New year

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


A new year is upon us. It's time to take down the old calendar, and if it has nice pictures, save it—you can use it again in 2022— and put up the new one, or the 1984 one that you’ve saved for 2012.

As you do, ponder the old calendar. Look at all those days. God was with you on every one of them. Think of all you've done, and give thanks for your endeavors. Give thanks for all the people you met, the folks who did things for you, the souls you touched, the companions you had on the way. Give thanks for all you've seen, and marvel at how the things that you've experienced, and the ways you chose to receive them, have become a part of who you are. Give thanks for the challenges, the terrible days, the long hauls, for they, too, are part of the journey that has brought you to this day, and part of who you are.

And of course remember all your mistakes, and even more important, what you learned from them. And know that as you leave behind the old year, all those mistakes are forgiven. The little goofs and the profound betrayals, the odd slips and the unbreakable habits, all are forgiven. They are as past as that old year, gone. All that remains is wisdom, what you learned from them.

You have changed and grown. That's the good news as you stand at the threshold of a new year: we can change. In the new year we can become new people. Of course we resist change, but the truth is that it's really not change that we dislike so much as loss. It’s our resistance to change that’s hard. Change, and the loss of the familiar, puts us in a vulnerable, powerless position, a place where we’re not in control, and we don’t “know” enough. That’s what we don’t like.

And that— that place of powerlessness, dependence and not knowing— is the gospel place, the place where our only hope, and our only power, is God. It’s the place Jesus invites us to be. It’s all about dying first and then rising. Did you notice last Sunday what Simeon in the temple said about the baby Jesus? “This child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel” (Lk. 2.34). Not the rise and fall, like coming and going. But the falling (first) and then the rising. So 2012 is the year you will die.

And rise. You will surrender everything to God's infinite love, and let God re-create you. Enter the new year ready to die and rise in the Spirit of the Eternal One who gives you life as a gift. So this new year will be great—it will include your birth-day!

As you put up the new calendar, even if it says 1984, be mindful that you are about to become someone new. This re-creation will involve loss, and you will be tempted to resist it. But God will be with you every single one of those 366 days. Be ready to accept the changes that will come, to rely on God’s merciful presence, and to be re-created in this new time. The whole year will come at you one moment at a time; you can enter into each present moment, willing and lovingly present, for you will be in the Loving Presence.

May God deeply bless your new year. It will be good.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Magi

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage."
—Matthew 2. 1-2



Hidden in the folds of the long night's robes
gleams a star that knows,
and that shows a Way.

In the village of your soul dwells a Wise One
with sacred eyes
and the courage to leave home.

The heart does not choose a way
by the road, nor the inns,
but the love at the far end.

A bird calls out to its lover,
revealing its presence,
unafraid to alarm the hunter.

Bring provisions,
and burial instructions.
Leave the house open.





Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Believe

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Around Christmas time a lot of movies tell you to “Believe," but they don't have a clue what to tell you to believe in. It's not helpful to just haul off and believe any old silly thing. The movies tend to be about believing in Santa Claus, but of course they don't really mean that. I think sometimes the movie makers themselves don't believe in anything deeper than entertainment, unless what they really intend to say is not “Believe” but ”Imagine,” or maybe “Honor people's dreams.”

Still, it seems that Christmas wants to inspire us to believe something. Well, what? The Christmas story has as much fantastic stuff as the Santa story: a virgin birth, angels, magi following a star that somehow stops over an individual house. Are we just supposed to believe all that stuff? Or is there something more significant that we're supposed to believe? Why is it significant that we believe? And if it's actually true, why do we need to be told to believe it? Wouldn't it be obvious?

Here's what I think the Christmas story invites us to believe. Believe that God is with us, that the Holy One dwells within you. Believe that you are God's Beloved. Believe that God would forsake the comforts of heaven in order to share your life with you. Believe that God comes to you, suffers with you and stands up for you for the sake of the eternal, inviolable well-being of your soul.

That stuff is hard to believe only because we look with our rational, thinking minds, and can't see it. This truth we can only see with our souls. It takes practice to see God. But it changes our lives when we do.

The fact is that aside from the highly symbolic parables that Matthew and Luke tell about Jesus' birth, we know nothing of the conditions of his birth at all. The gospel writers' point is not history; their point is who Jesus is. I don't think it matters what you believe about the virgin birth and the manger and all that. It matters what you believe about God. And about yourself and your belovedness, and the world's.

You are not alone. God comes to you, to save you. God is in the world. Believe that.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Third day of Christmas

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Today people go back to work, return to normal life. Malls & radios stations have stopped playing Christmas music. Stores are advertising Valentines' Day. And it's only the third day of Christmas. Never mind them. Now is when it sets in, the realization that we're in this for the long haul, that this is not about a holiday, a brief flash of silent light and then business as usual. This is the long, hard work of Incarnation, of opening ourselves to God's miraculous, indwelling Presence, and of bodying forth God's love into the world.

It feels a little harder without the candles and the singing, doesn't it? Now it's not special; it's just... well, life. Which, of course, is what Jesus came to—not some Christmas card picture, but real, regular life. Not even nice, clean, comfortable life, in fact, but the life of a homeless refugee family. Now here's the real miracle of Christmas: not that God is present in the decorations and the special meals and the family times and all that, but that God is present in the regular times. God is beside us and within us all the time.

Be mindful today that this is the day of Christ's birth in you. This is the day the angels will sing. This, not some day now past, is the day you have been waiting for! This present moment, God is coming into your life, into the world. And you are awake, looking with the eyes of your heart, ready to see the star, to hear the song, to embrace the child, to bear the love.

This is the mystery of Incarnation: the gift of the present moment, and the miracle of the Present One. Now. Here.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Bethlehem flash mob

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.





In the dark of a cold night, on the edge of a dusty little one-pump town at the far end of the Roman Empire, an angel sings. It's a quiet little song, about bringing love into the world. Then a newborn baby cries. It's an ordinary cry, and it is the sound of God with us. The mother takes up the cry, for they are homeless, and she loves her baby. The father is in a state of complete wonder, and he joins in and starts singing.

Shepherds nearby are fascinated, the way onlookers are at a flash mob—but then they join in the God-is-with-us song. It's beautiful. Angels join the chorus, doing this really cool dance, and singing glory. They sing glory in the highest heaven, and they sing peace on earth. Anna and Simeon take up the tune in the temple. And soon the pillars of the temple are rocking and swaying. And the animals about to be sacrificed are nodding and shouting ”Amen!”

And then Magi from the east come waltzing in with swirlly robes and wicked cool hats, doing this really amazing whirling dervish and singing, “God is with us! Glory!” Herod and his security forces with their pepper spray come in and try to bust it up, but the magi lead them off into the parking lot and the dance goes on. Then people all over Judea are doing it, lepers singing like angels and paralytics dancing around in their wheelchairs, and Roman soldiers, all singing glory. Around the corner, behind a pillar, Pharisees are secretly doing it a little, just a little, kind of from the neck up, and humming along, and taking lots of videos.

People in prisons join in the song. It echoes a lot because of the cells. People in exile join in, and refugees, and the crowd is getting huge. People in hospice care and on death row are singing, everybody singing glory. Whole races are singing, whole continents dancing. Then the wind is singing and dancing, and trees waving their arms, and hurricanes whirling around, and cloud formations dancing and dancing. Then galaxies join in, whirling around with their arms flung out and singing glory, until the whole universe is dancing glory and singing “God is with us!” And you begin to feel like you're the only one who hasn't joined in yet.

And then the glory vanishes into the world and the angels disappear into the crowd. And the next day people get up and get their coffee and go to work and do their ordinary things, and the world goes on. But that baby is still out there somewhere, and that tune swirling around in your heart.





Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

__________________

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

Christmas Blessing

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


In your deepest darkness
may the eyes of God
twinkle like stars.

