Month: July 2026

Here comes the Fourth of July,
when too many confuse God with America,
is if God weren’t the God of every nation,
every planet in every galaxy in the universe.
Preachers say we’re a Christian nation
but can’t name a single teaching of Jesus we embody.
But let’s do. Let’s become a Christian nation,
a people of mercy and compassion,
generosity and forgiveness.
Let’s prioritize healing (and health care) for everyone,
even the “undeserving,” and invite everyone
to the table—everyone—since, as Jesus says,
“God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”
Let’s invite the poor, the disabled, the neglected.
Let’s enact policies that are “good news for the poor.”
Let’s declare the Jubilee of God, the forgiveness of debts,
and release to prisoners.
Let’s welcome the stranger and the immigrant
and do all those things the prophets told us to do.
Let’s welcome the multitudes around the throne
foretold in Revelation, “from every nation,
from all tribes and peoples and languages.”
I’d love to see us become a Christian nation.
Wouldn’t you?

_____
           I’m going to take next week off.
            I’ll see you the middle of July.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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You are doing nothing in particular,
but very much so,
gazing at the trickle in the gutter,
or maybe watching someone
lost in what they’re doing,
a mother nuzzling her baby,
a kid finger painting—

and for a moment the world
bursts from its seed,
everything that is exceeds,
teeming with itself, brimming.
Words fall open like hands
that spill what they can’t hold.
A superabundance of being
overflows the visible.
Divinity throbs, a frequency.
Astonishing as this is
it is not a distant realm,
not the least bit other,
but a hint of the All of you.
God seems to bend low, enfold you,
and whisper, “Yes we are, aren’t we?”

With a few breaths the moment passes
but now you can’t un-know it.
Forever now, what refuses to shine is only
keeping the secret.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          I do not do the good I want,
          but the evil I do not want is what I do.
          Now if I do what I do not want,
          it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.
                       —Romans 7.19-20

We lie, we cheat, we lash out.
We say, “I don’t know what got into me.”
Monsters. We all have monsters.

You can hear them breathing heavy under your bed.
You know they want to grab you
and make you do bad stuff.

You want to keep them locked away.
But lie down on your stomach and look under the bed.
Spend time with them.

Turns out they’re not mean. They’re scared.
All your greed, your bitterness, your meanness,
it’s just them being scared.

(You know why they breathe so heavy?
Because they get asthma hiding under your bed.
It’s a terrible, dusty, airless place but it’s safe.)

(You know why it seems they’ll grab you?
They need a hug. You’ve ignored them for years.
Give them a hug and they get less grabby.)

You know when Jesus went out into the desert
and “he was with the wild beasts?”
Yep. His monsters.

Befriend your monsters. Let them tell you
what they’re afraid of, how they got hurt.
After a while they stop being monsters

and become memories
and move next door
and you’re both a little more free.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:11 — 3.0MB)

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