Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
         for you have had five husbands,
         and the one you have now is not your husband.”

         The woman left her water jar and went back to the city.
         She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me
         everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
         They left the city and were on their way to him.
                  —John 4.17-18, 28-30

Noon. Last in line for morning water
(lukewarm, dirty, too late for breakfast). A pariah.
No wonder: she’s been used and thrown away five times,
now with a guy who uses her but won’t claim her.
(Marriage wasn’t in a woman’s power. She’s merchandise.)

Jesus sees all that, and—get this—moves right past it.
That’s not who she is.
He engages her like a rabbi, discussing, disputing.
Talking theology. Talking would you believe it theology!
(The Canaanite woman is the only other person, male or female,
who can carry on with Jesus like this.
Hm. What’s with these women?)

She leaves her jug. Because she knows she’s coming back.
She’s been transformed from pariah to preacher,
the first Christian evangelist. How did that happen?

Jesus saw the gift in her.
Saw that spring of water gushing up to eternal life in her, already.
The disciples say, “Want some lunch?” and he says,
“No thanks, I’ve already feasted. I’ve been fed.”

God, give me the grace like Jesus to see your divine presence
in every plain and put-down person—
to see their calling, their light, their power,
just waiting to be seen.
Even in myself.
Already she has left her jug for me.
Let her lead me to you. I will leave my city and come with her,
till I am like her, gifted in my wounds, purposefully sent,
confident sister,
prophet,
resurrected.

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

March 10, 2020

Silence is how I knock on the door.

Silence is how you answer.

Silence is the tea we share.

Silence is our embrace.

Only in parting is there a word.

But the silence I take with me.

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

March 9, 2020

         God so loves the world
         as to give the Only Begotten,
         so that everyone who trusts in the Chosen One
         may not perish but may have eternal life.
                  —John 3.16

Such
how can they put this
on a bumpersticker
infinite

Love

How can they
make it something
a hurdle a test
a threat
      Yet
love will overhurdle that

Is
there anything not
so giving life
to trust

A mother nursing her baby
no other desire
      no other

Your
how could I contain the sun
or bind the light
or miss the warmth
flaming
passion for us
so gives
such self such you
so creates so saves
how can we not
unperishing
give thanks
      and thanks

Glory

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

March 6, 2020

          The wind blows where it chooses,
         and you hear the sound of it,
         but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
         So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
                  —John 3.8

          God said to Abram, “Go from your country
         and your kindred and your father’s house
         to the land that I will show you.”  
                —Genesis 12.1

Wind of God, blow me where you will.
Fill my sails. Be my course.

Raise my anchor, holding so fast.
Cut the lines that tie me to the dock.

Your deep breathing and laboring love
birth me through this canal of life into life.

Lead me to a place I can’t name
can’t control, can’t choose first.

Even if the strange place is within,
the foreign land my neighbor.

Spirit, my wind on the baptismal water,
give me courage to be blown off course

with love, abandon my ego’s maps.
Breathe me into the New World,

you, my ship, my captain, my natal sea,
my breath, the only place I hope to go.

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

March 5, 2020

        Nicodemus said to him,
         “How can anyone be born after having grown old?
                  —John 3.4

I’m sorry. There is no how.
There is no jump, leap, crawl,
climb, push or swim.
There is only allow.
Being born again
isn’t something you can do.
It’s something your mother does
for you.

Breathing in and out
you descend into that dark tomb
that only when you enter
is a womb.

Much you can’t save,
you must shed to fit,
surrender to become
a fracturing seed
like broken bread.
What you leave behind in the grave.

Dying is your only choice,
surrendering your only how.
The rest is gift and mystery,
and God’s work, not yours.
There is only allow.

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

March 4, 2020

I am empty
for you

hungry
for you.

slower
for you

More than a feeling
a state

Full of the presence
of absence

More then hungry
incomplete

I move through you
like water like prayer

Into this unease I settle
welcoming

Thank you for this hemming in
this mindfulness.

Unforgettableness
You

Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

March 3, 2020

          Unless a seed falls into the earth and dies
         it remains a single seed,
         but if it dies it bears much fruit.
                  —John 12.24

Lent is a season of repentance, letting go of ourselves, falling and dying into the soil of God, allowing the husk of ourselves to break open in preparation for new life sprouting forth at Easter. It’s a spring season: the name “Lent” comes from the Old English “lengthen” as days lengthen in spring; and the date of Good Friday is always the first Friday after the first full moon of spring. Lent helps us walk through the season as winter gives way to spring.

At least in the northern hemisphere. But I’m thinking of my friends in the global South for whom this is the end of summer, walking down the long incline into fall. Maybe because I’m retiring in a few months (at the Southern winter solstice) I’m entering this Lent with those folks for whom this is fall, not spring. It’s a season of letting go, a time of looking back and giving thanks, counting the harvest and taking stock, a time of quieting and going inward. Spring will come. But this is not the time for that. First we dig up gardens, put things to sleep, and put an end to the flurry of our fruitfulness. We fast from all those summer activities, and settle. We prepare for the long death of winter (in my northern habitat, the death is long).

Entering into Lent with an autumn spirit invites me to really contemplate my mortality, to face death without looking away over its shoulder toward spring. It asks for more self-surrender than merely holding my breath. The grave is deeper. It invites me to be a bulb that’s planted in the fall with faith that a whole winter will pass before I re-appear and blossom. It invites me to see sin not as being evil but as hanging on too tight.

I watch my leaves fall. I watch my days shrink. I feel the darkness enwrap me. I am a seed going down into the night of earth. I trust God. I thank the Holy One for the autumnal gift of Lent.

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

March 2, 2020

       Command these stones to become loaves of bread…
         Throw yourself down…
         All these I will give you, if you will worship me…
                  —from Matthew 4.3-9

Power to command,
control, to force—
I want.

Safety from hurt,
from risk, from limitation—
I crave.

Fitting in, being right,
well thought of—
I insist.

Solitude strips me
of them. Leaves me
with you alone.
And stone.
And height,
the broken bone of fear,
and being
alone, a soul
solely being.

I fast from needs
I did not need. So freeing.
Their teeth let go
till only you I need,
and only you remain,
blessing the broken bread
of me, now new, now freed:
my bread, my life,
my pain, my fullness,
my love.

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

February 28, 2020

         Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit
         into the wilderness
         to be tempted by the devil.
                  —Matthew 4.1
         
Desert wind
blow through me.
Expose me.
Let the sun of your grace
sear down to its bones
my sin.
Erode the stones
of my wants.
I walk among
my desires’ skeletons laid bare.
Starve me of all
but you.
There in the wild, the empty,
be my only food.
In the harsh be my only safety,
in the solitude my one true love.
In my fear bear me,
in my aloneness join me,
in my weakness be me.
In this valley of my death
be my life,
verdant and eternal.

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

February 27, 2020

         God formed a human from the dust of the ground,
         and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life;
         and they became a living being
                  —Genesis 2.7

You are dust and breath,
matter and energy,
earth and Spirit.

Neither alone:
their need for each other,
their love of each other.

God is the love, the dance,
both wedded.

That’s what makes us human.
Return to the bothness.

God, to be true to our dust,
true to our breath,

your breath, your dust,
your bothness, your usness.

Give our love flesh,
our dust breath,
our death life.

Give our us you,
so we may give you
our us.

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

Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020