Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.

 

Whatever word you hear today,
good or bad, relieving or disappointing,
God is in it.

 

Whatever news comes your way,
calming or frightening,
there is blessing tucked in its creases.
 
Whatever happens to you next,
welcome or unwelcome,
is bound up in God’s hope for you.
 

Whatever word you hear today
is only the net.
The fish is the one true word
spoken to you every day,
whispered in the quiet places,
hidden in the dark places,
the word the master of the universe
speaks beneath all other shouts:
repeats, despite your doubts:
“I love you, child. You’re mine.”

 
Beneath the world’s frantic cries,
the word persists.
“I love you. You are mine.”

 

         

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.

Last week, after 38 years of side-splitting music and beautiful, heart-warming satire as the Montana Logging and Ballet Company, we finally lost our brave struggle with optimism, so we sang one final concert and euthanized the group. The cool thing is that we got to sing at our own funeral.

Reflecting on 38 years of performing, we have lots of memories—in fact we remember them more clearly than the lines of our latest songs. We had plenty of adventures, honors, triumphs and worthy accomplishments. We sang some pretty good stuff, and created some pretty funny comedy. But what I’m most grateful for is the connecting we did. The four of us connected in the music, and in our hearts. We’ve stayed best friends. And we connected with the audiences. People laughed and cried and applauded and threw fruit (we ate a lot of fruit in the early years). But the best part is not that they cheered, but what they were cheering for: we connected with something in their hearts. We put to music something that they were already dreaming. They gave us as much loving energy as we gave them. There was some kind of bonding going on. I don’t think we created that connection. We tapped into something that was already there.

It’s always there. You don’t have to perform for thousands to touch it. You can always choose to connect with people’s hearts. Everybody is hungry for love and hope. Whatever you do in your life, you can touch that. You will likely never get a standing ovation. But if you live with love, if you do whatever you do in humble generosity, you connect with the love that binds us all. The people around you may never know it, but their world is better because of you. As Mother Teresa said, what matters is not doing great things, but doing simple things with great love.

Our strange quartet was lucky to receive the love we received, but the best gift was not the applause; it was connecting with people’s hearts, sharing our common longing for love and hope. Go do that, even silently, even in the privacy of your own prayers, and I know that a great auditorium of angels will burst into uproarious and sustained cheering, calling for an encore.

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 unfoldinglight5(at)hotmail.com.

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
As you read this I am flying across the country to perform in the last concert of the Montana Logging and Ballet Company. After performing music and comedy together as a quartet for 38 years, we’re retiring. (I guess it’s the opposite of a debut: an exbut? A World Postmiere? A swan song? A dodo song?) Anyway. We’ve sung all over the nation, played for Congress and vice presidents, worked with Bishop Tutu, been featured monthly on NPR… and Wednesday night it will all be over. So it goes.

Everything is passing. Seasons turn. Stories end. Vegetables rot. Businesses close. People retire. Loved ones die. Coupons expire. Students graduate. Seeds grow. We can drive ourselves nuts trying to cling to things, even as they slip away. Or we can stay lightly in the moment, attentive to what is, unattached, ready for the next moment as well, free to fully be in each moment as it passes. When we try to “make the moment last forever” we don’t actually experience the moment; we just experience our fear of its passing. Pay attention and be fully, lovingly present to what is, without trying to keep it or control it, and the passing things of this world will be more fully yours than if you froze them in time.

As I fly over the country, it passes smoothly beneath me. Nothing will turn it back; nor will anything turn back the losses of all those passing things in our lives. The point is not to stop the plane in mid-air. The point is to remember to look out the window.

________________

Weather report

Unrepeatable,
though the day will be of average temperature
and unremarkable light,
as the present moment
continually becomes itself.
________________

I’ll be off the rest of the week. I’ll see you again next Monday. Meanwhile, pay attention.
         
         
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

 
As first I loved you longingly, from far, desiring.

You pulled me from my sea of want.

In gratitude I clung to you, possessing.

You disappeared within my arms,
vanishing into my heart.

I loved you in remembrance,
seizing certainty.

Hidden deep beneath my breath, you filled me.
Still, you do.

I loved you easily, without a care.

Then glancing toward the inward garden once,
I saw you resting in your favorite place

and I forgot myself. My heart at last
went out to you, adoring, and delighting.

Now I simply love you.
Just for you.

 

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

 

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

 

 
 

God, be my silence that never fills,
my empty space that stays open,
my mystery that never resolves.

 

Be my quiet that is never wounded,
the calm that rises up
and puts its hand on my trembling hand.

 

Be the stillness I don’t need to break,
the question that haunts me forever,
the opening that no one may close.

