Month: November 2023

To the one who limps, who is a poor dancer,
who hesitates at the escalator,
who smacks their elbow on doorjambs: Praise.

To you who never get the jokes,
who have failed at love, who feel odd in every group,
to you who hate to introduce yourself, be honor and glory.

You who have dropped the whole casserole of your life
splat on the floor, who believe you have nothing to say,
whose handshake is limp as old celery, blessed are you.

Losers and misfits and three-legged dogs, praised be you
who try anyway, for you have the courage to be
what we fear, and free of shine or polish, gleam

with the radiance of the One whose glory is not divided,
making us brave to attempt that most holy and amazing feat:
to be ourselves.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Sometimes it seems life knows what it’s doing
and then suddenly forgets, or maybe gets distracted.
You’re just going along, we say, and then suddenly
everything changes in an eyeblink. A kid is born.

Tires screeching on pavement, a slip on the ice,
one little thing that happens—and the whole world
comes undone, changed forever, the before and after
pictures so mismatched they could be from different movies.

We question the persistence of reality. Maybe we were wrong.
But maybe there’s more persistence than we see. Maybe
the tires have been screeching on that pavement forever,
the egg fertilizing, the mail dropping through the slot. Not

that fate has decreed it from the beginning, but that everything’s
possible, and life gets to choose every moment, even something
odd and incongruous. But that means that you do, too. Even
now, tires screeching, you can choose something beautiful.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Start small: this one leaf, maybe,
cartwheeling past you with nothing on its mind,
just cartwheeling. It’s finished its work. It’s off now.
Follow it to the shaggy grasses where it stops,
wild grasses who seem satisfied with themselves,
yellowing calmly at the edge of a wood,
nodding yes and no in the breeze. They
don’t seem to need to agree or disagree.
And the woods. All those trees, and not
a single opinion. Imagine all they know
about sun and seasons, nutrients and bugs,
how to endure, and how to provide,
without judgment, how they murmur
to each other deep underground in networks
reaching to the sea. And the sea that always
throws its arms open no matter what,
singing its shanties under the palm of the sky,
and the sky, all its gowns of clouds, its jewelry
of rain and snow and its blue nakedness
without any style whatsoever, going on out
into space, which also has no style, it just is,
and on beyond that into the vastness of
your heart, which, yes, encompasses
all this, and refuses to be any smaller
even though, inside God, it is the littlest thing.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Master, you handed over to me five talents;
           see, I have made five more talents.”
                         —Matthew 25.20

And what of the others,
the ones who faithfully took the talents
but didn’t make a killing in the stock market?
The one who forgave seventy times seven
and it came to nothing.
The one who marched in protests
and wrote to her senator but it was ignored.
One who loved her enemy
and they just scorned her.
The one who prayed and meditated
but never once kept his mind from wandering.
The one whose praise was never accepted.
The one who sang the song of their soul
and it wasn’t really all that lovely.
The one who told the truth and looked like a fool.
The one who shared his faith
and nobody, not a soul, cared or believed.
The one who really loved Jesus
but didn’t ever see what she had to offer.
What of them?
To them the master turns and says gently,
“Well done, good and faithful servant.
I know of one who served perfectly,
and ended in failure, crucified.
You have been trustworthy over a few things.
I will put you in charge of greater things.
For love is always risked, never wasted.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           The realm of God will be like this.
           Ten bridesmaids took their lamps
           and went to meet the bridegroom.
                         —Matthew 25.1

It’s not a test, not a sentencing.
It’s a party.
It’s not campaigners nervously watching returns.
It’s a wedding.
A celebration of love,
a joy that gives us joy,
a faithfulness that involves
the whole village of us.
Those who expect gloom, or an end,
will be surprised.
But no matter how much oil you have
the lovers will join—
God and us—
and the party will go on.
The musicians are warming up.
Even as darkness gathers,
turn your face toward joy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
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The fallen trunk rests gracefully
bent over grass and its own
surrendered branches.
Empty-handed now, it waits
for sun and rain and bugs to do their will.
Some critters make their home
among its ruins, scattering seeds.
Along its bottom edge a fungus furls
with feathered wings as if to fly.
A colony of more resplendent ones,
yellow, and with hats,
parades along its flank like awkward teens,
while yet another band atop the bark
crane their necks like explorers
peering into the new world.
And underneath, unseen,
a million worms and microbes
chew on death and make it life.
There’s no way I can sit here long enough—
the thousand years—
so see what this tree is becoming,
but only long enough to hear it ask:
“Little one, are you strong enough to die?”t

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Before there was to be a beginning
there had to be a time for it.
Who knows how long,
that abyss of longing?
And then when Your longing deepened to fullness,
having made a time for it,
You made a space for an Other,
and having nothing beyond Yourself
with which to make a space
You made space in Yourself,
an absence making room for us,
which we complain about bitterly,
not understanding that the absence
is what allows us,
and which in fact,
if we so dare to make a space in ourselves—
thus, like you, becoming both less and more—
we enter into, which we call prayer,
and perhaps even faith, or at least love:
to make room in ourselves for another.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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In winter the buds hugged themselves
to the twigs.
In spring they opened their arms
to the light.
Through summer winds they clung
to their branches.
In fall they threw themselves
into the air.
Now, embracing the ground, they murmur,
“This, too.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them;
           but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.
                         —Matthew 25.3-4


You who wait for the Bridegroom of Peace,
who wait for the Feast of Justice
late into the night,
bring extra oil for your lamps.
The wait will be long.
Don’t be tempted by the promise of “soon.”
Don’t be tricked by your impatience.
Light will fade,
evening’s vine will grow up around you,
the sheet of night pulled up over you,
and the wait will go on.
                                           Bring oil,
and go on. Keep your lamp trimmed,
your little lamp of hope,
little flame of trust and goodwill.
The night will be long,
rumors will precede the bridegroom
yet the bridegroom will not come,
and you will tire.
But do not fall to either sleep or despair.
Love is changing the world,
but you will not see it for a long time.
Let your oil be plentiful enough to last and to share.
No matter how long it takes, keep the flame.
Illumine the little circle where you are.
Light the way.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The quiet of the ocean
is not the dampened sound
of everything being far away

but the silence everything has come from
but not far, no, not far, the silence

of the sea still in us,

the quiet of the beginning
before the first word,
only the presence, not the word,

the primordial still holding us,
the darkness still giving birth,
the tide in our veins,

surging quietly,
that all our sounds go into
and rest at the bottom,

noiselessly becoming eternity,
the quiet not of death
but of being held.

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