Author: Steve

             Be on guard
             so that your hearts are not weighed down
             with dissipation and drunkenness
             and the worries of this life.
                         —Luke 21.34


Jesus isn’t telling us to detach ourselves from the world,
or to stop caring, but to refuse the world’s anxiety.
Trying to make ourselves happy, we fear losing happiness.
We worry; we drug ourselves with whatever dulls us.

Let your heart be lifted up instead, carried,
not by the promise of comfort but the presence of grace.
The Beloved transforms even moments of suffering
into a communion of closeness.

Guard against cynicism. Be wary of guarding your heart:
open it wide, and even as the pain of the world seeps in,
the love of the One Who Is With US floods you,
and your heart is not weighed down, but floats on a sea of grace.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Heaven and earth will pass away,
             but my words will not pass away.
                         —Luke 21.33

You will pass away.
This generation and the next will disappear.
This nation will go down into the dust.
Governments will shrivel like dried leaves
and blow away into the earth.
We may delay or hasten our end,
but it will come.
Soon or later, the whole human family
will be no more.
All our good and evil will pass away.
But the love of God does not die or change.
Grace will outlast our failings.
The blessed oneness of all living beings
will pulse with light
long after all beings have passed.

Whatever losses we fear,
whatever disasters threaten us,
they will pass.
Whatever the children of the Beloved suffer,
their belovedness will not fade or tremble.
Even as we fear the heating of our globe
and the ripping of our society,
the Goodness at the heart of all things
remains, forever and ever.
Cling to this, not what passes,
and you will know life that is eternal.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,
             and on the earth distress among nations
             confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
                         —Luke 21.25

Oof. Sounds like climate change.

Sounds like troubled times coming upon us
like a storm, or a heat wave,
unseasonable disruption, unreasonably dark—
but a trouble we’ve brought on ourselves.

Wait. This is our introduction to Christmas?

Yes.
Cutting through our sweet carols
is the cry of the world,
and the cry is not an interruption,
but the reason.
God has come to be with us
in our self-made night.
In our evil, and the foreboding of evil,
among the signs of the gathering chaos,
the Hopeful One comes among us,
small and helpless, fragile,
requiring our mercy,
evoking our love,
nursing us with courage.
Not in some easy dreamland
but here in this thickening, sickening darkness,
under the thumb of Herod,
whose soldiers are already strapping on their boots,
comes the Tender One,
whose very being defies the chaos,
terrifies the Emperor,
stirs the people of God,
and brings dawn to the night-blind world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The weariness of this world
is not the exhaustion
of having received a task too hard.
It is the despair of having worked
at the wrong thing too long,
having strained against the pull of life,
against the gravity of origin,
resisting the fire of genesis within us,
fighting the flow of God through us,
the current of becoming.
Within us groans the mother of God;
a Harriet Tubman sings and marches on,
and the more we silence them
the more thin and hollow we become.
No, instead take on the yoke
that is already being carried.
Let yourself be borne
by the river of mercy that flows,
the mighty stream that won’t be stopped,
that bears us through all sorrow and evil,
the great river of righteousness
that holds us all the way,
that empowers us to do justice,
that brings us, bathed in the waters of healing,
to the place of peace.
Allow the Spirit to do the work.
Receive the gift,
and let it take you into the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “My kingdom is not of this world.”
                         —John 18.36

What is a kingdom not of this world?

The breath that passes through you,
whose borders exceed all nations;

the wisdom of your immune system,
whose ancient traditions never die;

the family you belong to, the tribe
that spans the globe and runs in your veins.

It is the Domain of Grace
whose law is mercy;

the love that is given
in which we live,

more real than earthly jurisdictions,
more present than emperors and armies.

It is a place of serenity that resists all chaos,
impervious to fear and anger’s noise.

It is the Land of Belonging
from which you can never be exiled,

for it is within you, and among us all;
the place the enemy can never find,

the fabric no ruler can tear,
the oneness that can’t be undone.

That realm is where you live,
if only you remember.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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When chaos descends,
sit and look.
See what is in front of you.
The color of stones, the slant of light,
the shapely shadows.
A little spider makes her way
toward the ceiling.
Admire her calmness, her resolve.
A sparrow receives communion
from the open palm of the street.
The plant in the windowsill,
whether healthy or struggling,
is doing its best. Notice.

