"....empty as I am..."

"What then can I give Him...
empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb.

If I were a wise man,
I would know my part.

What then can I give Him?
I must give my heart.."

It's about that time again*...holiday songs on Pandora, the kitchen redolent with the spicy aromas of cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, and clove.  This afternoon, James Taylors' "In the Bleak Midwinter," floated through the kitchen, hovering just above the scent of pumpkin muffins wafting from the oven.   These first few days of late autumn...leading into the holidays, are as bittersweet as the tiny persimmon berries, ...cloaked in their brittle wheat-colored jackets...that we will gather from the tangled brier, deep in the woods, just off campus. 

I'd just popped the muffin tins into the oven...slicing gooey batter-filled cups through a cloud of dense heat...when James, singing Christina Rossetti's plaintive question began:

"What then can I give him,
Empty as I am..."

I sank down on to one of the painted, butter yellow, kitchen chairs...surrendering to the moment.  Wiping my wet hands on a blue-checked kitchen towel, I asked,   "hmmm, what?  What then can I give Him?" 

I wasn't thinking of a "Santa List," with lines items for my husband, son, son-in-law, or grandson to be checked off once the wrapping paper and ribbons were securely in place.  No, I was thinking about "what," right now, right then and there -- this day -- I could bring to God.  To my God, the core Love of my life...the one true love that all of the other loves in my life spring from, and are blessed by.

And as I sat there pondering this question while James moved on to the next track on the CD, the thought resounded, "Yes, that is it...that is the gift most wonderful gift.  It is the one I always have  "at the ready"...my absolute emptiness."  Spiritual pioneer, social reformer, and human kindness activist, Mother Teresa once said:

"It is only when you realize your nothingness,
your emptiness,
that God can fill you with Himself."

And isn't this what our Father-Mother, our Maker - who is our Husband, our Friend of the friendless -- wants most from us...an emptiness that He can fill with purpose, vision, desire, works of charity, generosity, humility, and grace.

There is an old Kikuyu proverb that says:

"One can never hear anything new
as long as his mouth is filled
with his own words, and his
ears are filled with his own thoughts."

I want this "something new" something surprisingly, serendipitously, astoudingly new.  I want to know that I can be stopped in my tracks by an inspiration that I've never even considered before.  I want to be rendered speechless by a miracle of grace..."the divine influence on the heart and its reflection in the life."  I want to find myself acting in a way that I could never have imagined...freely, confidently, with childlike joy in the moment.

Recently I heard someone refer to this definition of "intimacy" and it has continued to resonate with me:

"to give someone your undivided attention"

This is what God,  my "adorable One" gives me each moment, of everyday.  In our relationship there is "just the two of us" He loves me, His divine idea with absolute devotion.  And doesn't it make sense that I, in turn, would bring, to our festal table, a vessel-heart, achingly empty, for Him to fill?

This is the only gift I can ever, really, bring Him...to show up "fully" empty. Fully ready to know Him, fully prepared to serve him, fully open to receive Him, fully eager to be transformed by Him. This is where I can rest my hopes...fully, in this emptiness.

Ahhh....

Thank goodness for yet another season of songs that make us stop in our tracks and think of the gifts we will bring...as well as the gifts of grace we are given each day...

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

*Each year I seem to find that the Christina Rossetti lyrics to this timeless winter classic give birth to a new moment of inspiration.  If you'd like to read the others, I am including the link to other "In the Bleak Midwinter" posts, here. 

[photo credit:  another stunning Nathaniel Wilder image 2010]

"...earth stood hard as iron..."

"In the bleak midwinter,
icy winds may moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone...

What then can I give Him,
Empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a Wise Man,
I would know my part.
What then can I give Him?
I must give my heart."
-Christina Rossetti

James Taylor's version of "In the Bleak Midwinter" is a sound that speaks more than all the words lined-up, ready to dance through the singer's lips and fall like gentle snow on the shoulder of its listener.  I've heard this song performed by other extraordinary singers, choirs, and recording artists, but few  match the sound of this one recording for me. 

