Just then a Canaanite woman began to shout,
               “Have mercy on me!”
                                                   —Matthew 15.22

Canaanites— indigenous people, natives,
exiles in their own land,
asking for mercy,
begging for bread that is already theirs,
that the Colonizers not keep the blessings to themselves,
declaring to the privileged that their Lives Matter,
inviting the dominant ones to see through the glass darkly,
to see the Others as people,
to enlarge the circle of their care, 
their responsibility,
their oneness.
A woman, judged lesser, pushed away
—Nevertheless: bravely advocating,
daring to banter as the rabbi’s peer.

Even Jesus must be schooled,
look in his smooth mirror,
face his bias,
be changed. 

Wisdom is not knowing already,
but being open.
It is the change
that brings forth the miracle. 

Bless you, Sister, for your saving deed.

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

August 12, 2020

                  It is not what goes into a person that defiles them,
                but it is what comes out of them that defiles.
                                                   —Matthew 15.11

You are responsible for what you do and say,
not for what others do or say,
not what happens to you.
You have no reason to be ashamed
of something having happened to you,
no matter how humiliating it may be.
Your integrity and dignity are intact.
Look at Jesus, scorned and abused,
but radiant with the glory of God.
You are responsible for your choices,
nothing beyond that.
Let go of your shame.
(Even your mistakes have been given to you.)
What defines your character is not your fate
but how you respond—
and even more than that,
the abiding grace of God in you
that cannot be defiled.

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

August 11, 2020

Dear emperor,
over-feathered bird,
primping, preening, posing,
you have not distracted us enough.
Pointing a frenzied finger
at imagined monsters,
you have failed to frighten us
of the right things.
Demeaning the people,
denouncing their voices,
parodying the cry of the poor
and the caution of the wise,
you have peddled despair,
but alas,
we are still here, still healing.
You have not set us free from God.
You have not relieved us of the burden
of our passion for justice.
You have not cured us of our hope.

Even now—amazing!—we are singing.

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

August 10, 2020

Sun entering woods:
the Word slips in without
breaking the silence.

…

Bird on a thin stalk
in the breeze knows wordlessly
Spirit’s gravity.

…

Prayers drift with the brook;
ignore them. Instead: the Sun’s
hand on your back.

_________________
Weather Report

Fair,
though at times it will be unfair,
God letting the rain fall on the just
and the unjust,
the low pressure zone reminding us
how little is about us.

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

August 7, 2020

Little Boy, Fat Man,
carry our fear downward
into the streets, into the bodies
of the people living there, looking up…

Officer, bear our rage
onto the streets, onto the bodies
of those black people lying there,
looking up…

Only by grace and humiliation
do we see
Abel looking up at Cain,
Joseph looking up from the cistern:
at brothers, not enemies,
kin, assuming difference and threat,
blood, haunted by fear and shame.

What siblings look up at us now,
waiting for our hand to come down?

                  In Memory:
                  Hiroshima bombing
                  75 years ago today.

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

August 6, 2020

“How are you?” is a good question
to connect with someone’s inner experience.
Make sure you ask it of yourself.

Take it seriously, and also leave it behind.
You live in a world that is bigger than you,
greater than how you’re doing.

Once you’ve asked it,
ask what God is doing.
It will take more thought,

more wonder, more trust.
It might take a whole day watching
to begin to see.

Even amid gloom and disaster,
in the face of injustice and suffering,
God is doing something.

What? Wonder. Look. Be curious.
Spend your day like this
and how you’re doing will change.

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

August 5, 2020

“If it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
—Matthew 14.28

When you’re afraid of the storm,
when wind and waves and weariness bully you,
you want your Savior.
You want to hear that comforting voice.

But don’t be fooled by relaxing easement.
Sometimes the Sovereign of Heaven and Heart
won’t becalm you, won’t hasten you to paradise,
but will make you say, “Have me join you.”
And if it is truly the One, you will.
The Beloved will draw you out
of the Boat of Assurance.
You will step into the deep unknown—
and you will sink. You will plunge
into the dark chaos, the sea formless and void.
You will be immersed in the baptismal drowning—

Jesus holding your hand no matter how deep you go.
And only then will you be raised—
delivered from the womb of the sea—
new and wet and infant, breathing in
with renewed passion this cherished life,
this miraculous new belonging.
And the storm outside will vanish within
the calm within.

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

August 4, 2020

Serene One,
when the wind is against me, battering,
it is you who walk on the sea of my troubles.

When I am panicked
you are the one who says “Do not be afraid.
It is I.”

On the waves of my heart you stand firm
and calm them, not with magic
but your presence. “It is I.”

Not escaping them, nor after they are stilled,
but still raging, you invite me into the waves
of suffering and injustice.

I do not calm them. I stand firm,
not by my ability, but by hanging on to you
even when, as I shall be, I am sinking.

It is you who hold me up,
you who are steady in my fear,
you who heal the turbulence.

Over the waters of chaos,
even before ”Let there be light,” you said,
“It is I.”

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

August 3, 2020

Alone, unwary, unwarned,
in shadows I flail, I slip,
I falter, I fail, I mangle my life,
I fall, I can’t get a grip at all.
Some mystery, some strife-tangled
arms and legs have a hold on me.
What am I fighting, what battle,
this pitch? Is it myself?
My demons, my errors at last?
Is it outer or inner, this struggle,
this foe? I don’t know.
But I wrestle, panicked, weary,
anxious, something gripping me—
no, someone—
no, You:
my midnight terror, fierce
companion, arm in arm, face to face,
chest to chest I feel your heart
beating, beating,
I feel you breathing down my neck,
breathing,
breathing
In me.

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

July 31, 2020

           Jacob was left alone;
           and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
                                 —Genesis 32.24

We trust a dark God
who seizes us in lonely places,
who comes to us in travail,
who births us only in great labor.
Faith is no mere greeting card but a wrestling,
an awful confronting of both doubt and assumption,
a tangling with what is in which neither can prevail.
The Mysterious One uses barred holds,
offers invisible becomings.
There is no struggle in which
blessing is not enfolded in the mystery.
There is no tribulation in which
God is not reworking the clay.
Limping, we become a new person with a new name.

Therefore the prayer of the faithful
is not that things go well,
but always and only this:“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

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

July 30, 2020