The rumor of “No” is murmured all around you.
“No” shouted,
“No” intoned like a sacred chant.
All those noes like a whole language.

It’s to be expected.
They are not how you navigate.
All those noes are the darkness of the night sky.
Your Yes is a star against that velvet.

Shine, beloved.
Someone
making their way across a sea of noes
is looking up.

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

April 23, 2021

O divine planet, gift of God,
you are our womb, our life, our body.
We belong to you.
Yet we confess our arrogant unbelonging.
We have cut ourselves off from you.
We ask forgiveness of the sea and soil,
of all that fly or swim or crawl,
of all the green beings we have harmed.
As you fill our stomachs with food
and our lungs with life, fill our hearts
with the will to be grafted back onto the vine,
to participate fully, gently and gratefully
in the great dance of all living things.
O Creating God, may we be like you
and one with you in giving life,
in creating, not destroying.
O Living Creator, O Living Creation,
by your life in us, may we blossom with love
and flourish in loveliness.

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

April 22, 2021

Shepherd me, Jesus.
You know the still waters I need to drink from,
the green pastures my soul needs.
Lead me there.

I think you will lead me to what I desire
but that’s wrong! What I desire is you.
Lead me there.

Lead me out of my fears and wants
into the path of your life.

The paths of righteousness
lead through the dark valley, don’t they?
Lead me anyway.
I will follow you,
not my fear.
Even there I shall not want.

Friend, you set a feast for me—
and invite my enemy!
You lead me to come and sit—
and I am in your house,
and my cup overflows.

Beloved, your goodness and mercy have married me.

May they shepherd me
all the days of my life.

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

April 21, 2021

I come outside
under a seething spring sky,
vatic clouds proclaiming,
gesturing grandly,
towers of light shapeshifting,
receding,
speaking of a realm within a realm.
The ground glistens.
Earth holds a scriptural silence.
I wake to knowing
the eternal mystery,
constant state:
something has passed.

________________
Weather report

Mystery,
as a low pressure region
of the warm, moist unknowable
moves through our lives.
Precipitation: heavy to transcendent.
Highs beyond our understanding,
lows beneath our being,
increasing throughout our lifetimes.

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

March 20, 2021

         We know that we have passed from death to life
         because we love one another.
                   —1 John 3.14

Whenever we fear loss,
loss of place or possessions, comfort or control,
in our fear we are already lost;
we are in the grip of death.

When we love someone
we are not afraid of the cost,
not afraid—
raised from the dead.

In love, giving ourselves away,
we receive life that can’t be taken from us,
eternal life.

This is how we pass from death to life,
how we experience eternal life:
we love one another.

God, your love raises me from the dead.
May I live the eternal life of your love
today, and all the days of my life.
Amen.

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

April 19, 2021

      First the walking
the long hollow walking
utter loss
uttering loss
the muscle of grief
the unknowing of wisdom
surrender of what we think is
      Then the mysterious accompaniment
unseen unknown sure
realm from within become beside
      The unraveling of known texts
into unimagined questing
questions from behind the eye
behind the heart
sight athwart insight
the possibility of possibility
      And then the bread
sun become food
energy made matter
a body re-bodied anew
that realm become this one
      the sharing
absence made presence
death made life
in suddenly familiar undying love—
      And in an instant
this instant
there is no “first” and “then”
what wasn’t is
what can’t be is
everything is and is so
      in this now-ness
now we see
we see Now
we see You
     Now changed
joyed
to tell
to cry out in wonder
      now
running
long ecstatic running

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

April 16, 2021

             Praying 1 John 3.2-3

Beloved, we are God’s children now;
         I am your child, I am beloved,
         I am yours, I am of you.
         I am.

what we will be has not yet been revealed.
         I am not done.
         I am becoming. As you will.

What we do know is this:
         I seek knowing deeper than thinking.

Christ, when you are revealed,
         I open my eyes,
         I dare to imagine.

we will be like you,
         beloved, made in your image,
         divine, breathing your breath.

for we will see you as you are.
         See you in all things,
         see through the eyes of love.

All who have this hope in you
         trust even in the dark.
         What is is becoming.

purify themselves, just as you are pure.
         Raised to new life,
         full of your light,
         pure love.

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

April 15, 2021

         …Jesus himself came near and went with them,
         but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
                   —Luke 24.15-16

When there is shattered glass in my heart,
when the road is long and dull,
when the past has bent, the future vanished,
when I seem to walk from darkness toward darkness—
I pray not that the story be changed
but that my eyes be open
to you,
here beside us,
opening our eyes.

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

April 14, 2021

Even as the golden dust of the resurrection falls,
settling on our shoes like heaven’s pollen,
as we look up at angels receding,
as the exuberant news echoes in our hearts,
even now, stepping into new lives
of joy and gratitude,

our hearts are broken,
we lament… we are silent… we scream.
Injustice continues its hungry rounds,
death is granted permission to hunt on our grounds.
Another shot rings out.

We cry out. How long, O Lord?

But we don’t cry alone.
The song rises—the sorrowful, courageous song,
the hymn of gentle defiance,
still flows through the throats of the faithful.
This,
this wounded garden, this is the very place of resurrection.
We who have died and been raised are not afraid
to cry out, to be silent, to listen, to act, to sing.
We will do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
We will no longer be afraid
to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God.
Even in the lingering darkness we are not afraid.
For Christ is rising. Christ is rising indeed.

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

April 13, 2021

Dear oak,
your twig tips swell and soon
will give us leaves, sweet green.
You’ll sprout then wave them patiently,
and drop them in the fall,
as you have, I’m guessing by your girth,
a couple hundred times or more.
You never tire of this,
never tire of losing and greening,
never tire of being an oak.
The day will come when you drop them
and lift them up no more,
but being an oak, that will likely be
long after I have done the same.
Meanwhile I pray
not that you endure, nor I,
but that as long as I do
I never tire of this.

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

April 12, 2021