Category: Reflections

             A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat,
             so that the boat was already being swamped.…
             They said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
                            —Mark 4.37-38

The howling winds of political angst scream in our ears,
and make it hard to hear each other, hard to steady the world’s rigging.
Our little paddles are nothing against the tide of greed and fear.
The staggering seas of a changed climate batter us.
Waves of fear of war and unrest, nuclear threat, microplastics,
species loss and forever chemicals swamp the boat of our future.
It’s not unreasonable to think of catastrophe, of collapse.
We are afraid we are perishing.

It is true, there is great urgency.
Jesus can’t make sane our politics or cool the earth,
vanquish pollution or banish all war.

And yet the Graceful One says, “Peace. Be still.”
We are not perishing.
We are in the boat with Jesus. God’s boat.
There is a greater goodness to which we belong—
not a scheme for saving us, but a mystery in which already
we are abiding with God forever,
sharing in God’s unfolding of life.

Even in trying times we act with both urgency and hope,
both boldness and peace.
We are not perishing. We are facing the storm
with the Guide of the Universe.



__________________
Weather Report

Severe storm warning.
Resist the temptation to shelter inside.
Go out into it,
and bring calm steadiness.
It will change the storm.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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As I round another lap of the sun
what I want at 71 is what I had
watching our children grow:
the wonder of seeing
who, by grace, I am becoming.

Oh, I try, of course, and apply myself;
I have aims and hopes and intentions;
but this miraculous unfolding is gift, pure gift.
The earth produces of itself, I know not how:
first the blade, then the stalk,
then the full head of grain.

My wish as I blow out a forest of candles
is that I might attend to what is emerging,
nurture it with care,
humbly live in harmony with it,
and gather the harvest in joy—
to let myself be my own best birthday present,
day after blessed birthing day.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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              The realm of God is like a mustard seed,
             which, when sown upon the ground,
             is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
             yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs,
             and puts forth large branches,
             so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
                                         —Mark 4.30-32


A mustard seed of grace hides in you,
small, immeasurable.

Tiny—becoming infinite.
Don’t try to estimate its power.

A mighty tree—a little shrub,
scale is useless here.

Your mystifyingly small nucleus
is cosmic, the span of the universe.

Birds of the flock of the whole world
nest in your branches.

What you haven’t even seen in you
offers shade and shelter.

Something changing the world
is happening in you.

Let the miracle unfold.
Trust, and be good soil.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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              The realm of God is as if
             someone would scatter seed on the ground…
                            —Mark 4.26

God has scattered the seed of God’s Word
all around this world.
Watch for it….


God’s will is a seed scattered in this life.
It grows without your knowing.
Watch for it….


God has scattered the seed of God’s grace
in you.
Watch for it….


You are a seed God has scattered into the world.
In what way might you bear fruit?
Watch for it….


The love you bear into the world is a divine seed.
You won’t see it grow where it is scattered.
Trust it….

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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A serpent in me
          curls around the innocent tree
                      lures my Eve and Adam
                                 who know
                        what is good for food
                and a delight to the eyes
      to defy death
   and You
as if I can do it alone.

              Over and over he lies,
                         they consent,
          and I bend away from You
   toward myself.

Always I wrestle
         like a sinewy snake
                     with the difference
                            between toward You
             and toward myself,
     coiled around each other
as they are.

I do not banish the serpent
but learn to live with him
and them
and you
and myself.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Mark 4.26-29

The realm of God is as if
someone would scatter seed on the ground

             God, I feel scattered…
             Perhaps you have scattered me here…

and would sleep and rise night and day

             How might I die and rise
             night and day after night and day?…

and the seed would sprout and grow,
the sower does not know how.

             I do not know, or need to know
             how your grace works in me, to grow in grace.

The earth produces of itself

             This is not my doing;
             it is a gift, pure gift.

first the stalk, then the head,
then the full grain in the head.

             Transformation is slow and gradual.
             Help me discern, and trust, and be patient.

But when the grain is ready to give,
at once the sower sends the sickle,
because the harvest has come.

             Abundant One, harvest me.
             Send me. I am ready to give.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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              “Whoever does the will of God
             is my brother and sister and mother.”
                            —Mark 3.35

The old Italian woman doing her rosary,
the Hindu lighting a candle,
the homeless addict sharing a sandwich,
they are all my siblings.
The Episcopalian, the pagan, the child
too young to denominationalize,
they are all mine.
We fight over our lies.
How odd that we who have come
from the same womb
should belittle each other,
should give ourselves permission
to abjure our own.
This is enlightenment:
to say to every living being,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.”
All else is illusion.

Breath prayer:
                           Siblings … welcome

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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A fierce wind is blowing inside me,
a solar wind that puts tails on comets
and also the tails of fish and their oceans,
a vast forest breathing, underground river,
something unfurling like a bell long buried
coming empty of clay and bones, almost ready
to let go its sonorous secret, music
rising in me, sung by gatherings of peasants,
a great song passed on through long generations,
a liturgy of hours and minutes and eyes and hands,
of births and deaths and daily bread and small acts of mercy,
the strange harmony of everything tangled together,
the noise of tongues of flame all murmuring together
so I can’t tell what any are saying, though they’re all
speaking great wisdom, I know, or at least
I would know, if I knew any of this, but all of it
happens in me without my even suspecting,
like my microbiome at work, spirits of another world,
as I pray the words, and long for the words,
and only occasionally let in the silence in which,
faintly but really, the smallest feathers of all this
echo and call and leave room for me, and a great Knowing
sighs, and holds me, and the sigh is a fierce wind,
and I breathe it in, without even knowing.
As I pray I know this, and give thanks
and do my best to be quiet and let it happen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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As the new moon
bends its ear to the trees
something in me awakens:
Beloved, I have not listened
to you today, and yet
all day long
you have been listening
to me.




_______________
Weather Report

The forecast
is not the real thing.
Pay attention.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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You are made for joining,
purposefully incomplete.

As you lace your fingers
we are kept warm.
When you smile your toothy smile
things are brought together.

Whenever I zip you today
remind me:

to let my incompleteness
be my gift,

to let my affection
keep warm this world,

to join the others, embracing,
holding the world together.

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