Unfolding Light

              Magi came asking,
             “Where is the child who has been born a king?”
             When King Herod heard this, he was frightened.—Matthew 2.1-3

To one who rules by domination and retribution
love not only threatens, it disorients.
How does one fight such a sovereign,
whose rule is justice, whose law is mercy,
whose power is grace, whose authority is absolute?

Herod of my heart, surrender.
Beware your urge for power.
In the struggle for justice in the world,
and in the simplest conversation,
abdicate your throne.
Trust mercy.

Everyone is ruled.
Be ruled by love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             It was no messenger or angel
             but God’s presence that saved them.
                        —Isaiah 63.9


An old year has died:
a death we welcome.
Yet in all calamity, O God,
you have been with us.
At the grave of the old year
we give our sorrows to you.

At the birth of the new year
our hope is in you:
not that someone will come along,
or that something will happen;
but that you are with us.

Into the uncertainty of what is to come
we walk with the certainty of your grace,
the mystery of your presence.
Trusting, we look to a new year
with hope and joy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          Herod sent and killed all the children
          around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.
          Then what Jeremiah had spoken was fulfilled:
             “A voice was heard in Ramah,
                    wailing and loud lamentation,
            Rachel weeping for her children;
                     she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
                       —Matthew 2.16-18


Cruelty reigns.
Herod’s power seems absolute;
the world is his—or so he thinks.

But the world is not his.
The Beloved has come, incarnate,
to occupy this empire of domination.
Christ of the cross has come in love
to claim this world for those who suffer.
This is Rachel’s world.
This world belongs to the mothers of Gaza,
to refugee mothers, to mothers
of the deported and incarcerated and addicted.
They cry out.

We do not hear the word of God
unless we hear the cry of Rachel.

As earnestly as to the choirs of angels,
we pause to listen.

God hears you.
The universe resounds with your cry.
Rachel, we hear you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
             “Get up, take the child and his mother,
             and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you,
             for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
                        —Matthew 2.13

This is the world Jesus comes into.
One that would kill him.
Powerful, fearful men denounce him.
Typical, respectable men wish him harm.
We ourselves, at times, turn against him.

This is why he comes.
It is not despite Herod (on the throne and in our hearts)
but because of him that Jesus comes to us.
Spurned, denounced, targeted—love persists,
embodied among us—
warm, vulnerable, doomed, undying.

We harbor in our hearts
one opposed as an enemy of the state.
This is the shepherd we follow,
the Savior we trust, the Body we join.

Herod signs his executive orders,
cloaked agents enter the road,
mothers hide their children,
and we bear love into the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          The shepherds returned,
          glorifying and praising God
          for all they had heard and seen,
          just as it had been told them.
                                 —Luke 2.20

Only a day after Christmas
a tree, with a strand of tinsel
and a broken ornament
lies by the curb.
How often our reverence
is too soon abandoned,
our gratitude passed,
our questions
and the mystery that changed them
forgotten,
our longing,
and our joy,
dismissed.

As we return with the shepherds,
grant us faith
to keep the wonder alive.

Breath prayer:
                        Keep … wondering

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Christ is born. The wonder! The joy!
Stars sing brightly—
yes, light years away, they cheerfully sing.
Oceans clap, winds dance,
and even the whales sing their paean
to welcome the holy child.
Earth turns to the sun,
reveling in the light.
All Creation joys in wonder,
all Creation bows in awe,
how God so gently comes among us,
how love so beautifully blossoms here,
how grace and healing
make their home in this world.
We tune our quiet hearts, then,
to hear the throng of heaven
all around us, deep within us,
rejoicing.
Hush, and listen: Alleluia!

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          And the Word became flesh and lived among us.
                       —John 1.14

O Holy One, your love is no mere feeling
but an act of presence.
You are with us,
among, within and all around us.
The babe in the manger
reminds us:
You are here.
All of this is Holy.

Glory to God, and peace on earth.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          To you is born this day
          in the city of David
          a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Holy One.
                       —Luke 2.11


On a cold night, bundled in our fears,
tired from taking care of ourselves,
we come, curious:
maybe there’s something here for us.
Angels promised a savior,
but this is no one who could bail us out:
a mere infant, who could never fight for us,
or overwhelm our enemies,
sneak us out of the trouble we’re in
or take for us the lashes we have coming.
This is no one who could strike a bargain for us.
How could this one save us from the failure
of the lives we were meant to live?
He gazes up at us serenely
with utter trust, and, somehow it seems,
all the love of heaven and earth.
We are struck. Without our willing it,
something in us shifts. Opens.
A deep river long frozen thaws out
and begins to flow, a love beyond our command,
that frees us from all we fear or desire.
By his grace we love, and are saved.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Mary, most plain,
to your home, not of wealth but of welcome,
God comes.
To your dirt floor and bare feet and dark skin,
the Divine draws near.
In your eyes, that know hope and horror,
the Beloved sees.
In your hands that have only done menial work,
your face into which no one has ever looked closely,
your body no one has loved, your soul no one understands,
there Holiness settles.
Mary, most small and unworthy,
you who have not mattered to anyone,
now, not for your virtue, but God’s grace,
the Mighty One chooses you.
The love you shall bear into this world—
not by your own doing—will prevail forever.
Mary, Daughter of Love, Mother of God,
sister of all humankind—more like us than we wish—
blessed are you, and blessed is the fruit of your heart.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The waiting room’s a weary place,
though we’ve become accustomed.
Something unsettling lurks. A rising sea.
In hospitals long ago, the smell of ether.
Shouting on the other side of the door.

We all feel alone,
as if we haven’t been gathered.
We work our worry beads.
We endure the unbearable wait.

Free of our hope or despair
of what’s in the other room,
you come alongside, belonging,
here, now, in this shabby room.
You make a home with us, wrap us
in a huge but silent presence
that absorbs our longing.
We want to be inside it;
we’re glad to be here.
Regardless of what will come,
you redeem this present time.

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