May the sounds of the world
become song,
become angelic.

May you always hear,
like voices in the next room,
glory.

May God come,
whole,
into your life.

May you receive
the most holy gift
of wonder.

May God give you the courage
of the young mother
in the darkness.

May you hear the song
of the presence of God
within you.

May your ordinary life
be a sign of God's nearness
to the lowly.

May all the refugee families
in your world
find shelter.

May you always ponder
the mystery of your dear,
umbilical life.

May the cries
of the Christ child
keep you awake.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Solstice

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



The true "reason for the season" was before Macy's and Santa, even before the Christians and their Christ Mass, even before the Romans and their midwinter Saturnalia: on the longest night of the year, in the darkest dark, the earth turned again toward the light. We remember this when we hang wreaths and lights and bring a tree inside. The Christians decided there was no better time to celebrate Jesus than the winter solstice, day the light comes into the world. I don't think Jesus would mind the "pagan" roots of the solstice celebration. He would have thought it odd to think that he himself was the reason for the season. He came to reveal something even more fundamental than himself: the light of the grace of God. He wanted us to be rooted in Creation, in the most basic truths of our living, like the light that we live in. He wanted us to pay attention to what Is, and to see it as holy. Even as we head into winter, the earth has already begun the lengthening of days, just as God promises resurrection before we even begin to face life's losses and challenges.

That's all very well, but I'm thinking about all of you in Australia, where it's the opposite solstice: today is the first day of Spring. Hm. So I guess the deal is that matter where you are, today is the First Day. And no matter what you are experiencing, it will change. No matter where you are on the great wheel of time, there is neither infinite light nor darkness. The important thing is to tun toward the light. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. God is present in it all. Where is the light coming into your world? Perhaps in the darkest places.

Today, whether you are entering the Holy of Holies or slogging through a dismal mess, be mindful of the Divine Bliss indwelling within you. Whether this day looks to be a grand one or a flop, remember that it's the day Christ comes to dwell with you. A day of birth. A first Day. It doesn't matter whether you are coming or going, whether the day is long or short, your fortunes rising or falling: look toward the light.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

A commercial-free Chrkstmas

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and peace to you.

Some people make it sound like you're not really a Christian unless you complain about the commercialization of Christmas. I say, Bah, humbug!

I don’t care. I don't notice the commercialization, or pay any attention to the alleged “war on Christmas.” Because in our society not only the meaning of this season but all the teachings of Jesus, the whole Gospel, has been commercialized, politicized, trivialized, domesticated, hollowed out, dumbed down, dressed up, and turned into a Barbie doll. So what? It’s always been that way.

The mystery of God is inaccessible to dualistic thinking, so of course most people don't get it. What Jesus taught was so contrary to conventional wisdom, so outside our understanding and judgment, and so opposed to the systems of oppression, fear and social status that we're invested in, that of course people misunderstand it and resist it and distort it and co-opt it. Jesus initiates God's Empire of Grace, which overthrows all the empires of this world, including the Empire of Rome, the Empire of Deserving, and the Empire of Halliburton. So even the Christmas story includes the profound resistance against itself, in the violent reaction of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents. Of course people want to trivialize the radical nature of God’s grace and its claim on us, the universal power of God’s forgiveness, the subversive reality of resurrection. Why wouldn’t they want this to be a story about a cute little baby’s birthday, on which we should buy big TV’s?

Ignore them. The whole point of walking a spiritual path is that you don't go the way others do. The point of meditation is to let go of the world's “Babel sounds.” Don’t expect others to validate your faith. Don’t waste your energy on expectations of them. (If you need a more commercial-free Christmas, watch less TV and stay out of the mall.) Put your own Christ in Christmas.

Open your heart to God’s amazing presence. Seek awareness of God’s incarnation in the simple, among the poor, hidden in the unheralded. Don’t be fooled by this world’s expectations. A Savior is coming, who sets us free from all oppression—the oppression of our sin and guilt, the oppression of fear, the oppression of death, the oppression of those who use power and wealth unjustly, and the oppression of other people’s opinions. The good news of Christmas is that God has come to set you free, even from people who misunderstand and abuse Christmas!

Christ is coming. Open your heart to the good news.


Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve

_______________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

O antiphons

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.





•

O Holy Presence, whose love brings all things into being,
come, and draw open by your light the ancient blossoms.

O Beloved, radiant with glory in all Creation,
come, and awaken us; teach us to see.

O Hands of God, who has opened doors that none could shut,
who has healed and blessed, and none could defy,
come, and hold us in your grace.

O King of Gentleness, who knows our sorrow
and yet embraces us with joy,
come, and guide our hands in the way of healing.

O Open Eye, who sees us in all truth, and loves us,
come, and reveal in us your beauty.

O Light of Justice, whose heart breaks for those who sit in darkness,
come, and show us the way of courage and compassion.

O Companion, who makes us all one in your love,
come, and kindle in our hearts the spirit of the Beloved.

•





Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

A message from God

My Dear Little Ones,

I give you my peace. I want you to know how dear you are to me. I know that sometimes you feel that you are missing from your own life. I know that you are frightened, and I see how your fear turns to meanness. But you need not be afraid. I have heard your cries in the night. I feel your anguish at the shame that haunts you, the terror that stalks you. I feel the tears of your loneliness on my own cheeks, and I long for you to know that you are not alone; I am with you. I desire deeply to be with you, and I long for your healing. I want you to come back to your life. So I will come, to save you.

I want you to know it in your bones, to fee it in your chest, to hold it in your arms, that nothing can separate you from me and from life, not your selfish fear, or your deepest suffering, or even death. So I will come to be with you. I will come in your darkest night, so you know there is no place I will not be with you.

I know that your trust is hard won, that it is not easy for you to give yourself over to someone so deeply unknowable, so unheard, so invisible. So I will come to you as one of you, as a child, a poor child on a cold night in a rough place. I will come to you at your most vulnerable, and be so vulnerable with you. I will come and share your suffering and your delight, every moment. I will come to live inside you.

I will come to you as the most powerless, so that you may receive me—and yet I will come to you at your worst, and therefore as you are least able to receive me. Yes, I know that in my tenderness I will suffer. But so I choose, to remain close to you. I am telling you beforehand, so that you are not terrified at the awfulness of what you may do to me. My dears, I forgive you already.

I know what is to come, and still I will come. I will come until your guilt is swallowed up in my grace, until your shame is dried up by my love, until your pain blossoms into wisdom. I will come again, and again, and again. Watch for me. Watch for the tender child with the light of your healing in his eyes, with your beauty in her small hands. Even now I am coming. I am coming.

I will be very small and needy. Will you watch for me? Will you hold me?

My peace I give to you.

Love,
Your Holy One.

         •



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

Mary, with lily

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         



Mary,
having enough of words,
lays aside her prayerbook
and gazes at the lily,
full of grace,
imagines God's delight at its creation,
the praying hands of its petals
beckoning down into its gentle infinity,
little flecks of pollen trembling
with her heartbeat,
its tender fragrance seeping
through all the world's meanness,
enduring forever,
held in a slant of light,
white, against the scumbled walls,
until her gaze becomes angelic
and she knows.






         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

What Mary sees

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
         And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord,
                  and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior....
         for she has looked with favor
                  on the lowliness of her servant.
         Surely, from now on
                  all generations will call me blessed;
         for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
                  and holy is her name.
         Her mercy is for those who reverence her
                  from generation to generation.
         She has shown strength with her arm;
                  she has scattered the proud in their illusions.
         She has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
                  and lifted up the lowly;
         she has filled the hungry with good things,
                  and sent the rich away empty.
         She has helped her servant Israel,
                  in remembrance of her mercy,
         according to the promise she made to our ancestors,
                  to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants forever."
                           —Luke 1.46-55

Mary already sees clearly the Reign of God that the prophets envisioned and that Jesus will establish. Salvation has come to her: despite the world's addiction to status and its illusions of her lowliness, she knows she is blessed. Despite what the world has told her—that she is young and poor, without standing or power, that she is female, that she is someone else's property, that she is at the mercy of other people's whims—despite the lies of the Evil One, she believes that she is beloved. The Mighty One has already done great things for her. Even before the child is born, the Promised One has already taken the throne.

