"to know the rapture..."

"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."

"I can hear a distant singing..."

"I've been feeling kind of restless.
I"ve been feeling out of place.
I can hear a distant singing,
a song that I can't write,
And it echoes of what
I'm always trying to say...

There's a feeling I can't capture.
Its always just a prayer away...

And I cannot wait to be going home..."

Mmmm...Sara Groves' "Going Home" conveys the warmth of finding yourself snuggled into the sofa, wrapped in quilts, after Thanksgiving dinner.  You are watching Little Women...the Winona Ryder/Susan Sarandon version...while your mom strokes your hair, and you sink deeper and deeper into the comfort of her soft body.

I know this feeling.  It is the feeling of returning to your own "ground zero" for recalibration.  It's like plugging yourself into a giant cosmic wall socket for recharging.  It is a spiritual act, and it is deeply grounding.

And as much as it may seem like we are going backwards towards our childhood, in a time long past, it is really a deeper, fuller, more-alive-with-promise exploration of what is inherently changeless and true...our innocence. 

A reader recently wrote and asked me to write something about purity.  She had searched the index to this blog, and couldn't find a post that addressed this topic.  I was stunned.  Over 400 posts and not one had been tagged "purity." 

This is shocking to me, because "purity" is a spiritual concept that I work with almost hourly.  Purity is the allness of good, the fullness of innocence, the power of God asserting itself. 

Purity is not the absence of infection, violation, imposition, mistake, or bad choices.  Purity is not passive.  It is not something that can be lost, taken, or destroyed.  Purity is not vulnerable.  It is the self-assertion of grace, the insistence of hope, the radiance of divinity, the affluent coursing of Love's universal "I AM" springing from an inner core so deep, that it cannot be touched by darkness, doubt, or fear.

Another friend shared this quote from Woman, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Anything by Geneen Roth, the other day:

"…there is a natural inclination to want to keep exploring, keep discovering, keep touching the place that has never known suffering-which is, after all, the function of any spiritual practice."

This innate hunger to revisit the "place that has never known suffering," is the power of purity voicing itself to human consciousness.  It calls to us from a deep knowing, a persistent certainty that we are, and always have been,  good, pure, worthy, capable, untouched, and whole. 

This, for me, is the place of my Mother-God's soft lap.  It is the longing for this "place" that calls me...deeper and deeper towards its core.  It is this space of divine fullness and innocence that is inviolate and unsullied.  It is the purest light drawing us to itself like a leaf towards the sun.  It is home.

She wanders the
street...
looking nowhere
and yet
searching for
something,
her eyes
are lowered,
heart shattered,
wings broken,
hope unraveled...
where is
kindness,
is there a return
to innocence for
the child who
is no longer...a child?
Is there a
mother's lap to
fall asleep, and
rest her
head and
her dreams in...
without
fear?
Go deep,
go deep...
this longing to
be
a child again,
is
calling you
to Her
arms...
listen
it is
within
you...
singing.

Thank you for the prompting, Liz...with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Here are two more, profoundly beautiful quotes, from Woman, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Anything by Geneen Roth, that were shared with me:

“The third journey—the Journey in God—is the same in both the Sufi tradition and the path-of-food version: In this journey, you end the search for more and better. You no longer live as if this life is a dress rehearsal for the next. Authenticity, not trying to be good, begins to infuse your actions. Through practices like the Eating Guidelines, meditation and inquiry, you slowly realize that you are already whole and that there is no test to pass, no race to finish; even pain becomes another doorway, another chance to recognize where love appears to be absent.” (200)

“…real holiness is not in what you achieve…if you are willing to refrain from dieting and needing an instant solution, and if you want to use your relationship with food as the unexpected path, you will discover that God has been here all along. In the sorrow of every ending, in the rapture of every beginning. In the noise and in the stillness, in the upheavals and in the rafts of peace. In each moment of kindness you lavish upon your breaking heart or the size of your thighs, with each breath you take—God has been here. She is you.” (201)