Today I bear witness to grace.
Today I practice kindness.
Today I choose love over fear.
Today I am not afraid to be generous.
Today I belong to the whole world,
       not merely a portion of it.
No matter what others around me choose,
       today I choose to live in peace.

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

           “As for these things that you see,
           the days will come
           when not one stone will be left upon another;
           all will be thrown down.”
                           —Luke 21.6

On the eve of a precipitous election
I hear these words with renewed attention.
The destruction of the temple. A changed world.
A dangerous world. The loss of what we count on.
“Wars and insurrections…nation against nation..
arrest and persecution…” “This,” Jesus says,
“will give you an opportunity to testify.”
When things get dark and dangerous
we shine with light. We speak the truth.
We embody resurrection. We bear witness.
Not just with slogans, but with our lives.
Lives lived in subversive love,
with traitorous gentleness and radical courage
in countercultural forgiveness and illegal mercy.
The Empires of this world will always oppose
the Empire of God. Always. But our true belonging,
is in that Realm of Love; and it is eternal.
In the spirit of the Crucified and Risen One,
who is with us always,
we will persist.

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

           Bless those who curse you,
           pray for those who abuse you.
                           —Luke 6.28

The more monstrous a person’s evil,
the more evil their monsters,
and the more unable they are to overcome them.
They need you.
They need you to stand beside them and pray
as they can’t, pray for their redemption.
If you want peace in the world,
if you want justice for all the oppressed,
for the abused and enslaved and trafficked,
then you want most of all
the redemption of all wrongdoers.
God’s great justice is not revenge.
That’s too cheap, too human, too small.
No, God’s justice is actual harmony
and fullness of life for everybody.
Not payback, that endless loop,
but transformation (which is harder).
Pray for the bad guys,
even the tyrants and torturers, that with love
God will wrench them out of their hell
and deliver us all.

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

           Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
           bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
           Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.
           Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High;
           for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
           Be merciful, just as your Mother-Father is merciful.
                           —Luke 6. 27-28, 35-36

Cleanse us, O God,
of our errant thoughts (our vain projections)
that your love is in payment of deserving,
that your payback is anything but love.
Holy One, you who love your enemies fully,
deliver us from our fears
that you love only as humans do:
sometimes and incompletely,
diluted with glory and being right.
O God, you who are kind to the wicked,
forgive us for our lack of faith
in your perfect, absolute, unconditional love.
God, you who love and love only,
you who are love and love only,
help us to love,
to love without teaching lessons or getting even,
to love without getting it right and to love anyway.
Purge us of our choosy love.
May your love be in us, not our love, but yours.
Merciful One, perfect your love in us.
Amen.

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

Blessed are you who are depleted, who have nothing,
           for God will give you everything.

Blessed are you who are broken-hearted,
           for in through those cracks seeps God.

Blessed are you who have no power in this world,
           for God has power in you.

Blessed are you who despair of justice ever coming,
           for justice will come.

Blessed are you who offer grace,
           for you will live in grace.

Blessed are you who live by love alone,
           for you will meet God.

Blessed are you who bring about healing,
           for the name of God will shine in you.

Blessed are you when the world is against you,
           for God is for you, so deeply for you.

[see Matthew 5.1-12]

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

                            All Saints Day

God of grace,
For all the saints who have made this world a better place
I give you my praise.
For the saints who have loved me, I give you thanks.
For those who blessed me without my knowing,
who loved me from behind the curtain, I bless you.
For the ones who forgave my selfishness,
who embraced my loneliness, who understood my fear,
I praise the mystery of your grace.
For the ones who blessed others, and the ones who blessed them,
by whom my world was improved, I thank you.
For the ones who never knew they blessed me,
who shone with light they themselves didn’t see, I thank you.
And for those who tried and fell short, I give thanks.
For those whose unconquered struggles taught me,
whose courageous failures inspired me,
whose attempts at grace, despite their crudeness, achieved grace,
I thank you.
For the saints who picked my fruit and sewed my shirts,
who built my world without thanks or pay, I humbly praise.
Bless all the saints in whose blessing I live.
And now sanctify me, dear God,
that I may be a blessing to others.
Amen.

