Month: September 2019

In the farmer’s market
each booth creates a world of smells,
a little universe of color, root, and leaf,
a song of music or of thread,
the scent of flowers, the smell of bread.
Each center breathes out its own creation
ringing out and overlapping every other,
a world of worlds to every other world singing.

And so among the people as they stroll
and as they go, and as they work and walk
accustomed streets and subway platforms,
each creates a little world that ripples out
and fills the world, a world of worlds.
Each one chooses, as you do, their colors,
gravities, aromas and their givens..
The world you live in others do as well.
Be mindful of its song, its light, its smell.

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

September 16, 2019

         They were grumbling and saying,
         “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
                  —Luke 15.2

The worst way of being lost isn’t
not knowing where you are
but knowing you’re in the wrong place:
feeling you don’t belong.
Righteous bullies will try to convince you
there’s no place for you.
Whatever it is about you they pick
it means you can’t be with us.
You belong elsewhere: nowhere.
Get lost.

Alas, poor frightened bullies,
there is no such thing.
Everyone belongs.
You have a place in this universe,
which was created with you in mind.
The world with no place for you
is an imaginary one.
The shepherd who doesn’t find you
isn’t yours.

You have a place of belonging in this world,
the lily in the pond, the note in the song,
and no one, no place, and no lack of place
can take it from you.
Beloved, you can lose your belongings
but you can’t lose your belonging.
You’re always in it.
You can’t get lost.

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

September 13, 2019

No map shows the street
where this house stands secretly,
full of light and music,
no street runs away from this home
that does not pass it by on all sides
and arrive, though travelers wander
in search, looking always too far,
consulting signs and charts,
sometimes asking directions
to this house that stands, full
of candlelight and song.
All the doors go in. People have
searched yet no one has ever left
its many mansions, or been outside,
ever, even those who never go
into their room and close the door,
this house of ordinary things, light
on windowsills, small voices, a cup,
a little bread, and kin who cherish you.
Everyone in it wanders searching for the house
they’re in, where always, in this house,
this house of yours, you belong,
you belong.
You may sit anywhere you like. It’s yours.
Every time you find you’re in it,
we have a party.

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

September 12, 2019

Evil has only one small power:
to destroy.
It’s not really power,
just fear with practice.
Evil can take down towers,
but it can’t raise a single one.
It can frighten but not teach,
it can wound but not lead,
it can destroy but not create.
It can cause sorrow,
but it can’t move the world forward.
It can only destroy.
So can, by the way, a germ.
It is no great power.

You need not save the world from evil.
Merely live gently with hope,
create beauty, spread love,
give of yourself even in the face of fear,
and evil with all its small terrors
will be outdone.
Even a massacre is not as great a thing
as a child’s drawing.

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

September 11, 2019

         What woman having ten silver coins,
         if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp,
         sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?
                  —Luke 15.8

The Divine One is searching for her silver coin
         in you.

The sweep of your life is your search
         for the Divine in yourself.

It is not outside or elsewhere
         but in your house.

If you are still and look calmly you will see it
         glinting in your soul.

Keep your eyes open until you find it. Then
        “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.”

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

September 10, 2019

Beloved,
sometimes I feel so small and lost.
Do you hear my little cries?
Do you even notice you’re missing me?
In the gritty, lonely places where I need you,
in pain and struggle,
in the ordinary relationships,
you are so absent.
In the face of injustice and suffering
you aren’t there when I need you.
I am right here and yet I feel so far away,
so invisible, so insignificant to you, so lost.
I ache for you, for your steady presence.
How else can I cry out to you?
Come and find me.
Hold onto me and don’t let go.
Dare to leave all behind to search for me.
I am here! I am here! Look for me.
Look everywhere.
For I am everywhere,
and everywhere, I am with you.
I am the lamb that takes away
the sin of the world, and I love you.
I am right here,
crying out to you in your prayers.
Come to me, and I will give you rest.

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

September 9, 2019

O Love, as your own you know me,
                from within you see me.
You know my doings and not doings,
                you have taken all my steps.
My breathing is you breathing in me,
                you are the nerve, and I your muscle.                 
My thoughts are yours before they are mine,
                even my cries are you crying out.

Where can I find your absence?
                How could I be apart from you?
If I crawl down to the depths of my despair,
                you are there.
If I escape to the farthest island of my loneliness,
                you await me.
If I make my bed in my failure
                you lie with me in the dark.

You have formed me with love,
                love beyond my figuring.
You created me to be me, a wonder
                I will always only be discovering.
You are creating yourself moment by moment,
                unfolding in me.
I do not comprehend this mystery:
                I move in it,
and I rest in it,
                here, with you.

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

September 6, 2019

         The vessel the potter was making of clay
         was spoiled in the potter’s hand,
         and the potter reworked it
         into another vessel, as seemed good.
                  —Jeremiah 18.4

Potter God,
center me in the wheel of your grace.

As the world spins around me
lay your strong, wise hands on me.

Cup your creating fingers around me
and draw me up into your image.

Press upon me, steady, firmly;
let me feel you pressing,

let struggle be my making, pain my art,
your thumbprints on my soul, my flesh,

caressed into the shape of you,
molded to your knowing, your delight.

And if I lose the shape you will
smush me down into my lump

and shape me up again, anew, and
unafraid to be so pressed to beauty.

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

September 5, 2019

         “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother,
         wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself,
         cannot be my disciple.”
                           —Luke 14.26

It’s probably not your mother and father.
It’s probably someone else, or maybe everybody,
in front of whom you don’t want to look stupid. 
You don’t have to hate them,
but you have to be willing for them to hate you
for your politics or your trans friends or your anti-racist work,
or your letter to the editor or your allegiance to bees. 
You have to be willing for them to think you’re alien
for taking your faith so seriously,
for declaring a hope that looks silly,
for standing in a vulnerable place for justice,  
for sticking to the discipline that gives your life frame and strength.
And, let’s face it, sometimes
you have to care more about praying than you do about your friends,
or you would never pray.

You don’t have to lose your care for life,
but you do have to lose your attachment the life you engineer
instead of the life you’re given.

There’s some major letting go to be done.
Count the cost.
Don’t leave anything out.

Then count the cost of giving up. 

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

September 4, 2019

A road runs
around the edge of the world.

One one side is this place,
its green meadows and familiar cities.

On the other is pure mystery,
dark, starred, unseen.

How odd that we stay so much on the road,
going and going,

seldom leaving it,
neither here, nor there.

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

September 2, 2019