"Hanging by a moment..."

"I'm desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
I'm chasing after You..."
- Jason Wade

In the last few weeks I have had three photographs come into my life.  Each one has reached me at a different stage in what seemed like a process towards greater self-discovery.  It is the journey I wonder if Lifehouse isn't singing about in "Hanging by a Moment" 

"...I'm falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until You make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with You..."

There is s stillness in this hanging.  There is a way of being upside down to yourself.  It's almost as if the very air around you could disturb the process if you move too quickly or speak before you are ready to.

"...Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take Your invitation
You take all of me now..."

There have been moments when I have felt that I was hanging, like this climber, by the tips of my fingers from a precipice.  Waiting...on belay...for the next fingerpost to reveal itself, like magic, in the face of the rock.
There are other moments when I know that if I were to hang there forever, it would be enough to just be connected to that rock, by the slenderest thread, ad infinitum.   I am at peace with my suspension from His firm hold on me.  And actually that's the most wonderful part, the more I think I am holding onto God, the more I realize I have it all wrong.  He is holding on to me.  And you know, there is nothing I can do to loosen his grasp on my life, my hopes, my salvation.  In those moments of divine suspension, I actually do forget all that I am lacking, all the ways that I think I am completely incomplete as a mortal, and I find myself really believing that His invitation, to "take me as He sees me"...all of me...is a gift of grace.

"...I'm falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until You make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with You..."

This is the real deal, the Love that all other loves spring from. And you know, I can only truly let myself go, and love others...without fear of rejection, betrayal, hurt...because I have fallen even more in love with Him.  I think I could hang here forever, so tenderly connected to Him with all that I am, Suspended in His timing, waiting until He moves me to take the next step in any...and every...relationship in my life.

For me it is like the butterfly in the chrysalis. She is hanging from the rock by a single fragile thread that has unimaginable tensile strength...with nothing beneath her.  It is actually helpful for me to remember that the butterfly inside doesn't yet know that there is light, air, wings, flowers...flight.  All she knows is her hold upon the rock.  Soon there will be movement, a paradigm-wrenching trembling which will escalate until she has shaken herself free from the dark uncertainty of the chrysalis.  Until then, she can't even imagine that soon she will spread the wings she doesn't yet know she has, and soar on the winds of God's purpose for her.  But until that moment comes, she has only one thing to do...hang on to the rock.

"...I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with You..."

I am living for the only thing I know.  There are a lot of things that I think I know, and even more things that I have opinions about, but there is only one thing I am absolutely, positively sure that I know.  And that one thing is, as Mary Baker Eddy, says in her poem, "Love":

"Love alone is Life."

And since, as John avers, "God is Love," the above statement in conjunction with another of Eddy's statements, "God is All-in-all" reminds me that God, Love is All-in-all.  In everything, in everyone, governing every thought, motive, action, decision, choice, and outcome. It is enough. 

Somedays, when I find myself running madly in circles looking for answers, searching for meaning and inspiration, hoping for "something new"...I can stop to realize that all I need to do is "hang" for just a moment with Him.  With what I know about Him...as Love.

"...There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind..."

In the stillness of that space with Him, I remember what I know. Nothing in the world can change my mind.  Love is all that matters.  Love is all that makes a difference.  Love is the only goal, the only accomplishment, the only holy grail.  To find the love that burns like an inextinguishable ember in my heart and let it glow, burn, radiate, sing, laugh, purify my motives, motivate my actions, be my life.

"...There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else..."

Just hanging by a moment here with You,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credits:  Caitlin Little, Ashley Bay, Joan Knoll 2009]