Category: Reflections

                “Moses, strike the rock, and water will come out of it,
                 so that the people may drink.”
                                                                    —Exodus 17.6

Awful journey. Barren place. 
Deep thirst. Despair, looking back.

Imagining this is where the journey ends.
Dry rock. Hard place.

Yes, and this: there’s no water in it—yet.
But there will be, if you strike the rock.

You don’t have to believe. Just swing. It’s not
the rock. It’s God’s grace and your willingness:

not knowing, foolish as can be,
only trusting. Courage.

There will be water.
Strike the rock. 

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

September 25, 2020

         The chief priests and the elders of the people
came to Jesus as he was teaching, and said,
“By what authority are you doing these things,
and who gave you this authority?”
—Matthew 21.23

“Just who do you think you are?”

It’s a favorite question of people
locked in a ladder universe,
a skinny two-dimensional hierarchy
in which everybody knows their place,
and it’s small:
the dominant caste at the top,
subservient castes beneath,
all in order.
And the job of the people above
is to keep the people below from rising.

No one, of course, not even death itself,
could keep Jesus from rising.
Or raising up his Beloved.

You are not on a ladder.
You have the authority
of being created in God’s image.
God gave it to you.
That is the highest authority.
So let your light shine.
Live as God’s Beloved.
Speak the truth, embody resurrection.
Be the glory of God.
That’s Who You are.

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

September 24, 2020

                      This is for all of you,
               no matter which hemisphere you live in.

Six months ago
an old woman walked in from the garden,
carrying the basket that is sometimes full
then empty, sometimes empty then full.
She noticed the little changes
in the leaves on the hillside trees,
not much yet, but she noticed.
She sighed, turned and looked
at the garden, and the long road
purling around the hill,
the sun just beyond the horizon,
remembering for a moment how it had been,
before turning into the house,
and what comes next.

Now, the same thing,
only it’s the other season.

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

September 23, 2020

For the empty seat, we hold silence.
         Love, have mercy.
For the two hundred thousand, we weep.
         Love, have mercy.
For the homes incinerated, we mourn.
         Love, have mercy.
For the rule of law, we lament.
         Love, have mercy.

For kindness and nonviolence, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.
For courage to stand, to speak, to act, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.
For faith in one another,
that we still hold the future in our hands, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.

For justice that dismantles oppression,
hope that overcomes despair,
for faith that overpowers dread,
for love that defeats fear,
for joy that will not be taken from us, we pray.
         Love, have mercy.
In the face of all that oppresses,
give us trust in grace unseen;
give us hearts to rise, to serve,
yes, even to sing
         for life,
         for life.

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

September 22, 2020

I open my heart’s scrapbook.
I bless every picture, every page:
the carefully posed triumphs,
the candid moments,
the ugly ones (how did they get in there?),
the scraps of memories, fond and not so.
I bless them all. Each is part of the tale.
The blessings I remember, those are easy.
I hold them up to the light and say thank you.
The blessings I don’t remember, never noticed:
those, too.
The wounds, the bent places,  the purple scars,
the lumps and limps
I take up in my arms and I kiss them,
for they belong, invisibly laden,
still teaching, still unfolding.
The times when fear overpowered love,
when the child overwhelmed the adult,
the mistakes, the terrors,
the little tender weak places that still tremble,
still fall to their knees—
each is a page in the story.
Each I take in my hands and bless:
holy, holy,
mystery…

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

September 21, 2020

           When the Israelites saw it,
             they said to one another,
             “What is it?”
                                    —Exodus 16.15

The word “Manna” in Hebrew
sounds like “What is it?”

It’s not a name,
it’s a question.

There is no handle for grace.
No tag, just a tug.

No logic,
just wonder.

You can’t name it,
understand, measure it.

You can only take it in.
Like a kiss.

Grace comes to you.
It leaves a taste in your mouth.

All you can do is receive it,
and wonder.

And live
the question.

