Dear Friends,

This week, as I spend a week away in California to be with my family, I have found a few quiet moments in the early morning to reflect on the meditations I receive in my inbox before everyone rises for the day – one of the benefits of the time difference.  I have been struck by two pieces written by poet/pastor Steve Garnass-Holmes,* who ponders the images of salt and light from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that we will be hearing in church this Sunday.  

You are the salt of the earth —Matthew 5.13

You don't aspire to saltiness. It is who you are.
It's the taste of being an element of earth and an element of God.
Your saltiness is your faithfulness to who God is in you.

The You of who you are gives salt to this world.
It's a quality that remains even as it goes out into the stew of life
and adds to its savoriness.

Be true to your salt.
It will bring out the goodness in others. 

You are the light of the World —Matthew 5.14

Einstein told us: matter is just energy holding still.
Light is the energy of God, which is love moving.

“Let there be light,” God said, and you were conceived.
You are love made matter, Word made flesh,
the light of God, the light of Being, momentarily here in this form,
shining, radiating God.

You don't need to produce it or generate it. It's who you are.
When you are truly yourself it shines.

The world sparkles with people walking around gleaming.
Even on our deathbeds, we glow.

Trust your light. Give thanks.
Open the shutters of your lantern. 

With gratitude for your Salt and your Light, 

Amelie+

*Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light, www.unfoldinglight.net