Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
          He came to a Samaritan city called Sychar,
          and tired out by his journey, sat by the well.
                      – John 4.5-6

       
Sister,
five-times thrown-away woman,
shunned and shoved to the edge,
to the back, to the other world
of muddy, fouled waters, alone,
named a tramp for being used,
when only others have the power
to marry and dismiss like that,
and even now used but not claimed,
sister,
forced out by privilege,
fenced in by fear, silenced
by everybody’s need to not be you,
cisterned in a deep, private place—

the Beloved comes to you,
walking through walls,
thirsts with you for that deep place,
where in darkness the real life,
welling from infinitely deep within,
gushes up and can’t be taken,
can’t be stopped or plugged or dried,

and in that place falls into sharing
deep and holy things with you.
In the village of your heart
there is a conversation going on
out at Jacob’s well. Listen.

As you thirst together with your Love
a deeper spring bursts forth in you,
a Word, a call, a strength, a truth
that others haven’t heard but will,
a witness powerful enough
to wake a town of doubters,
a new spring gushing up in you
that bathes away your shame,
that bids you leave your jug—
you will be back— and go,
go, sister to this deafened,
hardened world and sing,
and they will listen—yes!—for now
you have been raised to this new life
and given voice and have become
yourself a prophet.

You won’t know now, but later see
how this fountain in your heart
even the bucket of your thirst,
satisfies your tired, parched Beloved,
how he is fed by what he gets
from 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 unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

         
         
                  
God, I come to you weak and empty;
          my prayers are thin and dry.
My heart is hardly awake, nodding off,
          my mind, divided and wandering.
You receive my feeble, wayward prayers,
          as if they are perfect and whole:
“Beloved, your presence is all that I seek,
          your presence alone my delight.”

O Steadfast One, my faith is fragile some days,
          so easily traded for easy assurance,
or even the sleep of not caring.
          And you hold me as a newborn.
“Beloved, your presence is all that I seek,
          your presence alone my delight.”

O Mystery, some days it just is too hard,
          to listen, to hear, to obey.
And yet this cry in me, my very despair—
          is your voice, your aching for me,
your closing your hand about mine, weak and trembling,
          your spirit embracing my own.
“Beloved, your presence is all that I seek,
          your presence alone my delight.”

My Lord, I do not know how to love,
          but yours is the love that will save me.
I do not know how to pray at all,
          but I can sit in the light,
and let your presence enfold me and hold me,
          and let you answer me:
“Beloved, your presence is all that I seek,
          your presence alone my delight.”

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

         
         

Holy One,
you will come to me this day.
You will hide in the little events.
In the friends and stranger,
in those whom you send me to love,
you will be present.
In the feelings and perceptions
that arise in me you will be whispering.
In the the low murmurings,
the leanings of my soul,
you will be gently nudging me.
In the light, in the silence,
you will come to me.
And I will be ready
to say yes.

______________________
Weather Report

Small things,
passing,
throughout the day,
with little accumulation,
as this moment moves through
the skin of the divine,
and gradually your heart
warms to it.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

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

         
         
Heavenly Mother, you birth me in love.
         Give me life anew.
You create new worlds.
         Create me again.
You sustain me moment by moment.
         Birth me in love.

Living One, you are the Breath.
         I am your song. Sing me.
You are the wind.
         I am mist. Carry me where you will.
You are my Spirit.
         I am your flesh. Move in me.

Beloved, you call me in mystery.
         Show me the road.
You promise me blessing.
         Bear me into the unknowing.
You ask my trust.
         Holy One, be my journey.

Born of water and Spirit,
         I flow by your grace.
Born of water and Spirit,
         I flow by your grace.      
         

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

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write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
                  
God called Abram to leave the familiar and go,
go on a road he would make by going,
to a place he would know by finding.

Jesus led Nicodemus to the threshold of a birth,
a newness he could only know
by going through it.

Only what’s behind us, not ahead,
keeps us from going on, from entering
the impossible womb of starting new.

