Category: Reflections

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

She lives a beckoning.
Her hands beseech
in drawing water, pounding grain.

An invitation dwells within
the practiced grace of tending to the elders,
the invocations and priestly gestures
of washing pots, of cooking soup,
the welcome of a small dirt floor made clean.

She lays her eyes like hands on things
and consecrates them: cups and stones,
and children, and their tears;
her noticing, her calling to the holy.
She knows no saintliness beyond the plain
embrace of all that is, the feel of walking,
the sacredness of how we’re given, pure,
so confidently to each other here.

She does not question the roughness of her life,
but uses it to scrub her wisdom’s tabletop;
and yet with every breath she begs a question.
Her undemanding silence is a bidding,
her simply being, her vocation here:
to make intimate spaces for eternity to dwell.

The great round pot sits, washed and empty.
And there, beside the broom, as yet unseen,
dear Gabriel smiles at her and draws a breath.

[1998]

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

         Beloved, my joy is in you.
         Keep me mindful of my joy always, always.

Let your gentleness be known to everyone.

         Be my gentleness, God,
         gentle in all things.
         

The Lord is near.

         Beloved you are here;
         you are coming anew.

Do not worry about anything,
but in everything
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known to God.

         I give you my thanks. …
         I give you my worries. …
         I give you my hopes. …

And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

         Be my peace, Beloved.
         Your peace guard my heart.
         Your peace guard my mind.

 

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         Sing aloud, O daughter Zion…
         Yahweh, your God, is in your midst…
         and will rejoice over you with gladness,
                  and renew you in love.
         and exult over you with loud singing.
                  —Zephaniah 3. 14, 17

God has no doctrine, do you know that?
Only delight.

The Desired One comes to you,
waits outside your house in the morning cold,
seeks you even in the worst neighborhood,
for no fancier reason than this:
the Beloved likes you,
and wants to be with you,
and hopes you will fall in love.

It is only the lost
for whom that is not enough.

Our Lover comes to us
even in our greed and terror
with no more complicated plot in mind
than to spend the awful hours and years
with us
and make them paradise.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Don’t go near that tree.
It looks fit for a holiday, spangled,
with gifts brightly wrapped,
the fulfillment of our desires.
Don’t be fooled.

An ax waits at its roots,
sharpened for everything
but mercy and justice.
On this tree hangs the Despised One
whose gift is to rob us of our desires
and leave us with only compassion,
to take our coat and food
and make us share them.
He comes to baptize us with fire,
to winnow out our despair,
to burn the chaff of our self-enclosure,
to take our security and our weapons
and leave us with nothing
but the armor of God.

He comes as a poor baby
asking to be fed,
a refugee begging for home,
a prophet toppling our walls,
upending our kingdoms
of exclusion and privilege
that abide lovely presents under the tree
bought with blood and abuse,
that abide black bodies bleeding in streets,
raped in silence, lying in cells.
These kingdoms are doomed
by the unquenchable fire
in that little infant.

Don’t go near the tree. It’s not safe.
The gift under it is repentance.
A winnowing fork. An empty grave.
It’s liable to tip over this world—
only so gently we can’t stop it—
and build a new one
you can’t recognize

                 except
in the eyes of a child,
the song of a mother,
the hope of poor, cold shepherds
on a dark hillside.
Don’t go near—
                 oh, never mind.
It’s coming anyway.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

O night of wondrous mystery,
you enfold us in your treasured darkness.

O star of hope and longing,
you shine in our most simple sky.

O winter wind wailing,
you mingle with our sighs, our songs.

O heavenly choir, behind night’s deep curtain,
you draw your single breath.

O silence, rife with God,
we lean toward the musical pause.

O song, O throat of heaven,
you find your sweetest voice in us.

O nerve, you will with perfect will,
and we move, we know not how.

O holy child, in your becoming
we become.

O night of the unending unseen,
blossom in us slowly.

O star, so small and excellent,
shine in us as long as you need to.

— December 7, 2015

         But who can endure
                  the day of the coming of God’s Chosen One,
                  and who can stand when that one appears?
         For God’s messenger is like a refiner’s fire
                  and like fullers’ soap;
         and will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,
                  and will purify us.
                           —Malachi 3.2-3

O Burning One, come
and light the fire of life in us.
Grant us consolation
only for a moment;
then sharpen our pangs.

Sing us no lullabies.
Awaken us, shock us to life,
tear off our complacent shawls,
the cloak of our selves
wrapped around our selves.

Boil off our rage and our greed,
wreck our powers
and redeem us from our violence.
Purify us of our acid willingness
for others to suffer for our comfort.
Peel off the invisible coat
between us and the Other.
Refine in us the beauty and courage
of delight in self-giving.
Melt away all in us that is not You.
Purify us in your consuming fire
that burns away all that is not love,
your cleansing grace that bathes
away all that is not grace.

Let it scare us. Let it hurt.
Let it revive us.
Do not be timid with us,
Divine Little One.
Come, O burning One,
and burn us to life.

— December 4, 2015

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         

Against the brutal urge
only a mass of gentle people
will be effective.

Against the deep night
which is not bottomless after all
only light will bring release.

Against the lie that nothing can be done
only people doing it anyway
will prevail.

Against our own despair
only one who comes in love
can defend us.

Against the monstrous powers
only the invitation to love the poor child
will save us.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         I am confident of this,
         that the one who began a god work in you
         will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
                  —Philippians 1.6

Yes, that’s a typo. I do that a lot.
It’s supposed to be a “good work.”
But this time I’ll leave it. That is my prayer.

                  •

You give me no punishment,
no requirement, no burden,
only you.
Repentance is not my work but yours:
you are a child growing within me.

I surrender myself to your deep delight.
I make of my rough heart
an open manger.

Come to wholeness in me,
that I may become
what you already cherish.

Come, be born in me.
Come, give birth to me,
Holy Child, my Lord,
my Mother, my life.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

         
         Prepare the way of the Lord,
                  make a straight path for God.
         Every valley shall be filled,
                  and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
         and the crooked shall be made straight,
                  and the rough ways made smooth;
         and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
                  —Luke 3.4-6

God of love, take my heart and change it.

Take what is rough in me and let it become gentle.

Take my fear and let it become wonder.

Take my anger and let it become sorrow.

Take my grief and let it become compassion.

Take my discouragement and let it become acceptance.

Take my doubt and let it become courage.

Take my hurt and let it become forgiveness.

Take my not knowing and let it become faith.

Take my self-centeredness and let it become love.

Take my broken heart and let it become my strength.

Take my life and let it become yours.

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         
         
Late afternoon,
darkness walks into the neighborhood,
moves from room to room,
wraps me sitting here,
some kind of quiet that seeks time and space.
Its partner stands up in me.

I could deny it, get up and hit the lights.
Turn on the TV and invite a crowd,
some noise.
But I sit, letting the dark soak in,
letting it pile up in drifts,
letting the emptiness open up in me,
the silence slowly dilate.

What is this descent?
Am I depressed? Work-weary? Let down
as the day’s adrenaline drains out?
Should I call a friend?
Why does it seem so perishable?
I sit and wait for it to speak.

No, this is not a loss, but a return,
the opening of a space,
the ripening of a friendship,
not abandonment, but an embrace.
It is the One for whom even
beneath the sigh of distant traffic
or the hum of the refrigerator
my simple breathing,
in and out,
being here,
is enough.

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

To receive Unfolding Light as a daily e-mail,
write to me at unfoldinglight(at) gmail.com