Unfolding Light

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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Sitting through a chemo drip,
you wonder.
With the news,
the marriage, the child, the job,
even just this ordinary day,
you wonder.
Where is this going? 


Cities have maps, but not so with friendships,
or prayer, or aging, or the world
There are no signs, few landmarks;
even the goal might be vague.
Nevertheless we go,
under a different kind of guidance.
We do not know what something within us—
within us being among us—
knows.


But it knows.


The poet begins, and only gradually
does the poem reveal what it wants to say.

The tree reaches down its roots, blind.
The stormy petrel takes off for shores unseen.
Under the frozen river,
the water knows the way.






__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          “If you were blind, you would not have sin.
          But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
                       —John 9.41

In the ninth chapter of his gospel
John tells a hilarious story
full of slapstick comedy
and subtle and not-so-subtle irony—
a sort of Jesus and the Three Stooges—
that on Sunday thousands of preachers
will read with a perfectly straight face.
In the story people whose eyes work fine
ask a man who was blind
to describe what he saw.
He sees clearly, though they do not.
They contort themselves
and trip all over themselves
with comic awkwardness
to avoid seeing what they see.
Despite the storyteller’s straight face,
intoning this tale as if it’s
a recipe for fish stew,
we’re supposed to laugh out loud,
first at those goofy Pharisees
and then even more seriously
at ourselves, since the real joke is on us,
because we too keep putting bags on our heads
and stumbling over God’s grace,
avoiding seeing what we see.
We don’t want to see grace
where we don’t want to see it.
We don’t want to see God
in people we judge.
‘Till we open the eyes of our hearts
the angels will just keep laughing at us.
But Jesus will sit down on the curb
with those who have been rejected
for seeing what they see,
and day after day work with us
to open our eyes.


_________________
Click here a script for a four-scene dramatic reading of John 9.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          God said to Moses,
          “I will be standing there in front of you
          on the rock at Horeb.
          Strike the rock, and water will come out of it,
          so that the people may drink.”
                       —Exodus 17.6

Unexpected refreshment
flows from an act of service,
a mystery hidden
in an ordinary deed.
Acting in trust
for the sake of life and healing
releases the infinite grace
already present
in even the most unpromising situation.
Faith is not knowing,
but striking the rock.

_________________
Weather Report

Blessing,
impossible to forecast.
Clear, empty skies
may offer renewing rain.
Chance of precipitation 100%,
though unlikely.
Strike the rock.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          “The water that I will give
          will become in you a spring of water
          gushing up to eternal life.”
                                 —John 4.14

Maybe faith is something you “have”
as a river “has” water:
for a river is not just some water,
but a flowing,
releasing as it receives.
The unkillable life God gives you
is not for you alone,
not for you to keep, but to pass on.
Faith is the flowing of love
from the spring of God
through you
into the world,
freely flowing,
the receiving-and-giving,
the passing-on,
one fluid motion.
You are the riverbank
through which God
never stops gushing.

Breath prayer:
                       Receiving . . . releasing

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          Then the woman left her water jar
          and went back to the city.
                       —John 4.28

She came to the well at noon,
at the end of the line, a nobody.
But Jesus saw in her something else,
something more. Sure enough,
after their conversation (the Bible’s longest!)
when she departed she left her jar—
because she knew she was coming back.
She had a mission, to bring others to him.
She who once was a pariah
had become an effective evangelist.

When you attend
to your deep spiritual thirst,
Jesus meets you there,
and touches your deep spiritual gifts.

And that in turn nourishes Jesus:
after meeting with the woman
Jesus said to his disciples,
“I have food you don’t know about.”
It turns out our deepest hunger and thirst
is also Jesus’.
Only when we are hungry and thirsty
do we join in the feast.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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        Those who drink of the water
        that I will give them
        will never be thirsty.
                       —John 4.14

Of course I will thirst again.
I breathe deeply,
yet want one more breath, and another…
God, I will always thirst for your grace,
but never be unsatisfied.
The thirst itself, for nothing less than you,
renews me, nourishes me;
for by your grace there is no difference
between my desire for you
and your desire for me.

Breath prayer:
                           Thirsty . . . for each other

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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      “Sir, give me this water.”
                          —John 4.15

You are thirsty.
Thirsty with a thirst deeper
than mere desire or even need,
something deeper,
more life-giving.
This thirst at times disturbs you:
you spend energy,
often digging in dry wells,
often chugging a substitute.
But still you thirst.
Give thanks that your soul
knows what it needs.
It craves the grace that is life.
Blessed are you who thirst
for closeness with God.

Breath prayer:
                        You, my thirst . . . you, my satisfaction

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