Month: January 2024

         “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”
                    —Mark 1.17

I don’t think he meant for us to catch them,
haul them into our boat with some evangelistic net,
capture & manipulate them.

I think he meant to change our focus
from fish to people.
Fishers know where the fish are and go there;
they learn to think like fish; they value fish.
Their lives are centered around fish.

Become attentive to people, Jesus meant,
go where they are,
let their beauty flash before you.
Center your life around them and their well-being.

He might have said to Matthew,
pay attention to the details of people like you do to taxes.
Or to an auto mechanic, that’s great,
now can you do that for people?

What do you know a lot about?
Imagine becoming that adept
with souls, with relationships,
with how we live together.
Follow Jesus, and you can become
an investment banker of souls,

a painter of people, a gardener of society.
Just follow, and you’ll discover what it means.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Jesus came to Galilee,
           proclaiming the good news of God, and saying,
           “The time is fulfilled,
           and the empire of God has come near;
           repent, and believe in the good news.”
                         —Mark 1.14-15


The Realm of God is the reality of God’s rule,
God’s desire for fullness of life for all living beings,
God’s realm of infinite grace:
fundamental, unconditional, and open to everyone.
God’s Empire is absolute. Grace is as non-negotiable as gravity.
The Empire of God
directly opposes the Roman Empire and all empires.

To repent is to renounce our loyalty to other empires,
to stop cooperating with systems
that pretend to regulate God’s grace,
that claim blessing for some and not others.

To believe the good news
is to shuck off our blinders of fear and shame,
to shed the sword and shield of having to be good enough,
and, empty-handed, trust the grace given us.

Everything Jesus did, every word and deed,
was to connect people with God’s life-giving grace,
to heal the wounds of separation,
and to undermine systems of exclusion.

When Jesus says “Follow me”
he means to do this.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “The arc of the moral universe is long,
           but it bends toward justice.”
                         —Martin Luther King, Jr.


We aren’t discouraged by how long it is.
We only do our part.

The trick is to keep our eyes on the arc,
not the rest.

Our hope is not confidence in our strength,
nor wishing for good outcomes,

but trusting in the unseen power of the universe
to right itself.

Even through dark clouds of fear,
the rainbow is steady with its arc.

Follow that, not the clouds.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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He would have been 95 on Monday.
He would have stirred us more, pressed us more.
And we still would have resisted.
Or he might have been killed another day.
Still, we have to decide.

Maybe he nudged us these last 56 years
no less than when he was alive,
because love and justice don’t die,
the dream doesn’t disappear,
the march doesn’t stop.

The trouble with heroes is that we wait for them.
Yet what he was saying the whole time was
“You can do this. We all do it together.
Don’t wait for me, or the next one.
We are all marching.”

We march against those whose tools
are violence, hate and poverty.
We march to block the streets of habits, even our own.
We march against our fears,
singing, always singing.

Martin is still calling, still marching.
And something in us
even without our knowing,
is singing, still singing.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Listen.
The blue thread of a bird song
woven through the ochre fabric of the woods.
The ticking of birch leaves, oak leaves,
still hanging on in winter.
The breath of wind, maybe a sigh,
as if it remembers something,
or suggests something.
The tapping of branches,
the creaking of the Old Ones.
Listen, and know
that you are really hearing something.

Notice shadows,
how they love geometry,
playing in and out
of what they mimic.
Notice as carefully as shadows notice.

Watch people, their thousand kinds,
each carrying their story boldly or secretly,
the costumes they wear,
how they walk, as if burdened,
or underwater, or in love, or lost, or late.
Watch how people walk through God without knowing.
The glory of God is hidden in plain sight.

Listen to people, really.
Even yourself.

The gate to paradise
is attention.

Attend.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?”
           Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree…”
                         —John 1.48

God, forgive me for thinking
I am a stranger to you.
You have known me from the beginning;
you fashioned me.
You see me from the inside;
you know me better than I do.
And you love me.
You see my preciousness when I cannot.
You know my goodness even when I betray it.
You know my brokenness and my sin,
and you heal and forgive.
You hold me in your delight.
Though my trust is flimsy,
I entrust myself to you and your grace.
May I never be a stranger to your love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Open field.
Evening settles like snow.

Moon. Hard, shining as ice.
Only a sliver of the divine visible.

A hawk, gliding, greets me,
silent, noticing.

Stars, putting on their halos,
appear one by one.

The Great Stillness I can’t hear
says my name.

The cold deceives: I am not foreign here.
I am of this breath, sighing with clouds,

of this blood moving in the brook,
of these bones leafless above me.

The Great Stillness, who grants me
my umbilical warmth, holds me,

and sings her lullaby,
Rest and do nothing,

still as the trees. Let the snow fall.
You are mine. You belong.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We got our first snowfall today,
so of course I was out in the woods on my skis.
The way classical cross-country skiing works
is you kick off with the left foot
and then glide on on the right,
then kick with the right and glide on the left.
If your skis are right for you, and prepared right,
and you know how to use them,
you can both grip and slide, in turn. You can go.
There’s a rhythm to it. Kick and glide, kick and glide.

Sometimes you fall down. Not a big deal.

When we’re healthy we can engage the world;
we care; we honor our deep connection.
And we can also let go. We can move on without sticking
to everything that comes our way.
Kick and glide.
Both are needed, in the right places, the right times.
We can also fall down, and then go on.
Enlightenment is knowing how to both grip and also slide,
when to struggle, when to accept,
when to engage, when to let it pass.

Pray for the compassion to connect
and the wisdom to let go,
the grace of kick and glide, kick and glide.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee
           and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
                         —Mark 1.9


The Beloved of God
immersed in our river, our life.
Jesus, the Loving One,
swimming in your veins,
bathed in your tears.

His entry into oneness with God
is to enter our lives,
to be one with us,
baptized with us
in the flow of the world,
the mystery of life.
You who are baptized into Christ,
behold: Christ baptized into you.

Flow, then, with Christ.

            “Out of their hearts shall flow
            streams of living water.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Beloved,
you have revealed yourself to the world in Christ.
Now reveal yourself in me.
May your grace shine in me.
May my love be a guiding star for others.
May my words and deeds show forth
the reign of your mercy and justice.
With humility and generosity
may I offer the gifts you have given me.
The treasure chest of my soul I open
to you and to the world.

As magi knelt and honored you,
I give you my life.
May I be a revelation of your strong, tender love,
your astounding grace,
your faithful presence.

Star of God, shine in me.

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