This afternoon I went to find an earlier post that used a Corinne May recording, that is also quite lovely, and discovered that I have written a piece each year using this Christina Rossetti lyric as a keynote.  So I am including all three of those "In the Bleak Midwinter" posts here in case you would like to read them.

Now for this year's "In the Bleak Midwinter" story. 

It was a cold February morning and I was on crutches after severely injuring my ankle in "freak fall" earlier that month.  I'd found my peace the first day, while lying in bed struggling with pain that seemed to shatter my thoughts and send them splintering off in un-focused directions of terror and aloneness, when I picked up my Bible lesson and read the statement, "..and the Lord was with Joseph."  And it struck me immediately that if the Lord was with Joseph in prison, he was with me, right there in bed, and it became all that mattered...all that I cared, or wanted to think, about .  He'd been with Nelson Mandela in prison, Jesus in the sepulchre, Corrie Ten Boom in a concentration camp...their examples of finding a resonant peace and an unshaken dignity in the midst of bleak conditions gave me strength.

The same friend who'd called earlier that morning to check in, knowing that my husband was working out of state, got the girls to school, picked up our puppy, and brought food and crutches.  But once she'd left, I was alone...with God. The details of that story are found in a post from last February titled, "And he walks with me..."  (linked here). The next few weeks, once the girls were at school, were spent alone at home with my divine Parent.  I was able to "crutch" to the car and drive the girls to school and back, but once up the stairs and in the house again, I'd remain pretty non-ambulatory...at my desk or in bed taking calls, praying and writing.

After a few weeks however, I was still crutching around, unable to put any weight on the ankle, and the swelling was still quite evident.  I'd gotten down the icy front steps without incident one morning so that I could drive the girls to school, but when I pulled back into the driveway I hadn't noticed that short walk from the driveway to the steps was covered with black ice.  I placed my crutches on the ground and swung myself off the front seat and as I balanced on my "good foot" lifting the crutches to the next position forward, the rubber caps on the bottom of the crutches slipped on the ice and I lost my balance hitting the ground hard...ground that stood "hard as iron...water like a stone" covering its surface. 

The fall hurt, knocked the wind out of me, I wasn't sure how I would get to a standing position without crawling all the way up the steps and to be honest I just felt humiliated, tired, and as broken as the poor Nutcracker in Tchaikovsky's ballet.  But in my case there was no Sugar Plum fairy to spirit me off to the Land of Sweets and make me whole again.  There was no husband, there was no ...oh my gosh, there was no cell phone. 

That was when I started to panic.  My cell phone had flow out of my hand and was ringing from under the bushes that surround our front porch.  I felt helpless and hopeless.  I wanted to cry...I wanted to cry "uncle"...enough!

That was when I actually felt the first gentle touch of God's hand on my shoulder, "shshhing" me and asking me to "be still," and I stopped long enough to actually listen.  With my elbows in the dirt and my legs all akimbo under me on the hard ground of winter, the strains of "...earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone..." started singing through my heart. 

I rolled onto my back and looked up at the bleak gray winter sky and let the plaintive "sound" of the last verse speak to me of God's care for a baby in a cold manger, a man in a prison cell, and me on "earth as hard as iron".  I grasped the full weight of the last verse in my heart:

"What then can I give him
Empty as I am?
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a Wise man,
I would know my part.
What then can I give him?
I must give my heart.

I stayed there on my back letting the warm weight of those words sink into the core of my being.  I stared up though the moaning black fingers of the bare dogwood tree...and her overarching neighbor, the ancient prickly pod-decorated sweet gum tree...at a sky so gray and steely I could actually feel the word "bleak" with my eyes.  So I closed them and pushed my focus inward towards the space of my heart.  I wondered, "How could I give Christ my heart in that moment...crumpled on the walkway?"