The Reign of God comes whenever the good news breaks through. It comes whenever a child feels accompanied, whenever a peasant girl believes that she is worthy. Salvation comes whenever the hungry are fed good things, and the rich turned away empty-handed, whenever the poor are empowered or the mighty made to share. The world is redeemed every time an outsider is treated with reverence, an immigrant is welcomed, an abuse victim respected. The new world dawns when a person who has been silenced speaks, or when you give light and space to a vulnerable place in your heart.

The Savior is born when we overcome our insistence on how she should come. Keep your eye on the peasant girl. She knows.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Annunciation

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
Do not be afraid,
for you have found favor with God.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore your child will be holy.
—from Luke 1. 26-35.

Beloved, you have found favor with God. Already.
You need not work for it, or reach impossibly.
God is delighted with you as you are,
and loves to be with you, always.

Now, then.
Live your life.
Let God think of your ordinary days as holy.
Raise your kids. Do your work. Blossom as you will.
Holy Spirit will come upon you;
therefore it will all be Holy.
The love you give your children will make them holy;
the love you bring into the world will redeem it.
Your labors and lovings, the secret work of angels
hidden in the flour you knead and the floor you scrub
and the foreheads you kiss will ring with glory.
Nothing will be changed, child, but your eyes will be opened.
Your hands will be the throne of the almighty,
whose eternal grace will reign forever.
This, not some shimmering dream,
is what will save the world.
For nothing will be impossible with God.

Now say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord;
let it be with me according to your word."

And every morning say this to yourself:
“Hail, Beloved, full of grace.
Blessed are you and blessed is the fruit of your soul.”





Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Immaculate conception

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         


Biology is not suspect.
An ovum may have split
and made itself again,
miraculously producing
inexplicable chromosomes,
but this is not required
for a joyful, brave and gentle life.

The virtue of the virgin birth
is not that Mary didn't let her flesh
produce the way God made it to,
nor that the intercourse created good
was deemed less so,
unbecoming for holy people
or incompatible with compassion,
but this:
that God offered and Mary received
the life-giving life within her
directly, and through no one else.

There is no intermediary
between your immaculate heart
and the embodiment of God.

Say yes.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

God's house

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


The Lord declares to you
that the Lord will make you a house.
—2 Samuel 7.11

The first time I heard this scripture I imagined God like a magician turning David into a house. Poof! Now you're a house.

That might not be what this means, but it stays with me. It's not that weird. After all, Paul says that your body is the temple of God. And what Gabriel said to Mary was essentially, “God is going to come live in you.” Maybe this is the message of Christmas, the meaning of Incarnation: you are God's dwelling place, God's house.

You hold God inside you. God actually dwells in your body. Your thoughts, words and actions, your body itself and your breathing, are where God lives. God sleeps in you at night. God gets up in the morning and goes in and out of you. When God steps into the world, it's after having been nourished in you. When God gets weary of the injustice of the world, God comes home to rest in you. Evil can't take you over as a squatter because God lives there. You are where God feels at home. God sometimes remodels. God sits looking out a window, feet up, and says, “Yeah, I love this place. Built it myself.”

Be a spacious house for God. Make plentiful room for the Holy One to hang out in. With big windows. Like Mary, don't just let God in; let God take over. Begin the day by expanding your soul, breathing in, creating room. Let God make you a house. And let God live there.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Advent blahs

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Dear God,
I just don't feel like Advent today. I don't have time to sit in the velvet darkness and contemplate some wonderful silence. I don't feel Jesus coming. I'm not in touch with any promise or vision. I have absolutely no idea what Isaiah means by “preparing a way,” and even less idea about that crazy John the Baptist jumping around in the desert with grass in his hair. I don't know what it means to “make of my heart an open manger.” I'm just not there. I'm busy, tired and distracted. I haven't set up my stupid little Advent wreath; the candles lie in their stupid little box in the closet, under a lot of stuff. You're starting to bug me. All the spiritual hype about repentance and transformation sounds to me just like the crap from Macy's about how I need to buy their stuff. I've done Christmas before. I know what to expect. I bet I'm going to be just fine in January like I am now. So I'm just going to go right on with my ordinary little life here, OK? Whatever is in my soul, I'm not handing it over. It's nothing special, anyway, nothing devout and holy. It's clenched inside, plain and undeserving, and fine with that.  I'm fine. I just want nice presents and a good dinner with the kids. That's all. So if you're going to break in on my world, it's up to you. If you're going to do some wacky Gabriel thing with me, knock yourself out. Go ahead and make flesh turn into heaven, and a plain human life divine. If you're going to come into my life, don't wait for me. Just do what you do, you know, behind our backs and unasked for and all that.  Go right ahead. Just do your thing. OK? Please?
Amen.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Advent Pentecost

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He himself was not the light, but he came to bear witness to the light.
—John 1.6, 8

John the baptizer appeared, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight a path for God.” …. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.... I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
—Mark 1. 2, 7, 8

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed.
—Isaiah 61.1

Do not quench the Spirit.
—1 Thessalonians 5.19

Here in Advent we have a little Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit! We open our hearts to the God who is not only the infinite creator beyond us or the savior beside us, but also the spirit who dwells within us. We await the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, we await the coming of Christ as the culmination of human history, and we also await the birth of Christ in our own hearts.

Christ was born to serve the poor and to re-weave the torn fabric of our world in which we separate ourselves from those who suffer, and thereby separate ourselves from God. Christmas is not a sentimental tale about a cute baby; it's about the healing of the world. When Christ is born in us, Christ's spirit comes to life in us in a new way, and we become devoted to that same work of the mending of the world. Our lives are re-shaped for the purpose of bearing witness to the light.

To be baptized by the Holy Spirit is to be changed. The Spirit takes over our lives, like it did Mary's, for the sake of the healing of the world. The Holy Spirit seeks the inclusion of those who have been excluded, the forgiveness of those who have been judged, the raising up of the downtrodden. (This also means the bringing down of those who have too much power or wealth. You'll hear it loud and clear next week in the Magnificat, in Luke 1.46-55). The coming of the Holy Spirit is not about feeling good; it's about the transformation of human society.

Don't imagine that on Christmas day you'll open presents, eat a big feast, then sleep it off and get up the next day and return to life as usual. It certainly wasn't like that for Mary and Joseph. In “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” we sing, “Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us tonight.” Do you really want that? Then expect to be changed. Don't quench the Spirit, but be open to the life-giving, life-changing presence of the One who is coming to life in a new way within you.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Advent prayer

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
         
         
Holy One,
prepare your way in me.

Give me faith, like the stable,
to know your presence within me.

Give me courage, like Mary,
to let your life overwhelm mine.

Give me strength, like Joseph,
to protect what is holy, tender and growing.

Give me patience, like the shepherds,
to be still and listen.

Give me humility, like the magi,
to kneel before your presence.

Give me trust, like the child,
to let myself be borne into a new world.

Give me joy, like the angels,
to bring good news to the poor.

Give me love, like the manger
to hold Christ within.

Holy One,
prepare your way in me.

         
         
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Manger

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
In rough-edged wind,
edge of town,
end of day,
light all used up,
a shed waits, still,
dust settling,
shadows
bedding down for the night,
doors resting on their hinges.
You want to say it's empty,
but it's full—
full of silence, of longing,
of waiting,
full of God's hopes,
full of space for a birthing.

The passion that makes worlds
is still dreaming.
This stable is made of that,
the manger carved, through eons,
of your deepest ache,
this empty space,
this womb,
created by your soul, unerring,
leaning toward that realm.

