Category: Reflections

Indigenous Peoples Day

Near my house is Willow Street.
Most of it is a mere path through the woods.
A couple hundred years ago it was the King’s Highway,
the main route traveled up the Maine coast
by the European invaders (“settlers,” we call them).
What was it before that? I don’t know.

I walk the land where I live
and offer up prayers for the Wabanaki who lived here
before the white people came.
I do not know where the holy places were.
Perhaps it’s all holy.
Perhaps it’s made so, like Auschwitz,
by the suffering that happened here.

I walk the land where I live
knowing I do not know the wisdom that walks here,
the stories the land remembers,
the people who are still here.
They are still here. I do not know them.
I must come to know them.
I must walk as if this place may be holy.

I walk in confession, in repentance, in humility.
I walk in gratitude.
I walk in beauty.

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

           Seek the welfare of the city
           where I have sent you into exile.
                           —Jeremiah 29.7


God, this country is sick.
Can I just move to another place?

No. Seek the welfare of the place where you are,
even if you feel exiled from your hopes, your values.
The city where you are needs you.
Who else will carry my love among them?
The country where you live
needs your witness, your justice, your love.
You who can afford not to flee, even though you suffer,
be there to welcome others who are fleeing because they must.
Even in horrible times, even in sick places,
my beloved people need the love you bear to them.
There, in your witness, in your love, is my grace.
There, in their welfare, is your welfare.

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

           If we have died with him,
           we will also live with him
                           —2 Timothy 2.11

Your ego is always calculating:
“What’s me, what’s not, how do I protect what’s me?”
That’s handy. Keeps us from stepping out into traffic.
But it’s purely self-centered, the opposite of love.
To love you’ve got to let go of what the ego wants.
Which feels like dying.
Die anyway.


           God of Love,
           let my selfish desires perish
           in your perfect love,
           so that I too may love.
           Let my little “self” die
           and Christ live in me.


Breath prayer:
                      Die … and live

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

Spirit of God,
           breathe in me.
Be my breathing,
           that I may breathe deeply of life.
Breathing in, may the wind of your earth enter me
           and become me,
the gift of life
           transformed into my cells.
Breathing out may I breathe
           your grace and your peace.
In your grace
           breathe me out into the world.
Breathe in my speaking,
           that I may speak truth.
Breathe in my singing
           that I may sing joy.
Breathe in my silence,
           that I may listen deeply.
Breathe in my walking,
           that I may go in peace.
Breathe in my dying,
           that I myself may be your breath
breathed out into the Mystery,
           in peace, breathing peace.

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

           One of them, when he saw that he was healed,
           turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
                           —Luke 17.15

Thank you, God, for all the ways I have been healed.
For health in my flesh, the miraculous way
          my body knows how to heal itself.
For your healing of my self-esteem,
          the gift to see myself whole, as you see me.
For the renewal of my relationship with you,
         gratitude where once there was doubt.
For the healing of my hope,
         trust where once there was despair.
For the restoration of relationships,
        forgiveness where there was brokenness.
For the healing of community,
         inclusion where there was division.For the mending of the world,
   where, whether there be disease or not,
           and people able-bodied or not,
           whether there be yet justice or still injustice,
all shall be well,
            and all manner of things shall be well.

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

           “Were not ten made clean?
           But the other nine, where are they?
           Was none of them found to return and give praise to God
           except this foreigner?”
                           —Luke 17.17-18

Gratitude begins
where entitlement leaves off.

Gratitude is not a feeling;
it’s a practice.

First be grateful,
then see what you receive.

The more you practice gratitude for the little things
the more you experience life as an unexpected gift.

Keep this prayer always in your heart:
“For what I am about to receive, thank you.”

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

Holy One,
in the storm of my daily life
           be my calm.
In the drought of my despair
           be the rain of hope.
In the earthquake of my emotions
           be my steady ground.
In the forest fires of my fear
           be my safe place.
In the flood of anger around me
           be my high ground.
In all of life’s uncertainties
           you are my sure and certain thing.
I thank you. I trust you.
           I give myself to you.



_________________
Weather Report

Threatening,
as rapidly changing conditions
and the breakdown of a weak front
produce high pressure anxiety areas,
with strong winds of expectation.
Seek shelter.

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

           By the rivers of Babylon—
           there we sat down and there we wept
           when we remembered Zion.
                           —Psalm 137.1


Mourning the world
we had hoped to live in,

we do not surrender our sorrow
but give thanks for it,

knowing our grief is the soil
where seeds of deep joy are rooted.

We release our dreams
to the Love that hopes all things,

trusting the mystery of grace
shall make all things well.

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

           We are just ordinary workers;
           we have done only what we ought to have done.’”
                           —Luke 17.10

I watch them preparing the new neighborhood:
laying sewers, then storm drains,
then water lines, then electricity.
Layers of sand and gravel, packed,
beneath what will be pavement.
They labor hard to do it well.
One says, “We bury our best work.”
Today I am thankful for ordinary laborers
who work unseen to make things right:
plumbers, orderlies, clerks, maids, parents—
and for the great infrastructure of grace:
those who practice kindness, forgiveness
and generosity unnoticed, who silently bless,
and all the unseen prayers that hold this world together.

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

           If you had faith the size of a mustard seed…
                           —Luke 17.6

God, I do not ask for great faith
Give me the smallest faith.
Give me a mustard seed of trust.
Let creep into my heart the tiniest ant of compassion.
May microbes of gratitude do their work in me.
Let the smallest atom of your joy thrum in me.
Murmur only your briefest syllable to me.
Let me be the faintest star in your beautiful night,
a single note in your earthly chorus.
Just a hint of you is all I need,
for merely a cell of you is all I am.
By your infinite grace that is enough.

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