Category: Reflections

Christ carries the great burden on his back,
weeping, bleeding. The burden is you.
He carries you to Golgotha,
though people scorn him.
Though he stumbles, he carries you steadily.
On the hill he is nailed to you.
You hold him as he dies.
His blood runs down you.
He is heavy, bearing the weight of all the world.
Yet he weighs no more than God.
He dies and is buried, and you are relieved of the weight.
You stand through the night, alone and still.

The next day is quiet. Stillness.

On the third day, with the rising light,
he comes to you, alive again.
He takes you in his arms,
bathing you in light,
until you are light.
He begins to pull you up,
his cheek pressed in to you,
his sweat and tears running down you,
your grave loosening, stones rolling away.
He draws you up out of the ground.
It cannot hold you; its grip is nothing
against his gentle, insistent lifting,
until you are free.
Your arms and legs are strong and lively now,
your heart beating with life.
You have gained the strength to bear God.
He walks with you.
You hold onto him,
but he is not carrying you.
You are carrying him.
You walk with him
back into the city, rejoicing,
for your burden is light.

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

           “Leave her alone.
           She bought it for the day of my burial.
           You always have the poor with you,
           but you do not always have me.”
                           —John 12.7-8

He covers for her nicely, but let’s admit:
it was an awkward moment, no?
Why does he let her do that to him?
Luke’s story is even more alarming:
it’s a woman of the street, nobody Jesus knows,
and not a gathering with friends, but a public affair.
Why does he let her do that? And defend her?

For the same reason
when your kid gives you a picture they drew
you put it on your fridge.
One way to love someone is to receive their gifts.
No judging, no positioning yourself. Just receive.

Love means receiving.
Receive with humility what others have to offer.
The awkward gesture, the insufficient talent,
the little crayon drawing that is someone’s life.

After all,
God accepts your whole life, delighted,
and puts it on her fridge.

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

           I want to know Christ
           and the power of his resurrection
           and the sharing of his sufferings
           by becoming like him in his death.
                                —Philippians 3. 10

           Mary took a pound of costly perfume
           made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet,
           and wiped them with her hair.
                                 —John 12.3

Mary was not merely anointing
those feet, but becoming one with them,
so soon to be pierced, and her heart as well,
nailed to those feet,
blood of her tears streaming down,
oil of his burial bathing her hair,
buried with him.
You don’t need to go out and suffer;
only find the suffering close by
lay your hands on it, anoint it,
soak into each other.

Unnoticed, Christ passes by,
the aroma of your suffering in her hair.

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

           Those who go out weeping,
                      bearing the seed for sowing,
           shall come home with shouts of joy,
                      carrying their sheaves.
                           —Psalm 126.6

           “She bought it so that she might keep it
           for the day of my burial.”
                           —John 12.7

The flower blooms only briefly,
but so sweetly.
True faith practices grief,
letting go and letting go
of letting go,
anointing our losses with
perfume and tears,
kneeling at the feet of the Beloved
we can’t possess or cling to,
trusting that the love that aches
bears us through,
until grief becomes gratitude
and sorrow an open heart,
and loss becomes sowing.
And we behold the blossom.
Only the soul that seeks love
and not happiness
finds joy.

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

           Mary took a pound of costly perfume
           made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet,
           and wiped them with her hair.
                                 —John 12.3


Beloved,
you pour your love out on me,
healing oil and sorrowing tears
sweetly mingling,
your hands a gentle bathing on my feet.
Your tender grace anoints,
soaks in, moves up my body,
a warm baptismal rising tide.
The fragrance of your love
fills the house of my heart.

Beloved,
in thanks I pour out myself for you,
my most precious essence,
the whole bottle of me.
May the fragrance of my love
fill the house of my life.

Beloved,
you wash our feet,
humble and patient,
honoring, blessing,
cleansing, perfecting.
The fragrance of your love
fills the house of the world.

Here in your ego’s death I die;
here your waters break and I am born.
I walk into every moment
redolent of the fragrance of that love.

