Month: September 2024

The mother octopus lays her hundreds of eggs
in a cavern, and guards them, to her death.

A great blue heron crosses open ocean
from New Brunswick to her favorite place in Cuba.

For all those beautiful sunsets you missed
there are the ones you didn’t.

The lone tree on the hillside
bears witness to a seed that has endured,
to an erupting sense of being,
not inevitable at all, but chosen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them;
             for it is to such as these that the realm of God belongs.
             Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the realm of God
             as a little child will never enter it.”
                                      —Mark 10.14-15

The Divine inhabits the place of vulnerability.
Grace arises only in a time of dependence.
How precious you are is obscured
by how important you think you are.

The oblivious, easily bought and sold,
cheer only for their triumphant heroes.
The truly noble welcome the small,
the dependent, the trusting, and join them.

God will not come to you in power and might,
will not come.
The Beloved will come in weakness and need,
and you will welcome them, or miss them altogether.

Life comes as a gift, a parent’s love, unearned.
In control, your hands are too full; you lose it.
Faith is willingness to be carried,
a child, reaching for a mother’s arms.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Everyone will be salted with fire.
             Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it?
             Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
                                      —Mark 9.49-50
Jesus doesn’t enjoin us to become salt;
as he says in a different sermon, we already are salt.

Salt is what it is, and can’t be made more salty;
it can only lose its saltiness by being diluted.

To keep your saltiness is to be true to who you are,
to stay faithful to your hopes, your heart, your soul.

To have salt is to speak the truth when it’s hard,
to know what you trust and trust it when it’s scary.

To be salted is to stay open to the Spirit that comes to us,
that breathes in us, that burns with fire in us,

the Spirit that lives in each other person as well,
that makes us all one, which is the root of our peace.

To have salt is not to erase or dominate others
but to bring out the best in them, especially when it’s hidden.

Everyone will be salted with fire, seasoned with love—
everyone—flavored with beauty, preserved by the Spirit.

Trust that,
and live that way.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off….
             And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off….
             And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out….
                         —Mark 9.43-47

Jesus is not just talking to individuals,
but to all of us, to the body politic:
Cut off the social structures
that cause us to hurt one another.

Root out the structures that cause us to stumble,
that give us excuses to demean and abuse people,
that make it easy to treat others
unlike how we would treat Christ.

Cut off the hand of greed and “getting ahead,”
the worship of profit and the enshrining of the rich,
the inviolability of large corporations,
the placing of our comfort over the well-being of others.

Cut off the foot of militarism, violence, and domination
that excuses our murder of children,
and the continual preparation to do so,
that harms others to keep us “safe.”

Tear out the eye of racism and sexism,
of xenophobia and the disparaging of the poor
that sees some people as less worthy,
so we may ignore, imprison, exploit, or eliminate them.

We don’t sin because we want to;
we sin because certain “body parts” of our society
make sin seem right and good.
We haven’t begun to repent until we tear them out.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.
                         —Mark 9.43

I can feel bad about my sin,
promise and wish and hope to do better…
and likely sin again.

Or I can look deeper, at what leads me to sin.
What is the wound, the want, the fear,
that pushes me around?

I don’t need to split myself apart,
nor can I just get rid of any part of me:
fear and hurt don’t work like that.

But I can unplug its energy,
cut off its blood supply,
cut it off from access to my power.

I can name my fear and hurt, honor it,
and let it be, without letting it control me.
I can cut it off from guiding my choices.

I can let it be an urge, a response,
what I feel—but not who I am.
I can cut it off from defining me.

I know, I’m so used to it
it’ll feel like cutting off a part of myself
to disempower my anger, my greed—

but maybe getting free
from the grip of my fear and hurt
is just what it means to be whole.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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In early morning lamplight,
gazing out the window at the meadow
I see myself reflected,
face growing out of goldenrod and Joe Pye weed,
bearded with grasses, thinning forest of hair.
I go outside to see more clearly.
Yes, look at these hands, the knuckles of my roots,
my feet down among the mycelium.
The sun comes up, full of the whole ocean.
All day I see this, the meadow full of sky,
the house with generations in it, coming and going,
the city that is a thousand villages,
peasants squatting by steaming pots,
camel trains passing the bus stop,
sealskin kayaks along the rivers of street,
skyscrapers at the gas pump.
Each office window is a house,
every shop a ruin and a temple, thriving,
the subway a long dance of generations.
Every face I see is myself, varied.
I am ancestors, strangers, unknown languages, tribes,
histories in my feet and my hands.
I come home to a house that is earth,
near a river that is life.
I breathe the air that is God.
I sit under the tree with the mountain in it.

When they say “Just be yourself”
they have no idea what they’re including.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Ah, September, the beginning of Spring!—
season of growing light and new unfoldings,
season that smells of promise, of the future!

Sounds odd, doesn’t it?
Only if you’re in the Northern hemisphere,
and only if you think it’s always about you.

Your experience is not the norm;
your perspective is not completely right,
your reality not the only one.
Even when you take sides, stay humble.
Practice curiosity. Listen.
So often there is also another right answer.

And to you, friends in the global south,
and to you who are usually ignored:
you are not forgotten. The last shall be first.

In the Realm of God,
every day
is the first day of Spring.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name
             welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me
             welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
                         —Mark 9.37


The Beloved comes as a friend
and says. “I love you no matter what,
but I will do nothing for you.
Will you love me anyway?”
“Why would I do that?“ we say.

The Beloved comes as a stranger
and uses up our money, takes our time,
ruins our house,
and sits among the tatters and says,
“Will you love me?”
“Why would I do that?“ we say.

The Beloved comes
as a newborn infant….

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldglight.net
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             Whoever wants to be first
             must be last of all and servant of all.
                         —Mark 9.35

Not subservient, not inferior to others,
but helpful, in support, in service.
You’re not indentured or obligated;
you serve in love that is yours to give.
Your task today is to serve others—
not necessarily to please them,
not to save them or “fix” them,
but to offer grace, to bless them,
to set before them wholeness of life,
to open doors that set them free,
to speak a word that heals
and does not dishonor them.
Your task today is not to use or conquer others,
but to offer what love or joy you can
in service to their new life.

Today, for everyone you meet,
God is the chef of grace
and you are their server.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The promontory throws itself at the sea,
crashing into the water,
reaching and falling back, over and over.
The trees pull down the rays of the sun
with roots of yearning.
The water in the river rests
as the land rushes by, changing.
The earth moves beneath the migrating bird,
patiently progressing farther and farther
till the island is right under the bird.
The air steals into you and slips out again.
Prayers come to you, fall on you like rain.
Sometimes they sink in.

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