Category: Reflections

           “Lord, when was it that we saw you?…”
                         —Matthew 25.37

Until we see the throne of the Holy One rightly
we see nothing.
It’s an upturned five-gallon bucket on a street corner,
a bed in the locked ward, a cot in a refugee camp.
A cell. A wheelchair. This is where the Mystery abides.
The burning Sun of Life, the hand that spins the universe,
the uncontainable Heart of Grace, will not be confined
to the familiar, the comfortable, the esteemed.
A pretty face, elegant mastery, even wisdom,
these are distractions, little baubles outside the temple.
The Ferocious Glory will not be packaged.
Look in the yellowed eyes, the matted hair.
Listen to the strange accent, the halting speech,
or mangled speech, or none. The Infinite One is there.
Maybe hardest of all, look at that annoying co-worker,
the boss from hell. No one, no one, is exempt.
No matter whose presence you are in, you are always
as close to the throne of heaven as you think you are.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God is the One
who never says: Where have you been?
         having been there.

God is the One
who never says: Why did you do that?
         except to awaken you.

God is the One
who never says: Hello,
         but only: Stay.

You pour yourself out to God,
and, fearful, mutter, “Say when.”
But God is the One
         who never says.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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O Thou who hold the future…
do you hold the future?

I long for a hand, dark and mighty,
turning a wheel, or sweeping
all away, and into place.

I want a great hawk, with black talons,
circling this world, diving even now,
to carry off our overspilling woes
and those who cause them.

But I see no hand or wing, or sense even
a hand-shaped cloud. Only a depth,
an ocean, or arms, the deepest canyon, holding us,

a swaying, as if borne over rough ground,
and a great leaning.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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To the one who limps, who is a poor dancer,
who hesitates at the escalator,
who smacks their elbow on doorjambs: Praise.

To you who never get the jokes,
who have failed at love, who feel odd in every group,
to you who hate to introduce yourself, be honor and glory.

You who have dropped the whole casserole of your life
splat on the floor, who believe you have nothing to say,
whose handshake is limp as old celery, blessed are you.

Losers and misfits and three-legged dogs, praised be you
who try anyway, for you have the courage to be
what we fear, and free of shine or polish, gleam

with the radiance of the One whose glory is not divided,
making us brave to attempt that most holy and amazing feat:
to be ourselves.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Sometimes it seems life knows what it’s doing
and then suddenly forgets, or maybe gets distracted.
You’re just going along, we say, and then suddenly
everything changes in an eyeblink. A kid is born.

Tires screeching on pavement, a slip on the ice,
one little thing that happens—and the whole world
comes undone, changed forever, the before and after
pictures so mismatched they could be from different movies.

We question the persistence of reality. Maybe we were wrong.
But maybe there’s more persistence than we see. Maybe
the tires have been screeching on that pavement forever,
the egg fertilizing, the mail dropping through the slot. Not

that fate has decreed it from the beginning, but that everything’s
possible, and life gets to choose every moment, even something
odd and incongruous. But that means that you do, too. Even
now, tires screeching, you can choose something beautiful.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Start small: this one leaf, maybe,
cartwheeling past you with nothing on its mind,
just cartwheeling. It’s finished its work. It’s off now.
Follow it to the shaggy grasses where it stops,
wild grasses who seem satisfied with themselves,
yellowing calmly at the edge of a wood,
nodding yes and no in the breeze. They
don’t seem to need to agree or disagree.
And the woods. All those trees, and not
a single opinion. Imagine all they know
about sun and seasons, nutrients and bugs,
how to endure, and how to provide,
without judgment, how they murmur
to each other deep underground in networks
reaching to the sea. And the sea that always
throws its arms open no matter what,
singing its shanties under the palm of the sky,
and the sky, all its gowns of clouds, its jewelry
of rain and snow and its blue nakedness
without any style whatsoever, going on out
into space, which also has no style, it just is,
and on beyond that into the vastness of
your heart, which, yes, encompasses
all this, and refuses to be any smaller
even though, inside God, it is the littlest thing.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Master, you handed over to me five talents;
           see, I have made five more talents.”
                         —Matthew 25.20

And what of the others,
the ones who faithfully took the talents
but didn’t make a killing in the stock market?
The one who forgave seventy times seven
and it came to nothing.
The one who marched in protests
and wrote to her senator but it was ignored.
One who loved her enemy
and they just scorned her.
The one who prayed and meditated
but never once kept his mind from wandering.
The one whose praise was never accepted.
The one who sang the song of their soul
and it wasn’t really all that lovely.
The one who told the truth and looked like a fool.
The one who shared his faith
and nobody, not a soul, cared or believed.
The one who really loved Jesus
but didn’t ever see what she had to offer.
What of them?
To them the master turns and says gently,
“Well done, good and faithful servant.
I know of one who served perfectly,
and ended in failure, crucified.
You have been trustworthy over a few things.
I will put you in charge of greater things.
For love is always risked, never wasted.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           The realm of God will be like this.
           Ten bridesmaids took their lamps
           and went to meet the bridegroom.
                         —Matthew 25.1

It’s not a test, not a sentencing.
It’s a party.
It’s not campaigners nervously watching returns.
It’s a wedding.
A celebration of love,
a joy that gives us joy,
a faithfulness that involves
the whole village of us.
Those who expect gloom, or an end,
will be surprised.
But no matter how much oil you have
the lovers will join—
God and us—
and the party will go on.
The musicians are warming up.
Even as darkness gathers,
turn your face toward joy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
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The fallen trunk rests gracefully
bent over grass and its own
surrendered branches.
Empty-handed now, it waits
for sun and rain and bugs to do their will.
Some critters make their home
among its ruins, scattering seeds.
Along its bottom edge a fungus furls
with feathered wings as if to fly.
A colony of more resplendent ones,
yellow, and with hats,
parades along its flank like awkward teens,
while yet another band atop the bark
crane their necks like explorers
peering into the new world.
And underneath, unseen,
a million worms and microbes
chew on death and make it life.
There’s no way I can sit here long enough—
the thousand years—
so see what this tree is becoming,
but only long enough to hear it ask:
“Little one, are you strong enough to die?”t

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Before there was to be a beginning
there had to be a time for it.
Who knows how long,
that abyss of longing?
And then when Your longing deepened to fullness,
having made a time for it,
You made a space for an Other,
and having nothing beyond Yourself
with which to make a space
You made space in Yourself,
an absence making room for us,
which we complain about bitterly,
not understanding that the absence
is what allows us,
and which in fact,
if we so dare to make a space in ourselves—
thus, like you, becoming both less and more—
we enter into, which we call prayer,
and perhaps even faith, or at least love:
to make room in ourselves for another.

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