Category: Reflections

           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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I come at night
in the dark

secure in my maturity
but you say be born

I want something to cling to
but the wind, the wind blows

I take a breath, this one breath
life now, for now

and then another, given
All of life is breath

received and released
beginning again

like a birth
through the dark tunnel

received into hands I can’t see
trusting what I can’t grasp

given
beginning again


               [John 3.1-19]

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (519.4KB)

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Snow covers the branches,
covers the ground.
But it doesn’t hide the earth,
it is the earth.
As the snow covers
grasses waiting beneath it
the grasses cover soil,
the soil covers bugs and microbes
which cover roots
over layers of earth
over the water table,
where the snow will go…
Nothing is a cover. All of it is part.
Look beneath the visible.

           You desire truth in the inward being,
           therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
                           —Psalm 51.6


________________
Weather Report

Low visibility,
thick clouds, blankets of snow,
heavy fog,
and all manner of obscurity,
all of which, as much as solid stone,
is certainly true.

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (470.3KB)

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           Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
           to be tempted by the devil.
                           —Matthew 4.1

O Steady One, steady me.
I am unbalanced by secret weights of fears,
tugged at by invisible strings of desires,
and I stumble, crash into folks, break things.
I don’t act because I’m afraid I can’t succeed—
I wish I could turn stones to bread.
I don’t love because I’m afraid of getting hurt—
I wish I could jump off cliffs fearlessly.
I cling to things because I’m afraid of being without—
I wish all the world could be mine.
But my wants are wayward, my fears are lies.
The power, the security, the belonging I seem to want
are all in you and you alone.

Touch my desires, Beloved,
and bend them back toward you.
Lay your hand on my hungers and steady me.
Mend my wants with your generous grace,
sweeter than bread with honey.
Heal my fears with your perfect love,
the earth from which I cannot fall.
Calm my anxieties with your steady presence,
for you are the world to which I belong.
You settle me with trust, courage and gratitude,
for I have all I need, abundantly.
You whisper to me gently, Oh, fretting soul, relax.
I have you.

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (984.1KB)

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My mind says I don’t understand.
            My body says I’m not ready.
                        My soul says burn me up
                                    and make me into the ash
                                    you place on the Virgin’s forehead.

My words say I’m too mixed up.
            My tears say I’m unworthy.
                        My breath says reduce me to dust
                                    and gather me up in your hands
                                    and breathe into me.

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (345.2KB)

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I squat beside a smoldering bin
where serpents of smoke
snake up from gravely burning
palm branches into air,
gravelly and gray.

Praise and adoration
burn so easily! – so quickly turn
to nothing, to smoke
and ashes, rising
on a breath of wind.

I stir the fire with a stick,
piercing it in the side.
The smoke brings tears to my eyes.
I turn aside for breath.

This corpse is me, these ruins mine.
My prayers are smoke,
rising on a breath of wind.

Spread my ashes, Jesus,
in the garden where you
always wait for me,
pray for me, long for me.

I am sorry. My sorriness is smoke,
rising into the air, into your prayer.
My sin is ashes, burned up in your love,
rising on a breath of wind. Gone.

All has turned to nothing
and a breath of wind, fresh,
rising.

__________________
Listen to the audio version:

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (785.3KB)

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