"Grace like rain..."

"Hallelujah...
Grace like rain
is falling down on me..."

I love the simplicity of Aaron Keyes' gently, and reverently, recorded version of "Grace Like Rain."  But isn't this the very nature of grace itself, to be "simple, yet profound," a combination of qualities Mary Baker Eddy wisely uses in reference to John's statement, "God is Love."  And I think it is God's love for us, that gives birth to this thing called grace.

Grace.  What an amazing word.  It evokes such tenderness and peace.  To speak it, is to sigh a prayer of mercy.   To think it, is to hope.  To live it, is to trust that God's care is not a salary earned or a reward bargained for.   It is a gift,  the gift, the inheritance, the unconditional outpouring of love from a divine parent to His beloved child.  

Grace, like rain, doesn't choose where it will fall, it doesn't decide what fields to bless, which wildfires of fear to still, or whose thirst for mercy to quench.  Grace is the activity of Love, which, when it falls like rain is, as Eddy promises:

"...impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals."

Grace under fire, amazing grace, grace to go forward, by the grace of God...axioms of grace that persist and permeate, resound and resonate, align and elevate us to our birthright as children of the Most High.

I wonder sometimes, how often am I truly aware of, and grateful for, those gentle grace notes of spiritual being..  Those times when I suddenly realize that God has met my need...blessed my life with  all that was necessary, or required...and yet goes that extra step to bring a touch of unexpected divinity to my  humanity. 

I love grace...it is the "thought gently whispers" threading itself through the sometimes complex tapestry of my days.  It is the "peace be still" to the shrieking winds and waves of fear, emotion, distraction or doubt that try to wear me out, and drown my spiritual ardor.

I noticed the presence of this grace, the other day when a moment of ego-centric atrophy came crashing through me.  I seemd to be caught in a trainwreck of misunderstanding and reaction...one that threatened to send me spiraling into another county.  But there, right there in middle of it all, in the cacophonous swirl of self-justification, and the twisting metal of  self-loathing, was the grace of God, the presence of the Christ, singing hymns of peace.  Songs of grace...coming from the most unexpected place at that moment...within me. 

This is grace...an invitation to be beautiful, as Sara Groves sings in "Add to the Beauty."  By the way, do you get that I love this song.  But this is grace...the invitation, from within us, to be beautiful in the middle of those moments that are...shall we say...less than beautiful.  

Jospeh Cooke once wrote that:

"Grace is the face that love wears
when it meets imperfection."

These instances of human imperfection are the field in which grace flourishes.  They are the meadow where grace blossoms into a kaleidoscope of color.  They are the moments we often find embellished with divine ornaments...gentle grace notes of unsought kindness, humility's silence, and a stranger's compassion.

Anne Lamott says:

"I do not understand the mystery of grace -
only that it meets us where we are
and does not leave us where it found us."

Oh my....it is more than enough  to bring  me to my knees.  But then, isn't there were we belong anyway?

The fervent [burning] desire for grace, is, as Eddy says, "what we most need."  And if it is what we most need, our grace-bestowing Father-Mother God will not leave us with just what is necessary...but with something more...something surprisingly, serendipitously, amazingly more.

Ah yes...grace.  What a word. 

standing in awe of it...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

I have included this video clip of two high school boys singing "Grace Life Rain," (the recording is Todd Agnew's) because I am so touched that this is how they would spend an afternoon in a meadow.  It makes me want to cry.

"Every heart has so much history..."

"Every heart has so much history.
it's my favorite place to start.
Sit down awhile
and share your narrative with me.
I'm not afraid of who you are.
I'm all here, and you're all there...
Some of this is unique,
and some of it we share.
Let's add it up,
and start from there.
Oh, it's all right here...

It's what is best,
and what is worst.
And it's how I see the universe.
Oh, it's all right here..."

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking alot about our stories - our spiritual life narratives - and why they are so important to us and to the humanity.  And this past weekend it was my privilege to conduct workshops on this subject for Dick Davenport's Midwest Bible Conference titled, "I Love to Tell the Story."

While I worked and prayed in preparation, Sara Groves' "It's All Right Here," kept lingering in my heart. 

I love that she reminds us that:

"Every heart has so much history.
It's my favorite place to start.
Sit down awhile,
and share your narrative with me.
I'm not afraid of who you are..."

This weekend I loved hearing the stories of truly brave men, and women, who were willing to unpack their suitcases of history with one another...in workshops, at lunch, and sitting on a basketball court between sessions.  Together we looked at all of those mental artifacts from our life narratives...deep sorrow, soaring joy, haunting regrets, rich accomplishments...and we listened.  I was so blessed by their stories, and I felt so honored to be trusted as a listener.  I sat in awe of their courage as they reclaimed each of those life-moments for God.

