Category: Reflections

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

Dearly Beloved,
Grace and Peace to you.
         

It does not take—although
it could—our breath away,
this warm November day
that should be dense and dark;
instead it gives.

The park is washed: a tide of light
leaves the day’s bright spine
exposed, the clear sun beached
upon the evening’s shore,
reposed where children each
reflect it, young and pure.
How is this day not old
and grey, but yet a bride,
lap full of wedding gifts,

all tied with gold, with light?
It lifts our hearts, too cold,
and too soon winterized,
to watch our children run
in ribbons through the gold,
the bright gift

wrapping strewn, untidy sheets of light,
across the afternoon,
not innocently laughing
jewels into our laps
until our arms collapse,
and we are warm. How can
this laying on of hands
of light, so late, be right?
What are we to remember
of this gilded not-november
miracle of days?
The oracle of praise
this day of Magi lays
abiding at our feet,
the reason given

for tidings of light,
light piled against the trees and benches
against our legs and feet,
against our thoughts of sleet:
God has no oughts, but gifts.

This is our tithe: let light
be more than interlude,
life little more than this—
delight and gratitude.

          [1990]

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

         

         
Oh Infinite Love, I thank you.
For the sun, generous and faithful,
for the moon resplendent, I thank you.
For bones and stones and stars and trees,
for light and gravity and photosynthesis,
for metabolism and the miracle of nerves
and the mystery of eyes I thank you.
For the colorful parade of evolution,
for all species and our amazing diversity,
and each person, each in our own way
trying to find love, I thank you.
For the earth and its abundant provision,
its patience and acceptance, I thank you.
For every bite I eat, its genesis in your love
and in the earth, and every species and person
in its long road to my mouth, I thank you.
I thank you for those who have blessed me,
known or unknown, for those I love,
for those whom I shall one day bless, I thank you.
For the gift of my faith and doubts,
my pains and exultations, for all my tears
and the divine gift of laughter, I thank you.
For your love, coming to me through so many,
and through the air, flowing in and through me,
for the grace to love, I thank you.
I thank you for the gift of gratitude
and pray that it may always bless me,
sway me, and lead me toward you.
Oh Infinite Love, let this be my life,
that I thank you and thank you and thank you.

__________________
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

Extreme gratitude.
Outward conditions will vary throughout the day
as an intense high pressure zone moves through,
bringing with it a dense, cold air
of deadlines, household preparations,
long lines and frozen traffic;
news of unpleasantness will cloud the horizon.
However—
an inner receptiveness will meet every moment
with awareness of an unseen Presence
and awe and gratitude for the gift of life
mixed with marvel at all existence, including its pain,
producing a flood of wonder, patience,
forgiveness and generosity
unaffected by external conditions.
So in the end it will be a glorious day.

__________________
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

      
         
                  
We can only gaze at you,
your light and your darkness,
your visible and your hidden,

and trust what we never see,
how solid, how old, how there,
passing through veils,

not arguing about your absence,
waxing above our ignorance,
tugging at us, our blood and its flows,

what in us wonders and what is resolute,
the long story and your longing,
face made lovely with scars,

and try to imagine what you have seen,
what miracles and terrors, what night
secrets, what things in daylight

when we thought you weren’t looking,
like God, how when we’re not enraptured
we ignore you,

looking down at us with all our sorrow,
all our sleepless nightmares,
looking always with such tender beauty.

         
         

__________________
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