Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

Jesus touched the deaf man’s ears,
and so that they would be healed
and hear again, he said, “Ephphatha,”
which means, “Be opened!”

Jesus touched the poor man’s heart,
so that it would be healed
and accept God’s grace,
and said, “Be opened!”

Jesus looked to heaven,
so that there would be no barrier
between God and us,
the doors spread wide,
and said, “Be opened!”

Jesus, knowing God within,
wanting to be an open vessel
flowing with love, beheld his own soul,
and said, “Be opened!”

Jesus thought of the crowd,
their pinched faith,
and so that they might have hope,
trusting the miracles of God,
he said, “Be opened!”

Jesus puts his hand on your heart
and closes his eyes
and says, “Be opened!”

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
 

A woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
—Mark 7.25-30

 

She’d been called worse.
Dog, nigger, whore, welfare queen,
she’d heard it. People say stuff. So?
Doesn’t God love her daughter?
It’s not what you get called,
but what you say that makes you.
What she got called didn’t move her,
like the weather on the way to the well:
raining or hot, you just go through it,
you get the water.
So people call her things. Still,
didn’t God want her daughter well?
And now people will say things again,
call her a bitch, think of something mean.
Fine, say things.
Doesn’t God still love her daughter?
 

Jesus knows the inside of those names.
Got the scars from those stones.
Knows it won’t be long
till they think of some bad ones for him,
traitor, crazy, demon, trash.
And doesn’t God still love him?
 

Doesn’t God keep saying,
I don’t care what crap you throw,
I give life and tenderness and guts?
Doesn’t every Easter, every miracle say,
All those people you condemn,
I love and I will raise them up?
Doesn’t God say, You put them down,
put them away, put them out of mind,
call them queers, illegals, retards,
demean them, deport them,
imprison them, dehumanize them,
and don’t I love them?
Does God call them names,
or is the name God calls them Beloved?
Does God want to put that girl down,
or raise her up?
Isn’t that what the heck God does?

 

Yes, sister. It is.
You got it.
Even the dogs get the master’s crumbs.
The put-down, the shut-out, the dispensable,
the ones nobody cares about, nobody sees,
everybody uses, everybody shrugs,
they are God’s precious, God’s little sweeties,
and God will fight for them
like a mother for her baby girl.
 

Sister, you get it.
You know God cuts through all our meanness,
raises up who we put down.
You count on God to love against the flow.
No faith is worth having
that isn’t that.
Your daughter will be fine, Sister,
real fine.

         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
 

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

 

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

 

 
 

Holy One, Steadfast Love,
in this busy season,
help me stay rooted in your peace
and at rest in your presence.
As activities swirl about me
and demands pour over me
like a raging river,
may I be steady as a stone,
washed in your grace.

Even in the roaring torrent
you are my earth, my gravity;
you are the darkness within the stone,
and all about me the water rushes,
singing your praise.

 

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com.

God, maker of the universe,
who work moment by moment
to sustain Creation,
bless those who labor,
who work for the weal of the world.
For those whose unseen labor eases our lives
may we always be mindful and grateful.
For their diligence and pride in craft
and faithful service we render thanks.
For those who work for the sake
of people they will never see,
we ask your blessing.
For those who risk and suffer,
we ask your protection.
For those whose work is demeaning,
whose conditions are poor,
whose pay is unfair,
we pray for justice.
We give honor to those whose labor
is unseen and unrewarded.
We pray for those whose labor is forced,
without rest, or freedom or dignity;
for all who are coerced, endangered, enslaved,
exploited or abused: we cry for justice.

We pray for those who seek labor
and who find none,
who are prevented by their bodies
or their society from meaningful work.

We give thanks for all who labor,
and pray that all may know the blessing
of your Sabbath gift of rest.

Holy One, you who labor for our life,
bless our work, that it may serve you
and the mending of the world.
Amen.

