Unfolding Light

As the kids prepare their Halloween costumes
I pray for the grace to shed my masks,
to resist the temptation to appear
other than as I am.
I pray for the faith to leave my costume,
to resist the urge to disguise myself
as having it all together.
I don’t need to frighten away what I am frightened of,
or impress who I am impressed by.
I don’t need to seem more powerful or beautiful.
I am free.
God grant me the peace,
even when surrounded by monsters,
to be me.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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What did the meadow say to the sun
that made it lavish such light on it?
What offering did the ocean make
to convince the rivers to pour themselves into it?
What could you possibly have offered God
that you receive such love and delight?

The offering is purely God’s;
ours the awe and gratitude.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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There are divers and drifters,
spinners and twirlers.
There are early adventurers
and late hangers-on.
Some fall in full color,
some wait ’till they’re brown.
Some spread out their arms
and fly on the breeze,
some curl up and drop
at the foot of their trees.
Some seem to fall upward,
and over the hill.
Each falls as it must, or it will.
There are swingers and swayers
and swoopers and dancers.
But there are none,
there are none
who are whiners,
complainers
that this is not
as it should be
or who want it undone.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light      
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We don’t hear from you,
but I see you
gazing out the palace window.
Your silence roars.
David had his private little comeuppance
but you have had no hearing.
David’s punishment was the death of your child,
to add to your husband’s.
(Surely your grief sobered him.)
But have you had reparations,
or even a door for your grief?
Our beloved king, so brave and wise,
is also a monster. We sing his psalms
and repeat his transgression.
When the palace trumpets are still
there hangs the dark melody of your lament.

Bathsheba,
to you and your millions of sisters,
we confess. We all have ravaged,
the whole palace, the entire nation.
Our abuse has wounded you,
our language belittled you,
our policies excluded you,
our jokes isolated you.
Our silence has harmed you.
Our fear has disappeared you.
And still you walk the palace halls,
gaze out the window at that shadow,
and wait for us to become worthy
of sovereignty.
By God’s grace, some day soon,
may we become so.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God,
Giver of Light,
you who are the clarity at the center of all things,
the truth that makes all things appear:
Open my eyes.
I confess: I am easily confused,
quickly distracted by my fears and desires.
Wake me.
Heal me of my dread of what I may behold.
Draw me out of the gloom
where I hide my eyes inside my head.
Peel from my soul’s seeing
the husk of my own mind.
Free me from myself so I can see
without fear or delusion.
Steady me.
Pierce me with your light.
Draw out in me a horizon of peace
so I can see the whole of things,
see with clarity and compassion,
see with gentle eyes.
With the eyes of heaven,
help me see.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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What if all you possess
is the love of God?

Pile up everything else—
your goods, your reputation,
your desires and opinions,
your control over things…
everything.

Set it on fire.

In love,
you can warm yourself by those flames
for a long time, and be guided by that light.

______________
Weather Report

Clearing,
as the occluded front of your desires
meets the low pressure zone
of God’s desire for you,
resulting in reorienting storms.
Warning: the Spirit’s wind will sweep much away.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light     
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Thimble full of flavor,
thumb print of grace,
humble berry offered
among sun and bumblebees,
your thorns draw blood,
love’s price, amid this blessed
giving and receiving.
Flesh of presence,
flavor flowing in self-giving,
the All of the Divine in our mouths,
the bread and wine of this afternoon,
we come not to observe but to join,
to savor, swallow, and be saved
by what ripens in our souls
until we hold the world
and say like a mother to her child,
“I love you so much
I could eat you.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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            Moses said to God:
            “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here.
            For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight,
            I and your people, unless you go with us?”
                                     —Exodus 33.15-16


A way to discern a path
when faced with a fork in the road,
maybe a tough choice, maybe just a moment’s attitude:
which way is God going?
Of course God will go with you either way,
but maybe on one path God comes along
with great sighing and rolling of eyes,
while God is happy to be on the other path.

Trust that whichever direction you go,
even the most mistaken,
God will find a way.
And in the direction God most favors,
even the most difficult or dangerous,
God has already made a way.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Those who are well have no need of a physician,
           but those who are sick.
                           —Matthew 9.12

I won’t tell you how to live.
I won’t argue about what you believe.
When I say I’m following Jesus
I’m not comparing myself
or setting myself apart.
I’m not claiming anything more than
my life.
I’m not professing anything more than
the power mercy has over me.
I don’t expect preferential treatment
or even kindness.
I’m simply trying to find the light.
I’m just trying to reform my life.

It’s the question life asks of us:
what is your story of the universe
and how do you fit in it?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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            Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s
            and to God what is God’s.
                         —Matthew 22.21


There is so much more to give to God
than to Caesar. So much more.

Not only Caesar, but Caesar’s world—
that throne and all its scaffolding,
its pomp, its might, its falsehood,
its marketplace, its language,
its map of the universe.

What I am tempted to misgive to Caesar,
to entrust to that greedy world,
I offer instead to God alone.

The power to tell me what I see.
Trust in the truth, and clarity of What Is.
The power to tell me who I am,
what I am worth.
What anything is worth.
The power to make me whole.
The power to guide my thought,
to lead my heart.
My pledge of allegiance, my loyalty.
Myself, an image of God,
love’s likeness stamped on me,
my whole, my all, my holy.

I give myself to you, my God,
to whom I already belong.

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