Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith.
                  —2 Corinthians 13.5

How do you live through the siege? Whether it is climate change, police brutality, a viral pandemic or 400 years of white supremacy, how do you live faithfully when there is sickness and evil around you?

First, examine yourself. Keep paying attention. Before you judge others test yourself. The only person you can control is you, so do so. What are your basic values? Do you apply them to yourself and others equally? See that they are foundational values, not just self-benefiting wishes. (Here’s the test: Will you—do you—sacrifice to confer the benefits of your values on others?) What is the world you hope to live in? Live in it. Follow its rules. Demonstrate its value. Be light.

Serve each other. Let every action be for the sake of the wholeness of all, not merely your own advantage. Let compassion guide you. Love.

Bear witness. Be transparent. Do not hide your sorrow or your rage. They are part of your power to care. Don’t silence yourself if you are grieving while others are happy, or joyful when others despair. Honor your heart. Don’t whine; don’t spend energy wishing for what is not; don’t blame or judge. But give your broken heart freedom to speak its truth, to sing its song. Start the conversation: not the bitch session, but the dialogue about where to go next, what we can do. We can.

Protect the vulnerable. As the Bible says, “care for the widows and orphans:” for those most at risk, marginalized, or disenfranchised. We are all part of one whole; you are not whole unless your neighbor is. Check yourself when you want to defend your own comfort at another’s expense. Tend to one another. Belong to the whole.

Disrupt. Interrupt your own participation systems that perpetuate harm or injustice. Whether you would transmit racism, plastic waste or a coronavirus, seek ways to stop the spread. Break the cycle. Practice a new way of living. Do justice.

Hope. Hope is not wishful thinking but trust in what is unseen. God’s grace is at work in ways we can’t know. Notice the signs, small and great. Stay in touch with others who care and keep each other’s vision alive. Shield your joy. Practice gratitude. Seek healing. Set the burden of your dread or despair or guilt in the hands of the Gentle One who heals, who radiates blessing, who even now is creating life. We do not know the end; but we know the journey of life is full of grace. Walk it.

You can’t save the world, but you can bless it. Do justice; love mercy; walk humbly with God. Trust God, and work like hell. You are not alone.

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

June 1, 2020

         In the one Spirit
         we were all baptized into one body.                  —1 Corinthians 12.13

One Body.
We are all fingers of one hand,
one Spirit moving through us
in all our different ways.
The lie that we are separate is our first sin.
Our denial does not negate our unity;
our obliviousness does not remove us
from the one body.
There is no other;
we are that one; they are us.

Unless we weep with those who weep,
or rage with those who rage, we betray the Spirit.
Until we ourselves are the one
lying handcuffed, black,
with a white person’s knee on our throat
we do not have the Holy Spirit,
but the spirit of denial.
Until we see our own knee on that throat,
we blaspheme against the Spirit.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will awaken us
to our oneness,
that we may love our neighbor
as ourselves,
for that they are.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

May 29, 2020

           They were filled with the Holy Spirit
         and began to speak in other languages,
         as the Spirit gave them ability
                  —Acts 2.4

Holy Spirit, loosen our tongues and teach us
new languages of love.
Help us convey your grace across the divides of language,
of culture and race and class and identity.
Put the breath of love in our lungs,
the words of mercy on our tongues,
the song of grace on our lips.
Help us give voice to blessing
that is clear in any language.
Give us grace to listen to every foreign tongue,
respect every foreign story, and honor every foreign soul,
for you have sent us to them
so they may know their belovedness,
and they may reveal to us our own.
Spirit of God, breathe in us.
Spirit of love, sing in us.
Spirit of justice, rise in us to do your will.

________________
Weather Report

Windy,
as the warm, moist air of grace
replaces the cold, dry air of sin,
driven by the jet stream of God
flowing and flowing
throughout the day,
rising in our hearts.

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

May 28, 2020

When you send forth your spirit,
all beings are created;
and you renew the face of the ground.
        His name was George Floyd.

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.
         He was God’s beloved, breathing God’s Spirit.

In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. 
        He was black. The Body of Christ.

When you take away their breath,
they die and return to their dust. 
        He was slowly choked to death
         by a white cop. His life didn’t matter.

