Daily Reflections and Worship Resources
God slow me down to the pace of reverence.
Open my eyes to the light of reverence.
Tune my ears to the frequency of reverence.
Move my hands with the grace of reverence.
May I live with reverence and delight,
with compassion, receptivity, and love.
May my life be a reverent offering to you.
Amen.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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What if all my words were seeds,
each one giving birth to a world?
What if I were a spring
and people drank from me?
God, guard my mouth
that I may speak only truth,
say only life-giving things,
utter only what is good.
Even in times of conflict,
times of outrage,
may all that flows from me
be a clear stream of beauty and life
rising from your deep grace.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:
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His students said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!”
He said with faith the size of a mustard seed
you could uproot a tree and plant it in the sea.
Yes! Oh, we wish for such faith, such command—
ignoring how pointless it would be
to sea-plant a mulberry tree. He’s caught us.
Then he goes on to describe us as slaves,
not doing whatever showy, irrelevant things
we want, but doing our master’s will.
As if faith isn’t power to do what we wish,
but willingness to surrender to what God
is already doing, listening and obeying—
realizing and confessing our lust for power,
even power to do good—
and instead, submitting to goodness.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02 — 1.4MB)
They don’t say it, but they could,
the roots working down under the ground,
the sun beaming down on a flowering garden,
the bees about their labors,
neither proud nor self effacing about their honey:
Here. Look what I made.
They don’t call attention to it
(though it is called),
the spring rains greening the hillside,
the weaver bird stitching a masterpiece.
They don’t need anyone’s approval.
The beetles that have cleaned the forest floor,
the snow making sensual sculptures,
the loon and its lake-echoed cry,
they are at peace with their glory.
It’s only God, really, who makes a big deal—
hear the voice of the Holy One!—
who creates you, keeps creating you,
and steps back and says,
“Now that’s good. That’s real good.”
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07 — 1.5MB)
Everybody. Nobody left out.
Accompanies the slowest.
Usually has to stop traffic.
(Grateful for crossing guards.)
Pushes whatever wheelchairs need it.
Nobody gets to rush off till we’re all here.
God is the last one across.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:33 — 771.8KB)
God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to abolish things that are,
so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
—1 Corinthians 1. 27-29
The devil does not appreciate satire.
The Emperor cannot abide ridicule.
Both the Satan in your head
and the tyrant in the palace
demand to be taken seriously.
To them self-reflection is abhorrent,
critique is dangerous, humility is poison.
God laughs at their hubris,
and the godly mock them.
Elijah insults the seers of Baal.
Prophets ridicule kings gone awry.
God continually makes a joke of Jonah’s defiance.
Jesus disgraces the demons,
banishing them into suicidal pigs.
He insults the tomb-white hypocrites.
Even the cross is a mockery of the empire’s power.
When we are ridiculed
in humility we seek the nugget of truth,
discard the trash, and, if God is with us,
laugh at ourselves, who are not God.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:44 — 2.4MB)
…at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus…
—Luke 16.20
It’s only a gate
but enough to hide,
to divide.
If he lets it
(how easily
he might not notice)
it can come between
him and all life
(even Lazarus,
with Father Abraham,
is his brother)—
and that thin gate become
a great chasm.
Only when
our gates are open
can they become
the gates of heaven.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Right behind the priest administering the sacrament
is one throwing mud.
As the artist paints at her easel
another paints the back of her head.
In between each exquisite word of the poet
is utter nonsense.
Pooling beneath every deed of kindness
is a puddle of cruelty.
Yes, and haunting the devil and all his evil works
is one slipping grace into every little moment.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:45 — 1.0MB)
Trust this:
that at the Last Judgment
God does not peer down at you
over a ledger-book of legal notes and calculations,
and pronounce a verdict.
God sits with you, says, “Come sit in my lap,”
and murmurs God’s pet names for you.
This is your judgment:
terms of endearment.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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For the brokenness of the daughter of my people
I am broken,
I mourn, and horror has seized me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
—Jeremiah 8.21-22
Yes, all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.
But when the pretty blonde woman on TV says everything’s fine
that’s not what she means. She’s lying.
For before all manner of things shall be well,
first we will be cruel.
For our willingness to harm,
and for those crushed by our cruelty,
my heart is broken.
For children purposefully starved,
for terror calculated as policy,
for earth scorched and abused,
horror has seized me.
For the greed and the lies of the powerful,
for the vacant stare of the destitute,
I am broken.
Let my grief be holy, my sorrow be my prayer.
Before it congeals into rage, let it weep.
This great collapse within me,
this trembling, this irruption of emptiness,
is the heart of God—not wrath, but sorrow.
For my people, and yes, I am among them,
I am broken.
And this is my power: not anger but love.
This great wound is the openness,
where flows the blood of the Lamb,
that heals the world.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:03 — 2.8MB)