God, may the eyes of my heart be enlightened.
May I see today not with the eyes of my fears and desires,
but with the eyes of heaven.
May I see with the eyes of your hope, and your tender love.
May I see your loving presence in all things,
supreme and yet hidden.
May I see the power of resurrection
radiant in every moment.
May I truly see,
with the eyes of my heart
full of your light.
Amen.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Gentle Pilgrim,
do not be anxious in those times
when your prayers are struck dumb
and God falls silent.
Do not worry when you walk among ruins
longing for an explanation,
when you break your questions
against the hard darkness,
when the ears of your heart
stop up like wells of clay,
when you listen and hear
nothing.
Take heart: you have not
been cut off,
you have fallen into the
deep green pool
at the center of the world
where there is no language,
only presence.
You have passed out of the
market of words
and into the hands of God.
Wrap the silence around you
like a prayer shawl,
this communion with mysteries too great
to be compressed into the paper cups of words.
Be still, and trust God’s mute embrace,
God’s sigh too deep for words,
God’s presence,
beyond all explanation.
_______________________________
Copyright © 2009
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com
http://songsfromthevalley.com/September-09-2.18-Alone.pdf
You were created to love.
It is your nature, and your purpose.
Your fears and desires get in the way:
your self-centeredness, your desire for control,
your fear of loss or diminishment,
your weakness and your wounds,
your attachment to things
that subvert love and drain life from you,
all prevent you from loving perfectly.
But their power is an illusion.
We flung them all at Jesus—
even death, and the wort suffering.
And they did not stop him;
they could not stop love.
God has defeated them,
buried them in the grave with him,
and he has come to us now without them.
He has risen, and has overcome them all.
You are free to love.
When you love you die to that world of fear,
and you are raised to a new life.
When you love you enter into God,
into what is divine and infinite and eternal.
When you love, even at great cost,
and even if you fail,
even if you have no effect at all,
you have won the victory.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
used with permission