"thought gently whispers..."

"Let's be a miracle..."

2012-01-26T19:58:00.011-07:00

"Let's feel what we cannot feel,
know what we cannot know,
Let's heal where we could not heal.
Oh it's a miracle,
Love is a miracle,
let's be a miracle..."

"That's not possible." she said. "It's just too much to expect." Thus far, and no father...

I thought of "her" as I listened to Sara Groves', Miracle tonight. The "her" was me. But the version of me, the one who thought that something could be "beyond loving," now seemed somehow foreign, distant, a specter of sorts.

It wasn't always that way. Over the years, there were many things that, I thought, were beyond my capacity for loving...and, actually, they were.

They were beyond my capacity for loving, but not God's. And when I finally began to understand that, in reality, I had no capacity for love of my own, I was able to see that the infinite well of Love...from which I was drawing upon for the little, easy kinds of loving...was actually fathomless. infinite, and "not of mine own self" -- at all. It never was, and it never would be.

And once I realized this, it seemed silly not to draw on it all the time. To draw upon it more deeply, boldly, and courageously than ever before. To draw upon it for the purest, clearest, holiest living waters of Love's bounty.

This afternoon, I had an experience that was a tiny example of how this shift in my heart has changed the way I see my relationship to the miracle of loving. It seems like such a small thing on the surface, but I felt it to the marrow of my being.

I'd received an email that I found very hard to digest. Everything about it poked at what I love, and what I believe to be true. Of course, the ego (or mortal mind...whatever languaging works best for you) immediately took my feelings of "how could he/she" as an invitation to say, "well, thatperson/position is certainly wrong, unkind, unlovable." But "it" (the ego) had forgotten that I am no longer the person who once had limits to her loving. I am on my toes these days. I know its nasty tone...it is the voice of judgment...especially assertive when it feels indignant, self-righteous, justified in judging another, because of some perceived slight.

I was actually pretty quick (this time) in realizing that I could not afford the luxury of judging anyone, including the writer of the email, as someone who had perpetrated a slight on me, or my beliefs. It was clear to me that if I allowed myself to judge them, it would make me a perpetrator...someone who judges others. And a cycle of the victim becoming the perpetrator ensues. And that's a ball that will just continue to bounce back and forth, picking up speed, until someone really gets hurt in the crossfire.

So, I stopped. Yep, I just stopped. I sat back in my chair, and asked myself, "Kate, what is keeping you from loving this person...right now?" It was immediately clear, "Nothing!" Not one single thing. My identity wasn't defined by anything anyone else said, or did, but by the way I love. And I wasn't going to willingly, or consciously, violate my identity by giving up my right to love unconditionally, impartially, and universally...ever.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

““If I love you,
what business is it of yours?”

Which, for me, aligns with Paul's statement from Romans:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us
from the love of God...”

Nothing...no person, place, or thing can separate me from my right to love...anything and everything, at all times, in all places, under all circumstances.

Loving...being the very love of Love...is my business. It is my life. It is my "one true thing." It is all that I am sure of. It is what I rest my hope, my confidence, my sense of identity upon. No matter what storms may seem to be roaring "without me," I cannot be made to feel separate from the love of God. I can always find my peace by returning to the center of my knowing, the Scriptural promise that nothing can separate me from love of God.

I don't need anyone's permission to love...it my right to love whatever is in my path. To love every moment. To love him, and her, and those, and that. It is a divine imperative that is asserting itself in each of us. The human will does not have the capacity for that kind of loving. It is not a decision, it is not the result of human endeavor, or the product of noble effort...it simply a miracle of grace.
A miracle of grace -- of Love's influence on our hearts, and it's reflection in our lives. And since, as Mary Baker Eddy says in her poem, "Love":

"Love alone is Life."

We are fully alive, every moment that we are undeterred, and borderless, in our loving. Every small act of kindness, every time we put down our weapons of self-preservation, and love beyond what feels "safe," we are that miracle of grace. It makes me happy to discover how many "miracles" I can find within myself on any given day. Because, there's just always an opportunity to love more right beyond the borders of what we think is impossible....

with Love,

Kate

"If I was in..."

2012-01-24T12:57:00.009-07:00

"All the leaves are brown,
and the sky is grey.
Ive been for a walk,
on a winters day
I'd be safe and warm
if I was in.... "

If...

If I was in L.A....Taos, Boulder, Maine, South Africa, Denmark, Ireland....anywhere, but where I was. If only...

Hearing the Mamas and the Papas singing, California Dreamin', this afternoon, got me thinking. Thinking about all the geographical dreaming I've done, for as long as I can remember...or at least, until much too recently.

But, as I sat there...looking out through the gray branches of a midwestern winter's stalwart sycamores peppered with brave squirrels, cardinals, and chickadees...I was happy. I was content. I was exactly where I was supposed to be at that moment...and I knew it.

14th century Persian poet, Hafiz, once wrote:

“This place where you are right now,
God circled on a map for you."

I knew this to be as true a truth, as ever there was.

So, what changed between the years of longing, and these ongoing moments of pure contentment? More than I can cover in this post. More than I think I can even begin to fully grasp. But there are a few things that I am celebrating a simple clarity about tonight. Such as,

We are constantly being sold a bill of goods that says we need certain "conditions" to be happy. When I have the right job, live in the right neighborhood, have the right partner, pray the right prayer, think the right thought...then I will be happy, satisfied, ready to progress, better positioned to succeed, in the right state of mind for health, wholeness, perfection. But only then.

As my daughters would say, "not."

This thinking just reduces our understanding of God to someone sitting back waiting for us to "get with the program." It makes God rather impotent. It is as if this all-powerful, ever-present, omniscient divine Parent that I worship, needs me to get it right...get into the right place, find the right position, be with the right people, read the right article, think the right thought...so that he can care for me, love me, govern me sovereignly.

Again, "not." Or at least, not for me.

Another line of reasoning says that where I am..right now...is a mistake. And if this is true, then my all-powerful, all-knowing, always loving God fell asleep at some point, and I ended up in the wrong place. And now I am stuck until I, you get it, think the right thought, pray the right prayer, and listen carefully enough so that I can take the right step in the right direction...but until then.... And that means, that obviously, I am not there now.

But, none of these options acknowledges, and honors my beloved Father-Mother God's all-powerful care for me...and mine. And I can't live with that premise. It leaves me feeling frantic to find the right place, be with the right person, think the right thought before I can be at peace, satisfied...happy. So, what do I think?

Well, Mary Baker Eddy, the most God-trusting woman I know, once wrote, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"All that is, is the work of God, and all is good.
We leave this brief glorious history of spiritual creation...
in the keeping of God, not of man,
in the hands of Spirit, not matter,
joyfully acknowledging, now and forever,
God's supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence."

and this, from her poem, "Satisfied,"

"It matters not what be thy lot,
so Love doth guide..."

These two statements have been my compass, my geographical starting point, for a while now. In the first statement, she makes it clear that God has created, and is governing, every moment of my life. I need to trust His wisdom. I am here. My job is to joyfully acknowledge his supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence...not question it.

And in the second statement, well, I smile when I see her use of the word, "lot." I have looked at lots in Colorado, Maine, New Mexico...you get the picture. But, she is saying (to me) that to the spiritual thinker, it just doesn't matter. What matters is that love guides me...moment, by moment...every day.

Today I am here. So this must be the perfect place for me...the perfect lot, plot, house, home, acreage, location. The perfect place for me to love, to serve my Father's children, to joyfully acknowledge His presence, power, and supremacy. If I am supposed to be somewhere else, I will be there. I will have no choice. So why think about it. It's a waste of my heart, my thinking, and my prayers.

There is a whole world to bless....right here.

Jesus was once asked when the kingdom of God would come. It reminds me of all those nagging little distractions to inner contentment, those gnawing little thoughts that have poked at me for so long: When will you get to "go home?" When will you go, where you are going, next? When will you ever live near the ocean, the mountains, in the perfect place? His reply to their question, echoes through my days:

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Neither shall they say,
Lo here! or, lo there!
for, behold,
the kingdom of God is within you..”

This is my perfect "place." This is my heavenly center. This is the only place I will ever really be at home...the kingdom within...the consciousness of Love, and my right to actually be the expression of that love, right here, right now.

When I make this my geographical focus, I am completely satisfied, at all times. Whether I am in the midwest under a gray January sky, along the Maine coast for a day, or in the Colorado mountains each the summer, I can be perfectly at peace.

When I don't feel the need to stake my claim on a place, I can enjoy where I am, while I am there. What deep, abiding contentment this brings.

So now, if I am going to do any "dreamin'," it's going to be about peace on earth, good will towards men, universal health, unconditional kindness, wide-spread compassion, global respect, and undivided cooperation...not beautiful places far away, but beautiful places within.

I am loving this place...since its the one God circled on the map for me...today. Putting my heart in His hands, I am always safe and warm.

with Love,

Kate

"Punctuating our days with prayer...'

2012-01-18T19:51:00.016-07:00

"I can be
in a crowd,
or by myself,
or almost anywhere..

I get on my knees.
There I am before
the Love that
changes me.

See, I don't know how,
but there's power
when I'm on my knees "
- N. Mullen

I've used Jaci Velasquez's, I Get on My Knees as the keynote for an earlier post, but it seems perfect for today's message. I promised, in last week's post on celebrating the Sabbath, that I would share more from Krista Tippett's interfaith conversation with the Dalai Lama (and friends) on, "Pursuing Happiness," hosted by Emory University. And I try to always keep my promises.

In the last decade, I've enjoyed finding threads of common practice within the rich tapestry of our vast global faith community. Last week, it was Rabbi Sacks' exploration of the Judaic practice of Shabbat, that enriched (and has continued to deepen) my own celebration of the Sabbath.

This week it has been Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasir's insights about Salah, the practice of praying five times daily to Allah, and the follow-up contributions of Rabbi Sacks, and Episcopal Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, that I found sisterhood in. Each was responding to Krista's question:

"What are the corollaries in your traditions for generating calmness of mind?"

Dr. Nasir:

"Islamic tradition we have the five daily prayers. You pull yourself out of the flow of time, into a space that is sacred-ized. And for a few minutes, even if your mind is running like mad, you have to force yourself, to pull yourself, out of that context.

"This exercise, of praying five times a day, has an enormous effect on our life, and every day the social dialog goes faster and faster. These prayers are very centering, and act to give punctuation throughout our day."

Rabbi Sacks:

"In Judaism it is the simple act of prayer. Three times a day, three things happen when I pray.

"The first thing is thanks. The first prayer we pray is, "Thank you God for giving me my life."

"The second thing is confession. You feel the ability to acknowledge your mistakes, and then you grow...you learn by those.

"And the third thing is simply the basic expereince of prayer altogether. Standing in the presence of a deeper form of being.

"Knowing that this universe is not indifferent to my existence, deaf to my prayers, blind to my hopes. And when I feel in that presence of the Being at the heart of my being, then I actually experience the greatest line of all in the life of faith, from Psalm 23, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me." We can face the future without fear, if we know, that we do not face it alone."

Bishop Schori:

"We share many of the same forms of prayer...prayer as awareness and attending. Christians sometimes pray with images, and sometimes we pray without images...a kind of emptying prayer.

"I think the part that is perhaps most attractive to "new learners" is about understanding all of existence as prayer.

"The Celts were very effective at blessing each moment of the day. Blessing the milking of the cow, blessing the covering of the fire at night. Brother Lawrence blessed the washing of the dishes. Runners begin to understand the blessing that come in putting your body to work, and emptying the mind.

"There are practices that each of us participates in that are about simple awareness of God's presence in every breath, in every moment, in every encounter, in every challenge. It's that awareness, and attending to it, that I think is so significant."

Dr. Nassir added:

"In Islam, as in Judaism, the sense of priesthood is divided between all human beings, and each person stands directly before God."

I loved hearing how each faith tradition brings a unique perspective on the practice of prayer. But it was having my understanding of Salahexpanded, and discovering the corollaries between this sacred Islamic act of devotion, and my own daily practice of prayer, that was so meaningful for me this week. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science writes in her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Jesus prayed; he withdrew from the material senses
to refresh his heart with brighter,
with spiritual views."

and

"Jesus' prayers were deep and conscientious
protests of Truth, — of man's likeness to God
and of man's unity with Truth and Love."

Isn't it lovely to see that the substance of our devotion is shared, however different our rituals and symbols. This week...even though I try to live in a constant attitude of prayer, and pause, often, throughout the day to "refresh my heart with brighter, with spiritual views,"...I made an effort to join, in Spirit, with my Muslim neighbors in the practice of Salah.

I sought to perform a cleansing "ritual" that was consistent with my own faith. I consciously prayed for "submergence in Spirit" (from Eddy's definition of "baptism"), then I turned in the direction of my own spiritual "mecca"...the kingdom of heaven within, and bowed before God, "in holy submission to the divine..." What a blessing.

It's been truly lovely...and love-inspired. By seeking to understand the practice of Salah, I have felt such a sweet sense of uniting, in prayer, with all of my faith neighbors. It has left me with a profound sense of "peace on earth, and goodwill towards men"...all men, women, children, creatures, trees, rocks....all creation. Impartially, universally, unconditionally united in prayer.

One of my favorite spiritual songs says:

"The outward symbols disappear
from him whose inward sight is clear.
And small must be the choice of days
to him who fills them all with praise.

Keep while ye need it, brothers mine,
With honest zeal your Christmas [outward] sign.
But judge not him who every morn
feels in his heart the Lord Christ [spiritual man] born.”
- John G. Whittier

At this point, there are still some wonderful "outward" signs and symbols that I love dearly...singing hymns, kneeling on Sacrament Sunday, praying "The Daily Prayer," reading the Weekly Bible Lesson, etc. Each one a loved practice of devotion.

Krista's interview with Rabbi Sacks, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr. Nasir, and Bishop Schori, has helped me see that I share my love for the practice of prayer with billions of spiritual thinkers worldwide. I am so grateful to know that we can live together in respect for one another's ever-clearing inward sight, and join together in grateful praise.

with Love,

Kate

[photo credit: silhouette of Sandy Wilder on the shore of the Tiberias Sea by Duncan Wilder 2012]

"An active moral imagination..."

2012-01-17T15:51:00.017-07:00

"Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can?
No need for greed or hunger.
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people sharing all the world...

You may say that I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one..."
- John Lennon

I've spent 40 years thinking about the lyrics to John Lennon's 1972 peace anthem, Imagine. I love the hope for humanity it offers. But sitting in the parking lot, just before church on Sunday, it all came alive for me.

Thank you Krista Tippett...thank you, thank you, thank you. Talk about redemption. I am deeply grateful. So, here's the story:

I was about 4 years old. I remember sitting in my grandmother's office, telling stories to a stuffed bunny and my favorite doll. When, out of the corner of my heart, I overheard my great aunt in the kitchen. She was speaking rather disparagingly to my grandmother. "Tskk tskk, that child certainly has a vivid imagination..." she blustered.

I don't think I had any idea what the phrase, "vivid imagination," meant at the time. But based on the tone of her voice, I was certain it was a character flaw. It was obviously something I should file away and feel badly about identifying myself with. And it became a pocket of shame that held dark, dank worries about my relationship to reality.

She made it clear, over the years, that having an imagination was not the same as "knowing the Truth." And since "knowing the Truth" was good, was spiritually strengthening, and brought freedom, the implication was that having a vivid imagination was a waste of time. An active imagination was something flaky, silly, and the selfish indulgence of a mind less scientifically inclined, and fact-based. Hence, it was a quality I shouldn't celebrate, or honor, in myself.

But Sunday, Krista gave me back my dignity as an imaginative being. And for that, I am so deeply grateful.

Sunday morning she interviewed John Paul Lederach. Lederach is the author of The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, during her NPR program, On Being. As a Mennonite, Lederach continues in the footsteps of a rich community of Protestant reformers who took on the Christian demand to be peacemakers, with a special passion. Wherever there is war in the world, Mennonites can be found as mediators and medics, fire fighters, and mental healthcare givers. But more about that in another post.

This Sunday morning, it was simply the title of the book that lifted my soul. For a number of years now, I have cherished Mary Baker Eddy's definition of the word "moral," in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, with great spiritual purpose. It has informed my sense of moral courage, my own standard for moral behavior, and given me guidelines for moral reasoning. Eddy offers as her definition:

Moral. Humanity, honesty, affection,
compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.

Well, during Krista's interview, Lederach explores the worth, and value, of having a "moral imagination." He offers that those who exercise an active moral imagination are able to imagine solutions that go above and beyond systems, paradigms, techniques, and processes which have become the norm for socio-political behavior.

For example, peace builders that have a vivid moral imagination can imagine their enemies as friends. They can imagine a solution to conflict which refuses to choose a side -- in a dualistic "right or wrong" battle of wills --and seek to discover new,uncharted ground for forging relationships of understanding and compassion.

I love having an active, vivid moral imagination. I love imagining a world where former spouses partner lovingly in parenting their children. Where neighbors can find joy in one another's company without the need for compromised values. Where fathers can embrace their sons, without the need for either's consent to specific "healing" outcomes on issues of gender, politics, or religion. I love imagining a hospital filled with fearless spiritual healers, and churches filled with physicians seeking understanding.

It's been such a joy to let my moral imagination run rampant. I can imagine radical humanity in the face of inhumane disinterest. Dream freely about honesty that dances nakedly in the dark alleyways of fear and self-doubt. I can indulge in visions of rich affection walking boldly, where disquiet tiptoes along the edges of judgment and rejection. I can cherish images of revolutionary compassion inhabiting the courtrooms of shame.

I relish my right to celebrate the totalitarian rule of a divinely-defined faith within each man, woman and child. A holy, uplifting faith asserting itself where apathy would lull our world into resignation and pessimism. I lean into the the distant strains of a meekness so sweet, and deep, that it sings its song of peace unchallenged by the spectres of anger and resentment. And I can sense the presence of a breath-taking temperance so clearly informed by the reign and rule of God -- the one Sovereign of "the kingdom within" each of us -- that it is undeterred, unshaken by the opinions of others, or the extremism of culture.

I love having a rich moral imagination...and, as Ian McEwan once wrote:

“Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself
is at the core of our humanity.
It is the essence of compassion and the beginning of morality.”

Forty years ago, John Lennon offered us a window on moral imagination...looking through it fills the heart with "new views of divine goodness and love."

What can you imagine?

with Love,

Kate
postscript: Someone just sent me this Percy Bysshe Shelly quote. It speaks so beautifully to this message:

“A man, to be greatly good,
must imagine intensely and comprehensively;
he must put himself in the place of another and many others;
the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.
The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.”

"forged by fire, tempered by water..."

2012-01-12T18:39:00.009-07:00

"Oh sisters,
let's go down,
come on down,
don't you want to go down,
down in the river to pray..."

