Unfolding Light

          God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
          God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
          God chose what is low and despised in the world,
                    things that are not, to abolish things that are,
          so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
                       —1 Corinthians 1. 27-29

The devil does not appreciate satire.
The Emperor cannot abide ridicule.
Both the Satan in your head
and the tyrant in the palace
demand to be taken seriously.
To them self-reflection is abhorrent,
critique is dangerous, humility is poison.

God laughs at their hubris,
and the godly mock them.
Elijah insults the seers of Baal.
Prophets ridicule kings gone awry.
God continually makes a joke of Jonah’s defiance.
Jesus disgraces the demons,
banishing them into suicidal pigs.
He insults the tomb-white hypocrites.
Even the cross is a mockery of the empire’s power.

When we are ridiculed
in humility we seek the nugget of truth,
discard the trash, and, if God is with us,
laugh at ourselves, who are not God.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          …at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus…
                                             —Luke 16.20

It’s only a gate
but enough to hide,
to divide.
If he lets it
(how easily
he might not notice)
it can come between
him and all life
(even Lazarus,
with Father Abraham,
is his brother)—
and that thin gate become
a great chasm.
Only when
our gates are open
can they become
the gates of heaven.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Right behind the priest administering the sacrament
              is one throwing mud.

As the artist paints at her easel
              another paints the back of her head.

In between each exquisite word of the poet
              is utter nonsense.

Pooling beneath every deed of kindness
              is a puddle of cruelty.

Yes, and haunting the devil and all his evil works
              is one slipping grace into every little moment.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Trust this:
that at the Last Judgment
God does not peer down at you
over a ledger-book of legal notes and calculations,
and pronounce a verdict.

God sits with you, says, “Come sit in my lap,”
and murmurs God’s pet names for you.

This is your judgment:
terms of endearment.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          For the brokenness of the daughter of my people
                 I am broken,
          I mourn, and horror has seized me.
                  Is there no balm in Gilead?
                                           —Jeremiah 8.21-22

Yes, all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.
But when the pretty blonde woman on TV says everything’s fine
that’s not what she means. She’s lying.
For before all manner of things shall be well,
first we will be cruel.

For our willingness to harm,
and for those crushed by our cruelty,
my heart is broken.
For children purposefully starved,
for terror calculated as policy,
for earth scorched and abused,
horror has seized me.
For the greed and the lies of the powerful,
for the vacant stare of the destitute,
I am broken.

Let my grief be holy, my sorrow be my prayer.
Before it congeals into rage, let it weep.
This great collapse within me,
this trembling, this irruption of emptiness,
is the heart of God—not wrath, but sorrow.
For my people, and yes, I am among them,
I am broken.
And this is my power: not anger but love.
This great wound is the openness,
where flows the blood of the Lamb,
that heals the world.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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As a baker carries the exquisite wedding cake—
heavy and delicate—into the room,

as the ambulance weaves through traffic
with its precious healing cargo inside,

as the woman near her due date
shields her baby through the crowd,

as the milkweed seed is entrusted to the wind
with all its generations,

as clouds hold aloft, in mere vapor,
a flood of water,

as a child reverently carries
a candle through the darkness,

through this day, God, I bear you:
gently, mightily, praying in me.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Find a gentle piece of earth.
Sit and be present. Sit still long.
Let the wind hold you, breathe you in and out.
Let the grasses grow up around you
and weave you into a nest.
Let your skin become soil.
Let your body sink down into the folds of fungus,
the fecund lap of earth.
Let the stream flowing by wash your feet, clean them,
rinse away the road, wash away your legs and hips.
You are a sandbank, gradually falling into the water,
becoming part of the flow.
Trees grow up through your spine,
clouds come in and out of your eyes,
whole storm fronts pass through the tabernacle of your lungs.
Allow yourself to become a branch of the great vine.

Now generations gather in you. Tribes and their tribulations,
saints and the scoundrels among them, congregate in you.
Give them time to come.
The woes of the world, and its wonders, seep into you.
And with it all—wonder of wonders, it has been so all along!—
flowing into you is the Divine, that infinite Mystery,
the Love that is the Source of all things,
the gravity that holds, the Life that issues forth in you.
Your breathing is the breathing of God.
Let it be so. Let it be so for a long time. Forever.

When you get up from this place it will come with you—
wonder of wonders, it has been so all along!—
forever.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          There was a rich man who had a manager;
          he heard that the manager was squandering his property….
                                            —Luke 16.1

And Jesus went around
to everyone who thought they owed God something,
and asked, “What do you think you owe?”
And they would count it up.
And he would say, “Erase it.”
And God said, “That’s my boy.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God, sometimes I confuse your will and mine.
Teach me to attend.
I forget you are in me.
Lean in me, so I happen to go your way,
even by accident.
Just kick once in a while
to let me know you’re there.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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In the garden I grabbed a handful of dirt
          but it jumped out of my hand—living!
                        It was a toad, dirt-colored, dirt-still.

I knelt there a while and we looked
            at each other and for a moment
                        no thoughts passed between us.

We were just two clumps of dirt,
            two sizes, two stories,
                        two distances from words.

I was amazed at what I’d thought was dirt.
           How often had this happened?
                        He had no such thoughts.

I returned to my gardening, then looked,
            and he had vanished. Only clumps of dirt.
                        The woods were full of him.

I got up and walked down the street,
            practicing believing everything
                        is more full of life than we know.

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