life is good
“Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous
daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and
undertake the most interesting game in the world — making the most of one’s life.
– Harry Emerson Fosdick
life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Poetry”
Divinity School
Come forth into the light of things,
Let nature be your teacher.
– William Wordsworth
I sit and open my mind
to the learning of the ocean
the gulls in flight
have been my most excellent teachers.
I have been learning from their instruction
for the past two months.
Their movement in the air and water
have taught me more about trust in these moments
than sitting for years
in a classroom somewhere.
This is my Divinity School.
The movement of the elements
wind, snow, sand, rain and sun.
The conversations with
rocks, trees, shells, spring flowers.
The water teaches me
intimacy with my creator,
and the true breadth
width and height of God.
Who is all
through all
above all
under all
beside all
inside all
around all
We humans walk on and through
God himself
so mostly unaware
the earth is made of His word
the air and sea are His breath
we are made of all three
clay, water, air
Trinity
I cannot help but be
astounded,
overwhelmed,
overjoyed
by this majestic love.
I experience it in every step I take.
Of course I must sing
(a melody like this
will not be contained)
in harmony with the glamorous gold sparkly rocks
filling my pockets.
How could I possibly keep quiet?
4/6/13
this is it!
“On the third day he rose from the dead.”
I don’t have an idea what this means.
I have a trust, a gratitude, a courage,
but not an idea, an explanation.
Nobody got a picture.
Maybe Jesus suddenly took a breath,
sat up and walked out, squinting in the light
like a new-born baby.
Maybe God gave him a new resurrection body,
at first unrecognizable,
not earthly at all, but Something Else.
Maybe the Body of Christ is the community,
as Paul said. Maybe it was a heavenly vision,
a hallucination, a cover-up, a plot.
Or just warm fuzzy feelings.
I don’t know. What I know is this:
Before that day the disciples were fearful, ashamed,
broken, hiding and confused.
And afterward they were joyous, confident
and fearless, and gathered together
to proclaim what they had seen.
Somehow, the Living One met them
and called them out of old lives into new ones.
In whatever form he came, that is the Risen Christ.
Once I was broken, empty, ashamed
and without hope in the sham I called “myself.”
But a loving presence walked me into the darkness,
laid me down, made me over and brought me out.
Whatever that is, that Change, that Power—
that’s resurrection.
Whatever transforms you is resurrection.
Whatever mystery makes you let go of the old life
and makes you more loving, more joyful,
more hopeful, trusting and grateful,
is the power of God. It is all you need.
Whoever forgives you, whoever bears you over
is the risen Christ.
Stop trying to get an ID, to get a picture,
to explain, analyze, dissect it.
Let it be the wondrous mystery that it is.
Blessed are they who have not seen
and yet who have come to believe.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
nothing but love
God is love; sin is denial of love:
denial of God’s love for us,
of our love for one another,
of love’s power over all other powers.
We deny the Lord, we say “I do not know you,”
when we substitute deserving or order,
efficiency or security for love.
Our denial of love can only lead us
to violence, to evil, to harm.
Ah, how we wound each other
trying to be Safe.
But in the face of our violence
the Gentle One comes to show us the way,
the way of love, the triumphant way of love.
His friends misunderstand him,
fail him, deny and betray him;
and he loves them,
and gives himself to them.
People accuse him and humiliate him,
assault and arrest him;
and he loves them, and heals them.
They judge him and condemn him,
attack him in a mob, beat him
and torture him to death;
and he loves them and forgives them.
He will not deny them love.
Nothing can overcome his love.
In the end their righteousness fails;
their evil and its power,
even death and its power
are swallowed up in his life-giving love.
This is resurrection.
He has already won the victory
and we are still fighting him.
We wrench ourselves away from God
and one another, but love still holds us anyway;
our rebellion comes to nothing.
Even our deepest evil is overcome,
and we are left helplessly, completely
and purely beloved.
In the end we are left with nothing at all
but love.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
The Ascent
Grab hold,
and take this hand that
reaches out to you.
Look up
into my eye;
my spirit
cries out to you:
Friendship is my thought.
Let us climb the jagged cliff of life
and fight the ascent of Opposition together,
if I can lift you today,
you will look back
and grab the hands of a thousand more.
– Howard Rainer,
A Lifetime A Day
In the space between breaths
It can be gone –
A month’s worth of words
erased with a fingertip.
