Author: Steve

             Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit,
             returned from the Jordan
             and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,
             where for forty days he was tempted.
                         —Luke 4.1-2


Lead me, Spirit,
into the wilderness of my own heart.
The empty places… exposed… eroded,
where I am utterly alone
with you.
Lead me to the forsaken places.
Guide me in the scary places.
Accompany me in the silent places,
far from all shouts and rumors,
where the only sound
is the wind of your breath.
Here I am vulnerable… weak… dependent.
My fears loom like heat waves;
my hungers chew at me
and dull me to my hunger for you;
my thirst for what I don’t have
dusts over what I have in you;
my desires skitter into shadows
like scorpions.
Here where I am so near to being lost
let me find myself in you.
Give me grace and strength
to stay long enough to be changed.
O Spirit of goodness,
be my hunger and my food,
my danger and my safety,
my wilderness and my good way home.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Ash from the crematorium,
dust of bombed out buildings,
this we breathe.

In a day, or many,
all our flesh
will be shoveled under, dirt.

Our great grandchildren
whose world we dry up
bring our ashes to us.

Christ comes in all who suffer;
from the border, or Gaza, or Ukraine
they rub their ashes on our foreheads.

We hold our treasure
in crumbling clay vessels.
We are the vessels.

Bless the clay and its crumbling,
even to dust—
the leaking of light.

Let love and humility
with wounded hands
spread our ashes.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Today we burn last year’s Palm Sunday palms
for tomorrow’s ashes.

Our praise is fickle, our righteousness thin.
Our faith is steadfast, and also fake.

Our beliefs are unsteady, and often turn on us.
Our knowledge is in part; sometimes that’s the part that kills.

Poets write life-giving verses with poison ink.
Prophets rail against injustice with bloody hands.

Even our prayers are sinful. They often forget us. Or God.
And sometimes our mistakes are full of grace and truth.

We trust the divine dance of our fallibility
and the One who redeems it.

The ignorant are confident, oblivious, and frantic.
The wise doubt their wisdom and are at peace.

Burn our praise, then, God, and from the ashes
raise up a people shriven, forgiven, ready to repent.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Long ago,
maybe you were a child
without a clue what was going on,
a church gathered around you
and baptized you into something
vast, invisible, powerful and alive.

It is still there.
In your struggles, in your aloneness,
oh, especially when you are alone—
you still can’t comprehend
the vastness gathered around you,
the faithful around the world,
those living here and living beyond,
woven with you, members of one body,
breathing with one Spirit,
holding you.

Multitudes are with you.
What touches you touches them
and they touch you.
By their blessing grace will haunt you,
mercy will stick to you,
goodness will shadow you
all the days of your life.
Even when you are most alone
angels swarm you,
saints gang up on you
with blessing and courage,
with a fierce love
that knocks back death itself.
This is the life in which you are
inextricably entangled.
Have courage. Go in peace.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             A voice said,
             “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
                                      —Luke 9.35

The command is not to believe,
or even to remember,
but to listen.

In stillness,
apart from the screaming news,
listen.

Let your fears and opinions
sit quietly in the corner
and talk amongst themselves;
let them go; ignore them.

In silence, listen
even if only to the sound
of your own breathing, listen
for the silence
that is God,
the cloud
that is unknowing,
the presence
you can trust without feeling.

And if nothing comes to you,
keep the silence.
Honor the cloud.
Keep listening.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Don’t judge
whether things are better or worse now
than they used to be or will be in the future.
(There is always both.)

In this moment,
with these constraints,
love.

The tree bent under snow
keeps living.
The river accepts the narrow gorge,
the wide plain, the splattering falls,
even under the ice,
flowing,
flowing.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             While Peter was speaking
             a cloud came and overshadowed them.
                         —Luke 9.34


Ah, how we long for clanging revelations,
bright lights, yes, the special effects.
But even the light fades, the voice goes silent.
And instead God gives us a cloud.
Mystery. Unknowing.
We didn’t always see that light
glaring in Jesus, did we?—
but it was always there.
Sometimes our only revelation
is that an unseen presence
walks with us in the dark,
breathing, loving,
and that is enough.
We glimpse the good news
just enough to pass it on:
the darkness is friendly.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Now the appearance of the glory of God
              was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain.
                                      — Exodus 24.17


God, your presence is like a consuming fire—
not destructive, but transformative,
not the fire of anger but the flame of love,
the fire of glassblowers and bakers
the grace to make us more beautiful, strong and useful.
Your glory is no tame campfire
where we sit and make s’mores.
It burns out of our control.
The furnace of your love
roars about our hearts, remaking us.
Teach us to be unafraid.

Radiant One, I want your grace
to burn away all the old junk that is not really me,
like gold being refined.
I want the warmth of your presence
to melt what is hard or brittle in me.
I want the heat of your love
to change the chemistry of my heart,
to bake me into something life-giving,
to mold me into a new shape.
Re-make me into a vessel of love.
Your light shine in me, the aroma of you
waft from me, fresh from the oven.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             While Jesus was praying,
             the appearance of his face changed,
             and his clothes became dazzling white.
                                      —Luke 9.29


He is an ordinary person,
also dazzling with light.

We are given clarity,
and also an obscuring cloud.

Jesus, no different from you,
is the Son of God.

Sometimes we see the light
that was always there.

Your neighbor, shabby looking
on Saturday morning, gleams with heaven’s radiance.

You are no one special
and everything you do matters.

It’s just bread
and also the body of God.

Creation and the end of time,
Moses and the life to come, are all present.

It’s as if we need to wear sunglasses all the time,
everything shining with God like that.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Do not judge, and you will not be judged;
             do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
             Forgive, and you will be forgiven;
             give, and it will be given to you.
             A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over,
             will be put into your lap;
             for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
                                      —Luke 6.37-38

Evil arises from a spirit of fear and greed,
a desperation that one is alone and destitute.
But the Beloved is a fountain of abundance and generosity.

Greed starves under generosity.
Fear withers under mercy.
Resentment can’t stand long against forgiveness.

In a regime of cruelty and selfishness
joy and generosity are revolutionary acts.
Defy the Emperor of Fear.

           Trust the grace.
           Extend the mercy.
           Share the gifts.

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