Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.
         —Isaiah 58.6-8

Happy are those who fear the Lord. They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor. They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright.
         —Psalm 112. 9, 4

“You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before others, so that they may see by the light of your good works and give glory to your LIfe-Giver in heaven.
         —Matthew 5.14, 16

Every act of justice,
every act of compassion or mercy
is a light, a star in the night of this world.

You may think your efforts small and meaningless.
You may think they make no difference.
But go out and look up at the stars.

Which one should not have reached out in love?
Which one should never have bothered
to act in courage and compassion?

None of them rids the night of its darkness.
Yet God walks out and looks at them all
and smiles.

They all shine until they are swept up
in the great light
of the One who dawns among us.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Earth is playing with us.
City quieted by heaps of silence,
no one out but plows
moaning up and down the roads,
pickups lurching in and out of driveways,
back and forth
like peasant women grinding meal,
like the rabbi at prayer,
and shovelers lost
in little blizzards of their own making.

Snow up over your knees
is dang hard to walk in.
Half a day shot shoveling,
raking the roof, digging out the mailbox.
Fingers numb. Sore back. Snow down
my neck. Nose feels brittle. Why
do I love this so?

Perhaps that I am flesh,
weak, warm-blooded and in need
of a way being made,
a little white canyon through this heaven,
that I’m an earthling
and not the other way around,
that maybe paradise itself
is not without struggle,
that I wouldn’t be happy
without Another’s hand so, deft, upon me,
without being once in a while hemmed in,
defeated, even hurt a little
by this much beauty,
this much presence, this much
swirling, heaping, drifting mystery.

Up the street, two little kids
slide on their backs down the pyramid
at the end of their driveway.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see by the light of your good works and give glory to the Life-Giver, who radiates in all things.
         — Matthew 5. 14-16

Jesus does not say you should be light, or that somewhere in your shadows there is some light, but that you are light. It’s who you are, what you’re made of. One aspect of our meditation is to sit with this mystery: that your being is light, and that that light is God in you. The self that you bring into the world each day is radiant with the Beloved, and echoes with the original Word: “Let there be light.”

As you go through your daily life, to “let your light shine before others” you don’t have to do some saintly thing, any more than that candle has to do anything other than be itself. All you need to do is be true to that light of God that is you. Sometimes rather than asking which path is morally correct, we are better led by asking which path is more true to the Light within us. Do not be afraid to shine your light; since it is divine, it is always exactly what is needed. And do not despair that your light is inadequate, for the task of your life which God has given you is simply to light up the world where you are.

Next time you’re out at night look up at the tiniest star, give thanks that it shines as God has created it to, making the night more beautiful, and pray that you too might shine with the light of the Heavenly Lover, the light that is who you are.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

May February bless you

with the patience of its trees,
the audacity of its birds,

with the welcome fire of its sun,
the exuberance of its storms.

God’s blessings be a warm blanket
and gentle words,

the mystery of shadows
and the promise of change

this February.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

If I were an ox
and You my driver,
would I mind?

If love were my yoke,
would I balk?
If I walked a path
whose way I could not see,
whose end I could not know,
would I complain?

If I pulled a cart laden
with riches beyond my knowing,
bound for strangers,
would I refuse?

Oh, Driver, Brother, You
who set me free,
crack your whip of light.
Let’s walk this joyful road.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
         for theirs is the realm of heaven.”
                  — Matthew 5.3

It is this simple:
God’s immutable, supreme, unconditional law
         is not the law of deserving,
                  the law of punishment and reward—
                           but the law of grace.

It is God’s Absolute:
         more constant than the speed of light,
                  the force of gravity or the passage of time.
God brings light out of darkness,
         life out of death,
                  people out of slavery.
God overwhelms sin with forgiveness,
         turns mourning into dancing
                  and loss into victory.

There is only One Thing, and it is grace.
         God’s holy blessing, glory and loveliness
                  throb at the heart of all things.
It is not perceptible to rational thought
         or common sense;
                  it follows no human rule or expectation;
and nothing—not time or space,
         suffering or evil, sin or death—
                  can diminish its power, alter its course
                           or determine who receives it.

The more deeply you trust this,
         the more readily you see
                  this rough and shabby world
as a seed coating,
         as a tomb soon to be emptied,
                  a child to be loved.

