Our strange friends, those Egyptian mummies,
were buried with necklaces and fancy hats,
pots, an axe, some onions, often gold.
Rich ones got furniture.
In their luggage Viking warriors took
swords and amulets and bags of coins.
A great one would get a boat.
So what would I be buried with?
I think I’d like nothing but me.
No tools for labor or riches for commerce,
no trinkets for some mindless dalliance,
no fidget toy for under-stimulation,
no costume, no clothes at all: naked,
at my least presentable, received
into the Kingdom of Belonging.
I’ll lie still, not needing to go anywhere,
at peace with my surroundings,
attentive to the soil I lie in,
and marvel at my flesh
as it falls away layer by layer,
my faithful bones that sustained me all those years.
I’d prefer nothing to distract me from
really hearing that pure silence down there,
sensing the tug of earth
and how it moves a little in its sleep,
feeling the grit between my fingers, getting to know
the dirt I came from and am becoming.
Maybe watching as root hairs
make their mysterious way through me.
And if there enter worms:
more wondrous beings to behold—
more complicated than I thought!—
to watch their squirming, and their patient work.
Maybe without all that hardware,
without past or future,
after years of practice,
I might become fully present
to where I am.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          First sit down and estimate the cost…
                       —Luke 14.28

What might I have to be willing to sacrifice to follow Jesus?
Money, possessions, claims, attachments
     that shield me from full and perfect generosity.
Status, privilege, social acceptance, belonging,
     that tempt me to compromise my love.
Comfort, having my life the way I want it,
     that prevent me from risking for the sake of others.
Safety, security, staying out of jail—
     for such is the cost of standing up for justice
     when tyranny descends.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          “Whoever comes to me
          and does not hate father and mother,
          wife and children, brothers and sisters,
          yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
                                                 —Luke 14.26

Generally there’s nobody we love like our family.
Jesus asks, Why not? What if we did?
What if we didn’t spend any more on our kids
than we did for every kid in the world?
Some say that would sure be mean to our kids.
Well, Jesus says, if you think of it that way,
then go ahead and be mean to your kids.
If you think of caring for strangers
as much as you care for your family
as hating your family, then hate your family.
Draw no lines around your love. None.

Turns out this isn’t really about hate at all,
but unlimited love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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From an old trunk mysteriously bequeathed to me
I received a strange instrument, archaic artifact
with strings and keys and cranks, or depending
on how you hold it, an ancient bone flute.

I wonder what part of me was meant to make it sing.
I fiddle with it, but I have no idea how to play it.
I tend it, keep the strings taut, keys dusted, mouthpiece clean.
Mornings I light a candle, sit for a while
and hold it in my lap. Silent.

Late some days,
not often,
I hear music.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The pond, merely pond,
yet precious,
rests for days and nights and days
as the geese, stretched out
in their ancient longing
find its horizon,
the place their ancestors knew,
and they descend lovingly toward it,
and in their gaze it becomes beautiful.

There is a tiny flower
on a rocky mountainside
that no one ever finds
but the little mountain bees,
and they love it.

A man
was taken from his mother
as an infant.
She has never stopped searching.
Happy or sad—if only he knew,
he is sought.

Sometimes you rest a long time
free of obligations
to allow yourself again to become
beloved.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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There are days I hear the wheels
of this little ore car rolling on the rails
as we descend into the shaft,
deeper, darker, faster— no brakes.
I feel the ship listing,
and distrust the sketchy lifeboats.
I expect the web site gone,
the notice on the library doors,
the dark SUV outside the church,
the knock on the door.

So it matters
to give time to sit with the Silence,
where the world enlarges.
A kind of gravity that minds the whole
holds us all.
We deepen our trust. Earth will go on.
A vast storm front of wisdom
forms off our shore,
a tide that approaches.
A great octopus of kindness
in the deeps unfurls its eight
million arms around us.
It won’t go extinct.
A comet of pure light returns
again and again.
Hope threads its green cord
through us.

A volcano beneath us
makes new worlds.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             …go and sit down at the lowest place…
                         —Luke 14.10


To live every moment

so as never to place yourself
above anyone.

To lift those
who’ve been put
in low places.

To do away
with places.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Memories and molecules
intermingle magically.
They are all here, present,
in your body.

Little bits of the four leggeds
and the winged ones
and the creeping and flitting ones
and the rooted ones
who have been here where you are
for ten thousand years
are still here, in your body.

The bodies lynched, crucified,
burned at stakes and starved
in prison cells are in your cells.
Enslaved bodies, whiplashed,
still erect, are in you.

The flesh of those who marched for freedom,
the strength of those who stood,
the breath of those who sang,
still live in you.

Don’t despair of your own strength.
The whole earth is alive in you.
When they hear your voice
they all stand up.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             There appeared a woman
             with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years.
             She was bent over, unable to stand up straight.
                                                                —Luke 13.11

What is bent over in you?
A gift repressed… a feeling denied…
a story unheard… a strength decayed…
a hope, a hope, still hoping…?

Not everything, maybe, but something
is being healed,
standing up in you.

Don’t be the ruler who says “Not yet.”
Be the woman
who stands.

There may not be a final cure,
but sit still long enough
to feel a hand on your back.

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