"I've come to talk with you again..."

"Hello darkness my old friend
I've come to talk with you again.
Because a vision softly creeping,
left its seeds while I was sleeping..."

I guess it's time to revisit this...again...

"silence..."

I think the first verse of Simon & Garfinkel's "Sounds of Silence," says it all for me today. 

Mother Teresa once wrote:

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls. "

Whether this is an absolute Truth, or just true for her...I don't really know.  But I do know, that something about it calls to me.  It is an invitation, an urging, an inner imperative that I can't ignore.  It feels like a living, pulsing something asking for space in my life. I glimpsed its promise last summer, when...quite serendipitously...I had time to just sit with myself.

And what did I do with it?

Well, I ended up finding that I couldn't seem to silence the "self" that always wants to record everything in my journal, And once I've recorded it, I try to immediately make sense of what I've "heard" in that silence, and then begin searching for just the right words to make it "make sense" for others. 

But, something is always "lost in translation."  And, besides which, I seem to lose the true chord of the message, each time I tried to give it a name, a form, or put its living, breathing substance into the symbology of words.

And yet, I keep coming back to something I have long-loved, but haven't always let move in, unpack, and take up real residency in my own hungry heart. It's a statement from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure has come to this age through a "still, small voice," through silent utterances and divine annointing which quicken and increase the beneficial effects of Christianity.  I long to see the consummation of my hope, namely, the student's higher attainments in this line of light."

I want to understand this...more than I can say.

There is a seed of something growing in my heart...I don't know what its voice will sound like...or if it will even have a voice that reaches beyond the silence.  But I want to sit with it, and let it take whatever shape God wants it to take.   I don't know if its song will have lyrics...but I know I have to listen. 

This time, I dare not...

"...disturb the sound of silence...."

with Love,

Kate

"According to Him, I'm beautiful..."

"According to Him
I'm beautiful,
Incredible,
He can't get me out of his head.

According to him
I'm funny,
irresistible,
everything He ever wanted..."

This is a re-posting of a piece from 2010 that I can never be reminded of often enough. The mirror is a useful tool in making sure that you haven't left the house with the baby's pablum on the front of your shirt, or blusher on only one side of your face, but it isn't a measuring stick. It has no mind and can't tell you one truth about you. Only Mind can communicate the Truth of your identity...your beauty, symmetry, loveliness, and worth. I hope you have a beautiful day....as the beautiful you He sees you to be...

"According to Him..."

I know, I know..."According to Him" is one pretty poppy pop song by Orianthi (just don't underestimate her guitar riffs, there's nothing bubble gum about them...it's pure Stevie Vaughn-style rock!).  But that said, its "hook" perfectly illustrates this experience from two decades ago. 

Bottom-line, sometimes the messages we tell ourselves in the mirror are worse than our worst critics could ever come up with...but I am getting ahead of myself.

I was sitting in church one morning, feeling rather uninspired.  The words sounded like "just words," and nothing was penetrating the fog of self-dismissal that had been gathering since dawn. 

It wasn't a new feeling.  It was an "old, old story," and it was one that had lulled me into self-sympathy for years.  And even though it was a story I really didn't love telling, or listening to...I couldn't kick it out.  It seemed like an endless loop of mental static playing in my head. "You are not worthy, you are small.  Anyone who thinks you are worth knowing...much less loving...is being fooled by your thin veneer of self-confidence.  If they really knew you, they would see that you weren't worth their time or attention."

Over and over it played.   

The Scriptural readings from the desk were beautiful words.  And I tried with all my heart to focus on their message, rather than the one that was trying to force its way into the door of my thinking, and hijack my fragile hold on peace. 

I sat in one of the creaky, red boucle'-upholstered auditorium seats in our church sanctuary, straining to hear.  The Bible passages that opened the service were from Psalms:

"What is man, that thou art mindful of Him?"

Sigh...I knew this one so well.  Too well. 

I tried to let it sink in, but it was like pouring water on the parched, wind-hardened, and impenetrable surface of a sun-baked pasture on the Colorado high plains.  It rolls right off, or evaporates under the searing heat of a mile-high summer day, before it can even reach below the dust on the surface.

I sat back into my squeaky seat, trying to disappear, even more deeply, into the background of my own life.  Perhaps I could blend into the fibers of the upholstery and never have to propel this sad, sorry "me" through space ever again. 

I know, it sounds like the ego was having a personal-drama field day...and it was.  But I didn't have a clue in those days about how the ego could, and would, take on the voice of false-humility, and coo its message of "You are unworthy..." just as easily as it would arrogantly assert, "You are the best..." if it thought it could get me to believe that I had a self-created (or destroyed) identity separate from God. 

It was a fickle whore who was more than willing to say whatever it thought would get me to believe that I was special, an originator, a creator, and thus undermine my sense of God as the All-in-all, the one and only all-powerful, loving Father-Mother...the only Cause and Creator in, and of, the universe.

But that was when God pushed Her way through the ego's over-confident space of "gotcha" and walked onto the platform in the form of an angel in a pink and aqua floral chiffon prom dress.  Really!

Our church hired students from the local university to sing an inspirational solo during each Sunday service.  Sometimes these students were familiar with the Bible and brought spiritual insight to their interpretation of a piece.  And sometimes, it seemed as if they were singing a Scriptural text with as much understanding as they would bring to an Italian opera, phonetically sounding out each syllable perfectly, but without contextual meaning. 

As she opened her black folder and the introductory notes poured from the organ, I was slipping further and further into the ego's grip. 

That was, until she sang,

     "What is man?  That Thou art Mind,  full of him."

Her freedom from a more "traditional" spacing and emphasis gave the passage a whole new meaning. And the text for this particular solo, was just a repeat of that line from Psalms...over and over again.  Rising, and rising...in pitch and volume...to a crescendo-ed message of divine promise and unfailing spiritual self-reference, then gently closing with an almost whispered, benediction of "thou art Mine."

I will never forget the feeling of awakening that poured through me like water penetrating dry ground.  I could almost feel the roots of new spiritual insights digging deeper into my being searching for the source of that refreshment.  I sensed the brittle outer covering of dormant seeds splitting and peeling away from the plump green endosperm of spiritual promise.

The next Bible verse read from the desk was like soft rain on the savanna after a drought.  Not a torrential downpour that would have eroded all the seeds awakened by those first drops of divine Love's "living waters," but a gentle wash of nourishing waters to slake the thirst of the soul.  It was a spoken repeat of the text from the solo:

"What is man, that thou art mindful of Him."

But after the solo, I knew I would never hear it, ever again, as anything but:

"What is man?  That Thou art Mind, full of him."

God wasn't something I filled my mind with, I was what God, as Mind, was filled with.  I was the beautiful images, the songs, the poetry, the stories and promises He was cherishing, nurturing, reflecting upon...all the time.  That was me!  That was my identity!  My thinking had nothing to do with creating "me." Only God's thinking mattered.  And the better I knew, and understood, His identity, His character, His name and nature, the more I would know the kind of thoughts He entertained...me.

I sat in that auditorium seat for a long time after the service was over.  I can still feel the texture of that red-boucle' upholstery fabric under my fingertips as I softly stroked cloth, while quietly pondering the emerging seeds of true identity that were springing into birth within me. 

I let the cool Colorado air...passing through the branches of the large pine trees just beyond the open windows next to me...waft across the fertile space of my heart and blow all the old, brittle, chrysalis-like seed coverings away so that something fresh and vital could grow into something...something that I didn't need to know the exact form or function of at the moment.  An aspen tree, a tomato plant, a peony bush, a blade of grass whose identity is maintained by Mind...or even a bean sprout, here today, in my sandwich tomorrow.  It didn't matter.  Whatever it was, it was good, it was of God, it was perfect...it was me.  And that was a good thing. 

Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Mind maintains all identities,
from a blade of grass, to a star,
as distinct and eternal."

"According to Him.."  That's enough self-knowledge for me.  Whatever He thinks...that's what I am!!

with Love,
Kate

"How deep is your love..."

“How deep is your love,
how deep is your love?
I really need to know...”

I've always loved the BeeGees...still do. So I wasn't surprised when I woke up with their song "How Deep is your Love" dancing through my heart, inviting me to consider asking myself the question:

"How deep is your love?"

I've often asked myself, how deep is my faith, or my trust...but the depth of my love isn't something I've pondered lately. I think of Love as omnipresent, infinite, supreme...but deep? I had to ask, "What is the value of understanding the depth of Love, when Love is omnipresent...everywhere?"

And since my commitment to exacting the actual practice, of absolute spiritual facts, is critical to my sense of purpose, and since I also trust that God sends me clues as to what I need to be thinking about when I need to be thinking about them them...even through old BeeGees songs...I figured probing this question was the call of the day.

I liked thinking about depth. When I was a girl, we lived near a quarry that I'd been told was fathomless. We were warned that no one had ever been able to swim to the bottom, and return. The quarry was an abandoned, open mine that had filled with water from a natural well deep below the surface. It was surrounded by granite walls and the water was so deep, such a dark bottle green, that it almost looked black. We'd jump from the ledge of the tall rock face, fearlessly trusting that we'd never hit bottom. I loved to float in that still, dark water, and let all the air out of my lungs. Then I'd begin to drift downward. I felt one with. It was always surprising to see how much deeper I could sink into the darkness. It was so peaceful and quiet there. Perhaps a deeper sense of Love, would lead to more peace in my heart, a quieting of my days...

So, I decided to give it a listen. By that, I mean that I decided to take this question with me everywhere I went, into every situation, and probe it through the lens of each thought and experience I encountered.

The first thing that occurred was, I went upstairs to wake the girls for school. Now, this has never been my favorite part of any day. Repeated forays into their sleepy cocoons to cajole, shake, urge...and finally threaten "get up, or else..." leave me tired before the day even gets off the ground. There have been many days when I just want to beg their school to let them have a late start everyday.

[And yet, when it comes to getting up before daybreak at camp, to be in the corral, they're rockstars!! Hmmm...perhaps I should have been whinnying instead.]

But I digress. By the time we get into the car, I feel like I've climbed Everest or mastered some ancient yogi's walk across hot coals.

But that morning, as I climbed the stairs, I asked myself, "How deep is your love?" And I realized that...based on my history of mornings that devolve into the role of "the wake-up witch"...not so deep. Could I deepen my love? Sure. So, as I faced yet another round of moaning and groaning, that comes from deep beneath piles of quilts and pillows, I let patience...certainly a quality of love...sink deeper into my bones.

And you know, it worked. My love was much deeper than I'd thought possible. I kept a lighter heart, I mentioned that I would be ready to leave for school when they were ready...but that if they wanted to be on time it should probably be in the next 30 minutes...then I went downstairs to make breakfast.

I wasn't upset, stressed, or worried. If they were late, they would face the consequences. My love was deeper than I'd thought only an hour before.

The same thing happened at the first stoplight. The tension I felt in my shoulders after being cut off by a car full of teenagers in an Escalade trying to make a last minute illegal turn across my lane to get into the Starbucks parking lot before school , literally dissipated when I asked myself, "Kate, how deep is your love?"

"Deeper than this..." I replied to said self. Then I prayed, affirming God's irrepressible love for those teens, His undeniable control in their lives, the irresistible pull of Divine choreography...in traffic, in my movements, and in my heart.

This has become a question I've really enjoyed plumbing the depths of lately. It's brought me up short many times, and given me an awareness of how deeper I can go before I find the fathomless reach of God's Love, reflected in my thoughts and actions.

And I am realizing that no matter how deep I go, I can never become self-satisfied that it has been "deep enough." Mary Baker Eddy tells us, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:

“The depth, breadth,
height, might, majesty,
and glory of infinite Love
fill all space.
That is enough!”

Hmmm...so, I guess that until I've reached the depths of infinite Love, the question is still relevant. How deep is my love? Never as deep as it could be.... but I'm always willing to go deeper...and dive in...

and always with Love,

Kate

"Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on..."

“Paul and Silas bound in jail,
got no money for to pay their bail
Keep your eyes
Keep your eyes
on the prize...”

Jeff shared an insight at church the other night...one that made me think of Sara Groves’ "Eyes on the Prize."

He's given me permission to recount it here.

Walking along an unlighted corridor on campus, he came to a dark boiler room where he heard a very unsettling sound coming from a distant corner. He said that his first instinct was to rush through the darkness, and get to the next illumined space, as quickly as possible.

But, then it occurred to him that what he really needed to do, was act contrary to those fear-based inclinations. It was clear that he actually needed to slow down, lean into the direction of the darkness, and listen more thoughtfully...if he wanted to be sure that there was nothing to be fearful of, or concerned about. So he became very quiet, and listened.

The first thing he realized, was that the sound was coming from a different direction than he first thought. So, he turned and leaned in that new direction, pointing the faint beam of his flashlight into a far corner. And what he discovered was that it was....nothing. Simply the mechanical breathing of the building's boiler plant.

He shared, that if he had rushed through that space, running from what was unsettling...hurrying away from the unknown...he would never have discovered that the room was actually very safe. And, he would not have learned that by slowing down, and listening deeply, he gained a clearer sense of direction while facing his fears...right there in the middle of the darkness. Thereby dispossessing them of their ability to threaten his peace. I loved this.

This week's Bible Lesson references a passage from II Corinthians that I've enjoyed considering more deeply, in light of this story. It says:

“For God,
who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness,
hath shined in our hearts...”

I've read this passage many times, but I don't think I've ever really considered what it actually means, that God commanded light to shine out of the darkness. Wow!

Could it be, that darkness has the potential for being the birthplace of light. And do we, because of our fear that the darkness is a place void of light, run from it...instead of leaning into it and accepting the gift that comes pouring out, from within that space of wonder -- and wondering. The space of "not knowing." Not knowing an answer. Not knowing what's next. Not knowing what something means..or meant. Not knowing the solution. Not knowing what someone thinks about us. Not knowing how others feel about us. Not knowing why, or how, we could have made a mistake. Not knowing where we are supposed to be. Just not knowing...

It's led me to consider Mary Baker Eddy's statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in a new light:

“Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until the lesson is sufficient to exalt you; for "man's extremity is God's opportunity." The author has experienced the foregoing prophecy and its blessings."

Boy, talk about a paragraph full of paradoxes. We've got vacuums...but they are filled. We are left without friends or sympathy...but these are blessings. Betrayal and slander...that leads to exaltation and progress. She's got real moxie.

But if, as she says elsewhere, Love represents light, and that this "hour of development" is really only a seeming vacuum. And that, this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love, then the birthplace of Love, or light, may, at some point, seem to be a place void of light...a place of darkness.

Man, talk about encouraging someone to lean into the darkness.

Yet, consider her focus on salvation and admonition that what we most need is the "fervent desire for "growth in grace..."

If spiritual growth is our greatest, our most fervent desire, then perhaps we might find ourselves not only willing to lean into the scary corners, but actually be eager to slow down, and listen carefully for the "light" sound of His voice "out of the dearness." To feel the whispering breath of Spirit, we know we'll find there.

