Category: Reflections

I am at peace
only as long as I ignore
the churning within,
the two angels
longing for each other
as separated lovers,
sea and shore overreaching,
undergirding,
heaven and earth
each pining for the other.

Only when they both
open their eyes
and let the other’s beauty
flood them,
let themselves see
the alien of each in me
both, not merely me but
stone, stars and all nations,
rightly imperfected in the other,
perfectly impurified
with one another’s grace,
reaching made embrace,
loving without owning
made having,
in this heavenly body,
am I finally

at peace.

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

October 12, 2020

Sometimes
you are an empty vase
on a bare table.
Time and absence
settle, silent,
dust.

Sometimes
God comes
and puts flowers in the vase.

Sometimes.

Sometimes
you
are the flower
of aloneness
in the vase
of God.

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

October 8, 2020

             He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold,
             and cast an image of a calf;
             and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel,
            who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”                                       
—Exodus 32.4

Panicked, trying to make sense
of loss, change, threat,
they turned, of course, to the familiar,
something solid, secure, visible,
looking good—a little gold is always nice.

Easy things we turn to:
productivity, respectability, success.
Something to show.
Having it, or at least the image of having it.
Easy to worship our own Stuff.

What’s yours?

But God freed us from slavery
to our stuff.
We were looking for a way
through our troubles, back to normal.
But Inexorable Love
won’t lead us back, but onward.
Probably to more troubles.
But free. Even from our own stuff.

Wilderness. A way without a path.
Nothing but the love
that will never let go of us,
so we can let go of our stuff,
and go.

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

October 7, 2020

               “Friend, what are you doing here
                 not dressed for a wedding?”
—Matthew 22.12

God has married us,
and this life is a party,
a celebration of God’s loving faithfulness to us,
and you’re invited—actually, dragged in—
not because you’re on some short list,
but because you’re alive.
Like it or not, here you are.

But, look. It’s not so serious.
It’s for joy!
It’s a celebration of love, this life.
Are you ready to party?
Are you prepared to rejoice?
Are you dressed for it?
It doesn’t have to be your best dress.
But dress like you care
and aren’t just here to snarf the free food.

Forget all the reasons not to;
be committed to celebrate,
to practice gratitude, humility, and respect,
to honor the love of God.
Put on something nice—
but something you can dance in.

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

October 6, 2020

After the fire, the greening.
After the death, the rising.
God of mercy, give me faith.

Despite the insult, the beauty.
Despite the wound, the wholeness.
God of healing, give me grace.

Within the sorrow, the joy.
Within the trouble, the way.
God of light, give me peace.

Beneath the noise, the silence.
Beneath the earth, the seed.
God of truth, give me hope.

Amidst the prisoners, the presence.
Amidst the cruel, the witness.
God of justice, give me courage.

Beyond despair, the wisdom.
Beyond defeat, the power.
God of love, give me love.

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

October 5, 2020

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is God’s doing—marvelous in our eyes!
—Matthew 21.42 (Ps. 118)

What the world in its materialism overlooks,
and in its violence rejects,
what the world accounts as nothing—
yet what God’s heart is set on:

the spirit in you the world can’t see,
the beautiful endurance the world can’t mar;
the divine presence it can’t accept
though it is not the world’s to judge;

the heart your suffering has tried to break,
the tenderness your struggles have tried to ruin,
the nobility your torments have tried to destroy:
they prevail, with God’s delight and confidence.

The Crucified One lives in you
and all the world’s mocking and its cruel graves
can’t keep the Risen One in you
from living, living on, in love, in hope, in glory.

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

October 2, 2020

 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 
For in six days the Holy One made heaven and earth,
but rested the seventh day.
—Exodus 20.8, 11

Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy.
Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt,
and the Holy One your God brought you out.
—Deuteronomy 5.12, 15

Not a day of piety and churchy things.
A day of emptiness.
God is doing the work. You are not.
You think you are more indispensable than God?
Let it go.
You have been freed from slavery,
so don’t act like a slave.
Honor your liberation, and take a day off.
Sabbath is an act of rebellion
against the pharaoh of forced labor that is in our heads.
It’s a strike. Join the strike, for the sake of all those who labor.

We empty ourselves, and wait.
Letting God and nothing else fill our time.
Letting time be a gift. Not an oppression.
Being unimportant, unproductive, irrelevant.
Being an empty canvas for God,
the warm silence of a recording studio for God.
Time to sit and receive, and to wait.
Time to behold the holiness
of the Silence at the heart of all things.

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

October 1, 2020

                   You shall not make wrongful use
                    of the name of the Holy One your God.
                                                      —Exodus 20. 7

                    …hallowed be thy name…  
                                                    —Mathew 6.9

Loving Mystery, I surrender all claim to you,
to make you mine.
I surrender all my names for you
that get me what I want.

Holy One, may all I do today hallow your name.
May every thought and word reflect your love,
may every act honor your presence,
may my very being proclaim your praise.

To all who see or hear me,
and where I am only before the angels,
and in those secret places
where no one knows but you,
by your grace in me
in everything I do today
hallowed be your name.

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

September 30, 2020

         I am the Holy One your God,
         who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
         out of the house of slavery; 
         you shall have no other gods before me.
                                —Exodus 20.2-3

No other god,
not the one who judges you,
not the one who needs for you to look good
or do well,
not the one who makes you need something
you don’t have,
not the one who goes around beating up
everybody you don’t like.
No— just the One who sets you free.

No other power,
no other fixation,
no other highest value,
no other reason—
only the One who has brought you up
out of whatever tight spot you were in,
whatever stuck place,
whatever cellar-hole,
the fear that enslaved you,
the ego that ruled you,
the shame that bound you—
the One who frees you from that.

And not the one who makes you think
you’re the only one.
Worship the one, and only the one,
who also frees every other human being alive.
who insists on such freedom
for all their children, all their Beloved.

Worship that one alone,
and you shall be free.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net 
   —September 28, 2020

 You shall not make for yourself a graven image.
—Exodus 20. 6

Of course the worst graven image of God is the old white man,
kind of distant, a little unpredictable and sometimes mean,
a user of violence when helpless to think of anything else.
Get rid of that one right now.
But all of your images: let go of them.
God is to your image of God
what the universe is to the word “universe.”

Let God be the Presence that unfolds in your presence,
the Being of Being, that words only shrink,
that, like a song, is continually becoming what it is becoming,
a symphony you’ve heard and it moves you
and echos in you but you can’t sing it.

Whatever God we were made in the image of
is more than we can imagine.
A God you can “get” is an idol,
not the real thing.

Let God be infinite and the world a little bit of God,
all joy and sorrow, beauty and brutality, all mystery,
love expanding in us, eternal,
from the beginning of time
poured into us, the glory of the entire human race,
not just one part, all of creation, not just one part,
you and all of it, and more than that.
The Holy, the One. Anything less is an idol.

Meditate on this:
There is only one thing,
and that is God.

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

September 29, 2020