Unfolding Light

Sometimes when I feel inadequate
I come here, where I have erected my monument.
A brass plaque declares
my accomplishments, my deserving.

It’s a tourist trap. An old castle, king long dead.
A deserted mall. A ghost town.
Nobody lives here.
I abandon these ruins.

I come home to you.
In the candle light
there is bread at the table,
and talk late into the night.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          They asked: In the resurrection,
          whose wife will the woman be?
                                 —Luke 20.33

Jesus says: No one’s.
We are all children of the resurrection,
children of God—siblings.
What that means for us after we die,
we’ll have to see.
But even now: we are all siblings,
all one, which the final revealing will reveal.
In the Real Life, masked by this one,
we are not divided by families,
even marriage, but united:
married to everyone, to all Creation.
We are to love, honor and cherish
no one any less than our beloved spouse.
Stand among trees and say “We are kin.”
Go to a river and greet your sister.
Behold the crowd on the street
and declare “I am yours.”
Thus will you know a bit
of the mystery of resurrection.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Halloween seems scarier this year,
maybe because everything is scary,
monsters let loose,
masked people at the door
(not asking for candy),
people costumed, not what they appear,
women made pretty little things or witches.
The planet more and more
like a boiling cauldron.
A ruined House. A haunting.
A dusk of fear, a pall of dread.
Something actually bad is afoot.
Death walks the streets
all casual like it owns the place.
But all dressed up and happy, see,
so nobody really has to freak.

That’s what makes it scary, the lie.

But listen: it’s not the end, it’s only the Eve.
On the day after, come all the saints,
the kind and calm and steady,
the hopeful and courageous,
who have faced these monsters before,
who have “come through the great tribulation”
and know how to do this.
And we ourselves, having gotten
the heebie-jeebies out of our system,
join them in the long, hard march
right smack dab through the nightmare
to something peaceful and beautiful.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Can one be free of one’s ghosts?
Oh, believe in them: shadows of the past
unreleased, trailing their tatters,
still trying to be, unable to have been.
Look at us, bending over the stones,
always with such love and remorse.

To be free of them
you have to look. Touch and see.
Become permeable as a ghost,
the world seeping through you.
You have to become more real than ghost,
solid, touching, touched.
Run your heart’s fingers over the
smooth warm wood of this morning.
Notice the grain in the words
of the one speaking to you.

Let what is real consume
what is only suspected.
The shadow of a doubt
evaporates in light.
Its invisibility cloak disappears.
It finally dies, fading
from its belligerent shades
into the dark mass of real things,
the vanishment of regret forgiven,
the substance of beginning anew,
the heft of this day’s joy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

The little fairy princess whines at every door,

the little snot, and would just as soon whap you
with that wand as say anything nice. But she’s cute, huh?

You wouldn’t believe how seriously

the little astronaut actually does want 

to escape the gravity of earth, his house, his life.
The fierce, roaring tyrannosaurus rex
will come home and share his candy 

because he doesn’t like to see his little sister cry.

The scary witch says “Trick or treat” in her scariest voice

but it’s not as scary to her as her father.

The regal king, crown and everything,

hopes nobody from school sees him

because he knows they don’t like him.

For the little six year old girl Supreme Court justice,

it’s not a costume. She’s practicing.
The marauding pirate

doesn’t really want to be there;

he’s an extreme introvert.

He just does this to make Dad happy.

There’s plenty of candy at home.

The zombie with one eye will drop
his bloody axe and fall asleep

on his mommy’s lap tonight,
one gentle arm around her neck.

Dad, standing out in the shadows,

watches the monsters and superheroes

and thinks about the office,
how these kids are just pretending to pretend;

only when they grow up will they
get serious about it.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

We think little lights shine
in the great darkness,

small stars in the deep night—
but what if it’s the other way?

Little shadows lurk
within the Great Light.

Even the deepest of them
is shot through with light,

surrounded by light, embedded in light,
light-bound, and so lightly held.

The universe is mostly love.
All its darkness is the negative space,

the little vacuums into which the light
continues to flow.

No matter the little bits of darkness,
we live in the light.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

I’m thinking of a white guy
who’s felt boxed out,
losing the sense of ease he once had
(don’t you dare call it privilege),
trying to get ahead
in whatever way works for him,
so he ends up colluding
with the rich and powerful,
though it gouges his neighbors,
so guess how much they like him,
but still there’s something crumbling
about his life, not satisfied, still searching,
but nobody makes much of an opening for him,
which is why he finds himself up a tree
when Jesus passes by
and chooses him, of all people,
to have lunch with at his table,
where we all find ourselves,
thinking anew about what is given
and asked of us.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

When hope feels weak, look at your hand,
the marvel of it, all it has done
hidden now, resurrected into the world.
See how your hand extends you, how it gathers worlds,
the mountains and valleys of its veins and knuckles,
every muscle, nerve and bone crafted for its purpose,
blood pulsing along, every cell doing their work,
forming, feeling, feeding you,
belonging to you, even in darkness,
a thing, yet part of who you are,
like a member of the Holy Trinity.
It reaches all the way back to your brain,
embodying your will, as you do God’s.
Notice how your fingers, all individuals,
belong together, work as one (even when opposing).
We are all fingers of the same hand,
moved by the same heart, all over the world.
You cannot see all the fingers of God’s hand.
But the nerve impulses of that love move through us.
The hand of God is in the world that is the hand of God.
Though the work at hand be great, the hand is greater.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

God of peace,
you have cultivated within me
a peaceful garden,
a life-giving place
of beauty, balance and spaciousness,
a shelter of receptiveness and contemplation
for myself and for others.
Help me to be at home in the garden of my soul
so I may graciously welcome others too.
Remind me to go there.


Breath prayer:
                             Garden … here

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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No less than the panther in the woods
or the beetles chewing in your garden,
you are moved by hunger,
a thousand little cravings
for what we may call happiness
or something else, but each of them
an echo of the one true longing:
for God and nothing else.

Yet, friend, we desire what we already have:
you are the dear Beloved’s dear beloved one.
Let that ease your wild, insatiable longing.
Or, if you have none,
let that stir up your wild, insatiable longing.

Satisfy your appetite in service or solitude,
at the feet of a master or the foot of your bed,
on your prayer mat with the throng
or silently scrubbing the bathroom floor.
Enter the temple of your belovedness,
and find your siblings there as well.

Sharpen your hunger for the One,
and the Oneness
and you and all the world
shall be satisfied.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording: