Category: Reflections

         Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me,
         one who is eating with me.”
         They began to be distressed
         and to say to him one after another,
         “Surely, not I?”
                            —Mark 11.18-19

Who crucified Jesus?
Surely not I.

No one did.
No one, no disciple,
no priest, no bystander,
no Pilate, no soldier,
no Jew, no one.
Who crucified him,
with nails paid for by everyone’s taxes?
We all did.
We all do.

Who held slaves?
Who failed to bring forth justice?
Surely not I….
Yes, we are all guilty,
guilty of sins we can’t prevent.
The food you eat, the fuel you use,
even the most generous act,
links with another’s pain.
To be part of the living web
is to cause death and suffering.

For all of this we are absolutely guilty,
and in chronic, denied grief.
And for all of this
we are absolutely forgiven.

This is the hard, awful, absolute
good news.

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

March 26, 2021

         Hosanna!
               Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Holy One! 
               Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
         Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
                   —Mark 11.9-10

Friend, don’t get sentimental about this.
To wave our palms is to rebel.
There is a king already,
who does not take kindly to this upstart.
There is an empire already,
the dominion of Self,
the kingdom of the habitual, the popular,
the Dominant Culture.
To wave your palm is to pledge allegiance
to a different realm, to take a different way—
not just during this parade
but every moment, every choice of your life.
You will pay for it.
To bless the Humble One is to risk his fate.
To cry this Hosanna is to take up your cross.
Don’t wave that palm
unless you mean to resist,
and you’re ready to be labeled subversive,
and to be punished for it.

If you do, cry out:
Hosanna—save us!
Hosanna in the highest heaven.

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

March 24, 2021

    Hosanna!
               Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Holy One! 
               Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
         Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
                   —Mark 11.9-10

“Hosanna“ doesn’t mean “Hooray!”
It means “Save us!“
It’s not a cry of triumph,
it’s a plea in desperation.
Of course, aimed at a leader who can protect us,
it becomes an affirmation.
Our Hosannas signify victory
only because Jesus has saved us
in our desperate weakness.
This is no time to strut
but to kneel,
to bare our tender need,
in honest pleading
that we still need saving,
and in awe and gratitude
for the grace we are continually given.
Maybe “Hosanna” is more like
“Wow! Thanks. We needed that”
on steroids.

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

March 23, 2021

A procession through the streets.
Crowd riled up,
peasants crying out.
Lots of symbolism:
royal power, humility.
Chatter among the onlookers.
Who is this? What is his story?
Murmuring of a king.
The One Who Is There.
Momentous, yet promising
more to come.
A current of fear and wonder,
a current of shifting loyalties,
a river changing course.
Shouting. Passion.
An energy moves through the crowd,
a wave, a disturbance,
like ocean waves,
crashing in, washing out.
The feeling of being caught up, carried,
borne.
We wield our palm branches,
our crowns of thorns,
shout out with the crowd,
“Hosanna!”
“Crucify!”
The waves move through us,
the river, sparkling, flows.

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

March 22, 2021

         Create in me a clean heart, O God,
         and put a new and right spirit within me.
                   —Psalm 51.10

Beloved,
amid the clutter within me
I hollow out a clearing
where you might create
a clear heart,
transparent to your grace,
a new spirit,
breathing your life,
your love, your light.
What I have made and managed,
even what I have worked so hard on,
I sweep aside.
Breathe me into me.
In stillness I clear the space.
Create in me a clear heart, O God,
and put a new and faithful spirit within me.

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

March 19, 2021

         Those who love their life lose it,
         and those who hate their life in this world
         will keep it for eternal life.
                            —John 12.25

Your name tag, your selfie,
your bio, the word on the street,
and most, the idea of you in your head—
they are lies. Disdain them.

The life you give away,
the self you didn’t become yourself,
a gift from God
(for free, but
only with some dying)—
trust that.

Self-made life is already dead.
The gift of God lives
as long as God,
and as deep.
Receive it.

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

March 18, 2021

When you feel lonely,
longing to be seen,
to be heard, to be touched,
it’s loneliness for God.

The emptiness that cries out in you is holy,
it is the loneliness of God,
God’s longing
to be heard, to be seen, to be known,
Gods’ emptiness for you.

This is the Holy Trinity:
the bowl, the fruit in the bowl,
and the emptiness that makes room for the fruit.

Sit with that longing.
Embrace that loneliness.
In that holy ache
is hidden
your deepest joy.

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

March 17, 2021

         Jesus offered up prayers
         to the one who was able to save him from death.
         He learned obedience through what he suffered;
         and having been made perfect,
         he became the source of eternal salvation
         for all who obey him
                                      —Heb. 5.7-9

He was saved not from death,
but through it.

Letting go of my little “me,”
I become part of God’s infinite “us.”
Suffering this continual death
we enter into harmony with God
(you may call it “obedience”),
and thus are made “perfect,”
and saved from the thrall
of our tiny, anxious egos.

Jesus takes our hand
and walks us through the portal.
Even now
he reaches out—

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

March 16, 2021

         Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
         it remains just a single grain;
         but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                   —John 12.24

You have tilled the soil of my grave, Beloved.
Scatter me. Let me slip through your fingers.
Drop me. Let me fall
into the earth of you, disappear into you,
great, fertile Source,
womb-globe, garden tomb,
holy darkness.

Let the little me-ness of me die
for love of you.
My husk will fail,
a broken heart;
what is within,
given, urged, born
by your unseeable mystery,
will emerge,
fragile, green, tender, muscular—
later.

But first
let me fall
into you
and die
in you,
Beloved
Soil of love.

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

March 15, 2021

                  A paraphrase

Once you were drowning in a chaos of fear and desire
that sucked all the life out of you.
You were tyrannized by voices outside of you,
enslaved by the Prince of Expectations,
indebted to The Corporation,
obediently oblivious.
All of us have been there,
slaves to our ego’s fearful desires,
children of anxiety, shards of ourselves,
desperate for our own lives.

But the Loving One, who is pure tenderness,
with this huge, heartbreaking love
gets beneath us in our mass graves
and rises to life in us,
and pushes us out and makes us alive,
arm in arm with Christ,
restoring our belonging at the heart of life
as part of God’s great, holy presence on earth.
By pure gift—no reason but love!—you’ve been salvaged.

God’s gentle kindness—you get a taste of it in Jesus—
blossoms within us with blessings beyond our knowing,
blessings that outlast everything you see.

God has saved your life—trust it.
And be grateful, not smug:
this is not your doing, but God’s.
It’s pure gift, unconditional and absolute;
nothing you do can influence it.

God created you good, and nothing can undo that.
You are part of God’s love made real in this life:
that’s your true self.
Who you are, and the reason you exist,
is beautiful love.

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

March 11, 2021