Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
         so must the Human One be lifted up,
         that whoever believes in them may have eternal life.
                   —John 3. 14-15

Lifted up—made visible, so all can see and be healed.
         Christ, you heal me,
         and I give you thanks.

Lifted up—praised, adored, held up as a model.
         Christ, I turn to you,
         that I may follow.

Lifted up—on a cross: condemned, tortured, executed.
         Christ, confess I am part of your suffering.
         May I be part of your healing.

Lifted up—raised from the dead.
         Christ, through your death and resurrection
         lead me to new life.

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

March 9, 2021

Abandon your desires
and the longing of God rises in you.

Want nothing
and God’s hunger fills you.

Lay down your power
and the power of love

is a hammer in your hand
that is not in your hand, but God’s.

Searching, put away your lantern.
See, the candle is already lit within you.

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

March 8, 2020

        “Stop making my Abba God’s house a marketplace!”
                   —John 2.16

I live in the crowded marketplace,
among its clutter, its anxious hubbub,
ruled by dealers and scales,
transactions and expectations,
by what I’ve earned, what I deserve,
what I have to offer, what I can afford.
Moneychangers change my inner thoughts
into what’s acceptable.
There are things I can sacrifice
instead of giving myself.

The Beloved overturns all that.
Tosses out my moneybags.
There is no fair exchange,
only me, and the Beloved,
and the love between us.

         Beautiful temple,
         quiet, empty sanctuary,
         two chairs
         close together.
         Holy of holies.

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

March 5, 2021

        Making a whip of cords,
         he drove all of them out of the temple,
         both the sheep and the cattle.
                   —John 2.15

Let’s correct a few misconceptions
from your Sunday School comic book pictures.
First, he doesn’t use the whip on people.
He uses it to herd the animals out.

Second: he’s not mad. This isn’t an outburst.
(It takes time and patience to braid a whip.)
It’s carefully staged symbolic street theater: a protest.

Third: the moneychangers belong there.
They exchange Jewish coins, acceptable for offerings
or for buying sacrificial animals,
for the “unclean” Roman money that people carry.
It’s how you make a sacrifice.
And they aren’t overcharging.
Jesus isn’t criticizing “commercialization.”
He’s protesting sacrifice.
(Mark says he wouldn’t allow anyone
to carry a vessel through the temple.)

A deep instinct tells us our brokenness before God
can be fixed by transferring it elsewhere—
making another creature (or person, or race)
suffer for us. A little saving violence. A scapegoat.
Jesus disrupts our “sacrifices.”
(After all, we’re not making the sacrifice, the sheep is.)

He doesn’t use the whip to hurt people,
it’s to rescue the sheep.
“Stop this,” he says, on behalf of God.
“I will be the sheep.”

Our brokenness is accepted, as is.

God is the one who suffers.
We break all ten commandments
when we pretend otherwise.

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

March 4, 2021

         Then God spoke all these words:
         “I am the Holy One your God,
         who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
         out of the house of slavery;
         you shall have no other gods before me….”
                   —Exodus 20.1-3

Some think of the Ten Commandments
as the “Thou Shalt Nots,”
the Big Ten Don’ts.
“Don’t do this, don’t do that.”
But they’re not so negative;
they’re the way we practice faithfulness.
They’re the Ten Do’s.

1. Give your life to the One who gives life and sets you free.
2. Trust that God is greater than you can imagine.
3. Let God use you, not the other way around.
4. Let yourself be, without having to do.
5. Honor the world you belong to.
6. Practice anti-violence.
7. Be faithful, and help others to do so.
8. Set your heart on sharing.
9. Be truthful.
10. Practice gratitude for all you have.

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

March 3, 2021

Upon arrival she was a little lost—
it’s a pretty big place, after all,
and she hadn’t thought of that—
and she was looking for her mother
and shocked that she couldn’t find her.
A deep sadness came over her,
like she’d made a mistake,
she was in the wrong place,
or maybe she was in the Wrong Place:
this was hell: looking for your beloved
and never finding them.
It took time to figure out:
nobody was sorted or separated
by place or religion or race or tribe,
no countries or neighborhoods or families
or anything else, just souls,
and there were billions of them,
going all the way back to the Neanderthals,
not to mention the dogs,
so how could you find one person
in such a galaxy of souls?
Despair seeded in her,
but before it could sprout
she had met so many great people,
not to mention the dogs,
and they were really nice,
in fact there was so much love,
and they were such angels
that that was enough,
freeing her from longing,
loving the present moment
and all it held,
knowing her mom was there, too,
somewhere, surrounded with the same love,
so much love,
love that was bliss,
it was infinite,
and really, who could want—
how could there be—
anything more?

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

March 2, 2021

         “Destroy this temple…”
                   —John 2.19

God, give me courage to destroy
the sacred structures,
so familiar and safe,
that sustain my habits and beliefs
and protect my benefit,
while sacrifices are made
on my behalf (not my life, not my blood).

Give me the audacity to overturn
the tables of racism,
to drive out the moneychangers
of privilege and entitlement.
Give me courage to disrupt
my worship of my self,
the temple of my own well-being,
so the body of my self-giving
may be raised.
Give me courage to allow you
to tear down and raise up
even me.

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

March 1, 2021

Thick, liquid light
poured form the moon’s pitcher
under the newly rimed beech tree
makes everything look so different.

I have studied this tree

but there is always new light
in which
I have never seen it.

__________________
Weather Report

Variable,
as conditions shift continually,
often obscuring
not reality but your perspective.
Expect intermittent clarity
as a large mass of wonder
causes what you’ve already seen
to precipitate as not everything
there is to see.

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

February 26, 2021

         Those who want to save their life will lose it,
         and those who lose their life for my sake,
         and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
                   —Mark 8.35

Enclosed in the nut of myself,
         inside the hard shell,
                  I am a dead seed. A stone.

Live inside-out,
         lose the shell, give away the seed,
                  and life begins.

                           •

True life is to be in the Beloved.
         To be in the Beloved is to be in love.
                  To be in love one forgets oneself.

Losing one’s self,
         one’s self-selved self,
                  one enters the Beloved’s self,

eternal, blissful, even in struggle,
         and—how can I tell you this?—
                  really, really alive.

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

February 25, 2021

        He began to teach them
         that the Human One
         must undergo great suffering.
                   —Mark 8.31

Not just the one human, but The Human,
all of us, wherefore Peter wanted none of it:
plagues of virus and violence, hate and greed,
the lost mourned, futures mourned and dreaded,
great suffering, great suffering.

This is the Cross—no divine scheme,
but our septic rut,
how wrenched we are,
suffering suffered
and suffering caused,
the haunting claw,
the jaw yet to come,
world’s mess and mangle,
deep well of anguish, deepest wail. This—

this is where the Beloved
joins us,
bears our wounds,
shares our trauma—
                                 and asks us to follow.

So we open our brokenness,
our trembling selves,
to the Loving One,
who enters in,
seeps in the blood,
sleeps in our grave
with an arm around us,
and after time,

oh, after time,
with an arm around us,
                      begins to rise.

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

February 24, 2021