I love this scene from "O Brother Where Art Thou," and especially Alison Krauss' Down in the River to Pray." But it was last week's Bible study on baptism, that led me to some new spiritual imagery. It came as a memory. One I hadn't thought of for a long time. We'd taken a trip to an historic village where participants re-enacted the lives of 18th century tradesmen, farmers, and families. A bustling community with thatched cottages and kitchen gardens.

I was most fascinated, at the time, by the blacksmith. Strong and silent, he forged lumps of molten metal into horseshoes, hinges for doors, farm implements, and tools. It all seemed like magic to me. Watching him submerge his quarry, first into the fire...in order to soften, bend and shape it, then into a large vessel of cold water...to harden it so that he could test it's shape, and further hone it's sharpness, was like a dance of heat and steam.

So, when our Bible lesson last week, referred back and forth to baptism by fire, then baptism by water...it was this blacksmith imagery that set me thinking about the spiritual essence of these elements as they relate to "sacrament," which Webster defines as "an outward and spiritual sign, of an inward and spiritual grace."

Mary Baker Eddy, in particular, references water and fire over-and-over again in her writings, but I loved thinking them in the context of "smithing," particularly with statements like:

"The furnace separates the gold from the dross that the precious metal may be graven with the image of God.”

"Millions of unprejudiced minds -- simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert -- are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the consequences."

I know it may seem like a bit of a stretch, but to me, this is what Jesus' life is a model of...being softened in the fire of God's love...for bending and shaping, molding and exalting, and then being "set" by the cool waters of spiritual refreshment....the silence that comes in the quietness of prayer. Again, Mary Baker Eddy gives such a lovely sense of this spiritual refreshment when she states:

"Jesus prayed, he withdrew from the material senses to refresh his heart with brighter, with spiritual views."

Perhaps his tempering, with the cold water of spiritual stillness, came from within...from deep draughts of prayer. The cup of cold water that set the shape of his heart.

I was thinking about this heating and cooling as I considered the way a goldsmith works. He heats up lump, and the impurities, or dross, fall away from the ingot of gold. But this heating, this baptism of fire, also softens the gold so that it can be graven with the image he wishes to set, as his seal, his signet in the gold. Once the image is right, he submerges the same piece in the cold water to set that image in place.

Isn't this what Jesus' life...and ours, if we truly follow him...is all about. Surrendering to those experiences that forge a new compassion in us. A compassion that is not just soft enough to envelope the world's hurts, but graven with the power of the Word, and set with a holy purpose. We don't have to look beyond the gospels to find an example of this kind of self-surrender.

Jesus lived it from Bethlehem to Calvary. Back and forth he goes from the furnace to the cup. Exalted as a babe, rebuked at twelve, anointed at Jordan, tempted in the wilderness, revered by thousands, betrayed by loved ones...crucified, resurrected...back and forth...fires that soften his heart with compassion and understanding, waters that refresh him with the "bright and imperishable views" of his calling. And always, baptized with the deep draughts of Principle-based spiritual law.

I think it's like that for us, too. I know it has been for me. It is out of those furnace experiences...which at the time seem more like self-imposed "trials by fire"...that I've seen the dross of "judging others" fall away, had my view of the situation soften with compassion, and watched my willingness to extend that cup of cold water - in Christ's name - refreshed with a holy sense of purpose and affection.

Fire and water, fire and water, fire and water....

Isn't this, in fact, the last image we have of him...a fire on the beach, next to the sea, with his disciples.

I often have to ask myself, "Do I think a life of lavender-scented bathwater; gentle, soft-fingered tracings; and fires that I only have to come close enough to warm my hands by, but not so close that I am in danger of self-immolation, is better for some reason than the furnace and the cup?" Is that what I really want?

No....I want his purifying fire. I want to feel my hard-heartedness melt into "the form of the forth." I want to feel the point of a diamond, and the pen of an angel, engraving the Truth on my consciousness. And, I want to be set in place...and in purpose...by the law of Love. I want to be forged and tempered by His hand.

There's more that Love is unfolding to my heart about His "smithing" in my life -- but for now...

with Love,

Kate

In this context, I am enjoying re-reading this post, from last Spring, aboutWhat Water Can Do," as Johnny Diaz sings.

"Moving mountains within..."

2012-01-09T20:28:00.009-07:00

"Do you want to breathe again,
love again, live again...
forgive..."

I was sitting in the office recently, praying for guidance in my prayers, when I received the following note/comment from a reader, and it was just the reminder I needed. Thank you dear friend.

"This post [from 2007] came to my thought today as I was praying and thinking about something from my past.

I love what you shared at the end of your blog,

"But this time it was as if the next line was illumined by a spotlight: “And when ye stand praying, forgive..”

I realized that for so long I wanted someone to pay for what had happened to me when I was little, I guess I felt like they should suffer. I wanted someone else to feel bad and sorry. I thought this would make me feel better.

I don't feel that way anymore I have realized that the only way to peace and healing is through forgiveness, forgiving myself and others. Learning to forgive is what is moving the mountains in my heart. I am able to see this so clearly now.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful experience in your life. It has helped me and provided me with inspiration. xoxo"

Dear Friend:
Thank you for sharing your experience...here is the original post you referenced:

"Until you moved the one in me..."

“I never thought
that mountains could be moved
That they could be cast into the sea

I never realized your words
Were Oh so true
Until you moved the one in me.”
- Reed Hess

I haven’t heard these lyrics in over twenty years, but I can still remember how I felt that morning, in the early 1980s, when I tiptoed down the stairs of our basement recording studio as singer/songwriter Reed Hess was laying down vocal tracks from behind the glass window where he sat, eyes closed, alone in front of the piano.

I can remember the scruffy burnt orange and brown sculptured-loop carpeting with raw edges that covered the narrow stairs leading down to the control room. I can remember exactly how it felt to run my fingertips along the front edge of that scratchy step, halfway down the stairs where I'd been stopped in my tracks by Reed’s rich voice practically praying those words into the microphone, and burning them onto my heart.

To really know that mountains could be moved. That was what I wanted. And Reed had found the words to express my deepest hopes. I can still hear the timbre of his voice, singing what I had been praying each day for years...that decades of fear and despair in me could be dissolved. That mountains could be moved.

I believed in God. I trusted that He loved me and that He had the power to heal sickness, raise the dead, and transform the sinner. But I didn’t truly really know if He could move the mountains (and there was a range of them) in my heart.

Yes, I was deeply grateful for every bit of progress in my spiritual excavation work, since returning to the study and practice of Christian Science. I had absorbed the universal truths it explained, and had discovered how practical its application was in my life. I had taken an advanced course in how to heal spiritually, and had left a long career in education to devote my life to helping others as a Christian Science practitioner. I had experienced and witnessed healings of urgent, chronic, heredity-based and acute physical, emotional, financial, and relationship challenges. I was absolutely confident in God’s supreme power…"as in heaven, so on earth."

I was an active member of my church and I was dedicated to this Bible-based approach to living. I shared it with anyone, and everyone, I met. Yes, I was sure, confident, certain of God’s love for everyone...but me. I had seen so many lies about man’s perfection dissolve, when placed under the light of God’s love for others…but could not imagine that it would ever really get at the deep dark stuff in my life. Other people’s problems just weren’t true…that was easy for me to see. But I was fully aware…up close and personal….of all my misdeeds and I knew that they had actually taken place, and I felt that my memory of them was pretty accurate. And that accurate recall was hard to swallow. In almost every instance, it was hard to forgive...and especially hard to forget. I had made many mistakes and could see how reasonable it was that my mountains of guilt and self-doubt were not only justified….but there to stay.

When I heard Reed’s voice pour out of the speakers in the control room, I wanted to burst right through that door, and ask him what it actually felt like when God moved his mountains. But I was patient, and sat on the step waiting for him to emerge from that dark cocoon of silence. And when he did, I was there waiting. I asked him, "What does it feel like?"

“Oh,” he said with a sigh, "it feels just like it sounds…like a mountain has been lifted from your soul…”

“But what do I have to do?” I pleaded.

I felt like I was in an old Kung Fu episode where “Grasshopper” returns in hazy memory to a moment with his Master. They are alone in soft light and seen through a filtered lens. The child version of the David Carradine character waits for the Master to share a profound, life-saving wisdom.

“Well”, Reed replied, with eyes that were kinder than I thought I deserved, “what did Jesus say?”

“Oh my goodness!” I thought. “Is this some kind of born-again brush off? Does this look like a Christian rally with WWJD (what would Jesus do?) buttons and bumper stickers being passed out like Koolaid at Jonestown? No, this was a deeply wounded person asking for direction, humiliating herself in front of one of her husband’s clients, and a good friend.”

What did Jesus say? Please, I was very familiar with Jesus’ statement to his disciples. I didn’t even have to look it up.

“And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

I politely thanked him and filed his response away….far away. Once again I was sure I had misread something that had appeared to me to be God’s brilliant light of inspiration.

I continued for years to pray. The looming burden of my mountains became less daunting in the context of a growing sense of "rightness" I was beginning to feel about myself, and my place in the world…especially the spiritual community I served. I gave of myself, and I got approval, admiration and respect. My giving was genuine, the acceptance was authentic. This went on for many years as I gave more generously, served more tirelessly and got more…acceptance, respect, approval. My mountains, however, had not been removed…instead, my view of them had become more distorted while I squinted my eyes in the bright light of admiration.

But, quite often that verse from Reed’s song would wash over my heart, or wander through my thoughts like a babbling brook discovered as a refreshing surprise on a long hike. I’d drink from it and then pick up my heavy pack again, and keep going. But I never asked myself why a song that I had only heard briefly was still running through my thoughts with perfect clarity….every word remembered, every note felt, the singer’s voice as fresh and full in recall as it was the first time I heard it. I didn’t spend much time asking "why" because I was a busy wife, mother, church member, healer, community advocate…so I must be alright….right?

All this came crashing down around me the first time I did something that really stripped me of the approval I'd come to need like a drug. I felt as if, once again, I was that young woman (this time not so young) sitting on those scratchy orange and brown steps burdened by my own sorrows and mistakes…hungry for freedom from depression and self-doubt. The mountains in me were looming, I felt the weight of their menacing presence.

And, again, Reed’s song came to me:

“I never thought
that mountains could be moved...
that they could be cast into the sea.

I never realized your words
were, Oh, so true
until you moved the one in me.
Until you moved the one in me...”

These words returned over and over until one dark night...when the mountains of regret and sorrow sat so heavily on my heart that I didn’t think I could breathe...I also remembered his answer to my question years earlier, “What do I need to do?" This was a conversation that I'd stored far, far away from immediate thought. But, “What did Jesus say?” was echoing through time and space. I surrendered to Reed’s response and decided to actually see what, I thought I already knew, Jesus had said. I got up from bed and went to the Bible sitting on my desk and opened it to Mark:

“And Jesus, answering, saith unto them, "Have faith in God.

For verily I say unto you: that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

But this time, it was as if the next line was illumined by a spotlight:

“And when ye stand praying, forgive..”

I think I can now tell you, for myself, what it feels like to have a mountain removed and cast into the sea.

"I never realized your words
Were Oh so true
Until you moved the one in me…"

Thanks Reed…

Kate

Since I don't have access to an online accessible recording of Reed Hess' "The One in Me," here is a link to Sara Renner's website where, if you scroll down the index of songs on the left margin, you can click on a sample of her song "Forgive." Sara has also given me permission to have "Forgive" as one of the three songs that keynote my website...and I am so deeply grateful. If you go to the music player in the bottom left of the homepage, "Forgive" is the third song (after Michelle Armstrong's "Unfallen" and Mindy Jostyn's "In His Eyes") that will automatically start playing when the home page opens. If you would like to go straight to Sara's song, you can advance the player to the 7:56 minute marker. Otherwise, enjoy the gift of these healing songs from three extraordinary spiritual singer/songwriters.

"Oh, hear our Sabbath prayer...."

2012-01-02T21:58:00.011-07:00

"may the Lord protect and defend,
may the Lord preserve you from pain,
favor them oh Lord with happiness,
oh hear our Sabbath prayer.
Amen..."

Have you ever had one of those moments when something you've been wrestling with for years, suddenly...and unexpectedly...comes into focus and is as clear as day?

I guess it naturally follows that -- at the end of a week when I had been focusing on the story of Jacob, his wrestle with the angel at Peniel, and his refusal to let go of that struggle until it blessed him -- my week would end with a divine surprise. A surprise so serendipitous, so beautiful and stunning, that it almost took my breath away.

So, here's how it started.

One of our favorite things to do, on the way to church each Sunday, is to listen to Krista Tippett's program, "On Being" which is aired locally on National Public Radio (NPR). The program always seems to be just hitting its stride by the time we arrive at our destination. Which makes leaving the car my own special kind of sacrifice for "church." Simply hearing the first 15 - 20 minutes is enough each week, to just whet my appetite, and then I have to listen to the podcast later in the day.

But this Sunday, leaving the car was particularly difficult. Krista was at Emory University, last October, facilitating an Interfaith dialogue between the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of Great Britain, Islamic Scholar Sayyed Nassir, and Katherine Jefferts Schori, presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

It was just promising to be an extraordinary conversation on the topic of happiness, beauty, virtue, blessing, and meditative practices when I had to turn the radio off and go in for the service.

I look forward to sharing more of my of the podcast transcription, in future posts, but it was something Rabbi Sacks said about the importance of celebrating "shabbat" in Judaism, that turned a critical key for me in unlocking the fourth Commandment from the hebrew Decalogue which reads:

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

Now, I love the Commandments, and have been deeply blessed by earlier insights about each of them as divine promises, rather than Diefic threats. I've loved claiming a sense of "sabbath"...holiness, completeness, satisfaction...about each prayer, inspired action, creative endeavor, divinely directed decision.

But it was Rabbi Sacks answer, to Krista's query about each faith's take on the U. S. Constitution's reference to the "pursuit of happiness," and their culture's approach to generating calmness, which left me speechless later that day as I transcribed the podcast at the kitchen table. His answer came in two stories...yup, stories...my kinda guy. He said:

"Finding happiness doesn't necessarily follow from pursuing it, sometimes the deepest happiness comes when you are least expecting it.

"There is a wonderful story about an 18th century Rabbi, Ravi Isaac of Bertechev, who looking at people rushing to and fro in the town square, and he wonders why they are all running so frenetically. And he stops one and he says, "Why are you running?" And the man says, "I am running to make a living." and the Rabbi says to him, "How come you are so sure that the living is in front of you, and that you have to run catch it up. Maybe it is behind you, and you've got to stop and let it catch up with you?"

"Now, which bits of contemporary culture do we need to stop, in order that our blessings can catch up with us? For us, it is a practice called the Sabbath. The Sabbath is when we slow down enough to celebrate the things that are important, but not urgent.

"Once I took the chief childcare specialist in Great Britain to an orthodox school on a Friday, and the children were learning about preparing for the Sabbath. Little five year old boys and girls practicing the blessing of the candles, the Shabbat meal, the other children. And she was fascinated, she has never seen anything like this, and so she asked one of the little five year old boys, "What don't you like about the Sabbath? And he replied, "You can't watch television, it's terrible."

"Then she asked him, "What do you like most about the Sabbath?" And he said, "It's the one time time when daddy doesn't have to rush away."

"Sometimes we don't need to pursue happiness, we just need to pause and let it catch up with us."

See what I mean? I think Rabbi Sacks is a storyteller much like Jesus was.

And these stories have helped me discover another wonderful reason for a devoted "sabbath" practice, whether it is exercised on a weekly, daily, or hourly basis. It is a practice that allows me to slow down enough, to let my blessings catch up with me. And since I don't believe that blessings are either in front of, or behind us...taunting us to hurry up, or begging us to look backwards...but as omnipresent as God Himself, it is the practice of stopping that matters in actually feeling the soft-winged presence of those blessings. To let them gather, from every direction, and rest on our hearts and lives. Blessings that gather like doves on a still branch, or butterflies on a motionless blade of grass.

Each of the other participants, in this paradigm-shifitng interfaith conversation, went on to share insights about the "sabbath" practices they embrace in their own faith-traditions. And I hope to write more about those in coming posts, but Rabbi Sacks stories were just too wonderful to keep to myself tonight.

I am loving this wonderful, new "take" on the practice of the Fourth Commandment. And what a perfect opportunity for practicing the gift of blessing others. For expanding the reach of our prayers, while centering ourselves in the spiritual stillness of the sabbath space. May your Sabbath be a blessing...and may you be blessed.

always with Love,

Kate

Here is a link to the "Sabbath Prayer," from Fiddler on the Roof. May the Lord bless, and keep you, and yours, and all.

"a nameless impartation of Love..."

2012-01-01T12:20:00.012-07:00

"oh we saw the face of angels,
for good reason this joy is in our hearts..."
- Sara Groves

In church this morning, the theme of our sermon seemed to be on the power of "blessing," and included the Bible story of Jacob wrestling with the angel at Peniel (Genesis 32). And although I'd been asked to re-post an earlier piece I'd written about this story a few days ago, this morning, something new came alive for me.

And this "something new" came from Mary Baker Eddy's brief exegesis of that account in her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where she posits:

"The Jacob questioned his deliverer. "Tell me, I pray thee, thy name;" bu this appellation was withheld, for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a nameless, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which to use the word of the Psalmist, restored his Soul, -- gave him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material sense.

"The result of jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had conquered material error with the understand of Spirit and of spiritual power."

The angel -- by refusing to claim for itself a personal identity -- had given Jacob a sense of his own oneness with Spirit, his own sense of dominion over error. Wow...

Finally it all made sense to me. In denying Jacob an answer to his query, the angel was not invoking some kind of spiritual hierarchy, a holier-than-thou, you-don't deserve-to know-my-name sort of power play, but giving Jacob the ultimate gift. A lens on his own spiritual identity. The angel wanted Jacob...now Israel...to realize that it was all, already, within himself. There was no entity or being "outside" of himself which had facilitated his awakening. The angel could not give Jacob it's name, because it didn't have one. It was truly "an incorporeal impartation of divine Love..." directly from God, to His precious son Jacob/Israel.

We all have angels, "God's thoughts passing to [us], spiritual intuitions pure and perfect, the inspirations of goodness..." wrestling with (and more accurately "within") us, not against us...all the time. We need look no further, than to the cherished hopes waiting deep within our own hearts, to find them there.

And today, I'm thinking this is the perfect "job description": "a nameless, incorporeal impartation of divine Love..."

always with Love,

Kate

Here is a link to Sara Groves' "Joy is in Our Hearts." I hope you enjoy it.

"Be born in me..."

2011-12-31T15:19:00.013-07:00

"Be born in me,
be born in me,
make my heart Your Bethlehem,
be born in me..."
- Jackson

I am feeling a bit shy this afternoon. I haven't been posting for a long time. I'd begun to think that perhaps the silence which had descended...and that I'd known was absolutely, divinely "right" for me in early September...had become my "new normal." I'd wondered if those beautiful, long nights of lying awake -- while words, phrases, stanzas of poetry, lovely sentences wafted through my heart -- were from another chapter...a loved chapter, but one that was now over.

Then, two nights ago, they started to poke through the silence again. Like small shoots of soft green thoughts, as tender as the first crocus through the snow, they came when I least expected them. I lay there, as still as a winter night in Bethlehem, and watched them gather...stars, lambs, wise children, infant ideas...one-by-one they fell upon my silent heart. And I knew.

I don't know what will emerge, but I do know that they will emerge gently, and without the urgent push of the ego's need to "make it happen."

I have learned so much from this time of deep quiet. And because it was a time "without words," there are no words to describe it.

What now falls upon the page may...or may not...include songs or lyrics. What finds its voice will have the freedom to stay silent for days, or even weeks, before singing...there is no timetable...no performance. But something is emerging, something is surfacing....and I am remaining still, listening in awe for the lispings, the whisperings, the barely audible and almost silent songs of angels.

Tonight, as I consider the title to this song, I wonder...if it might be: "be born in Me..." as much as: "be born in me..." Just a question I am in. Have a wonder-filled night.

And by the way, thanks for giving me the space to rediscover this Bethlehem within...it is a most loved, sacred place...and I remain here on my knees.

with Love,

Kate

Here is a link to Francesca Battistelli's"Be Born in Me":

"Why..."

2011-12-30T16:27:00.007-07:00

It seem like, every couple of years, I need to be reminded why I ever started posting to this blog. At the deepest level, the original reason is never far from my heart...but it's easy to lose sight of at times. Thank you, dear S., for your email suggesting that I revisit this post from 2007:

"You are not alone..."

"…you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
you are not alone…"
- Jackson

Someone asked me the other day, "why do you write these posts twice weekly?".

Was I trying to teach readers something new about spirituality? No, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy...as well as countless other inspirational books, magazine articles, blogs and websites are lovingly dedicated to this kind of pedagogy.

Was I trying to get my writing seen by blog surfing publishers? No. Did I have an irrepressible urge to write? Yes, but this is not the reason I blog.

I have been writing and journaling, at least two hours daily, for many, many years…I write a lot. I didn't need another focus for my writing life.

So, as I sat in front of this computer screen and really pondered her question: "Why do you blog?"

Then, the AOL icon at the bottom of my screen started bouncing, up-and-down, alerting me to a new email. I shook myself from the deep reverie of self-examination to check the message...just in case there was an urgent need for attention.

This was the email that greeted me (shared with permission…all personal and identifying information deleted):

Dear Kate,

I had a difficult day and then read your web-log ("Sunrise, sunset") and nearly burst into tears. Of all the many things I have wanted to ask you is how you bear this very thing … this changing and growing and going. I feel it as sadness and loss. I can't seem to find joy there. My little girl, the world's very best baby, is turning (age deleted). I love to see what she is becoming, but I miss the girl she was even last year.

I have more birthday preparations and it's late. I want to thank you again for your writing and the healings on your website. I turn to it so frequently during the day.

Love...

In reading her message I remembered with such clarity why I post on this blog each Tuesday and Thursday…it is not to share my insights or inspirations, it is not to see my words self-published on the internet, it is not to receive notes of praise…it is for one reason…and for me, there is just one message:

"You are not alone."

Just before I sit down at my computer, to write a piece for posting, I try to become very quiet and listen for a silent cry that speaks to my heart. I am listening for the tears of those who feel - that in the darkness of their own private sadness or confusion – they are alone. That somehow, they are the only ones who have every felt this frightened, angry, hungry for compassion or kindness.

And then I listen for my own heart. What in me is reaching out, from the posture of "experience," to try and offer understanding, compassion, comfort, and be a beacon of faint light in that darkness. What can I share that will assure them that someone else has been there and that there is a way out.

I am, in each posting, trying to say…"I will sing this song, of God's amazing grace, loudly, so that you can know that you are not alone in the darkness. To remind you that God is there…right there in your own heart… impelling you forward.

"...Just the other night
I thought I heard you cry
Asking me to come
And hold you in my arms
I can hear your prayers
Your burdens I will bear
But first I need your hand..."

To know that we are not alone...that God is there at every juncture to take our hand and lead us into our own light...is a message so powerful to me. To know also that God has appointed angels of kindness in our lives...friends, sisters, mothers, brothers...to be the hand we feel, the song we listen for...this makes me weep with gratitude.

Here is my reply to my friend's email (with some minor editing):

Dear...

I burst into tears sometimes too when I later read the raw nakedness of what I have felt about something and posted to the blog. These issues of motherhood and of journeying towards evolving as a spiritual woman in a world that is constantly inviting us to want, want, want...more, more, more...are such powerful catalysts for my own spiritual development (de-envelop-ment). They strip me clean day after day of all pride and ambition and leave me childlike in my need for a divine Parent's embrace and care.

I often find that the ideas I have shared are so new to me when I finally read them. It is almost as if I wrote them without even thinking of them...as if they poured out of my fingertips without passing through the medium of this false mind that would like to call itself sovereign in my life….memory, speculation, imagination. That they come from a more silent space – the heart.

But as for your question - I am realizing that the best thing I can give my daughters is HONESTY about the journey. Allowing them to think that I have it even one bit more "figured out" than I really do, is cruel and sets them up for failure by comparison. So...I am staying focused on integrity in parenting my children...integrity of heart, mind, spirit, actions, words...emotions.

It is sometimes very messy and organic...but it is true...and I like truth...alot...

love,
Kate

This is my truth. I don't write from a longing to be heard, I don't write from a need to say something profound or pithy....but I do write from a deep desire to answer the call of someone crying in the dark, to let them know that they are not alone. That their divine Father-Mother is there to comfort them, as She has been there to comfort me on so many long journeys through the wilderness.

"I speak from experience."
- Mary Baker Eddy

Here is a Youtube clip of Michael Jackson's"You are Not Alone":

"Wrestling with angels..."

2011-12-26T09:59:00.005-07:00
A friend called early this morning during her Bible study. She wanted to know if I could find the following post, from the summer before last, and send her the link. It refers to Jacob's wrestling with the angel at Peniel. I had forgotten the post, but not the story. I was happy to oblige. So here's to pondering fireflies in December:

"Fireflies - everything is never as it seems..."

"You would not believe your eyes,
if ten million fireflies,
lit up the world
as I fell asleep...

'Cause they'd fill the open air
and leave teardrops everywhere.
You'd think me rude
but I would just stand and stare...

I'd like to make myself believe
that planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd rather
stay awake when I'm asleep.
'Cause everything is never as it seems..."
- Adam Young
It was a beautiful September day in Evanston, Illinois. I loved walking along the lake, turning left and heading up towards the center of town, past gracious old Victorians with wide porches, and craftsman-style bungalows with deep lawns dappled in the golden shade of autumn. One-by-one, I greeted them like old friends, as I approached the center of town.

I was on search for answers, and I'd narrowed all of my questions down to one. One question. But it was a question I'd been pondering for almost a decade. It was my annual one-hour visit with my teacher in Christian Science...a man who was also one of my very dearest friends, and the person most likely to call me out on my nonsense...but always in the most disarmingly arresting way. He was kind and funny, but didn't suffer egos...mine, or his own.

I rang the doorbell and he buzzed me up. After a warm greeting from his wife, and a tour of their most recent art acquisitions...and a few dozen of his own paintings...we made our way to his sun-drenched office.

A few minutes of catching up and it was time to "get down to business." I asked the same question I'd been pondering all along my drive across the state of Nebraska, through the seasons that marked the year, and back over a decade of wrestling.

It began, "Do you remember during our meeting in (and I referred to a year over a decade earlier in which he had spoken to a group of us about an aspect of our work as spiritual thinkers and healers) when you said, .......... , well, I am still trying to understand that concept."

He sat, heavily, back in his chair and let out a laugh that worked its way up, from the cavernous space of his enormous heart, thorugh the avenue of his throat, and finally, bursting from his being like Mt. Vesuvius spewing magma and ash over Pompeii. "Are you really still chewing on that one sentence?" he asked.

I dropped my head in my hands and sighed a meek, "I guess..." His kindness reached across the space between us. I thought he was disappointed, that I hadn't "gotten it" that day, and morever, after a decade, I had still not fully "gotten it." I felt like the worst student in the class. I wanted to crawl under the desk and disappear. But when I looked up from where I'd dropped my gaze, in disappointment with myself, I noticed that he was grinning from ear to ear. It was that smile of his that made you feel like you were in the presence of a beneficent, spiritual Santa Claus.

His face was filled with compassion, joy, understanding, comraderie...and if that look had had a sound, it would have been a cross between the voice of angels twinkiing laughter, and Owl City singing "Fireflies." It was light, and sweet, and visceral...full of meaning, without spelling it out.

Then he told me that he, too, was still wrestling with that very statement made years earlier. The thought/idea had come to him, quite surprisingly, as he was standing in front of us, speaking from notes that day. He told me that, even for him, it was a divine surprise. He said he'd quickly scribbled what had come out of his mouth, in the margins of his notes, without really missing a beat, and had been pondering it since.

Then he told me that he loved those seemingly "little" ideas that kept him awake at night. They were the ones that continued to poke at him, leading to more questions...than answers.

Then he shared with me a idea that had occurred to him, sometime earlier, as he was pondering Jacob's wrestling match with the angel at Peniel. He said that for many years he'd thought of Jacob's wrestling the angel, as if the angel was an opponent Jacob was wrestling against. But that one long, dark night, when he himself was tumbling and turning with questions that seemed to be ready to "take him down," it occurred to him that the angel was wrestling with Jacob...they were on the same team. That the wrestling was a good thing...a very, very good thing.

He said to me, "You just keep gnawing on that bone like a junkyard dog. It's the persistence in questioning that really matters, not the answer."

Then he referenced a citation from Mary Baker Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, by quickly scribbling a page, and line numbers, onto a little slip of paper, slipping it across the desk before turning my attention to a painting on the wall, and walking me through its spiritual symbology. It wasn't long before we were embracing, his wife was recommending restaurants, and I was thanking them for their hospitality.

When I got back to where I was staying, I couldn't wait to find a copy of Miscellaneous Writings in my host's bookcase, and look up the reference he'd cryptically shared with me...thinking it would point me towards an answer to my question. Here is what I found:
"My Beloved Students: - This question,
ever nearest to my heart, is to-day uppermost:"
Yup, that was it. What he'd written on that slip of paper was:

"MW 116: 11 - 12 (to the colon) no further!!"

It was my turn to laugh. I realized that he didn't answer my question in our meeting, and he wasn't answering it through reference to the writings of any other spiritual thinker...no matter how inspired. He was suggesting that I stick with the question myself, taking it to God...persistently and patiently...and I have. It’s probably the most important lesson he ever taught me.

Later, while praying with the fourth Beatitude:
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled."
I would discover something critical to my spiritual journey...for myself.

It dawned on my heart, so clearly, that "the blessing" is not in being filled, but in staying empty, being willing to abide in the wonder...the hungering and thirsting after righteousness. To be aware of ourselves as thinkers, brimming with inquiry, filled with questioning, is the most deeply satisfying kind of peace.

Another friend, Susan Dane, calls this place "the space of the question"...it has become my favorite place to live.

Today, I love letting my questions go inconclusively un-answered. I love showing up in the middle of the night with my sleeping bag, a woolen hat, my journal...under a sky full of twinkling questions...and wrestle with - not against - the angels who ask more questions...than they offer answers.

Recently, I became an even more devoted fan of Albert Einstein when I discovered this statement:
"It is not that I'm so smart.
But I stay with the questions much longer."

Ahhh...to float in a silent pool of spiritual questions, under a canopy of infinite truths, tumbling and wrestling with possibilities, words, ideas...flickering, like ten million fireflies, generous angels full of light...this is where I am most satisfied and at peace.
"I'd like to make myself believe
that planet Earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say that I'd rather
stay awake when I'm asleep.
Because my dreams are
bursting at the seams...."
Dreams, questions, wonderment...bursting at the seams, I'm ready...bring on the fireflies, and send in the angels!!

love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Breath of heaven, hold me together..."

2011-12-23T11:07:00.006-07:00

"Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven*..."
- Amy Grant
Recently, the editors at Church Alive asked me to write about a time when "church" played a role in my Christmas memories. It seems like I have a heart-shifting, church-related experience every Christmas. But this is the one that came to mind:

"The greatest gift..."

I’d traced the path from our house, to the church we attended nearby, almost a thousand times that year. But this particular winter night, as a million stars hung brightly from an inverted bowl of midnight blue velvet, my steps were heavy and my heart sank low. We’d lost a baby that year…a baby who’d moved in my heart, long before she moved in my womb. Because of my size, there were those who wondered if I’d just imagined her and thought it was some sort of psychosomatic pregnancy. There were others who’d mourned our loss and feared my descent into a quiet sort of madness. But her still birth was very real. Leaving me, her mother, siding with the latter group—those who were praying for my fragile peace.

That particular night, so close to Christmas, I was months beyond her loss and yet closer than ever to my sorrow. Our church was holding a Christmas Hymn Sing and I was carrying a plate of cookies with one hand, and holding our kindergarten-aged daughter’s mittened hand in my other. Earlier that spring I’d imagined this Christmas with a baby in my lap and our sweet daughter opening presents under the tree. And although I’d tried so hard to be at peace with our loss, that night the tears froze on my cheeks as we walked through the cold December air.

Arriving at church we were greeted by a sea of love; it washed over our small family, and carried our daughter along from loving embrace to loving embrace. She was surrounded by an ocean of kindness, and I was deeply grateful. On the surface I’d been functioning normally for months, but just under the surface I was always on the verge of tears. As members and guests found their seats in the beautifully decorated auditorium, and my husband joined other musician on the platform to lead the singing, I took a seat at the back. I didn’t know if I could make it through the hymn sing without putting my face in my hands and weeping.

But as the first song was suggested, and the musicians played through the opening verse, I felt a voice…yes, felt a voice echoing through my being. It was the same feeling I’d felt, in that very church auditorium, the day our baby first moved in my womb and the words from Luke flooded my heart, “Be it unto me, according to thy will.” Feeling it again was like a divine reminder. I had felt our daughter move, I wasn’t mad. It was glorious. It was more than I’d hoped for, a sensation I’d only dreamed of experiencing during years of other early pregnancy miscarriages. I’d felt her move. I’d known the kind of love that defines the word “compassion” in Hebrew as “by extension, the womb as cherishing the foetus” (Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary). The foetal stage is the one where the babe’s life is not obvious, unseen to the observer, but completely known to the mother. And I’d experienced that awareness. I knew what it felt like to love the promise of what was unseen, without measure. This was the greatest gift in the world.

The auditorium became a manger that night. My church family had become shepherds, kings, wisemen, and cooing doves…midwives at the birth of something holy in me. My mourning had been turned into dancing. The Christ, the consciousness of man’s unconditional innocency, worth, purity, goodness, beauty, and promise, had found its breath, and was singing an “Allelujah” in my heart. It was as if each chorus rose to meet the next, in a crescendo of peace.

By the time we left the church later that evening my heart was no longer broken, it was whole. I’d felt the presence of a Love that delights in the unseen, celebrates the power of peace, and knows a love, that alone is life. The tears that froze on my cheeks that night, as we walked home together, were tears of wonder and joy.

*"Breath of Heaven," was written by Amy Grant, but the version sung by Sara Groves, takes me apart. The clip in the first link is Amy's performance and the video sticks to the nativity story, but the second video, paired with Sara's extraordinary recording, although a bit rough and dramatic, underscores the human passion and pathos of the larger story. Both are moving. I love them each for different reasons.

"The manger within..."

2011-12-21T11:13:00.002-07:00

This piece, from Christmas 2010, was requested as a re-post today:

"The sleeping child you're holding..."
"Mary, did you know...
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
...This child that you've delivered
Will soon deliver you..."
-Greene/Lowry

Each year, about this time, I seem to always write a post with this Kathy Matthea version of "Mary, Did You Know?" as the keynote... and if you do nothing more today on this blog than listen to this song, I will know your heart has been touched. Please don't miss its blessing. I love it so much that I am now convinced it will show up every Christmas...along with a few others that continue to bring their spiritual gifts each year. This season, I share it as the prelude to a poem.

I am continuing to learn that when we open our hearts, manger-like...humble, simple, still, and expectant...to our Father's plan, the Christ is new-born within us. "The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again. The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb..." Do you know that this sleeping child you are holding within you, is "the Great I AM"

"A Manger Within"

your quaking heart
can know a deep, unfathomable peace
even when all looks lost
and hope seems like a taunting
a haunting
a place where disappointment and doubt
lay in wait
around any
and every corner
ready to pounce and pierce
the soft places
the inner regions
the tender dreams
of the soul

but Love walks in
with all Its quiet Self-certainty
and announces
"I am that I am"
you cannot run from what "I am"
"the spiritual sense of truth that must be gained,
before Truth can be understood"

your heart is Mine
your life is Mine
your love is Mine
you cannot take it back
you cannot take control
you cannot put the shattered pieces
back into a shape that is safe
shelve it all away
in tissue paper
with the old star
the fragile Christmas ornaments
and sigh with relief
that
for another year...it is still intact

I have taken you apart for My purpose
torn away the shredded tatters
you hugged so close
I have dressed you in a bridal garment
pure as driven snow
on an empty, endless beach
along the coast of Maine
I have scattered your false convenient peace
down the abandoned church steps
like rice
raining on your hearts
rending the veil of tolerance
revealing the face of Love

within the stillness of a sanctuary heart
I have wed you to Me...to My presence in your life
I am asking you to trust Me
with your eternity
with your intuition
with your heart and soul and mind
let Me be your God
let Me prepare you a place
as I have prepared your heart
breaking it wide open
ready to receive
a babe

this will not look easy
it may not make sense
it may leave you feeling naked

but what have you learned from a girl
visited by angels
espoused to a man
great with child
giving birth in a manger

sometimes what I have planned
does not make sense
to hearts that need to know
to minds
that need to have it all in columns
and rows
and pews

but if you will let Me have your heart
like she did
I will show you a miracle
a star will lead
angels will sing
kings will bring gifts
shepherds will quake

and you
may learn
to trust
Me
...with all your heart

give it to Me
and I will fill it
with
something
Wonderful,
Mighty,
full of promise...
the Prince of Peace
...or a girl in a manger.

with an expectant heart, always...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

I just found this version of "Mary, Did You Know?" as sung by lyricist, Mark Lowrey. And as much as I absolutely love Kathy Matthea's version, I am always interested in seeing how a songwriter interprets his/her own lyrics.

[photo credit: Lisa Redfern and Lydia Day (daughter of Doug & Diana) by Randall Williams 2009]

"Star of wonder, won't you guide us..."

2011-12-14T00:11:00.006-07:00

"Star of wonder,
star of light,
won't you guide us..."
Sometimes it is the simplest thoughts that resonate most deeply with us. At least it seems to be that way for me. A clear, true tone of truth reverberates through my being like a tuning fork. I can feel it bringing me into tonal alignment and in perfect pitch with the universe.

My friend Laura Matthews was the first spiritual thinker, I knew, who blogged. Her musings were honest, clear, and simple. I loved them. She encouraged me, and others, to find our voice and speak our truth. Then one day, she stopped blogging. Her writing took her in another direction. She'd stopped, as fearlessly as she'd started.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote:
"The capacity to terminate
is a specific grace."
It takes a manger-like stillness to hear the voice of angels whispering "this is your path." It takes the watchfulness of a shepherd to see when a faint star is pointing towards a hushed stable, and not be distracted by the bright lights of a bustling inn. It takes a wise woman to know when to turn her back on the Herod urging, and go "home" by another way. Laura has that capacity to terminate...and to courageously begin a new adventure. I watch in wonder, and celebrate in awe.

Laura's still writing. She's still encouraging blossoming writers. She's still making the rest of us "sound" cogent and wise through her editing business. I am so grateful she was willing to midwife the birth of my blogging, and cherish those infant stories. When I think of her, it is always the clear, simple voice of a single star on a December night, the tinkling laughter of a crisp, well-written sentence, the warmth of a kind word falling softly on the page like an infant's breath, that fills my heart. The following post from 2005 is just one example of her voice.

Christmas Starshine
by Laura Matthews

The manger. The animals. The shepherds. The wise men. The dutiful and selfless husband, the willing and innocent young mother. A perfect smiling baby. Compelling symbols of a miraculous event.

The symbol that moves me the most is the star. Each year our star glows brightly at the top of our tree, illuminating the entire room. That beacon light draws us along our journey, closer to Christ with unfailing certainty. It guides us in the quiet of prayerful moments, it lights the way in the darkest night. I look for the starshine whenever I pray.

I know this weekend will be very busy for most of us. I know we're hoping for memorable and pleasant family times, and to please each other with gift-giving and communing. Steal away, though, for a moment, sometime this weekend, and watch for the star. Watch for it with me. Let the star lead our actions. Let it bless us with its light.

And we will see the Christ appearing, in our hearts and our homes.

copyright Laura Matthews 2005

Here is a link to Sara Groves' recording of a prayer, as simple a single star, singing in the stillness of winter's night sky: "Star of Wonder."

Thank you Laura...for sharing your clear voice.... always,
Kate

"My night with Mary..."

2011-12-08T22:42:00.009-07:00

"Be it unto me,
according to Thy will..."
Our study of Scripture this week included the story of Queen Esther, a courageous spiritual matriarch, who, like Mary Baker Eddy...the subject of the following post...turned to God in her darkest hour, and found divine guidance. I love these women...Ruth, Esther, Deborah, Elisabeth, Mary, Mary, Mary...I find courage, and encouragement, in their journeys of grace.

These are women of substance, women of character, women who faced darkness head on, women who accepted their spiritual calling - with some version of Mary's "be it unto me according to Thy will." They are daughters, mothers, sisters, girls, widows, wives, who leapt from the edge of their own personal abyss, and into the depths of their divine purpose...with eyes fixed on God's face, and His hand at their back, waiting for the "Breath of Heaven" to lift them above a crashing sea - the ebbing tides of "what if" and "not me Lord...please, not me."

Each of these women, in her own right, is a story of Christmas, the birth of the Christ in the heart of a woman. Each of them, my hero, my mentor, my mother, midwife, my friend in the dark of night. This, repost from last Christmas, is just one of those stories, about one of those remarkable Marys...19th century spiritual thought-leader, Mary Baker Eddy. In so many ways, I owe her...and her predecessors...my life.

"On a Night in December, 1910..."

"I can't stand to fly.
I'm not that naive.
I'm just out to find
the better part of me.

I'm more than a bird.
I'm more than a plane.
More than some pretty face,
beside a train.
It's not easy to be, me..."

I weep each time I hear Five for Fighting's song, "Superman." It makes me think of spiritual luminaries like Jesus, Mother Teresa, Moses, and yes, Mary Baker Eddy. These were men and women who were never trying to "fly." I believe that they were only trying to find the better part of themselves, and that once they'd discovered some significant spiritual milestones along the way, felt compelled...by compassion...to share those insights with humanity.

One hundred years ago, tonight, Mary Baker Eddy quietly passed away at her home in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, with her dearest friends close by. Her last written words, in her own hand were, "God is my life." I think she discovered, not only the better part of herself, but the best. A sense of "self" that understood exactly why God identified Himself to Moses as "I AM."

This is my story about how that night, 100 years ago, had an impact on my life, 87 years later.

It was early December of 1997. My husband, daughters, and I were living in the carriage house, on the property of Mary Baker Eddy's Chestnut Hill home. At the time, I was immersed in projects related to the life and contributions of this extraordinary thought leader. To be surrounded by the contextual setting of her life was a remarkable gift of grace.

In exchange for our housing, our we made daily security check's on what our daughter called, "the big house," Mary Baker Eddy's former home. It is a large stone mansion set on a hill in a nearby suburb of Boston. And at regular intervals during the day, we would walk through the house to make sure that pipes had not burst, doors were secure, and the proper lights were on/off.

That December night I was feeling overwhelmed by our circumstances. I was facing down some pretty aggressive demons and was feeling quite alone. At midnight, I offered to make the walk up the long drive to the "big house" and do the security check myself.

It was a bone chilling night. The kind of cold that didn't slowly creep through layers of clothing, but penetrated immediately like a steely claw that wouldn't let go. The night sky was a star-peppered navy velvet, and a full moon rose over the slate roof of the mansion like the face of a benevolent luminary.   But all I felt was the weight of our plight. Health concerns, financial uncertainty, looming homelessness...seemed to have actual mass that night, as they sat heavily on my heart.

I walked into the house by way of the back door, large flaslight in hand, and made my way through the arches and hallways of the first floor, before ascending the flight of stairs leading to the landing just outside of Eddy's former bedroom.

[It's important to note here, for readers who are not familiar with this property, that her home had been kept intact ...each room appointed and furnished exactly as it had been the night she passed...for 87 years. It served as a museum of sorts. Tours were offered on which visitors could see exactly as Eddy and her household had lived at the turn of the century.]

As I stood on the landing, it was not lost on me (steeped as I had been in the history of her life) that it was close to the anniversary of her passing. I thought about that night. How her household workers had supported her, but how this must have been a very private part of her spiritual journey...a threshold that she alone could cross.

I felt that way myself that night. I was facing my darkest fears. Being without housing as a wife and mother...with no seeming resources at hand to secure a home for my family...was my worst nightmare. And it was a dark corridor that loomed just beyond the dawning of the New Year. With one child in grade school, and infant twins, I couldn't imagine how we would find our way out of the situation without divine intervention.

My husband was doing everything he could, but options seemed non-existent, and our prospects for housing, bleak. Besides that, we were in the middle of the early stages of adopting our twins and we needed to be in a home for the adoption agency to sign off on our compliance to state requirements and for the judge to finalize us as our daughters' permanent family.

Standing on the landing, just outside of Eddy's bedroom door. I longed to have her tell me what to do...or at least how to pray about such a hopeless situation. Then it occurred to me that she had faced many dark nights in that room. I wanted to know what it felt like to be her. What did she surround herself with?

I stepped over the satin rope that kept visitors just outside the threshold of the room during tours, and sat on the floor right next to the head of her bed. I turned off the flashlight, closed my eyes for a few moments, and prayed to really see what she saw.

When I opened my eyes, there were three things that immediately caught my attention.

When Eddy first moved into that house she was disappointed with it size and opulence. So she'd had her quarters reconfigured so that she had a small bedroom and an adjoining office. She'd also had a skylight put in above the landing just outside her bedroom door, which let in natural light. That night in the darkness of winter, the moonlight that poured through the skylight, and filtered into her bedroom through the open door, was as "soft as a moonbeam mantling the earth" and it fell on the other two images that had immediately caught my attention.

One was a portrait of Jesus. Simply framed, a bit to the right, and just above eye-level on the wall directly in front of her as sat in her bed. This made me cry. To be reminded of the savior who as she herself said was, "waiting and watching in voiceless agony" during his night of "gloom and glory" in the garden of Gethsemane, humbled me greatly. I could see how his portrait served to galvanize her courage.

The other image was an already familiar etching of Daniel in the lions den. In this depiction, Daniel has his back to the lions, his hand are gently folded behind him, and he has his face upturned towards the light that is pouring through a small barred window. He is facing the light...not the lions. He is peaceful, not defensive. He is focused and calm, not distracted and distressed. Its message was clear to me.

This piece was also simply framed and hung almost at eye-level on the same wall as Jesus' portrait, just opposite her headboard. The moonlight fell on these two images with such gentleness that I felt as if they had been kept exactly as they had been, for all those years, just so I could sit with them that night and be comforted, encouraged, and healed.

I will never forget that night sitting on the floor next to her bed. It was as if I'd been given a holy land tour of the garden of Gethsemane and nothing had changed. It was almost as if, Jesus' tears had never dried that night, and still lay in salty pools on the rocks. As if I could hear the song of the those first century nightingales, the cooing pair of doves that had nestled beside him as he prayed, and the scent of jasmine that perfumed the velvety air while his disciples slept.

But my holy land was a worn carpet, a narrow bed, a moonbeam, the face of the Savior, the posture of a peacemaker...and the prayers of a woman.

It seems like such a small part of this story to say that during those next months of ceaseless prayer, we were shown...step-by-step...exactly what we needed to do to continue the work we loved, and find just the right home for our family.

The larger story for me is about a woman...who was just that, a woman. A woman who never sought to be great..only good. Who never sought fame or fortune, but to understand, for herself, that the better part of "me" is, the "I AM."

I believe, that when she wrote, "God is my life," two days before her passing, on December 1st, she did just that.

I don't remember the cold as I walked back from "the big house" to our cottage that night. I only remember the moon, the stars, and the simple room where a woman prayed one December night in 1910.

Thank you for your courage, and your example...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

If you would like to read the comments on the original posting, click on this link, "One day in December, 1910," and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Manger love - an invironment of peace.."

2011-12-03T19:33:00.011-07:00

After noticing that I was reposting classic Christmas pieces, by my friends, H. asked if I would please slip this post from last December onto the list.

Little did she know that it was the perfect reminder for me this weekend, as I further considered the importance of maintaining an uncluttered spiritual invironment. Keeping my thoughts focused on the "how," rather than the who, what, where, and when questions of the season, was the best spiritual discipline I could engage in. I hope this piece finds you enjoying the simple, sweet, unpolluted manger days of Christmas.

"I am waiting in a silent prayer..."

"...I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened
by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone,
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now
Be with me now

Breath of heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of heaven..."

Like Kathy Matthea's "Mary Did You Know," Sara Groves' "Breath of Heaven" fills my heart whenever I think about a young girl, a gentle man, a babe of promise, and a quiet manger on a starry night.

In her small volume, The Handmaid and the Carpenter, Elizabeth Berg writes of Mary's time in the manger:

"A hard pain came upon her. She rose up, clenched her teeth, and pulled on the rope. When the pain subsided, she lay back down and allowed herself one more moment of pity for her poor circumstances: She lay on the floor of a stranger's stable. Somewhere, water dripped. The air was foul with the scent of the animals and their droppings. Wind blew in through the cracks in the walls. She closed her eyes. So be it."

"So be it"...

And we wonder where a young man learned to say, "Into thy hands I commit my spirit?"

This story has no season. This story cannot be assigned, or relegated to, a single holy day. It is a story that serves us every day, and for me, its holds it greatest promise at night...in moments raw with the cold chill of despair, and rancid with fear, doubt, uncertainty, and pain. Moments when I must go deeper. Moments when the stillness of my inner life outweighs the drama of the ego's stories. Moments when I am aware of the profound importance of spiritual in-vironmentalism and my role as an invironmental advocate.

I remember a night, one winter, when the snow blew under the doorjamb, the cold bit into my bones while I shoveled the walk, and tears froze to my bottom lashes - hard and sharp against my cheeks. My heart was heavy with questions which were piling up like the heavy snow I coud barely lift, and the thoughts that pierced my peace were as relentless as the driving ice storm that had blown through earlier in the day.

Why....
Why....
Why....

Why God....

And there were no answers. Are there ever?

But then something fluttered onto my heart as soft and perfect as a snowflake:

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Be it unto me according to Thy Word."

And suddenly, there was nothing but the quiet of a starry night. The clouds broke, the winds stilled, the snow still fell gently from somewhere high in a sky as black and clear as a bottomless quarry.

In the wake of surrender my new question became:

"How..."

How would You have me navigate this moment? How can I love more like You? How shall I behave towards others in service to You? How should I speak to him, her, them?

And the answers came as easily, and as sweetly, as a perfectly formed snowflake . Love unconditionally, be impartially kind, sincere, honest, consistently gentle, be acceptingly open, be willing to adapt, listen deeply, serve humbly, give generously...judge no one.

It was no longer a question of why, but only how...how to be, moment-by-gently-falling-moment...and there was a great calm and the storm ceased...and within the environment, the invironment, of my deepest thought, there was nothing but a manger. Filled...

   ...with the breath of heaven.

living in the "how" of His love...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"You remember him, he's Joey's boy..."

2011-12-01T13:43:00.006-07:00

"Lord, I ask that He,
for just this moment,
simply be my child..."
The December wind whipped and swirled around my ankles, as I made my way down the cobbled sidewalk. My destination, the soft golden light that beckoned from just beyond the steamy casement windows set deep within the tall brick building. I was all too eager to reach the door of the bakery, where a small bell announced my arrival, and the sweet, warm, succulent perfume of rising dough, cinnamon sugar, and vanilla greeted me with promise.

It didn't take long for me to find the perfect table, position my tea and toast just the right reaching-distance above my books, and lean into the sounds and scents of the morning. A neighborhood "regular" stood at the counter, coffee mug in hand, proudly introducing his grandson to an old friend. "You remember him, he's Joey's boy..."   It got me thinking about another Joe, and my friend Kim's Christmas post about him, and his son:

"Celebrating Joseph..."

by Kim Crooks Korinek

I've been doing a deep dive into the nativity story, my interest being piqued by the movie of that same name, popular some years ago. Prior to this, I don't know that I gave Joseph too much thought. The movie helped me see how crucial his role was as the meek and steadfast protector not only to the expectant Mary, as a birth partner, as a new father; but to a world hungry for hope. It's those qualities of thought that I want to nurture in myself -- they are crucial to our own ushering in of the Christ to our consciousness.

There was an article written in the Christian Science Journal (December 2002) that discussed his character in more detail. (These notes are taken from csdirectory's Bible Study resources). It says of Joseph's role:

"It couldn't have been easy finding out that the woman he was about to marry was mysteriously 'with child.' But he stood by Mary with unquestioning fidelity, perhaps realizing how crucial he would be to the fulfilling of Bible prophecy....

And this is the wonder of Joseph's fidelity: that nearly all he did to nurture/defend the special mother and child entrusted to his care had to be done just this way: in secret, in the humblest of circumstances, and totally without public recognition."

The other wonder about Joseph is how immediate was his recognition and acceptance to the messages of the angel Gabriel. No questions, arguments, or excuses.

It is interesting to remember Jesus' comments about his relationship to God who, at one point referred to God as "Abba" a Hebrew term of endearment meaning the equivalent of "daddy". It makes me wonder if it was Joseph's tenderness and closeness to Jesus that made it easy for Jesus to feel God's tenderness and closeness.

So today, I am grateful for all those 'Josephs' in my life: men and women and children whose meekness, alertness and guardianship of all that is good have led me to see more of the Christ in my life and in others.

copyright Kim Crooks Korinek 2007

I hope you enjoy this recording of "Joseph's Lullaby" by Mercy Me.

"in your words, I find a precious gift..."

2011-11-29T13:18:00.003-07:00
As Love's wellspring of inspiration is finding its saturation point...deeper and deeper within the bedrock of this fathomless stillness...I have found such joy in sharing what has already found its voice...on this blog, and through the writings of some of my dearest friends.

Their very beautiful and inspired posts have, over the years, brought me to my knees in humility, found me doubled over with laughter, caught me smiling with delight, and left me weeping in amazement at their experiences...and the grace with which they have shared them with us.

So, with their permission, I am delighted to be able to share some of these holiday "favorites" with you... and, if you look carefully over this next month, you might find a couple of my older pieces, like simple threads of cotton, woven between their strands of gold...

lovingly,

Kate

"Christmas ponderings and dawnings...."

by Joni Overton-Jung

My dog Kosi and I were out walking in the crisp winter air last night. Though I'll admit I have my struggles with winter sometimes, it was one of those nights when the sky is so clear, the air so fresh, everything speaks of the imminence, nowness, grandeur, joy of life. I found myself thinking, I love winter. I thought of my brother's visit last year and his recent comment, "I do remember the joy of feeling the breath, and I mean the long deep breath of winter. The ponderous throw of time, huddled in."

The breath, the life, the certainty, clarity, urgency of it all pressing in upon us, or perhaps embracing, sustaining, compelling, lifting, illumining.

This poem and carol by Phillips Brooks to me captures the pure power of Christmas–where in the deep, hidden, innermost places of our hearts we find our longings answered, hopes fulfilled, and the quiet, inevitable emergence of a spiritual peace, an undiminished innocence, a soaring exaltation of unfettered life.

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth;
Where charity stands watching
And faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
And Christmas comes once more.

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given;
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meekness will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.

In an article on Christmas MB Eddy says this, "The star that looked lovingly down on the manger of our Lord, lends its resplendent light to this hour: the light of Truth to cheer, guide, and bless man as he reaches forth for the infant idea of divine perfection dawning upon human imperfection,–that calms man's fears, bears his burdens, beckons him on to Truth and Love and the sweet immunity these bring from sin, sickness, and death. "

The light of that star in this very hour–the stars, the air, everything alive pulsing with the imminence of Truth–embracing, propelling, cheering, guiding, blessing, a showering of praise, a benediction of love, a message of: you, each, each and every single one of you are beloved, My beloved.

