Month: April 2025

             I regard everything as garbage
             compared to the surpassing value
             of knowing Christ Jesus my Beloved.
             I want to know Christ
             and the power of his resurrection
             and the sharing of his sufferings
             by becoming like him in his death,
             if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
                                      —Philippians 3.8, 10-11


What keeps me from loving boldly when it’s hard,
from bearing witness to grace in a mean world?

     I’m afraid of being hurt, of being scorned
     of being blamed for upsetting people.

        It’s the desire to be safe, to be liked, to not be in trouble.
        For all that garbage, I suffer fear. I cling to it!

            Jesus, take this garbage from me. I’d rather have you.
            I choose your grace over the world’s adoration .

What keeps me from hoping steadfastly?
     I despair because my power is so puny.

          Help me unload my attachment to my effectiveness.
          I’d rather be with you in a lost cause than winning without you.

My fears and desires weigh me down.
     When I welcome your grace what I cling to becomes trash.
         I let it all go.
               Dying with you, I am set free. I am risen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Six days before the Passover
             Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus,
             whom he had raised from the dead.
                                     —John 12.1


Jesus has waded into the depths of death
and fished Lazarus out.
His feet are still wet with death
as he moves now toward the death
of the Passover lamb, and his own,
and he knows it.
And Mary knows.
This is why she washes his feet.
She has seen his weeping,
seen the strange quiver in his eyes
as he faced the grave,
almost like recognizing a friend in a crowd.

This is where he lives,
between death and death,
and where we live our lives,
between our first risings and our last.
This is the promise of our First Washing:
every act we commit, each word we speak
we are always between deaths,
in the company of the Crucified One.

Whatever struggles we face,
whatever losses or griefs,
we go with the courage of those who are
between resurrections.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We go through life accruing death,
accumulating losses, gathering about us
the growing light of grief.
The heart feels each a loss
but the soul claims them as blessing.
It’s the very journey of holiness:
surrendering, clinging to nothing,
in weakness finding strength,
in trust knowing freedom,
in poverty receiving grace.
And so we gladly mourn,
we allow ourselves to be pierced,
to be anointed for burial,
its fragrance filling our house.
We open ourselves
to our most profound losses,
and even our own death,
         stilled,
and so, stripped of all that weighs,
         free.

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