The more deeply you trust this
         the more madly you love,
                  the more courageously you sing,
the more hopefully you kneel
         before God’s hurting ones
                  and stand before the world’s mighty ones;

the more freely you pour yourself out
         like a waterfall of God,
                  knowing even your grave is a gate;

the more grateful you are to live in mystery
         and, in perfect humility,
                  burn with the light of heaven.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

I am trying to stand here
among snow-bowed trees
and softly buried grasses
but my breath escapes me
in little vanishing schools of fish,
the snow patiently falling
makes me a distant mountain,
the trees’ hidden roots
thread me deep into the earth,
the clouds make sign language
that I belong to the sky.
For a moment
I am close to just being here
but the blackbirds swing down
and carry me off on their black wings to
         —I don’t know where.
                  I don’t know at all.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
         for theirs is the realm of heaven.
                  — Matthew 5.2

Blessed are those who are weak,
         for God’s infinite power is in them.

Blessed are the losers
         for they are receivers.

Blessed are those who do not believe,
         for God believes in them.

Blessed are the lives that are all messed up,
         for God is in them.

Blessed are those who appear worthless,
         for they are not.

Blessed are the ugly,
         for they will be called Beautiful.

Blessed are the wounded,
         for God’s miracles arise in them.

Blessed are those who are judged and condemned,
         for they are not judged or condemned.

Blessed are the gentle,
         for they have the power of God.

Blessed are you when you have nothing to say,
         for you are a love note from God.

Blessed are you when you fail,
         for God does not fail you,
         nor fail in you,
         but shines with glory and delight.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

God has told you, O mortal, what is good;
         and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
         and to walk humbly with your God?
         — Micah 6.8

Micah proclaims a three-dimensional faith. God calls us to love kindness, with gentle compassion toward others; and to walk humbly with God, with trusting, grateful companionship with God; and to do justice: to turn systems that hurt into systems that heal— with courageous, determined attention to the world, especially its poor and vulnerable. None of these stands alone. We don’t retreat into humble intimacy with God without also caring for others. We don’t only care for individuals without also changing the systems and societies that affect them. We don’t charge into the fray to change the world without a spirit of kindness and humble trust in God.

What weaves all these together, making devotion, compassion and justice one, is faith: gentle trust in God’s grace. We are rooted in God’s gentle grace, in which the poor, the mourning, the hungry, the powerless and the persecuted are blessed. God does for us what Micah call us to do: God is kind to us, walks humbly with us, and transforms us from people who hurt into people who heal. Trusting in God’s gentleness, and the power ofd that gentleness, we are bold to be gentle in this world, and to work to make the world more gentle.

May God’s spirit of gentleness fill you, bless you and guide you this day, that you may do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Last week Beth and I were in New York to hear our niece Kristin play at Carnegie Hall. She’s a world-class pianist with the Vienna State Opera, and she was accompanying a couple of singers in a recital. It’s a wonder to watch as well as to hear. She doesn’t just play the notes behind the soloist. She creates a musical world in which their singing can live and belong and shine. She does it not only with perfect skill, but with delight. She plays beautiful music and gives it to them as a gift. You can see the passion and love with which she plays, and the care and attention with which she offers up the music. An eyebrow rises, she leans forward, nods her head, rapt in attention not to the piano, but to the music in the singer. It’s as if she is evoking the music in the soloist by her own playing, as if she is drawing out beauty in another by giving it away, saying “Here is a gift. Add your own beauty to it and make it wonderful.” She is a master; yet if you weren’t looking you wouldn’t notice. Our attention is never on the accompanist, but secretly she makes the world beautiful.

It’s what God does: she accompanies us. With wonder and delight she goes with us, creating the music of our lives, staying in time with every beat of our existence. She surrounds us with the music that gives meaning to what we do, and makes harmony possible. She loves us into our own beauty, and draws the best out of us, making it hard for us not to shine with light and grace.

And God invites us to accompany others. Love is not some sentimental feeling; it’s giving our gifts for the sake of someone’s beauty. Focusing not on ourselves but on them, we love and support them; we give the best of our skill and our passion; we offer the beauty that is in us for the sake of the beauty that is in them. We pass on the light, and it shines in them until the whole world shines. Secretly we make the world beautiful.

So we accompany one another in this life. And in our companionship, though you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking, there is God.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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