Enlarge its longing in you.
Breathe in.
Let the cupped hands of the manger
hold your heart open
with God's deepest desires.
The angel song that sounds like sorrow
but feels like joy,
the harmony of longing and confidence,
swells in the waiting silence,
wondering.

Warm wind
blows in through the window.




         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Incarnation

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


May the God of peace sanctify you entirely;
and may your spirit and soul and body
be kept sound and blameless
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
—1 Thessalonians 5.23

God does not live in outer space. God lives in our souls. The wonder of the Holy Trinity is that God is not only infinite but also incarnate. God, who is pure love, lives within all loving souls. The birth of Jesus reveals God in human flesh, in human love, in human presence. Jesus is not an exception. God is fully present in all of us in love.

As you prepare for the coming of Christ, don't think that it's going to be just a sweet baby born one night long ago. It's God's incarnation—God's inhabitation—in Jesus, and also in us. Imagine God, present and loving, within you. God lives and reigns in your heart. Your soul is the manger in which the Christ child lies, from which he looks upon the world. Your heart is the throne from which God reigns with unconquerable gentleness and infinitely deep compassion.

As you sit there and read this, as you walk about today, the whole glory of heaven radiates from within you. The presence of God gives you life; it is your pulse, your breath, your awareness. Live in harmony with God's presence within you. Act and speak in harmony with God's delight in you. Let every breath be God praying in you. Of course your awareness of this will change you radically. Go with it. May the God of peace occupy you entirely.


______________________
Weather report

God,
increasing throughout the day,
with patchy moments of clarity,
as the jet stream of time
moves through the divine,
condensing into this world.
This will produce holiness,
especially at lower levels.
Mystery tomorrow, with a general
blessing trend.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Advent blessing

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Mary understands what it's like for you,
with God inside you, swelling with life.

Mountains bow to your courage;
valleys stand up in honor of your humility.

Your longest nights
will enfold miracles.

The darkness will reveal the star
the light has hidden.

Angel choirs in their swirling robes
will sing glory to your world. Yes, yours.

Heaven is gift-wrapped
in the most ordinary paper.

Your waiting is faith;
your longing is holy.

Someone on the edge will prepare a way
into your life for your Redeemer.

Your Savior longs with longing deeper than yours
to be with you, even in this ragged winter.

May you listen and hear Gabriel,
look into the rough manger of this world and see God.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Deepen your waiting

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Since everything will be changed in this way,
what kind of people ought you to be?
You ought to live holy and godly lives,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.
—2 Peter 3. 11-12



If you do not know what it is you are awaiting,
surely it is God.

The clock on the wall is dumb,
and only leads you in circles.

Relinquish all thought of control.
Keep your hands open and empty.

Without your hands on the rose
it will unfold.

Give your waiting spaciousness
so that it may be a blessing.

Sit with Mary:
not in lack, but great with life.

Open yourself to what is still becoming
so that it may.

Let your life create the welcoming space
for what is yet to arrive.

Like a poet waiting for the right word to come,
you will be visited.

Let this moment be enough;
let there always be more to come.

For more than you can imagine,
for longer than you can manage,

deepen your waiting.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Comfort ye

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her that she has served her term....
A voice cries out: "In the wilderness
prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God....”
See, the Lord God comes with might...
he will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
she will carry them in her bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
—from Isaiah 40.1-11

Isaiah brings good news to people in exile. He imagines a smooth, level road in the desert on which the exiles can return home. We are in our own kind of exile, separated from our truest selves. Our lives sometimes seem like high tension wires strung between disturbances and obligations. The call of Advent, this promise of comfort, cries out in the wilderness of our noise and haste, where we are held captive by our tasks and obligations, our fears and desires, our addictions and attachments, our willfulness, our slavery to being defined by how we are judged and how we have pleased others. The prophet calls us home from this exile, home to our own lives, to our simple Belovedness.

The voice comes to us in quiet and darkness and silence. The road through the wilderness is the road of being still, evening out the mountains and valleys of our days. The road home, the way to re-enter our own lives, leads us through silence and darkness, through our not knowing, not having anything to say. It leads us through mystery, in which we dwell with the promise, without words for it, or ways to manage it. The way home is not an arduous journey. In fact the promise of Advent is that One is coming who will lead us, carry us, feed us, bring us home.

Listen in these days for the voice that calls you home. Prepare a way, a way of silence and stillness amidst the busyness, a way of not knowing but waiting. Wait for the presence of the One who speaks tenderly to your soul, who leads you in loving gentleness, who whispers in the darkness, “Comfort, O comfort my people...”



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

New moon

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.





New moon,
inlaid in darkness
as smooth as polished stone,

skinny girl of light
bending over empty trees,
smiling, eyes closed,

ear of heaven
leaning toward my silence,
hearing more than I,

you welcome me to this time
of not knowing,
my mind with empty hands,

my heart like you,
so little seen,
like all the world, waxing,

pregnant with light,
turning gently,
what is, becoming.

Already, beyond my certainty
you are full and whole
and shining.






Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Live hoipefully

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


In accordance with God's promise,
we wait for new heavens and a new earth,
where righteousness is at home.
—2 Peter 3.13


What are your deepest, holiest hopes? Hopes for your life? For your family? Your community? Your world? The universe? Imagine those hopes fulfilled. Give your heart to your hopes. This is faith.

Don't think that your hopes are too audacious. God’s hopes for the world are even more audacious than you can imagine. Mary thought it audacious that God should choose her to carry God’s hope for the world, but it was true. The same is true of us.

It might seem that your life is too messed up, the world too much in the grip of evil, for there to be much hope. But our hope doesn't come from wishful thinking, or from the world or its condition. It comes from God. Hope rises from the love that is at the heart of all things. It comes from trust that the love that created the world can transform the world. Of course there is evil in the world, and failure in our own lives, but we don't live under its spell. We choose to live by the light of God's promise, not the world's threats and disappointments. Exercise the muscles of hope, not despair, for despair holds the door open for evil, while hope holds the door open for God.

Attend to your hope. Listen to it. Bring it to mind. Envision the fulfillment of your hope. Let it be real. Live as if your trust it. Imagine it coming to pass. Live as if it is coming to pass even now. Live as if Christ is actually coming.

God moves this world not by force but by the Spirit. By participating in God’s hope for the world, like Mary did, we help it to come to fruition — no matter how many generations it takes. This Advent season, give voice to your hope, and live by its light. Be awake. Live hopefully.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Black Friday

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and peace to you.


Today is the biggest shopping day,
but Sunday is the beginning of Advent.

•

On Black Friday
when merchants go into the black,
      go into the black.

Enter the mystery.
      Wait for what you do not know.
While others are checking off items on their lists
      chuck out your list.

While others are shopping,
      wait to receive.
While others seek satisfaction
      seek patience.

While others join the rush
      join the stillness.
While others fill their carts
      empty your heart.

While others take advantage of a limited supply
      know that an infinite grace is prepared for you,
that what is promised you
      can't be taken away from you,

and that what you are given infinitely
      you can infinitely give.
Find peace not in finding, but in waiting,
      and befriend not knowing.

Imagine that you will receive
      what you can't expect.
Believe that what you've always wanted
      you've never imagined.

Go into the black, and wait there
      for the dawn, for the angel,
      for the child.
In the black, in the silent mystery
      is the holy.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
______________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Hands open

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Come into this day with your hands open,
with your hands open like eyes to the world,
like a morning meadow swept of darkness
ready for the sun to be poured in thick.
Come into this day with your hands open
with the surprise of gratitude,
ready to receive all that's lavished on you,
and you know, the whole world is lavished,
the day with its touchings and releasings,
the night with its abundance of darkness,
stars in their billioned waves, poured out for you
even when you can't see them,
and time, handed to you
just as regular and steady as a heartbeat,
and everything in it, poured out and piled up
and falling all around you and into your open hands.
Come into this day with your hands open
like wounds unafraid to be healed.
Come into this day with your hands open,
open for letting go, open to give all your gifts,
to give and receive until they are the same.
Come into this day and the next with your hands open
wide enough for ol' Mama Life to come give you
one of her hugs, light as air, sure as earth,
long as the rest of your days.
Come into this day with your hands open
and keep them like that 'till death closes them.
Come into this day with your hands open
wide enough to say with all you mean
please and thank you and thank you again,
hands open enough to be empty,
and they will be full of light.



