"transitions and leaving..."

"You're lovely
even with your scars;
lovely just the way you are.

So open up your lovely heart,
don't try so hard..."

Sometimes, I can read something that touches a nerve so deep it drives me to my knees -- or to laying my head in my arms and just weeping.

My friend - and much-admired women's historian - Sally Roesch Wagner, posted a piece at the end of the summer about "leaving the lake" in which she writes:

“You must be leaving soon,” my daughter observed. “Yes, why do you say that?” “Because you just picked a fight with me.”

It was one of those golden moments when intimacy mirrors deep truths about yourself. I pick fights when I leave. “I don’t love you anymore,” “You suck,” “I don’t even like you.”

I’m in a fight with the lake right now. Stupid lake. It’s overcast and cold and gloomy and I’m mad at it. Because tomorrow morning I will leave it for another year.

Recognizing my pattern, owning it, the dam bursts and I am crying sad because I will miss this lake I love with all the 72 years my body has known her.
 

That is me. Or at least it has been me for most of my life. A family member once said, "It's not worth coming to visit you unless I can stay for 10 days. It takes you 3 days to open up, and three days to prepare for my leaving. You pick fights or look for ways to isolate yourself days before I have to depart."

She was right. I know this about myself. God bless my husband for knowing that "comings and goings" are hard for me. Whether I am going away, or he is, he knows enough to carve out space in our home for those transitions -- from being together, to being alone, to being together again.  He gives me space to grieve.  And for some reason, it is a grieving for me -- and  I have to process it each time.

So, obviously these feelings are not new for me. But seeing someone that I admire so much, willing to actually own that pattern of emotional fragility herself, was somehow heart-fissuring for me. I wasn't alone. Something of the brittleness in me -- about how I see myself -- started to yield its hardness. I could look at myself through the lens of self-compassion.

I love that God brings those wiser guides into our lives to help us through the labyrinth of self-acceptance. Sally's insight about her own sorrow when "leaving the lake," gave me permission to begin to look more deeply at my own grief about transitions.

Sometimes, I try too hard. I don't "do" some things -- like entering a crowded room -- with ease. I tend to need a job, a role, a name badge that says, "hi, I am Cate and I am here in this role..." to navigate those situations. Just walking in and finding my "tribe," is terrifying for me. But knowing that I am not alone, and that there just might be someone else in the "room" -- or in the world -- that is feeling just as awkward, takes my focus off of my own awkwardness.  It makes me look for her (or him) when I enter that room, so that I can try and make it easier for them too.

Amy Grant's "Don't Try So Hard," is like a friend looking me in the eye and saying -- "you've got this." Sally's post about "leaving the lake" will now join Amy's song like a big sister who puts her arm through mine and guides me forward, saying -- all the way, "I'm here, we can do this - together."  We can do this, because we have a God who loves us and has sent us into each other's lives as angels of mercy and compassion. Whether it's in a song, a moment of self-reflection shared with a reader, or just a smile across a crowded room.

If there is some way I can "be there" for you -- please let me know.

This blog is here to remind us all that, "we are not alone."

offered with Love,

Kate

"where shall the gaze rest…"

"It is well,
it is well,
with my soul…"

When I consider the Truth behind the following healing, I can almost hear Amy Grant's, "It is Well," echoing in my heart.

This healing starts with my friend Emily. One Wednesday evening, she stood up at our mid-week testimony meeting and shared a recent healing she'd experienced.

She said that during an overseas expedition she broke her collarbone. The injury required that she return home early and have it attended to by a physician. She was grateful for his/her kind care. After the initial examination and stabilization of the shoulder, Emily thanked him -- moving forward in praying, exercising movement, expecting healing, and expressing freedom.

And yet, when she later went back for a follow-up visit, the physician was not surprised by what new x-rays reported. The healing was proceeding according to his expectations. There was no exclamation of a miraculous healing. He was not at all surprised by the progress that had -- or hadn't, in his assessment -- taken place.

You may think that this sounds a bit anti-climatic, but for me it was amazing.  It was exactly what I needed to hear. Emily was fine. Emily was the one that was somewhat surprised his assessment. She was pain-free and was able to hike and bike with full range of motion. She was surprised that the x-rays and the doctor's evaluation didn't reflect the freedom that she was feeling.

But isn't that wonderful!  To realize that there was little, or no, correlation between the freedom that Emily was actually experiencing, and the x-rayed image of the bone, or the doctor's opinion. It didn't change the fact -- Emily was free.

I can't even begin to express how much it meant to me that the "body" could be reporting -- through an X-ray -- that nothing had really changed, and yet Emily was free.

It begged the question: "Where are you getting your information from?" and "What evidence are you letting inform your prayers, your hopes, your confidence?"

