Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

That without a word
you sat with me in grief,
me wounded and alone,
robbed beyond grasping,
you silent and present,
beyond grasping—
this was love.

That you did not save me
but accompanied me,

that when I fell apart,
confident in the whole you did not try
to glue back the pieces,

that you did not protect me from my pain,
my heart’s crucial kneading,
did not root around in the ashes
looking for blame,

that you resisted the temptation of explanation,
the ruse of a plan, some clever dramatic device
as if the click of some little metal piece into place
could dismiss what was happening in my heart,

that you set me no timetable, that you planted
no fence beyond the strong horse of my anguish,

that you withheld your dexterous knowhow,
so readily shouldered the weight,
accepted the nails of powerlessness,
dared the nothingness empty-handed,

that you were still there
as the petals fell,
patient for the rolling away of the stone—

this is how you loved me,
helpless, raw and given.
This is how you love me still,
since love that has passed through death
will never die again.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
“Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”
         —Ezekiel 37. 4-5

So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” … He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?”… Jesus began to weep. … He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
         — from John 11

Under the roaring silence of your death,
a voice calls you by name.
Tunneling under the the world yelling at you,
a bird song that pierces iron walls,
a strong hand, unflinching, a voice
reaches into the dark mountain,
reaches through the cages and sewers,
the vast abandoned valleys,
into the shark’s mouth of fear,
into the cave of your death, and its own,
and finds the skeleton,
finds the bones made of stone and despair,
gathers your bones from trash piles,
and speaks to your fragments,
wraps its flesh around your bones,
gives them its blood, its breath, its life.
Only the voice of a love that fierce
can call your name
and you come out,
out of your old death
into the quiet morning,
a squinting newborn,
stunned, beloved, swaddled,
ready to be set free,
knowing nothing
but the sound of that voice.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Awake at night, in covering darkness,
held unfaithfully by sleep,
I stirred. I became incomplete.

I was helpless: in love,
unable to resist.
I rose and crept out into the dark.

Guided by the faintest light I sought you,
and found you and fell into your arms,
and you wrapped yourself around me,

your arms the arms of dawn,
your legs the shining hills of earth,
your hair the radiance of sun.

You enveloped me in light,
and we lay together in the clear day,
for all to see.

Why, then, time after time,
am I still ashamed, as if it is a secret,
that we love each other so?

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the people there were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” …. Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” … Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” … Jesus began to weep. … He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
         —from John 11.1-44

Compassion is the courage to enter into another’s suffering for the sake of their blessing. It is not always problem solving. It is presence, out of which we may take action to bring about healing or justice. Jesus went to Bethany not merely to fix Lazarus, but to enter into the sisters’ grief, the grief of all mortals that even Jesus cannot spare us from. Thomas, Faithful Thomas, recognized his courage, and chose to share it.

It is only from the place of weeping with those who weep that we can enact healing for those who suffer and justice for those who are oppressed. What stands between us and the eradication of poverty and injustice is not power, resources or adequate economic theories, but the insulation we place in fear between us: we are afraid of feeling their loneliness or their hunger, touching their hopelessness, sharing their pain.

Our Lenten fasting is a practice of courage, of entering into another’s suffering, even a small bit of it, for the sake of compassion and justice, and learning to care about love more than comfort and security. Our fasting and prayer is no mere gesture. It is practice, by which we enter into the suffering of the world for the sake of its healing. In so doing we enter into the heart of God, whose very nature is self-giving love for the sake of her beloved Creation. The measure of our suffering is of no matter: in prayer and fasting we die to ourselves and become part of the Body of Christ, sharing the love of Jesus and the courage of the saints and martyrs. Forty-three years ago on this day, April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. In prayer and in fasting, his courage and compassion becomes ours.

In love, weep with those who weep and stand with those who are oppressed, in the spirit of the One who weeps with us in love, the One who calls us out of our fear into new life, who raises us up, unbinds us and sets us free.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

April 1: a foot of thick snow.

May heaven’s April fool jokes
continually beset you;
may the fickle drifts of your mastery
pile up, and melt,
but only after you shovel them;
may the treasures of earth
awaken your flesh and invite you to dance;
may unexpected blessings
weigh upon you, change your plans,
soak in deep, and make things green.
May you never need to know
too far in advance.
May you be ambushed by grace,
and always more astonished than not.
May every squall return you
to the fleeting moment
and whisper: Watch.
This won’t last long.

____________________
Weather Report

Variable,
as a front of unpredictability sweeps away
a high pressure zone of control,
with increasing powerlessness
and occasions of “being at the mercy of.”
Expect high humility, and accumulations
of 6 to 10 inches of surrender.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

We built a church of wood
         and they burned it to dust.

We built a shrine of gold
         and they stole it all.

We built a cathedral of stone
         and they toppled it with ease.

We walked out into a field of love
         and they can’t even find it.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
         God, help me see your glory.
         Open my eyes to your grace.

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
         May I see by your light.
         May I do the works of light.

He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
         Help me let go of old ways of seeing.
         Give me a new consciousness.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”
         Give me courage to see others as they truly are,
         not as I want to see them.

Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.”
         I confess that I sometimes care more
         about defending my world view
         than about others and their well being.

