In the grace of Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.
Period.
The Spirit’s life in you is the only law:
you are set free from the death sentence
of having to be good enough.
Instead of requiring us to be good enough
God just accepts us.
Jesus shows us our sinfulness—lives inside it,
occupies our own condemnation—and is accepted!

So we live “in the spirit,” in harmony with God,
not “in the flesh,” as if we are soloists,
under the illusion that we are separate beings
contained in our bodies, defined by our egos.
When we see ourselves as separate, ego-bound entities
we live out of self-centeredness.
But when we are conscious of our unity with God
we let God’s Spirit live in us.
To focus on our individual physical self is death:
we cut ourselves off from God, who is life.
But opening ourselves to our unity with God
gives us life and peace.

The heart that is focused on the self
can’t live in harmony with God.
But you are not an individual self:
you are part of God: the Infinite dwells in you.
In the Spirit we belong to Christ: we’re part of Christ.

So you’re as good as dead
because of your ego’s insistence on living as a separate thing;
but your whole, true person is truly alive anyway,
because the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is in you.
The one who raised Jesus from the dead
raises you, too, by living in you.
Cool, huh?

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

   —July 10, 2020

                 A sower went out to sow… 
                 —Matthew 13.3

God will sow the seed of herself in you
and sometimes you won’t know it.
Sometimes you’ll suspect but not trust.
Sometimes you’ll believe but chicken out.
Sometimes you’ll do your best to receive but fail.
And sometimes grace will bear fruit in you.

You’ll need to forgive
and sometimes you won’t try,
or try and get hung up on your own deserving,
or get discouraged when the other doesn’t get it.
And sometimes forgiveness will set you free.

God will sow you in the world
and sometimes you won’t belong.
Sometimes people will misunderstand.
Sometimes they’ll dislike you or use you.
And sometimes you’ll blossom.

Sometimes you’ll try to sow seeds of justice
but you’ll do a lousy job.
Or do it well, but folks will resist.
Or they’ll care but they’ll be overwhelmed by an unjust society.
And sometimes your witness will bear fruit.

Failure,
failure,
failure,
fruit.
All of it grace. All of it.

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

July 9, 2020

                  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