 

God, be the presence that is enough,
the Word that remains,
the moment I am in.

 

 

 

__________________
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.
 

 
If you want to become my follower,
deny yourself
and take up your cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
—Mark 8.34-35

 

 

The cross that Jesus invites us to take up is not an abstract thought, nor does it denote religious faith, no matter how devout. The cross in Jesus’ day was not a logo or a metaphor. It was not a kneeling bench on which believers felt holy. The cross was an instrument of pain, shame, absolute loss and death. It was a real weapon; the only way to “take it up” was to become its victim. What can it mean to “take up our cross” but to suffer it? It means to be in solidarity with those who are oppressed, to be one with those who are condemned, to carry in your heart the sorrow of those who suffer, and to pray and to act on their behalf. It is to live for the sake of the least of your sisters and brothers. To take up your cross is to let go of your ego, your willfulness and your desires, and be led wholly by God’s self-giving passion for the world, especially for the poor and the powerless. It is to be willing to suffer for the sake of the world, to work and even endure loss for the sake of the community’s gain. You do this not out of duty, or belief that you ought to be miserable so others can be happy, but you do it out of joy, pure joy in the gift of life, and pure love. To take up your cross is to give your life for the life of the world because that is your delight, trusting that as you empty yourself of your one small, lone life for the sake of compassion, the One who gives life gives it to you abundantly—infinitely and eternally, and still full of joy, overflowing with joy, radiant with divine, immortal joy.

 

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, Loving Presence,
you who are Life and Peace,
we are fragile, and often afraid.
We fall so easily.
Hold us.

We are at the mercy
of strangers who are angry
and strangers who are merciful.
May we be merciful strangers.

For those who have watched over us
we give you humble thanks;
and for those who have meant us harm
we grant deep forgiveness.

We confess that we too are the angry ones;
we too are destroyers.
Forgive us, and make gentle our hearts.
We confess that we excuse our violence,
saying that it keeps us free;
but you alone are our freedom.

Keep us free from fear, free from bitterness,
free from hardened hearts.
Be our safety, our security.
You alone, God, be our strength and our hope.
Be our future, and our freedom.

You who hold us in your gentle arms
hold us with all people.
May we be one in your love,
one in our flesh, one in our living,
one in our dying.

You whose heart holds all sadness,
keep your arms open.
We all are so easily broken.
Hold us.
Holy Peace, may we be at peace in you.

 

 

__________________
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.

 

I was in danger, best by a man in armor and a helmet on a strong horse. He pinned me to the ground with a thorny spear and made impossible demands of me. I was helpless and ashamed. I cried out for help.
 
He laughed at my feeble cry. But then he stopped and raised his head, sensing something. Over the hilltop came a small child, a toddler. The man on the horse froze. Through his mask I could see hie eyes change. Another infant joined the little child, and then a third. They surrounded his horse. They looked up at him solemnly as if they wanted him, as if they needed him.
 
He fled in terror.
 

 

___________________
 
Weather Report
 

A day of infancy,
with periods of disorienting clarity
as warm moist layers
of your psyche mingle with
what you think you’re supposed to be doing.
 

 

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, a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin, 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.” … They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
—Mark 7. 26-34

 

Perhaps Jesus knew all along where he was going with the woman. But maybe when the Galilean rabbi met the foreign woman, and his enculturated bias that Gentiles were inferior to Jews was met by her feisty insistence that she and her daughter were worthy of God’s grace—maybe she opened his eyes.

Later Jesus healed a deaf man, touching his ears and crying out, “Be opened!”

Maybe wisdom is not having it all figured out, but being open to God. In wisdom we never finish paying attention, never close our minds. We continually become more open to new awareness and perspectives, by what Paul calls “the transformation of our minds.” In wisdom we become more open to wonder, attentive to the Spirit, and receptive to God. We become more sensitive, enlarging the territory of our care, and welcoming others into our compassion with open arms. We become more transparent to God’s grace. Wisdom is allowing ourselves to be changed.

Jesus continually opened himself and expanded his compassion, until there was room in his heart for everybody. He opened up all his treasures and poured himself out. He was open even to all of our suffering and sin, opening all the way into the great emptiness of death itself. And even in the leaden closure of death, shut in by the tomb, God touched his grave and sighed and said, “Be opened!”

God touches you, and says, “Be opened!” The Spirit unfolds within you. Let her open up your life. Let God heal the ways in which you are closed off to the world, closed off from God. Let God enlarge your heart, opening to God, opening to the world, opening to heaven. Surrender to God’s great opening in you. Let your prayer be continually, “Open me. Open me. Open me.”

 

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.

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