A 12, 30 even 60 year marriage over
With 4 words spoken:
I want a divorce.
A home with all its possessions
destroyed in a matter of minutes
in the fury of nature –
Fire
or storm
or selfishness
Life!
so fragile,
with no guarantees
of longevity
or comfort,
begs to be lived
now.
A lifetime a day
is the only way
to count
for the sake of goodness.
This is the only moment that counts
The only thing eternal
are these moments
that don’t wait.
Take a deep deep breath
of the spirit that is giving it all.
say thank you
for the only gift that matter,
the only thing that remains.
All else can be destroyed.
When nothing else remains,
what is this eternal gift?
Love
AL 12/22/12
Holy One,
I am your vessel,
your cup, your picture frame.
I am the brush and you are the art.
I am the candle; you are the flame.
I am the school bus and you are the children.
I am the ship and you are my freight.
I am the body and you are my soul,
my heartbeat, my nerve, my breath.
You are the harp and I am the string;
I am the string and you are the music;
I am the music and you are the words.
Holy One, I am your life in this life,
and you are my life.
Bear me on
as I bear you
into the world,
O Holy One.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
3 more days of 2012!
Resurrection
These are the last days of the year
I feel like I want to slow them down
Drain them dry
Not sure why
First time i’ve had this feeling
Between Christmas
and a New Year
Usually I can’t wait
for the page to turn
Im always ready for
the bright shiny new year
To come and bring new things
Shimmering with possibility
Glimmering with potential
Empty slate-start over time
This year I feel these last few days of 2012
Are important for me
To grasp
In ways Ive never felt before
In three days a lot can happen
A death and burial
Even, on occasion,
a resurrection
AL 12/27/12
At Christmas time we think of the “Christ child,” though we know nothing of Jesus’ childhood. But there is this: Luke says when Jesus was twelve, when his family went to the temple in Jerusalem they accidentally left him behind. After three days they found him, in the temple.
Insert your own funny family story here of the kid being left somewhere (ours is a gas station). But wait― three days? Clearly, this is not a biographical story, but a symbolic one. It’s a story about losing and finding, being with and without, separation and reunion. In the Bible three days is not chronological time, it’s symbolic time: Abraham and Isaac on the mountain… Jonah in the whale… Jesus in the tomb. Three days means loss and transformation, death and resurrection. And it comes at Christmas time.
Because Christ comes to us to be with us in our death. Christ comes to us because we are broken hearted. The peace and joy of Christmas is not just for fun, but because we need it. We need the healing for our sorrows, the mercy in our terror, the company in our wanderings. Christ comes to be with us because we are lost, and searching, and alone. Sometimes, like his parents, we feel like we have lost the Holy Child with us or within us. We feel death’s shadow. But the good news is that we haven’t lost God; we are not alone; death does not have the last word. The light of Christmas shines on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.
For many people the ribbons of Christmas are braided with sorrow. And this year it has been for us, too. My wife Beth’s youngest sister Paula passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last weekend, two days before Christmas. Family is gathered, yet sundered, both lost and united. We have been more aware than usual that the promise of Christmas is not happy times; the promise is that God is with us, even in the sorrowful times. Sometimes we have to search for three days to know it. But when we return to the sacred center, we find that it is we who have wandered, who have not seen the presence of God. We are not alone. And death never has the last word.
There will be sorrows and fears; there will be times when we feel without God. But “after three days”―beyond the appearances of time and space― we will be reunited with the Beloved, and we will find ourselves in a holy place.
This Christmas pray for all those who do not yet see light in their lives, who are in sorrow, or searching and feel alone.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
connections
In the tiny villages of the night sky
a star’s windows gleam, waiting,
longing us home.
Your being, quiet as a star,
leads the hopeful
to a place of belonging.
•
The simple star
offers its gift with open hands
to the plains
with their little towns,
to the star-blind cities
and the furrows of the sea.
You do not need to know
that your compassion extends
to all living beings
for it to be so.
•
Deep in the black sky
a star gleams
its glory and hope
upon the little child.
Bright one,
never doubt
that your light is beautiful,
nor that what it shines on
is holy.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
light of the world
Now burn, new born to the world,
Double-natured name,
The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled
Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,
Mid-numbered He in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;
Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;
A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fire hard-hurled.
– Gerald Manley Hopkins
life: acoustic & amplified 