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost”
as if that explains something.

         The Spirit said to me:
         “Understanding is a pair of sunglasses.”

What then can we do,
but pray without ceasing,
and write poetry until our eyes close?
What can we do but lay down our shovels
and come home?
What can we do but touch
the children we love as if for the first time,
and lay our hands and eyes tenderly,
like newborns, upon this world,
until all that we know of the world
disappears into the world,
and God escapes our imagining,
until we are raised from the tomb of certainty
into the glorious rainbow light of awe?

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         God’s love has been poured into our hearts
         through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
                  —Romans 5.5

Loving One,
I breathe in your love,
and breathe your love into the world.

It is not I who love,
but you who love in me.

I do not despair even of loving my enemies:
it is you who love them;
I merely draw near.

I pour out the pitcher of my heart
so you can fill it with your love.
         
         

A humble bee,
with the pollen of your love on my legs,
I seek the perfect nectar of this life,
and by your grace alone
leave behind the grace that has clung to me,
and the world blossoms.

         
         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
“I am in the Father and the Father is in me…. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever, the Holy Spirit, who abides with you, and will be in you….. My Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you”
                  —from John 14.10-23

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. The Holy Trinity is no debatable doctrine: it is an icon, a window to God. It is a koan, a parable, a paradox that invites us to let go of mere thought and behold the mystery of the Divine.

The Holy One is the Holy Many;
         all things are in God,
                  who is greater.

The Holy One is not a single, but the All;
         diverse and infinitely unfolding,
                  and even, unseen, more.

What you find of God
         always hides what you have yet to see
                  and what you can never know.

God is not individual, but community.
         God is love, which is relationship;
                  God is the Loving and the Beloved.

Source of All Being, God is Eternal Mystery.
         Living Word, God is Loving Presence.
                  Spirit of Life, God is Unfolding.

God is both Father and Son,
         this and also not this;
                  and also none of these.

God is both Father and Mother,
         male and female, parent and child.
                  God is family.

God contains the universe, and is infinitely greater.
         God is in the teacher and in the stranger.
                  God comes and makes a home with us.

God is infinite and unknowable, beyond us.
         God is revealed, Word made flesh, beside us.
                  God is in our hands, indwelling, within us.

God is Creator, immortal, unchanging.
         God is Companion, suffering, loving.
                  God is Spirit, intimate, waiting.

God is absolute, and reigns over us.
         God is vulnerable, and invites us.
                  God is servant, and depends on us.

God is other.
         God is us.
                  God is neither.

God is Mystery.
         God is this that is before you.
                  God is yet to be.

God is the Giver.
         God is the Gift.
                  God is the giving and receiving.

God is more than you think,
         more than can be thought.
                  There is no right answer, none.

Open your eyes and you see God.
         You must look carefully to see God.
                  You cannot see.

God is One,
         and also Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
                  and also not that at all.

When your understanding fails
         and you can’t know but only wonder
                  then you behold the truth.

God is love,
         and the Beloved,
                  and your loving.

In the name of the Mother, Son and Holy Spirit
         may God’s grace be with you,
                  grace that already is.

         
         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

         
I don’t like litter.
I don’t like bird poop on things.
I don’t like people being mean to old folks.
I don’t like tyrants.
I don’t like Brussels sprouts, lima beans, raisins,
         mint, mustard, pickles or strawberry ice cream.
I don’t like the torture of children,
         the suffering of war, or smoking in public,
         or sleet. Or sand in my socks.
I don’t like tragedy. It refuses to negotiate.
I don’t like rain, because it messes things up.
I don’t like sunrises because they come too early.
I don’t like sunsets because they end things.
And they keep coming. It’s annoying.
And pleasant days, like everything, can without warning
         turn worse.
And you know how joy is always either compromised
         or cut short.
I don’t like poetry, because there’s never enough.
I have my standards.

