Unfolding Light

The tattered little man rides his donkey,
as if a king.
Onlookers humor us. “Hail!,” they laugh,
pouring another beer.
He is the farthest from their minds.

But he is not far from their hearts.
He is there, calmly enduring our evil,
the raggedy dreamer
peacefully overpowering the world’s deep sickness.
He is there, enthroned in our broken depths,
his spirit rising in the worst of us,
smiling, with light in his eyes.
He is there, laughable,
standing firm amidst all that is wrong with the world,
still loving, still undefeated.
Nothing, not the most powerful armies
or heartless tyrants, nor the most profound evil
or the forces of death itself, can stop him
from putting an arm around your shoulder.

This is his reign, our ridiculous king,
still wounded, bearing his cross,
still rising from the grave,
raising us out of ours,
defeating our evil before we begin,
conferring upon us by divine decree
his perfect, gentle blessing,
giving us life that nothing can conquer
and—if we will receive it—
the grace to be faithful subjects
in his miraculous domain.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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         By a perversion of justice
                  he was taken away.
                           —Isaiah 53.8


Don’t blame the cross on God,
on some crazed deity’s scheme
to sell forgiveness for blood.
That’s a lie.
Jesus’ death wasn’t God’s plan:
it was ours.

This is the story of our fear,
and fear’s depravity and violence.
It’s the story of how we judge,
and think we can,
the portrait of fear’s only hands and feet:
curses, weapons, prisons, blood.
Forget your wearable crucifixes:
this is every rape and lynching,
every put-down, every beating,
every authoritarian act.
Look at the news: it’s that.

And it’s the story of another way, God’s way,
God’s unfailing love toward us,
and the Way God invites us to follow,
to thread all this brutality
with gentleness and blessing.

Notice the Two Ways.
Be astounded either way.
Make your choice.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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        Out of the depths I cry to you, O God.
                         —Psalm 130.1

I am searching for a mouth
          to speak my sadness.

I am looking everywhere for a throat
          to carry my song.

I am seeking a language
          with words for my longing.

So badly I need a heart
          to hold this love.

What will bear it?
          What will do?

Only the Body of the Beloved,
          the faithful through the ages,

the ancestors, all beings—
          the body of the whole of the universe.

I am searching you, Beloved,
          listening, open,

for you will be my speaking,
          my heart, my going forward.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,
          since the Spirit of God dwells in you.
                       —Romans 8.9

Flesh and spirit are not two separate things;
they are both good; they are both physically real.
God’s Spirit dwells in your good flesh.
Paul is speaking of two ways of seeing yourself:
as contained in and limited to your flesh;
or as one with all living beings,
a cell in the Body of Christ,
all made alive by one Spirit.
If you think you are an astronaut in your little suit,
floating alone in space, well, good luck with that.
You’re doomed by your finitude and mortality.
(This will make you afraid, resentful and selfish.)
In reality “you” are not just you alone,
but you-all, all of us, all of life,
given life that is not bound by your flesh,
but is infinite, and glorious, and shared.
We continually slip back into the illusion of our separateness.
Repentance is the moment-by-moment work
of re-membering, returning to our true selves
as members of the Body, in its power and unity
and mysterious unkillableness.
Your flesh is the creek God flows through.
From this spring flows humility, courage, and compassion.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          God said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
          I answered, “O God, you know.”
          Then God said to me, “Prophesy to these bones…”
                                         —Ezekiel 37.3-4

Your calling is not to know
but to proclaim, to give hope to the bones.

You are the answer to your own longing:
the power within you to live as a sign.

You do not know the outcome, only that
you have been given as a symbol of hope.

Hope is not wishing for a preferred future
but acting on your trust in the face of the mystery.

You are an icon of a grace
you yourself do not understand.

This is not for your sake, but for the bones
that need to hear. Prophesy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          “Lazarus, come out!”
                    —John 11.43

Something in you has died.
It happens all the time.
Something you clung to,
something beloved.
Maybe a hope, a memory, a gift,
a time, a power, a blessing….

It is no longer.
Jesus didn’t save it.
It’s really gone.
It stinks.

Too late for miracles,
you let it go.
You grieve the loss.

Then
somehow—
only after those tears,
that absence,
that hopelessness—
a voice calls,
“Come out!”

And out of that death,
that loss,
that emptiness,
a mystery comes,
alive.

Even now, then, attend:
what is being called?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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               After having heard that Lazarus was ill,
               he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
                                     —John 11.6

Maybe he knew he couldn’t keep his friend safe,
or protect even his loved ones from the reality of death.
Maybe he stayed to remind himself.

Sure enough, when he arrived, both sisters cried,
“If you’d been here Lazarus wouldn’t have died.”
But he would have. We all do.

Oh, how we want God to quell the germ,
deflect the bullet, guide the tires.
Life, a marble rolling safely down a track.

Instead, we pray that we be open
to the intimate presence of the Beloved
even in our trials and suffering.

Maybe the grace of God
is not a shield that protects us from all harm
but an energy that changes everything.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Dusk unfurls. Light, exiled, walks off over the hill.
Thick clouds loom, ruin’s rumors.
A violent wind kicks up, trees shaken.

Against the black and violet sky
a small yellow flower stands,
strong roots and fragile petals.

The wise endure by the toughness of love,
familiar with both horror and kindness,
bearing sorrow and hope together.

The flower’s yellow comes from deep
in yellowness, tender enough for bees,
yet enduring in harsh winds.

Wisdom, neither cynic not optimist, dares
to see the darkness clearly, and the light,
and even before the dawn, to shine.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          You lead me in right paths
                  for your name’s sake.
         Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
                I fear no evil,
                for you are with me.
                                —Psalm 23.3-4

Ever notice how the paths of righteousness
lead straight to the valley of death?

Between the green pastures and the table in a safe place
are dangerous passages.

The shepherd never leads us
into a dead end box canyon,

but often through nasty gulches
of threat, of loneliness, of loss,

and the shadows—my, the shadows,
the unknown, the fear.

But, to follow the shepherd of justice
on the path of healing, we go there.

We trust the pastures, the table, even the path,
because we trust the shepherd.

Strangely, so lovingly accompanied, we find
even the path itself is home enough.

So we go boldly.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          He said, “He opened the eyes of a man born blind.”
          They responded,
          “You were born entirely in sins,
          and are you trying to teach us?”
          And they drove him out.
                       —John 9.32, 34

There are things you know, deep down,
powerful truths you may or may not have words for,
but you know they are true.
They may only be questions you have,
but you have them. You know.
Those truths, even the questions,
will threaten some people.
Even the possibilities threaten
systems and power structures they rely on.
They will try to convince you
you don’t know, you haven’t seen,
you haven’t experienced, you can’t question.
But you can, and you do.

Whenever you are thrown out,
you land in the lap of Jesus.
He is not afraid of the possibilities,
nor of others who are afraid.
He creates a fortress of truth,
where what you know is honored.
He gives you quiet time and space
to attend to what is deep within,
to discern with an open heart,
to trust your deep inner knowing,
even your deep, quiet questioning.
Even when you question what you think you know,
you do so under his loving gaze, through his eyes,
not the anxious eyes of the doubters.

Wherever you are in this cynical world,
you are also in the fortress of truth
that cannot be breached.
Trust what you know. There is power there.

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