Holy One,
I am your vessel,
your cup, your picture frame.
I am the brush and you are the art.
I am the candle; you are the flame.
I am the school bus and you are the children.
I am the ship and you are my freight.
I am the body and you are my soul,
my heartbeat, my nerve, my breath.
You are the harp and I am the string;
I am the string and you are the music;
I am the music and you are the words.
Holy One, I am your life in this life,
and you are my life.
Bear me on
as I bear you
into the world,
O Holy One.

         

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

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

If I cup my hands and try to hold perfect darkness in there, it takes great effort and care. With the slightest wiggle I am apt to create some tiny crack somewhere, where the light gets in. I strain and contort my hands. I can’t actually see if the darkness is complete, if there is a little spot of light between any two fingers, so I am constantly looking, doubtful, checking, anxious, uncertain, tense.

Or I can relax and let the light in.

I can try to hold my soul just so, so that no sin enters, and feel anxious that it may happen, and awful when it does. Or I can relax and let the light in. I can trust that, yes, there are shadows, and yet light is there.

In prayer I can try to hold other things out. Or I can relax and let the light in.

That’s how we all get to heaven. God just relaxes and lets the light in.

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

                  

You are my child: my Beloved,
         in whom I am well pleased.
My delight is in you, in your very being,
         not in what you have done, or how well.
That I create you breath by breath is my joy;
         that you live gives me pleasure.

Today I have decreed healing for you,
         and blessing in body and soul.
You belong to the grace of my hand,
         the wholeness of which I fashion Creation.

All that robs life in you I wipe away;
         all that dims your beauty
         I wash away in a flood of glory.
All that you have done that is hurtful
         is gone in the river of healing.
All shame and fear I carry away
         in the unrelenting current of grace.
All that is death in you I destroy;
         I drown it in life everlasting.

Your being sings with the power
         with which I made you.
Your breath is my Spirit;
         your life is my glory.
I give you my own sacred energy,
         to be blessing and beauty,
to shine with my love
         and the the victory of mercy,
the infinity of my delight
         and the death of death.
I make you my river, my dawn,
         and I give you life
that no one can take or diminish,
         that nothing can stop.
You are my Love forever.
         Go, then, and love, forever.

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

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Merry Christmas!

Sounds wrong, doesn’t it? Way too late. But today is the eleventh day. By the time we get to the pipers piping and the drummers drumming it’s clear that we’re following a different rhythm than the secular world. We’re pondering the mystery of the Incarnation, of God-with-us.

By now we get the feeling of the long haul. We feel the urge to take down the decorations and get on with other things—yet here is God, patiently staying with us, not building up to some big event, but simply being with us, now in this ordinary, sacred time, full of grace. God’s presence stretches through our sense of time, traversing its boundaries. Our awareness and energy are relative; God’s grace is constant. We are often preoccupied wishing time would either hurry up or slow down, while the present moment is simply here, shot through with light and promise.

Things take time. The magi are still making their way toward the holy child. According to Matthew’s story, in fact, they arrived some two years after his birth. So this Sunday we’re celebrating the wise men of Christmas, 2010. Have patience this ordinary day. Trust that the promise is diligently making its journey. A star that appeared in the sky of your heart will lead to magical wonders, but not for a couple of years. God is working on a grander scale than you can see. Be patient with the future; it will bring blessing. Be present in the moment; it is full of God.
         
         
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.
         
         

The light,
and always that gentle,

         

the King
of love,
no weapons, laws or armies,
a tender child
who makes you tender,

         

what would it take for you
to empty out the treasure
of yourself
and give everything away,

         

what would it be like,
every moment,
even the dangerous ones,
to kneel like that?

         
         
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.

         Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked,
         “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?
         We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”
                  —Matthew 2.1

What led these mysterious figures,
         characters from the misty edges of our worlds,
         descending from towers in our dreams,
                  to travel as they did? To change their lives?

What led them to seek and to find,
         to kneel and to honor,
         to give gifts and praise?

What led them to leave palaces behind,
         to submit to the pointing of strangers,
         to change their way and seek new roads?

A star, a small light in a great darkness,
         true enough and sure.
                  A star led them.

A Word, a promise from ancient scripture,
         still alive, and whispered
         deep within.
                  A Word led them.

A dream, a knowing given in darkness and sleep,
         received, not made.
                  A dream led them.

A longing, a desire for wisdom and belonging,
         rising in the deep sky of their hearts.
                  A longing led them.

A willingness, the humility to listen and follow,
         the confidence, even as kings, to obey.
                  A willingness led them.

What led them?
         You led them. Each step,
                  each error, each turn, you led them.

Christ, my child, my star, my dream:
         lead me.
                  And I shall follow.

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.
         
         

Eighth day of Christmas,
before dawn,
every rock and snowpile still,
city resting,
even the Deep is quiet.
Trees stand by, silent attendants.
The east rolls over, waking.
New year opens its eye,
still dreaming, but
thinking of something.
Eighth day of Creation,
still enough chaos to work with.
In the great silence
God draws a breath…

__________________
Weather Report

Blessing
and the warmth of intense good will,
occasionally obscured by showers
of loss, pain, and toil,
but accompanied by mercy and presence,
increasing throughout
the new, gifted year.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

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Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
         “Fast away the old year passes.
                  Fa la la la la la la la la.
         Hail the new, ye lads and lasses.
                  Fa la la la la la la la la.”

         Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
         for the first heaven and the first earth
         had passed away, and sea was no more.
                  —Revelation 21.1

I like calendars: they have a new picture every month. So I save them, and re-use them. (In 2013 you can use calendars from 2002, 1991 and 1985. Well, and, ’74, ’63, ’57 and 1822, for that matter) The patterns and pictures return, but the time does not.

Deep snow covers everything and turns it into a new world. I know it will some day vanish and the old world will return. I need to stop knowing this. It is good to trust that the world is here and will be here. I love the friends who light my life, the woods I walk in, the sea that sings to me, the heavens that fill these nights with the music of the moon. But I can easily begin to expect the world to continually repeat itself like an old calendar.

Everything is passing, even the whole world, and the world reminds me of this: in the passing of time, the passing of seasons, the passing of loved ones. In my grief and fear I cling to the world, not for its sake but mine. I cling to the world without loving it. But the snow that follows each stone wall so carefully, that attends to each branch with loving devotion, and that will soon fall from the branches and melt away, says, “No, love the world without clinging to it.”

This is only the first world. There is another, and we are passing into it, always, always slipping mysteriously into that new gift that waits inside this world like a child in its womb. Every loss is a promise, every death a preparation. As we turn through the light spangled heavens into a new year, I pray that I may be ready for a new life as well. Let this new year be one in which I am mindful of the new world just barely invisible beyond this one, ready to be changed. May I love the world without clinging to it. May I live in this moment, not a vanished one, or an imagined one, but this one precious, passing moment in which, even now, God is bringing forth a new heaven and a new earth.
         
         
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.
         
         
         After three days they found him in the temple.
                  —Luke 2. 46

At Christmas time we think of the “Christ child,” though we know nothing of Jesus’ childhood. But there is this: Luke says when Jesus was twelve, when his family went to the temple in Jerusalem they accidentally left him behind. After three days they found him, in the temple.

Insert your own funny family story here of the kid being left somewhere (ours is a gas station). But wait— three days? Clearly, this is not a biographical story, but a symbolic one. It’s a story about losing and finding, being with and without, separation and reunion. In the Bible three days is not chronological time, it’s symbolic time: Abraham and Isaac on the mountain… Jonah in the whale… Jesus in the tomb. Three days means loss and transformation, death and resurrection. And it comes at Christmas time.

Because Christ comes to us to be with us in our death. Christ comes to us because we are broken hearted. The peace and joy of Christmas is not just for fun, but because we need it. We need the healing for our sorrows, the mercy in our terror, the company in our wanderings. Christ comes to be with us because we are lost, and searching, and alone. Sometimes, like his parents, we feel like we have lost the Holy Child with us or within us. We feel death’s shadow. But the good news is that we haven’t lost God; we are not alone; death does not have the last word. The light of Christmas shines on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.

For many people the ribbons of Christmas are braided with sorrow. And this year it has been for us, too. My wife Beth’s youngest sister Paula passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last weekend, two days before Christmas. Family is gathered, yet sundered, both lost and united. We have been more aware than usual that the promise of Christmas is not happy times; the promise is that God is with us, even in the sorrowful times. Sometimes we have to search for three days to know it. But when we return to the sacred center, we find that it is we who have wandered, who have not seen the presence of God. We are not alone. And death never has the last word.

There will be sorrows and fears; there will be times when we feel without God. But “after three days”—beyond the appearances of time and space— we will be reunited with the Beloved, and we will find ourselves in a holy place.

This Christmas pray for all those who do not yet see light in their lives, who are in sorrow, or searching and feel alone. May God’s presence enfold them, God’s love and hope be with them always.
         
         
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 the tiny villages of the night sky
a star’s windows gleam, waiting,
longing us home.

Your being, quiet as a star,
leads the hopeful
to a place of belonging.

                  •

The simple star
offers its gift with open hands
to the plains
with their little towns,
to the star-blind cities
and the furrows of the sea.

You do not need to know
that your compassion extends
to all living beings
for it to be so.

                  •

Deep in the black sky
a star gleams
its glory and hope
upon the little child.

Bright one,
never doubt
that your light is beautiful,
nor that what it shines on
is holy.

         
         
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