And I realized it was simple.  I could be conscious.  I could be grateful.  I could love, and pray, and sing, and think, and "praise God"...Laus Deo! I could do all those things.  I was able-minded. I was fully capable of loving. And, I could make more of a difference in the world from a position of abject humility, rather than standing strong and hard as iron, anyway.  I was right where I needed to be in that moment...that was all I needed to know.  I could give my heart.

So I did.  I stayed focused on the space of my heart...the cold ground, the damp air, the gray sky lost their bleakness.  I let love pour out in radiant waves of affection...stronger and stronger... with each ripple spreading farther and farther out from its center.   Love for my husband, my children, my family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, community, the world, the universe...larger and larger, concentric circles of appreciation, respect, honor, blessing, peace reaching out from the living, breathing, glowing molten magma core of Love that abides in each of us.

I don't know how long I lay there.  I only know it was long enough to melt the ice I was lying on.  And when I opened my eyes, I saw that the mailman was approaching at a pretty good clip, with a look of genuine concern on his face.  I assured him that I was fine...and I was. 

He helped me right myself, find my bearings, brush myself off, retrieve my phone from under the bushes, get my books from the car, spryly crutch up the front steps, before handing me the mail...as I thanked him for all he had done.  He told me that he usually drove his truck through our neighborhood in the winter, delivering mail from the warmth of his vehicle, but that this morning he had felt almost pulled from his vehicle by the desire to go door-to-door hoping to run into someone and strike up a conversation.  So with that...we did.

We had a lovely conversation about his family, our neighborhood, my children, his parents, the schools, my husband's work, health care, and God.  I'd learned once again, as Mary Baker Eddy assures us, that:

"The very circumstance, which your suffering sense
deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares."

It was a perfect morning for entertaining angels...in the bleak midwinter.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"In the arms of the angel..."

"…In the arms of the angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you feel
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you're in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort here…"
-     Sarah McLaughlin

This song always makes me feel like there is Someone out there who is awake with me in the middle of the night when thoughts of "what if" and "how could I have" haunt my every effort to twist and turn away from the sleeplessness of self-examination and reformation.

It is in these moments of "silent reverie", when the body-of-the-past feels like a dark, cold hotel room…not a well-loved farmhouse where the homefires burn…that I am really most certain that there is a God.

I recently had a couple of those nights.  Having been invited to facilitate a series of workshops for teens and adults at a conference, I lay awake in the dark asking God to show me what I could possibly have to give, in light of my own fathomless hunger for His hand in my life and my choices. 

And His angels, over and over again, swooped in with messages of grace. Mary Baker Eddy defines Angels as: "God's thoughts passing to man, spiritual intuitions pure and perfect..."  

One of these angel messages came, in height of summer,  from a traditional Christmas song, that  I love and have written about, on this blog, "In the Bleak Midwinter" (my favorite version of this song is by James Tayor, but since there is no Youtube performance of it I am including this link to Corinne May's performance...the words are a bit different, but I think you will get the poignancy of this song):

"What then can I give him
empty as I am
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would know my part
What then can I give him
I must give my heart…"

It was enough to give me peace…and the tools to walk with His hand in mine, into those workshops the first day.  I could and would give my heart.  I would give my love for those dear teens and I would bring my own experiences of God's merciful kindness, His ever-present care, His unflagging guidance and direction.

The next night was harder.  Who was I to facilitate an adult workshop on "relating to teens and their issues"…hour after hour I worked to quiet self-doubt and silence the Garth-like "I am not worthy" that argued in the courtroom of my consciousness while darkness hovered like a pall and dawn threatened from the edges of the eastern horizon.  Finally the quieter voices of angels prevailed. 