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

September 17, 2020

                         They asked, and you brought quails,
                 and gave them food from heaven in abundance.
                                     —Psalm 105.40

The resilience
that will get you through
the worst troubles
is not inner strength
but simple trust
that in every moment,
no matter how dire
there is grace enough
to get you through
the worst troubles.

___________________
Weather Report
Manna:
blessing precipitating
even from dark clouds,
falling into the lowest places,
and though it may taste like ashes,
giving life.

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

September 16, 2020

The Landowner replied, “Take what belongs to you and go;
I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.
Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?
Or are you envious because I am generous?”
—Matthew 20.14-15

There is no such thing as deserving. None.
No one is owed anything.
One’s work, behavior, virtue or sin is irrelevant.
God loves each of us the same—infinitely—
according to God’s love, not our “deserving.”
God is free from our past:
God’s love isn’t determined by what we’ve done.
The devil wants you to fear
that God doesn’t really forgive, doesn’t just plain love,
but demands some kind of transaction,
some making up for something,
some reward or punishment, some quid pro quo.
This is how Satan gets us to eat the fruit of the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Oh, how smart we are.

Jesus will have none of it.
He rips at our secure place in the caste system
(not up with the saints but higher than those people… ).
And he rips at our assuming to measure.
And our assuming (how handy for us!)
we are owed more than others.

Listen: Everybody gets God’s love, everybody the same.

Listen to your heart when I say that.
Everybody gets God’s love just the same. Everybody.
Even you know who.
What in you wants to say, “But….”?
Is that God’s voice.. or something else?
Why do you fight against the infinity of God’s love?
What is the fear, the hurt you hang onto?
What if you were to let go, and let God love?
What if there is no deserving, but only giving and receiving?
What if you are one of those who is given
way more than you earned?
Will you fuss… or just say thanks?

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

September 15, 2020

Hear our cry, O Holy One,
let our mourning rend your ears.
The fears for which there are no words,
the loss for which there are no tears:
the ashes of our hopes, our lives
say all we can, and no more.

The flames engulf the innocent,
the smoke of our burnt offerings rise,
offerings of our pride that makes others
our self-saving sacrifice.
Have mercy on us, and those who mourn.
Give us grace in our weakness.

O Holy One, have mercy,
and let our anguish rend your heart.
How long will you hold us to the heat
of our sin, yet make others pay?
The greed we’ve burned the world with,
the hate that scorches our kin?
Forests and prairies go up in smoke,
black bodies fall in blood,
we pass the plague among us,
our selfishness unmasked.
How long will you give us such freedom
to harm, to shoot, to demonize,
to split ourselves from each other
and from our very life?

O Gracious God, the smoke of mystery
clouds our eyes;
and yet we see you here,
moving among those who help,
who give themselves to calm the flames,
to heal the sick, to defend the poor.
You who brought us through the Red Sea,
bring us through again.
You who defended the lives of slaves
rise, and act, for so you always do.
May our hope be your worship;
may our justice be your praise.

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

September 14, 2020

Welcome those who are weak in faith,
but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.
We do not live to ourselves.
—Romans 14.1, 7

Whenever I quarrel I am likely serving my own beliefs,
but not my neighbor. I’d rather be right than loving.

It is tempting to convince those in error they are wrong;
but it is more effective to simply be present to them in love,
even as I am disagreeing with them or confronting them.
Whatever grip they have on bad ideas will not be loosened
by my proving myself to be right, but by their experiencing
a better way. If it is not a way of love, I have lost.

I don’t have to agree. I can offer myself and my beliefs
with clarity, without either apology or malice,
but humbly, for I am not omniscient,
and yet steadfastly, because it is indeed my belief.

In the context of my respectful, compassionate care for them
and my full embodiment of my beliefs in love
they might come to see the wisdom of my views
that in itself overcomes the weakness of their own.
And they might not. But my calling is not to defend my beliefs;
it’s to love my neighbor. “We do not live to ourselves,”
nor to our faith. We live to love.

Unless we trust love even in the face of outright evil,
we don’t really believe in it, do we?

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

September 10, 2020