Unfolding Light

When they ask the elders “How did you do it?
With so little, against so much, how did you do it?”
the answer is always the same.
With five loaves of love and two fish of courage
we marched for justice.
With five loaves of wisdom and two fish of hope
we stood against the tyrant.
With no more than what I could carry in my heart
I left the abuse.
With only a step and a step I marched and stumbled
through recovery.
With scraps and fragments we fed the hungry.
The loaves and fishes we offered up.
The grace was provided.
Kindness multiplies. With small acts and generous hearts
we changed the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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One day there it was.
Hope at the bird feeder.
Gratitude murmuring among
the pebbles in the brook.
Kindness waiting for me
between the sidewalk and the door.
Beauty lying on the windowsill.
Courage with one leaf
in the little blue pot on the porch.
Peace on the shelf, right beside the beans.
Happiness, just sitting there.
I guess they were there all long.
I wonder:
where was I?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
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God, you reveal yourself so sparingly!—
a fleeting suspicion, a rising tide in me,
a wisp of interstellar dust, a scent,
a half-emerging thought, a leaning within,
a clarity that veils itself,
shy dancer in the dark,
a light out of the corner of my eye—
but not there now—
hope wearing a chador.

And yet: a continent of green things,
beauty generously outpoured,
the faithfulness of gravity,
the intricate weave of all living things,
the heart’s capacity to love and to forgive,
those I could name for hours who have cared—
God, you reveal yourself so abundantly!

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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It begins with the thrust of the fork,
piercing the side of the pile,
opening up the flesh of the earth, the scraps
of every sacred meal, the once savory leavings
of every sensuous morsel that passed your lips,
the bright, transcendent moments now
no different from the failures, the spoiled
dishes that hit the garbage before the plate,
the sins and revelations all alike
left to richly rot and bless their grave.
Giving thanks, you upheave the work
of worms and bugs, the dark labor
hidden from your eyes but not your faith,
the transfiguration of the mess
from the leavings of death to living soil.
To theirs you add your labor,
turning the pile, letting what has been
become what shall be, the sower knows not how.
Something within is turning, too, of course,
but understanding is as foreign there as here.
You plunge and lift the fork, and learn to trust
that mystery, as with a seed, in which a thing,
a moment, or a memory, bears more
than can be seen or known, but in its dying
is set free to become yet even more,
grace emerging in the turning. And so you turn
the pile, as with your heart, then come back in,
take off your gloves, and change your shoes, and know
the treasure buried in the field becomes the field,
becomes your life. The holy, turned, becomes
the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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You won’t find it in an exotic market
behind a secret beaded curtain,
not on the last hundred meters
of the mountain finally conquered.
You won’t achieve it after a long struggle.
It will come to you, unbidden, lightly masked.
You’ll stumble upon it on a sidewalk.
It will blossom in a small, unremarkable place.
It will be tiny, like yeast, and change everything.
A friend’s glance, a stranger’s comment.
A sudden sunrise of forgiveness, the shadow
of a companion when you thought you were alone.
A portal no greater than a bee on a flower
opens to an entire world inside this one,
of grace unasked, unbound, passed on
like the bee’s dance to any who witness.
For the bee you’d buy the flower, the field,
the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Prayer is not fingering the pearl of great price,
or turning over in your hand the secret treasure.

It’s emptying your vault to afford the pearl.
It’s buying the field.

God, I don’t know where to find the pearl.
I give you my all. Spend it where you will.

I haven’t found the treasure yet.
But I am your field. Dig.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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When you fell and skinned your knee
and your mommy kissed it and made it better
it really did make it better.

How much of your agony is not the hurt
but the need for someone to hold you?

Friend, we live in a crowd unheld.

You have been given the heart
to kiss the world better,
to seek the hurting
one child at a time,
and hold them and their hurt.

Do so, and even at a distance, with strangers,
as in any good embrace,
you find yourself miraculously
held.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          In hope we were saved.
          Now hope that is seen is not hope,
                    for who hopes for what one already sees?
          But if we hope for what we do not see,
                    we wait for it with patience.
                                 —Romans 8.24-25

Behold this mystery: severed flesh knows how to heal.
Sundered tissues reach out for each other,
join hands, embrace, reweave a wholeness.
I know this. I trust it. This is my hope.

The sower goes out to sow in hope,
not with some magical power of wishing,
but the sure knowledge of how seeds work.
There will be setbacks, and a harvest.

Hope is not wishing for a certain future,
but trusting in the grace that is present.
Paul is wrong. I hope in God’s salvation
because I do see it. It is already here,

the grace that spawns forgiveness,
the courage that seeks justice,
the love that reaches out, that risks boldly,
the patience that endures.

One may hope for something yet to come,
but we hope in something already here.
There will be setbacks, failures and disasters.
But grace is not future tense. Already present.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Little boats moored to buoys in the bay

          softly bump each other,



cuddling like cats in the fog,

          that curls



around the pilings of the pier, posts that appear
          then vanish in the peaceful fog.



The boats nod as if sleeping, nuzzling

          the necks of the pier, knowing



more than we think, moored

          for the moment, but mindful



of wind-thrown waves that have washed them,

          wild storms that have tossed them.



They know the sea is there, silent for now,

          serene and at rest; they sense



its vast distances, its depths, and its dangers.

          They don’t forget where they are.



They’re lucky, they know, to live here,

          to lie on this languid water,



to sail again tomorrow, to taste again

          the salt, to tack into the wind—



like us, who stand here, steadfast

          in our faith that God stays with us still,



whose fog-veiled seas may save or sack us 

          but in the end will silently receive us,



whose hurricanes may harry us, yet

          who at last will have us home.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The ants I wish to banish from my house
are such encouragement of industry,
teamwork and perseverance.
Even as I mitigate, I bless.

The knee that wakens me in pain
is sore because it’s healing.
Hobbling, I praise the miracle.

Sometimes the trucks that run the rumble strip
on the Interstate play a note right in tune
with our wind chimes. I sing along.

Purple vetch grows in the ditch-sides,
the lot corners, the weed patches.
I take a mouthful of the little purple blossoms
with humble thanksgiving.

Look for it.
Grace is a small masterpiece of art
in a really big frame.

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