         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Practive gratitude

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
It feels so good to complain— to hide behind my powerlessness, to focus on someone else's fault, to give significance to my opinions, to protect myself with a shield of negativity. But complaining is a way of picking at a wound, and making others bear my pain. Whining is a weed in the garden of the spirit. It steals energy from compassion, sucks the nourishment out of the soil of my mindfulness, and chokes my willingness to be lovingly present. It prevents me from entering into the vulnerability of acceptance, reverence and forgiveness.

So like giving up something for Lent, I'm giving up complaining for Thanksgiving. I will notice when I'm tempted to whine, and instead practice gratitude. Instead of voicing my complaint I will follow it inward and observe the pain it comes from. When I am drawn to fiddle with a wound by complaining, instead I will exercise compassion toward myself and others by seeking healing. Instead of becoming attached to my opinions, I will be lovingly present. Instead of whining I will bless. In all things, I will practice gratitude. And when I can't muster the spirit to be grateful, I will turn to the deep wisdom of silence.

I trust that it will not always be easy, that gratitude is a practice, not a feeling, and that it will indeed take practice. But I will practice diligently. For what better way is there for my life to be filled with blessings than for my heart to be filled with gratitude?


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

It's Monday

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


It's Monday and you're back—
at work, in class, in line, in step and all,
your back against the wall, back in the dodge-and-lurch,
but you want to go back, back to yesterday, in church,
even though most of it you don't really want—
the part where they looked past you, stained glassed you,
surpassed you with faces all photographic,
when their words went flying by like traffic,
when they said all these holy things
that you weren't buying and then left them lying
on the ground like cheap scripture candy wrappers,
no, not that part.
And not the part when the preacher,
over-happy over-reacher, said that stuff
that made God sound so high, so far, so wee,
so dense, without much sense, without much feel,
without some touch, some place where you could fall,
where you could rest, where you could just
get in— no, not that part at all.

No, it was in that part you didn't see coming,
a baby's noise, maybe, or a mistake,
or maybe the look on the kid's face trying so hard
to light the candle and it just wouldn't,
and people tried not to laugh but they couldn't,
though it wasn't funny, and he kept on, so serious,
until he got it lit, and for a flash, a bit, a flame,
you saw it: as if God was there inside him all along and you
didn't know why the look on his face made you light
up like the candle, so odd—but you did. And now
it's Monday and you want it back, that moment, that kid,
that light, that God.

Oh, darling, don't go where those Monday others went
and giggle at the mystery, the ones who struggle hard
to keep their skin on tight— but go on, step into that light,
that mapless place where hapless souls discover God
inside you, there, not hiding, no, but so deep down
it's hard to see, so holy, you, that it's invisible
unto the human eye.

It's Monday and you want to reach for God
who seems so high, so far, so wee, but look and see:
God isn't there, hung up in someone's reaching place,
but here, inside your hands, your face,
the place that's broken, truth unspoken,
your doubt, your woundedness, your tired out,
your burned out, kept out, inside out,
your dangling threads, your dead, your left unsaid,
your dreads, your didn't know, your danger.
God's in the hungry, thirsty ones inside you,
in the homeless, in the stranger,
in the sick, imprisoned self, the one you've kept
back on the shelf because she couldn't get the candle lit,
but God was in her anyway.
That's where God is. Never shoved away
beyond some should, but in the anyway,
the nonetheless, the here to stay.

It's Monday and your life's a mess—go on, confess,
'cause God is in you anyway, with no unless,
without condition, cause or testiness, just there,
like Monday, in your face, your hands, your heart,
with love and tenderness and grace,
enjoying, hanging out. Don't do that Monday doubt
and think you have to reach for God—
oh, God is rooted deep inside and reaching out for you
like blood that reaches from your heart and oozes up
to every throbbing part, like flame that uses you
for a candle, like earth that refuses to let you go,
but opens up her arms, and all you have to do is fall,
that's all.

It's Monday and your God is here, and loving it,
your second coming, perfecting you from inside out,
and not expecting anything from you but you,
just being here, and watching, humming, resurrecting.






Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Prayer to my sovereign

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


God has raised Christ from the dead and seated him at God's right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come, and has put all things under his feet.
—Ephesians 1. 20-22


Merciful Sovereign, Mighty Lover,
you are ruler of the universe.
You hold all Creation in your care;
you reign in glory from among the poor.
All this world's evil, powerful as it seems,
strains under your feet.

You who are sovereign of all things,
be the tender ruler of my heart.
I surrender myself to your grace.
I am utterly subject to your gentleness,
obedient to your forgiveness and your delight.
I am at the mercy of the resurrecting power
that you stir up in me.
Your grace overthrows my will;
your presence overpowers my doubt;
your joy subdues my fear.
As darkness is powerless against the light,
I am defenseless against your love.

I am not my own Emperor. My life is yours.
You conquer all that would enslave me,
and you alone set me free.
Therefore I submit myself,
my attachments and addictions
my insistence and refusals, to your control.
Save me from my private kingdom,
and restore me to your loving Realm.
May I be obedient today to your sovereignty,
my desires subservient to your grace,
and all grasping banished by your loveliness.
Trusting in your unconquerable tenderness
that rules the world,
your grace that subdues the nations,
I submit myself to your delight
and devote myself to your service.
All-loving One, I bow to you.
Your will be done.
Rule my heart, and make of my life
your heavenly Realm.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

A blessing (Ephesians 1.15-23)

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         Ephesians 1.15-23— a paraphrase



Beloved,
the Lord of Love shines out through you
and your love of others radiates
so clearly I can see it from here.
I am grateful for you,
and I hold you in the arms of my prayers.

I pray that God,
whom our Master of Love revealed to us,
the Womb of Beauty,
may give you a spirit of wisdom and clarity of vision.
I pray that you come to know God
more and more deeply.
May the eyes of your heart be bright.
May you find yourself in the place of hope
that God has prepared for you.
May you discover the glorious riches
that God gives all her precious children.
May God's power amaze you
as it works within you through your trust in God—
it's the same power with which God
raised Christ from the dead!

Christ's love reigns with God at the heart of all things.
This love is greater than any human power,
greater than all systems and dominions and empires,
and renders them pointless.
Christ's love saturates all that is,
and all that is to come.
God has given everything over to love.

The Church is the embodiment of this love,
Christ's risen body, Christ's fulfillment,
filling everything
until everything
is love.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Morning walk

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Each morning I begin the day with a walk in the woods. It's not for exercise, though I sometimes go quite a distance, nor to walk the dog, though he comes along. It's to begin the day by being on the earth, being in a body, being alive. I practice being there, and not being somewhere else in my head. I use my senses, taking in what is around me. I look at everything and notice stuff. I notice the trees, the colors and textures and shapes and shades. I notice the air, and how warm or cold it is, the wind, the clouds, the moon. I notice gravity, and how my body works with it. I feel my breathing. I listen to the little sounds, the conversations of the grasses, the birds, the brooks beneath the other sounds of distant traffic and planes. I'm not analyzing, judging or thinking. I am simply mindful of being a mammal moving across the ground, moving through the presence of God, being alive.

Oh, I'm not Thich Nhat Hanh. My mind wanders. I think of the coming day, or imagine some silly scene, or carry on some argument with an imaginary person. But then, by grace, I return. I come back into the woods. I return to the present. Sometimes it takes a while, but I get there.