The stones of disappointment in your pockets,
the grave marker of the old life,
they can’t come with you.

The path is not a test. It’s our freedom.
Many a prisoner has looked into the tunnel,
the Beloved waiting in the light, and said no.

Where is the Spirit calling you, the wind blowing?
Where is the thin place between your habits
and a new birth?

These pangs, this heavy breathing:
the beloved is trying to birth you.
Let it happen.

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 unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

         
         
                  
God, like Nicodemus I come at night,
asking less than you answer:
you open an unseen door, invite me
on a farther path than I wanted.
Yet I want this, the confusing lead,
the bewildering invitation,
the dawning promise.
Help me to claim my want, to walk
in the daylight of my desire for you.
Open my heart even wider,
lead me even deeper, into the realm
beyond wisdom and control,
beyond the land of hanging on.
Let me be blown about by your Spirit,
flowing as your water, helpless
in your love.
Holy One, in my night I come to you.
Let your grace dawn upon me.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

                  
1. Someone wants you. Conceived you. Is waiting.

2. There is a very thin boundary between you
         and what nourishes you, embeds you,
         becomes you.

3. There is no coming to life without pain,
         no awakening without surrender,
         no struggle without hope.

4. Through the valley of the shadow of death,
         Red Sea, gaping tomb, birth canal,
         life draws you, knowing.

5. Let the Beloved push you out of her
         into her lap. It is with love
         that she lets you go.

6. Breathe in. Breathe out.

7. Shed the sac of all the awful things.
         Let the cord of your shame and suffering be severed.
         Each breath, you are delivered
         into the new world.

8. Beneath the slime you are beautiful. You are new.
         Allow yourself, naked, flawed and bewildered,
         to be perfect, to be held, to be adored.

9. In this moment, the Holy One gives you life.
         The Holy One alone.
         Stay here.

10. Breathe in. Breathe out.

11. Each moment her sweet umbilical breath.
         Receive this life,
         and bear her love into this day.

12. Breathe in. Breathe out.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

                  
                  
Beloved, come to me, I pray.
I do not care how or when,
in what form, what shape,
in what spirit you come to me,
but come.
I long for you.
I am not whole without you.
See, the place here in my heart
for you alone
I hold and wait.
Oh, come, do come, and stay.

So the Holy One
cries out to you:
Beloved, come.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

         
         
It’s not that unusual among desert stones
and jagged wastes where you are sure to falter,
the stripped, eroded places of your want,
to crave a little comfort.

To seek some mastery is not unnatural,
a perfectly reasonable illusion.
But there is only one hunger.

The body knows more than we want it to
of what we need, but not where to look.

A leopard in the city, beautiful, and ravenous.

Don’t be harsh with yourself.
Desire is as readily a path as a trap.
Befriend those temptations,
each one whispers a name of God.

You don’t need to be cold or closed,
but to want more than you have dared.
Teach the hunter where to seek,
how to not give up at the first delight,
and how to shoot you from the bow of desire.
Even if your hand trembles, and it will tremble,
your longing will save you.

For the Beloved also has desires,
and will draw you in,
if only you are desperate enough.

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 unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com

         
         Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
         to be tempted by the devil.
                  —Matthew 4.1

The devil’s not some red-suit guy
trying to trick me into doing evil.
I seem to do that quite well on my own.

No, these are the real temptations
of being human,
the things that lead me away from you, God:
the longing for power, security and belonging
elsewhere.

I confess these to you, God,
not to prove how bad I am,
but to see more clearly
how this works in me,
how my appetites can carry me away
from you.

I go into the wilderness
to expose my hungers,
to confront my distrust,
to renew my absolute dependence on you.

I won’t banish my temptations,
but welcome them, name them,
and let them become my path to you.

Beneath all that I want,
beyond all that I think I need,
is you.
I walk this desert journey
that you might transform my desires.

In this desert, God,
help me come to desire
nothing
but you.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight8(at)hotmail.com