Eddy is quick to assure us that she isn't encouraging us to go anywhere, that she hasn't already been before us. This corridor is well-traveled. Other spiritual travelers, like Eddy, have left breadcrumbs along the way. Cairns of inspiration. Markings on the rock-ribbed walls. It reminds me of this stanza from Sara's song:

“Ain't know man on earth can know,
the weight of glory on a human soul.
The way is slow, and we've so far to go.
Keep your eyes on the prize,
hold on”

.
When I think about my own path, and the dark corridors I've "mistakenly" wandered down, as well as the ones I've had to walk...and the ones I know I'll still encounter if I am truly hungering for growth in grace...I am sometimes apprehensive. But I'm not resistant to the darkness, or ready to run from it.

Yet, when I consider the same journey for loved ones, it is often hard to remember that, as the hymn says, "darkness cannot hide Him {God, Love]..." and that their seeming vacuums are also, already, filled with divine Love.

That's when I have to ask myself whether I want them to just get through the dark boiler room quickly...but still think there are monsters behind them in every the corner...or do I hope that they will be inspired to slow down, lean into the darkness, listen for direction, and discover that they are free to feel safe...even in the darkness.

“When you see a man walk free
it makes you dream of Jubilee.
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on...”

It's given me a lot to think about this week. No matter what our dark corridors and noisy boiler rooms may look, or sound like...financial instability, fractured relationships, confusion, unemployment, sorrow, mistakes, anger, doubt, fear...these seeming vacuums are already filled with divine Truth, Life, and Love.

And perhaps, if we face them knowing we are not alone in the darkness, they will be the manger we have been wandering in the desert of our hopes looking for. The still space where Love gives birth to itself...to the light of the divine...patience, humility, grace, meekness, compassion....already within us. This promise is helping me keep my eyes on the real prize, "growth in grace..."

and hold on.

always with Love,

Kate

"We've all seen the rain..."

"Come with What's in your heart
We all have our cross to bear
The sweet will grow sweeter
And you will be freer still
Come with what's in your heart...now"
Mary Huckins

My dear friend Carol reminded me, through a compelling posting of the song, "Song for Mom: Seven Billion Strong."  that Sunday is Mother's Day. And I couldn't help but remember this post from a few years ago, and Dakota Blonde's beautiful song, "Come with what's in your heart...," that keynoted its message.

  In response to his friend's despair over his own mother's struggle, in "Seven Billion Strong," a wise young man replies:

"there's mothers struggling all over the world,
from Africa to the Middle East.
One thing I think we need to do,
is honor that..."

And they did...with their song, and its message of solidarity.

The following is just one tiny, little glimpse of how bringing what we have in our hearts - right in the here, and now - can enrich, and touch, and extend hope...and healing...to another.

"Come with What's in your heart..."

It was one of those days when I felt as if I couldn't get traction on my best laid plans. I'd spent the morning thinking about "charity." I needed to compile readings for a church service, and I longed for them to have the ring of Truth. What I realized I really needed, was to be moved by a fresh perspective, one that reached beyond the view from my office window.  I wanted to feel the deep drawn breath of humanity. To be filled with its hunger, and its definition of true charity. 

All morning I'd imagined carving out an hour, or two, for returning to our old neighborhood in the city. I thought I'd spend some time recalibrating the lens of my heart. There, the hungry and homeless share the sidewalk with college professors and graduate students.  I knew that in this environment of social diversity, the citations I'd chosen would either ring true with meaning, or fall flat on the face of pretense...rather than practice.

But as hard as I tried all day to make it happen, my visit to the old neighborhood just wasn't in the cards, God had other plans for me. 

A last minute appointment, scheduled just before I had to pick the girls up from school, took me in exactly the opposite direction of what I'd intended.  I found myself in a suburban Starbucks where luxury cars -- rather than shopping carts filled with redeemable soda cans taken from trash bins and dumpsters -- defined the socio-economic baseline.

At first I was disappointed and cynical.  I'd longed to feel the want and woe of a neighborhood in which "need" trumped "want".  I couldn't imagine that I would run into anyone in that Starbucks who needed anything, much less charity.

But, I'd long-learned to trust that God was the Captain of my comings and goings. And that if He had led me there, and it was He who had put this desire in my heart to practically demonstrate, and apply these Bible-based principles...relating to the subject of charity... wherever I was, then this was exactly where I needed to be.

As I sat there praying, I couldn't help but notice, through the front windows, a large SUV pull into the parking lot.  A teenage girl and her mom got out and approached.  The mom was broken. There was no other word for the look in her eyes.  It was clear that there had been harsh words, and the mom's face was stoic, but pained with heartache.  The daughter's face was critical and cold.  The look she shot in her mom's direction was one of disrespect and disdain.  But her mom moved through the space between the car and the front door of the coffeehouse with dignity...reaching deep within herself for love, patience, and poise. 

I admired her grace.  It was palpable in the spite of the daughter's angry sniping at her heels.  All conversation stopped once they entered the store, until mom turned to her daughter and quietly asked her what she would like from the barista.  A curt response followed. And without reaction, the mom ordered graciously, thanking the boy behind the counter when he repeated the order perfectly before completing the transaction. And, as I think back on it, that is just when the lines from Mary's song finally reached in and found me.

"Come with What's in your heart
It doesn't much matter now
we've all seen the rain...
So, come with what's in your heart...now"

As I sat there, I realized that this woman was hungry.  She was as needy as anyone I might have met on the streets of my old neighborhood.  She needed kindness and understanding, and as a mom, I understood.  I was filled with admiration for her poise.  I was overflowing with an awareness of how truly beautiful her patience was in the face of disdain.  

Although I was a bit embarrassed...not sure if she would think I was a bit odd...I rose from my chair and followed mother and daughter out of the Starbucks.  I called to her and she stopped and turned towards me.  I said to her, "You are beautiful.  I couldn't help but notice the dignity and grace with which you hold yourself.  I hope your daughter sees how beautiful you are."  She just looked at me and asked, "you really think I am beautiful?" I said, "Yes" And then I looked at her daughter who had a look of true surprise on her face as she said, "Do you really think my mother is beautiful?"  Again I said, "Yes, I think she is very beautiful...so graceful and beautiful."  With that, her daughter's face softened into a child's and she walked over to her mother and put her arm around her shoulder and said, "I think you are beautiful too mommy."  The mom looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "You just made my day.  I needed this.  Thank you." 

I learned so much in that encounter.  More than money, food, or a place to live, we all need to be seen for who and what we are.  We need to be seen for what we love and how we love and live. 

I learned that my view of that woman and her daughter was the most valuable thing I could give them.  More desirable and hungered for than gold, or cars, or a mansion on a hill.  And I had lots and lots of that kind of "seeing" to spare.  I had so much I could give it away all day and never run out.

I also learned that I should never prejudge anyone's experience.  Our gifts are needed everywhere we go.  We can never go to, or find, a place that is free of the need for spiritual gifts...compassion, understanding, generosity, kindness, long-suffering, genuine interest in another's life. And sometimes those gifts lead us to the sharing of a sandwich, a bus ticket, and most importantly, a cup of cold water in Christ's name. . 

Mary Baker Eddy says:

"The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud."

This passage took on new meaning for me the other day.  I realized that Love gives me...even when I think I have the least to give...might (the possibility to make a difference in another's life), immortality (the tirelessness of invigorating compassion), and goodness (helping someone see the good that is already present in their lives when it seems obscure) to bless the life of someone else.  In that moment of giving I realize how rich I am...I have something to give. 

Or as Peter said to the infirm man:

"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee..."

This spiritual giving was foundational to my mother.  When faced with opportunties for charitable giving, or philanthropy...even as a widow with eight young children and nothing in her bank account...she would affirm, for her own edification, as well as for anyone who thought they might try to convince her to hold back her widow's mite, "my children have the right to be generous."  I now realize what she has always understood, that giving is as fundamental as breathing to the human heart.

