Category: Reflections

These, on this pebbly shore,
four white stones beside each other,
narrow and peaceful,
are my fingerbones,
where they came to rest long ago.

There is my clavicle exposed
in the sagebrush root,
welcoming summer and winter alike.
My teeth sparkle in the glass case
of the jewelry store; I don’t mind
no one knows they were mine.

Look, you can see my intricate foot bones
embedded in this old stone,
how they stand out against the gray;
sacrum and ilium scooped out of the glacier;
femur and fibula fallen on the forest floor,
generously giving themselves
to moss and fungus and burrowing moles;
ladder of my ribs in the snow-laden branches
of the white pine, no longer needing to guard my heart;
and there in the stream a bed of my skulls,
no longer thinking so hard as the water flows over them.
That wisp of cloud passing overhead
is my breath of eons ago.

I see these things with eyes that are oceans,
through trees and rivers of nerves,
momentarily assembled from the chalk cliffs,
I, the bones of God.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Reflect on an experience in which you were hurt or troubled
an interaction whose emotional impact has stayed with you.

What is the hurt I felt, or still feel?
Am I open to what my pain may teach me?
            I let the hurts come into my awareness,
            lift them up, and look behind them.

What gifts were at work in me during this experience?
What strengths, wisdom or grace assisted me?
How was I accompanied?
             I let these things come into my awareness;
             lift them up, and give thanks.

How was my shadow involved?
What was my part, that contributed to the trouble?
What wounds were at work in me?
Did hidden energies of fear, anger, or grief in me
shape what happened?
             I let these things come into my awareness;
             lift them up, seek healing, and accept forgiveness.

And what was beyond my control?
What would have happened no matter what I did?
What were the other person’s choices, not mine?
What do I need to let go of?
             I let these things come into my awareness;
             lift them up, and let them go.

What of love have I learned?
             I let these things come into my awareness;
             lift them up, and give thanks.


* I’m adapting the examen, an ancient prayer form contemplating how we have been both in and out of harmony with God. It’s often called an “examination of conscience; ” I call it an examination of consciousness, exploring both our light and shadow sides.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Concrete is so convincing,
and time and space so often unfriendly,
and the solid earthen mass
of your failures and aloneness
and the losses and embarrassments of any day
enough to wear down your resolve,
like the ruined face of the Sphinx,
that it is understandable
that you would be unsuspecting,
and even if you thought about it
doubt the likelihood,
that even in what is harsh or sorrowful
there might be something kind
reaching out to you from the world
shining within this one.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             No one can come to me
             unless drawn by God who sent me.
                         —John 6.44


No one comes to Christ
inspired by the carnival barkers of evangelism,
or scared sinless by the fear of hell,
or set free by peer pressure, even most sweet and kind.

They come because they are drawn:
because there is Christ, before them,
beckoning, irresistible.

We can’t drive them to Jesus like a sheepdog,
or argue them close; but we can give them Christ,
give them love and forgiveness and encouragement.

There are ways—what are they? Look for them—
you can put in people’s lives what they’re hungry for,
as inviting as the smell of baking bread.

Bake the bread of love and offer it.
Open the door,
and let the aroma of grace work its magic.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             The king said to the Cushite, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?”
             The Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the king,
             and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man.”
                         —2 Samuel 18.32

David fought a war against his own son,
but asked that Absalom be spared.
It did not go that way.

When we take up arms, even in the cause of justice,
we unleash violence that we can’t prevent
from returning to us.

Today is the anniversary of America’s bombing of Hiroshima.
The horrors we’ve been willing to inflict
do not promise to keep their distance from us.

Behind appeals to a “necessary evil” is the reality
that violence is never inevitable,
but the result of our failure to find a better way.

Pray for the humility to admit our faults,
the wisdom to imagine what we nave not seen,
and the courage to keep seeking new ways.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Putting away falsehood,
             let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors,
             for we are members of one another.
             Be angry but do not sin.
                         —Ephesians 4.25-26

In this world of cruelty and injustice
it’s tempting to respond with anger.
But when you are angry, follow its thread.

You’re angry that things are not as you want them
and you feel powerless to change them.
But deeper than that is sorrow for those who are wounded.

Your anger comes from desire for power.
Your sorrow comes from compassion for others.
Let your anger lead you to your sorrow.

When you respond to injustice, even terrible evil, with anger
you are tethered to your own ego.
When you respond in sorrow you are rooted in God’s love.

And there, there in God’s broken heart,
weeping and powerless, in God’s crucified One,
is hope, and courage, and infinite power.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The great blue heron
steps into the pond,
one step, exactly where she intends,
thoughtful, graceful, watching.
She knows the way to the Caribbean,
and has seen the northern tundra,
but now she is here.
As readily as she attends
to the magnetic streams of earth
and the ancient skyward pathways,
now she watches this pond,
the waves of motion beneath,
the glimmers of life here and there, all of them.
Her wisdom is not understanding
but attention, pure presence,
here in this breeze, under this sun
and these heron-colored clouds.
The resting frog, the shadowy fish,
the snake hiding in the reeds
all are within her gaze.
Without her willing them to be there,
they are there, and she watches them.
The humans passing by,
the drifting of the clouds,
the rotation of the earth,
the movement of the stars through the ages
all are in her stillness, in her gaze.
Her watching encompasses everything;
her listening goes out into all the world.
Serene Adept,
she takes a second step.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I don’t offer up my prayers to God;
God offers them to me.
It’s like picking basil;
there are so many leaves,
offering themselves to me;
I won’t take them all,
but pluck the best.
My prayers don’t rise up to God
like incense; they are like
the aroma of basil rising up to me.
I savor it as I pick each leaf
and put it in a paper bag to dry.
After my morning prayers,
all day long,
my hands smell of sweet basil.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Do not work for the food that perishes,
             but for the food that endures for eternal life.
                        —John 6.27

How much do we work for comfort,
for reputation, for feeling we’re in control,
for having our expectations affirmed,
for being right?
How much of that will matter on your deathbed?

What people think of you will perish.
All your accomplishments will disappear.
But the love you leave behind will endure,
because it is part of God, and therefore eternal.

Let your labor be to receive God’s love
and give it all away,
and the God of Life will feed you abundantly.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             They said to him,
             “What must we do to perform the works of God?”
             Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God,
             that you believe in him whom God has sent.”

                         —John 6.28-29
This is my prayer, O Love,
not that I believe anything about you,
but that I believe in you, trust in you:
I entrust my life to you.
I let you have my life
and you live in it;
you move in me like my deepest urges.
I am your ship and you are my captain.
I am the muscle and you are the nerve.
I trust you; heal my distrust.
Possess me, that all of my life
may be the works of God.

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