Unfolding Light

O Risen and Always Rising One,
when we walk in grief and despair
you walk with us.

When we question our faith,
you open our eyes to know more deeply.

When we seek nourishment and rest and family
you join us.

When we are bewildered,
when we don’t know what to do with our lives,
you take them, bless them, break them, and give them
to us, and to the world, in love.

Have not our hearts burned within us
as you have accompanied us all along?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Resurrection is not so much a change
as a revealing, an undressing,
the clothes of this world stripped away
from the pure light that was always there,
and is there now, in you, walking around
with the Big Bang hidden inside you.

Trusting now what you’ll only see in the end,
you love wildly, forgive boldly,
stand courageously with the endangered,
and risk all for the sake of healing,
knowing even great suffering
is only a passing fashion.
Beneath, you are pure glory.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
           and put my finger in the mark of the nails
           and my hand in his side,
           I will not believe.”
                                   —John 20.25

It was not enough for Thomas to be told.
He needed to experience resurrection embodied.
So it is for those around us now.
For many it’s a story that’s not true.
How then might it be true in our lives?
What might it be about our lives
that seeing them would make people believe
that Christ has indeed been raised?
Maybe to trust love. To care fearlessly.
To risk for the sake of justice and mercy.
To trust God’s presence in suffering and bewilderment.
Nothing heroic, just trusting
in God’s presence and power
in us and around and beneath and among us.
Maybe if some poor Thomas can sense
how the wounds of love have given us life,
how through our failures and powerlessness
mercy and justice are still alive in us,
how they themselves are embraced and forgiven,
in that moment, as if never before,
Christ would be raised from the dead.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          The doors were locked.
           Jesus came and stood among them
                and said, “Peace be with you….
                As God has sent me, so I send you.”
          When he had said this, he breathed on them
                and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
                       —John 20.19-22

What you have lost is replaced
by the weight of sorrow.
It sits in you like a boulder.
The terror of the regime’s violence
has left its claws in you,
the fear you can be taken,
the clarity of what it can cost
to proclaim what he proclaimed.
Of course your doors are locked.
You don’t want to talk about it,
except when it’s all you can talk about.

But suddenly here he is.
God’s astounding “And yet.”
All he is—his love, his tenderness,
his mercy, his very being—unkilled
by the State, by fear, even by death.
His “Peace” is no mere greeting:
it is the healing of your grief,
the forgiveness of your guilt,
the breath of your salvation.

He breathes himself into you,
his deep peace even in the face of evil,
the power of love, the courage and energy
that sends you out into a hurting world
like wind nothing can stop,
to fearlessly embody the resurrection
that so frightens those in power.
You are embraced. You are transformed.
You are inhabited. You are sent.
Now every breath you take
is his.

______________
Weather Report

Windy,
blowing from within,
rising throughout the day,
Expect even those weighed down
to be carried away.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Beloved,
I reach out for you.
I want to touch you,
to know your living presence.
I want to feel the flesh of your grace,
that the nails I helped pound have not held you,
that still you love, that you forgive and bless.
I want to touch your wounds,
your willingness to share our suffering,
your brokenness for the evils of the world
because you love us so deeply.
Give me the courage to see you
in the wounded of this world,
to see the wounds I have caused,
the evil I have cooperated with,
the ways I have abandoned you,
and to know your forgiveness.
I want to know
that out of your wounds flows love.

Beloved, every moment,
even when I am forgetting,
I am reaching for you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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He has lived long on his knees,
spent time among the lilies and the sparrows,
sowed seeds—many given over
to birds or weeds—
has bled from thorns,
and labored under the sun’s yoke of light.
He’s watched seeds fall, be buried,
and cease to be what they were,
become something glorious—
the blade, the ear, the grain.
He’s laid his hands, dirt-dyed,
on earth’s small wounds
and healed them with growth.
(He wipes his face
and leaves a smudge upon his brow.)
He has worked with struggling trees
and gifted them with the detritus of death
so they bore fruit.
A gentle, generous soul,
it seems he’s laid himself in earth
so many times that everything around him grows.
So deeply one with all of life,
he’s hard to single out,
even in this new dawn’s light,
fresh risen from the dead.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Christ is risen!
          This makes no sense. Only joy.

Christ is risen!
         There is no explanation. Only wonder.

Christ is risen!
         Don’t try to understand.
         Only be grateful.

Christ is risen!
         Some say it’s just a story.
         Let it be your story.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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My Beloved,
I carry your body— how can this be?
           … what I can’t put together…
broken,            shattered,
                                            you and I both….

I climbed up, not far,
           yet            such unscalable height

to unfasten you,            break you loose—
           now so loose, so far           from us….

I carry your body— how can this be,
           you who have carried me?

your arms limp, your hands, your healing hands
           empty           of power, of grace

in death they touch me without blessing
           yet I am blessed

I try to drape your           hand           over my shoulder
           is it fantasy, selfish?           or just grief

I wrap you in death’s shrouds I wrap you in my
sorrow I want to wrap up these last days and throw
them away I want to wrap myself with you
           I would wrap you in           myself

oh, if I could only bury you in me
                      or me           in you

I place you in my grave           A stone
           is rolled in place
                      some day           I will join you

Now, Beloved,           I join you

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Oh, Jesus, what have you done?
Carried my burdens, every one,
All of my sorrow, all of my sin,
Like a mother gathering her children in.
    Now I’m left with nothin’ at all but love,
    Nothin’ but your tender, tender love.

Oh, Jesus, what have I done?
Crucified my precious one.
I didn’t want to bear the pain or loss,
So I left you alone to carry the cross.
    Now I’m left with nothin’ at all but love,
    Nothin’ but your sufferin’, sufferin’ love.

Oh, Jesus, what will you do?
Forgive me like you always do.
With not a word of wrath or blame,
You died with love gently sayin’ my name.
    Now I’m left with nothin’ at all but love,
    Nothin’ but your precious, precious love.

Oh, Jesus, what will I do?
Give me the courage to follow you,
To give my love if I live or die,
And never again to crucify.
    Now I’m left with nothin’ at all but love,
    Nothin’ but your dyin’, dyin’ love.

Here’s the sheet music.

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