Unfolding Light

             Jesus came be baptized.
             John said, “I need to be baptized by you,
             and do you come to me?”
             But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now,
             for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
                        —Matthew 3.13-15

John’s was a baptism of repentance.
People ask, Wasn’t Jesus perfect? Did he need to repent?
No, Jesus was not perfect. He was human.
He embodied God’s love
in a real, regular, imperfect, human life.
Even if he were perfect he would need to repent,
which means to turn to God—
because we always need to turn to God.
Righteousness doesn’t mean perfection.
It means being in tune with God.
To repent is to listen and tune up.
To look again as if for the first time.
To keep balancing the bicycle.
To take a new breath.
To wake up to this moment,
and this one…
Repentance is not correcting the past,
but becoming present.
Sometimes it feels like waking up;
sometimes like dying and starting over.
Often like falling in love again.

Breath prayer:
                           Return . . . to love

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:56 — 2.7MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

              Where is the child who has been born a king?
                               —Matthew 2.2

Of course they didn’t find him in the usual places,
in the splendid, among the powerful, the successful.

Imagine the wonders they had to ignore
to finally find the wonder they had overlooked.

The holy one is among the unexpected—
I mean the unworthy, the undeserving.

Perhaps in their own tenacity the Magi found him;
perhaps in their defiance of Herod.

For those who are seeking the holy
the light of divine love shines in each of us.

Who knows by what act of your love
someone may set their compass?

We offer our gifts, we defy oppression,
and so lead the world to a revealing,

each of us, if we choose,
a star luminous with love.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19 — 1.8MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

         They left for their own country by another road.
                  —Matthew 2.12

Life is one different road
      after another.

Even now, on the twelfth day of Christmas,
       it’s not too late to be changed.

God is seldom on the road we planned
      but one we were forced into.

Jesus’ miracles and parables are other roads;
      grace is always a detour.

Holy One, give me faith to let go, to turn,
      to see grace where there was none.

Give me faith to be nudged, and to trust.
      Give me the courage of new roads.

__________________
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

              Magi came asking,
             “Where is the child who has been born a king?”
             When King Herod heard this, he was frightened.—Matthew 2.1-3

To one who rules by domination and retribution
love not only threatens, it disorients.
How does one fight such a sovereign,
whose rule is justice, whose law is mercy,
whose power is grace, whose authority is absolute?

Herod of my heart, surrender.
Beware your urge for power.
In the struggle for justice in the world,
and in the simplest conversation,
abdicate your throne.
Trust mercy.

Everyone is ruled.
Be ruled by love.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08 — 1.6MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

             It was no messenger or angel
             but God’s presence that saved them.
                        —Isaiah 63.9


An old year has died:
a death we welcome.
Yet in all calamity, O God,
you have been with us.
At the grave of the old year
we give our sorrows to you.

At the birth of the new year
our hope is in you:
not that someone will come along,
or that something will happen;
but that you are with us.

Into the uncertainty of what is to come
we walk with the certainty of your grace,
the mystery of your presence.
Trusting, we look to a new year
with hope and joy.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

          Herod sent and killed all the children
          around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.
          Then what Jeremiah had spoken was fulfilled:
             “A voice was heard in Ramah,
                    wailing and loud lamentation,
            Rachel weeping for her children;
                     she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
                       —Matthew 2.16-18


Cruelty reigns.
Herod’s power seems absolute;
the world is his—or so he thinks.

But the world is not his.
The Beloved has come, incarnate,
to occupy this empire of domination.
Christ of the cross has come in love
to claim this world for those who suffer.
This is Rachel’s world.
This world belongs to the mothers of Gaza,
to refugee mothers, to mothers
of the deported and incarcerated and addicted.
They cry out.

We do not hear the word of God
unless we hear the cry of Rachel.

As earnestly as to the choirs of angels,
we pause to listen.

God hears you.
The universe resounds with your cry.
Rachel, we hear you.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:38 — 2.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

             An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,
             “Get up, take the child and his mother,
             and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you,
             for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
                        —Matthew 2.13

This is the world Jesus comes into.
One that would kill him.
Powerful, fearful men denounce him.
Typical, respectable men wish him harm.
We ourselves, at times, turn against him.

This is why he comes.
It is not despite Herod (on the throne and in our hearts)
but because of him that Jesus comes to us.
Spurned, denounced, targeted—love persists,
embodied among us—
warm, vulnerable, doomed, undying.

We harbor in our hearts
one opposed as an enemy of the state.
This is the shepherd we follow,
the Savior we trust, the Body we join.

Herod signs his executive orders,
cloaked agents enter the road,
mothers hide their children,
and we bear love into the world.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:43 — 2.4MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

          The shepherds returned,
          glorifying and praising God
          for all they had heard and seen,
          just as it had been told them.
                                 —Luke 2.20

Only a day after Christmas
a tree, with a strand of tinsel
and a broken ornament
lies by the curb.
How often our reverence
is too soon abandoned,
our gratitude passed,
our questions
and the mystery that changed them
forgotten,
our longing,
and our joy,
dismissed.

As we return with the shepherds,
grant us faith
to keep the wonder alive.

Breath prayer:
                        Keep … wondering

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08 — 565.9KB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Christ is born. The wonder! The joy!
Stars sing brightly—
yes, light years away, they cheerfully sing.
Oceans clap, winds dance,
and even the whales sing their paean
to welcome the holy child.
Earth turns to the sun,
reveling in the light.
All Creation joys in wonder,
all Creation bows in awe,
how God so gently comes among us,
how love so beautifully blossoms here,
how grace and healing
make their home in this world.
We tune our quiet hearts, then,
to hear the throng of heaven
all around us, deep within us,
rejoicing.
Hush, and listen: Alleluia!

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

          And the Word became flesh and lived among us.
                       —John 1.14

O Holy One, your love is no mere feeling
but an act of presence.
You are with us,
among, within and all around us.
The babe in the manger
reminds us:
You are here.
All of this is Holy.

Glory to God, and peace on earth.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:40 — 945.6KB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS