Unfolding Light

The night’s quiet is song
waiting to be born.
The silence swells.
The darkness dilates.
The cosmos is hushed,
the stars all holding their candles.

Then— a birth—
and out burst the sopranos,
an alleluia of sky,
a confetti of angels,
the choir’s crazy noisemaking.

But then… hush. All hush,
taken aback
in speechless wonder
at the Word made flesh,
God’s hope entrusted
to a weak, needy infant.
Grace, infinite and splendid,
folded into this tiny space.
Words fail. Even songs.
Only the hush of hearts opened
like mangers to the warmth
of divine presence
wrapped in tender flesh,
to the mystery of a God
who so desires to be with us
even in this cold,
in this fractured world
that will soon crush the child.
Even among us
whose joy is swallowed in grief,
whose love caves in to fear,
the Eternal comes to dwell,
to be with us.
Smitten as if by a first kiss,
whelmed and flush, all hush.

This is the silence we return to,
over and over, through all our days.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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What you had to go through—
the smirks of lesser gods with better ideas,
our certainty you belonged higher up,
the violence of the emperors you threatened—

to come undefended, doomed and trusting,
to an unwed peasant mother
soon to become a refugee,
to a cold stable, a rough manger,
targeted by the regime,
to a dead-end path to an execution,

to come to the faltering heart, the fraying marriage,
the shattered city, the heartsick nation,
to the waiting room, the day room,
the back room, the courtroom,
to the projects, the rez, the unit, the camp,

to want to come, like a baby to be born,
like a mother in a fire going to her child,
like our nameless passions that will come out
in tears if we let them and otherwise if we don’t,
clouds that sooner or later will fall, will fall to their earth,
salmon struggling up a rushing stream,
a patient fighting back from a coma.

Our awe is to imagine you wanting
to come into the world like this.
And our worship is wanting like this
to come like this
into the world
like this.

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

Stars, come close.
Night, come tuck the blanket
of your darkness under our chin.
Winter, come and settle with us
for a night and tell us your story.

Blessed dark,
we entrust ourselves to you,
night of mystery,
womb of grace.

We are not afraid of the dark.
In the night, warmth.
In the dark, stars.
The beginning of winter,
the moment the Earth turns toward the sun.

As the Emperor climbs his throne,
the holy child descends.
Even the thickest shadows
can’t stop the light now.

                ______________     

              Southern Hemisphere

The Beloved has gathered
the warmth of all love and tenderness,
as fiery as sunshine,
and shoulders the mystery
(yes, the yoke is light)
and prepares to carry the light
into the darkness.

Even as the night begins to deepen,
the child comes to us, shining.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             God has shown strength with mighty arms:
                          God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
             God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
                          and lifted up the lowly;
             God has filled the hungry with good things,
                          and sent the rich away empty.
                                      —Luke 1.51-53


The leveling of hills and valleys is not
some cynical rearrangement of the bureaucracy.
No, this is an undoing of structures and systems
of power and honor, of privilege and exclusion.

The love we’re given,
the love we bear in the womb of our hearts,
undoes hierarchies,
changes worlds.

Expect the powerful to fight back.
The manger is made from the wood of the cross.

Be prepared to be light in a thick night,
a small candle in a strong wind.
Be prepared to be kind and generous in a selfish, fearful world.
Be prepared to hope in the face of cynicism and despair.
Entrust yourself to grace in a world of greed.

Don’t be surprised if even on the darkest night
a new, holy light shines.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Imagine the manger
is not faraway or long ago

but that little rough, cold, abandoned place
inside you,

the place of pleading, the basement of dread,
the solitary confinement of shame,

the night of unknown longings,
the winter of hopes paused,

the collapsing floor of doubt,
or the ice cave of grief, of loneliness.

Will you still sit by the manger
and wait, singing?

Or imagine the manger is not yours at all,
but in a refugee camp,

or the spongy floor of a hoarder’s double-wide,
or the room of a trans kid trying to figure it all out,

or the prison cells of women who tried
to stop men from killing them.

Imagine it’s not for you, unless
you’re more desperate than you think.

Will you still sit by the manger
and wait, singing with joy?

What if the manger is not yours but in the shed
of the skinheads who trouble you,

the gang members who know no other way.
Will you sit and wait, and sing sweetly?

If so, sing tenderly. If not, surely
it is for you he comes.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Go lie down in a field
where snow will fall,
curled among the grasses.
Bones gather around you,
bison teeth, crow feather,
now sunk into the soil.
The grasses, dressed in gray,
are silent around your little plot.
Great rivers stir in their sleep
deep beneath, filtered down
after falling for ages, rinsing
sky into the ground.
Earth holds you in her slow, steady spin.
The eternal and mere soil
pass into each other.
Eons pass. Everything that is alive
will pass, gathered here in this field.
Be here a while.

This is the empty manger.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             In those days Mary set out and went with haste
             to a Judean town in the hill country,
             where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
                                      —Luke 1. 39-40

In out of the way places
you revolutionary women meet,
not to plan campaigns or plot a disturbance,
but to do what revolutionary women do:
give life, celebrate each other, enact hope.
You tend generations (the womb’s work
is only the beginning).

You seek the company of those who know,
who honor the womb of the heart.
You flock with others who cherish the sacred,
who harbor joy even in harsh winter.

Your hope is not approaching from over a horizon
but growing within you, already real.
There is something holy in you
that leaps at the nearness of the holy.

Blessed is she who believes there will be fulfillment
of what Love has promised:
that you shall bear blessing into the world.
Blessed are you and the fruit of your heart,
for it is this love that overcomes the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree.
                         —Luke 3.9


The ax lies ready,
awaiting the courage of pruning.

It sings a song of non-being.
to let only the fruitful branches remain.

Trust: the vine to which we belong
can’t be killed. Prune away.

We know as we labor in the orchard
other forces lay axes to our good vine,

to cut us off, to quell the miracle,
for greedy weeds of fear to prevail.

They can’t succeed. Even slashed at the root
this vine rises again.

Fear neither the faithful pruning
nor the wicked assaults:

these roots are mighty enough
to roll away stones.

What is of love is eternal, and flourishes,
bearing the fruits of grace,

even from stumps burgeoning forth with leaves
that are for the healing of the nations.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Rejoice in the Beloved always;
                          again I will say, Rejoice.
             Let your gentleness be known to everyone.
                          The Beloved is near.
                                                   —Philippians 4.4-5

The Beloved is not near in the future,
but near to your heart, now.

The Beloved, born into danger and conflict,
dead and raised from all meanness,

has your back. Guards your joy.
And shows you the way.

Dare to be gentle in a rough world.
In such a manger the child comes.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The prophet cries, “Prepare the way!”
and we know he means justice and purified hearts—
well, and shopping and decorating and baking
and cards and programs and family plans….

Either path is OK, for a bit. But whichever you are on,
stop. It’s OK to let it all go.
Prepare for something to happen inside you
that can’t happen with too much stuff going on.
Clear the space. Stop pruning in the vineyard, and walk away.
Dress warmly, and go out into the dark. You may go alone,
or with others who can hold candles in a cold wind
without masking the dark silence with familiar songs.
Sit at the empty manger, and let its emptiness speak.
Make room for newly conceived life… unknown longings.
All of who you are is present, as is the Holy, approaching.
This retreat may take a lot of time. Cookies may be neglected.
Sit in the not-yet-ness, the awful silence.
Sit with the holy family. Joseph goes off to find a safe place,
and Mary regards the manger within.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:57 — 2.7MB)

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