Month: February 2025

             Blessed are you who weep now,
                        for you will laugh. …
            Woe to you who are laughing now,
                        for you will mourn and weep.
                                       —Luke 6.21, 25


God is among the broken-hearted.
Joining them, you are close to the Beloved,
whose loving grief for this tear-soaked world is deep,
whose joy is infinite.
When your heart is cracked open by sorrow,
in time the delight of God pours in,
splashing with laughter.

Carefree, untouched, laughing now,
you belittle God’s passion.
Your awakening will be a mourning.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Blessed are you who are hungry now,
                          for you will be filled. …
             Woe to you who are full now,
                          for you will be hungry.
                                      —Luke 6.21, 25


What do you want?
What are you most hungry for?
Food for yourself,
comfort, a good life?
Now perhaps you have them.

But later you will find
the real Want we’re given,
the Hunger in our souls,
the Desire of God:
not just for us, but for all the world:
the poor, the stranger, the others,
the next seven generations—
every living creature.

If you’re satisfied now—
full enough for your family,
a good pension—
then later you will feel
the ache of that deeper hunger.

If you are hungry now,
hungry for everyone,
not just yourself and your kind,
you know the desire of God,
the passion of God,
the presence of God;
and it will fill you.
Blessed are you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Blessed are you who are poor,
                          for yours is the realm of God….
             But woe to you who are rich,
                          for you have received your consolation.
                         —Luke 6.20, 24

A whole world of grace,
a realm of love,
another dimension
that this one inhabits
but can’t see,
an energy field like gravity, like magnetism,
God’s intimate presence
and fervent desire for your well-being,
the faithful accompaniment of the Beloved,
and the great body of all who love—
all of this is given to you.
This whole realm.
It’s yours.

Unless your hands are full
of something else,
drawn to other treasure.

Blessed are you who are ready to receive it.
woe to you who sit alone
with your pile of coins,
your great power,
satisfied.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I said:“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the Mighty One, the Supreme of all!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard the voice of the Holy One saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
                         —Isaiah 6.5-8

The headlines are grim.
Things do not look good for the nation;
you rightly foresee doom.
You yourself are also a mess,
a liar among liars.

Yet a hot coal of love
has singed your unworthiness away.
Now you are sent: given to this world,
your lips glowing with that grace,
to bear that forgiving flame,
to bear the love which—
to ashes with unworthiness—
chooses people.
You are sent to bear peace in the chaos,
blessing despite the riot, hope in the gloom.

Your words will not sway history;
the collapse will come. But speak
the Word of love in the time of danger,
and they will welcome your words of love
among the ruins.
                               Speak, then.
Don’t let the tragedy discourage you:
it’s the reason you are sent.
Amid the shouting and weeping,
proclaim in word and deed
the unrelenting gentleness of God.
You are sent into the falling darkness
to be light on the long, long path home.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “Do not be afraid;
             from now on you will be catching people.”
                         —Luke 5.10


The way you look at water and see what’s beneath.
The way you know the need and habits
of unseen fish,
live your life by their rhythms,
think about them all the time,
and think they’re beautiful.
The way you gather them, the joy
not just of a fish but a shoal, a netful.
And how, if it’s people you’re gathering,
you’re one of them, not different or above,
brought near to each other in something greater,
a web cast in vast steadiness—
all of us caught up together.
Brought close not just to a boat
but a bosom.
Not recruited, but joined,
woven into the net that catches us all,
returning us to each other.

“Catching up alive,” the Greek means,
not snagged, not used,
but drawn, as we are, in love.
Like caught up in a dance.
Something is breathed into us.

We catch by being caught.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Simon said, “Boss, we worked all night long
             and caught nothing.
             Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
                         —Luke 5.5


A beckoning deeper than words
comes to you, an incoming tide,
a hunger not your own,
a hankering greater than all of us.
Love asks something of you,
innocent, outlandish,
like an expectant child.
You don’t need to know or understand,
you needn’t calculate outcomes
or judge whether you are able,
you only need to be willing.

A great shoal of possibilities
swims just beneath your knowing.
You cast your control of things
into the mysterious waters.
The net of holiness
is not belief or understanding
but willingness.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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            Jesus got into one of the boats,
            the one belonging to Simon,
            and asked him to put out a little way from the shore.
            Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
                         —Luke 5.3


A little boat, not grand,
grimy with fish scales,
the patina of sweat and gunk.

Simon didn’t see it coming,
the sudden request to commandeer
his ordinary little boat,

from which the rabbi spoke words
that healed hearts,
that ignited miracles,

Simon noodling the oars
to keep the boat steady,
staring at Jesus’ back.

Was he already feeling out of place,
his boat a divine oracle,
like he shouldn’t be in it?

What was it like, to be inspired,
or convicted, or merely outclassed
in front of all those people?

It would take him longer
than that afternoon’s miracle
to truly get on board.

You never know how the Beloved
may climb into your plain, messed-up life
to birth blessing for strangers,

or how long it might take you
to come to accept
that it ought to be so.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God is patient;
God is kind;
God is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
God does not insist on God’s own way;
God is not irritable or resentful;
God does not obsess with wrongdoing,
but rejoices in the truth.
God bears all things,
gives God’s heart to all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.


                         —1 Corinthians 13.4-7

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