Category: Reflections

           Now standing there were six stone water jars
           for the Jewish rites of purification,
           each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
                           —John 2.6


Beloved,
you change the water of my life
into the wine of your touch,
if only I taste.
What was plain becomes mystery.
The cup of want
becomes jugs of abundance,
a lifetime.
The jars of obligation,
the pots of my attempts,
my hope of being acceptable,
my rite of shame and inadequacy,
you fill with delight instead.

Beloved, I see now—
this wedding must be mine.

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

           To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit
           for the common good.
                           —1 Corinthians 12.7

What gifts you have—your humor, your patience,
your love of beauty, your trust—
are not for you.
They are for the common good.

Jesus did not turn water into wine for himself.

Your spiritual gifts are whatever ways
the Spirit moves in you—
maybe a talent or ability,
maybe just the way you come at the world.
Your gifts include what you think of as weakness:
your ready tears, your slow pace, your silence;
the world needs those, too.

The community needs your gifts,
needs all of who you are.
Not the pretend parts,
the things you do to fit in
or to keep people from reacting.
But the real you, Spirit alive in you
in all her peculiar ways.

It’s not arrogant to share that with the world.
It’s evangelism.
Trust the God that lives in you.

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

           Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
           and there are varieties of services, but the same Conductor;
           and there are varieties of activities,
           but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.
                           —1 Corinthians 12.4-6

We think we are separate individuals
but we are one organism,
separate fingers of the same hand,
like aspen trees in a grove,
one tree with many trunks.

But we are not the same.
We are all different instruments
in the one divine orchestra.

Seek the wisdom to delight in both
our differences and our unity.
Seek the grace to both listen and sing.

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

           “You are my Child, the Beloved;
           with you I am well pleased.”
                           —Luke 3.22

A mother holds her newborn child,
gotten by pain and labor,
helpless and incompetent.
She loves her baby,
not for its behavior, not for its deserving,
but because love is her nature,
loving fiercely, like a raging river.
Her love is not determined by the child’s performance
but by her own heart.
Ask her if the child is good enough
and she will answer, “No.
She is perfect. Because she’s mine.”
There is no other reason, no variance.

You are a newborn child, fresh from God’s birth waters.
Your choices, though real, are immaterial to God’s adoration.
You can never be good enough, for there is no such thing.
It’s is God’s goodness, not yours,
that guarantees your belovedness.

Of course you are not deserving.
You may protest, “But, God, I’m not all that good.”
God will reply, “Oh, child, you’re so much worse than you know.
But I love you. You are my child, my Beloved,
with whom I am well pleased.”

Get over being good enough,
and your enemy being good enough.
You are God’s child, God’s Beloved,
with whom God is delighted.

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

           Magi came asking, “Where is the child
           who has been born king of the Jews?
           For we observed his star at its rising,
           and have come to pay him homage.”
           When King Herod heard this, he was frightened,
           and all Jerusalem with him.
                           —Matthew 2.2


Herod worries for his crown,
and his minions for their supremacy,

for the way it was once
in the thoughts of their hearts.

A crowd storms the capitol.
The army is sent to Bethlehem.

And at home, in the palace of my ego
my own Herod quakes.

The Sovereign of Love
and the Empire of fear

have both revealed themselves.
Who will I serve?

Will I cede power
to the Sovereign of Love?

Stand with the power of grace alone,
the courage of self-giving?

Or try to take the country back
for myself and my kind?

Lead me, star of gentleness,
home by another road.

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

           This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
                           —Mark 13.8

Seriously—January 5^th, and we’re still on Christmas?
Can’t we move on, now?

We follow a different path than the rest of the world.
They are rushing on to the next thing. Let them go.

This, today, this is the moving on.
This is the movement, the birthing,
which takes as long as it takes.
Justice unfolds slowly.
There’s no shortcut to the Realm of God,
no beginner’s luck to repentance.

Give thanks for a God who walks with us,
and with us, and with us.
And pack for a long trip.

But stop counting and be present.
Abandon escape. Renounce the desire
to be perennially elsewhere.
The One who Was and Ever Shall Be
Is. Now. Here.
That is enough.

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

          Now when Jesus had been baptized
          and was praying,
          the heaven was opened.
                           —Luke 3.21

Look down
into still water

and see up
into clear heavens.

Be immersed in the depths
of the sky,

the deep earth of heaven.
They flow, they blend.

Here, your flesh of dust and breath,
of fire and water

lives—grounded,
held, opened,

immersed in the paradise
that opens and flows into the world.

There is no difference,
no separation.

Waters open, and heaven,
and your life,

and through opening,
blessed, flow.

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

           Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
           for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
           and the sea was no more.
                           —Revelation 21.1

To imagine the earth passed away
in these days of climate crisis,
fascism and greed
is not hard. It looms.

Child, all things are passing.
You will die. Humans will vanish.
Never mind when. Live now.
With love and courage
dance with beauty,
be a sign of hope, act for justice,
no matter the outcome.

What we see as the end
is merely moving into the unknown,
where the Loving One will be present.

Let the vision speak not to planets or politics
but your inner being.
Let go of who you are, even the treasures,
the earth and sea of you drowned in God.
Allow God to re-create you.
If you are reborn of grace,
nothing to come—
even the most drastic loss or change—
will frighten you;
love will prevail.


Happy New Breath

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

           They knelt down and paid him homage.
           Then, opening their treasure chests,
           they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
                           —Matthew 2.11


I offer the gift of my gold,
my generosity.
May all that I spend be done in faith.
May every dollar reflect my love for you
and your will.

I offer the gift of my frankincense,
my prayerfulness.
May all I do be in mindfulness of your presence.
May I treat every person with reverence,
every moment with gratitude,
every action with trust in your grace.

I offer the gift of my myrrh,
my mortality, my being.
I shall one day die;
meanwhile my life belongs to you, not me.
May I spend my short time in this life
with love and humility.

I willingly surrender my life to you,
that I may enter into the new year
not as a self-protected individual,
but as a generous, trusting, joyful member
of the Body of your Love.

Here. Receive me.

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

           When King Herod heard of the child,
           he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.
                           —Matthew 2.3


Beware the faith that judges the world
but leaves your own sin intact;
for God, who deeply loves us as we are,
does not intend to leave us that way.
Pray for the courage to love a God
who comes to remake you.

Let the Herod who sits on your throne be frightened,
and see in his fear his weakness.
Let your privilege be troubled;
for God who transforms everything
begins with you.
Be prepared to let go of the world you know and love,
so you may receive the world
you have not yet imagined.

Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas,

           Let one who seeks
                      not stop until one finds.
           When one finds,
                      one will be troubled.
           When one is troubled,
                      one will marvel,
                      and rule over all things.

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