Unfolding Light

             Love your enemies.
             God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
             Be merciful, just as God is merciful.
                         —Luke 6.35, 36


The greatest heist in history
is that Jesus has robbed us
of every last excuse
to withhold kindness
from anybody at all.




___________________
Weather Report

Hurricane-force gentleness.
Expect exposure,
the stripping away of cover;
some power structures will come down.
Gentleness will remain.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Love is not a feeling; it’s kindness.
It’s wonder at another’s being,
and our shared being in God,
a celebration of our oneness.
To love someone is to honor them as a soul,
regardless of their actions,
and to commit to their well-being.

Love has no room for judgment,
for being in control or being right,
even being “better” than an awful person.
It is only kindness.
Love sets aside our feelings, even our fear,
and our self-interest.
Love is willing to be weak, to be wrong,
to be hurt, to be misunderstood,
for the sake of the other.

Love is not a product of our effort,
but a gift flowing through us:
we are the riverbank and God is the river.
Our feeble love—and we ourselves—
are made whole and perfect
by God’s love flowing through us.

        We receive and give.
        We breathe in and breathe out.
        Love flows through us into all the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             If anyone strikes you on the cheek,
             offer the other also.
                                      —Luke 6.29


Do not confuse turning the other cheek
with telling someone else to.
               •

Assume this koan is a way to confront evil,
not to tolerate it.
               •

The act is not simply to suffer the evil,
but to expose it.
               •

Even as we pray for those who abuse us
we name the abuse and act to stop it.
               •

You can resist violence in ways that risk,
but not that harm others.
               •

We overcome evil not by superiority
but out of our powerlessness.
               •

The cross
is God’s other cheek.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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My enemy is myself:
a part of me,
part of the whole
of which I am part.

With their evil
I am complicit.
Of their wound
I myself need healing.
They deserve my wholeness.

Even the cruel I will oppose
with love,
knowing I live in them.

An enemy vanquished
is not as powerful a victory
as a heart transformed,
for the first enemy is within.
(Oh, so much has to die
for me to come into love!)

Only love will overcome
their lack of love.
Because they live in me,
my healing transforms them.
Their fearful hate is weakened
when mine is.

O Love, when I receive your love
I multiply the love
of the whole,
and there is a new Creation.

             “Love your enemy as yourself,
             as I have loved you.“

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I wish you a happy, or sorrowful, Valentine’s Day.
To love someone is to want the best for them.
When they are hurting we ache for them.
In our grief we come close to God,
whose infinite heart is eternally broken
in love for a world that is suffering.
On a day of chocolates and roses
I wish for you not mere happiness,
but deepest sorrow and joy—
may they both be blessed—
for your love for another, for a people,
for a hope or a nation.
May your love, which embraces both sorrow and joy,
be embraced by the love of the One
who always weeps for us, always dances.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Losing someone we love, dying
before our eyes,
before their time,
we are caught in-between,
wishing the past, dreading the future.

So we come into the present.
We stop. And we grieve.
If it feels we can’t go on
it’s because we haven’t yet
freed our sorrow.
So we grieve.

We let what is inside out.
We bear witness.
We say the unsaid.
We unburden.
And there, shattered,
weak, bereft and pierced,
the Beloved meets us.

And then we make our sorrow into life.
In tears, in song,
in hands taken, in art audacious,
in dance unbound as if flinging our hearts,
this lack, this breech in us
gives birth, becomes a new creation.

We pause in our Gethsemane
so we can go on
to the agonizing love
we are called to.
Our tears become our strength,
flowing out into the world.


             Blessed are you who weep now,
                        for you will laugh.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Blessed are you who weep now,
                        for you will laugh. …
            Woe to you who are laughing now,
                        for you will mourn and weep.
                                       —Luke 6.21, 25


God is among the broken-hearted.
Joining them, you are close to the Beloved,
whose loving grief for this tear-soaked world is deep,
whose joy is infinite.
When your heart is cracked open by sorrow,
in time the delight of God pours in,
splashing with laughter.

Carefree, untouched, laughing now,
you belittle God’s passion.
Your awakening will be a mourning.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Blessed are you who are hungry now,
                          for you will be filled. …
             Woe to you who are full now,
                          for you will be hungry.
                                      —Luke 6.21, 25


What do you want?
What are you most hungry for?
Food for yourself,
comfort, a good life?
Now perhaps you have them.

But later you will find
the real Want we’re given,
the Hunger in our souls,
the Desire of God:
not just for us, but for all the world:
the poor, the stranger, the others,
the next seven generations—
every living creature.

If you’re satisfied now—
full enough for your family,
a good pension—
then later you will feel
the ache of that deeper hunger.

If you are hungry now,
hungry for everyone,
not just yourself and your kind,
you know the desire of God,
the passion of God,
the presence of God;
and it will fill you.
Blessed are you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Blessed are you who are poor,
                          for yours is the realm of God….
             But woe to you who are rich,
                          for you have received your consolation.
                         —Luke 6.20, 24

A whole world of grace,
a realm of love,
another dimension
that this one inhabits
but can’t see,
an energy field like gravity, like magnetism,
God’s intimate presence
and fervent desire for your well-being,
the faithful accompaniment of the Beloved,
and the great body of all who love—
all of this is given to you.
This whole realm.
It’s yours.

Unless your hands are full
of something else,
drawn to other treasure.

Blessed are you who are ready to receive it.
woe to you who sit alone
with your pile of coins,
your great power,
satisfied.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I said:“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the Mighty One, the Supreme of all!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Holy One saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
                         —Isaiah 6.5-8

The headlines are grim.
Things do not look good for the nation;
you rightly foresee doom.
You yourself are also a mess,
a liar among liars.

Yet a hot coal of love
has singed your unworthiness away.
Now you are sent: given to this world,
your lips glowing with that grace,
to bear that forgiving flame,
to bear the love which—
to ashes with unworthiness—
chooses people.
You are sent to bear peace in the chaos,
blessing despite the riot, hope in the gloom.

Your words will not sway history;
the collapse will come. But speak
the Word of love in the time of danger,
and they will welcome your words of love
among the ruins.
                               Speak, then.
Don’t let the tragedy discourage you:
it’s the reason you are sent.
Amid the shouting and weeping,
proclaim in word and deed
the unrelenting gentleness of God.
You are sent into the falling darkness
to be light on the long, long path home.

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