All you need to do is "come with what's in your heart".  Enjoy this beautiful song performed by one of my favorite Colorado-based folk/bluegrass/country bands, Dakota Blonde, and written by their lead singer and our friend, Mary Huckins. 

What is in your heart...right now...

with love,
Kate

[photo of Carol & Lizzie by Scott MacKenzie 2008]

"To be well, and to know it..."

" I am yours, you are Mine
We are what we are..."
- Stephen Stills

A friend asked me this morning, "Are there ever any posts, from your blog, that you return to and read...just for yourself?" It made me smile from the other end of the phone. This blog, in addition to being what it may be for readers, is my own "law library." It is a place to collect and store precedent setting cases of God's love, guidance, and correction...from my own experience. And yes, I do return to these archived stories. Especially when I need to be reminded that I have known, and experienced...first hand...the presence and power of Love. Here is one that I returned to just recently....

"I am well, and I know it..."

I know that a CSN (Crosby, Stills, and Nash) 1969 Woodstock performance of "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" may seem like a stretch as the keynote for a piece on spiritual healing, but it really is the song which came to mind when I started thinking about a recent experience that left me deeply grateful for simple statements of Truth.

It was almost four in the morning, I'd just finished posting a new piece on this blog, and I was ready to let my head fall gently towards the pillow.  I was feeling peaceful knowing that I'd worked through the night, my IM chat screen and FB/email inboxes were empty for just long enough to briefly turn from the screen, and find a couple of hours to rest my eyes before needing to get up again.  I pulled up the "sounds of the ocean and shore birds," --  I listen to each night as I drift off to sleep -- on iTunes, turned off my desk lamp and stood.  That's when the room started spinning in a way I'd never experienced before.  This wasn't just a dizzying case of vertigo...the walls were twisting and turning like funhouse mirrors on the inside of a carousel.

Before I knew it I was careening towards the bathroom...unsure if it was actually the floor under my feet...hoping I'd make it before I lost everything in my stomach.  My prayers were something along the lines of, "I know that my life is settled in your peace dear Father...I know that no storm within, or without, can convince me that I am a mortal being tossed to and fro.  I am God-sent and the only thing within me is the kingdom of heaven, which I can never lose."  But it didn't seem to have any effect on calming the sea within...and all was lost, over and over again.

When there was a break in the waves of nausea, I crawled back to our bedroom, and with the small bathroom trashcan as a companion, found my way onto our bed.  The next hour seemed like a ceaseless battering from within.  Dizzying, swirling, body-heaving "tossing" that never seemed to stop.  I was afraid I would pass out when I couldn't catch my breath...and then I was afraid I wouldn't pass out...since it would have been a welcome respite.  During one brief pause, in the relentless wracking of every cell in my body, I was able to call my husband 1,200 miles away and let him know I needed help. I felt so alone and frightened...and he could hear it.

He called an out-of-state friend, and fellow spiritual healer,  asking her to give Christian Science treatment, and within what seemed like only moments, my friend was calling me in the middle of my aloneness with a reminder.  She firmly urged me to pray with Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"I am well, and I know it."

From the moment she repeated it to me over the phone, this simple statement was the conscious lifeline of Truth I held on to through the next few hours. 

I clung to each syllable, really working with this statement, emphasizing each word...one at a time...until the entire sentence had been fully taken in, digested, and assimilated  -  restructuring the very mental molecules of my being. Or as Eddy says in Science and Health, I let "consciousness construct a better body..."  I knew that the spiritual relevance of this Truth as conscious thought had the power to construct a better body of animated being...form, outline, movement, purpose.  These words represented spiritual ideas and I let them restructure my sense of body...one word at a time.

I am well and I know it. 

The only I is Me, God. But by reflection, the I, that is Kate Robertson, my daughter, knows that I, God, her loving Father-Mother God, is the source of her every thought.  Therefore you, Kate, can say with confidence: I am known, loved, watched over, cared for and protected every moment.  I am, the individual, pure, whole and perfect articulation of God's being.  I am divinity expressed as humanity.   This "I" is well, and I know it.

I am well and I know it.

I am, right now, not yesterday, or tomorrow...a moment ago, or in a few moments...well, and I know it.  This wellness is without the need for process or recovery.  It is not, I will be well, or I used to be well, but I am well, and I know it.

I am well, and I know it.

I am well, whole, healthy and am experiencing this wellness as complete and perfect inviolable being.  There is nothing missing or absent from the wholeness of God's goodness.  There is nothing good in the universe that I am waiting for the appearance of, I am already complete.  God is already All-in-all as my being, and I know it.

I am well, and I know it.

Not only am I well but I am well and I know it.  I cannot be separated into conscious and unconscious being.  I am integrated as Mind and manifestation.  Or as Elizabeth Glass Barlow describes Mary Baker Eddy's approach to her work as a healer in Mary Baker Eddy: A Centennial Appreciation, "To her realization and demonstration were one, not the demonstration trailing the realization, but Mind and manifestation, simultaneous and coexistent." Nothing can separate my experience into parts.  I am wholly spiritual. 

I am well and I know it.  

I am well and I, right here, right now, right in the midst of the screaming of this suggestion, I know that I am well.  It is not just the practitioner's right to know that I am well, I must know the truth of my own conscious being.  I am not hoping and someone else is knowing.  I am aware, assured, confident of the truth of this Truth that is the only reality of my life.  I am not waiting for anyone else to convince me of my wellness, I am well, and I know it.


I am well, I know it.

I am well, and I know it.  I know it the way I know that 2 + 2 = 4.  I know it the way I know that I am me.  I know it and it is as true for me as my love for my husband and daughters.  I am not just thinking it.  I know it.  It is a knowledge that I stand on, walk forward in, move out from, and rest upon. Nothing can dissuade my trust in this emphatic truth.  Nothing can move me off of this sure base.  I rest my case upon the precedence set in countless instances of healing I have experienced, witnessed, heard, read about, and been encouraged by.  I am well and I know it.

I am well, and I know it.

I am well, and I know it, this very truth.  I know it, and nothing can distract me from this one and only truth that I need to stay focused on right now.  There is no other truth as powerful, intriguing, or certain for me in this moment.  I cannot be deterred in my trust in this truth.  There is no suggestion that can violate the impenetrable purity of this truth.  I know it. I have always known it.  It is my life to know that I am well, and that I know I am well.

I AM well, and I know it.
The great I AM, the one and only source of being, conscious worth, illimitable existence is God who is well, whole, inseparable, unfragmented Being...Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth and Love...integrated and synonymous...one directly implying the other. The one All-in-allness...the only I AM, that I am is well, and I know it.

I worked with this simple statement word-for-word, over and over again...finding new ways of looking at this truth with each new emphasis of each word...through the heaving and crashing of those waves within that tried to drown me in fear.  And as the pale blue light of morning began to dawn in the east just beyond the big picture window not far from my bed, I began to actually feel the power of the Word...in these words...bringing me into newness of life with regeneration. 

The fear I felt in the predawn darkness...fear that if I lost consciousness, no one would be able to get into the house...already locked down for the night, with me alone inside...dissolved in the light of my oneness with God, Truth. 

All sense of time dissolved in the joy, the real joy, of pondering this short statement from a spiritual perspective.

When I could finally take a deep breath without fear, it was morning and my husband called to tell me that he had been able to catch a last minute flight and would be home within hours to care for my needs, our home, and our daughters (who'd been staying with their dad and stepmom that night).   And he was.