In this intense season of hopes, yearnings, fears, and extravagant giving, may each one of us make room for the dawning of something simple, holy, shining, the light of the infinite whispering, comforting, nurturing, igniting the embers of our essential and magnificent lives.

copyright - Joni Overton-Jung 2009

Here is Sara McLachlan, performing one of my favorite versions of the classic carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," which Joni references the lyrics to in her post....thank you Joni for sharing this lovely piece. always,

Kate
Kate

"silence...."

2011-08-25T16:06:00.007-06:00

"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 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 a Truth, or just true for her...I do not know. But something about it calls to me. It's an inviation that I can't ignore. It seems like a living, pulsing something asking for space in my life. I glimpsed its promise this summer, when...quite serendipitously...I had some 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 it all in my journal, try to immediately make sense of what I was "hearing," and then search for the words to make it "make sense" for others. In doing so, something was "lost in translation." Besides which, I seemed to lose the true chord each time I tried to give it a name, a form, or put the substance of its message into words.

And in the midst of it all, I kept coming back to something I have long-loved, but have always been too busy trying to "find words" to explain it to others, to let its message move in, unpack, and take up real residency in my own hungry heart. Mary Baker Eddy suggests in 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 conssumation 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

"and now You gently break me..."

2011-08-23T11:14:00.003-06:00

"My heart is so proud.
My mind is so unfocused.
I see the things You do through me,
as great things I have done.
And now, You gently break me,
then lovingly You take me
and hold me as my Father
and mold me as my Maker...."

Maria sent me this Youtube clip of Laura Story's "Grace," the other day. Thank you. I love it and have thought about the first verse over and over again.   Of how easy it is for the spiritual servant to forget. And how immediately her Father steps in to realign her sense of being, with His power...and the gift of grace.

I couldn't help but think of Christ's reference to himself as "the bread." I love baking bread. In fact, it hapens to be one of my favorite things to do. But do I bake much bread these days...nope. Bread takes devotion, focus, care. Can you make quick, auto-pilot bread? Sure. Breadmakers and frozen dough have made the scent of freshly baking loaves of sourdough, or crusty loaves of wheat bread ubiquitous. But for me, bread baking is more about the baking, than the bread.

I love it all. The dissolving cake of yeast in warm milk, a pile of whole grain flours on a marble slab waiting to accept yeast, milk, egg, etc.. I love the waiting, the kneading, the rising up...and the punching down. I love each step of the process and when I reach the final forming of the loaf for the oven...I feel like a mother.

Pulling a golden, grainy loaf of seeded bread from the hot oven has only one end....sharing it.   That constitutes one amazing day of total attentiveness.

So, as I listened to this Laura Story song about "grace" I thought about myself as bread.

You know, I had one pretty great, amazing, wonder-filled summer.   If I hadn't had more than twenty of them, I might have gotten caught up in thinking my great summer had something to do with a "great" me. Not!!

But God loves me so, so, soooo much. And I welcome his attentiveness to my spiritual rising. So, I am never alarmed when I feel him breaking me....it's necessary for the baking of a beautiful loaf of bread. One of my favorite parts of bread baking is watching that first rising. You've mixing your ingredients, the dough is now a perfect consistency, you feel its weight in our hands, form it into a lovely ball, tuck under all the edges, place it back in the oiled bread bowl, cover it with a lovely blue and white checked cotton towel...and wait.

It will puff up to more than double its size. It will be smooth, fragrant, and beautiful. And that's just when you punch it down and start manhandling it. But this manhandling, or kneading, is necessary. It breaks down the big, puffy, more dramatic bubbles of air, so that more consistent, smaller pockets of air can form throughout the loaf, leading to lovely slices of yummy bread.

After an early summer that rose into something big and beautiful...full of dramatic first rising bubbles, I've spent some time in the punch down, knead, and rise...punch down, knead and rise stages of my summer's more quiet late August.   But, for me, this only means that my Father is an attentive Baker, and that He loves me enough to want me to be consistent, humble, and to know the gift of grace...to know that it's all, always, been in His hands.   And besides, all that punching down, kneading, and forming means His hands have been all over my life..that's always the best feeling!!   And as for the connection between baking and Mary Baker Eddy's use of the term, "self-immolation"...well, that's for another post.

I think there's a reason why we say "grace" before we break bread....

with Love...and hopefully, more grace...

Kate

"Nowhere else I'd rather be..."

2011-08-16T10:59:00.009-06:00

"I'm runnin' down that mountain pass at midnight,
Those truckers they all flash their lights at me.
This highway ain't the very best companion,
'cause I know there's somewhere else I'd rather be..."

I love Dan Fogelberg. Over the past few decades, his High Country Snows album has been my companion on many a drive through the winding, narrow roads that criss cross the Rocky Mts. And it was the first few lines, from his song, "Mountain Pass," that tried to be the soundtrack during one difficult late night drive, a couple of weeks ago.

My girlfriends and I had driven from camp, over Independence Pass, through Aspen, and up in to one of the most beautiful high valley pastures I've ever seen for a polocrosse match my daughters, one friend's husband, and a handful of our beloved counselors and campers were competing in that weekend.

The drive up was glorious. Absolutely perfect...in every way. Cloud-dappled Colorado blue skies, shimmering mountain lakes, the underflash of aspen leaves scattering light across the loam-rich forest floor.   Tears fell listening to Carrie Underwood's "How Great Thou Art," on Linda's ipod, and the scent of August's promise...cooler September days, aspen golds, sweaters, and hot cocoa were palpable in the air.

Once at the tournament, we were smitten...lost in the day. Riders from Australia, Alburquerque, Durango, and beyond. The dance of horse and rider...more intimate than a tango. Old friendships, new acquaintances that would someday be old friendships. The laughter of teens who share a love for horses and competition, the whinnying of horses who love "the game," and can't wait to parry on the field. And the greenest grass I've ever seen inviting us to "relax, lie back, close your eyes and listen, stay...."   So we did.

By the time we left we'd enjoyed watching our kids (and Lach) scrimmage in more than a dozen chukkas. The fast-paced, precise, extraordinarily beautiful choreography of horse and rider...spinning, racing, turning on a dime, dipping to retrieve the ball, tearing down the field, cutting in front of an opponent...it took my breath away. And all this without eating any of the ubiquitous dust that flavored every other polocrosse tournament I've been to.   Heavenly. Sigh.

By the time we tore ourselves away...riders still on the field playing as the sun turned the sky a shade of lavender-tinged salmon...we were wondering why we had to go. oh yes, work...we reminded ourselves.

A quick dinner in Aspen, and we'd be "home" by midnight. The food was great, and an hour later we hopped into the car under a quilted black sky scattered with a million stars. It was going to be a lovely, cool ride back down the mountain...

Not.

I was the one I'd designated to do the driving, and it didn't take long before I was so ill I could barely speak. This highway was not a good companion...at all. Dancing headlights, shimmering snow reflectors, endless switchbacks....I wasn't doing so well. A couple of emergency stops along side of the road helped...a bit, but there was a part of me that groaned inside, "I can't go one more mile, what if we just stopped here, and slept until the sun comes up?"

But it was Linda's sharing of Carrie Underwood's beautiful How Great Thou Art," that afternoon, and her and Maree's clear love for God, and their trust in His love for me, that kept me going. I knew, with all my being, that they were praying for me...and I could feel it. I could truly feel their prayers, their love, their willingness to laugh with me. And I could feel it more viscerally than I could feel the nausea or dizziness. So I focused that, on actually feeling their love...which I knew, with all my heart, was an expression of God's love...and before we reached home, it was all I could feel.

And you know what? Right where the highway didn't seem like the very best companion, I was already surrounded by the very best friends I could hope to be loved by. Their love was all I needed to remember that the day was blessed, and all was well.

Thank you Linda and Maree...and thank you God...how great Thou art!

There is nowhere else I'd rather have been that night.

It was the best!!

Kate

"Everyday miracles...."

2011-08-10T10:47:00.004-06:00

"It's the everyday miracles
that keep my hope alive.
It's the way you move in little things,
that helps me survive..."

I am so loving the message in Sara Groves', "Everyday Miracles," tonight. It speaks to me of what is most essential.

I've begun to realize that it's the little things which take my breath away these days. The everyday, the common place, the simple acts of unsought grace found in unexpected places.

One recent weekend was filled with them. A friend's willingness to put self aside and take me to the airport before dawn, another's offer to transport a fragile item back home so that I didn't have to worry about it surviving two flights...one lovely moment after another...

For the most part, I was aware of these unexpected miracles, because they were directly in my path. And I was deeply grateful for each instance of blessing.

But, it was what I was privy to on my last flight that I'd like to write about tonight. A delayed flight out of Chicago put a large group of us in the boarding area for a few hours. One fellow wheelchair-bound traveler, was obviously very advanced in years and unaccustomed to his circumstances. He sat quietly, but it wasn't hard to note his concern about making his connection in the next city. He politely asked the ticket agent, over and over again, if we were going to make it in time since his son would be waiting for him at his final destination, and he did not have a cell phone to alert him of the delay.

When we finally boarded, he was whisked down the jetway first, and by the time I followed along with my later boarding group, he was already seated next to a young woman and her daughter. I took the seat directly in front of them.

During the course of our two hour flight, I was brought to tears more than once by his seatmate. She was so genuinely interested in his welfare and comfort. She asked him questions about his life, his family, his concerns. She made sure he had refreshments and helped him when he needed to leave his seat. She intervened for him with the airline staff so that they called ahead and had them hold his next flight for ten minutes so that they could get him off of our plane and through the terminal so that he wouldn't have to spend the night in a strange city because of a missed connection.

When we landed I couldn't help but talk to her daughter, since mom was still busy caring for her new friend. I asked her if she knew what a kind and generous mom she had. I won't forget her response for a long time, she said, "that's my mom...she is always like that." There was such a sense of "why, of course.." to her reply.

It made me realize that this was not a rare moment in her mother's life...this was her life. And her daughter knew it. It was clear that she was witnessing miracles everyday in her mom's presence. Miracles of kindness, serendipitous acts of grace.

I felt blessed. No less so than if I'd been on the shores of the Gallilean Sea with the Master, on a Lynn, Massacusetts beach with Mary Baker Eddy as she ministered to a lame boy, or seeing a terminal diagnosis reversed through prayer.

I'm on the look-out for everyday miracles...and, like the heart-shaped stones my sisters and I collect, I seem to be finding them around every corner.

with Love,

Kate

"Love, not of me..."

2011-08-04T09:12:00.010-06:00

"...Love, not of you,
Love, not of me...
Come hold us up,
come set us free.
Not as we know it,
but as it can be.
Love's reality..."

Since writing Monday's post, "There is no difference..." I have been mulling over the questions it posed for me. Not just about mother-love, but about love in general. And Sara Groves' "Love," which I used to keynote another post, earlier this year, has been a helpful reminder...on a number of levels.

Are there different "kinds" of love? Are there variables in love? Can you have a "lesser" version of Love? Can human affection, which has its source in divine Love, the only Cause and Creator of all that bears Its name, be diminished by who, where, or how it is expressed...i.e. can love that is expressed by an aunt, camp counselor, or neighbor, be less than the love that is expressed by a mother or father?

If the Source is the same, can its derivitive be compromised, adulterated, diluted, watered-down by "how" it is expressed, or by whom?

After reading Monday's post a friend shared this:

"I read your post today. I am hesitant to mention this but a very,very wise friend of mine has told me, on more than one occasion, that there are not different kinds of love."

Hmmm...I know this...I have worked with this Truth, spoken it, applied it to so many situations...trusting Its veracity with deep spiritual conviction. I have experienced the healing impact of this Truth in my own life...on countless occasions. So, why then have I struggled so mightily with this question when it comes to motherhood?

I don't think there's a good reason...just more of the same old lie of "less than All, in all" and I got snookered into considering it as reasonable...again. Sigh.

So, instead of starting with an unreasonable question, I'm going to start with what I know about Love. I know that Love is God. And I know that God has only one measure, portion, variable...All...nothing less. Period.

Just like water is water...a drop, a cup, or a bathtub full. Love is always, at its essence, Love. Mother love, the love we feel for our friends, the love that moves us to live generously, to care for our global neighbors unselfishly...it's all just Love in action as love.

Just as a drop of water can be a snowflake, a jet of steam, a refreshing beverage, ice to skate on, the breath of life to a fish, while never losing its essential purity, clarity, and integrity as H2O...water. Likewise, love, is never less than all Love, only Love...completely Love.

So...is there a difference? A variableness in quality or quantity?   No, I really don't think its even possible.   How could there be a lesser version of love, and still bear the name of Love? For love to be love, it must be as infinitely All, as its Source.

But, I also believe that Love is capable of expressing itself in infinitely individual (a word that comes from the root: not divided) forms of usefulness and beauty...like water expressing itself as steam, ice, clouds, rain, lakes, baths...etc.    However unique and individual, each of these forms is, and must continue to be fully, wholly, completely true to the essential integrity and allness of Love's inherent nature...never less.

with all love...

Kate

"There is no difference..."

2011-08-01T17:24:00.007-06:00

"There is no difference...."

This piece is a departure for me. It strays away from the safe space of song lyrics and inspiration, and wanders blindly into the somewhat foggy lair of my heart, the place where I often find myself when the lights are out, and sleep is evasive.

So, I was watching a film the other night. I'd never heard of it before...which didn't surprise me. I don't get to watch many movies these days. But, I needed to stay awake...right up until it was time to leave for a long drive to the airport for a pre-dawn flight...and a movie seemed like just the right thing.

Yet this movie wasn't entertaining for me. It was more like an emotional ambush. One I didn't see coming. The cast seemed perfect for a light-hearted romp through romance and family dynamics, but whoever cast this one was playing mind games with me.

Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick...you see what I mean? Happy, funny, a bit wacky....nope. Not at all!!

For me, "Then She Found Me," was anything but light-hearted...it was deeply moving, and profoundly thought-provoking.

Especially the scene in which a newly-married, and eager to parent but not yet pregnant, Helen Hunt engages in an argument with her elderly adoptive mother about whether there is a difference between the way a mother loves her biological offspring, and the depth of love she feels for her adopted child. Hunt is convinced that she must bear a child biologically to feel "real" mother love, whereas her mother emphatically declares through hot tears, "there is no difference..."

It took me apart. I will not ruin the rest of the film for you, but suffice it to say, they had me with this scene, and never let go. Never...

So, what do I think? Without equivocation, I agree with elderly Jewish mother, "there is no difference." But do I really know this. No.

I wish I did. I wish that I could state, as categorically and without reservation, as she did, that "there is no difference..." (her character is also the mother of a biological son)   But since I have never carried a child to term, I can only speak from what I feel so certain about in my heart. My love for my daughters...and, for that matter, my stepchildren...is no different than the love I would feel for a child that I'd given birth to.

If there are any differences in the way I love my daughters, I would say that it has to do with my confidence about my role in their lives. I believe that a birthmother knows, without a doubt, that she has been divinely appointed to be her child's mother. As an adoptive mother, I feel this, in every fiber of my being, on a deeply spiritual level, but I can't say that I don't worry, every day, that my children wonder, that, if by being adopted, some divine order has been abrogated.

For me, motherhood has nothing to do with biology.   And I don't say this to demean my daughters' birthparents, or, for that matter, their step parents. I know, with all my being, that we love our daughters completely, absolutely and imperatively....nothing less.   I do believe, however, that motherhood has everything to do with caring for a child...whether it starts at conception and continues for the rest of that child's experience...or, nine months, nine years, or nineteen years after his/her birth.

I can't imagine loving anyone or anything more than I love our children. If it's possible, I don't know if I could stand it. This love is already too dissembling and all-encompassing. It has dissolved everything I thought made me who I was.   This is a good thing though...I needed to change. Self-absorbed, myopic, and critical behaviors couldn't exist in the atmosphere of love which motherhood requires, and calls forth, from the depth of our being.

But is it different? I so hope not. I pray with all my being that my children have not experienced anything "less," having grown up in an adoptive family.   Because, more than anything else in the world, I want my children to know the best, the fullest, the most extraordinary love that life has to offer.

And perhaps, by encouraging and nurturing their relationships with all their mothers..and fathers, they have been able to experience just that.

I hope...I pray...

Kate

"Heal..."

2011-07-27T09:05:00.001-06:00

"Heal the world
make it a better place
for you, and for me
and the entire human race..."

Reports of the devastating effects of a widespread drought in East Africa and an unfathomable hunger crisis that has left millions facing starvation, knocks at the door of my heart hourly...and I am answering.

But there was a time when if I heard that knock, all I felt was helpless. Oh yes, I prayed for the world, but it was more a prayer of petition, than the exercise of divine law. Opening the door to suffering humanity was terrifying. I wasn't sure I would be able to respond...in any way but breaking down in tears...once I swung it wide and welcomed the world in. In fact, I remember watching this video of Michael Jackson's "Heal the World," and just sighing. It was 1991, our daughter was not yet two, and the images of children living in poverty, civil urest, and homelessness contrasted so strikingly with our modest, but safe, warm, and peaceful life in a small university town in Colorado, that I couldn't wrap my arms around it.

It had been two years since our return from South Africa, and yet I was still haunted by what I'd seen of the living conditions in Soweto, the Apartheid-era imposed racially segregated township housing over one million impovereished black Africans. Raw sewarage, corrugated tin shacks, hungry children, and the angry faces of the oppressed were seared into my memory. Seeing the images in the video only brought those earlier feelings of helplessness in the face of insurmountable social injustice and human indignity to the surface again. And as Nelson Mandela learned during his tenure in prison:

"Freedom is indivisible;
the chains on any one of my people
were the chains on all of them,
the chains on all of my people
were the chains on me."

So, I reasoned, the suffering of any one person, was my suffering. And I was feeling it.

But, I also knew that I didn't have to stay there. If I wanted to witness healing and freedom in my own life...mind, body, spirit, my family, my community...I had to be willing to advocate for the impersonal, impartial, and universal well-being of everyone, everywhere. And as a spiritual thinker, I knew had an option other than despair and frustration...one that didn't compromise my heart's desire to see the end of oppression, or abdicate my sense of social responsibility...but one, in fact, that gave me practical ways to make a difference. I could take my human rights case to the Supreme Court...of Spirit.

Just as a civil liberties attorney would hunker down with the Constitution to ground himself in the establishments of his clients rights, I knew that I had to ground my case in all that constituted the rights of man, based on divine law.

As I began my research for the case of "global social injustice vs. God," it became instantly clear to me that throughout human history, as recorded in the Bible, our spiritual patriarchs had been faced with countless opportunities to litigate against oppression in the court of Spirit. And time, and again, they had prevailed. Moses, Ruth, Solomon, Jesus...especially Jesus...grounded themselves in the law of Love, and triumphed.

