Since you have been raised with Christ,
         seek the things that are above, where Christ is,
         seated at the right hand of God.
         Set your minds at a higher level, on essential things,
         not on meaningless details.
                  —Colossians 3.1-2

God, help me discern what matters and what does not.
What helps me trust you and serve the world,
what helps me honor who you create me to be—
and what does not?
Help me let go of fears and desires and meaningless opinion,
judgments of the way things ought to be,
other people’s ideas about me.
They don’t matter. Let them go.
Set my mind on what is actually true and life-giving.
Help me be mindful of your grace at work always,
your constant presence, even in the awful times,
and the gift of being with you, even in the horrible times.
Fix my mind on your grace,
and give me faith to let go of everything else.
Nothing else will fit in this little lifeboat
but me and you, and your infinite grace.

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

   —May 6, 2019

The trees with their deep roots know.
The birds who have migrated far see things.
If you think it the other way round, that is your learning,
but: they who know the deep darknesses,
who have threaded those maps, they have seen
already the new life rising in you,
the stone-freed tomb opened,
and they have burst into applause,
and that is what all this is,
the improbable fling and flaunt of spring,
unabashed unfurling of ferns in their nakedness,
outrageous display of every twig’s finery,
outlandish vim of blossom and feather
and song flitting among the black trunks—
it’s all celebration of what they’ve seen in you.
The cycle of life is natural, deserving no congratulations,
but this divine uprising in you is astonishing,
and inspires them no end.
The brave little shoots shoving up
through soil, through stone, insistently, yes,
they’re green with envy of the unfolding in you.
The whole woods are astounded,
standing on their chairs clapping and shouting,
throwing bouquets of flowers to you.
Even at night you can hardly sleep
for the roar of the crowd of stars, cheering and cheering.

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

   —May 3, 2019

         When you were younger,
         you used to fasten your own belt
         and to go wherever you wished.
         But when you grow old,
         you will stretch out your hands,
         and someone else will fasten a belt around you
         and take you where you do not wish to go.
                           —John 21.18

You made your way through this world,
straight when the path curved,
diverging when you chose,
taking the road not taken, smug,
this was your path, the way of youth,
to choose and to go.
But now another courage is demanded of you,
to submit, to renounce all willfulness,
to be led. Not by circumstance, but hands
seeking you, making their way
through circumstance.
How strange that this encounter,
outside your control, beyond your plan,
leading to unchosen places, this loss
would be the Friend. How odd that such diversion
would lead you to places of divine choosing,
might bring you where you need to be.

Do you feel the belt around you?
Can you walk gently enough to follow the tug?
Will you come?

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

 ―May 2, 2019

It’s easy, really.
You don’t have to do anything at all.
First you just don’t care. That’s it.
A shooting, some graffiti, whatever.
Be a little sorry, sure. But just.
Then let it side. Practice indifference.
When you get good at not caring
you realize how easy it is to justify it.
You’ve got a life, right? Besides, you know
there’s a reason it happens to “those people…”
And if you can justify their suffering,
it’s not a whole step— really just a shuffle,
to actually recommend it.
And then before you know it you promote it.
And then, bingo.
The ovens just light themselves.

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

   —May 1, 2019

         Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?”
         They answered him, “No.”
         He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat,
         and you will find some.”
                  —John 21.5-6

No doubt
I have some habit
and you will come along today
and show me a new way.

No doubt
I am locked into a familiar being,
some unquestioned self,
and you will appear,
risen and freed from what used to have to be,
and invite me into
a new self.

Give me grace to set aside my expertise,
become a beginner,
even at being,
and discover.

You are free from my past;
give me grace to die and rise with you.

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

—April 30, 2019

         Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach;
         but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus
                  —John 21.4

How often in my labors,
the must and the can’t and the so what of it,
does the Changed One appear,
glory of heaven crammed into the ill-fitting
costume of a passer-by,
and I fail to see?
I’ve read poems like this, so I know—
and still
I look and think,
“No, not that one.”
And my nets remain empty.

Beloved,
open my eyes
to see
you.

   —April 29, 2019

The day before you is a blank page.
There may be lines on it for coloring,
but it is for you to color in.
You can fill it with wonder and gratitude.
You can make it a picture of love
in colors of your choosing.
If you are bearing pain
it can be a drawing of healing and trust.
If you are fearful it can bear the lines and colors
of reaching out and seeking help.
It can be the shape of courage.
No one can make you use any color, any shape.
It is your choice.
No one is judging what you put on the page.
There is no right or wrong,
just something to look at.
Each moment you sit with the Divine,
choosing.

   —April 26, 2019

         “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…
         teaching them to obey
         everything that I have commanded you.
         And remember, I am with you always,
         to the end of the age.” 
                  —Matthew 28.19, 20

Jesus, by your grace
may I live with the trust you have taught me;
may I embody resurrection today
and love as you have loved me;
for this is your only commandment.
To trust God and serve the world,
may this be my purpose and my life,
today and every day.

I trust you are with me,
yoked with me, living in me,
loving through me. 
My body is yours this day.
Your will be done. Amen. 

   —April 25, 2019

         “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
         and put my finger in the mark of the nails
         and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
                  —John 20.25

You want to see real resurrection,
not its paperwork. You want to touch it.
And you know where to look.
Ignore your packaged and trimmed doctrine,
don’t even look in your slick success stories.
Look in your wounds.
Reach out and put your hand in your losses,
the mark of your shame.
Where is it empty?
Where does your failure flop out of its costume
and bleed all over the floor?
Go ahead. Touch it.
Put your hand on your inadequacy.
The deepest wounds go deeper than you.
Sit a while with the corpse of yourself.
Wait there.
Wait for what you can’t wait for, can’t ask for.
Let that great emptiness open up in you.
Let it be as vast as God,
the wound divine,
your anguish and your Beloved: one.
There, where it’s hopeless,
that’s where the hope is. Go there.
Listen for the voice.

   —April 24, 2019

         You have been raised with Christ.
         You have died,
         and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
                  — Colossians 3.1, 3

Live as if you are risen.

The fear-tombed, nay-saying, people-pleasing
prisoner of scarcity, shame and threat—
that one has died.

The stone of Outcomes has been rolled away.
The linen grave-clothes of Consequences
are lying abandoned.

You are free.
Forgiven, accompanied, love-enabled,
miracle-powered, you are a member
of the risen body of Christ.

You are those hands with holes in them
Jesus shows, and says, “Peace.”
You are the flesh the Spirit moves
to do her next wonders.

You’v already died and gone to heaven,
no mere flesh now, but pure love,
unafraid of death and its useless threats,
with unshakable courage,
nothing to lose, everything in your hands.

Don’t live as if you’re afraid to be crucified.
Live as if you’re already risen.

   —April 23, 2019