And although I would still need some measure of care (I am so grateful for my husband's loving practical, and spiritual, attention as we moved through the next hours and days) I was able to call my friend later that day and thank her for the Christian Science treatment she had so lovingly given, for the call she'd made in the predawn hours, and for that remarkably simple statement of Truth she'd helped me recall when my hunger for the bread of heaven had been so great.

Simple fare...profoundly satisfying...and healing.
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I must give my heart...."

"What then can I bring Him,
empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man,
I would know my part;
What then can I bring Him?
I must bring my heart."

I wrote the following post in 2006, but its message still rings true for me on so many levels. A recent video produced by On Being on the practice of "Body Prayer," with yoga master, Seane Corne (who's approach has informed and inspired me for years) reminded me, again. of that winter night...and how synchronized my sense of body was/is with my understanding of spiritual being. To be empty of anger, ego, pursuit...and yet to honor, and be filled, with a soul-integrated sense of heart, is what Seane's practice is all about. So, here is that post from 2006...I share it with love:

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Last year, in celebration of the holiday season, Hallmark released a new James Taylor CD of songs and carols.  On this collection was a song that within an hour of first hearing it,  I began replaying it over and over again for spiritual inspiration and comfort, and in it I found direction on a journey that, at best, felt most dark and bleak. 

"In the Bleak Midwinter," a traditional carol written by Christina Rossetti in 1872, is one that Taylor and his partner on this recording project, Dave Grusin, breathe new life into with their haunting arrangement. 

"Then what can I bring Him empty as I am
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would know my part;
What then can I bring Him?
I must bring my heart."

My days were filled with the colorful busyness of the holiday season...choosing just the right gifts, wrapping presents, making and carrying out travel arrangements for loved ones, cooking, baking, chauffeuring children and meeting with patients, tea with friends.  This busyness, with all the details of caring for others, allowed me to push down the deep sadness and pain that poked constantly at the edges of my smile. I felt like I couldn't even begin to consider what were looming questions about my life and the lives of those I loved.

My nights, however, seemed like a colorless empty pit...a void so dark and abysmal that I often felt,  once I had the children settled in for the night, I would never climb out of  the utter confusion I felt about how to take steps towards a solution.  Even the process of discovering what those steps might be, seemed lost in a quagmire of emotion, culturally interpreted issues of respectability, and my own fear of failure and rejection. Night after night I would put on my running shoes and pound the streets in our neighborhood, and cover miles on the local track, praying for direction and guidance.  I often wasn't sure whether I was using running, metaphorically, to get away from my problems, or to move towards a solution...but I ran, and ran, and ran. 

By the last week in December I had listened to Taylor's CD so often that I had all the words to each of the songs memorized.  "In the Bleak Midwinter" was my step by step mantra for covering the endless track-based miles I convered each week (an earlier blog speaks of Martina McBride's "In my Daughters' Eyes" and how that song gave some direction to thoughts during the "street" sections of my nightly running that winter). 

One particularly cold night as I stood, bent over at the waist, mid-track...having just finished an exhausting two mile "loop"...I realized that the above quoted stanza was also running, side by side with me,  in a loop through my head, and it wasn't stopping from exhaustion.   One part of my nightly routine was to take a break after each two miles on the track and go to the long jump pit where I would move through a series of yoga-based stretching positions under the treeless bowl of stars above me. 

As I found my balance in the Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-facing Dog) position that night tears rolled down my temples...gathering and freezing in the stray hairs that had fallen in front of my face.  I was bringing to that moment every sacred hope I had cherished for a peace-filled resolution to what seemed like almost an insurmountable dilemma.  I was hearing over and over in my prayers, "What then can I give Him...I must give my heart".  I returned to Balasana (Child's Pose) as I exhaled and released myself from every self-presevationist instinct that I had left to retain control over my own heart.  I gave that which I most thought I could control and hold sway over, my own heart...my own right to be the architect of my expression of love.... into His hands under the stars that night. 

As my tears froze on my face I wept for what I knew I no longer could control, determine, "make happen"...I gave up my right to define outcomes, design impressions, or preserve pretenses....I surrendered my right to decide how I was going to be seen, how my motives were going to be interpreted, or how those around me were going to feel about me.  What could I give him in this moment of worship, in the midst of these feelings of profound emptiness...  I could give Him my heart.  It was really all He ever wanted from me.  The only gift that made a difference in my worship.  So I did.  I gave him all that I loved, all that I hoped would symbolize love in my life...I gave Him my fondest hopes, deepest desires, my most longed for outcomes. 

I didn't finish my run that night.  I lay on my back in the long-jump pit until I was almost too cold to move and "let go" more and more with each exhale of steamy breath into the clear star-filled night.  I watched stray clouds move across a mid-cycle moon and knew that I was walking into a wilderness I could not anticipate the landscape of.  I rose to my feet and took a variation of the Tree Blows in the Wind position, yielding to a divine pneuma or wind that would "blow me where It listeth" ....I became a willing willow rather than an intractable and rigid oak.  I walked the rest of my course that night and was keenly aware that something in me had shifted into a new and unknown place of worship and sacred surrender.   I walked away from my control and into Her arms...for her "Mother's kiss".

I gave Him/Her my heart and didn't try to hold on enough to pull it back if things got scary.  And they did. 

He/She still has my heart.  God has proven to me, that when I give Him all that is dear and precious, most holy and sacred in my life, He cares for it in ways I could never have expected, anticipated or imagined. 

He has a plan for you too....trust Her with your heart....She will tenderly care for Her young, She will protect and preserve its innocence, purity, its most tender desires and fiercest loves.  He is the Creator of your heart and the conductor of its rhythm, the choreographer of its beating...trust Him/Her.   What then can you give Him?....you must  give your heart".

In the bleak midwinter, icy wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow on snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long..so long ago.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim rising in the air;
Oh, but holy Mary, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a Mother's kiss.

Heaven cannot hold Him, nor can earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall fall away when He comes to reign.

What then can I give Him, empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would know my part;
What then I can I give Him: I must give my heart.

- Christina Rossetti

Kate

"Innocence is a child with a snake..."

"Were you a blazing ball of fire
before you were ever born
Did you find the cure for polio?
Invent the telephone?
Or were you disobedient at
the age of thirty-three
When some old Roman soldier
had you nailed up to a tree?

Maybe you were black and tired,
on the front seat of a bus,
Or on a protest march in Bombay
lying face down in the dust.
Maybe you were all of this and more,
Borrowed light from those who came before.

And the children who haven't yet been named
are stronger for your spark,
Stronger for your flame…"

- Randall Williams
from "Praying for Land"

This week's Bible study is begging me to repost this snake story....with Love:

"Nice snake..."

I absolutely Randall William's, "Stronger for Your Flame," (the song starts at 1:40), and when I hear it I am reminded of a poem that has been a longtime...but missing-in-action...companion. Until yesterday, that is.  My copy of this 1990 Godfrey John poem found its way back into my hands.  I originally discovered it in the Christian Science Monitor one morning almost twenty years ago, and it became my touchstone through a very difficult period. 

Someone I loved and respected for his devotion to public service was being maligned, vilified, and treated with disdisdain, after decades of admiration and trust.  I was heartbroken…but he wasn't.  His spiritual poise seemed untouched…unshakable.  When we spoke on the phone, or met in person I was always stunned by his grace...his simple, unflappable grace. 

And because we were friends, my integrity (and that of his other friends) had also been called into question. And it felt awful.   I finally had the courage to phone him.  I was hungry for some direction about how I could proceed in correcting the impositions.  He calmly and joyfully asked me if I knew my own truth.  I responded that yes, I did. I was certain that I had done nothing wrong.  I knew that my motives at every juncture had been pure. And that even though, in hindsight, I might have taken different steps today, I was absolutely sure that I had been honest, prayerful, and humble in asking for divine guidance, at the time. 