This realization had an immediate effect on a physical situation I'd been praying about for weeks. Yes, I'd felt the power of the Word in my prayers. I'd felt freedom from the paralyzing fear that this situation was persistent and incurable. I'd felt inspired and clear. But each day when confronted with persistent aggressive symptoms, I'd be on  my knees wondering what more I needed to know, pray, feel. 

Emily's healing gave me the courage to, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Look away from the body,
into Truth and Love…" 

Suddenly it became ludicrous to me that I had been looking to the body for an "all clear." I'd been listening for its report, waiting for it to tell me whether I was whole, sound, strong, and free. 

Instead I began asking Truth and Love -- God -- what was true, and what I was capable of. Could I love? Yes. Could I pray? Yes. Was I capable of answering the phone, walking to my office, being still, helping others? Yes.

The body and it's reports of discomfort, weakness, exhaustion -- the chronic rehashing of symptoms -- was no different than that x-ray Emily had been shown, or the doctor's  interpretation of its message.  He assessed it based on his best thinking, but was it true?  In like fashion, I had been looking at, listening to, assessing, and interpreting what my body was saying -- but was it true?

When I stopped asking it for information -- and then giving weight and meaning to that information -- I was free. Free from taking the pulse of the situation, and then determining my peace, my capabilities, or how to pray, based on its report.  I stopped trying to read meaning into that report. And at some point, I realized that I was free from believing that it told me anything about my life.

Elsewhere in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy asks:

"Where shall the gaze rest
but in the unsearchable
realm of Mind?

We must look where we would walk,
and we must act as possessing all power
from Him in whom we have our being." 

I realized that I could - at any given moment - get my information from God, and immediately act as possessing all power from Him in whom I have my being. And I did.

This deeper, Soul-sense has changed everything.  When we are willing to be still -- nevertheless, constant, consistent -- we are going to God for our information, and we know exactly what we need to know.  This report is changeless  -- I am well, you are well, we are well -- whole, pure, complete, strong, kindly-affectioned, God-sent, free.

offered with Love,

Kate

"the babe of healing..."

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

A friend's recent post on Facebook reminded me of an early December night, many years ago.  It was a time when all I wanted was a baby to love, to hold, and to cherish.

I'd called a friend and mentor during one of my darkest moments. I poured out my heart's sorrow. I could actually feel the compassion that filled the pregnant silence. It was as palpable as a hand reaching through the darkness. Soon, my weeping stilled, and my breathing evened.

Then, when he knew I was ready to listen, he asked me if I was ready to give birth to the most precious babe on earth -- the babe of Christian healing. I knew he was referencing a passage by Mary Baker Eddy from an article titled, "The Cry of Christmas-tide," published in her collected Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:

"Unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given.

"In different ages the divine idea assumes
different forms, according to humanity’s needs.
In this age it assumes, more intelligently
than ever before, the form of Christian healing.
This is the babe we are to cherish."
 

He reminded me that, more than ever before, this was the babe I needed to cherish -- not just for myself, but for the world.

Then, he gently suggested that I return to a series of twenty-four questions and answers that make up the entire curriculum for Eddy's course on Christian Science healing. Questions that are found in the chapter "Recapitulation," from her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Beginning on page 465 and concluding on page 497 we are given a path for seeking -- and finding -- healing. Twenty-four questions on thirty-two pages.

He told me that each December, he did this himself. He took one question per day and studied her answer. Then he pondered how he might answer that same question, based on what he had experienced as a healer throughout the year.

He assured me that these next precious days of gestation would bring forth this "babe," and I would be ready to cherish it with my whole life's purpose. These questions would prepare my heart. They were the promise of a new birth.

So, I did. And I still do. Each December 1st, I begin with the first question: "What is God?" I deeply consider Eddy's simple, cogent, complete, and profound answer.  Then I ask myself, "Based on what you have learned this year, what is God to you?" 

You see, I long to know God, myself.  

I am profoundly grateful for Mary Baker Eddy's waymarks as she chronicled her own journey towards a deeper understanding of what it means to "know the Lord." 

But I don't want to simply read her travel diary, and look at her photos -- I want to go where she has gone.  I long to feel that landscape under my feet.  To breathe that holy air.  And by revisiting those questions -- and then searching my heart for answers that ring with a true tone -- I align myself with the I AM THAT I AM.  For me, it is one of the most holy traditions of the season.

Last night, I couldn't wait to begin this year's season of expectancy, gestation, and birth. In fact, I was so eager that I rose just after midnight and took up that first question. The brevity and clarity in her answer took my breath away:

Question. — What is God?

Answer. — God is incorporeal, 
divine, supreme, infinite Mind,
Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth, Love.
 