As I poured over their case histories, two sentences..one from the gospel of Matthew, and one from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, became the cornerstone of my case.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself..."
- Jesus

and

"Love is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."
- Mary Baker Eddy

On the constitutional foundation of these two statements I built my case. There were so many inontrovertible accounts of "human justice patterning the divine" in the Bible -- to draw on for citing precendence -- that it made preparing for an "argument" unneccessary. Any justification for treating an "other" as less deserving of good, would be inadmissable in the court of Spirit. I knew that I had an absolutely airtight defense of humanity's right to peace, security, justice, dignity, health, and compassion. I was ready.

It had become crystal clear to me that Jesus' statement. "thou shalt love thy neighbors as thyself," was not a suggestion, but a spiritual imperative...a promise. And that Eddy's declaration...her proclamation that Love's adaptiations and bestowals are impartial and universal ...without condition, leaving no one out, under any circumstance...were all I needed to rest my case.

Over, and over, and over again, as one distortion of justice after another suggests itself for consideration and blind acceptance, I can, without finger pointing or judgment, take a stand for the power of Love to enforce its own Law of divine providence. And through His Word, reverberating in each human heart, to:

"...enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them"*

I've loved watching as God's Word, advocating in defense of humanity's impartial and universal right to experience good, operates unspent and without hesitation in every corner of the universe...especially in my own heart. I know the law of Love. I am steeped in Scriptural precedence. Love always triumphs. I trust it...unconditionally, unreservedly...with all my being.

always,
Kate

*From "The Daily Prayer," which can be found in the Section on "Discipline," of The Manual of The Mother Church, by Mary Baker Eddy. It reads in its entirety:

"Thy kingdom come,
let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love
be sestablished in me,
and rule out of me all sin.

And may Thy Word,
enrich the affections of all mankind,
and govern them."

"You can't take that away from me..."

2011-07-25T15:52:00.004-06:00

"No, no...
they can't take that away from me.
No, the cam't take that
away from me...."

Okay, so the lyrics to "They Can't Take That Away," by Ella Fitzgerald, don't really work for the long haul. But the above refrain really spoke to me this afternoon as I was thinking about what is real, and what, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests, "...is delusive."   Especially, for me, in light of subjects like love and salvation.

Bear with me...please....

We refer to Jesus as the "Saviour," and his ministry, as one that is salvation-focused. But we also think of him...in some cases, primarily, as a healer who actually defined the standard of compasssion, grace, mercy, meekness, unselfishness...love.

So, what do those Love-based qualities, of thought and behavior, have to do with salvation? Everything...I believe.

In a previous post, "I Get on my Knees," I talked about my grandfather's salvage business. About driving through the streets of their town, bouncing around in the cab of his old dumptruck looking for discarded refrigerators, stoves, mixers, vacuumn cleaners. My grandfather knew every essential element buried beneath peeling out-dated paint and scratched chrome...he saw 16 yards of copper tubing, iron burner plates, tin, brass, aluminum....he saw what had enduring value.

He saw beneath the surface of the details, trends, brand names, and labels...details that were as changeable and fading as that old Harvest Gold paint job, and the particular usage of each elements at any given time....to the very purest, most essential substance. A copper tube could be melted down and turned into a saute pan, a bracelet...then melted down again in 75 years and used again for another purpose. The copper itself would be untouched, unadulterated by the specifics of its use...it would never lose its essential character.

So what does this have to do with Jesus, and love? For me, well...everything. When we break the trappings of personality, history, heredity, and privilege down and see them as simply context, branding, setting, age, usage...paint jobs and logos...we are left with one thing, man's inviolable substance -- love. Our desire to love and be loved. Our spiritually inherent desire to live lives that are rich with opportunity. Opportunities to discover the depth, breadth and height of our right...and ability...to love unconditionally.

It is this essential relationship to Love, God, that can never be taken away from me. Throw me in a prison...I can still love. Cut off my tongue...I can still love. Malign, betray, defile and abuse me...I can still love. Make me cry...I can still love. There is nothing you can do to me, that deprives me of my right to love...anyone, any circumstance, anything. I am empowered by what you cannot take from me...my right to love.

So, that's what I've been thinking about tonight...camp is, as always, wonderful beyond words...

Blessings...

Kate

"Remember surrender..."

2011-07-16T13:32:00.002-06:00

"Remember surrender?
Remember the rest.
Remember that weight
lifting off of your chest.
And realizing that it's not up to you...
and it never was...."

Sometimes a song, like Sara Grove's "Remember Surrender," captures the tone, texture, and colors of what is going on in my heart...so well...that I have little more to say than...thank you. I am going to let these lyrics speak first...

"Remember surrender?
Remember relief?
Remember how tears rolled down
both of your cheeks?
As the warmth of a heavenly father
came closing in.

"I want to do that again.
Why can't I just live there,
And make my home
in sweet surrender?
I want to do so much more
than remember..."

"Remember surrender?
Remember the peace?
Remember how soundly
you fell fast asleep?
In the face of your troubles
your future still shone
like the morning sun.

"Remember surrender?
Remember that sound..
of all of those voices inside dying down?
But the one who speaks clearly
of helping and healing you deep within.

"I want to do that again.
Why can't I live there?
And make my home
in the space of sweet surrender.
I want to do so much more
than remember...

So surrender...."

There have been times when it felt like "remembering," suddenly shifts into something akin to a haunting, before I've been able to detect the mask. When it does, I am often snookered into believing that I just have to turn off the "remembering" switch altogether, and then babble a distracting "la, la, la, la..." in my head until my thoughts are clear again. And I have to admit, that it hasn't always been easy.

But, I am learning that its the perfect opportunity to exercise Jesus' message of:

"I am not come to destroy...but to fulfill."

I don't have to array myself for a battle with the concept of remembering, I just have to reclaim it for God. I can remember all the ways that I have experienced God's mercy, been surprised by His grace, healed by His reminder: "I am with thee," and touched by the gentle strength of His presence.

I can remember what it feels like to surrender into His arms. I can remember the peace that comes with surrendering all my worrying, and planning, to his wisdom. I can remember that the greatest gift I can bring to the altar, is my absolute trust in His nature as infinite, unyielding, inexhaustible Love.

I can remember the joy of complete surrender...silence, stillness, a quiet...

sigh...

Kate

"You'll be blessed..."

2011-07-13T18:57:00.002-06:00

"And you,
you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky...
I promise you that
I promise you that..."

There are moments in life that, as they are happening, you know they are being etched into your heart forever. You begin cataloguing sounds, images, feelings...capturing them for eternity. Each memory a puzzle piece that contributes to an exquisite photograph held in the heart.

Saturday, my nephew Sasch, married his bride Stephanie. It was such a lovely day...bright blue Colorado skies above a pine and aspen blanketed mountain, a pristine lake high in the Rockies...and love...so much love.

I think I held it together pretty well...that is, until Sascha's mother-son dance with my sister, Lila. From the first strain's of Elton John's "You'll Be Blessed," I was a goner. But then so were the rest of my sisters and my mom.

We know the depth of her love for this son. We have witnessed the devotion, strength, and grace that she has shown as a mother. We've had front row seats to their mutual respect, shared joys, and deep admiration for eachother.

Watching my sister's face was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. It was like watching a beautiful sunset wash across the sky. Twenty-two years of mother-love passed through her eyes during that dance.

I felt so privileged to be there. Mary Baker Eddy's poem, "Mother's Evening Prayer," seems to capture the depth and breadth of feeling we witnessed. And all were blessed.

"O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill, — since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
"Lo, I am with you alway," — watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's tear-drops gain,
And mother finds her home and heav'nly rest."

I saw my sister's heart find rest in her son's happiness that afternoon...and felt so blessed to be a witness.

such love,

Kate

"Oh happy day..."

2011-07-08T21:37:00.004-06:00

"Oh happy day,
Oh happy day,
When Jesus washed,
When Jesus washed,
He washed my sins away..."

Don't you just love this performance of "Oh Happy Day," from the film, Sister Act. It gives me chills. It has the same effect on me as almost any performance of "Amazing Grace."

To have my "sins" washed away by Jesus' message of Love-inspired salvation, always takes my breath away. But lately, as I have considered what this really means to me, I started to see that I was cherishing a mental image of a traditional baptism, as "how" Jesus washed away sins. But, Jesus, himself, never baptized anyone in a large body of water or by sprinkling water on their heads or foreheads...that we know of anyway. But, what he did do though, was wash feet.

His example was not one of a spiritual leader who, from the lofty summit of greater spiritual insight and demonstration, magnanimously absolves man from his sin (any belief in a separation from God, good, and His creation...and the reaction to that belief) through a ceremonial immersion in water.*

No, his model was that of a servant, naked before those he ministered to -- humbly washing the most dirt-ravaged parts of their bodies...feet that had walked miles on dusty roads in open sandals...with the tenderness of a parent washing a child's wounds. Teaching each of them "how" to do it, and then offering this gentle instruction:

"...ye should do as I have done to you."

So, I have to ask myself: "am I...?"

Mary Baker Eddy's counsel, in part, through these passages, has provided insight and guidance. She writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"To...follow his [our Master's] example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done."

and

"We all must learn that Life is God. Ask yourself: Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good? Am I demonstrating the healing power of Truth and Love? If so, then the way will grow brighter "unto the perfect day."

A brighter day, a perfect day...oh happy day...
Kate

*I am so grateful that Mary Baker Eddy defines "baptism" as: "Purification by Spirit; submergence in Spirit." What a wonderful way of thinking about this term.

"Freedom's just another word..."

2011-07-07T08:06:00.008-06:00

"Freedom's
just another word for
nothing left to lose..."

Yesterday was Independence Day in the United States. And Janis Joplin's lyric (above) from "Me and Bobby McGee," kept suggesting itself for consideration. Not the whole song, mind you, but just that one verse.   But it's a lyric that seems to surface regularly.

I was never a big Janis-Joplin-screaming-in-the-microphone fan. So, I rarely listened to her recordings...by choice (although I enjoyed the above-linked rare unplugged studio recording). But if you grew up in the 1960s, and listened to the radio, this was one song that you couldn't miss, and this particular lyric has always poked at me.

For some reason, it always seemed to upset the apple cart in my Type-A, "high achiever" world. I'd always associated freedom with gain...not loss. If I was successful, I would have more, and having more, I would be able to do things that would feel like freedom. I would be able to live where I wanted, donate to causes I believed in, buy a home that could never be sold out from under us, provide for my family, travel at will, make decisions without worrying about "how much," and, most importantly, I would have the freedom to do work that I loved, rather than work I had to do, just to make ends meet.

Freedom, I believed, came with more. Slavery, oppression, fewer choices...came with less.

I lived within this paradigm for many years....too many years. But at the deepest level, it wasn't working for me. Freedom didn't come with more. In fact, the only thing that seemed to come with having more, were more decisions, responsibilities, and stuff.

The more that I got what I thought I wanted, the less satisfying it was, and the harder I had to work to maintain it all.   The more often I got what I wanted, the more I wondered if I hadn't just "made it happen" and then I wasn't sure if it was really what was really right for me. The minute I accomplished my "getting," I would begin to doubt whether it was a gift from God, or just me working really hard.

And this didn't just relate to things...jobs, houses, cars, etc....it was also a side-effect of striving to elicit more admiration from others, achieving more of what was expected of me, having more to say, more control, more to weigh in on...more, more, more.

It was like walking along a beach filled with beautiful shells and not being able to pass even one by without wanting to add it to my collection. I was out of control.

That was until I lost it all.   And not only did I lose all the stuff, but I lost the thing that had given me a false sense of worth...the hard won admiration of others. Most importantly though, I lost that sense of myself, which kept track of personal goals and chronological milestones., other peoples opinions of me and my ability to make things happen.

And in doing so I gained real freedom.

I learned that "more" was a very fickle "friend." One moment I was flying high on the wings of accomplishment, and the next I was scrambling across a scree field of mistakes.

I thought that freedom was something I had to defend, fight for, hold on to...or I would be lost, vulnerable to oppression, and in jeopardy of becoming possessed. But, in that space of losing it all...I discovered that there were things I could never lose or be dispossessed of....and this discovery was my first taste of true liberty. The kind of freedom that Mary Baker Eddy refers to as a "divine right"...and one that we need to only "accept."

While wandering aimlessly through a particularly low, and despairing, chapter of personal emptiness, I found that this very space of void..."the desert of my human hopes"...was actually a diamond mine, overflowing with those precious things of real value, that I could never lose...honesty, the joy of being at peace with my own thoughts, meekness, my love for others, an appreciation of beauty, hope, faith, humility, patience...and, I was still able to do the work that I loved, right there...right in the middle of that seeming void. It was revolutionary...for me.

And it was here that I discovered true freedom. The freedom to think my own thoughts, the freedom to love without reason, the freedom to show up each moment anticipating a divine surprise...whatever it might be.

Janis goes on to sing:

"It ain't nothin' honey
if it ain't free..."

I am learning that she's right. All the stuff we can gather around us, accumulate, purchase, desire, make happen...can be lovely, entertaining, comforting, etc. But they aren't where we find freedom. Freedom comes with a recognition of the unshakable presence of those things that are free...those things you don't have to bargain for, earn, negotiate, maintain, improve, fear to loss of...they come fully developed, perfect, and without condition. They are yours and you can take them wherever you go.

This is the kind of freedom I am celebrating today....

In a poem titled, "Woman's Rights" Mary Baker Eddy outlines the constitutional rights that lead to true freedom:

"...The right to worship deep and pure,
To bless the orphan, feed the poor;
Last at the cross to mourn her Lord,
First at the tomb to hear his word:

To fold an angel's wings below;
And hover o'er the couch of woe;
To nurse the Bethlehem babe so sweet,
The right to sit at Jesus' feet;

To form the bud for bursting bloom,
The hoary head with joy to crown;
In short, the right to work and pray,
"To point to heaven and lead the way."

This was her list of rights, that no one could take away...what are yours?

with Love,

Kate

"Free your mind, the rest will follow..."

2011-06-30T11:44:00.003-06:00

"Stop...
in the name of Love
before you break my heart...

think it over...."

The first time I heard the cast of Glee's performance of this extraordinary mash-up version of "Stop in the Name of Love" and "Free Your Mind," I got chills. I never would have thought to marry these two songs from such different genres of music. But it is truly brilliant.

It goes after the subject of judging based on "an outward sense of things" with such a clear message of Love. I am especially touched by this lyric from "Free Your Mind":

"Before you can read me
You must learn how to see me..."

I think, for today, I am going to just let this video clip speak for itself... and invite you to join me, in pondering the liberating promise in this line:

"Free your mind,
the rest will follow..."

On every front...in our relationships with one another, our bodies, the environment, and our place in the global community...it's a message I'm taking into my heart, and striving to walk in. It resonates with all that I am learning about Love.

One of the things I have most learned...from spending much of my time with teens and young adults...is, that the thing which really breaks hearts, even more than the interplay of romantic relationships, is when someone feels judged by surface appearances. When a girl is assumed to be provocative based on her body type or clothing choices, or the label of "bad boy" is placed on a guy because if his hairstyle, the way he wears his shorts, or the music he enjoys.

I love camp for this very reason. Here, everyone is encouraged to look further, and to listen more deeply. To rend the veil of surface appearances and discover one another on a spiritual level. And there is nothing like it. To feel "seen" for who you truly are...is life-transforming. And it's a practice that every one of us can take home at the end of the session...or the summer, and share with our family, friends, and neighbors. Instead of breaking hearts, we begin to nurture them with this new approach to seeing...and being seen. Its a message of blessing.

Since the Glee video (above) is so much fun, I am also including this clip of "Stop in the Name of Love/Free Your Mind," with the lyrics. I don't want you to have to strain for its message of grace.

Have a wonderful weekend. I hope you'll give yourself the gift of a "camp" perspective. I always find it so liberating...to free my mind from the impositions of sense, so that I can soar on the thermals of Soul. It's a great place from which to see everything (and everyone), from a new, higher point of view. And I'm finding that it's much easier to stop judging, when it's in the name of Love.

From here on the side of a mountain, I'm just "thinkin' it over..."

lovingly,

Kate

"to know the rapture..."

2011-06-28T14:14:00.001-06:00

"I have felt you with my spirit,
I have felt you fill this room...
And this is just an invitation,
just a sample of the whole...
And I cannot wait to be going home..."

I love Sara Groves' "Going Home." I sense that she might be writing about her hope of experiencing "the rapture," much the way I used to feel about going home to camp. The rest of the year I was either anticipating going to camp, or reveling in all I'd just learned, and expereinced, at camp.

At the time, I thought it was "healthy." I thought I knew where I belonged, where I was "at my best," and although I convinced myself that I could carry "camp" with me throughout the year as a place in my heart...I still spent waaayyy too much time dreaming about "the valley" (the Arkansas Valley of Colorado where camp sits in the palm of a series of avalanched chutes called "Columbia Basin'), and my freindships there.

But one day, after listening to Sara's song, I realized that I waited for my weeks at Adventure Unlimited, the way Sara's song referred to the rapturous experience of "going home." And as much I tried to "live" camp wherever I was, I was still thinking that my camp experience was better when I was sitting on a porch looking out over the Midland Range across the brow of a rock formation called, "Sleeping Indian."

So, I got after it, the way I would start to wrestle with any concept that no longer resonated with me spiritually. And there were two statements that began to inform my prayers. One was from the book of Luke in the Bible:

"And when Jesus was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy:

"In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as "a very present help in trouble." Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals."

I began to see that, for me, if the kingdom of God was not, here or there, but within me; it really didn't matter where I was...I could always be at my best, satisfied, peaceful, And not only could I be at my best, there was a spiritual demand upon me to be at my best and not live in anticipation of, or longing for, a better place, a better time, a more condusive enviroment for spiritual living and scientific Christian practice. Love, God, is impartial and universal...and by reflection, my loving has to be completely, utterly, absolutely impartial and universally adaptable in its bestowing to be "like Him."

So, although I am deeply happy to be here in the valley, and to make this my basecamp, my homebase...a touchstone for the moment...I now know, that I really can be home anywhere. I know "the rapture" of a unverse teeming with God's presence and overflowing with Her Love.

Here is the poem that escaped, like a gasp of realization, as this truth dawned in full moonlight....

"rapture: [from medeival Latin raptura to seize and carry off]
(noun) a feeling of intense pleasure or joy;
(verb) to transport from earth to heaven at the coming of Christ;
to be raised or lifted out of oneself by divine power."

i have known
rapture

it comes in the
silent hunger of a
heart that
yearns to know and
be known

there is a moment,
a coincidence,
where we finally surrender to grace,
and are caught up,
carried into the weightless,
burdenless,
space of spiritual trust...

when knowing the answer
is less important
than feeling like a child
in the arms of a
Parent who
knows All...
and
it is enough.

it is peace,
but more...

it is bliss,
but without reason...

it is poised
ecstacy...calm and
consistent...

it is flight but
without the beating of
wings...

the rising...
and still rising,
unhurried on
the thermals
of the unseen...

it is light holding hands with
the darkness and together
watching the changing faces of
the moon like
sisters
who know,
that
in the presence of
one,
the other
is
a miracle,
a divine surprise,
a moment
of
pure
rapture...

