Jesus went with them
         to a place called Gethsemane;
         and he said to his disciples,
         “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”
                  —Matthew 26.36
 
While we self-isolate,
fear-stupefied,
he prays.
Not for himself,
but for love of us.

Soldiers arm up and move out.
But he prays.
Not for safety but for love.

Death walks quietly,
jingling its keys,
but he kneels, still,
praying not for life
but for love,
for you.

Sit here while he prays,
while he pours out his heart
for you and your life
and death and life again.
Let his prayer wrap itself around you,
hold you to his heart,
still praying for you,
bearing you like a cross
through the dark valley
and beyond.

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

April 8, 2020

                  Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard,
         anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.
         The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
                           —John 12.3 

Mary pours out her ointment―
as Jesus, not clinging,
out-poured himself―
pours out herself,
fragrance of love and sorrow,
no second-hand words to borrow,
only kindness and loveliness
for his kindness and loveliness,
washing with such fierce love
feet before they’re pierced,
her perfume poured out
of a broken open soul
in love made whole
that confounds the others,
befuddled brothers,
her world-healing salve
simply this: in the face of death
to offer tenderness.

Mary, pouring out yourself,
your flask now empty
as a grave,
your sweet baptismal bath
so gently drowning death:
pour out your holy oil
on me
and from my jar of fear
and self
pour me all out
and set me free.

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

April 7, 2020

Inside the world’s noise,
beneath its tangled silence,
a solitude unfolds. Be still.

Unreachable by the fearful future,
hidden in the city of this moment,
come to the garden.

Here in this place of no one else
kneel on the soft ground
with the one who is with you,

who though haunted, though hunted,
was here before you and will abide
and hold your place forever,

who, though you mean to stay and pray,
but fail and sleep instead,
still is earnestly praying for you.

Here, though troubles await,
there is one who listens.
There is peace. Listen:

the Beloved, breathing in you.

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

April 6, 2020

          If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand,
         I do not belong to the body,”
         that would not make it any less a part of the body.
                    —1 Corinthians 12.15         

Now we are beginning to understand
we are one body.
We are all dependent and intertwined
with so many, even far away.
A stranger’s hand-washing is my health,
a worker’s delivery is my life.
The well-being of my neighbor
is my well being.
I love my neighbor as myself—
not just as much as myself but
as the rest of of myself.

Blessed Oneness, Divine Wholeness,
bless our unity, that in it
as readily as we spread disease
we may spread love.
Give us your compassion to
care for the least,
for what we do to them we do to you,
and to ourselves.
May we trust the global impact
of our individual actions.
May your one Spirit bring together
our one humanity.
You who are the One, may we be one.
Bless our one, holy, ailing body
with your mercy and your grace.

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

April 3, 2020

We wave our palms,
our cheers made dark
with tears unbidden,
crying “Save us, please,”
our cruelty barely hidden.
Soon enough we will betray.
Behind our walls
we wail, we wait
we dig graves
where no one
will congregate.
We watch the future
shrouded, we lament:
this is not
what we meant,
this pain
we long to avoid.
Inside our hollow “Hosannas”
there is no sound. A void.
We gaze at the ground,
at the grave,
at our fears, the sharp edges
of our tears. Who might save,
might touch that wound?
Amid our sorrow,
our hate,
in our doomed Jerusalem
we wait.

And the little man
of God, of grace,
unafraid to enter,
to embrace
in love
as we wait
rides
toward the gate.

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

April 2, 2020

         Save us, we beseech you, O Love!
         O Love, we beg of you, give us success!
                  —Psalm 118.25

This is our praise.Hosanna does not mean Hooray!
It means Help!
We offer no flattering words,
but confess our dependence
and confidence in you, O God.

Our praise is our trust,
our turning to you: the One
who can save, none other, no less.

That we throw ourselves in your arms,
the we expect grace and mercy from you,
this is our praise.

From our sin and our sorrow,
from our our greed and our graves,
rescue us, O Holy One.

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

April 1, 2020

         The stone the builders rejected
         has become the chief cornerstone .
                 —Psalm 118.22

Not popular. Misunderstood. Scorned.
Loyalists to the Emperor shout him down.
You’ll have to decide to stand
with him, this improper sovereign.

Even then don’t set yourself too high.
The emperor in your head also
looks down on him. You sometimes
hide inside, safe, a flag in your window.

Even what saves is most strange, slips away,
repels even. Behind your love a wariness,
a weariness, a will to turn away.
On the tip of your tongue, the word “crucify.”

The emperor of your mind remains
in office. But unnoticed, on the other side
of the city, the Humble One with nothing
but love enters the gate.

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

March 31, 2020

          
How long shall I live? I asked.
The brook flowed silently beneath me.

Will my children be well?
The bird sang and sang.

The sun came up low through the trees
as if reaching up for something.

A nuthatch, head downward,
worked a hickory trunk,

considering the bark with care,
one little peck at a time.

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

March 30, 2020

         The dead man came out,
         his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth,
         and his face wrapped in a cloth.
         Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
                                    —John 11.44
 

The call of God
is stronger than death;
the word of God is breathing itself.

I have been called into life,
raised from the dead,
saved by the mercy of the Beloved.

And still I walk trailing grave clothes,
face wrapped in a preserving veil,
feet bound in fear of decay, hope of eternity.

I walk still in death’s skin, hear muffled,
speak from under cover, see through a shroud,
drink the wine through moldering cloth.

Set me free now from all that still binds me,
strips of the past anticipating a future, shielding
me from moving, changing, touching, seeing.

Saved but still bound, I need you. Name the self
deeper than the wrappings they see.
Give me this breath, this light, this moment.

From what I fear, from what still holds me
unbind me, Love.
Set me free.

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

March 27, 2020

Dust we are, and to dust
we have already so nearly returned,
even from our dearest.

We are afraid, not having
thought before, how one’s germ
is in everything.
Sequestered from the plague
we are all looking out of our graves
at one another, distanced.

We so hunger for flesh to be unbound,
to come to the green, to one another,
unafraid to touch and be touched.

A voice calls. What graves need not hold us?
For from our shrouds our spirits, free, do get up
and meet on the green and dance anyway.

How much of our anguish is not
the assaults from without but
straining against the walls from within?

When will we follow, eager to touch what others
have touched, to meet, to join—one living body? For
we are free to love most closely, even from our graves.

This, to be free to dance, and to dance, in or
out of the flesh—not a stretching out of time—
this is the infinite to which we are raised.

You are dance, and to dance you shall return.

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

March 26, 2020