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

Give our leader your justice, O God, and your righteousness to those in power.
May they judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness.
May they defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.
—Psalm 72.1-4

God of eternal justice and mighty grace,
may your gentle healing and fierce compassion
overthrow those in power, and fill them with your love.
May your care for your littlest ones
invade our desires, sweep up our leaders,
overtake all greed, and transform the power in our hands.
May justice be our passion and love our courage.
May our leaders guide us in generosity
with gentleness, humility and truth.
By the self-giving of your grace,
may we overthrow all greed and oppression,
that none, in using power, may cause another’s suffering.
We give ourselves to the healing of the earth,
that we may be tender with even the mountains and hills.
God of mercy, may justice prevail:
not that we decide one another’s deserving,
but that we defend one another’s needs,
that all may have life, and have it abundantly,
in the spirit of your almighty tenderness and grace.
Amen.

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

To subscribe to Unfolding Light by daily e-mail write to unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com

Dearly Beloved, 

Grace and Peace to you.

         There is nothing outside a person
         that by going in can defile,
         but the things that come out are what defile.
         It is from within, from the human heart,
         that evil intentions come.
                  Mark 7.15, 21

 

Look within, Jesus says, to the heart.
The truth and glory is not in outward appearances,
not in the circumstances of your life,
the conditions of your body.
The failure of your flesh, or even of your mind,
does not defile you or make you less sanctified.
It is in your heart that evil or goodness lives.
The body parts of your lover do not defile you.
It is in your hearts for one another,
not the shape of your flesh,
that love is honored or defiled.
Righteousness does not live
in your outward religious practice,
but in the moment by moment self-giving
of your inner truth,
receiving as a gift God’s own self-giving.

 

Go into your heart,
and open its doors
to every good gift from above.
Give it space, that you may be slow to anger,
and make room for the implanted Word,
so that the Word is not what you merely hear,
but what you do, what you live,
so that the Word is your heart,
your inner self.

 

Receive the gift of God
in the heart of your heart;
let it become the heart of your heart
and live that.

 

 

         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

 

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

 

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

 

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

 

To this one grief do not succumb at last–
unlike so many losses, all that tearing,
all the deaths of things that must be passed,
the vital griefs from which you learn by bearing.
Yes, when your child gets on that bus you weep,
trailing pages of your loose-leaf heart,
the rough handwritten story you can’t keep.
How small the steps with which your light departs!
But you grieve not for her–she will return–
but for that soul for whom all things are new,
that child who still can wonder, risk and learn,
the part that you don’t want to lose of you.
So do not let this grief, this death be true:
no, let the new adventurer be you.

 

         

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

 

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

 

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

 

How astonishing to find
that the angels of God
don’t really judge
whether we are good or bad,
they are not sent on any mission,

they just really like
to be with us.

 

 

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

Yesterday was Mother Teresa’s birthday. We revere her memory as a great person, but as she continually said, we are not called to do great things; we are called to do ordinary things with great love. We marvel at her impact on the world, when the only power she had was her kindness. But we shouldn’t marvel. Hidden in simple kindness is the power to change a situation, change a life, change the world. What is God’s power in the world, even the power to create the universe, but God’s overflowing kindness?

All the great spiritual teachers tell us this: that loving kindness is not a little thing, or even an ordinary thing. It is a superpower. The baptismal vows in the United Methodist Church include one to “accept the power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” It sounds like the job description of a superhero. But that’s exactly the promise of baptism: you have this divine power in you. Use it. And here’s the latest news: recent research has found that witnessing an act of kindness, even to a stranger, increases a person’s compassion toward others. Kindness is self-replicating.

Go into this day with the immense power of kindness. Don’t pull back from using it at every opportunity. Trust its power. It is for this that you are here: to bear God’s kindness to the world. God be with you.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

 

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

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

 

Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” …When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” …Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”—John 6. 56, 60, 66-68

 

Jesus, I am taken aback;
your words push me to the edge;
I’m not sure I get it.

But still you draw me in,
deeper into your life, into God,
into being the flesh of your love.

Your grace that confounds me,
though its meaning escapes me,
feeds me, creates me, births me.

This mystery is too great for my mind,
my wisdom can’t comprehend it;
I just take it in, swallow it all.

My deepest hunger isn’t for religion;
it’s for life. It’s not for anything sensible.
It’s for you, your infinite, upwelling life.

Beyond all thoughts and feelings
I taste your heart: you say simply,
“I want to be with you.”

Oh…
Ah…
Yes.

Heavenly Lover, you who live in me,
Mystery of my own being, Dear One,
I love you so much I could eat you.

 

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

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