Author: Steve

           Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
           it remains just a single grain;
           but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                           —John 12.24

Beloved,
in love you have thrown the seed of yourself
into the soil of us.
You have sown yourself in the wound of us,
the dark, rich humus of our sorrow and lostness.
You have surrendered yourself to our pain
and the taunting of the demons that haunt us.
You’ve allowed the seed casing of your life to split open,
and your love to bleed out, reaching,
fingering tenderly through the dark soil,
infinite power of life creeping out.
You’ve already said, “Into your hand I commit my spirit.“
You have already died,
and been raised by life that is eternal.

So now you are ready
to ride your little donkey toward us,
Resurrected One, ready to be crucified.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
           it remains just a single grain;
           but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                                  —John 12.24

          We have been buried with Christ by baptism into death,
          so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
          by the glory of God, so we too might walk in newness of life.
                                 —Romans 6.4


I am making peace with death, with self-surrender.
But burial—to be forced to be still, utterly shut in and powerless—
this is yet more challenge,
to have no life, not even afterlife,
but what I have in Christ, my coffin.
To be dead is merely difficult.
To be buried with Christ is truly transforming.
Christ, may I die, and my life be buried in you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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         “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
         will draw all people to myself.”
         He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
                   —John 12.32-33

From the earth,
the soil of our open sore,

lifted up on a cross,
on a hill of our piled up pain,

you endure our suffering,
borne up on the threads of our anguish,

drawing us into your broken heart.
No one suffers alone.

We are raised in grace
for which willingly

we are woven into the sorrow of the world,
gathered in you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
           it remains just a single grain;
           but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                        —John 12.24

You are not just one seed.
You don’t have to go and die for Jesus.
You are a whole bag of seeds.
Strew yourself in this world.

With every act of kindness or generosity,
every time you forgive,
another seed slips through your fingers.
Every time you care about someone,
even a stranger, especially when it’s risky,
you scatter a handful of seeds.
Let them go.
Toss your love wildly into this world.

Scatter seeds in good soil and poor.
Many will be eaten by birds
or trampled under foot.
But only the ones you throw away will grow.

You have a whole bag of love. Sow it all.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           …that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
                        —John 3.16

Eternal life is not living forever. Are you kidding?
You don’t even want the service to go over an hour;
you don’t want to live another 13 billion years, do you?
No, it’s not you who are eternal, it’s the life that is.

Eternal life is not ridiculously long, it’s infinitely deep.
When you trust God enough to receive that love
(our lingo for that is “believe in him”)
you receive God’s infinite, eternal life. Like breathing.
Over and over. Like breathing.
It’s eternal because it’s eternally renewed.

And it’s eternal because it’s yours forever.
Nothing can take it from you, not sin, not death,
not your bad theology or lousy faith.
God keeps giving it to you. Like breathing.

When you love, you join in something infinite.
All you have to do is receive it, and pass it on,
and you outgrow your life. You become
the breathing of God.

Breath in. Breathe out. Now do that with love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           This is the judgment,
           that the light has come into the world.
                        — John 3. 19

God, you do not measure us and punish or reward.
Your judgment is no divine opinion about the truth;
it is the light of what is.
I am not who I deceive myself to be.
You unveil the truth of who I am.
Without comment or judgment you wash the window on me,
reveal the inner weave of my sin, my wounds, and my beauty,
and in your light they all shine.
Even my delusion and my terrible wrongdoing
are transformed by your radiant gaze of love.
You forgive sin like light forgives darkness.

I welcome the light.
May your gentle dawn unfold in my veiled inward secrets;
may I be changed by light into light.
May who I am, even my faults, become light.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           You were dead through sin…
           But God made us alive together with Christ.
                        —Ephesians 2.1, 4


Oh, I am still being made alive.
Some of me is dried up leaves,
brittle and brown-edged.
Whatever life there was
has drained out of the roots.
I can’t revive this.
And the miracle is—nothing is revived.
It does die. It is the end.
I surrender this dried up life—
and out of this death
you give me something new:
not just me again, not even
a new life I would engineer, but yours,
the life of Christ, rising up
from roots beyond my own.
I die in your arms,
and in my place you rise with me.
I am taken up in this living vine,
given life not mine, but ours.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “For God so loved the cosmos…”
                        —John 3.16

The Greek word is kosmon.
Not some, not even just earthlings,
not even just Earth.
The whole cosmos. Everything.
The point is not that certain humans
are rewarded for thinking certain things
about a certain divine-human,
but that the entire universe
be made whole,
by love,
by God being with-and-in every bit of it,
even the ugly, hurting bits.
There’s no part of the cosmos God doesn’t love.
There’s no one who gets anything different.
There’s no other tribe to which you belong.
Step over the little lines you’ve drawn, then,
and belong.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We are fearless—
         of what we’re not sure.

We don’t need anybody
         so badly it aches.

We look good
         from this distance.

We’re sure we’re not victims
         of what we can’t imagine.

We are proud
         of little things.

Our griefs are so small, they’re over
         before they’ve begun.

The people we are becoming
         look upon us and wonder.

We’ll hoard anything but grace
         and leave it for those who need it.

Tell our Savior not to bother.
         We’ve got this.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           The leaders then said to him,
           “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
                        —John 2.18


Sin’s perspective is hierarchical.
Everything is of relative power and authority,
every action, every person, every moment ranked,
every truth proven by a stone-carved law,
every life measured on a scale.

But in the real world there are no ranks,
there is no proof, no authority.
The first is last, the last first.
Everything is a sign of everything.
Everything shines.

There is only love, doing its best,
and fear, getting in the way.
Love is the only sign,
the only authority, the only power.
All else is illusion.

Tyrants threaten, laws dictate,
styles prescribe, fears control…
ignore them.
Love alone is your badge, your guide,
your power.

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