He then turned me to a story Mary Baker Eddy relates in the article "Taking Offense" from her book, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 – 1896: 

"A courtier told Constantine that a mob had broken the head of
his statue with stones.  The emperor lifted his hands to his head,
saying: "It is very surprising, but I don't feel hurt in the least."

He then shared with me that "you are not there."  You are not "who" they are throwing stones at.  They are attacking their own concept of the office you occupy…healer, director, mother…they are throwing stones at a version of that office that they are holding in consciousness that they don't like.  But only you know if that is you…and if it is…it is only between you and God to correct it.  If it is not you…then you can't feel hurt in the least.  You do not live in their consciousness of you...you live in your consciousness...and you must ask yourself who is the source of your consciousness of you...and of them.

"So what should I do when I see them, think of them, or are told stories about what they are saying?" I asked.   I could hear his silent smile through the phone as he sighed,  "Why, what else is there to do….you love them…truly love them."

This set me back on my heels.  Wasn't I supposed to defend him, me…all of us?

Then he reminded me of how Mary Baker Eddy follows up her story about about Constantine and the mob, she says:

"We should remember that the world is wide;
that there are a thousand million different human wills,
opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person
has a different history, constitution, culture, character,
from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play,
the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of
these different atoms. 

Then, we should go forth into lifewith the smallest
expectations, but with the largest patience; with a
keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful,
great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the
friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities;
with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath
nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it;
with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil,
and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it,
--determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant,
nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God.

Nothing short of our own errors should offend us."

(There is more, but for the purpose of this piece, I would like to stop here with that statement. )

These statements became a staff and a rod for me over the ensuing months.  A staff to lean on and a rod prodding me forward towards greater understanding, humility, grace.   However I am a visual person.  I love mental pictures to connect with as I exercise new spiritual muscles.  The Constantine story was wearing thin…I needed something fresh, something I could identify with.  I just didn't feel like an emperor and the image of a mob scared me.

That was when Godfrey John's poem appeared on my doorstep wrapped in newsprint. 

Here it is:

"Nice Snake"
(Note from poet:  This poem is spun from a story
I was told of an actual little girl in South Africa)

Slowly and with no mistake
the giant snake is inching up
the veranda where the five year old
sits, joyfully sloshing her cereal

As if planned and without noise,
the boa constrictor guiltlessly
encircles the chair and the child in his coils.

He lets his eyes come close to hers.
"Nice snake!" she says, lifting
a spoonful of milk up to his mouth.

He feels excused.  He sips the milk.
She lifts the spoon to her own lips.
His innocence coincides
with hers.  Valued now, he waits.

She feeds him again with special care
"One for you and one for me."
Suddenly he dips his mouth
deep into the bowl.  The child
taps his head with her spoon and laughs:
"Naughty, naughty!  Wait your turn!"

The boa constrictor meekly places
his scaled face against her cheek.
Repentance is responsive to love.

Once again she lifts her spoon
full of light.  His lips sip.
They take turns till the bowl is empty.

Unhurriedly, then, he uncoils
and slides beneath the veranda steps.

We must de-mythologize.

Innocence can not be earned:
innocence is immanent;
innocence is untouched
by guilt or hurt or old age.

Innocence
is a child with a snake and a bowl of cereal –
astonishing the day,
celebrating art.

- Godfrey John

I connected with this poem on such a deep level…I had just been to Africa, I had seen snakes, I knew the way they were feared.  I had a little girl who was fearless when it came to snakes, and bugs, and growling dogs…I wanted to be like her.

This poem became a space I lived in.  It became my posture in loving.  I was willing to share my cereal, but I was also clear about identifying my tablemate as eager to share too. It also helped me to understand my friend's spiritual poise…his unshakable dignity, grace and compassion.

This poem was my companion.  In fact it was such a priceless treasure, that we gave it as a gift to our friends in our Christmas cards that year.  More than one asked if the little girl in the poem was our South African daughter…it was not.

Through my many moves since then I had misplaced my original copy of the poem and would often try to recall those words I had memorized twenty years earlier.  I would have a strong grip on ten or twelve lines and then miss a word and not be able to find the rhythm again.  I had been thinking about it a lot over the last year or so and had on a number of occasions searched folders full of scrips and scraps of quotes, the insides of books (a favorite home for poems and quotes in my library) and old journals, but to no avail. 

When out of the blue a letter from my mom arrived.  She was harvesting some of her old files and came upon some Christmas cards, photos, and clippings from "once upon a time" and decided to send them to me…and in that packet was a copy of the Christmas card with our gift of the  "Nice Snake" poem.

So,  today I am sending out this early Christmas card to each of you…some of you received it almost 20 years ago…others will read it for the first time today…its message, for me, is still one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

My utmost thanks to Godfrey John, to my dear friend who taught me to live with dignity while under fire as a "whole-souled woman," and to each of you,  I am so blessed…
Kate

"the desire to be remarkable...."

"Who has told every lightning bolt
where it should go?
Or seen heavenly storehouses
laden with snow?
Who imagined the sun
and gives source to its light?
Yet conceals it to bring us
the coolness of night.
None can fathom it.

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky
and You know them by name.
You are amazing God.

All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees
as we humbly proclaim,
You are amazing God.

Incomparable, unchangeable...
You see the depths of my heart,
and You love me the same.
You are amazing God.
You are amazing God..."

A friend recently raised the question of personal "legacy." And as we talked about whether our legacy, or the lasting impact we make on the world, was something we choose, or something that is handed to us, I couldn't help but remember this post from a few years ago, and just how serendipitously it had unfolded in my heart. Then when another friend reminded me of it today, it seemed as if it were just asking to be re-posted. So, I offer it here...with love:

"Indescribable, undeniable..."

Chris Tomlin's song, "Indescribable," reminds me of Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"Patience is symbolized by the tireless worm, creeping
       over lofty summits, persevering in its intent."

There is something so extraordinary about seeing the wonder, and purpose, in every blade of grass, each tiny catepillar, every molecule of stardust, every dandelion seed...every one of us.  Each of us.  You, me, us them, that...yes, everything...filled with hope, passion, gratitude, tenderness, tenacity, vigor, beauty...love.  It stuns me, it takes my breath away, leaves me pregnant with joy, on tiptoe with expectation, hovering at the edge of the horizon waiting for the sun to rise and a leaf to turn in response to the sun's shining and awaken to her own shimmering color, movement, form, and grace.  In like manner, we each turn to God, and discover our own unique, divinely appointed purpose and promise.

"Nothing is so common,
as the desire to be remarkable."

This axiom of Shakespeare's rings so true, speaks with such authenticity of voice, that it took me by surprise the first time I heard it.  I believe that we all leap towards this common hope, we lean into our collective desire to make a difference, and we rise on wings of our awakened potential in answer to the compelling call from within, gently whispering, "you might really be remarkable"...worthy of remark...in the eyes of God.

But, the ego...the only real enemy of the spiritual man...doesn't want us to answer that calling. It tries to convince us that what we really want, is to be better than someone else, more intelligent, more inspired, talented, worthy, holy, strong, wanted, deserving. The ego thrives on comparison, competition, and compliments.  But I don't think this is what we want at all.  I think what we are longing for, is to know that we have worth and purpose in God's eyes,  To know that we fit into a divine plan, that we are on the right track, and that we are fulfilling His dreams for us as His beloved children.  We want to please our divine parent.

A friend, who is an elementary school teacher, recently shared this story with me:

"So, I was sitting here today when one of my students brought a book over to me. It was a religious board book called Hermie: A Common Caterpillar by Max Lucado, but it was the story that got me.