And as I pondered my own journey --  with that question as a spiritual waymark -- my heart opened to new views. What a revelation! Everything that I've discovered about God's allness, power, and grace this year has deepened my trust in the spiritual reality of all things.  It has informed my understanding of healing.  Over and over again, it has been my spiritual anchor in moments self-doubt and uncertainty. I wrote down my most current answers to that first question, and filled page-after-page, long into the night.

Tomorrow I will take up the second question. Then the third. And each day I will feel this babe grow stronger in me -- again.

For me, this Christmas exercise -- first practiced over 25 years ago -- was (and is) life-transforming. It has continued to renew and refresh my understanding of how to realize the healing presence of God. In fact, I find myself repeating it throughout the year.  And although I've been blessed with inestimable joy in parenting each of our children, it is this "babe of Christian healing," that has filled my heart with purpose, and brought unfathomable peace when my womb felt empty.

From experience, I know that on December 25th I will be looking into the face of this beloved babe. I will see this healing Christ in the unwavering spiritual innocence of universal humanity. This is the babe that I will hold close, and never let go of.  This is the babe that will never let go of me.

And each day as I ponder these questions I will be waiting, as Amy Grant sings in "Breath of Heaven," in a silent prayer for the birth this babe in my own heart.

For me, this is the great gift -- healing.  It is what we all seek.  To know that we are whole, well, complete in the All-in-allness of God's great love.   Or, as Mary Baker Eddy promises in "The Cry of Christmas-tide:"

"This is the babe we are to cherish.

This is the babe
that twines its loving arms
about the neck of omnipotence,
and calls forth infinite care
from His loving heart."
 

offered with Love,

Kate

"The purpose of Love..."

"I believe
there's a love
deep as it is wide..."

In case you were worried that I'd run out of songs -- from Amy Grant's new CD, How Mercy Looks from Here to inspire me -- you can put those concerns to rest. Her "Deep as it is Wide," with Sheryl Crow and Eric Paslay, is the perfect keynote for this post.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This post doesn't start with a song. It starts with a statement Mary Baker Eddy makes in her definition of the word/name "Abraham" from the Glossary in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"the purpose of Love
to create trust in good..." 

The first time I read it, it stopped me in my tracks. Here was a buried treasure, a profound gift. Here was a filter for giving clear purpose to every thought and action. Here was guidance for how to live a life that was truly Love-impelled and Love-governed rather than self-absorbed.

I could ask myself: Are my actions going to encourage trust in the presence and power of God, good? Is our intent in this relationship to forward and broaden a more radical trust in good?   Was I willing to let love have no other purpose?

This filter has been particularly helpful in navigating the sometimes murky backwaters of self-will, self-justification, and self-love -- which often parade as something more noble.  I can't tell you how many times I've been pulled back from the ego's undertow by this simple purpose statement.

Whether it comes as emotional sympathy in the midst of another's crisis, or the desire to be recognized for an act of generosity, this statement has often been just the urging I needed to rethink my motives and adjust my actions accordingly.

One way that Eddy offers further guidance and gives direction to our affections, is in her article, simply-titled "Love," from Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:

"it is the tender, unselfish deed
done in secret;
the silent, ceaseless prayer;
the self-forgetful heart
that overflows;
the veiled form
stealing on an errand of mercy,
out of a side door..." 

What strikes me about this statement, is the total lack of self-conscious "what's in it for me," on the part of the giver.

It's not always easy to detect the ego's ruse. Sometimes it will twist us about. We think we are being completely selfless in our altruism -- our generosity, our service to others -- and then someone forgets to say "thank you" or doesn't reciprocate in kind, and we've lost our wind. We begin questioning the wisdom of our actions or, more sadly, their deserving. That's when the power of this statement comes in. It becomes a simple compass for finding our way through the murky waters of self.

I am learning that when our motives are aligned with Love's purpose -- to create trust in good -- it somehow ceases to matter whether anyone even knows we were "there." The only thing that matters becomes an ever-deepened, constantly widening trust in good. This is Love's purpose for each of us -- to love. To radiate this kind of radical, practical, effective, trust-engendering love.

always,

Kate

"Here I am..."

"I am here in the dark.
I'm the song inside your heart.
I'm the missing piece
you've had all along.

I am here when you call.
When you rise,
and when you fall.
I am here,
I am here,
here I am..."

I can't seem to get enough of Amy Grant's new CD. Her new song, "Here" is the perfect keynote for this post.

Recently I was asked how it felt to experience healing. It was a good question, and I wanted to honor the genuine spiritual hunger behind it. So, I asked if I could think about it and "get back to you."

I knew I had to speak from my experience, and mine only. So I went to a place --within myself -- where I could be absolutely still.  Then I revisited some of my most profound moments of spiritual awakening, healing, and transformation. It didn't take more than the breadth of a heartbeat before that very same feeling washed over me in visceral waves of holy remembering.

There are no words to describe it fully save:

"I am here..." 

This I am is not a human presence -- mine or anyone else's. It is the deep I AM of timeless, changeless, conscious Being. It is the I AM that is -- for me -- God.  It is infinitely near, while still being radiantly unconfined.  And I am as sure of this I AM, as I am of being conscious. It is like honey coursing through every cell of my being -- sweet, warm, heavy with the weight of promise, a constancy that goes beyond what I could ever imagine, and clear as a river of crystal.

It is very different from human thought-taking -- the kind of human reasoning that wants to believe what it thinks it knows.  And it takes me by surprise -- every time. Yet the moment I feel it, I am free. There is nothing but absolute trust.   It is not a trust that is invested in, or holding out for, any particular outcome.  It is an unequivocal, absolute trust in the divine.  A trust that surrenders self-determinism and says -- at the deepest level, with child-like joy:

"Thy will be done." 

When I feel this deeply innate sense of trust -- one that so naturally lets go, and yields everything to God's presence -- I can't even fathom why I ever wondered or worried about anything. It is how I imagine a small child must feel when she gives herself up to sleep in the arms of her parent.

Yet it's not a surrender to an "other."  It is a full-bore letting go, a yielding to the Truth of being -- the core of who I truly am -- eternally.  It is a feeling of sinking deeper and deeper into the great vastness of the kingdom of heaven within. A feeling of being submersed and yet, held aloft at the same time. It reminds me of learning to float as a child. Relaxing my entire body into my mother's arms, and then discovering that she had lowered her arms and I was being buoyed by the same water that had -- only moments before -- yielded to the touch of my tiny fingers.  


This feeling of being "with the Lord," is the best feeling I've ever known. No one can take it from me. Nothing can shake me loose from it's hold. Spiritual texts, words of inspiration, prayers of longing -- no matter how holy -- can only open my heart, and point my hopes in the right direction.   Towards the enduring promise that God's presence is as close to me as my consciousness of existence. This is the feeling that I lean into every moment, of every day.  That's my answer -- what's yours?

offered with Love,

Kate

"If I could see..."

"If I could see
what the angel see,
I'd see that Love
will conquer hate,
there's always hope
it's not too late,
I'd find the Truth
is easy to believe..."

She's done it again. And once more, with a song from her new CD, How Mercy Looks from Here. Amy Grant's "If I Could See (What the Angels See)," was just the ticket this week.

Years ago I had a Sunday School teacher who suggested that if every time we were tempted to use the word "If..." with regard to God,  instead we used, "Since..." we would be on solid holy ground.  

For example:  "If God is good, and God is all, then all is good," can be read, "Since God is good, and God is all, then all is good."  When it comes to God, she said, there is no "if."   I've been practicing this for decades now, and it's almost like thinking in another language.

So when I heard Amy's new song, "If I Could See What Angels See," I naturally translated it and heard, "Since I can see what angels see..."

This song became a prayer of affirmation, a rock on which to stand, an overlook from which I could see things with clarity and spiritual vision.

This was a particularly helpful prayer as my heart leapt into action in praying for the children, parents, teachers, families, first responders, volunteers, and rescue workers in Moore, Oklahoma this week.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her Glossary of spiritual terms at the back of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, defines the word, "Angel" as:

"God's thoughts passing to man,
spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect,
the inspirations of
goodness, purity, and immortality..." 

In assuring us that these angels, or intuitions, are spiritual she is reminding us that they, like Spirit, are everywhere. They are not confined to one faith-tradition. They are not personal, but impartial and universal. They suffuse every moment with hope, every action with kindness, every word with encouragement, every heart with faith, every thought with intuition, wisdom, and clarity of direction.

The morning after the tornado hit Moore I was feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. As I stood at the kitchen window I noticed a small bird's nest that had fallen during the storm the night before. I knew right away that it was the nest a pair of small birds had been building in the crook of a tree nearby. I walked outside, gently picked it up and returned it to it's place. This morning I noticed them feathering their nest again, readying for the eggs that would soon appear.

There are no ideas in the universe of Mind that are too small, no communities that are too isolated, no homes too fragile to be precious and dear to our Father-Mother God.

We are all receptive to the angels of His Presence. These angels populate every mental molecule of the universe. Nothing is beyond their control, no one is lost to them, there is no place so devastated, no moment so terrifying that they cannot reach to comfort the frightened and give wise council to those who feel disoriented.

This has been my prayer this week: that we can all see, hear, feel, know, trust -- like angels.

offered with Love,

Kate

"As a tale that is told..."