We do not know how to pray as we ought,
but that very Spirit intercedes
with sighs too deep for words.
         “Please, I can’t breathe…”

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

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

May 27, 2020

        He said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
         and let the one who believes in me drink.
         As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart
         shall flow rivers of living water.’”
                  —John 7.37-38

A spring, clear and fresh,
a river of love
flows from Jesus,
the stream of his being.
          . . .

Drink from the river,
let it flow into you,
fill you, become you,
the stream of your being.
         . . .
Let it flow out from you,
the riverbank,
river of love, the stream of God,
flowing out into all the world.

         . . .

Breathing in, you drink from the river.
Breathing out, it flows from you.
This is the Spirit, the stream of God’s Being,
breathing in you always, flowing in you.      

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

May 26, 2020

We remember the men and women who have died
while serving in the US military.
We remember the men and women who have died
while serving in the Peace Corps.
We remember the men and women who have died
serving in United Nations Peace Keeping forces.
We remember the men and women who have died
working for peace and justice.
We remember the civilian men and women
and children who have died in armed conflicts.
We remember the child in us who dies
when we start to believe in war.

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

May 25, 2020

         They asked him, “Lord, is this the time
         when you will restore sovereignty to Israel?”
         He replied, “It is not for you to know…
         But you will receive power
         when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
         and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
         in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
                  —Acts 1.6-8

Is this the time we will re-open?
Now will our political party dominate?
When will we return to normal?
Can we be safe, and privileged, and in power?

No. You can bear witness
to the power of love.
It is not for you to know the future,
or to be ascendant or in power,
or to control things.
It is for you to be a witness to love
even when things are not restored.
This is not second best: it is true power,
whose waves ripple through the world.

The center of the universe is not on the throne.
It is in your heart.

Receive love.
Trust the power.
Bear witness.

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

May 22, 2020

Grace and Peace to you.                  
In the woods the trees
clap their little babyhands of green.
On the hillside they try on pink and mauve;
soon they will trade them for green.
Birdsongs fall like rain among the trees.
A couple of geese fly over singing,
spinning their long web
across the continent of the morning.
The marsh, swollen all March and April,
begins to breathe out,
its grasses green and another green,
and the bushes more greens.
I walk among them silent,
the world’s troubles in the pocket of my mind.
They are not uncaring,
even the little lump of toad
who may be watching me
and may be ignoring me.
Though they do not recognize
those woes in my pocket
they extend their blessing.
They invite me in,
me and all my kin,
where they belong to a greater Yes
that is also, if we will have it, ours.

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

May 21, 2020

          Two people in white robes stood by them.
         and said, “People of Galilee,
         why do you stand looking up toward heaven? “
                 —Acts 1.10-11

There are those times
when you have lost what you loved,
when you gaze up into the empty box of the sky
and the emptiness comes down around you
like a blanket, a bell,
and your gaze can’t pierce
the thick silence inside the bell.

Even the deepest faith doesn’t round off
this world’s sharp edges, its losses and traumas.
Holiness often lives in the blank of sorrow,
the empty chair.
It’s all right to stand there and gaze.

Before the wind begins to shift,
before the bright strangers speak.
they know. They hand us a tissue.

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

May 20, 2020

          I will ask God, who will give you another Advocate,
         to be with you forever.
                  —John 14.16

The word in Greek is Paraclete, a legal advocate.
We often think of (and get nervous about) God as our Judge—
but God is really our defense attorney.

When you face your trials
the Holy Spirit is the one who is by your side—
on your side, working for your sake, pro bono.

The Holy Spirit is the one who believes in you,
in your goodness and worth, and defends you
against that hanging judge in your head.

Your defense attorney will never turn into a prosecutor
of you or anybody else. Her only job
is to set you free and give you justice.

Trust her. When she asks you to tell the truth, do.
When she says something in Latin you don’t understand,
she’s really making things better for you.

She’s not getting you off any hook—
the charges were imaginary anyway.
But she will call upon you to bear witness.

The Holy Spirit will defend you.
She has the jury in your head in the palm of her hand.
She wins every case. She loves her work.

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

May 19, 2020