Month: April 2015

         

come with Jesus to the lynching tree
we stand aside and nod
good thing it wasn’t you or me
but just some lamb of god

we sing our hymns we know them well
we sing our righteous songs
and so we send that boy to hell
for that will right our wrongs

some people weeping in the street
they cry the lynching tree
but we can’t quit the judgment seat
the way it has to be

the boy is dead lay out the pall
it’s finished move along
but how come he forgives us all
before we know it’s wrong

how come the god we slight and say
that it’s all right to kill
the god who died comes back our way
and loves us loves us still

it looks so dark the lynching tree
so dark for you and me
but here’s the strangest thing I see
a bud upon that tree

         
         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight (at) gmail.com

      

         If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet,
         you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
                  —John 13.14

Lord, what was it like to wash Judas’ feet,
on your knees, with such tender kindness?
         An act of love, not irony.

What is it like to so humbly serve me,
to kneel at the feet of my failure and betrayals,
to welcome and wash and soothe me
as if I am your master?
         Pure love, without demand.

Give me this love, this gentle humility,
to wash the feet of those who oppose me,
to treat them with tender kindness,
to seek always to be closer to you,
on your knees below us all,
         serving in perfect love.

         Love one another, as I have loved you.
                  —John 13.34

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight (at) gmail.com

      
         
Into all I am afraid will cast me away from you,
into all guilt and pain and unworthiness,
Jesus climbs like slipping into my skin.
Into all thin loneliness, all rage and flame,
into my worst ugliness, my most horrific evil,
Jesus enters and makes a home.
My violence, my failure, the little pieces
of the soul I was given Jesus gathers in his arms.
My whole self he fills, his wine in the chalice of me.
He enters that dark chasm between me and you
and becomes it,

and there is no chasm, no darkness
that is not you.

This assaults all I know. It must not be.
Whether or not I am forgiven
I am not ready to receive it.
I push him away, the you of him, the him of him.
I kill him again and again.

Again and again, he comes to me
and says my name

until I die in your arms.

         
         

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight (at) gmail.com