Category: Reflections

             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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             Love your enemies.
             God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
             Be merciful, just as God is merciful.
                         —Luke 6.35, 36


The greatest heist in history
is that Jesus has robbed us
of every last excuse
to withhold kindness
from anybody at all.




___________________
Weather Report

Hurricane-force gentleness.
Expect exposure,
the stripping away of cover;
some power structures will come down.
Gentleness will remain.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Love is not a feeling; it’s kindness.
It’s wonder at another’s being,
and our shared being in God,
a celebration of our oneness.
To love someone is to honor them as a soul,
regardless of their actions,
and to commit to their well-being.

Love has no room for judgment,
for being in control or being right,
even being “better” than an awful person.
It is only kindness.
Love sets aside our feelings, even our fear,
and our self-interest.
Love is willing to be weak, to be wrong,
to be hurt, to be misunderstood,
for the sake of the other.

Love is not a product of our effort,
but a gift flowing through us:
we are the riverbank and God is the river.
Our feeble love—and we ourselves—
are made whole and perfect
by God’s love flowing through us.

        We receive and give.
        We breathe in and breathe out.
        Love flows through us into all the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             If anyone strikes you on the cheek,
             offer the other also.
                                      —Luke 6.29


Do not confuse turning the other cheek
with telling someone else to.
               •

Assume this koan is a way to confront evil,
not to tolerate it.
               •

The act is not simply to suffer the evil,
but to expose it.
               •

Even as we pray for those who abuse us
we name the abuse and act to stop it.
               •

You can resist violence in ways that risk,
but not that harm others.
               •

We overcome evil not by superiority
but out of our powerlessness.
               •

The cross
is God’s other cheek.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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My enemy is myself:
a part of me,
part of the whole
of which I am part.

With their evil
I am complicit.
Of their wound
I myself need healing.
They deserve my wholeness.

Even the cruel I will oppose
with love,
knowing I live in them.

An enemy vanquished
is not as powerful a victory
as a heart transformed,
for the first enemy is within.
(Oh, so much has to die
for me to come into love!)

Only love will overcome
their lack of love.
Because they live in me,
my healing transforms them.
Their fearful hate is weakened
when mine is.

O Love, when I receive your love
I multiply the love
of the whole,
and there is a new Creation.

             “Love your enemy as yourself,
             as I have loved you.“

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I wish you a happy, or sorrowful, Valentine’s Day.
To love someone is to want the best for them.
When they are hurting we ache for them.
In our grief we come close to God,
whose infinite heart is eternally broken
in love for a world that is suffering.
On a day of chocolates and roses
I wish for you not mere happiness,
but deepest sorrow and joy—
may they both be blessed—
for your love for another, for a people,
for a hope or a nation.
May your love, which embraces both sorrow and joy,
be embraced by the love of the One
who always weeps for us, always dances.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Losing someone we love, dying
before our eyes,
before their time,
we are caught in-between,
wishing the past, dreading the future.

So we come into the present.
We stop. And we grieve.
If it feels we can’t go on
it’s because we haven’t yet
freed our sorrow.
So we grieve.

We let what is inside out.
We bear witness.
We say the unsaid.
We unburden.
And there, shattered,
weak, bereft and pierced,
the Beloved meets us.

And then we make our sorrow into life.
In tears, in song,
in hands taken, in art audacious,
in dance unbound as if flinging our hearts,
this lack, this breech in us
gives birth, becomes a new creation.

We pause in our Gethsemane
so we can go on
to the agonizing love
we are called to.
Our tears become our strength,
flowing out into the world.


             Blessed are you who weep now,
                        for you will laugh.

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