"Lay down your burdens,
I will carry you,
I will carry you,
my child,
my child..."

Amy Grant's new CD, How Mercy Looks from Here, launched today. But it's her classic, "I Will Carry You," that swept through my heart one night. I'd tossed and turned for hours.  I was burdened by a passel of stories lying so heavy on my heart that I almost couldn't breathe. And the feeling was no longer isolated to the realm of the mental and emotional, it had become physical.

As my husband rested peacefully beside me, and the girls were nestled snuggly in their rooms, I was wandering the hallways of "what" and "why" -- as if it was there, that I would find were a reasonable "cause" for the pain I was in.

I needed to think clearly, and the only relief I could find from the discomfort was in a hot bath. Slipping into my favorite middle-of-the-night sanctuary all was quiet. Buoyed in the silence of warm water I felt less distracted by the weight of the pain. I was able to listen more clearly for God's voice. And that's when the first strains of Amy's "I will carry you..." washed over me.  I let it's message lead me, and  I let go.

I opened my hands and released all that I had been grasping for.  I let my desire for a reason-able story -- one that would somehow explain what I needed to pray about --  fall away.  And I drifted ever deeper -- effortlessly -- into a conscious awareness of God's love.

The next thought that came washing through me was a Psalm:

"We live our lives

as a tale that is told..." 

Ah yes, this is exactly what I been searching for. I needed to be reminded that I could, actually, let the stories dissolve -- to go from being well-developed personal memoirs into mere words strung together on a timeline, and from word strings into a collection of letters, and from letters into strokes of a pen, and from the stroke of a pen, into ink that softly dissolved into the watery ether -- the buoying omni-presence of His abiding love. They were not mine, because they were not His.

The bath became a womb for my most childlike, pure, peaceful, and innocent self. I was not an anthology -- a compendium of dramas, tragedies, love sagas, and the occasional comedy. I didn't have to carry this "me" encyclopedia around, and unpack it as my identity.   It wasn't ever going to be a reliable reference for discovering what was causative each time that "me" wondered "why."

My only "why": "because God sent me into this moment for a holy purpose." My only thought: "Thy will be done." My one true feeling, "an abiding trust in Him."

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her small collection, Pulpit and Press:

"You have simply to maintain
a positive, scientific sense of unity
with your divine Source
and daily demonstrate this."

I could do that.

Yes, I could always do just that.

 The rest I placed in God's hands -- joyfully acknowledging, now and forever, His supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

with Love,

Kate

"How mercy looks from here..."

"When you face your greatest fear --
losing all that you hold dear,
open up your eyes my dear...my dear.

That's when boundless grace appears,
unseen angels hover near.
Saints are singing loud and clear,
"Oh how mercy looks from here..."

The title track from Amy Grant's new CD "How Mercy Looks from Here," came to me with such gentleness.  It fluttered  against my heart like a whisper, upon hearing the first news out of Boston this afternoon.

The call to "love mercy," washed over me like a sudden spring shower. It was a soft cleansing -- a baptism of grace -- with each heavy tear.  I found myself praying with this scripture from Micah:

"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; 

and what doth the Lord require of thee, 

but to do justly, 

and to love mercy, 

and to walk humbly with thy God?"

To love, really love, mercy.

I realized, that as the immediate expression of God's love, I didn't need the medium of time or human thought-taking to process what I was hearing and seeing. I didn't need to walk through the proscribed steps of shock, anger, sorrow, grief -- to get to the place of forgiveness and mercy.

I could stand still -- nevertheless poised, calm, and sure of God's love -- in the midst of human drama. I could center myself in what I knew about power of peace, while being buffeted by emotional storms. I could refuse to be threatened by fear -- the fear that all we hold dear is vulnerable and so easily shattered by violence -- focusing instead on the presence of kindness, compassion, courage, and selflessness right in front of me. Nothing could distract me from seeing Love, God, in action.

Mary Baker Eddy once wrote:

“No evidence before the material senses

can close my eyes to the scientific proof 

that God, good, is supreme.

Love is especially near in times of hate, 

and never so near as when one can be just 

amid lawlessness, and render good for evil.” 

This statement was a lifeline in the days following the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. It helped me stay focused on the evidence of good all around us during long days spent counseling students, parents, faculty, staff, and neighbors at a nearby church. They'd opened their doors to those who were seeking pastoral care and counseling -- and those of us who were privileged to serve.

Over and over again I could hear the song of angels as a caregiver opened his/her heart to someone in need. Few volunteers were prepared for what they faced, but they were there day-after-day -- on their knees in humble affection and service -- silent, prayerful, willing to listen, and hoping to bring comfort. And almost invariably we were led by the Holy Spirit to turn one another towards the light of Love -- the indomitable power of compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. This was the inner reservoir that each of us -- volunteer and "victims" alike -- drew upon to find freedom from anger, resentment, anguish, and fear.

Nothing -- and no one -- can close our eyes to the presence of love in the midst of hate, mercy when revenge screams loudest, courage where self-preservation seems most instinctual, and compassion in the face of fear's vain alarms.

I've learned that it's pretty easy to "love mercy" when we are the ones who have said something hurtful, done something unkind, or made a mistake that affects others. But to "love mercy" -- when we feel so sure that forgiveness is the last thing the recipient deserves -- well, that's divinity embracing, and elevating, humanity. And perhaps it's the kind of transcendent love that Mary Baker Eddy is talking about when she writes:

"Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven."

In these times of trial -- when there is an invitation to be shattered by events that make no sense -- we can allow something larger to break forth into being. To begin to unfurl the soft-winged dove within us. And a new sense of love breathes itself into life.

Divine Love takes what seemed shattering, and reclaims it for a holy purpose -- a bursting forth. It releases us from the shell of who we thought we were -- with its false limits of loving, our "thus far and no fathers," to reveal what is inherent, divinely natural, ever-present -- our infinite capacity to understand and forgive. To love mercy.

It'a not always easy, but this call to "love mercy" offers us an extraordinary lens on humanity and divinity -- coincident within us. Since, as Eddy says, "Love alone is Life," when we take back our right to love, we lay hold on our divine right to live fully.

Tonight I pray we all glimpse something of this miracle in ourselves and one another. I can't think of anything more empowering and beautiful -- or more healing.



offered with Love,

Kate

"Don't try so hard..."

"God gives you grace,
and you can't earn it.
Don't think that you
don't deserve it..."

Sometimes a song comes along that says exactly what is in your heart. Amy Grant's new song "Don't Try So Hard" featuring James Taylor, is the perfect coalescence of message -- and messengers -- for me. It "had me" at hello.

I clearly remember the moment -- as a child -- when I began to think that my life depended on pleasing everyone around me. Perfect grades, an immaculate room, sparkling dishes, seen - but not heard, obedient, every hair in place -- were the key to survival. It was my job to earn respect, love, acceptance, approval, tolerance.

I also remember the day -- as a woman -- when I began to consider a different truth. Grace -- the unearned love of God,  my divine Parent, my Maker - who is my Husband, the Friend of the friendless. It was the day I began to trust the power and presence of grace operating as an active agent in the collective heart of universal humanity.

Webster defines grace as "the divine influence on the heart, and its reflection on the life." Amy's sense of grace as unearned and irresistible, has taken an even deeper hold in my heart.

When I hear her song I can't help but think of the older brother in Jesus' story of The Prodigal son. He thinks he has had to earn his father's love, acceptance, gifts -- the reward of the faithful. But it was always all his...and his brother's.

Their father's love wasn't proffered (or held back) as a reaction to their good (or bad) behavior. His love was part and parcel to his very nature as their father. He wasn't asking them to prove their right to his love, thereby giving him permission to love them. It was just who he was and what a father does. And it is just who God is -- and what He does. God is Love.

I will let Amy's song, "Don't Try So Hard" be my prayer of grace -- for each of us today.

shared with Love,

Kate

"The honest cries of breaking hearts..."

"The tears of shame for what's been done,
the silence when the words won't come,
are better than a Hallelujah sometimes...

We pour out our miseries.
God just hears a melody.
Beautiful, the mess we are.
The honest cries of breaking hearts,
are better than a Hallelujah sometimes..."

If you know, or love, someone like me...someone who persistently longs to experience God's tender mercies -- the uncommon grace found hidden in a common moment -- listening to Amy Grant's, "Better Than a Hallelujah," might just give rise to something unexpected and holy...bursting from your heart.

That afternoon may have felt like a thousand other springs in suburban St. Louis for the people I ran into.  Dogwood trees carried umbrellas of delicate pink and white blossoms.  The grass, sprinkled with wild violets, was as green as Easter basket cellophane, and the breeze was a silky 71 degrees that floated over your skin like a vintage slipdress.

Mothers picked up toddlers from preschool, track coaches held stopwatches on the sidelines, and I stood in the doorway of a building I never thought I'd feel welcome in again.  But I was.  I was greeted with warmth, embraced with fondness, treated with respect, and ushered in with courtesy.

I am sure that, for everyone I met, their gestures of friendship and kindness were just "business as usual"...a commonplace occurrence in the course of their day.  But for me it was the rolling away of a stone on my heart.  It was a holy day, a day of mercy, a moment of grace, a resurrection within, an Easter Sunday on a Tuesday afternoon.

