They shall build up the ancient ruins…
                         —Isaiah 61.4

When you are surrounded by broken things,
when you find yourself in a barren place
of devastation and discouragement, take heart.
Blessed are you, for you have been sent by the Spirit
to do the work of love among ruins.
Blessed are you who mend the shattered,
who build up what’s been torn down.
Blessed are you who accompany the broken,
who stand with light and hope amid the rubble.

We don’t understand the stitching of wounded flesh,
the mystery that knits strands of death into life,
but in the splintered night you can hold the lamp,
you can bear, or at least bear witness to the love
that makes whole, that creates again,
that makes of these disappointed pieces
a new thing of beauty and glory.
The mystery is hidden in your being there.
Build up the ancient ruins, beloved;
the Spirit will guide and strengthen you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.

           The spirit of the Holy One is upon me,
           because God has anointed me;
           God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed.
                         —Isaiah 61.1


Beloved,
may your Spirit flow through me today,
that all I do and say may be good news to the poor,
offering power to the oppressed, healing to the broken,
courage to the despairing, freedom to the captive.
May all I do bring light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death.
May I be good news to all those
who hunger for gentleness and respect.
Anoint me with your kindness, that I may offer kindness
even to those who do not ask it,
your love to those who do not understand it.
May I be a faithful vessel,
for it is your Spirit, not my effort, that blesses.
By that Spirit, send me, God, to bear your grace to the world.
Amen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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            Among you stands one whom you do not know,
            the one who is coming after me.
                         —John 1.3-4

The great paradox of Advent
is that we await the coming
of the One Who Is Among Us,
here already, profoundly present,
yet still coming, not done arriving.
Christ is not coming from a great distance,
inching closer to us from some far-off heaven,
but unfolding among us, within us.
We are pregnant with Christ,
who is here and yet who is coming,
whose presence is full and yet blossoming.

Jesus, silently gestating in us,
tender, innocent, dependent,
unknown, yet who loves us intimately
with infinite grace and wisdom.
Wait,
           and give thanks,
                                      and wait.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Star rising over me.
       Manger within.
              Word becoming flesh in my flesh.

The darkness of gestation.
       The waiting of faith.
              The silence of the holy.

Not seeing, not knowing
       what I shall be,
              though indeed I shall.

Open now,
       becoming ready
              to be changed.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          Hanukkah begins this evening,
          recalling the restoration of the temple,
          and the oil in the lamp that burned for eight days.

Amid war and conquest, domination and violence,
O God, may the oil of your peace burn in me.
May your grace be the light in me that does not fail,
and love the lamp that does not go out.
May I have courage to be faithful in the face of difficulty,
to meet wrath with mercy and fear with compassion.
May my trust not falter, my hope not be extinguished,
my commitment to justice or my will for peace not run out.
I pray not for my strength but for your loving presence,
for despite all hopelessness or my despair,
you are the light that does not fail.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           In the wilderness prepare the way of the Holy One,
                      make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
           Every valley shall be lifted up,
                      and every mountain and hill be made low;
           the uneven ground shall become level,
                      and the rough places a plain.
                         —Isaiah 40.3-4


Love would move through me
but for the rubble and clutter I cling to.
God, move aside what needs to be moved.
Clear a way for loveliness.

Fire up the gentle bulldozer of your grace.
Put your little orange stakes of mercy where the road goes.
Mark what needs to be cut, and cut it.

Fill with your presence my pits of fear,
my potholes of discouragement and despair.
Level my piles of self-importance.
Smooth out my bitterness, straighten what’s bent.
Clear out what’s in the way of love.

In that wilderness in me, prepare the way
for your mystery to unfold.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
but of course it’s not. It’s Advent,
the Season of Not Yet, a time of waiting.
Some dreams you work for;
for others you can only wait.
We can’t hurry The Time, we can only wait for it.
Sometimes the poet searches for the word;
sometimes they can only wait for it to come.

At the end of the musical piece,
just before the final note— the musicians pause,
for in that little pause the music arrives.
The magician knows, just before removing the veil
to reveal the amazing feat, just then—
… to wait a moment,
for it is in that moment that your heart leaps up.

In Advent we pin our hearts on what we’re waiting for,
and we rest our hearts in the waiting itself,
for in waiting is the meeting of the power of our longing
and our powerlessness, and there,
in the openness, in that magical blank space,
mysteries often happen.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.
           Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.
                         —Isaiah 40.1

My people,
as you light candles and sing songs
I hear your hope and longing, yes,
but do not minimize the darker songs beneath that,
the deep energy beneath your yearning:
your grief and your terror.

I see that shadow of what you have lost,
what you have done, what you fear of yourselves,
the looming threat, the smoking ruins.

My people, do not be afraid.
My arms are around you.
I murmur gently to Jerusalem
even in the throes of your fear and anger,
the rage, the devastation, the unthinkable.
I know. I see the splinters of the manger,
the swords of the soldiers,
the nails of the cross. I see them.
And I am coming, not to vanquish,
but to comfort. To heal. To hold you,
with you, always.

Even in your despair, be at peace.
Be still enough to hear me
speaking tenderly.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           O that you would tear open the heavens
           and come down!
                         —Isaiah 64.1

But that’s not the way it works, is it?
You come slowly, quietly, infinitesimally.

Under the huge minor chords of our pleading
you are a single note, changing everything.
Beneath the dissonances of our longing,
the passing tones and conflicting lines
of our anxieties, your presence is the silence.

In the storm of our injustice you stand,
quiet, resolute, unbowed.
In the barren moonscape of my prayers
you abide calmly, giving breath.
And in the future I sometimes fear,
the uncertainty, the dark blank,
there you are, at peace.

No, what needs to be torn open
is the veil over the eyes of my heart,
to see you here in every little thing,
present in every moment, even times of terror,
the whole world opening like a flower
with you at the center, if only I will see,
… and if I can’t see, at least trust.

                He is near, at the very gates.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Unsuspecting at first, of course,
you only gradually begin to feel
an urge, a leaning,
slow to become a promise,
a yearning that will become
its own gift, given from beyond.
It grows from a tiny seed,
a grace that is not your doing,
a single cell:
a change of season,
a subtle turning of the heart,
until by some grace you will know.
But now you do not yet,
you are still only longing
for the longing.
But know this, you are Mary,
and Gabriel is near.

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