Month: October 2025

The little fairy princess whines at every door,

the little snot, and would just as soon whap you
with that wand as say anything nice. But she’s cute, huh?

You wouldn’t believe how seriously

the little astronaut actually does want 

to escape the gravity of earth, his house, his life.
The fierce, roaring tyrannosaurus rex
will come home and share his candy 

because he doesn’t like to see his little sister cry.

The scary witch says “Trick or treat” in her scariest voice

but it’s not as scary to her as her father.

The regal king, crown and everything,

hopes nobody from school sees him

because he knows they don’t like him.

For the little six year old girl Supreme Court justice,

it’s not a costume. She’s practicing.
The marauding pirate

doesn’t really want to be there;

he’s an extreme introvert.

He just does this to make Dad happy.

There’s plenty of candy at home.

The zombie with one eye will drop
his bloody axe and fall asleep

on his mommy’s lap tonight,
one gentle arm around her neck.

Dad, standing out in the shadows,

watches the monsters and superheroes

and thinks about the office,
how these kids are just pretending to pretend;

only when they grow up will they
get serious about it.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We think little lights shine
in the great darkness,

small stars in the deep night—
but what if it’s the other way?

Little shadows lurk
within the Great Light.

Even the deepest of them
is shot through with light,

surrounded by light, embedded in light,
light-bound, and so lightly held.

The universe is mostly love.
All its darkness is the negative space,

the little vacuums into which the light
continues to flow.

No matter the little bits of darkness,
we live in the light.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I’m thinking of a white guy
who’s felt boxed out,
losing the sense of ease he once had
(don’t you dare call it privilege),
trying to get ahead
in whatever way works for him,
so he ends up colluding
with the rich and powerful,
though it gouges his neighbors,
so guess how much they like him,
but still there’s something crumbling
about his life, not satisfied, still searching,
but nobody makes much of an opening for him,
which is why he finds himself up a tree
when Jesus passes by
and chooses him, of all people,
to have lunch with at his table,
where we all find ourselves,
thinking anew about what is given
and asked of us.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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When hope feels weak, look at your hand,
the marvel of it, all it has done
hidden now, resurrected into the world.
See how your hand extends you, how it gathers worlds,
the mountains and valleys of its veins and knuckles,
every muscle, nerve and bone crafted for its purpose,
blood pulsing along, every cell doing their work,
forming, feeling, feeding you,
belonging to you, even in darkness,
a thing, yet part of who you are,
like a member of the Holy Trinity.
It reaches all the way back to your brain,
embodying your will, as you do God’s.
Notice how your fingers, all individuals,
belong together, work as one (even when opposing).
We are all fingers of the same hand,
moved by the same heart, all over the world.
You cannot see all the fingers of God’s hand.
But the nerve impulses of that love move through us.
The hand of God is in the world that is the hand of God.
Though the work at hand be great, the hand is greater.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God of peace,
you have cultivated within me
a peaceful garden,
a life-giving place
of beauty, balance and spaciousness,
a shelter of receptiveness and contemplation
for myself and for others.
Help me to be at home in the garden of my soul
so I may graciously welcome others too.
Remind me to go there.


Breath prayer:
                             Garden … here

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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No less than the panther in the woods
or the beetles chewing in your garden,
you are moved by hunger,
a thousand little cravings
for what we may call happiness
or something else, but each of them
an echo of the one true longing:
for God and nothing else.

Yet, friend, we desire what we already have:
you are the dear Beloved’s dear beloved one.
Let that ease your wild, insatiable longing.
Or, if you have none,
let that stir up your wild, insatiable longing.

Satisfy your appetite in service or solitude,
at the feet of a master or the foot of your bed,
on your prayer mat with the throng
or silently scrubbing the bathroom floor.
Enter the temple of your belovedness,
and find your siblings there as well.

Sharpen your hunger for the One,
and the Oneness
and you and all the world
shall be satisfied.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          Two went up to the temple to pray,
          a Pharisee and a tax collector….
                                 —Luke 18.10

And I was sure I was the righteous one,
humble in my correctness,
and the other, the bigot, clearly
neither right nor humble enough….

although, in fact, we pharisees are good people,
and we tax collectors actually are scum,
and we know it, which I guess is the point,
so I’m not sure which side I’d be on:

the good one, the butt of the joke,
who’s spent a lifetime trying hard,
or the sleazeball, accepted, forgiven,
but still technically a sleazeball….

which means, in the end, all our judgments
are delusion, and there is no grace
in deserving, but only in receiving,
so we both end up praying in unison,

God be merciful to me, a sinner.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          I have fought the good fight;
          I have finished the race;
          I have kept the faith.
                       —2 Timothy 4.7

The writer has finished
two thousand years ago
and the race goes on.

Time folds upon itself,
adding ring upon ring,
and the fight continues.

We keep the faith
and keep finishing
and the race goes on.

Your keeping does not end,
your finishing continues,
you belong in a great stream.

We hold each other,
strive for each other
keep one another’s faith,

one body, one long race,
always finishing, always going on.
You are not alone. Carry on.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          All scripture is inspired by God.
                       —2 Timothy 3.16

Scripture is the community’s reflections
on living in God’s world—
in many voices, many viewpoints.
It isn’t dictated, or even directed, by God,
but in-spirited by God.
Spirit, that is, God’s love-in-motion, is in it,
and when we listen with that spirit
we hear the Word of God—
not always some literal “meaning,”
or even words, or ideas at all,
but the living Word of God,
what God is communicating to you, or us,
in the moment.
It may be a sense…or sensation… or sound…
an image… a touch… a nudge… a knowing…
a turning or opening of your heart…
a kind of pheromone… or a question,
even a refutation of the very words printed.
You have to listen for Spirit,
whose voice sounds a lot like laughter,
or a mother cooing to her infant,
or a song without words, or
silence.

Listen to scripture with the Spirit of love.
Listen for the voice of love,
and Spirit will lead you in love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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She waddles across my yard out of the woods,
relaxed and casual. She gazes at me
standing there with a hose by the coneflowers
like I might be some curious bit of wildlife,
neither threatening nor edible, just odd.
I wish we could talk.
We’re not far apart—pretty close, really,
she and I, in our natural habitats,
yet also different—
me with my adolescent wish to be included
and she with her wordless, absolute surety
of who she cares about being liked by
and how.



____________
         Weather Report

Particularity,
increasing throughout the day.
Your unique little world
will differ from someone else’s,
and both will pass
like a steady breeze.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01 — 1.4MB)

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