Unfolding Light

Around the fire at night,
away from Moses,
do you suppose they talked about
the terrifying miracle, what it was like
amid the sea, walking down there,
remembering that moment
that stretched for hours
flooded with fear, awe, hope,
utter bewilderment, wondering
what awful powers were at work?
That maybe the looming waters
seemed worse than slavery?
What it was like to think
“Is this really happening?”
and especially, “Will it stay?”
Remembering the solid predictability of
home—even awful—missing it a little,
but turning, in some kind of dark
sparkling kinship, and going on.
The way the sea held, and held.
Do you suppose they wonder
even now, every once in a while,
Is this really happening?
Do you suppose they look at others
with different eyes when they see
the look of someone
who has walked through the sea?

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

The student tries to walk gently and elegantly
but staggers. The teacher asks why.
“Because my companion hurt me deeply.”
“Ah,” says the teacher. “This much?”
and picks up a stone. “No,” says the student,
“this much,“ and picks up a much larger, heavy stone.
“Carry the stone,” says the teacher,
“and walk gently and elegantly.”
The student staggers and stumbles even more.
“At first your friend hurt you,” says the teacher,
“but now it is the stone that is hurting you.
The stone is your judgment
of how much your friend hurt you.
Set it down. That is all forgiveness is.
You are still hurt.
But you are not carrying the stone.”
“Ah,” says the student, “now I am free!”
“Not yet. Not until you have set it down
seventy-seven times,
and no longer wish to pick it up.”

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

God, you have brought me through the Red Sea.
I have walked between the waters of difficulty and danger
with dry feet.
I have looked back and seen the forces of evil,
vanquished, on the shore.
Help me be humble; for they too have suffered.
Help me be grateful.
And yet I have not arrived;
the wilderness still lies ahead.
Keep my eyes on the promise.
Remind me always I am being set free.
Every step, every day, I am being set free.

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

         The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains.
                  —Romans 8.22


Creation is a whole, not a collection of parts.
         Forgive us for breaking you up into pieces.

Creation is our life-giving, birth-giving mother.
         We are not separate from you
         nor do we receive life apart from you.

Creation is a giver of life.
         We confess we are takers.

Creation is in labor pains.
         We cling to our past,
         but you are giving birth to a future.

Creation is groaning in labor pains.
         Your grace bringing forth
         a new creation of life, of fruitfulness, of belonging,
         a burgeoning of love.

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

We think of them as nobody,
whoever they are
we don’t want to see.
They are invisible,
the one at the intersection
with the ragged cardboard sign,
or off in some field far away
picking our produce.
Magicians we are,
able to make them disappear
right before our eyes.

Sometimes you feel all alone in the universe,
like God doesn’t even know you exist.
But for God to see you,
to see you with love,
who you really are—
giving you the power
to stand tall, to believe in yourself,
to know you are real and worthy and beautiful—
that would be salvation, no?

Imagine the power you have
not to save people’s souls,
but, miracle enough,
to see them.

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

You of the Great Breathing In:
           Aahh! We praise you.
You of the Great Breathing Out:
           Yes! We thank you.
You who swirl us in your interstellar dust:
           Alleluia! We glorify you!
You who well up your ocean currents in us:
           behold, we serve you.
Hand of all the world’s great migrations:
           Holy One, we trust you.
You who move in threads beneath the roots:
           Beloved, we reach for you.
You who fruit forth in a million varieties:
           we feast on your grace.
You who spark the Life Force in all things:
           we listen for your voice.
You who speak “Let there be light”:
           let us be light.

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

It is as if
you came home and there he was,
a stranger sitting in the room meditating.
At first alarmed, then annoyed,
and then resigned, you let him sit,
because he didn’t seem to be doing any harm,
and there was that light.
You never really knew what he was thinking,
but he was smiling, and the room was warm.
After a while you rearranged
some of the furniture around him.
Then you took most of it out,
except for chairs for the people
you invited over, to sit with him.
Later, in your house full of light and mystified guests,
you hardly noticed that he wasn’t there any more,
his smile on a hundred faces.

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

           In the beginning was the Word,
           and the Word was with God,
           and the Word was God.
                       —John 1.1

           In God we live and move and have our being.
                      —Acts 17.28

Love is eternal, and infinite, here before the beginning.
(Sometimes we use the nickname “God.”)
There is nothing beyond or outside of Love.
Love creates the entire universe inside God, inside Love,
since there is nothing outside God.
Love is no mere sentimentality: it creates the Big Bang.
It is gravity, the relatedness of all things.
Every object bends time and space to bring others near.
Love is creating now, in every place and moment.
Even in evil, Love is at work, creating,
allowing new life, new power, new freedom.

Because we live and move and have our being
inside the Body of Love, we live with hope and courage,
with gratitude and trust.
We are in awe that we are being created every moment.
We love every other being that is one with us in this Body:
friend and enemy, people and salamanders, wind and wave.
To live with faith is to remember we belong,
to rejoice, and to love boldly,
for the Love in which and by which we live
is infinite and powerful, and beautiful.

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

Sometimes I feel foreboding,
as if a dragon is about to consume me:
my failure or inadequacy, or my guilt.
But the dragon is no danger—
not to be slain, no, not even tamed:
but befriended.
There is no reason to fear,
only grace to receive.
Dragon, come sit, and speak to me.

________________
                Weather Report

Wild,
as storms of imagined high pressure
collide with your acceptable front.
Expect rogue waves of fear and shame,
tidal surges of responsibility,
and hundred-year floods of despair.
And also monsters and flesh-eating aliens,
all imaginary.
Meanwhile the peace of the real world will abide
till you come out again.

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

Sometimes I feel foreboding,
as if a dragon is about to consume me:
my failure or inadequacy, or my guilt.
But the dragon is no danger—
not to be slain, no, not even tamed:
but befriended.
There is no reason to fear,
only grace to receive.
Dragon, come sit, and speak to me.

________________
Weather Report

Wild,
as storms of imagined high pressure
collide with your acceptable front.
Expect rogue waves of fear and shame,
tidal surges of responsibility,
and hundred-year floods of despair.
And also monsters and flesh-eating aliens,
all imaginary.
Meanwhile the peace of the real world will abide
till you come out again.

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