It became evident to each of us, that God had been there when the floods rose. God was there in the dark of night, the bright dawning of a new day, when bitter tears fell, and when hopes rose. God is always there, and the gift of seeing this seamless thread of His presence running golden through our life stories is an exercise rich with humility and redemption.

Looking at the Biblical life stories of people like Joseph and Jesus, Ruth and Hagar, gives us a platform for this kind of spiritual re-building in ourselves. Our lives become contemporary parables for others. 

Joseph's story is filled with pride, rejection, self-certainty, heartache.  And yet, when he recounts his life trajectory to his brothers...men who are horrified to come face-to-face with the victim of their bullying and betrayal...he doesn't ask for their apology and regret (which they are more than eager to extend) He reclaims his entire life narrative for God when he says:

"Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, for it is not you, but God, which sent me before you to preserve you a posterity upon the earth."

Wow, arrogance, pit, slavery, false accusation, prison, rise to fame...nobody's fault, nobody's credit. He claimed he was God-sent into each moment as a blessing, and that was that.

You can look at the life of Jesus...just take the cutting off of Malchus' ear and his rebuke...of not the soldier arresting him, but his disciple defender...in these words:

"Put up again thy sword...thinkest thou not that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will give me more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"

Or Hagar who discovers God's relationship to her son in the middle of the wilderness after being rejected by her mistress and her son's father. 

And of course there is Ruth, Bathsheba, Tamar Rahab...women whose life narratives are, at best, questionable, but whose true stories are redeemed through their presence in the geneology of Jesus Christ himself as related in the first chapter of Matthew.  And then there is Mary, a girl whose suspect pregnancy is redeemed through the birth and life of a boy who will become the risen Saviour.

In his "The Gospel According to Jesus" Stephen Mitchell suggests in contrasting the life narratives of Buddha, the prince who would become a humble servant to mankind, and Jesus, the illegitimate child who would become the Prince of Peace, that:

"We can see the respective beginnings of these two great men as opposite ends of the spectrum that is the human condition.  Together, their meaning is that no life is so sheltered or so shamed that it can't be transformed into a vehicle of God's grace, a vessel filled with the deepest charity and wisdom.  So capable are we of using whatever materials (or circumstances) we are given; so irresistible is the phototropism of the human soul."

Ahhh, "the phototropism of the human soul," that irresistible turning to the light of who we are as God-sent disciples of Christ with a holy purpose.  Standing in this light, we begin to see our stories through the lens of His over-arching presence within every moment.  As Sara also sings in another favorite,  "Add to the Beauty":

"Redemption comes in strange place, small spaces,
calling out the best of who we are..."

Redeeming our life stories for God, sharing them with others, and trusting those redemption narratives to call out the best of who we are...moment-by-incredibly-courageous-moment...turns our lives into living, breathing, healing contemporary scripture, blesses humanity, and brings the kind of freedom that we can only imagine from the dark precincts of the lonely tomb where fear, pride, and regret try to  shroud us in sorrow.  Spiritual living is not measured by a string of human success stories, but by moments radiant with salvation, redemption, and peace...an inner peace that persists in storm or shine.

"It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth.."

Thank you, God, for sending me into this weekend full of loving community...I am your grateful daughter...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Everything in its time..."

"...Some folks try astrology,
some turn to crystal balls...
To find an answer,
to get through it all.
I just fall on my knees
and I try to pray, and
and in the silence I can hear Him say,

'The river runs, and the river hides,
out to the ocean, and under the sky.
I promise you, the answer will come.
Hold on to patience, and watch for the sign,
...Everything in its time..."
- Corinne May

Sometimes I get so impatient with God.  I want to know when...and how, and what, and who.  I find myself asking, "When will you tell me what you want from me?  When will I know, what I need to know next?  Where should I be and what will I do there?" 

This Corinne May song, "Everything in Its Time," is such a great reminder.  It assures me that I can surrender my timetable, and trust His omniscient plan. 

This trust, in God's itinerary, must have been at the core of one 12-year old boy's willingness to walk away from his "Father's business," when his mother interrupted his trajectory, and asked him to continue walking his journey with her for a while longer.  (Luke 2: 40 - 52)  It must have been hard for him, to set aside his own  sense of purpose.  But it was this overarching spiritual purpose, and his willingness to surrender, that his mother "held in her heart," while he matured into the fullness of His Father's promise. 

And it didn't happen over Spring Break,  that "while longer" lasted another eighteen years.  Eighteen years of trusting that the conversation, which he began in the temple with rabbis and doctors, would resume "in its time."

I have been thinking about this...a lot...lately, the surrender of mortal timetables, for the acceptance of an unseen, but certain, promise of divine unfoldment. It is a spiritual posture that requires a willingness to truly trust in the eternality of Life.  It requires a grasp of the fact that we are never, ever, simply poised on a random point along a narrow, limited mortal timeline, but we are always traveling along an infinite spiritual vector. 

