Month: February 2023

Ice makes and unmakes and makes again the bed
of the pond. It’s February: moody, adolescent,
with assaults and disappointments still to come.
Snow repents halfheartedly of its cheeriness
and becomes sleet, then ice, then rain, then ice.
A hardship of frozen cattails rings the pond.
On the black water two ducks, companioning,
cruise placidly, as if unfamiliar with February.
Beneath the silvered surface their little orange feet
work steadily, but they glide as if pulled by strings.
Eating from the bottom they upend their butts
without shame and find what they need,
their eyes soft among the clicking reeds.
Together, without guile, they explore the bank,
in whose mess I imagine they’ll build a nest.
They wait. They don’t watch the sky.

It is possible to live with grace.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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I come at night
in the dark

secure in my maturity
but you say be born

I want something to cling to
but the wind, the wind blows

I take a breath, this one breath
life now, for now

and then another, given
All of life is breath

received and released
beginning again

like a birth
through the dark tunnel

received into hands I can’t see
trusting what I can’t grasp

given
beginning again


               [John 3.1-19]

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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Snow covers the branches,
covers the ground.
But it doesn’t hide the earth,
it is the earth.
As the snow covers
grasses waiting beneath it
the grasses cover soil,
the soil covers bugs and microbes
which cover roots
over layers of earth
over the water table,
where the snow will go…
Nothing is a cover. All of it is part.
Look beneath the visible.

           You desire truth in the inward being,
           therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
                           —Psalm 51.6


________________
Weather Report

Low visibility,
thick clouds, blankets of snow,
heavy fog,
and all manner of obscurity,
all of which, as much as solid stone,
is certainly true.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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           Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
           to be tempted by the devil.
                           —Matthew 4.1

O Steady One, steady me.
I am unbalanced by secret weights of fears,
tugged at by invisible strings of desires,
and I stumble, crash into folks, break things.
I don’t act because I’m afraid I can’t succeed—
I wish I could turn stones to bread.
I don’t love because I’m afraid of getting hurt—
I wish I could jump off cliffs fearlessly.
I cling to things because I’m afraid of being without—
I wish all the world could be mine.
But my wants are wayward, my fears are lies.
The power, the security, the belonging I seem to want
are all in you and you alone.

Touch my desires, Beloved,
and bend them back toward you.
Lay your hand on my hungers and steady me.
Mend my wants with your generous grace,
sweeter than bread with honey.
Heal my fears with your perfect love,
the earth from which I cannot fall.
Calm my anxieties with your steady presence,
for you are the world to which I belong.
You settle me with trust, courage and gratitude,
for I have all I need, abundantly.
You whisper to me gently, Oh, fretting soul, relax.
I have you.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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My mind says I don’t understand.
            My body says I’m not ready.
                        My soul says burn me up
                                    and make me into the ash
                                    you place on the Virgin’s forehead.

My words say I’m too mixed up.
            My tears say I’m unworthy.
                        My breath says reduce me to dust
                                    and gather me up in your hands
                                    and breathe into me.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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I squat beside a smoldering bin
where serpents of smoke
snake up from gravely burning
palm branches into air,
gravelly and gray.

Praise and adoration
burn so easily! – so quickly turn
to nothing, to smoke
and ashes, rising
on a breath of wind.

I stir the fire with a stick,
piercing it in the side.
The smoke brings tears to my eyes.
I turn aside for breath.

This corpse is me, these ruins mine.
My prayers are smoke,
rising on a breath of wind.

Spread my ashes, Jesus,
in the garden where you
always wait for me,
pray for me, long for me.

I am sorry. My sorriness is smoke,
rising into the air, into your prayer.
My sin is ashes, burned up in your love,
rising on a breath of wind. Gone.

All has turned to nothing
and a breath of wind, fresh,
rising.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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Lent is when we go downstairs,
down into the basement of our souls,
into the dark, dingy, dirty places,
and clear out the junk we need to get rid of.
In Lent we don’t need to beat ourselves up.
We need to lighten our load,
bag up those fears and desires
that are leaking all over everything,
take our guilt and shame out to the curb.
It’s not easy to lay our hands on broken things,
to look deep into the gummed up works.
That’s why Jesus shines with his light,
shines so we can see our way down into the dark,
see to lift up the junk and hand it over,
so he can haul it out into the light
of the dumpster.
The light Jesus shines is good with dark places,
so we know even from the deepest hole down there
we’ll come out. The light will lead us. We’ll be OK.
Mucking around down there we get dirty,
and we come up with grime on our hands
and ashes on our foreheads for everybody to see.
But we’re free of all that blame and disappointment.
And the darkest, deepest cellar hole
becomes an empty tomb.

__________________
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           From the cloud a voice said,
           “This is my Son, the Beloved;
           with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
                           —Matthew 17.5


Listen for the One amid the others,
from so far within it’s beyond.

The voice deep down inside of things,
where God still echoes.

If you don’t turn from this clanging world to listen
you won’t hear.

Listen for the voice that calls you Beloved.
It may sound like sweet nothings.

The voice that knows your wholeness,
sees your gleaming, makes your life run deep.

Listen for the depth of the marbled silence
of one who is listening.

A beckoning, not a command,
toward, not above.

Listen for the love that draws you,
even through the shadowed valley,

the voice that knows life beyond that,
and speaks without guile about joy.

Listen for the voice tinged with hope and delight,
and listen. Listen.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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           Jesus was transfigured before them,
           and his face shone like the sun,
           and his clothes became dazzling white.
                           —Matthew 17.2


Sometimes someone changes and you get to see it.
And sometimes you finally see what was always there.

Maybe this is the real grace of transfiguration,
not that things change but that our seeing does,

that we see with eyes of wonder,
that we see divine presence in this world,

that we see resurrection in every death,
see the gleam that is each person, even the doomed,

that we see them beyond the limits of their flesh,
see them in company with saints, see them divine,

risen already from whatever deaths and disappointments
they will endure, still shining. We see with eyes of mercy.

Maybe the miracle is not in the light that enters our eyes
but the light that shines out from them.

Pray that by the grace of the God who shines
our eyes may be transfigured.

____________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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           He was transfigured before them,
           and his face shone like the sun,
           and his clothes became dazzling white.
           Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah,
           talking with him.
                           —Matthew 17.2-3

Jesus has just said he will be killed, and raised again.
If you give away your life for love, he said,
God will give you a new one.
Jesus has already surrendered his life.
He is already the Crucified One.
And now we see him, with others who have died,
and he is shining with Easter light, risen again,
before it even happens.

Jesus is the lighthouse shining at the mouth of the bay
where we enter the narrows of death,
shining to show us the way through
to deeper, wider life.
The light emboldens us to enter the dark—
the neglected, the unseen, the unfamiliar, the unloved—
to find life there, healing and beauty and resurrection.

In this dazzling light, if we trust it, if we follow it,
we ourselves may be transfigured.

__________________
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Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
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