Category: Reflections

           O that you would tear open the heavens
           and come down!
                         —Isaiah 64.1

But that’s not the way it works, is it?
You come slowly, quietly, infinitesimally.

Under the huge minor chords of our pleading
you are a single note, changing everything.
Beneath the dissonances of our longing,
the passing tones and conflicting lines
of our anxieties, your presence is the silence.

In the storm of our injustice you stand,
quiet, resolute, unbowed.
In the barren moonscape of my prayers
you abide calmly, giving breath.
And in the future I sometimes fear,
the uncertainty, the dark blank,
there you are, at peace.

No, what needs to be torn open
is the veil over the eyes of my heart,
to see you here in every little thing,
present in every moment, even times of terror,
the whole world opening like a flower
with you at the center, if only I will see,
… and if I can’t see, at least trust.

                He is near, at the very gates.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Unsuspecting at first, of course,
you only gradually begin to feel
an urge, a leaning,
slow to become a promise,
a yearning that will become
its own gift, given from beyond.
It grows from a tiny seed,
a grace that is not your doing,
a single cell:
a change of season,
a subtle turning of the heart,
until by some grace you will know.
But now you do not yet,
you are still only longing
for the longing.
But know this, you are Mary,
and Gabriel is near.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Geese abide on the pond, even as ice descends,
reflected in the iron water, walking on air.
Winter closes in. How do they know when to go?

In the stillness they kneel
on the slate tiles of their water chapel.
Earth tilts in them, southern lakes open.
Something in them (the scientists will never find it)
reaches out to them.
When it is time they don’t know, they simply go:
not an understanding achieved, but a beckoning accepted.

We enter that sanctuary, let the silence reach out to us.
We kneel, and allow the needle of our compass to be turned.
We wait for the longing that emerges in us,
stronger than our mere desires,
the invisible, deepest “Yes” that calls.
It leans us, until we lose our balance and step forward.
It spreads its wings in us, and only then
we rise and go.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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At the bird feeder I see sparrows and finches,
catbirds, chickadees, mourning doves,
woodpeckers (downy and hairy,
and even the occasional huge pileated
hanging comically on the tiny suet cage),
bluebirds, jays and cardinals….
each with their own calls, their own habits,
their flight patterns, their ways of flocking.
Each different. All distinct. All their own.

God grant you the grace to have your voice, yours,
not another’s, not what another wants of you,
even if you upset them.
God grant you faith to trust your own goodness,
in your own form, with your own gifts,
not what others wish or expect of you.
Let the bluejay next to you squawk all they want;
you don’t have to be a bluejay, or pretend,
or make the bluejay happy.
Don’t let even the mockingbird get you
to sing another’s song. If you’re a sparrow,
be a sparrow, sing your sparrow song.
That’s what gives The Listener such joy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Scientists hammer away at a unified field theory,
explaining the electromagnetic force,
the weak force, the strong force and gravity
in one grand dance. They haven’t got there yet.

But we know. The Unified Field that makes it all happen,
that makes us and makes us alive and keeps us so,
the power greater than any ruler or weapon
that runs through it all and holds it all together

is the grace of the Beloved. It’s not as poetic to say
“The embodied love of God is the Unified Field
that includes everything,” as it is to say “Christ is king,”
but there you have it.

Both scientists and theologians spill ink trying
to explain it, but the fact—the Mystery—is that
it all holds together anyway, and it all works.
Let wonder be your theory, and faithfulness your proof.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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It does not take—although
it could—our breath away,
this warm November day
that should be dense and dark;
instead it gives.

The park is washed: a tide of light
leaves the day’s bright spine
exposed, the clear sun beached
upon the evening’s shore,
reposed where children each
reflect it, young and pure.
How is this day not old
and grey, but yet a bride,
lap full of wedding gifts,

all tied with gold, with light?
It lifts our hearts, too cold,
and too soon winterized,
to watch our children run
in ribbons through the gold,
the bright gift

wrapping strewn, untidy sheets of light,
across the afternoon,
not innocently laughing
jewels into our laps
until our arms collapse,
and we are warm. How can
this laying on of hands
of light, so late, be right?
What are we to remember
of this gilded not-november
miracle of days?
The oracle of praise
this day of Magi lays
abiding at our feet,
the reason given

for tidings of light,
light piled against
the trees and benches,
against our legs and feet,
against our thoughts of sleet:
God has no oughts, but gifts.

This is our tithe: let light
be more than interlude,
life little more than this—
delight and gratitude.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Evening light, its hands all over a tree trunk.
A little child, earnest, on the stairs, ascending.
An old woman who has lost much, smiling.
The sudden quiet knowledge, standing on a hillside,
that you are alive, breathing, and meant to be.

Sometimes it takes a great beauty
and sometimes a plain, simple one
to make you forget the life you were supposed to live,
forget your doubts and disappointments,
mindless but of this moment,
and, without need of explanation,
a gentle, rising joy and gratitude.

Forget everything, the Beloved says.
Here we are.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Lord, when was it that we saw you?…”
                         —Matthew 25.37

Until we see the throne of the Holy One rightly
we see nothing.
It’s an upturned five-gallon bucket on a street corner,
a bed in the locked ward, a cot in a refugee camp.
A cell. A wheelchair. This is where the Mystery abides.
The burning Sun of Life, the hand that spins the universe,
the uncontainable Heart of Grace, will not be confined
to the familiar, the comfortable, the esteemed.
A pretty face, elegant mastery, even wisdom,
these are distractions, little baubles outside the temple.
The Ferocious Glory will not be packaged.
Look in the yellowed eyes, the matted hair.
Listen to the strange accent, the halting speech,
or mangled speech, or none. The Infinite One is there.
Maybe hardest of all, look at that annoying co-worker,
the boss from hell. No one, no one, is exempt.
No matter whose presence you are in, you are always
as close to the throne of heaven as you think you are.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God is the One
who never says: Where have you been?
         having been there.

God is the One
who never says: Why did you do that?
         except to awaken you.

God is the One
who never says: Hello,
         but only: Stay.

You pour yourself out to God,
and, fearful, mutter, “Say when.”
But God is the One
         who never says.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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O Thou who hold the future…
do you hold the future?

I long for a hand, dark and mighty,
turning a wheel, or sweeping
all away, and into place.

I want a great hawk, with black talons,
circling this world, diving even now,
to carry off our overspilling woes
and those who cause them.

But I see no hand or wing, or sense even
a hand-shaped cloud. Only a depth,
an ocean, or arms, the deepest canyon, holding us,

a swaying, as if borne over rough ground,
and a great leaning.

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