I've discovered you can do this anywhere, whether or not you have woods. In cities and suburbs, alone or in crowds, you can pay attention. You can begin the day by being mindful, paying attention, returning moment by moment to the present, here and now. Even in this moment, siting at your computer, you can stop and look around, or close your eyes and breathe. You can be alive. Sometimes that is enough. Sometimes it is important that that is enough.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

The Soverign who truly reigns

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


The King will say, “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” And they will reply, “Lord, when did we see you...?”
—Matthew 25.42-44

The story of the Great Judgment obviously invites us to care for the poor. (If you believe in a literal hell, pay attention: the only criterion for getting there that Jesus offers is not your doctrine, or your moral purity, but how you treat the poor.)

This is also a story about how we perceive God. We think of God as all-powerful—but our view of power is distorted. We think of power as the capacity to coerce, to force something to happen or someone to do something. It is the capacity to impose one's will upon another, which is inherently violent. And we imagine that God has that kind of power: God can make anything happen. But Jesus does not worship that kind of power. His image of God is not a king who imposes his will, but a father who gives his love. What if God's power is love, not violence? What if God is not “all-powerful” but all-loving, all-present? Then we need to repent of our idolatry of violence. (Can't you feel it? Don't you want God to be violently powerful?) And we need to be saved—converted—and come to believe in the very different kind of power that Jesus shows us in love.

Jesus tells a parable in which the most powerful one, the King, is among the poor and vulnerable, the needy and those unable to force their will upon others—and we don't see God there. This is not just a tale about a prince in pauper's clothing. That is God's clothing. God has not left her usual place to temporarily hide among outsiders. God is love, and God comes from among the poor. But we don't see God there because they don't have the trappings of power.

This Sunday is the Sunday of the Reign of Christ, the culmination of the church year, and symbolically the culmination of the life of Christ: Christ has lived and died, been raised again, given the Spirit to the church, and ascended to the throne of God to reign over all Creation. That seems like wishful thinking to us, because Jesus is clearly not in power—not imposing his will. But why do we worship that kind of power? What if God is love, not violence? What if reigning does not mean imposing his will but being present in love? Then in fact Christ does reign, and is all-present, and is most clearly visible not in people and nations and corporations who can impose their will on others, but in people who are free from such trappings. Christ's power is the power of love, not coercion. And that power truly reigns over all Creation.

Christ, the Sovereign of the Universe, is present. Open your eyes.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Hold me

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

O Thou Mysterious Love,
         hold me.

When I cannot stand,
         be the ground that holds me.
When I have fallen apart
         be the gravity that binds my pieces.

You are the Presence I do not see, can not feel,
         the Steadiness that lets me tremble.
You are the darkness I stumble through;
         you are the way and the not knowing.

You are the well of my tears,
         the soft place for me to fall.
You guard my tenderness,
         and defend my wholeness.

You are the fiber of my making,
         the love that brings me through.
You keep me in your hands;
         you bear me on your hip.

Hold my shattered fragments in your hands,
         until I am ready to be made new.
Wrap my unknowing in your arms of darkness
         until my dawn is ready to rise.

Holy One, Creating One,
         I am your Beloved.
I am yours.
         I am yours.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Veterans Day

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


He was wounded for our transgressions.
—Isaiah 53.5

Today, on Veterans Day, we honor those who have served in our military. Today we will romanticize them. Tomorrow we will forget them. The next day we will deny them medical care, housing and mental health benefits. The day after that we will ignore them while they suffer the wounds of war, the ravaging effects of doing and witnessing brutal violence, the mixed feelings of having served their country by killing people. We will debate the finer legal points of torture, while they bear the deep psychic scars of having participated in inhuman, soul-destroying duty. (It appears that the psychic damage of torture is as great on the perpetrators as on the victims.) They will wrestle with the reality that 90% of our war dead are innocent civilians, and we will tell them they are not guilty, because it's the price of freedom. They will do their best to believe that. They will bear the scars, the wounds and disfigurement, the nightmares, disorientation and loneliness of having borne their nation's insanity into the world. They will suffer the highest suicide rates in the nation. Of course many combat veterans adapt well and find ways to make their peace with what they've been asked to do. But not without psychic cost. We will thank them, because we don't want that blood on our hands.

But it is. Combat veterans are the victims of our practice of child sacrifice. We offer up their bodies as a sacrifice for our sin, an offering in our religion of war, the illusion that violence is necessary, effective and redemptive, the evil lie that our lives are made better by someone else's suffering. They are the victims of our belief that violence changes anything. As a nation we project our fear of suffering and powerlessness into the evil of war, and they—and all whom they engage in violence—bear the wounds. They are the children whom we have sent to kill some other mother's children. We honor them, but we do not stop sacrificing them.

Today I pray for all who are touched by the violence and inhumanity of war. To all who have given their lives I offer my thanks for their bravery, and their devotion to their country. God grant them rest, and honor their memory. To all who have chosen to serve, and to all who have suffered without choosing, I pray that God will grant mercy, healing and blessing. And in their honor, in the name of the Prince of Peace, who gave his life in nonviolent love, I devote myself to the end of our blood sacrifices, and to the mending of the world.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Today

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
         —1 Thessalonians 5. 2-6


Afraid of dying, we avoid living.
We sleep a sleep of fear,
dark nightmares pulled up around our chins.
Thinking we must survive now,
we wait to live later.

But the present moment is constantly being destroyed,
swept away into the past,
taken by a thief
who leaves another.
Life is transitory.
Each day, in fact, can be our last.

So wake up,
and live in the present moment.

The thief steals only what you have kept,
not what you have spent.

What calls out in your life?
What song needs singing,
what person needs loving,
what risk invites the investment
of all of yourself?

Child, awaken.
Rise to this day.
If you love someone, tell them,
before the moment to do so
is burned in a flash.
If you have a gift,
give it before the moment
vanishes like a dream.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Occupy the parable

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

Since parables are usually about something other than what they seem, you can read one as a metaphor for other things, like our relationship with God or something. But it may also be a once-upon-a-time story that's “about” exactly what it says it's about. Jesus told some stories like that, like in Matthew 25.14-3.

Once there was this guy who had a ton of money. (One of the 1%. Of course Jesus didn't say a “ton,” he said a “talent,” which was a measure of weight-- a lot of it. A talent of money is actually the equivalent of fifteen year's wages.) So he's got about $120 million to play with. (You don't suppose he earned that by his own honest, hard labor do you? Working overtime, maybe? Or was it more likely by using other people, gaming the system, paying the lowest possible wages, oppressing workers, skimping on safety and environmental measures, lobbying for fewer regulations, taking advantage where his money and power allowed him to?...)

Anyway. He lines up his money managers. To one he assigns $75 million, to another $30 million, and to another $15 million. The first two play the game. They invest his money. (In struggling family farms? Probably not. More likely where the real money is: armaments, oil, speculative banking, loan sharking via credit cards...)

But the third manager won't play along. He joins the Occupy Galilee protest. When the rich guy demands his take, the manager returns his $15 million and says, “Do you know how afraid people are of you? You steal money that's not yours. You rake in money you didn't earn. You cut the needy out of your budgets. Well, I'm not going to participate in your economic game. I'm not going to work for you. So I buried your money in a shallow grave, a place of death. Here. Go get an honest job and make your own money.”

God bless the ones with the guts to peak out against injustice. Because, of course, the rich guy fires him. And of course he gives his account to the manager who's made the most money for him, the one who's already deep in the system. The rich get richer, don't they?-- and the poor get poorer. The one who has everything gets more, and from the one who has nothing, even what he has is taken away.

The end.

You don't like this story? Well, it's true. What are you going to do about it?


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Moon

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.