Another song found it's way like a lullaby through the cacophony of demons:

"I do not need to see the distant scene
One step enough for me…"
- CS Hymnal #169

I was asked to facilitate this workshop.  Did I think that God had fallen asleep and that some over zealous, ill-informed-of my-failings-and-weaknesses Conference Director had intervened and mistakenly asked me to serve in this way.  No!  What an insult to God.  I had to trust that the Conference Director was praying through each invitation to speak, facilitate, chaperone and serve, as well as each "staff" assignment, and that God had directed her all along the way.  God was in charge here.  We were all well-equipped to answer His call with the wisdom, grace, humility and love necessary to do what we were being asked.

"Here am I, send me.." 

from Isaiah, became my mantra each step forward.  Here am I at the threshold of the conference, send me to say hello to someone who needs to feel appreciated and loved.  Here am I in the dining room, send me to ask help from someone who needs to feel needed.  Here am I on the lawn, send me to embrace someone who needs to feel that they are recognized and known.

And, oh yes, here am I in a circle of parents, teen mentors, and adult volunteers. Have You sent me to help them remember how well-equipped with experience, wisdom…and most importantly love…they already are to respond to the teens in their lives?  

What then could I bring? I could be honest about my experiences. I could be humble about my moments of wisdom…and not so wise moments. And I could share my love for teens…and for them. 

I hope it was enough. 

I am so grateful that in those dark wrestling moments of an endless, sleepless night I can trust that God will send His angels and turn what feels like a "dark cold hotel room" within me, into a warm, cozy home where my heart finds all that it needs to rest upon…and proceed from…Love.
Kate

"What then can I give Him..."

This past Sunday my husband, daughters, and I went to the Christmas show at our son's high school.  There were classical and contemporary works sung by the choir, band performances, a lyrical dance number and opportunities for the audience to sing Christmas hymns and carols together.  The most memorable act for me was a skit that our son performed in with his Advanced Theater Arts class.
 
It was the story of a cobbler who had a message from God that He, God, would visit him on Christmas Eve.  The cobbler stayed at his bench throughout the day waiting for God's arrival.  A beggar, a crone and a lost child come through his life that day in great need, and as the day wanes on he helps each one by offering shoes, a loaf of bread, warmth, guidance and direction, but is saddened that God had not arrived, as promised, as the day grows dark.  He calls out to God asking if God has forgotten His promise and God answers that he had visited that day as a beggar, a crone and a child and that the cobbler had served Him well.  It brought tears to my eyes remembering a Christmas that God brought out the best in my family through acts of kindness and unselfishness.

"What then can I give Him empty as I am?

I was ten that Christmas in 1964.  It had been a very hard year for our family.  My parents had both been hospitalized, at different times,  my dad had lost his job...and we had lost our home...because of his extended illness. My mother had given birth to her sixth child that year and had been so weak following my sister's birth that she was unable to return home from the hospital for some days.   Hospital bills had mounted and debts had taken away all that we owned.

My dad had finally found work driving tractor-trailer cross-country hauling one of the most dangerous cargoes..."wide load" modular home units.  The roads between our home in the southwest and the destination for his last load of the year, on the East coast, were particularly treacherous that December.  My mother, left at home with her six children...ages ranging from my baby sister at 9 months, to me at 10 years...tried to do her best to prepare for the holidays in the house that was assigned to us by a local philanthropic organization which provided needy families in our city with food, clothing, and shelter.   We were grateful for the 50 pound bags of rice and pinto beans that were delivered regularly, but we had to wait until dad was paid following the conclusion of his delivery of his outgoing cargo and his return with another load, to purchase anything further. 

My mom did everything she could to make Christmas wonderful for her children.  She helped us make Christmas tree ornaments for the tree (that the Optimist Society had delivered to all of its recipient families) a week before Christmas, out of newspaper, string and tempura paint.  She helped us learn a version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" that we five older children could sing and perform for dad when he made it back from his delivery.  She took us to every possible free Christmas activity she could unearth in our community...activities that often included free hot cider and Christmas cookies made be loving volunteers.  Christmas cookies that would replace the ones we wouldn't be baking that year without butter, eggs, and flour to spare. 

