This is the judgment,
           that the light has come into the world.
                        — John 3. 19

God, you do not measure us and punish or reward.
Your judgment is no divine opinion about the truth;
it is the light of what is.
I am not who I deceive myself to be.
You unveil the truth of who I am.
Without comment or judgment you wash the window on me,
reveal the inner weave of my sin, my wounds, and my beauty,
and in your light they all shine.
Even my delusion and my terrible wrongdoing
are transformed by your radiant gaze of love.
You forgive sin like light forgives darkness.

I welcome the light.
May your gentle dawn unfold in my veiled inward secrets;
may I be changed by light into light.
May who I am, even my faults, become light.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           You were dead through sin…
           But God made us alive together with Christ.
                        —Ephesians 2.1, 4


Oh, I am still being made alive.
Some of me is dried up leaves,
brittle and brown-edged.
Whatever life there was
has drained out of the roots.
I can’t revive this.
And the miracle is—nothing is revived.
It does die. It is the end.
I surrender this dried up life—
and out of this death
you give me something new:
not just me again, not even
a new life I would engineer, but yours,
the life of Christ, rising up
from roots beyond my own.
I die in your arms,
and in my place you rise with me.
I am taken up in this living vine,
given life not mine, but ours.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “For God so loved the cosmos…”
                        —John 3.16

The Greek word is kosmon.
Not some, not even just earthlings,
not even just Earth.
The whole cosmos. Everything.
The point is not that certain humans
are rewarded for thinking certain things
about a certain divine-human,
but that the entire universe
be made whole,
by love,
by God being with-and-in every bit of it,
even the ugly, hurting bits.
There’s no part of the cosmos God doesn’t love.
There’s no one who gets anything different.
There’s no other tribe to which you belong.
Step over the little lines you’ve drawn, then,
and belong.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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We are fearless—
         of what we’re not sure.

We don’t need anybody
         so badly it aches.

We look good
         from this distance.

We’re sure we’re not victims
         of what we can’t imagine.

We are proud
         of little things.

Our griefs are so small, they’re over
         before they’ve begun.

The people we are becoming
         look upon us and wonder.

We’ll hoard anything but grace
         and leave it for those who need it.

Tell our Savior not to bother.
         We’ve got this.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           The leaders then said to him,
           “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
                        —John 2.18


Sin’s perspective is hierarchical.
Everything is of relative power and authority,
every action, every person, every moment ranked,
every truth proven by a stone-carved law,
every life measured on a scale.

But in the real world there are no ranks,
there is no proof, no authority.
The first is last, the last first.
Everything is a sign of everything.
Everything shines.

There is only love, doing its best,
and fear, getting in the way.
Love is the only sign,
the only authority, the only power.
All else is illusion.

Tyrants threaten, laws dictate,
styles prescribe, fears control…
ignore them.
Love alone is your badge, your guide,
your power.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Making a whip of cords,
           he drove all of them out of the temple.
           He also poured out the coins
           of the money changers and overturned their tables.
                         —John 2.15

This is no mere angry outburst. It’s way bigger:
prophetic, pointed street theater.
Theology thrown on you like ice water.

You start with shock,
and not just consternation, but outrage.
Blasphemy. Assault. Murder!

So it is when God upends your tables,
shouting, “Not this! Not this!”
—when it’s God you’re talking about.

You thought you understood God.
Had the right theology, right sacrifices.
But it’s overturned.

Let that feeling sit with you,
of having been robbed,
having been wronged.

This is how hard it is
to let go of graven images
and let God be God.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
                        —John 2.19

Where’s your temple?
What do you think is essential to your faith?
What do you absolutely need to be faithful?

Imagine you mess it up.
Or God ruins it.
Or life just sweeps it away like a natural disaster.

What if God is dead, the Bible is a hoax,
Jesus doesn’t come around,
church is worthless, and you can’t pray?

Now you’re ready to worship,
on hurting knees, helpless,
waiting, trusting.

The Risen One has been crucified before.
They know how to do this.
Just stay on your knees.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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I’m giving up being competent for Lent.
Shoulder surgery. One arm taking a Sabbath.
I enter the company of the disabled,
the wilderness of powerlessness,
a Lenten fast from being able,
a shedding of self-sufficiency,
the spiritual practice of going slow,
the discipline of humbly depending.
I can’t do this by myself,
most to the point of Jesus’ teaching.
I am the traveler in the ditch,
dependent on Samaritans.
Others grow food for me, drive for me,
zip my coat for me, die for me.
I am provided for. Everything is a gift.
This is my Lenten fast:
Be, without doing.
Trust, without proving.
Receive, without deserving.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
                        —John 2.16

We too often have a faith of exchanges:
I’m good, and God blesses me.

But this is not so.
Everything is a gift.

If your purse has been cleaned out,
if you have nothing to offer,

what then, but your humble need,
and God’s generous grace?

The real challenge is to learn
to overturn your own tables.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           What will it profit you to gain the whole world
           and forfeit your life?
           Indeed, what can you give in return for your life?
                        —Mark 8.36-37

God, you pour out Life in a radiant stream,
flowing through my days, through this world,
at the heart of all things.
I confess I abandon it.
I turn from the You of life to the Me of my mind;
I slip out of the We of human family,
away from the Us of Creation, and forfeit real life.
Earnestly making, proving and defending myself,
I cut myself off from you, my only source of life.
I don’t even show up.
Here in my hands I have everything the world sells.
And it’s junk.

I repent.
Give me a spirit of gratitude and trust,
to receive your grace.
Give me a heart of love, to love boldly,
and so find in my hands life, true life.

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