It was about two caterpillars who kept running into other insects that, to    them, had something special that they didn't have.

The snail could carry his house on his back, the ant was super strong, and the lady bug had pretty spots.  Each time they met an animal or insect with something special, they would go to God and say, "why I am so common? Why don't I have anything special?"

God kept telling them that He loved them just they way they were, and that He wasn't finished with them yet.  He had a plan for them, and they had a purpose.

At the end of the story one of the caterpillars went to bed and prayed to God, saying, "You love me, and that makes me special."

The next morning the catepillar woke up in a chrysalis, and then he turned into a butterfly.  He and His friend then understood what God had meant.

They also understood that even though each of us is different, we are all special in our own way because God loves us."

I loved this story.  Such a simple example of how each and every instance of creation...molecule, insect, raindrop, leaf, sparrow, idean, man, woman, and child...has a divine purpose, is filled with promise, and has a spiritual identity that is designed, cherished, nurtured, and maintained by God.

There is something so pure about my friend's experience in the classroom that day.  We all find, in our moments of inner struggle for the wit and will to persevere, that the faint light of love we emit, is enough to gather angels…children who teach us, parents who love us, friends who believe in us, books and stories that inspire our hope…unawares.  Eddy, in speaking to each of us, encourages:

"The lives of great men and women are miracles of patience and perseverance.  Every luminary in the constellation of human greatness, like the stars, comes out in the darkness to shine with the reflected light of God."

Each of us is uniquely beautiful, incomparable, remarkable in His divine design.  We created with the inherit desire, a spiritual longing towards this spiritual purpose.  There is an inner compass that draws us towards our own North Star, our spiritual family homestead...the kingdom of heaven within...where we are always welcomed with joy, handed a dishtowel, and  pointed in the direction of the kitchen where we are thrilled to fill our special niche in time and eternity.  

I love the way J.G. Bennett describes this spiritual homing device within our hearts:

"Spiritual homesickness is necessary for us. 

It remains in our heart most of the time.  But sometimes, there are periods we go through when we are constantly aware of being bereft of something.  And when this feeling comes we have to watch over the purity of that desire, and not misuse it.  The feeling is, in itself, authentic. It is an indication of being near enough to something to be aware of its worth.  One doesn't really feel deprived until one is close."

To be close to our Father's house is to recognize a familiar landscape. To hear the sounds of our childhood...the way the wind whistles through the tall grass in the pasture, the call of indigenous songbirds, the whinnying of horses in paddock. We know that our Father, God, is the Patriarch of this homestead. And we know that He is waiting patiently on the porch, searching the horizon for our silouette to appear in the backlight of a risen morn. Our hearts leap, our pace increases, the past falls away behind us in the deepening blue of twilight. 

Our divine Parent is waiting to hand us our assignment and to tell us that He always knew we "had it in us." He knows that we are capable of being indescribably wonderful...of making a difference.  He is waiting to greet us, each and every day, with our unique calling in His heart, our spiritual purpose on His lips, and a fresh new task at hand.  He is waiting for us, for me and for you...to just show up. Joining Him in the harvest we become heirs of all we see. 

It's always time to come home to who we are.  To come home to the lives we have been perfectly designed to live.  In His eyes we are amazing, remarkable, indescribably wonderful, fascinating, worthy, deserving...we are beloved. We are His beloved....always.
Kate


Here is a version of Chris Tomlin's "Indescribable" without the lyrics, but with beautiful imagery.

"And Life most sweet...."

"The first time ever I saw your face...
I felt the earth turn in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at Your command, my Love..."
- Roberta Flack

This weekend I was with an extraordinary family of spiritual thinkers who are committed to exploring the power of grace in their lives. A conversation came up about the value of listening deeply to the wisdom found in nature. We considered the lessons we learned while communing with other creatures...than humans. Turtles, puppies, fish, horses...and, this story about my encounter with a hummingbird. I'm re-posting it today because it's been so present in my thought this weekend. I offer it with love...

I hope you will understand why Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," leapt into my heart, when I began to write about this experience. In it, a tiny conscious being, leaves a very large imprint on my heart.

One of my favorite camp activities are the theme-inspired dinner dances that have been introduced by our extraordinary Lodge Manager, Eddie Cox.  Let me take a moment here to go on record as saying that Eddie is amazing…really.  He has taken what is, without question, one of the most challenging jobs at camp, and turned it into a platform for sharing his ebullient joy, awe-inspiring grace (on the dance floor and in his every interaction with campers, parents, and fellow counselors), pure love, and breath-taking humility. 

The CITs (Counselors-in-Training) may have learned more about servant-leadership from working shoulder-to-shoulder and broom-to-broom with Eddie Cox, than on a Peace Corp mission in Kenya, or any Noles course in Patagonia.

Okay…now that I’ve honored a really great guy, let me continue with the real story here…

Sidenote: This post was originally published in 2007. This is 2012, and this summer Eddie will be one of the Camp Directors. I'm so grateful for his willingness to accept this post.

It was mid-session after the campers returned from their three-day trips, and Eddie and his chain gang of CITs had worked furiously to create a feeling of New York dinner club elegance in the middle of a pine log lodge.  And they had succeeded admirably.  Everyone had been encouraged to wear their Sunday (or Friday night) best for 40s-style swing dancing during dinner.  Long rectangular and large round tables bordered an open space that was carved out for dancing.  Once dinner had been served, the music filled the lodge, swirling through the rafters as dancers left their plates for a turn, or two, at imitating Fred and Ginger.

Eddie hosted as our resident “Fred,” and we watched and twirled right next to him while our dinners cooled on abandoned plates.

I had just returned to my place at the table to catch my breath when Amy, a counselor and long-time friend, approached..  She asked me to come outside as there was an urgent need for spiritual care. 

I was really at camp for only one reason--I am a Christian Science practitioner.  Our campers come from families who live and practice Christian Science, and rely on its teachings for health care, life guidance, and to discover more about their relationship to God.  I am very accustomed to being called away from dinner, sleep, shower….you name it. It's always a privilege to prayerfully support a counselor, camper…or horse…in need. 

The sound of the music, the clatter of dishes, the squeals of joy from the dance floor, the grumbling of my tummy, receded into a hazy muffle of white noise as I mentally descended into a space of conscious stillness. A conscientious awareness of God’s All-in-allness-- one that I have learned to completely surrender to.

I followed Amy to the deck just outside the dining room.  There sitting on the rock wall banked with wildflowers was Ryan with something very small cupped in his large, calloused, rock-climber hands.   His face was as tender as a child’s, and his eyes looked up imploring me to “do something”.  I reached him quickly and discovered that a tiny hummingbird was lying limply in his palm.  He extended his hand to me and I took “her” into my own, much smaller hand, gently.  She was unresponsive and felt as soft and broken as a small silken sack of loose flax seeds. 

As I held her, I turned to God with my whole heart.  I had spent years of summers on my cabin porch with these vibrant creatures darting and hovering…weaving their way between the bird feeders swinging from porch rafters, and the profusion of colorful wildflowers that pepper the flowerbeds, clay pots, and hanging planters around camp.  This gentle creature was His...God’s. It was clear to me that only He could combine such intricate beauty, strength, speed, tenderness, and grace in such a tiny form.

I turned to Amy, and there were tears streaming down her face.  She shared with me that while eating dinner she noticed something skirt across the wooden floor of the dining room. It had looked like a hockey puck, being kicked back and forth by the unwitting dancers.  By the time she realized that it was this tiny hummingbird, and picked it up, it was unresponsive.  The bird had somehow found its way into the lodge earlier that morning, and had spent the day trying to get out through the tall windows, as the CITs worked on preparing the lodge for the dance.  They had tried to help her find her freedom, but had not been successful. She would just fly higher, and higher, into the pitched ceiling of the lodge.

