"I'm hooked on a feeling..."

"I can't stop this feelin'
deep inside of me.
God you just don't realize
what You do to me...

When You hold me
in Your arms so tight
You and me know
everything's all right...

I'm...
hooked on a feelin',
I'm high on believin'
That You're in Love with me..."

I know, I know, this song is a bit of a stretch as an inspirational keynote, but I like it so, so much.  It brings me back to the summer of 1969, and my aunt Marge's kitchen in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

Blackberry pies in the oven, flour-covered countertops, and B. J. Thomas on the record player, in the family room singing, "Hooked on a Feeling."  My cousin, Anne, and I, dancing around the house while we waited for our carefully-woven lattice-topped crusts to turn a perfectly-baked golden brown.

Tennis in the morning, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the town pool for lunch, picking berries and baking in the afternoon, the Beyer boys and homemade ice cream in the evening.  It was a perfect summer.  And I was absolutely, without-a-doubt, hooked on the feeling of being a teenager.  It was a wonderful time in history...for music, fashion, movies, having a crush on a boy, learning to bake the perfect pie...well, just everything!  But that was then...

This song begs a different question tonight:  "What is the feeling I'm hooked on in 2010?"  And for me, there is no question.  The feeling is one absolute trust in God's presence and power. The kind of trust a child feels when she knows that her parent has authority in her life, is reliable, and will never let her down.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her brief work, Rudimental Divine Science, promises that:

"You must feel and know that God alone governs man..."
[emphasis added]

And not just know, but feel and know...what a promise!!  I love having this as my expectation, as what I must feel...and not just might be able to feel, if I think the right thought, or pray the right prayer...each day.   To feel and know...to experience...God, Love, as the supreme and only governing power in my life...ahhh...what peace.

There is a sense of joy that comes from knowing that you are not responsible for holding the world in orbit, that there is someone who will never let you down, someone on whom you can rest your hopes.  There is a sweetness in knowing that your divine Parent loves you completely, absolutely, irrefutably, irrevocably, infinitely, unfathomably...forever.

This is the feeling I love so much.  This is the feeling that I am hooked on...trust.

with Love,  

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

ps:  if you don't remember the 1969 B. J. Thomas version of this song, but it sounds familiar, it might be the Ally McBeal "Dancing Baby" version you are thinking of....and for this reason (and because I think it is such fun) I've also included it here.

[photo credit:  Nathaniel Wilder 2010]