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

           Mary took a pound of costly perfume
           made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet,
           and wiped them with her hair.
                                 —John 12.3


The disciples don’t understand,
too sure of themselves to imagine the tomb,
to feel the sting, the ache.
Mary does.
Feeling the dullness of his friends
and the harshness of the crowd,
the stone of loneliness,
heart breaking for the Beloved,
for the utter loss they begin to share already,
the gutting of the tomb
already being dug in her heart,
she performs a miracle:
in the shadow of the cross
an act of thoughtful kindness.

Jesus, may I be your Mary.
Let this be the whole of my religion:
to feel the ache of those who suffer
and to offer kindness against cruelty.
Let this be my worship:
simply to be kind.

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

           “Go get the fatted calf and kill it,
           and let us eat and celebrate;
           for this son of mine was dead and is alive again;
           he was lost and is found!”
                           —Luke 15. 23-24

At times I am the younger son,
throwing away the grace given to me.
At times I am the older, privileged,
praiseworthy, deserving, resentful
of the grace given others—
throwing away the grace given to me.

Prodigal means generous, not wayward;
this is the parable of the prodigal father.

Prodigal God,
bless me that I may be prodigiously generous,
forgiving and welcoming, without judgment,
giving without thought of deserving;
that in my generosity of heart
I, too, who have been lost may be found,
that I who have died may be alive again,
your prodigal child.

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

           There was a man who had two sons….
                           —Luke 15.11

How easy it is to fall into a selfish religion,
a faith based on what we want from God.
One son says, “Give me my share of the property.“
The other says “You never gave me so much as a goat.“
Neither wants their father, just his stuff.

Selfish faith wants things, not relationship.
Both sons break their relationship, betray their kinship,
remove themselves from the family.
“Treat me as one of your hired hands.”
“I worked for you like a slave.”

To both of them alike the father leaves his home,
and goes out to his distant sons—
one geographically and the other emotionally,
but both of them having removed themselves—
and he invites them back in.

Sometimes it is a gift,
responding to “Treat me as your slave“
with “Put a ring on his finger.”  
Sometimes it is a challenge,
responding to “that son of yours“
with “this brother of yours.“
But always it’s an invitation to join the party.

God does not give us things,
God gives us relationships.
When Jesus heals people he restores them to community.

Let what you seek bring you deeper in
to your kinship with all people, and all creation.
It is only as kin that we can truly pray,
and that we truly receive.

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

       The son said,
      “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
                I am no longer worthy to be called your son.“
       But the father said, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—
                      and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
       And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.”
                           —Luke 15.21-23

God is not bound by our shame.
The robe and ring are not merely gifts:
they signify family. Belonging.

You can’t unbelong from God’s family,
can’t be outside God’s intimate bond.
You always belong, always have, always will.

Run away; you are still God’s beloved child.
Come crawling back, poor of all but guilt;
you are still rich with God’s delight.

Delight, child. Beyond mere acceptance,
deeper than forgiveness: God’s utter delight—
reason for singing and dancing.

You belong, sealed, to God’s delight—
compassion, healing, gratitude and delight.
God has nothing but delight for you.

Repent of refusing God’s delight.
Your penance, hard as it is, is to come in and feast.
Your penance is to enter into God’s love and joy.

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

           Then the younger son
           came to himself…
                           —Luke 15.17

Love,
you are not asking me to leave myself
and become someone strange.
You lead me to become myself.
To leave the far country of the things I desire,
to surrender the false ID all I pretend,
and return to the one you create me to be.

Even all my running away was running toward something,
toward a part of me I couldn’t name,
a place where you knew I would be—
and you were there, waiting for me.
Even my leaving was approaching you.
Even my scattering of treasures
was a seeking of what I treasure the most.

By your grace, then, may I come to myself:
to name my desires and fears,
to face my wounds and shadows,
to own my life—
and to come home to the beloved I am,
to the me of me, the you of me,
to know where I belong,
to remember whose I am.

Moment by moment
I pray to quit the pig sty of expectations and pretense
and come home to my belovedness,
come to myself, which is
to come to you.

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