Month: May 2020

                                 
Beloved,
you are the gravity that holds me.
         May your desire keep me.
                  I rest in you.

You are the sun rising in me.
         Your light awaken me.
                  I open myself to you.

You are the dawn that greets me.
         Draw me into this day.
                  I wait for you.

You are the sky in my lungs.
         Your breadth open me.
                  I breathe deeply of you.

You are the river of my veins.
         Your love flow in me.
                  I surrender to you.

You are the sea of my birthing
and my welcoming grave.
         In your blessing I belong.
                  I am at peace in you.

Beloved, you are life itself,
and the very Being of what is.
         My life is gratitude and wonder.
                  My living is my Amen.

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

May 14, 2020

In a room no one has seen
you sit, Beloved, gazing
at the beauty you have created,
your own image,
all around you,
like no other
but you,
and it gives you delight.

Oh, to trust
for longer than this breath
I carry it inside me,
confident within all doing
to be
what no one sees
but you.

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

May 13, 2020

As I think about retiring I imagine freedom.
I also imagine the cost. I imagine what I will leave behind,
like the Hebrews when they escaped from Egypt,
what they carried and what they left behind,
how both could be a burden,
how even freedom begins in loss.

The addict coming clean is no different,
the sinner laying down the sweet sin,
the child outgrowing those childish, selfish ways.
Gaining always begins in letting go.

And I think of you and what you will gain and lose,
how moving into the next leg of the journey is a departure,
what shore you will never see again,
what courage is required to surrender to delight,
how the dancers of joy wear little bells of grief

and how the music of people becoming free
with its minor chords and passing dissonances
is so beautiful. And I would like for us all
to be hollowed out like flutes
for the breath of God.

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

May 12, 2020

The road ahead is furrowed.
The way is wrinkled and rumpled,
scattered with debris.

The road ahead our ancestors walked.
The ruins change but the path
is the same.

Walk gently. Walk for the sake of others,
knowing One walks beside you.
Even the unknown path has been walked before.

All its wanderings, its unknowings,
all its lines and open spaces, the road ahead
is the palm of God’s hand.

Walk in peace, knowing every step,
even wrong ones as you find the way,
is always blessed, always accompanied,

always the journey home.

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

May 11, 2020

                  “I am in the Mother and the Mother is in me.” 
                 —John 14.10

Womb of Love,
Mother of the universe,
you hold us within you,
contain us in your being,
nourish us with your self.

All living beings
are siblings in your love,
twins of your Spirit,
one in your flesh.

I belong to you,
grow in you,
flow with your love.

You who labor that we may live
and endure pain that we may be free,
may I be born again of you
by your mercy and delight.

We nurse at the breast of your love,
in the lap of your Creation,
your body given for us.
I open my soul to your grace.

May I always turn to you;
may I shine with resemblance
to my heavenly Mother.

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

May 8, 2020

Our normally busy street has been quiet
these days of sequestering.
But the other day traffic was backed up at the corner
with lots of honking. I went to investigate.
It was a teachers’ parade, crossing our road,
threading through the neighborhoods of our town,
everybody distanced and in their own cars—
recognizing them for Teacher Appreciation Week.
I was moved, not just by the applauding,
not just the support for teachers
(who, like nurses, are as heroic as soldiers)
but this wonderful gift: that traffic stopped.

Even sequestered we can busy ourselves and forget
to stop.

When we stop and wait for others
in the gap we enlarge ourselves.
When the merely important stops for what is beautiful,
when we let a little sabbath interrupt our busyness
the holy enters in the empty spaces.

Stop, and let the Holy breathe in you.
Who knows? In the pause, angels may parade
the neighborhoods of your soul.

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

May 7, 2020

        “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
         No one comes to our Abba except through me.”
                  —John 14.6

This is not a treasure map for conversion,
not a filter to screen out unbelievers,
no “One Way” directions to some secret entrance
to the favor of God. Jesus speaks
not to unbelievers but to us who already believe.

We want to know “the way.”
There is no “way,” Jesus says,
no set of instructions, no formula,
no Thing You Do to get to God.
He says, “I am the way. Me.
Not beliefs about me, but me, myself.”

We don’t come to God on Jesus’ coattails,
behind him, or beside him,
but through him. Inside him.

Be Jesus. Be God’s self-giving love
embodied in the world.
That’s how you come to God.
Be God’s love for you (yes, yourself!)—
which becomes God’s love for the world.
Get right inside that love. Move through it.

We don’t get close to God by our beliefs,
even our righteous obedience.
We get close through love.

Love is the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to God except through love.

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

May 6, 2020

O ceaseless God, sometimes I am tired.
I get tired of serving when the need is so great.
I grow weary of loving the dying,
healing the shattered,
rejoicing with the hopeless.
I tire of caring for those who do not care,
and forgiving the unrepentant.
I am spent, crying for justice to unhearing ears.
I am not a strong horse, but only a little burro, God,
and I can’t carry the whole load.

Beloved, you are smaller than that:
a tiny blue butterfly
in a blossoming tree.
I do not ask you to transform the tree:
only to do your work
in the bloom where you find yourself,
for there, in that labor,
which is enough for one butterfly,
the nectar of my delight revives you,
and the whole tree rejoices.

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

May 5, 2020

                 In my Mother’s house there are many dwelling places.
                  —John 14.2

May your many-mansioned heart
be mine, Beloved,
with room for all,
each belonging,
each wondrous in their own abundant ways,
each one kin, beloved, and a gift.
May the house of my heart
be blessed with the noise
of many languages of prayer,
and the prayer of many kinds of silence.

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

May 4, 2020

             I am the gate.
         Whoever enters by me will be saved,
         and will come in
         and go out
         and find pasture. 
                 —John 10.9

Come in and rest.
Go out and serve. 
        Find pasture.

Hear the voice from within.
Hear the voice from beyond.
         Answer.

The voice unlike, challenging.
The voice familiar, calming.
         Follow.

In green pastures,
in death-shadowed valleys,
         want nothing.

Both centered
and engaged,
         whole.

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

May 1, 2020