A "vector," as I learned from Mark, the nurse I met in a mountain clinic one Sunday morning, is a "line" that has a well-established starting point, and clearly defined direction, but no destination.  A vector continues on infinitely in this unalterable direction...sometimes intersecting with other vectors -- creating points of significance along the way...but never reaching a final destination.

I like thinking of a river in this way. It starts from the mountaintop and flows towards the sea. It doesn't stop when it reaches a lake, a boulder, a mountain...it may eddy for a while...but eventually, it just continues its flow towards the sea.

These points of intersection and significance may often seem like destinations reached, challenges faced, relationships beginning/ending, or tasks accomplished, but they are really only...ever...moments of profound God-based self-discovery, opportunities for lessons in grace, orchestrated rests filled with deep listening, and instances of salvation --  divine "ahas," in which we realize that we are never alone, without purpose, or recourse.

I am gently yielding to this version of living, in which I am simply an eager student along a God-drawn spiritual vector.  I love having a clearly defined starting point for every relationship, activity, and desire. There is real peace in letting go of destinations and outcomes, while staying completely focused on retracing and starting out, each moment as needed, from my one "true north"...God.   It is a divine discipline to constantly be recalibrating my steps according to my true direction...the "hows" of my life...kindness, honesty, integrity, trust, respect, meekness, patience, compassion.

Remarkably, Mary Baker Eddy has given me the clearest, and most profoundly useful, and unfailing instruction for this new approach to spiritual orienteering in her statement:

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

This starting point, together with the well-defined MORAL. compass she outlines on page 115 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

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

have been critical as I've struck out on this journey towards infinitely greater spiritual trust and discovery-based self-awareness that is rooted in my understanding of God. 

One of the questions I have been asking myself, as it relates to direction, is, "what is it that tells me when I am, truly, on the right path?" And one of the answers that revealed itself in prayer, and which feels most authentic, comes from a much-referred to (on this blog) Sara Groves' song titled, "Add to the Beauty," in which she says,

"I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story.
I want to shine with the light
that's burning up inside me..."

That better,  beautiful story, for me, is always going to be the one in which God is the only hero, and the light of His love illumines every narrative, every bit of dialogue, every inner landscape with self-knowledge, humility, love, and grace.

I know that, as long as I keep my starting point, and my moral compass, clearly in focus...I will never get lost in the quicksand of self.  And that I will experience, "Everything In Its Time," because, on a vector, I have an eternity...infinity...to discover all that He has in store for me, and mine, and all...everything exactly as it should be...in its time.

more on spiritual vectors in future posts, but for now...with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaniel Wilder 2010]

"We come with purposes written on our hearts..."

"Redemption comes in strange places,
small spaces,
calling out the best of who we are

We come with beautiful secrets,
We come with purposes written on our hearts,
written on our souls.

We come to every new morning,
with possibilities only we can hold,
that only we can hold..."
- Sara Groves

A friend and I were emailing one another about the discovery of our deeper spiritual purposes.  It was a conversation that left me pondering the mixture of  deep content, and the demand for self-surrender, I feel in knowing what God wants of me.  Sara's song, "Add to the Beauty," sings to me of my purpose.  I want to add to the recognition of divine beauty, wholeness, and grace that is constantly coming to bloom in our lives, moment-by-moment.   I want to tell a better story.  No matter what "script" we have been handed, and might seem to be playing itself out in our lives, there is a better story beneath the surface of things.  And when we keep our eyes keenly focused, looking for God, good, in all things, we can find it.  It is always there.

"...I want to add to the beauty,
to tell a better story.
I want to shine with the light
that's burning up inside.

It comes in small inspirations.
It brings redemption to life and work.
To our lives and our work..."

Our conversation gave space to ideas that I'd been cherishing for the past few months. The questions pouring from my friend's heart: Why does this longing for personal direction almost feel like a physical tightness? Will I ever be able to really know, and let myself surrender to, God's purpose in my life? These questions, gave birth to the dialogue thread she has given me permission to share, in part, here:

Tightness and letting go...tightness and letting go...this is birth. This is mid-wifing the best in yourself, bringing your divine purpose forward into the light. 

It may look like contractions...a tightening, or seizing up...but it is really an expansion.  Much the way a balloon seems to return to a smaller size each time we take a deep breath while blowing it up.  But it never, ever returns to the old form...the one it held prior to that very first expansion.  It is always stretched a bit more with each breath so that the next expansion comes easier.

I know that you wonder if you will ever see that larger sense of purpose in your own life...whether you will discover those bigger dreams, higher aims.  Whether you will ever be new and alive with passion and divine direction...different from old forms and out-grown desires.

