I ask …that they may all be one.
         As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,
         may they also be in us…
                  —John 17.20, 21

We are one.
It is not our choice.
Our unity is not opinion
or willingness to get along.
It is God’s doing, not ours.
There is only one thing,
one Creation, one humanity,
and we are all part of it.
We are all members of one body,
all fingers of the same hand,
like it or not.
Our choice is to honor or dishonor
people who are part of ourselves.
We needn’t worship together,
vote alike, agree or strive in parallel;
we may oppose each other.
But we do so as equals, as one,
joined in the flesh of creation,
in the oneness of Spirit.
Even members of the Holy Trinity
may see things differently.
We are in Christ, by God’s will,
and haven’t the power to be otherwise.
We are One.
May we live as one.

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

   —May 28, 2019

Today I give thanks for all those
who have nonviolently given their lives
for the sake of peace,
who have suffered and sacrificed and even died
for the sake of justice and healing.
I give thanks for those who suffered
for the underground railroad,
for the cause of unions, for women’s suffrage, in the civil rights movement,
In antiwar and environmental work.
For those who have sacrificed, suffered and died
without weapons in their hands
I give thanks, and honor their service.
And I pray that we all may emulate their courage, 
their vision and their hearts of peace, 
and give ourselves in the cause of justice. 
May God bless not only the great sacrifices 
but every Little step we take 
for the sake of the mending of the world. 

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

— May 27, 2019

There are times, beholding the wounds of the world,
we feel inadequate. We haven’t dome enough.
Yes, there are those who give their blood on the ramparts,
who are tireless in their work for justice and healing.
It is only together that we are they.
Remember you are not asked to save the world,
or even a single creature.
You are asked to listen,
to hear what you are called to do,
great or small,
and to do that.

In the stone wall I walk past every morning
there are small stones
that hold the great ones in place.

In the chorus you only sing one part
but when you change your note
you change the whole chord.

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

      —May 24, 2019

         When Jesus saw him lying there
         and knew that he had been there a long time,
         he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
                  —John 5.6

Oh, God, so many things I pray for
I don’t really want.
I pretend I’m fine.

Help me to want your will.
Help me to want to be healed.
I renounce my excuses, all of them.

Loosen my grip on what I cling to.
Heal my fear of being changed,
and what that would look like.
Remove the shortcomings
I have grown to rely on.
Give me grace to surrender,
to allow.

God, do not listen to my loudest voice
but the quiet one
that will turn my will over to you.

Yes. I want to be made well.

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

   —May 23, 2019

         Suffering produces endurance,
         and endurance produces character,
         and character produces hope,
         and hope does not disappoint us,
         because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
         through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
                  —Romans 5.3-5

Poured in,
not a trickle or a little cupful, but a deep river,
a Niagara Falls of love, an Amazon of grace,
swirling with unseen currents, eddies whirling,
curling about the stones and banks of our hearts,
Jordan of promise, Red Sea of freedom,
deep enough for Jonah’s whale,
pouring into our hearts, meeting every space,
taking the shape of our hearts, welling up
with the living water of the well at Sychar,
Jesus and the woman dipping deeply,
this love that bears us through all suffering,
for “when you pass through the waters
I will be with you,” still pouring,
even the suffering with the love in it;
and our only life purpose is to drink,
to let the love pour in and soak us, overflow
and spill out in every possible way,
because this is what the Spirit is doing in us,
thirsty for God, the holy emptiness that keeps filling
like a river emptying and becoming itself
in love, the pouring of it unending.

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

   —May 22, 2019

         “Those who love me will keep my word,
         and my Mother-and-Father will love them, and we will come to them
         and make our home with them.
         The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Mother-and-Father will send in my name,
         will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
         Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
                  —John 14.23, 26-27

Holy Trinity, Mystery of Love,
Holy Community, Heavenly Family,
I open my heart to your presence,
making your home with me.
I sit among you, sibling,
gathered at our table,
fourth member of the Trinity.
I open my heart to your peace,
settled about me like a home.
I open my heart to your whole family,
all of us beloved,
all of us siblings,
all of us enfolded
in your loving, peaceful presence.
All of us holy.

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

   —May 21, 2019

         In the beginning
         when God created the heavens and the earth,
         the earth was a formless void
         and darkness covered the face of the deep,
         while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
                        —Genesis 1.1-2

In darkness and chaos
         God breathes over the water,
                  Creation awaits.

In the void, the emptiness,
         there is space
                  for the new.

Over the face of the deep
         is the holy silence
                  in which the One will speak.

Behold.
         Wait.
                  Listen.

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

   —May 20, 2019

As you read the words
their ardent passion makes you blush.
Something in you rises and dances.

Across the room
your lover looks at you
with those liquid eyes.

Read just enough to feel hot,
then put the Bible down
and go over there.

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

   —May 17, 2019

         This is how they will know you are my disciples,
         if you love each other.
                  — John 13.35

The path of faith
is not just to believe in God
but to live as if you do:
to love the loveless; to pour yourself out as light;
to forgive fearlessly; to listen deeply;
to be humble, knowing you are held
in the highest regard in the halls of heaven,
to give exceedingly, knowing you receive more;
to feed the hungry, remembering your hunger;
to act for justice boldly, having been been set free.
It is to trust God in the awfullest times,
and to see God even in the worst of yourself.
It is to see God and to seek God in the plainest things,
the beautiful and the hard, the welcome and the strange.
It is to move out of your little circle of light
knowing when you step into the darkness
the light will come with you.
It is to love without judgment or exception,
knowing that is how you are loved.
The path of faith is not just to believe in God
but to reach out to what you believe to be God.
It is to entrust yourself to the One who believes in you,
and who loves the whole world,
and to become that One, who is already one with you.
The path of faith is to become the love God has for you
which is for all the world.
May it be so.

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

   —May 16, 2019

         I give you a new commandment,
         that you love one another.
         Just as I have loved you,
         you also should love one another.
                           —John 13.34

Jesus, you set the bar high:
not merely “as yourself,”
for you have loved me better than I love myself:
as you have cherished and honored me,
accompanied me, borne my burdens,
delighted in me, forgiven me,
walked the path before me,
poured your whole self into me,
seen the divine possibility
and the divine actual in me.
“Come to me,” you have said,
“take my yoke upon you,”
and the light of your burden
is love.
For that infinite, intimate love,
unknowable, unstoppable,
I thank you.

Christ, love
in me
that I may love others
as you have loved me.

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

―May 15, 2019