I hope you find the rapture in every moment of your oneness with God...today.

with Love,

Kate

Here is another link to Sara's song, "Going Home."

"Safe in the arms of Love..."

2011-06-24T21:42:00.003-06:00

"I want a heart to be forever mine,
I want eyes to see me satisfied,
Gonna hang my heartaches out to dry...
Someday I'm gonna be safe in the arms of love,
Safe in the arms Of Love"

I heard the first verse of Martina McBride's "Safe in the Arms of Love," the other day, and there wasn't a moment's hesitation to my response...

"Hey, I've got that...I've already got all of that."

And it was a feeling that ran very deep...like an underground river. I didn't have to reason it out, or ponder it for a long time...it was as immediate, and present, as any feeling I've ever had. And I think maybe, it just might be, that Jesus' message of "the kingdom of heaven is within you" is finally getting through!

It infinitely clear that, the only heart that will ever be "forever mine," is...well, mine. That the one, and only, love that I can always be sure of, is the love that I am feeling...for God, and for others. It's within me...and nothing can take it away. Nothing, and no one, can deprive me of its constancy, its reliability, its ever-presence. It's source is God, Love...so, by reflection, it is mine...and it's forever mine. Because I am His, forever His.

That doesn't mean that the affection, warmth, and tenderness that I feel, from others...my loved ones -- family and friends...brings any less sweetness, happiness, and joy. Quite the contrary. I experience each moment of their love with an even greater wonder and delight because it is no longer a measure of how much love I have in my life. The love in my life is full and overflowing...but it comes from within...not without. It's only defined by the love I have to give, not the love I hope to get.

And as for those "eyes that see me satisfied..." Well, they look back at me from the mirror every morning. I know that, as Mary Baker Eddy says, in her poem, "Satisfied":

"It matters not, what be thy lot
so Love doth guide."

It no longer matters whether I am experiencing a lot of love, or that my lot in life...at any given moment....is lean with aloneness, or gaping with opportunities to grow in grace, to be a blessing in the world I walk in. As long as I am letting Love guide my heart, my motives, my speech and actions, I have the right to be...and am... satisfied. And I can see this contentment in myself, and know that it is unshakeable.

So tonight, as I sit here thinking about all the campers, counselors, staff, and bunkhouse parents...who have gathered at various summer camps across the country to grow spiritually, and make new friends ...I am feeling such deep peace knowing that the kingdom of heaven is within each of us, that our hearts are guided solely by Love, that we are safe in, and as, His outreached arms of extended blessings...and, that we are...right now...satisfied.

rest well....

Kate

"hope of deliverance..."

2011-06-16T21:38:00.004-06:00

"And I wouldn't mind knowing,
knowing that You wouldn't mind going,
going along with my plan.

When it will be right, I don't know.
What it will be like, I don't know.
We live in hope of deliverance
hope of deliverance
from the darkness that surrounds us."

I've been thinking about the concept of "deliverance" for a while now. I think, spiritually, I've always thought of being delivered "from" something. Just as Paul (McCartney...not the Apostle) sings of in his song, "Hope of Deliverance." Delivered from darkness, delivered from pain, fear, sorrow...but something about this just feels "off" to me lately.

Since God is the Creator of all that is...and it is all good. What am I being delivered from? Where did it come from, how did it come into my experience in the first place...and if deliverance means that I'm being taken away, or lifted up out of it, that means that it stays put, and I have to leave. So it not only has substance and presence, but place. I've gotta tell you....I'm not buying it. Either God made all, and it is good, and there is no other presence or power...or it's all a bunch of words. And as much as I love words...and you must know how I love words...I am not putting my trust in words, but in the Word. In the promise. The promise that God is All, made all, and it is good...and finished.

So, again, I ask why would I need to be delivered from anything?

But, when I look at this Psalm:

"Thou shalt compass me about
with songs of deliverance."

Songs of deliverance...not the hushed fearful whispers of someone whose being snuck out the back door. Through this lens, I can see that there might be another way of looking at this. And I think it might be the standpoint of "deliverance" as birth, as a coming forth...as in delivering a baby, then it all starts to make sense to me. God delivers me into my lifework, sends me into opportunities (not away from challenges) according to His holy purpose, brings me forth out of a quiet womb, where I have been gathering energy, into the light of a new work.

Well, this I like.

Why would I want to be delivered from anything if everything is of God, and it's all good. Yes, I might need to have a different perspective...a God-centered perspective...on everything, but I am certainly not running away from "all that is," if all that is, is of God, and all is good.

With this in mind, the darkness is no longer a place I want to flee from anyway. And sorrow is a lovely space to sit and ponder love in, if it is really the opportunity to acknowledge the sweetness of a concluding experience, relationship, or life chapter. The unknown, the unplanned, the uncharted becomes a living promise.

So...yes, I guess I do have "Hope of Deliverance," just not from the darkness...but into the next space of light...be it the dim gentle light of a new dawn, the brightness of high noon, or the navy velvet of a wintery midnight. I want every shade of light, every stage of relationships, every state of being. I want it all, and I want to be delivered into it, like a blessed child being delivered into her parent's home, into the next moment of her awakening.

The Lord...Love...is my Deliverer....my blessed, beautiful, amazing Deliverer. And yes, He does deliver me from "sin" (the beliefthat I can be made to believe that I, or anyone else is, or can be, separated from God...from the All-in-allness of good) and brings me into right relationship with Him, and with the all-goodness of His wonderful creation...heaven and earth...where there is nothing unlike Him. Yes, He is my Deliverer...

the midwife of my hope...

with Love,

Kate

This post references Mary Baker Eddy's statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"All that is made is the work of God, and all is good."

"A pocket full of sunshine..."

2011-06-13T17:38:00.006-06:00

"I've got a pocket,
got a pocketful of sunshine
I've got a love,
and i know that it's all mine...
oh oh oh, oh

Do what you want,
but you're never gonna break me.
Sticks and stones,
are never gonna shake me..
oh oh oh oh..."

Okay, this is a post about not ignoring your children when they are insistent and annoying. Because sometimes, insistent and annoying girls (read: my daughters) are angels, in disguise...well, not really in disguise, because I always see them as angels...

So...here's the story in a nutshell...for an entire week, the girls showed up in the car, my office, during a movie, while I was cooking...singing. And they'd even use Tessie (our dog) as a dancing puppet while they sang Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine," over, and over, and over, and over again. To the point that I was beginning to think I would go mad...bonkers, off my rocker...if they didn't stop...no inquiry, just, "stop, please stop..."

But this morning, when I woke up to "i've got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine..." bopping away in my head, I thought..."aww, what a cute lyric...to be walking around with a pocketful of sunshine..." But, about an hour later, when I still couldn't get the darned song out of my head, I thought, "hmmm, perhaps this song is not just cute...maybe it's insisting itself upon my waking, and sleeping, thoughts for a reason..."

So, I came here, to this lovely resource...my laptop...and did a search on the lyrics, and lo, and behold...not a bad message at all. In fact, it's a GREAT message.

Like Olive, in this very cute clip from the film Easy A, it took me a while to accept that this message was actually "for me." But, like Olive, love for my girls (and hers, for her grandmother) opened the door of my heart, just enough, so that the song wafted in like the sugary scent of vanilla cupcakes baking in the oven, and by the time I couldn't let it go, it had me hungry.

I now love, not like, this song. I think I've listened to it about 50 times today...and that's even without the girlies singing it from every corner of my life. I love that it urges us...when facing gossip, anger, hatred -- from others, or from within the darkness of our own hurt...to go to the "better place," the kingdom of heaven, the consciousness of Love, the center and circumference of our being -- our weddedness to God...and sing a happy song about a love that is unshakable. To sing about a love that can't be taken, or misused...the only real love that is inviolable, the love that we express as the radiant reflection of the only and only Source of Love...God.

When we've got that kind of light glowing from within us, from within the deep pockets of our Christliness...a garment without seam or rent...darkness cannot find us. Everywhere we go, everyone we come in contact with, is illumined by the rich, golden light of Love.

"I've got a pocket,
got a pocketful of sunshine
I've got a love that is all mine..."

Not a bad way to start the day...thanks girlies...

love you my angels...

Mommy...xoxoxo

Here are the links to the three different versions of this song, shared above:

Official Natasha Bedingfield music video

Acoustic version from radio appearance (great sound quality)

wonderful clip from the film Easy A (love, love, love this one!!)

"All those years ago..."

2011-06-09T22:55:00.010-06:00

"I'm shouting all about love,
While they treated you like a dog..,
when you were the one
who had made it so clear
all those years ago.

I'm talking all about how to give...
but you point the way to the truth
when you say,
"All you need is love."

Living with good and bad,
I always look up to you...
Now we're left cold and sad...
by someone who offended all.

Were living in a bad dream.
They've forgotten all about mankind,
and you were the one they
backed up to the wall...
All those years ago
You were the one who imagined it all
All those years ago.

Deep in the darkest night
I send out a prayer to you.
Now in the world of light
where the spirit, free of the lies
and all else that we despised.

They've forgotten all about God.
He's the only reason we exist.
Yet you were the one
that they said was
so weird...
All those years ago

You said it all,
though not many had ears,
All those years ago
All those years ago...."

I don't know that I will have much to say about the above lyrics...they have left me speechless tonight. I hope you read them before you listen to this video link to the song, "All Those Years Ago."

This George Harrison song, has been a part of my muiscal memory for decades now. I have such a lovely memory of hearing his friend, Paul, singing it during an amazing Wings concert at Boulder's Folsom Field in the early nineties. And though I love the song...and remember singing along...I don't think I'd ever thought about the message. That was, until I read a small descriptive note that appeared with a friend's posting of the video on Facebook.

The note explained that "All Those Years Ago," was George Harrison's tribute song to his Beatles bandmate and friend, John Lennon. Well, now I was thoroughly interested. I have a particular soft spot for George, and the rest of the boys from Liverpool. But as I listened to this song, I could almost imagine John, the disciple, singing this to Jesus, and it gave me chills.

It reminded me of Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"To suppose that persecution for righteousness' sake belongs to the past, and that Christianity to-day is at peace with the world because it is honored by sects and societies, is to mistake the very nature of religion. Error repeats itself. The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, 'of whom the world was not worthy,' await, in some form, every pioneer of truth."

I know that not everyone, who reads this post, may think that John Lennon, was a pioneer of truth...but, that 's not the point of this piece anyway. Its purpose is to express gratitude for each experience of fellowship, brotherhood, friendship, and sisterhood, that every "pioneers of truth," throughout history, has known. I am so grateful that Jesus had John...and Mary, that David had Jonathon, Paul had Silas, Mary Baker Eddy had Calvin, John had George, Paul, and Ringo... oh my goodness, so many wonderful examples of love, that it fills me to the point of overflowing tonight. To think that their journeys were not without kindness, warmth, companionship, understanding, and fellowship...makes me weep.

It's something I'm thinking about as I walk my own journey with profoundly inspired thought pioneers. If I am seeing each of my brothers and sisters as the Christ presence in my life...and in the world, I have to ask myself, "Am I being that friend, or sister, who observes, records, brings warmth, extends encouragement, comforts, defends, loves...beholds....their promise?"

This is the question I am in tonight...

Blessings,

Kate

"Blessing or cursing..."

2011-06-07T09:40:00.010-06:00

"May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield you from shame.
May you come to be
In Israel a shining name..."

"The Sabbath Prayer," from Fiddler on the Roof, always touches me in a very profound way. But in the last few weeks, I find myself coming back to it, often, as I re-center my thinking in the space of blessing, rather than cursing.

Cursing???... you may think with alarm. But yes, cursing. I am beginning to see that if my thoughts aren't ones of blessing...beginning with God's allness, and, like a pebble dropped in a pond, rippling out from one all-encompassing Truth-based version of reality...they can easily drift into the nebulus space of opinion. And opinion...mine, or anyone else's...has no value. In fact, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and her other prose writings, Mary Baker Eddy, counsels:

"Human opinions are not spiritual."

"The one Mind, God, contains no mortal opinions."

"In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless."

"Science makes no concessions to persons or opinions."

"The opinions of men cannot be substituted
for God's revelation."

I have been struck by the fact that she doesn't say, "other people's human opinions are valueless..." but that any, and all, mere human opinion, including my own, is valueless. And since I want to live a life of value, a life that makes a difference in this world, I have committed myself to being more fully engaged in blessing everyone, and everything, I come in contact with. Leonardo da Vinci offered this insight, which has given me a wonderful spiritual incentive for eschewing my right to have an opinon about anyone, or anything, when he said:

"The greatest deception men suffer
is from their own opinions."

The person I am most "cursing" when I harbor an opinion, is myself. To allow myself to be shackled by deception is self-destructive. To deprive myself of the Truth about anyone, or anything, is rank poverty. I must start at the right starting point, as Eddy avers, to arrive at satisfying conclusions...conclusions that bless instead of curse. She says:

"The starting point of divine Science is that God, Spirit,
is All-in-all, and there is no other might, nor Mind.

If I am starting from any other starting point, my orientation to the Truth is going to be skewed, and I will never reach the right conclusion. If this is the case, why would I want to waste my time wandering about in the wilderness of self-deception, by harboring opinions of any kind? If, as Eddy says, opinions are valueless, why would I want to traffic in them...at all? I believe that each of us longs to be seen, and known, for who we really are in the eyes of God. To be seen through the lens of Truth's revelation, which is the only basis for any kind of healing, transformative, blessing relationship.

So, I am asking myself, moment-by-moment, "Is the way I am thinking, speaking, or acting affirming or denying the presence of God as All-in-all? Is it based on a trust in God as my only Informant about myself, or anyone else? Are my thoughts...the way I am thinking, or speaking about myself or another...a blessing, or a cursing...based in the Truth of God's Allness, in all, or mere valueless, deceptive human opinions?"

When my information...about myself, or anyone else...comes from God, it must be consistent with its Source. It must have the character of His viewpoint, as Truth...honest, accepting, free of judgment. It must speak His language, of Love. It must reflect the enduring constancy of his nature, as Life. It must be as full of beautiful possibilities as the breadth of His constitution, the embodiment of Soul. It must always be thoughtful, and conscious of His allness, as Mind. It must be scientific, orderly, reliable, as Principle. And it must animate the very best in us...charity, kindness, patience, grace...as Spirit.

If information comes from any other source, and I entertain, reflect (ponder deeply), mull over, or publish it in my thinking, speech, or actions, I am conspiring with the only real enemy, or stranger, I can experience...those thoughts which encourage me to live a life, full of self-deception through "mere human opinion." And in doing so, I am consenting to cursing myself, and others. Thereby, denying myself the richness of a life full of blessing. Blessing others, and being blessed by the joy of beholding a universe...a reality...with only one Creator, who made it good...very good.

I think, for myself, I will choose a blessing...

"Divine presence,
breathe Thou Thy blessing on every heart in this house.
Speak out, O soul!."
- Mary Baker Eddy

with Love,

Kate

"it will come to you..."

2011-06-02T07:35:00.001-06:00

"look for the bare necessities
the simple bare necessities
forget about your worry
and your strife...

have I given you a clue...
the bare necessities of Life
will come to you..."

In the comments section following the Youtube video clip of Mowgli and Balloo singing "Bare Necessities" from Disney's The Jungle Book, a viewer asked this question:

"remember how you felt when you heard this song for the first time
and how you slowly fell in love with it."

It was such a sweet sentiment, and full of a parent's backward-looking melancholy...a feeling I could relate to all too easily.

I thought about the first time I remembered seeing this film, and hearing this song. Images of my toddler-age daughter washed over me. Of course, it was 1992...right? But, wanting to get the year of its release right before writing about it, I went to Wikipedia, and to my shock, I discovered that"The Jungle Book" had been released in 1967. 1967? Really? I couldn't remember ever seeing that movie, or hearing any of its songs, until I was a mom, and I was watching it with my own children.

That got me to thinking. I have a pretty good memory. And I am sure that with 7 younger brothers and sisters, I must have been exposed to the movie, and heard the songs. But, for some reason, they just didn't "reach" me. Perhaps it was because by 1967, I was a teenager, and no longer really interested in animated films, but to have no recollection of the movie at all...I'm baffled.

But that said, fast forward to 1992. As the mother of a toddler, I was not only interested in Disney movies, I was watching them...or listening to the songs...over, and over, again. And not only was I watching them, the content of their messages were suddenly very important to me. I was asking myself: How would their messages resonate with my young daughter? Did it have a deeper meaning, that I could build upon? Were the characters good role models? What were they encourging my child to think about?

And since I was also trying to navigate being a mom while navigating my own spiritual practice of spiritual exploration, self-discovery and healing, those messages easily entered my world as metaphors for life's lessons in understanding God's presence, and power, in the world around me. The overarching struggle for the supremacy of good woven through each story, seemed to just jump off the screen.

So when a friend, after reading a recent piece on the poetry blog, called, "your one necessity..." (copied below), sent me the link to "Bare Necessities," I totaly "got it." I love the spiritual message in Balloo's encouragement to Mowgli:

"...don't spend your life looking around
for something you want, that can't be found.

When you find out you can live without it,
and go along not thinking about it...
the bare necessities of life will come to you..."

The very inspiration, insight, awakening to a deeper sense of life purpose we often think is hidden and obscure, is actually not hidden at all. And it is not something "out there" to seek. It is already "within you." And like the ubiquitous Brood XIX cicadas that have reached the acme of their 13 year cycle, when our hearts are ready...to give birth to whatever it is we are awakening to be, next...we can't stop it. It not only comes to us, but, it comes from deep within us.

It is always percolating up from the depth of our spiritual wholeness...in fresh, new, marvelous ways. It's always been there, just like "The Jungle Book" had been in my life since 1967, but I wasn't ready for its message until "just the right moment" and then, every song, every bit of dialogue, every sequence, seemed to sing like the cicadas. So loudly, it couldn't be ignored. The subtle Kaa's hypnotic lullaby. Shir Khan's confident alertness. The mind-numbing group thinking of the vulture band....all of it, a feast of inspiration, when I was most hungry.

And like the cicadas, I believe that our spiritually evolving sense of vision, and purpose, emerges gently, at just the exact moment we are ready, perfectly poised, to take the next step. And then, we shed our old worn-out shell, and start to sing a new song in unison with the universe...a song we'd been humming, deep beneath the earth, for as long as it took for our "moment to arise..." I totally "got it." ...

