Month: October 2025

          Proclaim the message;
                    be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable.
          For people will accumulate for themselves
                    teachers to suit their own desires.
                                           —2 Timothy 4. 2-3


The Emperor wants to get
between you and the truth.

To pry loose your loyalty,
kidnap your belief.

His minions will tell you
when to be joyful, what to regret.

At the microphone, desperate clowns,
they will mock the truth.

Daily, in little moments, we trade
what we know for what somebody feels.

Wisdom is open to truth, but not blackmail,
persuaded, yes, but never merely swayed.

Your last freedom is to know what you know,
to marry—forsaking all others—the truth.

Your greatest test is the opportunity
to be truthful when others don’t want to hear.

When times are unfavorable,
the atmosphere harsh, persist.

The truth, your Beloved,
will stay faithful to you till the end.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:34 — 2.1MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

          In a certain city there was a judge
               who neither feared God
               nor had respect for people….
          A widow kept coming to him
               saying, “Grant me justice.”
                                       —Luke 18.2-3


O Humble One,
come to us—
judgmental as we are,
oblivious to you,
careless toward others—
come, demanding justice,
come, and come again;
wear us down
by continually coming.
Disguised as someone
vulnerable, powerless,
shamed, blamed,
let your small voice
keep bothering us
until we grant you justice.
O Lowest One,
you who patiently wait,
it is we who have the power,
we who must listen,
who must decide.

When you come among us
will you find faith?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17 — 1.8MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

“Immigrants are thieves and murderers,”
say the descendants of immigrants
who came among the Natives
as thieves and murderers.
          Great Spirit, grant us humility.

Some chant replacement theories,
ignoring who we tried to replace.
         Grant us silence.

We are innocent, of course:
it was our great grandparents who sinned…
but we still cling to stolen land,
and resist making things right.
         Grant us repentance.

Those who we tried to erase
are still here.
         Grant us gratitude.

The ghost dance goes on,
beneath our knowing.
        Great Spirit, take hold of us.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04 — 1.5MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Time is not a line
that goes and never comes back.
It’s like a tree, adding rings.

Space is not the distance between us,
but the breadth of our connection,
how we link around the world.

When you feel you are the only one
you are not alone.
Your ancestors surround you.
We are all around you

in quantum entanglement, singing.
Standing outside the prison,
beneath the silence of dread,
the roar of threat,
listen for us.

Feel the earth trembling
with our footsteps, marching,
dancing, all around you,
a hoop dance, a stomp dance,
a hora, a haka,
angels kicking up the dust.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:58 — 1.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

My prayers are sloppy scribblings,
awkward drawings,
unintelligible notes
that I, mostly ignorant, hand to God,
who puts them on her fridge.

How could I judge, or even imagine,
the delight with which she stands there
and gazes at them?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:30 — 702.0KB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

It hangs over my head, an ominous cloud.
It portends a great flood.
I haul out an umbrella of fear,
a great rain slicker of guilt,
the life jacket of despair.

Yet God’s hope for me is not to do,
but to be.
Even if I fail at everything
life will go on,
I will be whole,
God will love me.

So, my list:
   • be trusting
   • be present
   • be grateful
   • be kind.
Then, if there’s time and energy,
all that other stuff.

There is no storm cloud.
It’s only fog.
It passes.

I enter the deep, secret peace.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13 — 1.7MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

          Where are the other nine?
          Did none of them return to give glory to God
          except this foreigner?
                       —Luke 17.17-18

It was the immigrant
         who returned to give thanks.

Outsiders endure what we wouldn’t,
         grateful for what we assume.

Accustomed to kindness,
          confident of belonging,
we take for granted
         what is pure gift,
         truly miracle.

Pray we need not suffer
         to learn gratitude.



_______
       Weather Report

Showers of blessing,
a thorough drenching,
made possible by the humility—
unless, with the proper protection of deserving,
you are untouched.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:58 — 1.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

The Temple police are everywhere,
the Emperor’s soldiers watching.
Crucifixions happen daily, people taken,
cruelty substituting for order.
Arguments are launched
about who belongs, who is outside
the law. Everybody knows who’s targeted.
Suspicion, fear and anger float above ground
like smog everyone breathes.

But in the candle lit room
people gather at a table
from different tribes and parties,
rich and poor, and all are welcomed, all are fed.
Clear eyes. Warm smiles. Open hands.
It is a direct affront to the Emperor,
who can’t imagine this, but
the table transgresses his realm,
extends through the city,
across the nation, around the world, forever.
Children on far off islands hold hands
with elders on the tundra,
one meal, one prayer, one body.

The Emperor and his terror will die
one of these nights, his palace become ruins;
but the table will remain and welcome,
and the clear eyes and warm smiles will continue,
the bread be passed from hand to hand,
one prayer, one body,
till the end of time.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:49 — 2.5MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

God won’t suddenly jump in and fix the world
any more than this poem will. But listen.
God is the mustard seed of goodness
that slips down between the cracks, and roots.
God is at it, in infinite small ways,
like a virus spreading, like radioactive waste,
like knotweed you can’t get rid of.
God crawls down into the lowest places,
creeping deeper and deeper, under stuff, behind things,
always the dirtiest places, the poorest, most ignored.
God is the mold in the basement of the Fortress,
spreading the love that rots the timbers of cruelty.
The Empire won’t suddenly turn generous,
the Presidential Palace sheltering refugees.
But it can’t seal itself against spring,
against the fragrance of mercy.
The realm of God is like an infection
for which there is no cure.
The world won’t soon be fixed,
but it can never be purified of love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17 — 1.8MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS