Esau said, “I am about to die;
               of what use is a birthright to me?”
                   —Genesis 25.32

How quickly we condemn Esau
for not playing the game of privilege and status,
for not pretending there was some supremacy
of one brother over another.
How easy for us who have inherited a stolen advantage
to fault him for trying to survive—at the cost of the lie.
How smoothly we avoid noticing
how our own ancestor takes advantage of his brother’s need,
demeans his life, and lives the rest of his own
with a claim to superiority worth no more than a bowl of soup.

How often do I make someone sacrifice their dignity and identity
just to survive my greed?
How often do I profit from my imagined birthright,
set apart from my darker sibling
by a bowl of extorted stew?

It must be really good soup, huh?
Am I proud of it? Do I know the recipe?
Am I willing to give it away yet?

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

July 8, 2020

When everything changes,
you lose the caravan,
chaos juggles you:

drop your burden,
sit and make a little fire of silence
and despite the rush, wait.

The Stranger comes,
sits with you, stares into the fire,
speaks only after a long time.

You thought of what you fear
and what you want.
You forgot me.

You ran off and had an affair
with your secret lover Anxiety.
I’m still here. Always have been.

Let the chaos be.
Sit here with me.
The lions will come again any minute

but first sit still and let me gaze at you
because I love being with you
even when you look away.

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

July 7, 2020

Since I wrote last two weeks ago a lot has changed.
I’ve retired from the ministry and moved to Maine.
New place, new life, new title.
For eighteen years I’ve been signing these pieces “Pastor Steve.”
For forty years I’ve known myself that way.
But now I’m not a pastor any more. Just a person.
I’m still a minister of the Gospel, like every baptized Christian,
but not appointed to shepherd a flock.
Now I have to find who I am other than “Pastor” Steve.
I thought about signing “Brother Steve.”
I like the monastic sound, the communitarianism, the intimacy.
But still it has a “sound.” Gives a slant. Sets me apart.
Well, I’m a person, not a role. Just one of us. Just me.
Just Steve.

This is always life’s challenge, to become, not to accomplish.
To dwell in our being, beneath and beyond all doing.
I am no different from a monk or a prisoner in their cell,
a great leader at her podium
or an Alzheimer’s patient in a locked ward:
just a beloved of God, living this moment,
bearing the glory of God in my own way.
Find that glory within, and live it out,
free of what anyone thinks or knows of you,
even yourself.
Find the self beneath your name,
God’s secret name for you,
which no one can say like God does:
Beloved.
That is enough.

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

July 6, 2020

In between things
is the silence that holds everything together.

Enter the silence and return to the root,
the place where you are held together.

The substance of the divine,
perfectly clear and transparent.

The silence in which the Virtuoso
sings you into being.

The blank page where
the Beloved is drawing you.

The darkness in which God says
“Let there be light.”

Enter the holy temple
and sing that hymn.

_______________
Weather Report
Calm,
as the whole earth dwells in the pause
between the breath out
and the breath in.

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

June 17, 2020

I looked at the tree blossoming in spring
and said, “Who are you?”
And she said, “I am God, of course, becoming beautiful.”
And I beheld her.

I looked at the sea and said, “Who are you?”
and the same voice said, “It is I, flowing within you.”
And I opened myself.

I listened to the silence and said, “Who are you?”
and she said, “I am holding you.”
And I listened more.

I looked at my troubles and said, “Who are you?”
and I heard: “I am your own broken heart.”
And I wept with gratitude.

I looked at the suffering of the world
and I asked, “Who are you?”
and she said, “I am in labor pains.”
And I moved closer.

I looked at the unknown and said, “Who are you?”
and the silence said, “I am Becoming,”
and I stepped into the darkness.

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

June 16, 2020

I’ve been working for years
on a cardboard stand-up figure
of myself,
perfecting every little bit,
carrying it around,
setting it up everywhere.

It took a lot of beating,
so I had to keep fixing it.
But it was a handy replacement,
though a chore to carry around.

I’m glad I have it.
Now I’ve discovered
I can cut it up
and use pieces as placemats
or paint pictures on them.

How scary and lovely
like a first date
to discover there’s no replacement
for myself!

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

June 15, 2020

O Beloved, spring of mercy,
call us, and no matter the path ahead
we will go with you.
In strange cities of change and challenge
you will guard us and guide us.
In meadows of beauty and grace
you will open our eyes to see.
Through deserts of hardship you will provide.
In narrow passages of hurt and suffering
you will be present.
In landscapes of loss and sorrow
you will be enough.
When you lead us into the world’s pain
and move us to act for justice
you will be our nerve and our strength.
When we step into the unknown
you are with us;
you are the light in the darkness;
yes, even the darkness itself is you.
O Holy One,
Lover, Beloved and the Flowing of Love:
beckon, and we will go with you.
Bless us and be with us as we look to the future
and step into the present.

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

June 12, 2020

          One said, “Your wife Sarah shall have a son.”
         Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old,
         and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?”
         The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?”
         But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid.
         He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
                  —from Genesis 18.10-15

As I approach my retirement on Sunday I am laughing—
laughter not of derision but of release,
laughter at the joke that at what seems an end
some things are just beginning,
laughter at the irony of my self-importance overshadowed
by what is given to me,
laughter at the mystery that as I grow old
I’m now ripe to produce what I haven’t before:
now it is time to pluck me from the tree
and let me offer my sweet fruit.

And there is a part of me, so wise and earnest and mature,
that denies I am laughing, denies I am puzzled or surprised,
pretends I have this figured out.
The angels calmly call my bluff,
my assurance I know the future, know what’s possible.
The joke’s on me.

When you get old,
laugh at it.
It helps you ripen.

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

June 11, 2020

            God said to Abram,
         “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house
         to the land that I will show you.”
                  —Genesis 12.1

This Sunday I will retire as a Methodist Minister, after 40 years in six churches and one college campus in four states. That’s something like 5000 worship services. Yeah, it’s time.

People ask when I got my call into ministry and my answer is: around 1835. I’m the sixth generation of Methodist Ministers (and one gunsmith) in my family going all the way back to Enos Holmes, who was ordained about then. It’s been 185 years. It really is time.

But, joking aside, when did I receive my calling to ministry? Well, joking aside, it began in 1835. Or maybe with Rev. Obadiah Holmes, Eons’ great-great-great-great grandfather, born in 1606. Or in 1514, with the birth of his great-grandfather George Holmes… or father back. Because each of us belongs to a great cloud of witnesses, a long, magnificent line of people bearing love from one generation to another. We are each one little part of an epic story that began before us and will continue after us. It’s the story of God’s love and justice, the story God is telling using each of us as the words and sentences of the story.

Your calling is your place in the story. It might be to carry on a family tradition—or to change it. I guess that’s how the gunsmith got in there. Your calling is the way God uses your story to tell a story that’s not about you. Your calling is greater than your job. My calling will continue after I retire from parish leadership. I’ll be a different part of the same story. So maybe the real answer is that my calling is just now beginning. I’m discovering who I really am aside from what job I have.

Your real calling—your vocation—is who you are, not what you do. It changes with time, but it’s eternal. “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before God in love” (Eph. 1.4). Listen for your calling, for the voice of God inviting you to play a part in God’s story. It may mean following a well-trodden path, or breaking a tradition of 185 years. Wherever it takes you, listen and follow. God will go ahead of you.

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

June 10, 2020

We celebrated our fortieth anniversary
not with a party or a romantic date,
but by packing, preparing to move.

From what’s accumulated we choose what stays or goes;
the staying of love we chose long ago
we choose again and again, always choosing:

the constant, the container, the compass,
the warp. The melody, no matter the key,
the tempo or time signature or thousand harmonies.

Abandon the things. Set them out at the curb.
Cling only to presence, being there for each other:
it’s the serenity that lasts, underneath the noise.

Things break. Places change. Hearts grow.
Presence persists, adapts, abides.
When we leave the house, the house we come to.

The this and the that come and go.
The where and the what change and flow.
The we remains. And, so, the gratitude.

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

June 9, 2020