Notice because it slips your mind
from the fist of bad thoughts.
Looking and seeing
places you back in your body
and its wisdom.
It puts you back in the world,
part of what is being created.
It reconnects you with what’s there,
the sparrow and the street and the sky
and the world of which your worry
is a tiny part, smaller than the sparrow,
smaller than the spider.

There’s wonder enough,
even in a prison cell,
to keep you alive.
When anxiety weighs,
look, and see;
notice
and wonder.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “My kingdom is not of this world.”
                         —John 18.36

… he said, not meaning far from here,
or in some other dimension,
but, looking around at the trappings of power:
not of this world, not this kind of world:
the world of fear and dominion,
of power and violence,
the world of privilege and exclusion,
of hierarchies and judgments,
a world of “deserving.”

My realm is a world of grace and mystery,
a world of fierce kindness and tender beauty.
Don’t worry, I won’t take your throne.

And yet, my kingdom invades.
My love sneaks past all guards, escapes all armies,
evades your stoutest defenses.
The Realm of Grace infuses this world,
seeps through every dimension of it,
contains it wholly, prevails forever.
The love I bear withstands all evil,
overwhelms all fear, overpowers all might.

You will keep your throne, wield your power,
play your games of cruelty—
and it will amount to nothing.
In the end I will not take your kingdom from you.
Your own body will do that.

And my Realm will go on.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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This moment, stop.
Be still.
The Beloved says,
“I am holding you.”

Notice the planet earth.
Yes, “I am holding you.”
The light of day and the dark of night
say “I am holding you.”

No matter what happens,
triumph or tragedy,
we are held.
It’s all right to want paradise,
but for now, here,
let it be enough
that we are so lovingly, tenderly,
mightily held.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
                         —Mark 13.8

I wonder if the darkness had to let go,
had to be overwhelmed,
for the secret hidden within to be let loose,
when God said, “Let there be light.”

I wonder what the tides felt,
being drawn taut,
shoved aside,
when God dilated the Red Sea.

I wonder how the burial bands strained,
tried to keep the body still and mute,
what contractions of gravity gripped the tomb,
when Jesus said, “Lazarus, come out!”

I wonder now beneath the wrenching darkness,
the seething tides of fear and hate,
the painful seizures of power,
what new life God is birthing.

The powers of evil always resist the Giver of Life;
but listen for angels already moving in the slave camps.
From this Golgotha, though sun be darkened, heavens rent,
I wonder what new life will issue forth.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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In the 13^th chapter of Mark Jesus imagines the worst:
             The temple falls…
             False messiahs and false prophets appear….
             Jesus’ followers are hated, and handed over to authorities
                   and must stand before governors and kings to bear witness…
             “And woe to those who are pregnant…”

Oof. I’m glad that’s not our world. Haiti, maybe, but not us.
The institutions we love and depend on will stand forever.
We don’t have to worry about being loyal to the Emperor.
People will never turn on each other.
And, golly, we have the utmost care for pregnant women.
We’re safe.

I’m glad. I mean, imagine living in that kind of upheaval.
In that world, justice isn’t abstract, but a daily commitment.
In that world it’s necessary—and hard—to care for each other.
Christians can’t stand by and see how it turns out;
they have to be part of how it turns out.
They have to bear witness daily—not just by saying the right stuff,
but by living lives of radical kindness and courage.
They have to sacrifice for the sake of love,
and dare to be kind to the “wrong” people.
They have to risk rejection, even persecution,
for their unconditional kindness.
They have to resist injustice and stand up against the Emperor.
I mean, in that world, they really have no security but God.
They have no defender but Jesus, no hope but grace.
They basically have to live lives of death and resurrection.

And we wouldn’t want that, would we?


___________________
Weather Report

Darkness;
signs in the sun and the heavens.
Expect turbulence caused by colliding fronts.
Temperatures will rise.
Light and warmth will emanate
not from above
but from those who choose
to radiate light and warmth.
Despite strong winds
divine presence will not be blown away.

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