Every tree that does not bear good fruit
           is cut down and thrown into the fire.
                           —Mathew 3.10

Some folks imagine people are good trees
or bad ones, and the bad ones, well….
But this is not about others.
There are in me fruitful trees, and dead ones.
Now is the season of pruning,
that when the Beloved comes I will be ready
with abundant fruit.

What are the fruitful trees in me?
Where in my living does love flourish?
What moments leave others blessed?

What trees are unfruitful?
What of my habits or attitudes do not bear blessing?
What weeds crowd out my love?

God give me grace to feed the fruitful trees,
and to cut out the dead ones.
You have given me the courage and wisdom;
I have only to let them go.
The ax is lying at the root of the trees.

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

           “One who is more powerful than I is coming…”
                           —Matthew 3.11

I despaired of cleaning off the driveway
of the mud and sand and gravel from the project.
But in the night a strong storm, and in the morning,
a pristine driveway, washed clean.

How often I think the world and I
are subject to our powers alone,
when there is a greater power at work,
gathering even now beyond the horizon.

Love knows what it’s doing.
It has happened before that things have happened
that had never happened before.
Even in this oil-stained world
a voice draws breath to say “Let there be light.”

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

As stunning as Gabriel’s having plunged
through the mesosphere of pious rank
and pierced your ceiling of doubt—
as stunning as finding Gabriel in your kitchen
(sudden inhalation, wooden spoon dropped,
hand at your chest, glance at the door. Vivid silence.
Bits of light drifting down through the startled air.)—
as confounding as Gabriel looking you in the eyes,
flaunting propriety and shame’s vaunted exactitude,
agleam with flaming feathers of something vaguely
foreign yet familiar, humble and overpowering—
as inconceivable (yet you will conceive) as all that
is this: that it is you, yes, who Gabriel addresses:
that in you, you, something holy stirs, awaits your consent,
by no one else’s doing but your own:
that you might bear into this world a miraculous love,
that you might raise and nurture this divine gift,
feeding from your own breast, carrying in your own arms
this light from the first “Let there be,”
this power that will last—yes, you, if only you will agree—
and maybe most amazing, that Gabriel
with hope in those shimmering eyes waits patiently
for your word.

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

           Prepare the way of the Holy One,
           make a straight path.
                           —Matthew 3.3


“One who is more powerful than I is coming.”
John isn’t just hyping. He’s tapping
into your already surging longing
for the Holy One to be Present:

the Loving One, who has shown you the Way,
the way of love and courage and forgiveness,
the way of trust and gratitude.

Yes, you want to greet the Chosen One,
to be among the angels singing
“Glory to God in the highest.”

So how do you prepare?
How do you make a way for the Beloved,
and get ready to join the great Hallelujah?

As all the angels do.

Practice.

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

           Understand this: if the owner of the house
           had known in what part of the night the thief was coming,
           they would have stayed awake
           and would not have let the house be broken into. 
                           —Matthew 24.43

Jesus thief, you come in the dark hours
of my broad daylight nights,
sneak through my shadows,
slip unnoticed into my inner chambers.
Thief Jesus, you rob me of what I cling to,
pilfer my excuses, my mannerly arrangements,
my weary protections and pretensions.
You lift my anxieties, help yourself to my wounds.
You spirit away my shame,
relieve me of my possessions.
Walls breached and stronghold invaded, robbed,
I am at a loss. My world can’t be the same.
Jesus thief, you have stolen my heart.
I am awake, waiting for you to come again.

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

           You must be ready, for the New Human
           is coming at an unexpected hour.
           Blessed is that worker who is at work
           when the householder arrives.
                           —Matthew 24. 44, 46

Holy One,
rather than guess what the future holds,
what I really want
is to honor this deep longing in me,
in all of us, yearning for something holy,
something whole, something Home.
My longing is for your presence
that is already unfolding,
a home-strangeness from within-beyond,
this world mushrooming up out of itself,
the great change already upon us,
the birth pangs.
I long for this world to be changed,
but the world you give me is this one,
for my longing to change.
This is the world you give us in which to serve,
to work in the Household of Love
until all is transformed.
God bless the hope, and bless the waiting.
O God, my longing is yours,
my hope your hope welling up in us,
your Beloved, coming
and coming.

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

As we sit at our table and feast
on food and love and beauty,
I am thankful for all the unseen ones
who made this possible.
For the pickers of fruits and vegetables,
and packers of meat,
and long haul truck drivers,
laboring so we may eat,
for the toll booth sitters,
the luggage handlers,
those who work so we can take the day off,
the long-shift hospital workers,
the laborers behind the scenes,
in the dark, underground—
all of them sit at this table.
All of them are blessed.
And for all of them I pray
for blessing and peace,
for beauty and joy,
that all of them may have
as much to be grateful for as we do.

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

           Salvation is nearer to us now
           than when we became believers;
           the night is far gone, the day is near.
                                      —Romans 13.11-12

Everything is different,
yet this world is not traded out for another;
the sun has simply risen.
It is we who change:
when we finally see the world
in the right light,
as when you wake up
the day after the wedding and realize
the love of your life is your spouse.
What we await is not a future but a birth,
a surrender into a greater present.
What we await is not new history
but new eyes
to see what is already upon us.
It’s not that we are yet to be swept off our feet;
only that we have yet to say
“I do.”

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

           Keep awake therefore,
           for you do not know on what day
           the One is coming.
                           —Matthew 24.42

The Beloved waits just on the other side
of the thin curtain.
The emperor and his minions,
the billionaire and his servants
want you to sleep, to stay oblivious.
Don’t open your eyes to beauty,
the etchings of the frost on the pond.
Don’t see what’s going on,
don’t notice injustice,
don’t think of who suffers.
Just buy, and sleep.

But an awakening stirs in you,
an ocean tide you can’t defy.
The Teacher knows.
A hunger, the hopeful gnawing
at the cracks in the world.
Attentiveness to where it hurts.
The mystery, the migrating nudge,
the first birth pangs,
angels’ sharp desire.
“I know you’re there.”

Keep awake. Watch. Notice.
You don’t know when
the Beloved will appear,
when the world will shift—
the bird at the window,
the bum on the street,
the prison door.

The fearful court your coma,
and disparage the opening of your eyes.
Ignore them.
Stay woke.

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

I am all nightfulness,
not yet me,
smoke wafting up out of a dream.
I have not come to myself yet,
my arms beside me
like two warm animals,
and two legs crawling up out of blackness
to join me.
My mind has not come to me yet,
nor the room, or the light,
or the universe.
Before I think of thinking,
of troubling myself with thought

you love me.

This alone wakens me.

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