Sigh...this is a lovely universe...

Here is the post (and poem) that prompted my friend to send me the link:

"I think it would be well, and proper,
and obedient, and pure,
to grasp your one necessity and not let it go,
to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you."
— Annie Dillard

"how will I know
what is my one
necessity..."
i ask the wiser Voice within

It smiles back,
"it will be that thing
you once thought you might have lost,
and in the space of your
awakening
realized you could not
bear to live without..."

it will be what waits within the
emptiness carved out by the
sorrow of dreaming
it was nearly gone,
only to wake and
discover that,
you were
just asleep to your own promise....

it will be the thing
your tears have watered
back into life,
called back into beauty,
and brought back
from blight...

it will be all
you once thought
you could, possibly
do without,
surrender,
dismiss,
give up,
and then discovered there
was no "you"
without its
hot heartbeat
just below
your evenness and
calm regret...

what is your
one necessity...

what is it
that sits like
hope...patiently singing
the song without words...

what is
the shaken reed,
the shattered ice,
the shell that opens to reveal
the pulsing,
aching,
hunger for what
could never,
ever,
have beeen
lost to begin with....

it is you,
knowing Me...

with Love...

Kate

"I believe..."

2011-05-31T08:56:00.007-06:00

"I believe for every drop of rain that falls,
a flower grows.
I believe that somewhere in the darkest night,
a candle glows.
I believe for everyone who goes astray,
someone will come to show the way.
I believe, I believe.

I believe above the storm the smallest prayer
will still be heard.
I believe that someone in the great somewhere
hears every word.
Every time I hear a newborn baby cry,
or touch a leaf or see the sky,
Then I know why I believe!"

The Bachelors, "I Believe," touches me deeply each time I hear it. There is something about the declaration of these simple truths that recalibrates, and aligns my heart.

So today's post...though not, in any way, a comprehensive list...is made up of a few things that believe. I'm limiting myself to the first dozen that pour onto the page. This is not a place to catalogue metaphysical insights, or to unpack what I have learned from the reading, studying, investigating, and practicing the
lifeworks, and writings of others...this is just what I believe...with simple, effusive joy...today:

I believe that Love (God) is stronger than hate or fear, and that hope, forgiveness, purity, trust, humility, honesty, mercy, compassion, grace, understanding...are not "things" we seek, but spiritual imperatives, a divine influence radiating from the kingdom of heaven within each of us.

I believe that children, nature, and animals are our greatest teachers...and that we are privileged to be entrusted with their care..in family, in community, and as spiritual citizens of a God-endowed universe.

I believe that we are all brothers and sisters of one divine Parent, branches of one expansive family, one spiritual root system...and that, in the spirit of adoption, since we accept that a mom (or dad) can love more than one child in a family...completely, and without favor...I believe that a child can love more than one mom (or dad)...birthparents, stepparents, godparents, grandparents...completely, and without favor.

I believe that it is in our darkest hour, that we discover our own light.

I believe that serving others is a gift, a window on our best selves.

I believe that when we dissolve hierarchies, and all labels...politics, gender, race, religion, caste, class, economic stratification...we begin to see the coincidence of the human with the divine, in ourselves, and others.

I believe that all the books, and teachers, in the world...however inspired, and great...are only as good as the degree to which they lead us inward towards the silent space of consciousness, where we commune directly with the Divine.

I believe that unbroken friendship really is "the greatest miracle known to earth," and that our desire to connect with one another, on the deepest levels, is unquenchable.

I believe that walking in nature...on the beach, in a park, or a forest...loosens mental log-jams, and gives rhythm to the music of head and heart, where prayers find their place, and sing as clear as melody.

I believe that when I open my hands to give...rather than reaching to get, grasp, hold, and own...I allow the "river of His pleasures" to flow through my life in unbidden, and irrepressible, ways.

I believe that kindness is the most rare, and precious commodity on earth, and that listening deeply to someone is the greatest gift we can give one another.

I believe that grace has brought each of us into one another's lives for a holy purpose....

thank you for being in mine today...

I love you,

Kate

"If I could just see You..."

2011-05-26T15:17:00.004-06:00

"If I could just see You,
everything will be alright.
If I'd see You,
the storminess will turn to light.

And I will walk on water,
and You will catch me if I fall.
And I will get lost into Your eyes,
and everything will be alright."

I was listening to this hauntingly beautiful version of Lifehouse's "Storm," while reports of tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma and Missouri, to our west. And for me, there was something so peaceful about its message that night.

"If I could just see You...
I know everything will be alright..."

I was grateful...so grateful. Earlier that afternoon I had been so deeply shaken by a series of events, that I found myself sitting in my car, in one of the clergy spaces in the hospital parking lot, just trying to calm my self before going in to see a patient. And as I sat there, those words softly poured through me,

"If I could just see you
I know everything will be alright..."

So instead of closing my eyes, I opened them. And that was when I saw a young boy, of about 10 or 11 years old, pushing his grandfather's wheelchair up a steep ramp. He was loving and gentle, strong and wise...it was written on his face, in the way he came around the front of the wheelchair to comfort his grandfather, and in the curve of his back as he bent to tuck in the lap quilt that had shifted during their ascent. His smile was almost beatific. There was nothing but patience, and grace, in his every move.

I was seeing Him, God, in him...and everything was suddenly put into perspective...and it was all, alright...every single thing was all right.

I stepped out of the car, and made my way through the labyrinth of hospital elevators, wings, and hallways...and everywhere I looked, there He was. In the smile of a stranger, the tenderness of an orderly, the patience of a nurse, the strength of a daughter, the grace of a son, the love of a spouse...a child, a neighbor, a parent.

I saw God's face in the cafe clerk, who inquired after the mother of a customer, who'd obviously been living at the hospital, and had become a "regular." I saw it in the gift shop attendant, who held a young woman who'd collapsed with exhaustion in her arms, when the clerk asked her whether her mother liked roses, or tulips. Everywhere I looked...the face of God...a whisper of divinity, in the song of humanity...with all its heartbreak, compassion, and hope.

By the time I'd walked back to my car, I couldn't even remember what I had been so shaken by...

Tonight I watched CNN with a different eye. I refused to watch the grim horror of a city shredded by the devastation of a storm, I was listening for the voice of God in every sound byte, and looking for the face of God in every pixel of film. Reporters pitching in with the recovery effort, police officers comforting grieving families, children helping their parents sort through the rubble of what was once a loved home, and parents looking for a favorite toy to bring to a frightened child. In these signs of God's presence, it wasn't hard to see, that in the ways that really mattered, everything is all right.

That's enough beauty to bring me to my knees...

with Love,

Kate

"til we find our place..."

2011-05-24T12:21:00.003-06:00

"It's the circle of Life,
and it moves us all,
through despair and hope,
through faith and love.

Till we find our place
on the path unwinding...
In the circle,
the circle of Life..."

Do you remember sitting in the darkened movie theatre with your toddler, preschooler, gradeschool-age child, or friend...and hearing the first stirrings of Africa rising like a drumbeat
through the theater. That song, "The Circle of Life," still gives me chills.

As it did the other day, when my grandson was visiting. I'd put one of our vintage Disney Hi-Ho Sing-along DVDs on to, well, to sing-along with, and from the moment I heard that first "Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba, Sithi uhm ingonyama..." I was fighting back the tears.

How did 17 years go by so fast? Here I was holding the precious son, of the beloved daughter I'd first seen this movie with, at another time, and in another place...so long ago. It was unsettling....and lovely.

It wasn't just that the years had melted into moments, but that I could see the evolution of my own thinking about life and my purpose here, on this planet.

As I listened to that opening song, I realized that my path has been circular. And thank goodness it has.   It's sometimes been a hard climb, and often felt like an insurmountably rugged way. But, by taking a circuitous path, I have been able to make progress in baby steps...and trust me, I needed baby steps.

I am not a "vertical" climber...I am a hiker. I walk around the mountain, rather than trying to scale solid granite rock faces, in a day.    But when you are walking in a circluar pattern, it is almost impossible to see very far ahead of you.   And it requires trust.   Trust that moving in the direction of the sun, is up...trust, that as long as you keep moving, you will go up...however incrementally and slow.   And even though this often meant that I couldn't anticipate the amazing scenery that was coming, I was equally protected from seeing..and worrying about...the challenges I would face.

These past few years, I really haven't had any choice but, to "just put one foot in front of the other." But, because I couldn't see too far ahead, or linger on views behind me, I've found that, moment-by-moment, I really have been able to take at least one more step forward...however difficult...in this circle of life.

Not seeing too far ahead, I wasn't tempted to rush towards this precious moment of delighting in the presence of one sweet little boy. And by not being able to fixate on the path behind me, it was impossible for me to cling to bygone days...days that I might never have wanted to leave. A circular path kept me moving...and I am grateful.

And anyway, if I am really clear about why I'm on this life journey, I am not looking out in front of me...or behind me...I am looking up. That's my destination anyway...just closer to Him.

Mary Baker Eddy, makes reference to the Psalmist's encouragement, when she says,

"Step by step will those who trust Him find
that "God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble."

Step-by-step...for me...it is the circle of life, and I am finding that it moves us all through despair and hope, through faith and love... I've gathered some lovely wildflowers along the way, seen some incredible views...but nothing compares with feeling the sun...the warmth of His Love...on my face.

We just have to trust, take the next step...and keep looking up...with Love,

Kate

*I thought you might like the option of hearing/seeing Elton John's more ballad-like video of "Circle of Life" including playful lion cubs...enjoy.

"Calling all angels..."

2011-05-19T07:43:00.004-06:00

"I need a sign to let me know You're here
All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere
I need to know that things are gonna look up
'Cause I feel I'm drowning in a sea spilled from a cup

And I'm calling all angels
I'm calling all you angels..."

I heard Train's "Calling All Angels" tonight, and everything telescoped into a moment of remembering. Like most good stories, it starts, "it was a stormy night..." But it really was. When some years ago, I felt as if I was at the end of what I thought I could endure...emotionally.

For weeks I'd been stumbling through my days in a fog of depression. I felt lonely, sad, and hopeless. And the saddest thing was, that even though I was so lonely, I didn't want to be around real people. All day long, it was the hazy comfort of my bed that whispered her promise to me like a gentle, kind friend...whether I was in my office, driving to appointment, sitting in meetings, or laughing with colleagues. In fact, no matter what I was doing, the only place I really believed I could find peace, and therefore, wanted to be, was in that bed.

It called to me like the snake, Kaa, from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, "just come to bed and go to sleep, go to sleep," in a hypnotically soothing voice. I could easily imagine what it would feel like to let the drug-like heaviness of sleep seep through my body, and surrender to rest I thought I'd find in the escape of dreams. I fought back, but it wasn't easy.

Day after day, I would show up for my responsibilities and commitments, but the incessant, dull ache of "if only I could go back to bed," throbbed just under the surface of my smile.

Then one day I couldn't. I just couldn't sleep. At all. And before I knew it, one day turned into two, which turned into ten. Ten days without sleep, or more importantly, without the escape from depression that dreaming promised. And since dreaming only came with sleep. No sleeping, no dreaming. I was a walking zombie...literally.

By day ten, I didn't know what to do, or where to go, to find peace, or even just a little bit of rest. But, because it was a Wednesday night, and "just showing up," had become my default behavior. I headed, wihtout much hope of it making a difference, to church.

I was alone that night. Alone in a city with a veritable plethora of church options, and yet I'd never felt more listless and unmoored. I found myself driving to a familiar part of town...but one that wasn't on my normal radar...and walking into a very small church with only a handful of quiet worshippers. But the minute I sat down, I felt compassion. I sensed a happiness, a quiet peace that was non-invasive but palpably geunine. One woman offered me a soft blanket when she noticed I was shivering. Another asked me if I'd like a cup of water as she crossed the room to get one for herself.

The kindness was not effusive, but it was rich, gentle, and authentic. The hymns, familiar and comforting, were better than dreaming, and the stories of inspiration and healing, shared after the brief, simple readings, were touching and encouraging. I felt as if I were in the company of urban angels. There was no drama, no hierarchy, neither a hesitancy to share honestly, or a chomping at the bit to get the next word in...it was as divinely choreographed as the innocent interplay of children taking turns.

They didn't know that I was ready to collapse with exhaustion, and suffering with acute depression. I didn't say a word that night, but I felt as "listened to" as if I'd poured my heart out and the entire congregation had surrounded me, held my hand, and tenderly dried the tears I was really just too sad, and tired, to even weep that night. No one said a word, or asked a question...but I could feel their openess of heart. It had called to me. Without a word it had invited me to step into their company and rest upon the spiritual love that united them.

I left church, that evening, feeling more rested than I had in weeks. And later I slept peacefully for the first time in days.

Because of a last minute office call, I had to join our church service, remotely, by phone last night. The same tender, sweet persuasion that called me into their congregation years ago, poured, undiluted by technology, through the phone lines....some things never change.

I needed a sign from God, that night...some years ago...to let me know She was in still my life...I found Her heart beating strong, in that company of angels... Uniting with that heavenly host...in silent service, and as an active witness...is a blessing more lovely than dreaming.

I am so grateful...

Kate

"Just when you least expect it..."

2011-05-17T11:37:00.004-06:00

"Hope has a way
of turning it's face to you,
just when you least expect it.

You walk in a room,
you look out a window,
and something there
leaves you breathless.

You say to yourself,
it's been a while since I felt this,
but it feels like it might be hope..."

I know, I know...I've used Sara Groves' "It Might Be Hope" before...to keynote a piece...but I just love it so much.

Today, it was the perfect soundtrack for what I've been thinking, and praying, about lately...the connection between random acts of kindness, senseless instances of beauty...and the power of hope.

I am starting to believe that these instances of spiritual serendipity, these moments of grace, are actually gifts of encouragement from a beneficent God.

I am convinced, that the challenges and demands in our life are actually exercises in the laboratory of Love.   They are opportunities for practicing the very special kind of love which transforms lives. That they allow us to plumb the depths of who we are at our best, to explore the far reaches of what we are capable of experiencing...as genuine spiritual beings.

But I also think that these moments often feel like they will never end. As if we will never, in our wildest dreams, finally reach the point of actually discovering the great lesson, uncovering what was hidden, or understanding the reason for it all.

It's not hard to become weary, feel discouraged, or wonder to one's self, "am I just destined to get it wrong...again, and again...to never reach the promised land, find my freedom, rest my heart, and heal my body."

And this is where a simple act of kindness from a stranger, the beauty of a double rainbow, or an unsought moment of inspiration comes and resurrects, rekindles, restores what felt so fragile.   Just when we least expect it, there it is...a moment of grace. And this instance of grace, as surprising as water springing from the crevice of a rock in the sub-Saharan desert, causes us to stop, take off our shoes, and refresh our parched hopes...we are on holy ground.

Emily Dickinson says that:

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all."

As much as I love this quote, and believe, with all my being, that it is true...that hope is persistent, always singing her song of encouragement within us...it often gets lost in the din of despair. But hope is relentless, and God has, as Mary Baker Eddy promises,

"Infinite resources with which to bless mankind..."

Thus, beauty, kindness, and inspiration come to us in our moments of discouragement, and waning strength, to shore up our patience, replenish our courage, and revive our ability to persevere.

Whatever might seem beyond hope, to you, tonight...isn't. Nothing is beyond hope...just ask a butterfly, the man "who was born blind," the ash-borne phoenix, the father of a soldier missing in action, the mother who sits each night in a rocker she bought for the child she is waiting to adopt ...they know the song...because they too:

"sing the tune without the words,
and never stop at all."

because it feels like it just might be hope,

with Love,
Kate

"Restless...'til I rest in You..."

2011-05-13T15:39:00.005-06:00

"Still my heart, hold me close
Let me hear a still, small voice
Let it grow, let it rise
Into a shout, into a cry..."

And I am restless, I'm restless
'Til I rest in You, let me rest in You
and I am restless, so restless
'Til I rest in You, 'til I rest in You
Oh God, let me rest in You..."

Maria sent me this link to Audrey Assad's "Restless," knowing it would resonate with something profoundly familiar in me. Thanks Maria. It did, and it does.

I love the word "rest." It's been a favorite spiritual concept for some time now. Mary Baker Eddy uses it in a way that has brought it's practicality to life for me. She says, in her definition of "church" from the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle..."

I love this. So often we think of rest, as something we do when we need to get some distance or "down time" from an exhausting activity or a demanding day. But, for me, this definition encourages to consider rest in a new light. To rest upon, rather than from. To rest upon what we have proven. To rest upon what we have seen, observed, witnessed of God's goodness throughout the day. To rest upon what we know of God's nature and character. To rest upon the presence of all that we love, instead of from what we wish to avoid.

This has been a spiritual lens on "rest" that I have returned to, over and over again, throughout my week. Just knowing that I can rest every case upon the foundational Principle of God's Allness-in-all, before proceeding on to the next activity, call, demand, is a promise that brings a deep sense of peace.

So, you can imagine my delight in discovering that Audrey Assad's song, "Restless," gives me yet another way to think about the word, "rest." What fun, to redeem any sense of restlessness...of mind, body, spirit...as the desire, the divine call, the inner longing to rest in His love, in His all-embracing care, His all-knowing wisdom, His strong hands ...wow. My restlessness will never be alarming to me again. But neither will it be a cue, an urging to pick up and go searching for "just the right place." Spiritual restlesness is not stilled by finally finding a person, place, or thing to put all of our hopes, dreams, and desire into. The restlessness that is a cry from within for true rest, will only be satisfied by reaching for the stillness of His presence. It is the presence of Mind that, I believe, Eddy is referring to when she writes:

"conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart,
and nothing else can..."

What a satisfying place in which to still my restlessness. In this place we...mothers, fathers, and children... really can "find our home, and heavenly rest." I will leave you with the full context of Eddy's statement, below...and the link to Audrey's song, "Restless."

rest sweetly...in and upon...His Love,
Kate

From Mary Baker Eddy's Message to the Mother Church 1902 (page 17: 17 - 1):

"It is wise to be willing to wait on God, and to be wiser than serpents; to hate no man, to love one's enemies, and to square accounts with each passing hour. Then thy gain outlives the sun, for the sun shines but to show man the beauty of holiness and the wealth of love. Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can. Consult thy everyday life; take its answer as to thy aims, motives, fondest purposes, and this oracle of years will put to flight all care for the world's soft flattery or its frown. Patience and resignation are the pillars of peace that, like the sun beneath the horizon, cheer the heart susceptible of light with promised joy."

This post also references Eddy's poem "Mother's Evening Prayer," which ends with the line, "and mother finds her home and heavenly rest." Enjoy this link to The Solo Committee's recording of this lovely poem, set to inspiring music.