As Christmas approached we children were oblivious to the heartache she faced each day.  Without a phone (this was a luxury that was not provided for) or a car (ours had been lost along with our home when their financial security disappeared with dad's job) and no money for a baby-sitter, she was housebound much of the time unless a kind neighbor offered to watch the children so that she could run errands.  Each of those occasions found her rushing off to the busstop and returning an hour or so later with a couple of large paper grocery sacks.  We never thought to ask her where she had been or what she brought back.  Late at night, after we children were snugly tucked into bed, she could be found out in the garage..her breath making small puffs of steam in the cold air...busy as one of Santa's elves. 

She didn't know if our dad would make it back from his latest run in time for Christmas morning.  Refusing to be daunted by a lack of money and reports that icy roads and winter storms were standing between dad and his children's dreams of presents under the tree, she set her heart and her mind on the tasks at hand.

My younger sister had been searching the Sears catalogue with her friends for the perfect Christmas gift to request in their letters to Santa and all had settled on child-sized kitchens made out of painted tin, replete with miniature stove and refrigerator filled with small pans and plastic fruits and vegetables.  Not to be hindered by dollar signs mother spent her few hours away from her six children, in those weeks leading up to Christmas, scouring the local junkyard for orange crates, old stove knobs and cupboard handles with which she filled those shopping bags and brought home to her workshop in the garage. 

The boys had set their sights on a train set and mom was going to make that dream come true as well.  She found an old piece of plywood on which she painted a birds-eye-view of the small New England town she had grown up in.  Discarded ends of two-by-fours painted with windows and the names of cargo companies hosted large buttons glued on for wheels and were tied together with pieces of ribbon.  Branches from dead trees became miniature trees and bushes and discarded milk container, rinsed and covered with construction paper became houses, churches, and a fire hall. 

The baby was given a small stuffed bear that mom had made from an old furry jacket that she really needed herself to keep stay warm. Instead she could be found in one or two of dad's old flannel shirts layered for warmth after ears and legs were cut out of the back and front sections of her own jacket and its small black buttons became eyes and a nose.

But night after night she agonized over what she would do for her two eldest daughters, my sister Nancy and I.  We had our hearts set on the same dream as all of our 4th and 5th grade friends.  Bikes!  We had torn the pictures of our favorite models from the Sear catalogue and had them tacked to the bulletin board in our bedroom.  Blue bikes with baskets on the front for carrying books from the library or our lunch sacks to school.  We had dreams of riding our bikes to the local pool in the summer time and even offered to carry groceries home for mom if our dreams came true that Christmas. 

You see, mother had made our Christmas...no, our lives...so full with her creativity and joy that we were clueless as to the desperation or the financial mountains she faced each day. 

As reports of more winter storms were forecasted for dad's route, and no hope of knowing his whereabouts without a phone mom made a decision on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.  She asked the next-door neighbor if she would invite us children over to watch the bubble lights on her Christmas tree and sing carols while she ran an errand. 

Later that night she tucked us all into bed and went to her workshop in the cold garage to put the finishing touches on a miniature town, a small kitchen made of orange crates and old dishtowels for cupboard doors and tied the piece of pink ribbon on the bear for her youngest before she brought it all into the living room to put under the tree. 

We tossed and turned in our beds.  Mother having finished every last detail climbed onto the sofa where she and dad slept each night and turned out all the lights but the Christmas tree.  When we woke up the next morning and ran down the hall there she was curled up in dad's arms.  He had arrived home sometime in the middle of the night and crawled in behind her amazed at all that she had done. 

We were so happy to see him and each knew our part.  We lined up in the hall from youngest to eldest and to the tune of "Chopsticks" we marched out singing "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...."
Dad woke up and smiled up at us and I will never forget the look on mom's face when she realized that he was there.  She had been so tired that she hadn't even felt him tuck himself in behind her on the open sofa bed. 

