Month: March 2024

           “Do not be alarmed;
           you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
           He has been raised; he is not here.”
                                            —Mark 16.6

God has done what God is free to do,
as with the first “Let there be light,”
what God has never done before,
what God is always doing:
dismantling and making anew the world
and all we thought possible.
The dominion of death,
and all its rulers and warriors,
have been defeated, forever.
What has transgressed is forgiven.
What has died is given new life.
The entire world, all of life and even death itself
is in the hands of God, the God of life.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Christ is risen.
Alleluia.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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A day without purpose or liturgy,
vast in its cruel, silent emptiness.
Bereft, gutted, regrettable.

A day to sit with myself,
my failures, my sorrows,
wrap them around me like a shawl.

A day to sit with death,
amid life’s flock of losses,
feeding the pigeons of grief at my feet.

A day to sit with the world
and its shambles,
its unfailing choice to ruin itself.

Let the depth of the day deepen,
the sea of sorrow swell downward,
the dark deeps complete and useless.

Everything empties out.
Even grief and guilt are hollow.
Even the beating heart has nothing to say.

In the insistent blank
let there be no possibility, none:
an empty canvas for God.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Embracing our most fearful,
returning again to our anguish,
the Gentle One shines so bright with patient love
to make the darkness a mirror:
in love, entering our wound,
Christ escapes our doom;
reduced to nothing, becomes infinite;
God going into our pain,
healing coming out of it;
our shadow pierced by light;
our worst, and our highest possibility,
God’s leastness, and greatness;
the cruelest of us, the kindest of God;
our most senseless
met by God’s most incomprehensible;
in our farthest abandonment
God’s most intimate presence;
the death of our death
writhing in the crucible of love;
the power of our evil to build empire
and the world-destroying power of grace
to make another.
God’s weakness, God’s might,
our confession, our hope.

The darkest paradox
is that we who draw near to the awfulness
might be made more kind;
that in the face of death
we might be given enough life to say,
Jesus, we are sorry for what we have done to you.
By your grace, undo us.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Just before the cock crows,
the fading echo of my blasted words
obscures the other sound I don’t yet hear,
the sound of cloth tearing,
or roots coming up out of the ground,
when I pulled the weave of my heart
from yours.
I packed up my eyes and left.
With a dull knife of muteness
I cut my pain from yours
and discarded the rest.
The threads make no sound,
nerves squirming on the ground,
reaching like so many baby’s arms
into empty air.

As the cock crows, the jagged sound
covers the silence of you
carrying the wound that is secretly mine,
healing what I can’t yet see,
forgiving what I will eventually know,
walking toward the grave I needn’t fear.

And then, after, in the startled stillness
pounding in my head,
that great vast echoing hall of silence,
I barely hear, though still it resounds in me,
the quiet of stitching, tiny and steady.

I haven’t cut the thread after all, have I?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We’re so busy standing on our own two feet
we don’t often notice the who washes them.
Embraces your stinky parts.
Accepts the most embarrassing things without judgment.
With holes in his hands,
trembling a little, but with skill and strength
washes you tenderly.
Your lowly servant. Your scapegoat.
Gently soothes what is rough and sore.
Patient, forgives what aches,
mends what is wounded,
blesses what has gone unloved.
Handcuffed, cleans you up.
Honors what has brought you to this place.
Enables you to stand tall, to walk on.
Asks nothing in return, but acts in pure devotion.
For your sake.

Every moment,
the Beloved kneels at your feet.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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His voice haunts still.
“This is my body.”
Of course the bread—
stone-milled, wisdom-leavened,
sorrow-kneaded, beauty-shaped,
suffering- baked, generously given.
“Here,” it seemed to say.
“Take all of me. I give myself wholly to you.
Consume me. Take me deep into yourself.
Let me become part of you; you of me.”
In fact the whole meal, all of it was his body.
But he was looking around at us.
As if he meant us, his living body,
into whom he had gone like bread.
But was he also looking out the window?
The olive tree offering its fruit, “Take,”
patient as dusk wrapped its scarf around it,
and the wind ruffling leaves, filling our lungs.
The city, the streets that led us,
the houses that cradled us,
the crows that cleaned the streets,
and all the people, the surging, longing mass:
“This is my body.”
The Beloved coming to me, embodied,
that I touch, that feeds me, that becomes me.
Not a fleeting idea, a memory or a dream,
but the flesh of the earth, all of it;
“This is my body,” as he hands me the world,
the feast of earth, the passage of time,
the wild leanings of love, the giving of life,
the quiet embrace of death. Everything
worthy of the same gape-mouthed reverence
as at the table receiving the warm crust from his hand.
Everything I touch now, his voice echoes,
“This is my body.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Holy Week proceeds with human naivete
and divine irony,
from royal palms to crown of thorns,
from Peter to Barabbas,
from feet anointed to feet pierced,
from sacrificial lamb to sacrificial lamb.
People who demand answers are full of speech;
the one who is the truth is silent.
Year after year we rehearse our infidelity
till we have it down perfect.
We keep on being forgiven for we know not,
and we keep on knowing not.
Watch the consistency of our false accusations,
our bogus claims, our flaky promises,
and his faithfulness, his gentleness, his love.
Notice our self-absorption and his self-giving.
Every year we say “How can I thank you?”
Every year he says, “Watch.”
Every year we say “This happened.”
Every year he says “Come with me.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
                          yet he did not open his mouth;
             like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
                          and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
                          so he did not open his mouth.
                                       —Isaiah 53.7

             Jesus was silent and did not answer.
                          —Mk. 14.61

The innocent are always silent.
They cannot defend themselves.
They are as silent as God.

We imagine we would respond
if only we knew. But we hold
their vocal chords in our hands.

We despair of hearing the voice of God
but we have already heard
what we’re willing to hear.

The only way out of the impasse
is not to come to some judgment,
but to renounce all judgment,

not to speak but to listen to the silence,
even the most deep-throated,
gut-wrenching silence.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me….
           one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me.”
                        —Mark 14.18, 20

Those times when I feel as guilty as Judas,
Jesus reassures me.
Jesus, as host, has seated Judas next to him.
The seat next to the host of a dinner,
sharing the bowl with him,
is the seat of honor, the highest place.

This is the depth of Jesus’s love,
his absolute forgiveness.
Even as Judas’ heart unravels and he plots evil,
Jesus honors him, seeks friendship with him, and offers grace.
When you feel like Judas, remember
you are affirmed, welcomed, honored—cherished, even—
as you are.
You are invited to share the bowl with Jesus.
You are invited to enter into a closeness that doesn’t depend
on what’s in your heart, or your past, or even your future,
determined solely by Jesus’ perfect love.

There is no test. There are no rankings.
Jesus knows you, knows you are more screwed up
than you think you are, and still says warmly,
“Come sit with me.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The first day of spring,
a day of Hope,
for Hope is not not a wish
for what will happen,
but trust in the unseen
that already is.
I hope the sun will rise
because I know it is already rising.
So it is with all I hope for,
in myself, and in the world.
The cross draws ever nearer,
but my hope is in resurrection,
for even now already,
Christ is rising,
and all the world with him.


And for my friends in the global South:
yes, even on this first day of autumn,
spring is already rising.
Hope!

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