Category: Reflections

           On entering the house,
           they saw the child with Mary his mother;
           and they knelt down and paid him homage.
                           —Matthew 2.11


Grown men, powerful figures,
people with authority. Kings, even.
Bowed down. On their knees.
(King James says they fell down.
Says they worshiped him.)
Prostrate. Face to the dust.
Men of power, on the floor
for a peasant child, a toddler.

Stay there a moment.
Before the hymns,
the impressive gifts,
the pious symbolism,
stay in this silent moment of worship.

Let the authority in you
kneel down before the ordinary,
the poor and plain.
Let the wisdom in you
attend to the small,
bow before the simple.
Let the power in you
fall down—fall down—
in humble honor
of the fragile and tender,
the vulnerable, the meek.
In the little ones, not in the mighty,
is the glory of God.
Kneel, wise one,
and worship.

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

           Having been warned in a dream
           not to return to Herod,
           they left for their own country by another road.
                           —Matthew 2.12

For the oak trees New Year’s Day is just another day.
For the chickadee we have not turned a new year.

But we humans are creatures of hope;
we dare to believe that today is new,

that from this day forward
we can begin anew,

forgive and be forgiven,
learn, and unlearn some things,

step out of old ruts into new adventures,
new ways of being.

God, give me courage to start over,
to start, to be open to new ways,

to risk, to begin anew,
to go by another road.

May the new year bring healing of wounds past,
gratitude and trust in the present moment,

and abundant grace and blessings
in what lies ahead.

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

           When Jesus had been baptized,
           just as he came up from the water,
           suddenly the heavens were opened to him
           and he saw the Spirit of God
           descending like a dove and alighting on him.
           And a voice from heaven said,
           “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
                           —Matthew 3.16-17


Awaking this morning, you rise
out of the waters of Creation.

Today you walk across the Red Sea. You will drown,
and come to in a new place.

The heavens are torn open forever.
You can get there from here:

Heaven has spilled out into this world.
Live this day as if you are in heaven.

You are God’s Beloved, radiant with the image of God.
You belong, and have no power to remove yourself.

You are immersed in Christ, who heals you,
who accompanies you, who dies and rises in you.

You brim with Spirit, humming within.
Let her live in you. Let her sing. Let her fly.

Let her love in her infinite way. You can give,
for you have abundantly received.

Christ will go about the world now, healing and teaching,
blessing and serving, in your hands and ears and eyes.

The fire with which God will change the world
glows within you. Tend it.

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

Jesus came down to the water, down
to where we were, his feet pierced
by the sharp stones of our hearts,
his heart pierced by our cries.

Jesus went down into the water,
immersed in this mystery we are immersed in,
down, into bottoms, into dreams,
John’s hand on his shoulder the whole time.

There he swam like a fish deep
through the springs of your life,
through the vaulted sky of water,
through the Flood, the blood-thick water.

Spring at the bottom of a well.
Underside of a boat in a storm.
A jug of wine-red water, turning. Water
so dense with God you could walk on it.

You could see him moving like a sound
down there, like a current,
like an angel or a shark, like the spirit
brooding over the waters.

He troubled the waters.
Walked through the waters.
Drowned in the waters,
until it flowed with his blood.

Buried at sea, he wrestled
with frenzied swine, with Leviathan,
and Jonah’s whale, and all manner
of monsters that haunt your murk.

Was swallowed by them all,
and in their darkest innards
they were powerless to avoid
digesting him body and soul.

Three days under.
Silence.
The cry of a bird.
John breathed deep.

In a moment the water gave him up
and when he rose, fresh like a baby,
tears flowed down our cheeks
like the Jordan river.

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

           Ahead of them went the star
           that they had seen at its rising,
           until it stopped over the place where the child was.
                           —Matthew 2.9

Odd star, no?
Rose in the east (all things rise in the east)
but scooted westward for the magi to follow—
then stopped.
Not easy for a star above a rotating planet.
Stopped and stooped, apparently:
low enough to hover over a single house.
A star that nobody else, including Herod,
seems to have noticed.
A rogue star, noncompliant with the laws of stardom.

Step over the ashes of the arguments of the literalists.
Take the story as it is.
The revelation of God will come to you
in ways that make no sense,
cannot be explained, exploited, or replicated—
heck, you can’t even talk about it sensibly.
But it is there, and it shines— in an unassuming baby,
a tender conversation, a healing, a feeling,
a fleeing family, somehow luminous,
a moment when the earth seems to hold you gently,
or just staring out the window and knowing something
unnameable, warm and attractive.
The star will go ahead of you, it will stop over you,
it will wink but not go out. It will go on.
Let your heart be led by the rogue star of God.

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

           Magi from the East came…
                           —Matthew 2.1


In you, deep enough to be foreign,
  someone seeks.

Has seen a light, a star, small,
  but enough to awaken.

Sojourns through this world,
  unceasing, undeterred.

Yearns athwart the powers that be,
          will not be co-opted.
Desires a desire traitorous to desire,
          triumphs in kneeling humbly.

Bears gifts, not demands,
          honor, not dominance.

Finds another road, always
          another way to get there.

Be still, long enough for your sky to clear.
          Let the wise ones gaze.

What is that star?
          Where is the heart’s compass?

You will find,
          and never finish finding.

Take courage.
          Follow.

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

Little birds in the woods,
they know how to sing,
they know how to hide.

The Prince of Peace is here.
Of course Herod has heard,
his men are sharpening their swords.

The prince of peace is a four year old child
who will need feeding and protecting,
and long waiting.

But he is here,
among the forgotten, the overlooked,
blamed and at risk, but here.

In his being is his working.
He knows how to hide,
he knows how to sing.

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

           We have seen his star.
                      —Matthew 2.2

           The light shines in the darkness,
           and the darkness can not overcome it.
                           —John 1.5

A star no despot can hide,
a sun no tyrant can cover.
A candle a hurricane can’t put out.
The gleam in a lover’s eye no sorrows can darken.
Beloved, you are in this world.
No thickness of night—and it is sometimes it is thick—
can dim the light of your presence.
No bushel of trouble can cover the candle of your grace.
No evil can bury, no cross overcome
the light of your love.
When our hearts are broken,
when the pall is lowered over us, shine.
When my eyes fail,
when my world goes dark,
shine in my heart,
you, my hope, my love, my day.

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

           The Word became flesh and stayed with us;
           and we have seen the Word’s glory,
           favored and beloved as an only child,
           overflowing with grace, shining with truth.
                           —John 1.14


The Beloved walks among us.
The miracle is not on one holy night,
but in every created thing:
your Word takes on substance,
your love is embodied,
not a sentiment but an act,
not a wish but a creation,
your living child, begotten of love,
actual and real and forceful
and dwelling with us.
Every living being is holy.
This world brims with your goodness.
The Beloved walks among us.
Glory to you, O God,
and peace on earth.

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

           We know that the whole creation
                      has been groaning in labor pains until now…
           but if we hope for what we do not see,
                      we wait for it with patience.
                                 —Romans 8.22, 25

Mary, teach me, your gestational faith,
the courage of your patience,
to trust God’s slow, inexorable work.
God, give me strength to stand still
against anxiety’s shrill bustle
and the world’s flustered hurry,
and my own insistent urge.
In a world desperate to be saved
give me patience to wait,
to hope and wait,
to trust and wait.
For the goodness within,
like the holy child,
grows until the fullness of time.
God of the long run,
give me the patience of Mary.

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