A fussy child
wants
and wants

inside you.
How can you give it
what it already has

without upsetting it?
Say Thank you first,
Jesus says,

then pray.
This moment—look—
the miracle unfolds.

[Mk. 11.24]

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

August 24, 2020

             Those who want to save their life will lose it,
             and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
                                              —Matthew 16.25

Honestly, I confess:
although I preach “take up your cross,”
really, I’d rather avoid suffering.

But there is greater joy
in a deeper well than comfort.
I am not this small thing,
my bliss and sorrow in my flesh alone.
I am one with all Creation,
whose pain and joy is mine.
There is joy in bringing the world
what I most deeply wish for it.
Divorcing myself from the world
I want what is mine, and despair.
But one with the world, in love,
its joy is mine.
The cross, with its pain,
offers the deep reward of love fulfilled,
and the redemption of my wholeness,
and resurrected joy.

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

August 21, 2020

                      Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
          and undergo great suffering
          at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes,
          and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 
          Then Jesus told his disciples,
“If any want to become my followers,
          let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
           For those who want to save their life will lose it,
          and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
                              —Matthew 16.21, 24-25

We’ve made it impossible to follow Jesus
by expecting our faith to protect our privilege
as if we ought to be recognized as superior,
worthy to be blessed, deserving to be treated well,
given more rights than others, and of course going to heaven.
We’ve turned it backwards. So selfish.
Jesus stands with those who are outside privilege,
denied favor or power, for their sake.
Jesus is not predicting the future here:
he’s accepting the risk of his path,
the plight of the lowest caste.
To follow Jesus—to take up our cross—
is not to tout piety but to stand with the oppressed,
to spend our privilege for the sake of those who have none,
to resist domination at personal cost.
It is to suffer for the sake of justice, healing and life.
The only claim of our faith is not to privilege,
but to God’s grace.

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

August 20, 2020

                                 Who do you say I am?
                                 —Mt. 16.15

Jesus,
trickster, teacher, beggar,
on no church wall,
in no good book,
but on sad streets
and in my blood,
you are my unseen neighbor,
my secret self.
You are my divine possibility,
God-in-this-world,
becoming me, so close
I can almost touch myself.
Ruler of my heartbeat,
fountain of my blood,
Jesus, you are my Pacific,
my wind, my sun, my gravity.
You are my victim.
My wound, and my healing.
My death, and my undying.
You are my exceeding of myself,
my becoming of the universe.
You are the heart of all of us,
the One of us, the holy Little One.
You are so tiny in this world,
so dim, I must become you to see you,
yet can’t not see you everywhere,
everywhen, every who.
Jesus, you are the me I hope to be,
the giving of God to me,
the giving of me to all the world.
Jesus, you, whom I cannot have,
yet who are so deeply mine,
how greatly I praise, I thank, I gaze,
I follow, and I join you.

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

August 19, 2020

Beloved,
I will be your servant today.
Whether I have important work or none,
whether many depend on me or none,
whether I face harsh challenges or banal chores,
hard work, blissful pleasure
or simple sabbath rest,
I am a servant of love and beauty,
a servant of justice,
a servant of the world.
By your Spirit in me
may I serve
with grace and joy.
Amen.

August 18, 2020

Every night
the wino sleeping on the concrete

becomes perfect, young and beautiful,
wise, and eternally beloved.

We who pass by
seldom see the miracle

unless
we really want to,

want to bear it
forever,

the pain and betrayal,
the splendor,

the question
with the little hook in it.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
   —August 17, 2020

Courage

Be a good steward
of the courage you are given.

Befriend your fear,
your faithful companion,

wise challenger;
bear it as a shield in battle.

Offer up a generous burnt offering
of your security, your comfort.

You needn’t push yourself.
Follow the Spirit that leans forward in you.

Submit to the sun
rising in you.

Dare to be the tattered dandelion,
nothing left but wispy seeds,

floating on the unknown,
the divine wind.

________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

August 14, 2020

              Joseph said, “It was not you who sent me here, but God.” 
                                                 —Genesis 45.8

Joseph is not excusing his brothers for their cruelty.
He’s seeing his own fate in a larger context—
God’s desire for wholeness.

Joseph is not suggesting God wanted him sold into slavery.
He’s recognizing the simple miraculous truth
that God is in everything, even evil and disaster.

Joseph is not suggesting that God orchestrated
his brothers’ crime.  He’s acknowledging
that God’s will overthrows ours.

Later in the story, when his brothers fear
he’ll lose the nerve of his forgiveness, he’ll say,
“You intend to do harm, but God intended good.”

Yes, your disasters are disastrous. Evildoing is evil.
But even there, God is at work.
Even in hell, God’s grace heals.

At the bottom of your pit,
imagine:
God can deal with that.

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

August 13, 2020

                                 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