Faithful moon,
not always visible,
but always facing me,
circling, dancing,
mystery beauty veiled,
pulling me from the inside,
swaying my tides,
waxing silently--
in your luminous darkness
I step outside
and pray.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve
________________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Practice letting go

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Three slaves are given charge of their master's estate. Two invest their portions and gain a return, but the third says, ”Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”
—Matthew 25. 24-25

Fear makes us cling rather than letting go. But clinging only binds us to our fear. It does not set us free. Practice letting go.

Fear inhibits our willingness to be fully, lovingly present each moment. Afraid of the responsibility and uncertainty of investing ourselves in the present moment, we withhold ourselves. Afraid of what might be demanded of us, we do not engage in what is before us. Wishing things were otherwise, we bury ourselves elsewhere. But life is this, not something else. Practice being present.

All that you are and all that you have is God's. You have nothing to lose. Practice giving yourself away.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Beatitudes

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Treasured are they who have nothing to offer.
They live in the Realm of God.

Happy are those who know deep sorrow,
for they know deep joy.

Lucky are those who are powerless,
for the world will be given to them.

Beloved are they who hunger and thirst
         to be close to God,
for God alone shall fill their lives.

Blessed are they who are gentle,
for they will always have a soft place to land.

Gifted are they who are transparent to love,
for they will see God in every moment.

Treasured are they who bring reconciliation.
They are children of God.

Warmly embraced are those who suffer in order to love.
They live in the heart of God.



         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Children of God

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


See what love the Mother-Father has given us, that we should be called God's children. That is who we are! Of course the world does not see this, because the world does not know God. Beloved, in the present moment we are God's children; what we will be in the future has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when God is revealed, we will be like God, for we will see God as God truly is. And all who have this hope in God purify themselves, just as God is pure.
—1 john 3.1-3

God is love. The One at the heart of all being is love—a desire for blessing, well-being and oneness, a delight in our being woven together. We are children of such love: love creates us, and in our very being we bear love into the world. The purpose of life is to be transparent to this love, to live in the present moment in full awareness of the love of God that is our life and being. We do not fret about how we will be judged or what will become of us, because we know that we belong to this love. The more clearly we see the God of love, the more purely we shine with that very love. God's compassion, self-giving and delight becomes our whole life. The struggle in life is to shed the things that impede the perfect love that is inherent in us, to become the pure love that is our nature. A saint is not necessarily someone who is extraordinarily “good,” or made holy in some unique way, but someone who is translucent with love. It is not a stretch to become such a person; you were born so. You only have to reclaim it. May it be your prayer always to return to the present moment, to return to the Loving One, to return to the love that is you.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

November blessing

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

May the nakedness of trees
         expose within you strength and beauty.

May deepening darkness
         draw you into a richer mystery.

May frost on grasses
         edge your life,
         speak to you of limits.

May the first snow change your plans,
         and get to used to that.

May changing climate
         give you courage for a new journey.

May every day be a day of giving
         thanks.

And for you in the Southern Hemisphere,
         as others enter one season,
may you always have faith
         to go in another direction.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

The grasses remember

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         (On All Saints' Day we honor the saints who have gone before)


The grasses in the meadow remember everything.
They don’t need grave markers.
Stones will be ground to sand, dragged to the sea.
But the everlasting grasses keep whispering,
passing along generations the stories, the names.

They have no way to recall the rich and sheltered,
who left monuments of other kinds,
whom they do not know, who have never clung
to them for sustenance, turned to them for beauty,
hidden in them for life, joined them in praise.

They call out the names of the martyrs of the earth,
those who have fallen among grasses,
who pass without fame or memento,
those with courage to flourish then fade, like them,
who join in the song of faith, merely singing.

They are not polished names that shine or ring like brass,
but names of straw, earthy, simple and mortal.
Truth is not a notion, but names. It is not carved in stone,
even in a distant shrine. It is remembered.
The name of God is murmured among the grasses.



         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Halloween costume

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


I heard of a Halloween party once in which everyone was invited to come dressed as their own worst neurosis. Right on. Halloween is an acknowledgement that we live in a trick-or-treat society in which we are continually manipulating how others see us, to avoid tricks and get treats. It's a day to confess that we are not who we pretend to be. What we wear the rest of the year is actually a costume. Today we can take it off: today we have permission to expose our demons, to name our dreams, to confess how scary our insides can look sometimes, and even to scare the goblins right back.

As the little pirates and princesses come to your door tonight, you might imagine that they are mocking your feeble attempts to dress up as a responsible adult, to pretend things about yourself, to appear to be the way others want you to be, to present yourself in a certain way so that you get the treats you want. Don't take their mockery personally; thank them for being honest about you. Give them candy. Let them nudge you to ask yourself how often you wear such a costume, how desperately you pretend to be someone you're not, and how deeply you're willing to be yourself, even if it makes others uncomfortable. Ask this: what would you look like if you went as your own best self?

Go to God and take off your costume. Get naked if you have to, to shed the illusion that we are what we pretend to be, and that who we are isn't good enough. Let the Holy One give you courage to claim yourself, and to be yourself without apology or adjustment. Seek the faith to go out into this trick-and-treat world without a disguise. Decide to live in such a transparent way that divine love in you is always instantly recognizable.

You can be polite. You don't have to scare people with all your inner demons, or parade your inner beauty. But you can be yourself. The one it will most frighten, at first, will be you. But soon you'll notice that your own best self fits better than any costume.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Crossing over

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
When those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, the waters flowing from above stood still.... While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.
         —Joshua 3. 15-17


Even if your way is unmapped,
the road itself not yet built,
your journey is not aimless,
but always toward holiness,
toward a place that's been prepared for you,
not farther away, but closer,
not an end, but a home.
Even when you're there,
you will keep approaching.
Even now you are there.

                  •

All your life you are crossing over
through Red Sea Jordan
holy waters of the Womb,
leaving this world for the next,
into a life of deeper life.
Every moment, God's water
is breaking.

                  •

Among the throng that thread their way
across the desert of your heart
there are priests who bear God's presence
within you.
They won't drop it.

                  •

When you are bearing something sacred,
barriers before you will withdraw,
but only at the moment
when you step into the flowing mystery,
into the depth of what holds you back.

                  •

While you cross over,
the bearers of the holy
will wait for you,
for all of you,
until you yourself
are part of holy land.




         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Prayer for peace

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Twenty-five years ago today, October 27, 1986, in Assisi, Italy, the home of St Francis, Pope Paul II declared the first World Day of Prayer for Peace. He was joined by religious leaders representing over a dozen faith traditions from around the world. Today again we join with people of all faiths to pray for peace.



Holy One,
In the beginning you created all things with a single word.
Each moment you re-create all things with a single breath.
We are all expressions of your one desire,
all members of one body,
all created in the deep peace of your love.
Each breath we take is your peace,
your one peace for all living things.
May your holy peace illumine our hearts,
fill our bodies and transform our minds,
heal our communities,
mend your world,
and re-create all things,
new in the breath of your love.
Amen.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

Many languages

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Last night at a dinner we were blessed by an imam, chanted over by a rabbi and prayed for by a priest. I needed all three.

I don't believe that there is only one true religion. There is one God, yes—one reality, one absolute truth— but many ways to live in reverence. There are many ways to wake up, many names to give the sacred, many languages in which to praise, many stories that reveal the Holy. (Mine is the Jesus story. What's yours?) Religions are not “all alike;” they see different parts, and lead us on different paths. Some see more than others.

But none of us has the whole story, because God is infinite, too great for even an entire religion to understand or worship fully. The One, the Creator of the Universe, whose name is I Am, the Merciful One, the Way, is greater than any image, any name, any tradition. The Heavenly Lover of All Beings has way more imagination than to only reveal herself to one people in one time in one form.