After our song we all welcomed dad home and went to the tree to see all the beautiful gifts that my mother had made.  Nancy and I didn't say anything when we realized that there were no bikes for us to ride to school that year.  Dad had brought home small gifts for each of us, including a small bottle of "Windsong" perfume for mother.  

We went to the kitchen and were thrilled to see small bright orange tangerines, an assortment of tiny boxes of cereal  (we would keep those boxes for Linda's child-sized kitchen cupboards), and cocoa powder for hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows to float on top of each cup.  Cereal boxes were opened and the pot came out of the cabinet for cocoa but there was no milk.  At least until dad told Nancy or I to go out to the back porch and bring it in from the cold where he had left it to stay cool...why we didn't question the wisdom of it not being in the refrigerator escapes me, but we didn't.  We obediently went to the back porch and there standing side by side with red bows on each of the handle bars were two shiny blue bikes. 

We were so happy....it wasn't until later that year that I noticed that my mother's left hand was bare.  She had pawned her wedding and engagement rings to purchase those bikes and when she went back with her claim tickets to retrieve her rings it was too late...they had been sold.  My mother never complained.  She never mentioned her empty finger or the absence of rings that she had loved. 

Three months later my parents were reintroduced to the study of Christian Science (my mom had grown up going to a Christian Science Sunday School as a child but had left it her religious roots in the past when she married and my dad didn't know anything about it) and its practice of Christ's law of selfless charity, compassion and love.  I have always believed that my mother's unselfishness that Christmas opened the door of our home for the Christ Spirit to fully enter and transform our lives and our hearts with abundant grace and vast opportunities for gratitude. 

By the next Christmas my dad had two great jobs that allowed him to be home with his family at night and we had moved into real home of our own in a lovely neighborhood.  We had a Christmas tree that we picked out at a local lot, there were presents wrapped in colorful paper, and Bing Crosby singing from a record player in the living room.  Our lives had changed and our tradition of little tangerines and tiny assorted boxes of cereal had been born.  We would never forget the BEST Christmas ever.

Seven years later I would try to relive my mother's lesson of love by replacing her engagement and wedding rings with a simple gold band....but that's another story...

How are your acts of selfless love, kindness, compassion, generosity and charity opening doors for the Christ to enter into the hearts and homes of loved ones, neighbors and strangers this Christmas? 

"What then can I give Him
Empty as I am?
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a Wiseman
I would know my part.
What then can I give Him
I must give my heart."

"In the Bleak Midwinter"
Christina Rossetti

Katie

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Last year, in celebration of the holiday season, Hallmark released a new James Taylor CD of songs and carols.  On this collection was a song that within an hour of first hearing it,  I began replaying it over and over again for spiritual inspiration and comfort, and in it I found direction on a journey that, at best, felt most dark and bleak. 

This song, a traditional carol written by Christina Rossetti in 1872, is one that Taylor and his partner on this recording project, Dave Grusin, breathe new life into with their haunting arrangement.  "In the Bleak Midwinter..." (full lyrics below) includes the following prayer:

"Then what can I bring Him empty as I am
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would know my part;
What then can I bring Him?
I must bring my heart."

My days were filled with the colorful busyness of the holiday season...choosing just the right gifts, wrapping presents, making and carrying out travel arrangements for loved ones, cooking, baking, chauffeuring children and meeting with patients, tea with friends.  This busyness, with all the details of caring for others, allowed me to push down the deep sadness and pain that poked constantly at the edges of my smile. I felt like I couldn't even begin to consider what were looming questions about my life and the lives of those I loved.

