Strive first for the wholeness of Creation,
         and these things will be given to you as well.
         Do not be afraid, little flock,
         for it is the Beloved’s good pleasure to give you the whole realm.
                  —Luke 12.31-32

You strive for it
         yet it is pure gift.

You long for it
         yet you already have it.

You want to know your place in it,
         but it is all yours.

It’s easy to forget
         but it’s the most important thing.

You know you need it
         but even more you need to trust

it is given to you,
         all of it, gladly,
         
everything you need.
         Everything.

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

August 5, 2019

A meadow, a small crowd of trees
marching over the hillside
over a million years pauses for me here
and I’m so grateful.

God I thank you for every thing,
for the whole of it, not partial,
good and ill,
for the bird that ate my snack, thank you,
the morning walk and the poop stepped in,
for grace that hauled me from deepest pit,
sunlight on a pitcher handle, thank you,
for sickness— the body to be sick—
and recovery, always trailing death,
the small yellow stone happy on a city street,
always your mystery in it,
mountains leaping up can’t contain it.

Humility tackles me. Wonder erupts.
Thankfulness tangles my words.

I give you thanks,
my life:
may every thought word and deed be thanks,
and after I die
gratitude
linger in the air.

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

August 2, 2019

I forget you
utterly, completely.
I forget you with my whole self.
I forget you with my hands,
reaching for not you,
grasping something always else.
With my breath I forget you,
air passing out of me, never returning.
I forget you with my feet,
walking up stones,
not touching earth,
you are forgotten.
I forget you with my eyes,
seeing otherwise,
not even the shape of you,
the space in the air that isn’t you,
not what casts the shadow, not the shadow
but only the shape
I forget.
I forget you with my butt,
sitting where I please, not minding.
I forget you with everything I have
when I can manage it.
I forget you on the tip of my tongue
and at the back of my mind
how can I possibly
forget you?

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

August 1, 2019

          The farmer thought, “I will pull down my barns
          and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods….”
          But God said, “This very night your life is being demanded of you.
          And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
                  —Luke 12.18, 20

I’m always building bigger barns
to hold resentments,
what I’m sure people owe me,
storehouses of The Way I Want Things To Go,
reputation and pictures of myself—
oh, several silos of those pictures—
and barns, huge barns, of How I Like It,
my securities and assurances.
All built of wax.

But then:
my life is on fire,
all of it, house and barns, going up,
and I have 30 seconds to get out.
What would I grab?

My integrity? My wife? Those pictures?
My sense of humor? My mind?
Yeah, my mind. Or what about my soul?
Of course. My soul.

… Wait…
No,
I’d grab you, God.
Grab you and run.

          If you have been raised with Christ
          seek the things that are above…
                   — Colossians 3.1

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

July 31, 2019

You are an angel of death
to everything you eat,

to every insult you swallow
and it lives no more,

to every bit of meanness
you receive and destroy,

an angel of death
to loneliness and despair,

you, the living end
of unloveliness,

an angel of death
to the Emperor of Cynicism.

In your very being
you are an end to them.

You consume them,
turning them into life.

You remove them from this world,
you usher them into the new Being.

What more could the angel of death
do for you?

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

July 30, 2019

The explorer traversed oceans
and passed through many wonders and dangers
until he finally found the temple he was seeking,
and stood before the mighty gates.
Then he went home.
Everything after that was a letdown.

He never realized how vast the temple is.
I wonder how many million gates he passed by
on his way, and on his way home.

Even now, look up. There it is.

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

July 29, 2019

         Martha, Martha… there is need of only one thing.
                  —Luke 10.42

No matter what you do
what you have done is what
you ended up doing.
Where you are is where
you ended up being.

Only one thing is needed:
to be here,
in this moment,
present, attentive and willing.

Forget your multitasking.
It’s just swatting flies.
They’ll never go away.
No, practice mono-tasking:
do one thing at a time,
this thing you’re doing,
deeply, wholly,
fully open and loving,

Be here. Do that.

_____________________
Weather Report

This,
and not what you wish or imagine,
here, not elsewhere.
Life is this, not something else.
Pay attention.

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

July 19, 2019

         You are worried and distracted by many things.
                  —Luke 10.41

Sometimes you are distracted
by your prayers,
your desires pulling so many ways
like chores, the must, the ought,
the please oh please,
the wouldn’t it be better if.

Forget your prayers
and pay attention to the Beloved,
sit without purpose,
simply gaze,
and be without excuse
beheld.

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

July 18, 2019

Dawn enters
easily,
not shy,
just discreet,
then swelling,
light rising,
even on a cloudy morning
inevitable,
confident,
bearing an alreadiness
I covet.

She bends to me,
smiles,

whispers,

this rising is in you.

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

 
July 17, 2019

         Christ is before all things,
         and in Christ all things hold together.
                  —Colossians 1.17

The holy urge that birthed us
is the energy of wholeness,
self-flowing of love,
desire for the well-being of all Creation.

Christ is the body of this love,
of which you, and all Creation, are part.
Everything holds together
in this divine longing.

This love contains everything,
even what is cruel and senseless.
Don’t let evil convince you of anything.
Stay mindful of the sacred wholeness.

Let yourself be gathered up in its light.
Even in chaos and darkness,
you walk with the Beloved.
That’s what it means every time the sun rises.

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

July 16 , 2019