Night comes, hooded, to claim us.
The tide of darkness rises,
gathers us into her skirts,
folds everything into her arms,
the houses, the sleepers in the houses,
the flowers all turned black.
The thickness of the dark
is the thickness of forgetting, of dying.
The light that shines in the darkness, it too is dark,
and perfectly still.

But then night forgets its secrecy,
darkness slips back into itself.
Light wakens slowly in the next room.
Houses come back to us like shadows of shadows,
then smudges, then dark clouds,
then islands rising from the sea, then houses.
The gardens reconstitute themselves,
the flowers each where they were,
the trees in their places.

One by one we rise from the grave of sleep,
wake into our lives again,
and here we are—amazing!—
everything restored again,
the same as it was,
mostly,
but for some unknowable effect
of having passed through those regions,
of having been brought out.

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

August 25, 2021

—a parade
of all the things
you were supposed to have loved,
everyone you should have cherished,
even in clamped and fractured times
someone who believed in you,
the little thing one might have been grateful for,
everything you missed…
It’s a long parade.

It ends the moment you enter it.




_________________
Weather Report

Capacious,
the air heavy with possibility
under a cumulus of blessings.
At lower levels obscuring fog will persist;
at higher levels wonder will give way to gratitude,
the winds of fortune loaded
with more grace than you can absorb,
though the wise will try.

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

August 24, 2021

         Whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile.
         It is what comes out of a person that defiles
                   —Mark 7.18, 20


Ignore the things that befall you,
what people do to you—
these are nothing.
The Beloved really doesn’t believe
what they say about you.

Attend to what comes out of you:
is it love and honor
or something else,
self-regard or self-loathing,
loveliness or ugliness?

The Beloved has planted a beautiful rose in you,
and expects it to come up and blossom
even through the manure.

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

August 23, 2021

         Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Holy One.
         A cloud filled the house of the Holy One,
         so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud;
         for the glory of the Holy One filled the house of God.
         Then Solomon said, “God, you have said you would dwell in thick darkness.”
                   —from 1 Kings 8.6-12


It is not all brightness and light.
The cloud of God is dark, and we cannot see.
God is all love and mostly mystery,
without clarity, without certainty.
We live with that.
The darkness, children, is blessed.
In that unknowing, in that unsayable truth,
burns the heart of What Is.
We gaze into the dark glory,
not to wish it bright,
but to learn to trust the dark.

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

August 20, 2021

         Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh,
         but against the rulers, against the authorities,
         against the cosmic powers of this present darkness,
         against the spiritual forces of evil.
                   —Ephesians 6.12


When you fight the devil with the devil’s weapons
you have joined his side.
Our struggle is not against violent people
but against violence.
Our struggle is not against people at all,
even the most evil ones,
but against the evil itself, that old ruler,
which clenches our hearts as well as theirs.
Our struggle is against systems and structures,
the powers that dehumanize people and diminish life,
the spiritual forces we’ve ingested,
the authorities we’ve knelt to.
We are rebelling against our own masters.
To vanquish the conquerors
we must vanquish our desire to conquer.
Before we are victorious we must become free.

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

August 19, 2021

         How lovely is your dwelling place, O God!
         Even the sparrow finds a home at your altars.
                   —Psalm 84.1, 3

You, small and ordinary,
have a place.
You, beloved,
fragile and minor, belong.
You, sparrow on the sidewalk,
chipping at the smallest seeds,
the color of waste, the color of forgetfulness,
skitting under the bush
to avoid being stepped on,
you, bird on the wing, nestless—
you, my little refugee,
you, precious, are welcomed
here in the Holy of Holies,
in the heaven of my heart.

Come, Beloved; nestle.

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

August 18, 2021

         Put on the whole armor of God.
                   —Ephesians 6.11

You can’t wear two suits of armor at once.
Wear either the armor of defensiveness,
the armor of being right, of superior power;
or the armor of God: the armor of love.

Dare to walk into this world
unshielded from hurt and disappointment,
unprotected except by your faith in grace
and your trust in the Love at the heart of all things.
Be willing to be wrong, to be humiliated,
to be powerless, to suffer for love.
Let there be no armor, no barrier
between you and life.

Love is vulnerability,
which is receptiveness to life.
Therein lies its power.
It’s the armor of God.

You will be wounded; but you will live.
You will not be safe, but you will be saved.

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

August 17, 2021

         When many of his disciples heard it, they said,
         “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
         Many of his disciples turned back
         and no longer went about with him.
         So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
         Simon Peter answered him, “Teacher, to whom can we go?
         You have the words of eternal life.”
                   —from John 6.60-68


See them, both, struggling?
Disciples not sure they can follow such a radical teacher.
Jesus maybe just testing them,
but maybe unsure he’ll have any friends left.
Both asking of the other:
“Can you hang in there with me?”

The Truth is like that, pushing us to the limits of our trust.
It will not let up.
Relationships are like that.
Much is at stake if we stay, more if we leave.

The gift of wisdom lies in staying,
the gift of life that can’t be taken from us.
So we accept our fear, befriend the mystery,
embrace the risk, and hang in there.
We love one who’s hard to love,
follow a wisdom that’s hard to follow,
practice a love that is sometimes terrifying.

Here, in this present moment, not in escape,
is our freedom, our life, our power.
Half the gift is in the beloved, in the Truth.
The other half is simply in the hanging in there.

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

August 16, 2021

Sometimes I just stare at the flowers.

You may be weary.
Maybe the world weighs heavy on you.
You might feel you don’t have a prayer in you.
Well, some days your soul doesn’t need to work so hard.
Souls get tired. Sick, even. 
Some days yours just needs a little TLC.
Sometimes what our soul needs is not more discipline
but something comforting and nourishing. 
Maybe even something fun.
Give your soul a break.

When your soul is weary or unwell
do something nice for your soul.
Even something silly.
Feed it with grace at the roots. 

If that day is not today, it will come. 
You have permission.

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

August 13, 2021

Beauty is God’s bait.
She sets it out and waits

for you to notice.
You pause and gaze,

and, God hopes, linger a bit,
rapt, while she stares at you

because she loves seeing
your face like that.

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

August 12, 2021