Afterwards, I returned to my car...and wept honest tears of gratitude, and love...love, not just for God, whose tender mercies have taken me apart and put me back together in ways I will never be able to fully explain, but for each moment of human kindness I've experienced on my journey towards that threshold.  Without those, I would never have had the courage to face my fears, overcome self-doubt, and walk out of the tomb of my own making.

So, as you move into this weekend...I invite you to look for ways to be the expression of the Prodigal's father...eyes on the horizon, expectant of innocence, prepared to run towards the weary child, to envelope him/her in a warm embrace, and welcome them home....

...with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"El Shaddai...we will praise and lift you high...."

"...Through your love
and through your plan,
You saved the son of Abraham;
Through the power of your hand,
You turned the sea into dry land.
To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees,
And by Your might,
You set Your children free.

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El-Elyon na Adonia,
Age to age You're still the same,
by the power of the name.

El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkamka na Adonai,
We will praise and lift You high,
El Shaddai."

Sometimes the answers to our most persistent questions come in such serendipitous ways. 

Two, seemingly random, questions were on my heart. What to write about in honor of Mother’s Day (without gushing over my own mother, children, or grandchild), andAbraham’s journey up Mount Moriah.

As to the latter, I’ve been walking around with Abraham in my heart, for the last few days. Asked by God to trust His steady, loving hand in all things, Abraham was urged to take his own young son, Isaac on, what must have been, the most heartwrenching “Sophie’s Choice” hike of Abraham’s life.

He was being called upon, by “the God of his fathers,” to lay his son on the altar, and offer his sweet innocent life, as a sin offering. I can’t even imagine the mental space this man must have been in as he took each step in their ascent.

And then the question pokes through with perplexity and horror, “where was this boy’s mother?”

But back to my story...

Okay, so I'm hiking Moriah with Abraham and Isaac, worried about this little boy (since I am not allowing myself the luxury of knowing the end of the story...I really want to be with them in that space for a while) and I am listening to the son asking his father benign questions, and Abraham's distracted responses.  It is hot, dusty, and the air is heavy with the father's pain.  I am an observer, a listener.  But that was when the sweet strains of  "El Shaddai" start sweeping through me like a cool clear breeze.  I can hear the music, but I want the words, so I can sing along in Hebrew. 

So I go to my computer, and since my last Youtube search was for a song by contemporary Christian artist, Michael Card, the first "El Shaddai" video that comes up is not my "go to" Amy Grant version, but a Michael Card performance. 

Stay with me here...this is where it gets all goose-fleshy for me.  So, I thinks to myself, "hmmm...I like Michael Card - a lot - and I wonder what his version sounds like?"

Now this thinking is not very Kate-like.   Kate seems to like-what-she-likes, and doesn't go off-roading in her preferences much.  If she finds something she likes at a restaurant, she never orders anything different...ever again, at that restaurant.  When she finds a piece of clothing she likes, she buys three of it, and wears it every day.  

And when I find a version of a song I like best, I pretty much never listen to any other performance of it...unless I am tricked, or gently led (like finding Sarah McLaughlin’s version of “Blackbird” on the “I am Sam” CD) into it.   Not this time though.

This was a case of, "hmmm...I wonder what Michael Card will do with this song?"  Very open-minded for me.

Now, I have to say here, that "El Shaddai" is one of my favorite spiritual songs.  I happen to love hearing Hebrew sung.  But whenever I have heard "El Shaddai," I always think of a Judeaic God who is very Fatherly.  Well, with regard to this moment, that made sense...right...I am thinking about Abraham and his relationship to his son, Isaac.

But as you will see in the video clip, I was in for the loveliest surprise.  Out of the blue, comes the hauntingly lush voice of my loved Sara Groves, and suddenly, I can actually hear the voice of the absent mother, Sarah, singing to her husband and son.  And, no surprise to anyone who knows my relationship to scripture-based songs, I am weeping. 

In this moment of grace, "El Shaddai" becomes the lullaby of a mother.  This, once for me, very masculine song (even when sung by Amy Grant) is as gentle and tender as a heartbeat, a mother braiding her daughter's hair, bathing her child's fevered brow, soothing a lost lamb.

So, I am thinking, "Have I ever even looked up the meaning of the Hebrew words, "El Shaddai?"  Hmmm, not sure.  But I can always look them up again...so I do. 

And again, the weeping. 

My research follows:

"El-Shaddai means God Almighty. El points to the power of God.  Shaddai seems to be derived from another word meaning breast, which implies that Shaddai signifies one who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies. It is God as El who helps, but it is God as Shaddai who abundantly blesses with all manner of blessings.