It was obvious that she had become exhausted, and had finally fallen to the floor of the dining room. 

Amy finished her story by looking up at Ryan, who had been listening carefully.  With a shy gulp she said,

“We named her Life…”

So, that was where I started: what did I know about Life?  Life is God.  Life is good.   Life was not vulnerable.  Life, synonymous with Love, asserted itself as the only real power in the universe.  As Mary Baker Eddy asserts in her poem “Love”:

“Love alone is Life.”

So then, as I further reasoned, with mathematical certainty that, if Love alone is life, then Life alone is Love…and Love doesn’t make you weak, tired, vulnerable or fragile. These were ideas that I had been clinging to all week as I'd prayed for an indomitable sense of conscious being.  Love as life is a divine promise of invulnerability, strength, clarity and assurance. In fact, it is a clear, that when we are love, we are living.Alive and safely sheltered in Love’s encircling care.   It was clear to me that this hummingbird, because she was a hummingbird, loved the sunlight. She was one with the rich beauty and color of her surroundings...the fresh mountain air, the scent of pines, the sound of a the river.  Her efforts to reach what she loved could not have made her weak, but could have only made her strong. 

The campers and counselors loved one another. And they loved this hummingbird. They loved the beauty of the mountains. They loved the lessons they were learning from the birds, rocks, water, trees, creatures around them.  Therefore they were safe from being placed in a situation where they could be harmed, or cause her harm.

I looked down on her small broken form, and it was clear that any brokenness was incongruent with renewed my sense of “Life.” ”Life” was more than this small -- however exquisitely beautiful -- form could ever fully express. Life, God, was what this little bird’s body was only a tender whispering of. And yet I knew that each mental molecule of Life's expression of itself, had to be in consonance with the integrity of the overarching character of Life. It was a self-enforcing law.

It was clear to me that we needed to, as Eddy says:

“act as possessing all power
(to be kind, compassionate, caring and nurturing)
from Him (Love) in whom [we] have our being.”

I asked Amy to get me a small saucer of sugar water, the same solution we put in the hummingbird feeders around camp.  At first I just put a little of the water on my finger and put my finger near her long slender beak, lying on the palm of my hand.  Within a moment or two her eye flickered, and her beak parted ever so slightly. But it was obvious that she was struggling, and felt too weak to take the water into her mouth.

I closed my eyes in prayer.  The image came to me of a hummingbird hovering in front of a flower with her beak dipped into the mouth of the blossom.  So I put a spoonful of the water into my own mouth.  Then I made my lips into a pursed opening…imitating, as best I could, the opening of a flower. I then lifted my hand to my face, and placed the end of her beak into the opening of my lips filled with the sugar water solution. 

I was shocked to feel a tiny hair-like tongue darting in and out across my lips.  I opened my eyes, and there, looking into my face with all the spiritual maturity of a Ghandhi or a wise child, were the eyes of this extraordinary creature.  She locked her eyes with mine, and shuddered into full conscious being. 

When I felt her no longer drinking greedily, I pulled her away from my face and looked down at her lying in my palm. Her little body began to “purr” with life.  As we watched, our little girl hummingbird, became a boy hummingbird. Her dull brown feathers pulsing into an iridescent green that caused us to gasp with delight.  Her throat throbbed a ruby color I hadn't imagined possible. 

Within a few moments, the three of us together held her, fed her, loved her.

She would “rev” (the only word I can think of to describe the feeling in my hand when her body would begin to buzz, just before her wings would start to flutter), and attempt to fly out from my hand over and over again. 

Each time we celebrated her freedom.  She'd fly a few feet, and then fluttered to the ground where I'd pick her up. After resting in my hand for a minute or two, she'd try again.  A small group of campers and counselors emerged from the dining room, and she continued to make her flight attempts in front of a loving, but concerned audience.  Since it was time for the evening program to start, I took her up to my cabin and sat quietly with her on the porch. 

A young counselor followed me, carrying the saucer of sugar water.  She sat next to me as I held our little friend.  This young woman and I had already spent a lot of time on my porch that summer.  One of her best friends from home had been killed, just after she had arrived at camp, and she had been haunted with questions about life and death.  We had talked well into the night about what we were both learning about God’s love for humanity. But her heart was still not fully at peace. 

As we sat there with “Life” I realized that all our talking was nothing compared to what we were witnessing that evening of God’s expression of Himself as Life...as conscious being...through this small creature.

Once again, “Life” attempted a flight and this time she succeeded in making it onto a branch in one of the large pine tree that canopies my cabin.  The counselor watched as "Life" made one attempt, after another, to fly from branch-to-branch, and then tree-to-tree, until she was no longer visible.  We continued to sit and talk...the sky moving from evening into twilight...when suddenly out of the blue (literally), “Life” returned to the porch and landed on my knee.  She sat there for a moment or two before I picked her up and held her. And a few moments later, she took off again.

At some point, my friend decided she should go down and join the rest of the camp community for the evening program.  After praying for a little while longer, in gratitude for what God had shown me of Himself as Life that evening, I too went to join the others at the campfire.

On my way down I ran into Amy and another counselor, Peter, sitting on the rock wall just above the fire ring where everyone was gathered for a campfire sing.  I sat down to let Amy know what had happened to “Life,” and to share together our gratitude for the experience, when “Life” herself (himself...only males are supposed to have ruby throats…although I don’t know that I will ever think of her that way) flitted into view and landed on top of my foot.  I reached down and picked her up and held her.   I petted her beautiful tiny iridescent green feathers, and stroked her ruby throat until she started to whirr into pre-flight again.  When she lifted off and flew into the lavender dusk sky I was so happy to see how strong and sure she appeared. 

Amy and I finished our conversation with Peter, and I'd walked down to the pines behind the benches surrounding the fire-ring, when suddenly I felt something at the nape of my neck, moving the hairs that had escaped from my ponytail. 

For a few moments, “Life” was on my shoulder without the slightest movement.  I turned my head and she again stared into my eyes. There was such apparent intelligence, wisdom and gratitude pouring from her heart.  I could see her desire to communicate her love, as clearly as I could see it in my daughter’s eyes each night as we lay in her little bed snuggling before she fell asleep...neither of us saying a word while we listened to her daddy singing hymns. 

“Life’s” eyes held all the awareness of love and affection, gratitude and goodness that my daughter’s did.  There was no lesser intelligence, no lesser life.

When “Life” flew off this time into the branches of countless pine and aspen trees above us, gently swaying against the background of a cobalt night sky filled with stars, I knew she was ready to let me go.  She had told me all that I needed to know to stop being concerned for her.

Over the course of the next weeks a single hummingbird would hover around the Adirondack chair on my porch whenever I sat there to pray or study. Every now and then she would light on the arm of one of the chairs as I sat quietly  In the weeks following this experience, a handful of hummingbirds decided that the flowers in hanging baskets and pots on my porch were the most tasty at camp.  

And one day, soon after we'd returned home to St. Louis at the end of camp, I discovered that my window boxes, filled with pale coral geraniums, deep blue gentien and lobelia, were where a half dozen hummingbirds would gather to feed, while I worked at the kitchen sink. And when I was sitting at my desk near the back deck, they'd relocate to just outside the nearby windows where pots overflowed with fragrant lavender and waterfalls of petunias as soft and pink as a sunrise over the Rockies.

I offer no interpretation of these experiences….I just extend them as a gift of Life, and Love.

"And Life most sweet as heart to heart,
Speaks kindly when we meet and part."
- Mary Baker Eddy

Kate