But, you are already different...you already have different dreams, different questions, a different vantage point than you had...even a week ago.  It's not something you have to decide to embrace or pursue, it has already embraced you, and this fresh breath of Spirit is blowing Its new life into your being, changing you...moment by moment...forever. 

This wildly, passionate you...the one who now loves to dress in bright colors, the you who is eager to try new foods, and paraglide from the edge of a cliff...  this you, is already alive and in formation...one beautiful, extravagant, exotic moment at a time. 

Let it happen.  Let Spirit, Pneuma continue to breathe Itself into your being.  Let it blow you, bear you like seed on the wind, carry you into your next chapter of holy labor, or time to be "at play in the fields of the Lord."  This is not a choice or a decision.  You don't have to go looking for your divine purpose.  As the Bible says,  "canst thou by searching find out God?"  Nope!  It comes to you and fills you with divine inspiration.   Those ins and outs, that feeling of ebbing and flowing urgency, passionate vision and then quiet contempation, they are the breath of God expanding and preparing you for a larger sense of life.  Or as Jesus said,

"I have come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly."

You asked me if this moment-by-moment embracing of a divine calling, a holy purpose, is enough for me?  Have I given up dreaming and desiring, wanting and needing?  I think I can say that what I have surrendered, is not a hunger for something more, but the fear that I might never find what I am looking for.

What I have given up is all the searching.  I am beginning to realize that I am really not a searcher, but an observer.  For the observer, there is no pursuing, no strategizing, no imagining.  As an observer, I watch to see what each moment includes, and how it will carry itself out.  If it includes a "dream," fine, I will dream it.  But it is no longer a down-the-road, someday-when kind of dreaming.   It is not "out there."

It is my truth.  It is what I am, right at that moment, embracing as conscious reality.  It is, right then,  a PRESENT thought, idea, image, concept.  It is not a future "imagining." It is, right now, a gift of beauty and wonder to bless me in the now of my conscious consideration...in my reflecting of Soul, my deep pondering.  And it is in the now, always, ever and only, in the now. 

But to answer your question:  I am no longer searching for a dream to build my hopes on. I have stopped trying to track down the perfect life.  I am trying to live in perfect contentment...right here, right now.  I am discovering a peaceful sense of freedom from decades of "want." 

It has come on the heels of a long chapter, one that has been filled with salvation-focused prayer and surrender. It has not been any more pretty, planned, harmonious, desired, or less uncomfortable than the humbling posture of any birth.  But like birth, it doesn't wait for us to say, "I'm ready now, go ahead,."  It moves in us, and through us, and can be neither resisted, or sought out.  It is simply to be yielded to, with complete abandon. 

I am still, very much, in the throes of that self-birthing.  But I no longer care if it ever really ends.  I am realizing that this just may be the holy position, stance, and posture I am being "called" to, according to Her spiritually designed purpose for me. 

I am aware that it really doesn't matter if I know who, what, where,  or when the "child" will come, it's going to happen anyway.  And just like with birth, it will come step-by-step, moment-by-moment.  I can only hope that I will breathe through each expansion (not contraction) with a sigh of grace, a exhalation of kindness, a breath of patience, meekness and non-judgment.

I am realizing now that I can always entertain myself by imagining how I would want to give birth, what I might want to wear to the hospital, the relaxation techniques I will use to get me through the contractions.  I can imagine when the due date will be, and what that date might mean.  I can dream about who will be there with me, and what music I will have playing on my ipod to distract me from discomfort and worry.

But when the birth happens...it happens.   And when my child, my growing and evolving divine purpose, comes forth, there is no stopping, designing, or controlling it.  In that moment, I can only decide what I am going to focus on.  And I am choosing, with each expansion of my purpose, to focus on the face of the One who made me, and loves me.  I am choosing to remember the look of love in His eyes.  All the dreaming, wanting, or imagining on earth...or in heaven...cannot change His purpose for me.

As we weep our way through our moments of self-birthing, perhaps it is those very tears that are the gift of "purpose" we are being called to...to cry, cleanse, purify...to surrender.  Our spiritual purpose in life is not a noun.  It is not this job or that dream, a particular guy, business, mountain, town, or title.  Our spiritual purpose is always a verb, an action.  We are purposed as verbs...to do something.  We are verbs needing no condition, geography, person, address, or circumstance to be ourselves...ever unfolding, ever evolving "from a boundless basis." For me it was the end of seeing myself in terms of a job, a career, a title...and the beginning of simply showing up each moment according to His, God's, purpose for me.

"...It comes in loving community.
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth.

This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful.
This is grace, an invitation.

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside..."

You have a divine purpose. Let it be born in you, let it bear you up, let yourself be borne...carried on the wings of the morning...into a higher and holier space. The space that is your calling. A calling...a purpose...that is, and always has been, yours, eternally yours.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS