Category: Reflections

When we’re hurt we naturally seek
to offload the wound or loss in blame,
as if the pain might stick to the fault, in someone else.
So we’ll even curse the coffee table—
“Stupid thing!”—for being there.
But of course projecting our pain doesn’t shed it;
it only buries it deeper, and in fact becomes
a way of hanging onto it.

Blame is a heavy load to carry,
the careful accounting, the accrual of debt,
care for the scaffolding of deserving,
the work of keeping the pain unfinished
because of someone else’s fault.
As much as I insist otherwise,
even when the other continues in evildoing,
refusal to forgive is never about the other but about me,
and my invisible chain to the past.

It’s a tough ask,
to lay down my burden and accept my pain,
but that’s how I get free:
accept myself as hurt, flawed, broken—
wronged, even.
So to forgive someone
is really to forgive myself.
Free to love myself, flawed as I am,
I am free to love the other, flawed as they are,
to know they too were moved by hurt they couldn’t bear.
Though I don’t condone or even trust them still,
I let go of debt. I free myself from the account.

In forgiveness I am free to love even my enemy;
only then am I truly free.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Resentments
are the ticks and burrs
from the meadow of life
that stick to you.

No one suffers from them but you.
You’re no more noble or deserving
for wearing them.
Pick them off, every one.

You may have to revisit some hurts,
but, friend,
clean yourself up.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Where two or three are gathered in my name,
           I am there among them.”
                           —Matthew 18.20

God is love.
Wherever there is love there is God.
The Holy Trinity is relationship.
Wherever there is relationship there is God.
The one, the other, and the energy between.

Loving your neighbor and loving God are one.
Every encounter is a holy encounter.
Every conversation is prayer unacknowledged.

Every hurt is a crucifixion,
every kindness is a hymn.
Every word, even a casual greeting,
is a gift left at the altar.

The Immense One is here,
disappears into the vibrations between us
and shimmers there,
singing, pleading, blessing.
Listen.

Meet your neighbor worshipfully.
Love reverently.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Owe no one anything, except to love one another.
                           —Romans 13.8

And consider yourself owed nothing.

In the culvert of consequences,
there are no surprises.
In the machinery of commerce
everyone is indentured.

But the meadow of grace is alive
always and only in the present moment.
New creation. No mortgage.
Owed and owing nothing.

Renounce your claims

and everything is a gift.

This is the scandal of grace.
Nobody owes anybody anything.
It’s all gift.

Your hard earned cash
or the next breath, all of it.

In the fresh present
there is only freedom and miracle,
wonder and gratitude,
receiving and giving with joy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           If one sins against you,
           go and point out the fault
           when the two of you are alone.
                           —Matthew 18.15

Talk with people, not about them.

Don’t underestimate the power of this challenge.
To do this you stand on your own legs.
You renounce having others speak for you.
You take responsibility for your feelings
and don’t sublet them for another to control.
You honor your heart, your experience and its integrity.
You rely on God’s grace rather than your own comfort.
You trust your worth regardless of another’s reaction,
your belovedness regardless of others’ discomfort.
You free yourself from imagining
that you can manage another’s discomfort.
Knowing your dignity is untouched,
you subject it to your love.
You express your love for them
by not shielding them from the truth.
You respect them by not speaking ill of them to others.
You go to where you know you may have to forgive.
You open yourself to hearing how you also have sinned.
You open the door to reconciliation,
which opens no other way.

To be so honest, so forthright, gently but clearly,
you are transparent to the gospel.
You are free, and not afraid.
You are light and not shadow.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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This mountain I climb,
does it feel my tiny, astonished footfalls?

This river I wade in, does it notice
what of me it carries to the sea?

The stars, they don’t have any idea, do they,
of my admiration?

The bee working the blossoms
doesn’t suspect, does it, my gaze akin to worship?

And you, are you aware of the Mighty One
stooping to adore you?

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Flying across the country
in our little enclosed world
of seat backs and tray tables
I see all these little worlds down there,
the little farms, the towns,
the tiny vast sprawling cities,
and each is a world,
and each is a world of worlds.
In one there is joy, another labor,
someone searching here and resting there,
joking or weeping or dying or rearranging a drawer.

My family gathers, all ten of us,
a world of worlds, the ones we carry around with us,
meeting and overlapping and flowing into
and out of one another.

Sleeping, I am a world of worlds,
my past, my hopes, all there,
my brain dreaming a world,
the mites on my face in their world,
the microbes in my gut in theirs,
my knees whose world is not like my forehead’s,
all in the one world of me.

When you meet someone
there is no travel guide
to all the worlds they come from,
all the worlds they see,
all the worlds they are.
Only the reminder that
we are always learning a new place,
and that there is only one world,
all of us part of it,
little cells in a great living being.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I’m going on vacation for a couple weeks.

To vacate – to leave, give up or relinquish,
such as a place or an office.
To evacuate.
To lose in order to find.
I’ll vacate the premises;
I’ll not be writing.

To become vacant.
To create a vacuum.
To go on vacation
I’ll empty my mind.
I’ll make an empty space.
I’ll make room in my life.

(Those who stuff their lives full
have no room for anything;
those who empty their lives
have everything.)

I’ll go on vacation
(though not with a vacant expression)
empty-handed,
with nothing to show for my life
but itself

and return—amazing!—
full of life.


See you in September.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           She said, “Yes, Lord,
           yet even the dogs eat the crumbs
           that fall from their masters’ table.”
                           —Matthew 15.27

You will be told you’re not worthy.
There will be heavy theology behind it.
It will be untrue, but seemingly irrefutable.

But a voice in you knows.
A Wisdom knows otherwise.
Knows you belong at the table.

She pleads for your wholeness.
She doesn’t back down.
She will confront the Almighty.

She’s uncredentialed.
Speaks with an accent.
Hides in out of the way places.

Find her.
Let her speak.
The Divine listens to her.

She is, in fact, divine,
the mother of your soul,
securing your life.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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You hardly notice do you
the little sprite
who comes along behind you
erasing everything
all your failures
all the complicating little details
all your successes—
       (things that something in you
       works so hard to remember)—

rubbing them out with a silent little eraser
until there’s nothing
but this moment

and a great, deep affection
coming from somewhere unseen
a living breathing cherishment
holding you

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