Don't assume that you worship the one true God in the only way possible. Don't let yourself off the hook by thinking that you don't have a choice. When you do, you can easily begin to believe that your religion is more real than the truth itself, and stop seeing altogether, stop being present. No, devote yourself to being present. Seek what is true and what gives life, what most deeply connects you with Creation in love. Have the humility to know that there are other ways. Have the curiosity to wonder what you're missing. Have the grace to thank God for the wisdom of other traditions, and the wisdom of your own. Have the courage to choose your favorite story, learn it well, and live it out, not because other stories are false but because it is the one that most deeply gives you life and brings you into harmony with all Creation.

When I am prayed for by someone of another faith, I am reminded that my understanding is incomplete, my perspective is limited, my tradition is finite. Only God is infinite and whole and perfect. God is beyond my naming, my understanding, my worship. I practice my imperfect faith, and God smiles and says, “It is enough.”

As you practice your faith, seek the prayers and blessings of people of other faiths. You need it.


         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

The teacher within

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


The scribes and the Pharisees tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.
—Matthew 23.4, 6-8

Beware the voices around you or within you that claim to lead you by dispensing demands and guilt. They won't teach you anything. Don't follow what gives you shame; follow what gives you life, what sets you free. Don't listen to the teachers who will show you what it's like when everybody likes you and agrees with you. Listen to the ones who lead you toward the grace-full presence of the Holy One.

Don't try to learn from what everybody else wants you to hear. Learn from your own doubting questions. Don't trust the teachers who know a lot. Trust the ones who are still learning, for we are all students. Trust that God wishes to be your rabbi, to reveal herself to you in your life, in your way, in your heart and mind and experience.

You will grow in wisdom not by a greater command of the facts, but by a deeper openness to God's presence. God is not outside of you waiting for you to figure out how to get there. God is within you, leading you. Listen to the voice of wisdom within you. It's not a voice of certainty, but a voice of wonder, of openness, of learning. Open your mind to every moment as an opportunity for the Present One to be revealed to you. Enter every moment as a learner of wonder, a student of God. Trust the silent teacher within.






Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

The sun walks

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

The sun walks through the autumn woods
slowly on her long yellow legs,
notices things, points them out,
reaches down between the grasses
and draws out their color,
touches leaves here and there
and makes them brilliant,
plucks a leaf and drops it,
plucks a leaf and drops it.
All through the woods her light
flutters down, swings down, dances down.

It is not winter that takes these leaves,
not frost that steals them in the night.
She gives them. It's how she finds her way
down into the black soil,
how she gives her light
to the darkness working beneath.

It is not death
that takes us from this world,
but life that gives us, ripe and golden,
into the next.

         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

A meditation on Psalm 90

Infinite One, we live within you.
We are little bits of your infinite life.
You form us from handfuls of mud,
and we, your handfuls, return to mud.
Life is changing and transitory:
we will not outlive the grass in our yards.
When we set our little lives
against your infinite desire for us
it is fearsome.
We can try to erect monuments
as artificial extensions of our life span,
but who are we fooling?

Teach us to be present in this moment,
to find wisdom in loving presence.
Accepting that our life is passing,
each morning we meditate on your steady love;
we embed the day in mindfulness.
Even in the drudgery we endure,
even in the evil we see and do,
you are present,
and opening the eyes of our hearts,
we find joy.

Open our awareness to your loving companionship
and your miraculous presence in all things.
Our hope is not for lives that are long but deep,
deeply rooted in your presence.
We do not seek immortality, or greatness,
or influence that outlives us,
but to belong in your life.
Our accomplishments are not ours to measure
but belong in your hands.
May all that we do
be in your hands.






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

With all of my heart

Spirit of Love,
I desire to love you with all of my heart and soul and mind,
in all that I imagine and all that I desire.
May my thoughts be kind,
my feelings be shaped by compassion,
my daydreams be merciful.
May my consciousness itself be an act of love,
my mindfulness be gratitude,
my awareness be flooded
with your grace-filled presence within me.
Spirit of love,
may your love in me flow to my neighbors,
to all whom I meet or think about.
Direct me in kindness toward each person that I meet;
may every word and deed be blessing.
I devote my heart to compassion above all,
above being right or getting my way or proving myself.
May I avoid all coercion, but trust the power of love,
the infinite strength of gentleness.
May all anger and resentment turn to forgiveness,
all fear turn to tenderness,
all judgment turn to reverence.

Spirit of love, you are all that is;
all that is created flows out of your love,
bears your love, begs for your love.
May I return your love, radiant in me,
to all Creation.

Amen.






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

Roadside grave

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo... and the Lord showed him the whole land.... The Lord said to him, "This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendants'; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there." Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord's command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.
—from Deuteronomy 34. 1-6



A garden and a fence,
I know we all want it,
but sometimes the Promise
is not the abundance and security we crave
but an abiding presence
that walks with us
even as we lead others home,
and if we've walked with them
as we ourselves have been accompanied
then we've known heaven,
and if our steps were hope for someone tired
and wandering, even if we were, too,
then we've been in the right place,
and if we've pointed someone,
even with unsure hands, toward their wholeness,
then we have made a great journey,
and if on our way we've loved someone on theirs
then we've rested in peace,
and if we've fond belonging
not in a place but a way of going,
and lived on pure, uncultivated gift,
and trusted the unseen companion,
and if we've found holiness on the way,
and wonder, even on a road that was
mostly mystery and never finished,
even if we never really arrived,
but never gave up,
then even an unmarked grave
out behind a gas station
at the edge of a desert
with names in our pocket
is good enough.




Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

The religion of love

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Someone asked him, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to them, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
         —Matthew 22. 36-40

There are two religions in the world, and every moment each of us is always choosing between them, sometimes waffling back and forth—but you can't have both. One is the Religion of Being Right, in which there is a certain way in which we acquire life, certain rules we follow, and if we follow them correctly, we secure our survival. These rules may be the Ten Commandments or Shira law or common decency or the properties of crystals or the principles of investing, but the dynamic is the same: if you master the requirements, offer the right sacrifices, do the right thing, you are rewarded—and if not you suffer. In this religion, regardless of how loving God may be, the crux of our relationship with God is that we meet the demands that God makes of us.  The highest value in this religion is to be right.

The other religion is the Religion of Being in Love. God doesn't make demands, but offers blessing, unconditionally.  God loves us without regard to our obedience or “worthiness”, and swept up by that love we love God and all Creation. God does desire certain things, but doesn't withhold blessing dependent on our performance of those things.  In this religion love is life, and so rather than seeking survival, power, security and esteem, we seek to live in love with God and all beings. Rather than trying to acquire life by our own effort or even our own faith, we receive it as a gift. There are commandments we follow and principles we observe, but the highest value in this religion is living in love.

You can't serve both masters. If you really follow all the rules, sooner or later you'll hurt someone. If you really love all beings, sooner or later you'll break a rule. Jesus is clear on his choice of love. He often quotes God from Hosea 6.6: “I desire love, not burnt offerings.” The cross is where Jesus takes sides in the conflict between being right and being loving.

Sin, I think, is our instinct to be right, to be worthy, to get what we want, to deserve life, to position ourselves to survive as an individual (or even to risk our life as a way to make ourselves worthy). Love risks all this for another's sake. To love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, is to abandon every other motive.

This doesn't mean to be a doormat. It doesn't mean we don't protect ourselves from abuse, try to accomplish things, maintain good boundaries, get angry and express it, or honor and take care of ourselves. It means that we do all these things in love. In fact, usually when we “give in” to another or surrender our boundaries or suffer injustice or abuse, it's not not to love others, but to worship their idols: to follow what their religion says about our deserving or worthiness. Don't fall for it. Follow your own religion.

Today notice when you are tempted to sacrifice being loving for being right: getting your way, winning your argument, proving your worthiness— rather than serving the other person in humble love. Open your heart to God's love continually pouring through you, so that each moment might be your love song, your devoted prayer, your act of love for God and for all people, all beings, all Creation.
         
         
Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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