We imagine
a mighty ruler
who might
order the world
as we wish it
and who in fact
should,
and so
we usually miss it
when God
with utter
powerlessness
we can’t overcome
appears
with oddly
a full bowl
but always
begging.

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

November 20, 2019

         “If you are the king, save yourself!”
                  —Luke 23.37

Condemned, scorned and disposed of,
whose life does not matter,
enthroned under the weight of a cross,
crowned with pain and humiliation,
holding a scepter of powerlessness:
the little man is a sad excuse for a king.

That is, if you seek an unmoved mover,
removed, impervious,
who will excuse you from life,
enabling you to be likewise.
You can have him.

Give me the one whose sovereignty
is to rule in all suffering,
to bless all pain by occupying it,
to shine the light of love
from inside the darkest night,
whom nothing can prevent
walking with us in our gravest trials.

Give me royalty under whose reign
every abuse and injustice,
even toward the least honorable, is treason;
whose decree, even from within
our public agony and secret prison cells,
is paradise.

You can have your mighty warrior.
Give me the little man with holes in his hands
whose heart is never far from mine,
whose imperial reign is right where I am.

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

November 19, 2019

Rain comes down
like prayer
between the trees.
The ground is soaked.

A line of geese, singing,
circles the valley
as if wandering,
going their distances.

Trees, these prayers, reach down
into mysteries, converse unheard.
I walk among them.
I walk among them.

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

November 18, 2019

Beloved, I awake
in the glory of morning
and you lie beside me
still sleeping
and I see how beautiful your face is,
how lucky I am that you are with me,
and this becomes my only will:
to be here with you.

Prayer is the silence
after we’ve both said this
to each other.

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

November 15, 2019

You are the Silence that remains silent with me,
the Presence I cannot sense, the Embrace I cannot feel.

Like a tourist I want pictures, but there is Nothing there,
only you, abiding, evading my calls for sensation.

I confess my desire to feel alive rather than
simply being alive, being present, being yours.

I give myself over to be yours without knowing,
to be beheld without beholding, without needing more.

I am the night in which you move unseen,
I am the morning that has become light

without knowing how.

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

November 14, 2019

         Nation will rise against nation…
         there will be earthquakes… famines and plagues…
         dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
         They will arrest you and persecute you….
         This will give you an opportunity to bear witness.
                  —from Luke 21.10-13

Amidst the chaos and evil of the world
you bring something different.
You are not tainted by the world’s fear and hatred.
You bear love to the world.
To nations in warlike frenzy
or to neighbors afraid
or to families upset and struggling
you bring peace.
You bring trust in God.
Their resentment and resistance
is your opportunity to love.
Their craziness is deadly.
Hold steadfast to love;
that’s how you stay alive.
“By your endurance you will gain true life.”

____________________
Weather Report

Signs and portents
on earth and in the heavens,
fire and smoke and great storms,
and unseasonable cold.
None of which changes
the low pressure zone that produces
the great calm within you.

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

November 13, 2019

I’m going to be a mess today.
Not by any effort, but simply because
I’m a mess.
I will be fragile today,
small and incomplete. 
I’ll be broken a bit, not completely,
but enough. Damaged.  Bent.
And you will love me.
I’m going to be no better
than the total failure I despise,
no more deserving than the worst of them.
And you will love me.
But then, I will be no less worthy
than the Virgin Mary
and you will love me.
Because your love has nothing to do with my deserving,
but your infinite goodness,
your infinite goodness,
your infinite goodness.

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

November 12, 2019

No parades today,
no patriotic tributes.
To honor those who have served,
care for the wounded,
the traumatized, the destitute.
Tend to the suicidal, the lonely, the tormented.

To honor those who serve,
clean up the hell we create for them.
Repent of your own violence of heart,
the warmongering of fear and competition
and demonizing strangers.
Resist urge to project our will across the world.
Be people of peace.

To honor those who serve,
tend to others, protect the weak,
sacrifice for the sake of the whole:
to honor those who serve,
serve.

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

November 11, 2019

My head full of another world,
I march through this one, unpresent.

This earth waits upon me.
These beings call out to me.

How can I come to them?
How can I not?
There is no other way than to slow down.

Let gratitude catch up to me.
Let humility overtake me.
Let wonder stop me in my tracks.

See what I see.
Hear what I hear.

This world opens itself into me.

Now I am ready to live this day.

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

November 8, 2019

The tree pulls
at the earth,
hauling it up
into the sky.
It never quite
arrives, but can’t
stay down either.

I may be
dirt, God, but
you keep on
tugging at me
and I don’t
mean to but
I keep flowing
joyfully without fail
upward and upward.

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

November 7, 2019