They did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called his parents and asked them.
         Give me grace to honor what is in my heart
         without having to ask others what I know to be true.

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”
         Help me to see your grace in those whom I judge,
         to see your truth in what I resist
         to see your presence where I have refused to see.

He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
         Once I judged, and I was blind,
         but by your grace I see grace
         and my eyes are opened.
         You have set me free
         from the fear of seeing.
         You give me courage to see what is,
         and behold what is before me.
         I look with my soul, not only my eyes,
         and I watch what others do not notice.
         I look to the heart, and attend to the soul,
         and so I see the unseen, by your grace.

They said, “We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
         I confess the preconceptions that blind me,
         the blinders of what I want to be true,
         and how I want to be right.

The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
         Give me courage to see grace and and mercy,
         to notice injustice and demeaning,
         even when others want me not to see,
         when I would be at ease being oblivious.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
         God, help me to see with your eyes,
         with your compassion,
         with your grace,
         for otherwise I am blind.

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
         God, be my seeing.
         Create me anew as your eyes.
         Look upon this world with love
         from within me.

—from John 9
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
         — John 9.1-3

Biblical cultures believed that all disease and misfortune is God’s punishment. We come close. One problem is that our little ego-self has a hard time being fully in the present moment. We stay chained to the past: we believe that what we’ve done in the past somehow determines what we “deserve” in the present. But God is not in the past, and God is not determined by the past. God is not obligated to match a punishment or a reward with some past deed, and we are not obligated to compensate for the past. Resurrection means that God is free of the past, and sets us free as well. This is what forgiveness is, and the grace of God.

In this story, people assume that a man born blind has to stay that way. Jesus will show them otherwise.

Another problem is that we really do think that, having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we can judge—and just because our little egoic selves think we can, we think that judging is what needs to be done, and what God does. We think that one’s actions can be so simplistically labeled as good or evil as to warrant a single particular fate that one “deserves.” But our actions have a thousand aspects, causes and consequences, and good and evil are not so easily separated out. Many of the “bad” things we do are ways of coping we learned as children that kept us sane and alive. Is that bad? Maybe what God judges is not our past but our present: how present we are to God right now, in this moment.

In this story, people assume that if there has been sin, someone ”deserves” punishment. Jesus will show them otherwise.

Neither the man nor his parents sinned (in the past). He was born blind so that God’s glory might be revealed in him (in the present). There is no such thing as deserving. There is only God’s grace.

You think that for your acts, good or bad, there is deserving. Let God show you otherwise. Be present to God in the present moment. Let God free you of the past. Learn from it, yes; receive from it, let it shape and guide you. But it does not control you, or God. You live with the consequences of what you have done, but God does not attach reward or punishment to that. God only grants you grace. Allow God to bring you gently into the present moment, freeing you from the past, and from all “deserving.” No one owes anyone anything. You are free. You are loved. You are free to love God as perfectly as you can. Come into God’s presence—God’s presence for us, God’s present— with thanksgiving.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, “I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”
         —John 4.17-18

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.
         —John 20. 15-17

In between winter and spring is mud season. The beautiful snow disappears, burned down to icy, grimy crusts. Yards expose a season’s filth, matted and ugly. The ground is wet, sloppy and spongy. Brown mud covers everything. Green and flowering growth will come, but this comes first.

There is a season between repentance and rebirth, between the old life and the new. There is a kind of mud season in which we have become newly honest about our faults, wounds and struggles. We are exposed and vulnerable, and not yet comfortable with a new way of living. We are unrecognizable as our old selves, but not yet fully formed as new ones. The clay is still wet and fragile, too tender to cling to.

It’s hard to change our lives. It’s a long process, and it does not come all at once. We need to be humble and patient, and gentle with ourselves. And we ought to be so tender with others, in case they, too, have entered into their own mud season. We need to not cling to the way they are, so that they are free to become what they will be. New life will surely come, but only if we respect it. Be gentle with yourself and others, and be patient with the mud seasons. The little green shoots will appear soon enough.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
—Matthew 4.2

         Fasting, I confront my desires.
         I follow them and they lead me
         inward into my wilderness.

The people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”
—Exodus 17.3

         Too often it is only through suffering,
         through struggle and want,
         that I find what I seek,
         and who I am.

God opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river.
—Psalm 105.41
         
         You provide what I need,
         not what I crave,
         and not where I expect it.

God humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
—Deuteronomy 8.3

         A deeper thirst yearns beneath my wants.
         I befriend my temptations,
         without surrendering to them,
         until they show me what they are hiding.

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
—Psalm 42.1-2

         This holy thirst is not a weakness;
         it is my salvation. It never fails me.
         It is You, drawing me nearer.

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
—John 4.15

         May my soul’s thirst flood my body’s;
         May I never lose my overwhelming
         craving for you.

When Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.”
—John 19.28

         My thirst for You takes me
         to places of compassion:
         when others thirst
         my mouth is dry.

The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
—John 4.14

         One thirsty gulp of Your grace
         lasts me forever,
         gushing up from within me
         for life.

         God, today I am happy
         to be hungry and thirsty
         for you.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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