My nights, however, seemed like a colorless empty pit...a void so dark and abysmal that I often felt,  once I had the children settled in for the night, I would never climb out of  the utter confusion I felt about how to take steps towards a solution.  Even the process of discovering what those steps might be, seemed lost in a quagmire of emotion, culturally interpreted issues of respectability, and my own fear of failure and rejection. Night after night I would put on my running shoes and pound the streets in our neighborhood, and cover miles on the local track, praying for direction and guidance.  I often wasn't sure whether I was using running, metaphorically, to get away from my problems, or to move towards a solution...but I ran, and ran, and ran. 

By the last week in December I had listened to Taylor's CD so often that I had all the words to each of the songs memorized.  "In the Bleak Midwinter" was my step by step mantra for covering the endless track-based miles I convered each week (an earlier blog speaks of Martina McBride's "In my Daughters' Eyes" and how that song gave some direction to thoughts during the "street" sections of my nightly running that winter). 

One particularly cold night as I stood, bent over at the waist, mid-track...having just finished an exhausting two mile "loop"...I realized that the above quoted stanza was also running, side by side with me,  in a loop through my head, and it wasn't stopping from exhaustion.   One part of my nightly routine was to take a break after each two miles on the track and go to the long jump pit where I would move through a series of yoga-based stretching positions under the treeless bowl of stars above me. 

As I found my balance in the Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-facing Dog) position that night tears rolled down my temples...gathering and freezing in the stray hairs that had fallen in front of my face.  I was bringing to that moment every sacred hope I had cherished for a peace-filled resolution to what seemed like almost an insurmountable dilemma.  I was hearing over and over in my prayers, "What then can I give Him...I must give my heart".  I returned to Balasana (Child's Pose) as I exhaled and released myself from every self-presevationist instinct that I had left to retain control over my own heart.  I gave that which I most thought I could control and hold sway over, my own heart...my own right to be the architect of my expression of love.... into His hands under the stars that night. 

As my tears froze on my face I wept for what I knew I no longer could control, determine, "make happen"...I gave up my right to define outcomes, design impressions, or preserve pretenses....I surrendered my right to decide how I was going to be seen, how my motives were going to be interpreted, or how those around me were going to feel about me.  What could I give him in this moment of worship, in the midst of these feelings of profound emptiness...  I could give Him my heart.  It was really all He ever wanted from me.  The only gift that made a difference in my worship.  So I did.  I gave him all that I loved, all that I hoped would symbolize love in my life...I gave Him my fondest hopes, deepest desires, my most longed for outcomes. 

I didn't finish my run that night.  I lay on my back in the long-jump pit until I was almost too cold to move and "let go" more and more with each exhale of steamy breath into the clear star-filled night.  I watched stray clouds move across a mid-cycle moon and knew that I was walking into a wilderness I could not anticipate the landscape of.  I rose to my feet and took a variation of the Tree Blows in the Wind position, yielding to a divine pneuma or wind that would "blow me where It listeth" ....I became a willing willow rather than an intractable and rigid oak.  I walked the rest of my course that night and was keenly aware that something in me had shifted into a new and unknown place of worship and sacred surrender.   I walked away from my control and into Her arms...for her "Mother's kiss".

I gave Him/Her my heart and didn't try to hold on enough to pull it back if things got scary.  And they did. 

He/She still has my heart.  God has proven to me this year that when I give Him all that is dear and precious and most holy and sacred in my life, He cares for it in ways I could never have expected, anticipated or imagined. 

He has a plan for you too....trust Her with your heart....She will tenderly care for Her young, She will protect and preserve its innocence, purity, its most tender desires and fiercest loves.  He is the Creator of your heart and the conductor of its rhythm, the choreographer of its beating...trust Him/Her.   What then can you give Him?....you must  give your heart".

In the bleak midwinter, icy wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow on snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long..so long ago.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim rising in the air;
Oh, but holy Mary, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a Mother's kiss.

Heaven cannot hold Him, nor can earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall fall away when He comes to reign.

What then can I give Him, empty as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would know my part;
What then I can I give Him: I must give my heart.

- Christina Rossetti

Kate