____________________
Weather Report

Weather today will be as pleasant or un
as you anticipate, with some variation,
as reality and expectation collide at upper levels,
clearing only when you choose
this and not something else.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

                  
         Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.
                  I do not give to you as the world gives.
         Do not let your hearts be troubled,
                  and do not let them be afraid.
                           —John 14.27

I give you the quiet peace of this present moment:
without hurry, fear or need to be elsewhere,
but right here, right now, as you are, at rest.

I give you the strong peace of yourself:
the peace of forgiveness and my delight in who you are,
with no need to prove yourself or do better.

I give you the vibrant peace of oneness with all living things,
the peace of deep belonging,
and reconciliation with all people.

I give you the life-giving peace of my own spirit,
my love, trust and courage beating in your heart,
my presence in your soul.

I give you the joyous peace of trust—
trust in your life and its goodness,
trust in the Beloved and your belovedness.

I give you the renewing peace of healing,
of blessing hidden even in struggle and pain,
of trust that even in suffering all shall be well.

I give not as the world gives, from the outside,
but from within, by your being created,
and it cannot be taken away.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

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

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Something immense within,
a seed bursting its case,
a mother with child,

the only passenger
in the little boat
of your life,

a whole world’s worth
of divine love
pent up in you,

vast, given, swelling
with heat and beauty,
your own particular fire—

let it out
or it will sear you!
Let it out!

         
         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.                    

In both biblical languages there is one word for “breath, “wind,” and “spirit:” ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek. Our English retains a remnant of the connection between breath and spirit, in respiration and inspiration. And to expire, to lose the Spirit, is to die.

In the beginning God’s spirit-breath-wind broods (like a mother hen) over the waters… and brings forth Creation. God fashions us from the earth and breathes God’s own spirit-life-breath into us and we become a living being. After Jesus’ resurrection he breathes his spirit-breath-life into his followers so that they become his body, one body. At Pentecost, they hear the sound of a mighty wind-breath-spirit and catch fire with love. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5.5). Our love is God breathing in us.

Holy Spirit is God within us and among us. Holy Spirit is God’s love in us, God’s breath in us, one breath in all of us, one Spirit in many (seemingly) bodies. When we love God or love neighbor we are not reaching out to a separate other, but re-connecting with ourselves, with God. We share respiration and inspiration. We conspire: we “breathe with” God. All of life is a conspiracy, breathing with God and with each other; sharing one breath, sharing one Spirit, one life.

Breathe deeply of God, and conspire with God to breathe life into this world in love.                    

Deep Blessings, Pastor Steve

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

Holy Spirit, fire of God, enflame me.
        Breath of life, take wing in me.
                Divine love, reach through me.

I am the vessel of your wine,
        the flesh of your soul,
                the candle of your flame.

Breathing out, I release myself;
        breathing in, I receive you.
                Filling me, you enliven my cells.

From within, you are my life.
        In every other, there you are as well.
                In you, I meet myself in them.

Fill me with your living,
        send me in your loving,
                your loving that does not die.

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

Pentecost — May 1, 2013       

         
         
Walking in your woods, God, I know I am your creature: not a figment of my own design, but a work of your hands, made of bone and spirit, love and tissue, Word and flesh wed masterfully in me. I am made of earth, of star-forged, earth-stirred atoms that have flowed in streams and coursed through seas and lain in hills for millions of years, that have found their way in living beings for generation and have joined for this brief moment in me. Your galaxies whirl silently in me; all living beings pass through my veins. I am a work of beauty whose source and end is wonder, whose purpose, beyond all goals, beyond all success or failure, is simply to be, reflecting your glory. My being is your praise. You place me in this world, weave me with all Creation, and intend my deep belonging. I live in awe of your beauty in me, in reverence for my being, and for all living things. I give thanks that in woods or offices, sitting by a pond or standing in an elevator, among silent trees or in a clattering city, I am your creature, made by your love, made for your joy. Creator: I your creature praise you, and thank you for this wonder of life. I trust your hand. I give myself to you. Amen.

         
         

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com