Category: Reflections

           “Those who drink of the water that I will give them
           will never be thirsty.
           The water that I will give
           will become in you a spring of water
           gushing up with eternal life.”
                           —John 4.14

I’m thirsty.
I’ve drunk, oh, from spigots and bottles
and hoses and fountains, piped in from vendors,
drunk in a thousand places—and still thirsted.
Not my lips, but my soul.
The water I seek isn’t for soup or laundry:
I’m seeking you.
I have no bucket, no special ability, just thirst.
And I come to this spring, bubbling up
from the deep water table of you, God,
this powerful flow, this living stream of water
gushing up in me, given, free, flowing,
your love rising from the depths unhindered,
this power to live with love and courage,
this joy and hope, this clear, sparkling beauty,
this living stream of your life, Beloved,
your eternal life, flowing through me,
not subject to weather or commerce,
or my doing or not doing, but steady, constant.
This is eternal life: not far-off or later,
but here and now, and infinite.
I am the well. You are the water.
Flow in me.


Breath prayer:
Love … flow in me

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

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                God so loved the world
                to give God’s only begotten.
                             —John 3.16

Oh Divine Love,
open my heart to the depth of your love,
that you give of your very flesh for us;
that you care for this whole staggering world,
that we are so honored and cherished,
and that I am included in your embrace,
that I am so deeply loved.
Give me a heart of trust and gratitude,
and a even portion of your love
for this dear, hurting world.

Breath prayer:
                        Infinite … love

            Now the Lord said to Abram,
            “Go from your country and your kindred
            and your father’s house
            to the land that I will show you.”
                        —Genesis 12.1

God, lead me.
Give me courage
to be led to a new place
I will not see till I arrive.
Give me trust that you go with me,
that you are my journey
and you are my road
and you are the place
where you are bringing me.

Breath Prayer:
                          Go … with me

            You must be born again.
                           —John 3.7

To be as involved in you as a fetus
As with you as a child on your hip

Swaddled in you
borne again and again

To be this small,
curled in your hand

My only world your eyes
my only land your arms

To have no style yet, no works
only breath

Utterly dependent
nursing at your miraculous breast

To learn to walk, to speak, to begin
and then tomorrow begin again

day after day
new, innocent, unknowing

Every day a precipice of discovery
of you, of me, of how to be

toddler-eyed at the wonder
of this world unfolding into me

the realm of the real again each day
as if for the first time amazed

Never to leave this umbilical faith
never to outgrow you

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

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A child plays on the banks of a mountain stream.
He slips, falls into the icy current.
His mother’s heart falls also—crashes—yet leaps,
with a parent’s deep love-panic.
She rushes down the bank, out into the water.
Of course she will endure the rocks, the cold, the danger,
she will grab her child and bring him to safety.
She doesn’t care how disobedient he was to go there.
She doesn’t care that he told her he hated her.
Doesn’t care he ruined the couch yesterday,
woke her three times last night, and is going to need braces.
Without reserve she plunges in and holds him tight.
Of course. Because she loves him no matter what.
This is how God so loved the world,
not in sending a rep, not in working a deal,
but by rushing down, diving into the pain,
saving us from ourselves, and holding us
without judgment or condemnation
because she will never abandon her flesh and blood,
never.

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

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           You must be born again.
                           —John 3.7

In the season of Lent Jesus invites us
to practice the discipline of beginning.

God, give me grace to let go of who I have been,
what I have done and not done,
all pride of accomplishment and guilt over failure—
and start over.
Give me such trust in your absolute, profound forgiveness
that I am free to begin anew.
Help me to let go of having it all figured out,
to be a rookie. Beginner’s mind.
To be a learner, attentive each moment,
free of old habits and assumptions,
seeing as if for the first time.
To ask for help and be willing to be led,
as utterly reliant on you
as a newborn infant in my mother’s arms.

Breath prayer:
                            Begin … anew

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

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You cannot get life, earn it,
keep it, or store it up like money.
It is breath, Spirit.

You receive it.
Then you release it,
and become open to receive again.

You cannot hold it.
You must receive it.
God gives it to you.

Let go of your life,
accomplishments and mistakes,
all you deserve — good and bad —

and instead receive it anew from God
in this moment,
a single breath.

Let your repentance
be simply to breathe,
to receive and let go.

All the things you have to do
and all the things you want to do
disappear into the breath.

It is a death and resurrection.
Let yourself disappear into the breath,
the spirit, and be born again.

Go slow enough to live in the breath,
to surrender the life you build and hoard,
and to live the life God gives you.

Falling and rising, your breath
is the gift of life from God,
made new in every moment.

Breathe gently.
Breathe deeply.
Breathe life.

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

1. Someone wants you. Conceived you. Is waiting.

2. There is a very thin boundary between you
         and what nourishes you, embeds you,
         becomes you.

3. There is no coming to life without pain,
         no awakening without surrender,
         no struggle without hope.

4. Through the valley of the shadow of death,
         Red Sea, gaping tomb, birth canal,
         life draws you, knowing.

5. Let the Beloved push you out of her
         into her lap. It is with love
         that she lets you go.

6. Breathe in. Breathe out.

7. Shed the sac of all the awful things.
         Let the cord of your shame and suffering be severed.
         Each breath, you are delivered
         into the new world.

8. Beneath the slime you are beautiful. You are new.
         Allow yourself, naked, flawed and bewildered,
         to be perfect, to be held, to be adored.

9. In this moment, the Holy One gives you life.
         The Holy One alone.
         Stay here.

10. Breathe in. Breathe out.

11. Each moment her sweet umbilical breath.
         Receive this life,
         and bear her love into this day.

12. Breathe in. Breathe out.

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

God so loves the world
that she gives herself,
gives the love of her life,
the child of her heart,
gives of her own flesh,
so that everyone who trusts,
who receives grace,
who puts their heart
in the embodiment of love,
will be rooted in life,
and be given life,
life that is stronger than death,
life that can’t be taken from them.


Love doesn’t bind or distance us
or violate our belonging,
but saves us
from our splintering from the world,
from the layers
between us and what is within us.
Love doesn’t throw us away,
but salvages us for love.

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

Ice makes and unmakes and makes again the bed
of the pond. It’s February: moody, adolescent,
with assaults and disappointments still to come.
Snow repents halfheartedly of its cheeriness
and becomes sleet, then ice, then rain, then ice.
A hardship of frozen cattails rings the pond.
On the black water two ducks, companioning,
cruise placidly, as if unfamiliar with February.
Beneath the silvered surface their little orange feet
work steadily, but they glide as if pulled by strings.
Eating from the bottom they upend their butts
without shame and find what they need,
their eyes soft among the clicking reeds.
Together, without guile, they explore the bank,
in whose mess I imagine they’ll build a nest.
They wait. They don’t watch the sky.

It is possible to live with grace.

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (683.0KB)

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