Author: Steve

           What can you give in return for your life?
                         —Mark 8.37

In our money-made world
we understand transaction.
We’re ready to make a deal.
What then do we do
with an incommensurate, unanswerable gift?
What can you give in return for your life?
Only your life,
full of what only you can put into it.

Yet think of what we exchange for life.
The way we trade in real life
for the feeling of being liked,
or right, or safe, or worthy.
It’s a cheap imitation. Don’t buy it.

Receive the gift,
cherish it—
and give it away.
It will be given again to you,
newer, brighter, a good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, running over,
over and over.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Evening, cooler than in past days.
The sky is quiet, polished purple,
thickening with darkness,
gently turning to octopus ink.
A stand of trees, black against the horizon,
shuffles vaguely, then stills.
An eyelash of moon hovers over the horizon.
It seems to be looking at you.
Stars start humming their tiny, tinny tunes.
The earth is not just there, but holding you up.
With each breath the evening air greets you,
enters you, becomes you, and leaves in peace.
A single bird note sounds, not a song, just a note,
like one star. Then silence.

In that enfolding space,
in the beckoning of the stillness,
something in you stands up
and speaks.

And the earth and the trees and the sky
and the very stars hear,
and will remember forever.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
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           ”Take up your cross and follow me.”
                        Mark 8.34

To take up the cross
is the greatest paradox:

to enter the world’s suffering
for the sake of healing;

to endure injustice
for the sake of justice;

to abandon my safety,
secure in grace alone;

to bear the pain of oppression,
neither wilting nor retaliating;

to desire fullness of life
enough to suffer for it;

to steward my gifts and powers
at one with all who suffer;

to resist the culture of death
even if it kills me;

to entrust myself to grace,
releasing all attachment to outcomes;

to bear goodness into the breach and know
that life will be borne beyond me;

to have given my life over entirely
to the Spirit of Life

and found there, in life given, not clutched,
love’s surprising joy.

By this grace, having died and been raised,
I am ready to take up the cross.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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My dear children,
because a moment of arrival
misleads with a sense of closure
and the temptation to cease;
because desire is half of sin
and possession the other half;
because wonder is as trustworthy as wisdom,

though closer to you than your own breath
I haunt you, just out of reach,
barely imperceptible—
birdsong in a thick woods,
the bodily substance of music,
the expansion of the universe—
so that you may never quit opening yourself,
listening, looking, seeking.

Even in my looming absence
I am here, in your reaching.
I am horizon;
        you will never hold me.
              I will always hold you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “But who do you say that I am?’”
                        —Mark 8.29

He’s not asking for a theological statement,
but a personal one.
Not what he is, but who.
All the answers, even the right one,
are not what he means,
but “Who am I to you?”
Aside from what anyone says about him—
fundamentalists & atheists, theologians & wackos alike—
how does he land in your life?
Where does he touch you? Awaken you?
Scare you? Encourage you? Heal you?
Where does he lead you?
Let that be enough, and never mind
the arguments about roles and titles.
Don’t try to box him in.
Just listen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Then looking up to heaven, he sighed
           and said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’
                         —Mark 7.34

May my ears be opened,
that I may hear others truly,
and listen with loving attentiveness.

May the ears of my spirit be opened,
open to hear your murmuring
in ordinary things.

May my mind be opened,
open to what may seem too miraculous,
open to change.

May my heart be opened,
in trust and hope open to your grace
around me and within me.

May heaven be opened,
that there be no barrier
between me and the holy.

May all of life be opened,
open to your grace, open to the miracle
that is about to happen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Light rises
from the bare hillside
where prayers were sown
in the body
that fell into the earth of light.

The soil knows how to do this.

A blackbird cloaked like a priest
watches from a bare branch
without a word,
without a thought.
After a while it lifts, departs.
You, too, go home
and lay your body down,
and come again later.

Like water
the word passes between the silences.

Friend, the moment the seeds left your hand
you were raised.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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In an upper room your people gather,
blown by your wind, drawn by your flame,

still shaken by a cross, still shaken by a resurrection,
bearing both wounds and wonder—

the wounds we have suffered and those we have caused,
and those by our faith we are yet to endure—

and the mystery of our healing, and your outrageous hope
in calling us as vessels of your grace and mercy.

How now do we step into this calling?
How do we speak this mystery?

Neither by our zeal nor our wisdom,
for your Spirit alone enfolds us, empowers us, guides us:

to go to the lost, beginning with each other,
beginning with ourselves, receiving your grace to overflowing;

to bear the torch without burning one,
to speak the truth without silencing one,

to proclaim with humility,
to bear witness with kindness,

to offer grace to those whom we oppose
to labor for justice with gentleness,

to embody your resurrection,
to become your bread.

Take us, Holy One. Bless us. Break us. And give us
in the name of the Beloved, to this hungry, hurting world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
                         —Mark 7.28

Jesus may have meant it as a test, or a sly challenge,
or an ironic naming of existing biases;
or maybe he thoughtlessly repeated a racial slur
when he said dogs don’t get the children’s food.
It doesn’t matter to her. She has a witty rejoinder,
an irrefutable argument, a bit of verbal jujitsu.
She’s not arguing with reality,
or looking for a loophole in the laws of God.
She’s taking apart The Way We See Things,
for she knows there are cracks in it.
She’s arguing with Conventional Wisdom,
with What Everybody Knows—
for behind that is the actual truth,
the reality of God’s grace,
God’s kindness toward everyone.
Everyone.
She knows it’s there, hidden by our prejudices.

Whenever anyone tries to put a limit on grace, it’s fakery.
Poke right through it.
Even if it takes Jesus by surprise, he’ll love it.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I was off last week at my brother’s wedding. 
The bride is a young one, 
but at 69 the groom is a certified geezer. 
Sixty-nine is a great age for marriage.
It’s a time of looking toward the future with hope,
because every time is, even when it seems late.
Now is the time, and not too late, to declare your heart. 
Now is the time to make a commitment. 
Now, no matter how much time is left,
is a time, the very best time,
to cast your lot with love and beauty and faithfulness.
Some choices are too late, too far gone. 
But most of your choices still lie ahead of you. 
Every day you choose love over cynicism,
wonder over smugness, generosity over fear.
Every day you choose to give yourself to the world
and not hold back, not wait for something.
Do you love this world?
Today, this very day, late as it may be,
life asks you for your hand, and today—
yes, now and evermore, is a good time to say
“I do.” 

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