God has rescued us from the power of darkness
           and transferred us into the empire of God’s Beloved.
                           —Colossians 1.13

Why, really, do they call Jesus a king?
Christ is beyond our categories: not just a personal savior,
but the sovereign ruler of an empire—
a commonwealth in direct opposition to the Roman Empire
and all human empires of power and authority,
worldly systems of privilege and exclusion—
no, an empire of grace, in which the law of the land is love,
in which the Powers are those of healing and forgiveness.
The oblivious go on, unknowing. They cling to power,
trade pain for profit, but they are pretending.
Love reigns, as immutable as gravity.
Despite all appearances this is the realm
you have been delivered into—
not a state of mind, not a promise, a reward for the deserving,
but the real world. Here. Now.
Trust this mystery. You belong forever to the Beloved,
a citizen of the Empire of Love.
Make yourself at home.

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

Before dawn the dark clenches.
The cold’s brute hammer flattens everything.
The forest floor pulls its leafy grief-strewn grave clothes
up around itself, matted, muted, mattressed,
closes its eye.
Trees are unnaturally still
as if the frost has caught them playing
where they shouldn’t have.
The last garden flowers stand defeated,
heads bowed, blackened, silenced,
the color of regret. My lungs despair.

Then in the sun’s first glance
silver spreads across the frosted lawn,
a wing of diamonds opening.

How would it make me whole to choose
not to love this day
and seek in it always
new kinds of loveliness?

_________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

           “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
                           —Luke 23.37

Christians like to talk of being saved,
but destroy the meaning
when they talk about “getting saved,”
like it’s something you can do.
Listen. If you’re drowning, saving yourself isn’t getting saved;
it’s just swimming.
The definition of being saved is being rescued
by someone when you yourself couldn’t do it.
We are all saved, even Jesus:
given life we can’t create, given grace we can’t control,
given love that can’t be earned, forgiveness that is not deserved.
Even giving your life to Jesus doesn’t get you saved.
God saves you. Even when you can’t swim to Jesus.
God rescues us from our separation from God
by being one with us even when we separate ourselves.
God rescues us from our selfishness
by giving us the love we didn’t have.
God makes of our lives what we can’t on our own.
We are all saved. Rescued. Salvaged.

Jesus does not ask us to be saved.
Only to trust God and love our neighbors.
Not because we can get saved, but because we are saved.

The One who shows me that miracle
is indeed the one who rules my heart.

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

           “He saved others; let him save himself!”
                           —Luke 23.35

They meant it as a taunt,
but it is the emblem of love:
that one cares for others more than oneself.

It is Christ’s refutation of selfishness,
of violence, of capitalism,
of systems of privilege and exclusion.

Pray that the world may ridicule you
because you are
so loving.

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

           The people stood by, watching;
           but the leaders scoffed at him, saying,
           “He saved others; let him save himself
           if he is the Messiah of God, God’s chosen one!”
           The soldiers also mocked him,
           coming up and offering him sour wine,
           and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
                           —Luke 23.35-37


No matter how imperious we are
in our judgments, how absolute in our violence,
we are wrong.
No matter how it is scorned,
love reigns supreme.
Despite how it is desecrated,
holiness endures.
Though it is maligned and violated,
the mercy of God prevails.
No matter how we object,
grace is the foundation of the world.
Regardless of how cruelly you are treated,
you, Beloved, are still the chief of our hearts.

We are still eating of the tree,
still convinced we know good and evil,
though we do not.

The cross and the empty grave
are when God calls bullshit
on all our judgments and violence.

No matter what we insist,
or how strongly,
only love is right.
Only love reigns supreme.

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

For those who have given of themselves
I give thanks, and pray that I too may be so giving.
For those who have risked I give thanks,
and pray that I too may be so courageous.
For those who have sacrificed I give thanks,
and pray that I to may live not for myself
but for others, not just for my own,
my family, my kind, my country—
but for all others, in gratitude for all—
strangers, all—who have given so much for me;
because we are all woven in one web of care,
one body, one life.

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

           The Holy One is my strength and my might;
           God has become my salvation. 
                           —Ps. 118.14

I have no power.
I can’t change the world,
         even my little part of it.
I have no power.

But God does.
Love is the electricity;
        I am the wire.
Touch the world
         and the electricity flows.
Touch the world where it hurts
         and healing can happen.
Touch the dark places
         and light emerges.

But I have no power.
I am only the wire.
God is the power. 

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

           You will be hated by all because of my name.
           But not a hair of your head will perish. 
           By your endurance you will gain your souls
                           —Luke 21.17-19

Though the land go dry or the oceans rise
           you are in the arms of the Beloved. 
Though times my seethe and the air swirl with shouting
           you are being held.  
Though people around you may be angry or in a panic
           the One who holds you is at peace.
Though people speak ill of you
           the name you bear is mercy.
Though the streets may flow with hate
           your heart is suffused with love.
Though people hurl fear at you
           your soul will not be harmed.
Though you be threatened 
           you will not perish.
Nothing can prevent
           your courageous love.

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

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