God, the single mom

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


The Mother will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, in my name.... Those who love me will keep my word, and my Mother will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them....
— John 14.26, 23


The Holy Trinity is a single parent family, right? And look— despite all the he-man talk, God is a mom. Aside from our sexist history, there's really no reason to call God Father instead of Mother. God has no biology, no body parts, no x or y chromosomes. So the whole Mother/Father thing is all about social stereotypes. Well, doesn't God fit the traditional stereotype of a mother? The one who births us, and nurses us with her own flesh, the one who taught us to walk. Not one who leaves home every day to work, but the one who stays with us to care for us. The one who feeds us, the one who talks with us, who weaves our relationships together, who tends us when we're sick, who cries over us. Isn't God more like the one who fusses over us rather than the one who taught us how to play football? As far as gender stereotypes go, God is way more like Mom.

Both our stereotypes and our theology need to change. But while dads learn to be more like what we've always expected of moms, God's been doing it all along.

And she's not only a homemaker, she's a single mom. There's a Son, and another (a daughter?)—but no other parent, no other authority, no one else for us to turn to or for her to fall back on. God is the resilient, resourceful, devoted single mom, the one who works hard to hold the family together, who balances work and family, who somehow pulls it all together. As we approach Mother's Day I honor mothers, especially those who are single or functionally so, who give life and love, and who embody God's grace.

In the name of the Mother, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Happy Mother's Day.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve



_______________________________
Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

God running

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.


I am running
and God is running in me.
God is breathing deep and steady,
down in the darkness secretly
changing the air into life in me.
God is thumping in my chest,
pulling life through me, all of me.
God is taking a pounding down there,
feet slapping the road over and over,
never complaining, slender ankles
faithfully taking all my weight.
God is my sweat, pouring out of me
like love, like light.
God, you are that miraculous alchemy,
that unchoreographable dance
of oxygen, nerve firings, glucose,
adrenaline, muscle memory and will.
You are my momentum,
my balance, my movement,
my stamina.
Even when I'm awkward or tired
you are graceful in me,
strong and elegant and unflagging.
You are the push up the hill,
and you are the hill.
When I am exhausted you are still
running in me, my body knowing
how to run, bearing me along gamely.
You are the sprint at the end,
the push from within, the rush,
the release.
And you are my tiredness,
my gasping for air, for life, for God.
You are running and resting,
my feet and my finish line.


All day cells will adapt, bones resolve,
metabolism change, muscles renew.
What is “fitness,” but God happening?


Now I am done running.
I am reading poetry.
And God is in me...





Deep Blessings,

Pastor Steve





_______________________________

Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

God the homemaker

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.... The Father will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, in my name....
— John 14.23, 26


The image of the Holy Trinity invites us to imagine God as a homemaker, one who creates a loving home for us. God doesn't sit there in some high-end real estate called “Heaven” and wait for us to die and come to God. She comes to us, makes a home—God's home!—with us. And she surrounds us with family: Christ and the Holy Spirit are there for us and with us, like a big brother and sister. The Holy Trinity is loving community— a family. This is the true family to which you belong: not just a little family tree, not a church or denomination, not a culture or a race, but the family of God, the household of the Holy Trinity.


Just as we find it hard to wrap our minds around the infinite and eternal power and majesty of God, God's unknowable transcendence and mighty sovereignty, so we find it hard to fathom God's nearness, God's intimate presence, God's ordinary motherly love, the steady, warm embrace of God's arm around us, with loved ones gathered, bread baking, a soft bed waiting, and a gentle blessing: “Welcome home, love.” God is, above all else, the One who comes to us and makes a home with us. To worship God is sometimes simply to sit in our favorite easy chair in God's home and enjoy being there.


Welcome home, love.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve



_______________________________

Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Godling

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



As surely as you come from earth,
are made of earth,
and part of earth,
and will return to earth,
so surely you come from God,
are made of God,
and part of God,
and are returning, every breath,
to God.

God is your substance and your life,
the spark of your being,
your body and its dance.

God is your breath and your flesh,
your muscle and mind.
God is the miracle by which
you are brought out of not being,
the grace by which You Are.

You are one with The Holy Oneness.
You are a blossom of this beauty.

Let God, this day,
be your work and your wakefulness.
Let God be the source of your mindfulness,
the substance of your thoughts and deeds.

As surely as you are an earthling,
you are a Godling,
God’s, and of God,
the Holy One,
Loving One,
Indwelling One, the
One.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Copyright © Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com

Delight

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.



“You shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
— Isaiah 62.4


Two gods struggle for our hearts and minds.
One, of our own making, is distant and demanding.
He is here for his own sake,
He barges into Scripture and sets his wrath on the table.
And though he seems somehow unreal we tremble.
If we do not satisfy him, he throws us away,
and never comes back for us,
and says “I am doing this because I love you.”
But we are not fooled.
He is the shadow of our fear.

The other, beyond our imagining,
is madly in love with us, and inside us.
She sits quietly, mostly ignored, and plays music
on the strings of our bodies.
She is here for us. Her delight is in us.
She does not need for us to satisfy her,
or perform adequately, or meet some standard.
She simply wants to be with us.
She sings to us softly, from within, in dark places.
And we tremble.
We find this unsettling, so we edge away.
We act badly, to mask our powerlessness,
to cool her passion.
But she is not fooled. She is still in love.
And sooner or later, in this life or the next,
she will have you.

Why are we so afraid to fall into her arms?
Because she burns us up, until we become pure delight.



Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

_______________________________

Copyright (c) 2010
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com