Unfolding Light

We’re invited to just be, without doing—
but even simply being,
a lot is being done.

While I sit in stillness my body is working,
lungs doing their mysterious alchemy,
nerve cells ferrying their messages,

tissues that are wounded
reaching out for one another,
doing the work of healing.

In my stillness this “I” is still,
and another is nestling with God,
exchanging secrets,

walking journeys I’ll never know,
or holding still while the Spirit
does surgery, or attaches wings.

In the stillness the Beloved is acting,
preparing miracles, stirring galaxies.
Even God is becoming.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I sink into the slowness of it,
the mire: weak as a jellyfish,
having to be and not do,
dependent on others,
more like an infant
than I would choose if I could.
(Unless you become as a child…)
If I have the right spirit
it’s not a loss or even a challenge:
it’s spiritual advancement,
a gift of humility and faith,
an opportunity to receive grace.
(Blessed are the poor in spirit…)
To be a patient of patience
I release time from my grasp,
let it flow, and be present.
To be with the Beloved
I do nothing but be.
Perhaps the greatest achievement
is not to accomplish at all,
but to really, purely be,
and nothing else.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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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
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           I do not understand my own actions.
           For I do not do what I want,
           but I do the very thing I hate.
           It is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.
           Who will rescue me from this body of death?
           Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Chief!
                       —from Romans 7.15-25

Our sin isn’t that we’re bad.
It’s that we don’t know how to trust God.
“Original” sin just means we were born that way.

Without trust in God, we’re slaves to our egos,
constantly trying to protect our little individual selves.
We don’t mean to; instinct kicks in, and we’re selfish.

Like Gollum protecting his Precious,
we’re constantly anxious about our self-worth.
It’s a deadening way to live.

The war between good and evil is a cage fight.
We can’t get out. We try to do the right thing,
but keep maiming ourselves. How do we win?

We don’t. God removes us from the fray.
We are forgiven. Nasty, broken, and beloved.
There’s no cage. No fight. Only our needs, and God’s grace.

The call—a gift, yet so hard!— is simply to trust that.
We get free, then crawl back into the cage.
And God removes us again. And bit by bit

we learn to trust. And to live like it.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ,
the Referee of Love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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What if in the end there is no law-giver
demanding obedience
but a life-giver offering life?

What if there is no seer
dispensing secret wisdom
but a friend, offering companionship?

What if there is no messiah
leading a crusade
but a presence who delights in you?

What if there is no savior
rescuing us from hell,
but a fellow traveler offering help?

What if there is no journey, no trial,
no mountain, no door, no key, but only
the Beloved, right here, offering themselves?

“Come to me, all you who are weary
       and are carrying heavy burdens,
       and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,
      for I am gentle and humble in heart,
      and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy,
      and my burden is light.”

                                (Matthew 11.28-30)

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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While you are worrying about the state of the world
they are walking, while you are doing the dishes,
driving on the Interstate, unseen, hand in hand,
generations of them, singing in so many languages,
as you sleep, when you carry the little package
on its bothersome errand, they are all walking,
bearing their bundles of goodness and wisdom,
their powerful prayers, their scattered blessings,
as you read the news, marching over miles,
over fetid marsh, across vast wordless steppes,
through the cloven sea, courageous, walking,
between your house and the hardware store,
bearing the gifts of the Realm they come from,
their ancient knowing, down your city’s streets
and onward, a great river of hope and wonder,
defying Emperors and their armies, walking
toward a Realm we are only learning to imagine,
Wise Ones on the way to honor the Child,
myriads from every nation approaching the glory,
dreaming in each other’s languages,
(even now you can join them),
singing, remembering the dyings and risings yet to come,
without ceasing ever, bearing us all,
this whole world, onward, always….

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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You can be a flower by the side of the road.
You can be a fountain for whoever passes by.

You can be a lighthouse where the coast is uncertain.
You can be a handrail, a park bench, an umbrella.

You can be the voice that does not jeer,
that calms, encourages, or thanks.

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones will not lose their reward.”

(Mt. 10.42)

_____________________

Weather Report

The sky’s the limit.
Led by favorable winds,
opportunities for grace will abound.
Though the world is partly cloudy,
expect to radiate warmth
and light.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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As evening fell, an earthquake struck,
buildings toppled, and all through the city
people were crushed and maimed.
Into the streets came a medic,
even as the light failed, moving among the fallen,
through the evening and into the night.
He blessed the dead and tended the wounded,
giving his care, mending as he could.
In such deep and frightening darkness
by what light was he able to do such healing work?
Only because he was accompanied by a lad
who carried a lantern, who stayed by his side,
not out of great strength or courage,
not out of hope for a reward,
but because he loved the healer
and wished to stay by his side.

Friend, the Beloved
moves through this world
performing miracles.
You only need to stay close,
and hold the light.

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