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

Befriend your monsters.
Go deep in your closet, way back in the dark,
and pull out the scariest stuff (scariest to you),
and put it on. Wear your shadow.
(Otherwise it will choke you.)
Rummage, and find the anger of a murderer,
the bloody ax. Hold it. Feel its heft.
There’s the scarves and masks of secret affairs,
the double agent costume of betrayals and untruths.
Go ahead, try them on. They fit.
There are monster outfits, the fangs and claws
of fear and envy and pride and greed,
oh, that big drooling bloody mouth of greed.
There’s the costume of the mad scientist,
wanting to take over the world,
the exhibitionist, longing to be seen,
the hunchback of self-doubt,
the addict, just not wanting to deal with it,
the prostitute subservient to other’s desires,
giving away what’s deeply yours
to get what you already have.
Oh, you look better in that than you wish.
And here: here’s the old, decrepit skeleton,
the strengthless, fleshless fingers, yes yours,
with maggots in the eye holes.
Put it on, and lie face down in the dust.
And don’t just give the mirror a glimpse of these.
Show the neighborhood your monsters.
Parade down the street. Tag along
with the little princesses and superheroes,
the astronauts and little miss RBG,
so cute, so innocent, who know better,
who will forgive you,
who will take your bloody hand
and walk with you
all the way home.

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

           He was trying to see who Jesus was,
           but on account of the crowd he could not,
           because he was short in stature.
           So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him.
                           —Luke 19.3-4

Would I climb a tree to see Jesus?
Would I make a fool of myself to meet God?
Embarrass myself, risk humiliation?
(You’re not really in love till you’ve embarrassed yourself.)
What would I dare, or not dare?
What would I risk to experience the Holy?
Am I ready for people to talk behind my back?
To give away a lot of money?
To allow Jesus to invite himself in, to invade my life,
when I definitely have not cleaned lately?
To commit to a loony scheme
that with Jesus could definitely get out of control?
Or do I slip back into the murmuring crowd,
all happy to consume me?

God, give me the faith to be gutsy for Jesus.
To be crazy for you, and let others call me so.
To counter the crowd, all those looming opinions
around me and inside me.
To follow a voice no one else believes in.
To be uncool for you.
God, give me the lovesick guts
to climb the fool tree. 

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

Standing near the cross-
walk.
The acoustics aren’t great
yet you hear it
so far away,
this soaring, slithering melody,
the harmonies, like the city,
rich with unexpected combinations
—odd, really, that it is so harmonious.
The song walks through your veins like streets,
the notes curl around you
like the second or third day of Creation,
song with no use, no cure, no bounds.
The voice is sweet and fit for stage or fame,
but the busker stays (oh, why?), with this fragile music,
for the folks emerging from the underground, making their way.
No one listens, they walk by, they cross,
themselves or in bunches to the other side of the road,
but the singer sees them, sees all,
hears their inner songs,
their silent music strangely harmonized.
The Singer of All Things matches the notes
of footsteps and voices and buses and regrets,
a siren far off and a doubt so close,
a door closing and opening,
a laborer’s shout, a truck, a trouble,
all so delicately sung, a psalm,
a gift, a plea, a prayer,
an aubade ignored, a soundtrack for the world.
We hear but don’t listen.
The singing continues.
Only later we realize
we wished we could have heard.

Yet in the stillness,
there, there it is, your name…

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

           O God, how long shall I cry for help,
              and you will not listen?
           Or cry to you “Violence!”
              and you will not save?
           Destruction and violence are before me;
                 strife and contention arise.

           …. There is still a vision for the appointed time;
              it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
           If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
              it will surely come, it will not delay.
                                 —Habakkuk 1.2-3, 2.3


Give us trust, O Love,
amid the great tribulations we bring upon ourselves,
and those yet to come,
that your hands hold this mess,
that even as we cry out in fear or despair
this swirling gloom
is the dark chaos of your Creation,
secure in your arms,
blessed and destined for light and glory.

How long, O God, will we cry out?
Long, for the creation is a great unfolding,
the birthing and dying of stars a great span,
and the story is long, beyond our lifetimes.
But it is the story of Love, and Love prevails,
working its grace since before the dawn of human cruelty.

Even in the thickest shadows
we learn to face the dark
and say with trust and hope:
and yet… and yet…

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