Category: Uncategorized

          Seek the welfare of the city
                    where I have sent you into exile,
          and pray to the Holy One on its behalf,
                   for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
                       —Jeremiah 29.7

I hear you. The urge to distance yourself,
to renounce, to escape.
You want to move to Canada.

But there is no escape.
Your hands are on the levers.
Your name is on the casings.

And there is no distance. You are one.
Doubt the illusion of separation.
The stranger’s wholeness is your wholeness.

Friend, I need you here, where you are.
This is what I’ve been preparing you for.
All that talk about taking up your cross? This is it.

I have sent you here with all my love,
love: which is courage for another.
The world’s pain is natural; your presence is my grace.

I am with you. They are all with you.
Not in the outcome, but in your connection,
is your salvation.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:44 — 2.4MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

Everybody. Nobody left out.
Accompanies the slowest.
Usually has to stop traffic.
(Grateful for crossing guards.)
Pushes whatever wheelchairs need it.
Nobody gets to rush off till we’re all here.
God is the last one across.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:33 — 771.8KB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

The bird with the mangled foot
still sang sweetly.
God, I offer you my failures and limitations;
give me courage to be as I am,
trusting your grace,
and let the divine bird in me sing.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 0:28 — 667.1KB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

You can lose it all in the stock market:
rake in a ton, but be robbed of the moment;
make a killing, but end up the one without life,
impoverished of the true wealth of having loved,
the riches of friendship compounded.
Selfishness can cost you the security
of a family you create by extending mercy,
a nest egg of beauty and wonder and grace.
You can waste your greed not just on things,
but feelings, beliefs, oh, those tantalizing highs,
and miss out on the real riches:
the exceeding value of a discerning eye
for beauty in ordinary places,
the gold mine of gratitude.
No deposit box can fail you
of the lasting treasure of watching an evening
grow dark in silence with people you love,
or listening to summer rain on a porch,
the wealth of being able to love without reserve,
from a bottomless account that grows
and is renewed moment by moment.
Look around: love-misers are never happy,
but not so with those who are generous with kindness:
it is they who are given the whole Realm.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:35 — 2.2MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

June 25 — 3:30 —Poetry Reading at Wesley By the Sea, 51 Charles Wesley Ct. Wells, ME
June 27— 7 p.m.— Conversation, poetry reading & Q&A online.
July 17 – time TBA — Poetry reading, Bethany House of Prayer, Arlington MA.

June 25 — 3:30 —Poetry Reading at Wesley By the Sea, 51 Charles Wesley Ct. Wells, ME
June 27— 7 p.m.— Conversation, poetry reading & Q&A online.
July 10 – time TBA — Poetry reading, Bethany House of Prayer, Arlington MA.

           Peter said to Jesus,
           “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here;
           let us make three dwellings…”
                         —Mark 9.5

The first is the booth of Seeing:
knowing what’s going on,
understanding, placing everything
where it belongs on our Map of Things.
      Instead there is light
      too bright to see in.

The second is the house of Certainty:
knowing there is a law about this,
knowing we are right,
and that we know all there is to know.
    Instead there is a cloud of unknowing,
    thick as ignorance and even doubt.

The third is the temple of Control:
in which our powers are enhanced
and in the end we will have deserved this.
    Instead there is not congratulation
    but instruction: “Listen to him.”

There are no booths,
only a clearing
where the Beloved enters
a barely discernible path,
     the path of mystery,
     the path of wonder,
     the path of trust.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:38 — 2.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

           It is like someone who goes on a journey,
           who leaves home and puts their workers in charge,
           each with their work,
           and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.
                         —Mark 13.34

There is something we’re waiting for—
a newness, yes, a change, and yet,
a return.

What you’re watching for is not a stranger,
but familiar, not someone new, but the one
who rules your household.

It’s not guarding, what you’re doing,
not fearful or protective:
it’s yearning.

Go, then, sit out on that porch and peer
deeper into that darkness: what is
that deepest longing that is given to you?

Honor it.
Let it be the porch light
that draws the Beloved home.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13 — 1.7MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

O Vibrant Mystery,
star-birth of love,
you who are the farthest nebula
who find me and swirl
your whole self into my heart,
the dark soil of my soul
receiving me like a grave,
the little bird that guides me,
guide me.

You who are the black hole
my understanding falls into
leaving only the shine of my wonder,
waken me.
You who are the rain,
and the air full of rain,
and the falling of the rain,
shower me with your three-fold grace.
You are the gravity of my soul;
you hold me
and I am always falling into you,
falling in you.

You only appear invisible,
but I can’t distinguish you from your love.

You who love me into being,
I will be
in you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:31 — 2.1MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS

         And all ate and were filled.
                  —Matthew 14.20

Maybe he had some stashed,
maybe people had it all along
and they just needed to share,
maybe they were all satisfied with a crumb,
maybe it meant his body, his presence,
maybe there is always more bread hidden in bread
and it only needs to be opened,
maybe he made bread just like that,
sourdough and everything.
Which it was doesn’t matter.
The sun rose this morning
with more light than you know what to do with.
More beautiful green living things reach out to you
than you’ll ever have time to consider.
More birds sing to you than you’ll ever listen to.
Immeasurable grace is poured out upon you,
splashing, most of it rivering down your legs
and into the floorboards.
More of what you need to carry on
is secreted into your heart than you believe.
There is hope enough folded into this world.
Of forgiveness and tender delight
you are given more
than you can ever use or comprehend.
Of the darkest mystery,
dense with love like the billioning stars,
you are given so much more,
even in your bleakest droughts,
your dustiest griefs and desolations,
than you can know.
And of you yourself,
given with confidence
to this effulgent universe,
there is so much more than you can see,
so much more.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:18 — 3.2MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS