Category: Reflections

           ”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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:37 — 2.2MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17 — 1.8MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

           “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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10 — 1.6MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

           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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13 — 1.7MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:49 — 1.1MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:40 — 2.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

             “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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:29 — 2.0MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

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
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:28 — 2.0MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

             Put on the whole armor of God…
                         —Ephesians 6.11

The armor of God is distinctly not-armor:
a renunciation of might,
of power and force,
a radical commitment to non-violence.
It’s gentleness instead of fighting,
service rather than superiority,
listening instead of yelling,
love instead of self-protection.

You don’t just renounce guns.
You renounce bullying,
aggression, making fun of others.
You set aside the shield of cynicism,
the helmet of acceptability,
the sword of being right.
For the sake of healing
you accept vulnerability, embrace risk,
and stand with those who hurt.

To put on the armor of God
is not for the faint-hearted.
It’s to trust that love
and utter dependence on the grace of God
will keep you whole.
For it will.
It will.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:20 — 1.8MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

             Jesus asked the twelve,
             “Do you also wish to go away?”
             Simon Peter answered him,
             “Boss, where else could we turn?
             You have the words of eternal life.”
                         —John 6.67-68

Among all the teachers of wisdom, and there are many,
what I listen for is the truth that connects me
with the heart of all things,
the Love at the center of the universe,
the words beyond words
full of life that is infinite,
that are the Word that speaks everything into being,
the Life that was before all, is in all,
and will outlive all.

For that, Jesus is my man.
Nobody else quite has the depth of it,
the joy and sorrow and healing and generosity
and suffering and courage and mystery and forgiveness
and through it all this gobsmacking trust
in the grace that never fails.
He’s the one who hands me the heart of God
and says, “Here, it’s yours.”

His is the love that can heal my soul,
charge my heart, and raise me from the dead.
There’s nobody else I’m drawn to listen to
so much, so deeply, so needy, so happy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:50 — 2.5MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS