Unfolding Light

             Wanting to vindicate himself,
             he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
                                        —Luke 10.29

God is universally kind,
even, Jesus says, to the ungrateful and the wicked.

God asks us to love our neighbors.
Wanting to protect ourselves, we ask:
Who are our neighbors?
Meaning, of course: Who aren’t?

In Jesus’ parable the neighbor is the stranger, the outsider.
The Hebrew Bible says in one verse to love your neighbor—
and 36 times—36 times— it says to love the stranger.
Because you yourselves are strangers, not insiders.

Don’t look for “something to love” in one who is different.
Love them.
Love is not latching on to what we have in common,
or making us alike in some way,
but honoring one who is different.
Allowing them to stay different.
Honoring their being, not their condition.
Seeing God’s image in one who is unlike you.
Because they are God’s,
who is infinite,
and whose image in us is therefore of infinite variety,
and who loves us
who are so different from God,
who is “one of us,”
and also not.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Out beyond Eden it was also garden.
Still is. And we are still here.
The tangled roots of the Tree of Life
hold us, have never let us go.
Fruit trees gladly share with us,
the grasses embrace us,
the ocean bows at our feet,
forests lift their arms in prayer.
Currents of air and ocean swirl
like Vincent’s starry skies—
too much paint! too much energy!
too much color! wild, unleashed!—
all speaking the language
of beauty and overabundance.
Every creature has its part,
receives its blessing, offers its gift.
The toad is not ridiculed for its looks.
The slug is not accused of being lazy.
The worm is not thought of as lowly.
The crab with its little tweezer hands,
the woodpecker whacking away,
the desert scrub, the barnacles
waving their silly little fronds,
all find their food.
Every great predator contributes.
The lions are subject to the fleas.
Vines grow in Chernobyl,
blossoms, every year, at Auschwitz.
There are dragonflies.

The great power each is given
is not to dominate, or even to survive,
but to belong.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Beloved,
news of your sadness
will soon reach me
through the usual channels.
But I already know it.
I am the rain of your sorrow
before the clouds
even come to you.
My heart goes out to you
before I even hear your prayers.
Though you think me distant
I am right here,
in it.
I hold you and your grief
like my twin children.
In time I will bear you both
to a place of joy,
but now I am simply present,
though unseen, hidden
in your cries and questions,
in your silence.
My love, I am the emptiness
that holds you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Oh, Nation,
I salute you
and I chasten you,
land that I love
and lament:
your liberty and justice
for some and not others,
your innovation and energy
and slavery and genocide,
your high ideals
and your war-making,
your peace and your violence,
born of an idea
you can’t quite believe
and a shot heard round the world
that’s still shooting and shooting,
your spacious polluted skies,
your amber waves of
chemically treated grain,
your melting pot diversity
and fear of diversity,
your pride, your arrogance.
God shed his grace on thee,
for we are going to need it,
hard times coming,
if we are to see liberty and justice
for the rest of us.
Let the fireworks begin.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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              Whenever you enter a town
              and they do not welcome you,
              go out into its streets and say,
              ”Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet,
              we wipe off in protest against you.
              Yet know this: the realm of God has come near.”
                                       —Luke 10.10-11


This is opposition without polarization.
We disagree with you.
But we do not take your opposition personally.
We don’t separate ourselves from you,
nor you from the grace of God.
Something greater than our beliefs,
even our precious struggle for justice,
holds us all together, holds us near.
We are still members in common
in the realm of grace.
Even if you reject us, you are still included
in God’s love and blessing.
We aren’t merely preaching about the Realm of God;
we’re living it.
God be with you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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              “The dust of your town that clings to our feet,
              we wipe off in protest against you.”
                         —Luke 10.11

Here in your grace, God,
I wipe off the dust that has clung to me
from unpleasant encounters.
I do not need to take them personally:
the dirt of hurt feelings,
the smear of insults,
the slime of other people’s anger.
The grit of trauma, driven deep into my pores,
I wash clean. It is not me.
Even the dust of my own self-doubt
I wipe off.
Beneath the mud, beneath the stains,
I am whole and beautiful and capable.
I am blessed and beloved.
To other people’s bad energy,
God, help me be non-stick.
I’ll stick with your grace instead.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “I am sending you out
             like lambs into the midst of wolves.”
                                      —Luke 10.3

My dear followers,
even as you bear blessing and goodwill,
you will enter unwelcoming places,
where they disdain compassion,
where they bully and harass.
You will not be respected, nor physically safe.
You will be shouted at, seized, detained, jailed.
When you resist evil, it will push back. But you will persevere.
You will learn to trust the grace that sends you,
the spirit who fills you, empowers you and accompanies you.
You will remember your belovedness
even as angry ones taunt you.
In the face of cruelty you will remain kind.
Beloved, you may be caught in a little eddy of evil
in the great River of Good, but the River flows on.
My dear little lambs, the wolves and their sharp teeth
may hurt you, but can’t reach your soul—can’t even find it.
They have only fear, but you have love and hope.
Do not be afraid to go among them; I go with you.
And in the end we will return whole.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;
             therefore ask the overseer of the harvest
             to send out laborers into the harvest.

                                      —Luke 10.2


Friend, you weren’t merely born, you were sent.
You’re not just living a life; you’re on a mission.
Your purpose is not so small as to avoid death
or even enjoy life, but to embody resurrection.
To offer healing and peace. To seed the world with love.
To be, in words and deeds, a proclamation—
living proof—that the Reign of God is here.
All the love you’ve received has prepared you for this.
All the wisdom you’ve been given goes with you.
You are surrounded, supported, cheered, aided
by millions, unseen yet connected, and present.
We are not-so-secret agents, infiltrating the Kingdom of Fear
on behalf of the Realm of Grace.
You are sent, guided, and protected by the Spirit of Love.
Be not afraid. I am with you. Go.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             No one who puts a hand to the plow
             and looks back
             is fit for the realm of God.
                                      —Luke 9.59

The journey’s joy will sometimes fade;
the labor will be hard.
Hold on, my friend. Hold on.

The cynical will mock your faith,
the angry will assault your place,
and doubts will rise. Hold on.

The road is rough, the goal is far,
the shouts of war, the jailer’s door
will echo loud. Hold on.

To what you know, and how you’ve been
brought through, and what you’re cradled in,
stay true, my friend. Hold on.

You won’t achieve great milestones,
but won’t give up on kindness.
Hold on, my friend, hold on.

Our hands are joined, our hearts are one;
these millions with you struggle on,
and you are held. Hold on.
Hold on, my friend, hold on.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests,
             but the Human One has nowhere to lay their head.
                                            —Luke 9.58

Humble One,
to follow you I have to unpack more than I carry;
not much fits in my little bag of faith.
Here is my sense of entitlement, my expectation
that I will belong and be accepted and tended to.
I leave it behind.
Here is my attachment to comfort and security,
and my favorite things. They don’t fit.
Here’s my expectation that I’ll accomplish great things.
Way too heavy. And look—
crammed in the bottom of my overstuffed trunk,
my secret belief that I’m at the center,
that the children of Gaza or the immigrant
or the uncertain trans kid or the MAGA radical
are not mine—that I have a separate place,
a little nest, a safe foxhole. Nope. Gone.
All that fits in my little bag of faith is you,
and your passion for the whole world, all of it.
All that fits is trust, and kindness.
OK. I’ve unpacked. I’m ready.

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

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