Author: Steve

             His winnowing fork is in his hand,
                   to clear his threshing floor
             and to gather the wheat into his granary;
                   but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
                         —Luke 3.17


Beloved, winnow my heart;
strip away the chaff
of my fears and attachments.
My victories and failures are not me.

Burn the husks I hide behind,
my fear that my real self you will not love.
Burn the straw of my attempts
to be someone I’m not.

By your grace, I will be
the true person within,
not an imaginary self
but the one you create.

God of mercy,
I welcome your winnowing.
I give thanks for the fire of grace
in which I am made new.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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As Jesus goes down into the water
I go with him:
down in humility and trust,
deep into mystery and shadow,
surrendered in powerlessness and willingness,
immersed in your presence and grace,
washed of the past and all expectations,
bathed in the flowing of all,
sunk to the center of all,
held in your mercy and love,
drowned in the water of death,
waiting in the womb of your life,
ready to be raised by your Spirit.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             When you pass through the waters,
                          I will be with you;
             and through the rivers,
                          they shall not overwhelm you.
                                      —Isaiah 43.2

For twelve days we pondered the mystery
that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
Christ chooses to be with us.

Now another mystery, but the same grace:
Christ is baptized with us,
immersed in holy with-ness.

So when you go through the waters,
Christ is already there.
Breathing life. Enduring. With you.

There is no struggle Christ does not enter,
no suffering Christ does not share.
The Beloved will never forsake you.

In even the worst sin, the most awful depression,
the deepest loneliness, the foulest derangement,
the most shameful death, God is with you.

Every moment of your life
is the stream Jesus was baptized into,
immersed in you, soaked with you.

When you pass through the waters,
and feel no companion, trust:
the Beloved is the water itself, bearing you on.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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A spring offers forth,
earth’s generosity.

A stream flows on,
water’s patience.

Jesus comes down,
true humility.

The Word made flesh
is flesh and water.

Christ enters the water;
all water is holy.

That water is the water you drink,
the mercy you bathe in,

the mystery you are,
the holiness that is yours.

Because the Beloved is here,
immersed with us,

all birth, water and flesh,
is baptism into that grace:

“My child, my beloved,
with you I am well pleased.”

the water flows on,
ocean to mist, to sky, to rain,

to you,
never ceasing.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Ahead of them, went the star
           that they had seen at its rising.
                               —Matthew 2.9

Morning star, lead me.
Awaken me to your calling,
to the Spirit’s subtle showing.

I let go of my attachment
to knowing the way
and my fear of not knowing.

I listen for your whisper,
I wait for your nudging,
ready for my going.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Magi from the East came to Jerusalem,
             asking, “Where is the child
             who has been born king of the Jews?
             For we observed his star at its rising,
             and have come to pay him homage.”
             When King Herod heard this, he was frightened,
             and all Jerusalem with him.
                         —Matthew 2.1-3


Herod is still king, no doubt about that.
The lovely story of the visit of the magi
will be followed by slaughter in Bethlehem.
The little baby will have to grow up
and go out into the world that will crucify him,
overseen by another Herod.
Look around: Herod returns again and again.
But the end of the story isn’t there,
in political power and violence.
The end is here, at the beginning:
under the nose of the king of dominance
the kings of wisdom kneel and pay homage
to the king of love.
Herods and their mobs will come and go,
but love remains, and remains in power.
Like we think we’ve conquered nature,
but she rules with her eternal laws—
so love reigns, despite what despots think.
Love frightens those who want to dominate:
it undermines power structures and erodes hierarchies.
It is the energy of the universe,
and magi see it even in the stars.
Herod is still there, still frightened.
Kneel to a greater king.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The birth of Christ was not a mission trip
but a return.

A God of love is a God of real things.
The smell of hay, the feel of night wind.

Only in our poor, starved imaginations
was God ever far,

but is really ever so much more here
than anything here.

A family, a safe place, a foreign place,
a place endangered—God’s favorite place.

The birth is our awakening.
A manger’s rough wood is a holy place,

a prayer in the dark, a hope malnourished,
a friendship faltering, a life poorly lived:

these are the things, the real things,
to which the God of Being Here will always return.

A child’s awkward gift, a doubter’s question,
the way you breathe even as you read this.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
           for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
                         —Revelation 21.1

The eighth day of Christmas,
eighth day of Creation,
starting anew.

You are given new life,
an unprecedented future,
but only if you stay in the present moment.

Each moment vanishes
the moment you live it,
and you are in another.

As you stand at the threshold of a new year,
it is true, the year stretches out
like a field of untouched snow before you,

but remember you are not living a whole year:
you live in this moment.
Now is your choice… and now… and now….

It is here, not in some far-off time or place, that God is.
It is here the infinite is revealed.
May this be a year of staying present.

Happy New Moment!

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
           for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
                         —Revelation 21.1


The year has passed away.
Into its funeral pyre I throw my calendar.
All that has happened to me has happened.

I offer up the sacrifice of my regret.
All I have done, and all I have not done,
are gone now. I let them rest.

Only the great hymn remains:
“You are forgiven. You are beloved.
You are free.”

My victories are part of me;
I need not cling or rehearse.
I am who I am now.

I will not change the past.
I am in the present.
Letting go, I am held.

I am free to enter the future,
one moment at a time.
Letting go, I am held.

Breath prayer:
                          Held … free

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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A peasant girl huddles in the winter night
in a crude shelter, holding her newborn child.
There are dangers and difficulties,
but her eyes are on the child.
She simply loves him.
Rough shepherds, manly and dirty,
jostle for who is the toughest.
But in this moment they’re not trying so hard;
they’re smitten by the child.

Great kings attend, laden with their kingdoms
and the duties and privileges appertaining thereunto.
But in this moment their eyes are on the child,
and his poverty. They are willing to kneel,
to share their treasures.

Zealots gather, who would gladly beat the kings,
but in this moment they stare at the child,
and are made gentle in simple wonder.
The father takes all this in, and might be frightened,
but in this moment they are not strangers, they are family.
For a moment, they are not rulers or rebels,
no one is responsible or resentful or reprehensible,
they are all simply beloved people.
For a moment the Realm of God is fulfilled,
and the child, even in the cold, is most happy.

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