Scholar Harriet Lutzky links 'Shaddai' with the Hebrew 'shad' meaning "breast" giving the meaning "the one of the Breast," just as 'Asherah at Ugarit' is 'the one of the Womb.'

In Genesis (49:25) the Hebrew reads 'El Shaddai will bless you with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts [shadayim] and of the womb [racham].'"

Oh my goodness, the boy's divine Mother was with them all the way up that mountain, at the altar, finding the ram, and singing to them as they "skipped as little lambs"...father and son...down Mount Moriah, with gratitude and joy.  I can just imagine Sarah, the manifestation of that Mother-love, waiting for them at the trailhead, confidently trusting the Source of her mother-love to bring them home...whole, holy, and blessed. 

Happy Mother's Day to each of us...let us honor the Mother who continually seeks us out on our journeys, walks our path with us, waits to greet us, and sings to us of Her love and strength, day-by-day. And may we each, as Mary Baker Eddy encourages us in her reference to Love's healing presence in our lives, feel ourselves innocently, trustingly, devotedly, hungrily as:

“the babe that twines its loving arms about the
neck of omnipotence, and calls forth infinite care from [Her] loving heart.”

always with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet..."

"...I will not forget,
your love for me and yet,
my heart's forever wandering...

...Nothing will I fear,
as long as you are near,
please be near me to the end.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet
and a light unto my path."

I was listening to Krista Tippett's provocative interview with South Africa's Nobel Prize winning Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, last Sunday, and had one of those "driveway moments" when getting out of the car, to go into church, was like prying a clinging abalone shell from a coral reef...and I was the one doing the prying. 

I had to remind myself that the very message that had me clinging to the dashboard like a bi-valve, to hear just one more minute of the interview, was the exact reason I needed to get out of the car...the Bible, the living, breathing, palpating, life-transforming and empowering Word of God. 

If you weren't able to catch "Speaking of Faith" last Sunday, I highly recommend listening to the podcast of Krista's interview.   But I digress...ever so slightly, but a digression nonetheless.

Just to set the stage. We were well ahead of the game on Sunday morning.  I was scheduled to conduct our Sunday service that week, and we were on the road in plenty of time to get to church, lay out my books, write the hymn numbers on the white boards, and settle into my chair so that I could say "howdy" to well-loved friends, while we greeted visitors coming through the door.

But, I made the mistake I make every Sunday.  I turned on NPR and I was hooked.  When Krista introduced her guest, I knew this would be an especially difficult "driveway moment."  As regular readers know, I am smitten by all things related to the spiritual lives, and stories, of those who lived through South Africa's apartheid era of attempted minority rule, racial domination, the suppression of a aboriginal "voice", and the oppression of basic human rights.  My relationship to South Africa goes very deep.

For me, the lives of men and women like Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and my dear friend Dorothy Maubane continue to be an inspiration of spiritual poise, unconditional love, a faith that can move mountains of hate, and a sense of forgiveness that has the power to dissolve vengeance.

When I heard Tutu's unmistakable voice I felt a great knot of emotion fill my throat, and knew this was going to be a difficult morning of getting Kate out of the car and into "Sunday School"...

His interview was barely out of the gate, when, in talking about the role of the Bible in his life as an Apartheid era South African he replied:

"If these people had wanted to keep us oppressed,
they shouldn't have given us the Bible." 

He went on to relate how the Bible is the quintessential guidebook for emancipation, freedom, and liberty.  How the Bible is packed full of stories about "a people" who were oppressed, broken and enslaved, finding freedom through an understanding of their intrinsic worth as the image and likeness of God.   He said, "Discovering that the Bible could be such dynamite....The many parts of the Bible that were so germaine, so utterly to the point for us.  When you discover that Apartheid sought to mislead people into believing that what gave value to human beings was a biological irrelevance,  really, skin color or ethnicity.  And you saw how the Scriptures say it is because we are ceated in the image of God,  that each one of us is a God-carrier.  No matter what our physical circumstances may be, no matter how awful or deprived you may be, it doesn't take away from you this intrinsic worth as the image of God."

He went on to help me see,  that the very "apartheid laws" that said one popluation was of less worth...based on race...laws that were the basis for allowing "whites" to exercise dominance over tribal southern Africans, those "laws" of genetic predisposition to racial dominance, are, when exercised spiritually, are the basis for emancipation under the law of God that say that man (all men, women, and children) are "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ."

He told us, as listeners, about women in his small Soweto congregation...housekeepers, launderers, maids, and cooks...who had been deprived of their given names by their employers, tribal names that were deemed too difficult to pronounce, and had been renamed "Annie," or, in the case of most men, "boy."   These women were his parishioners, but they were also women whose very spirits seemed broken, heavy-burdenened, and tired with labor.  In his sermons and in private conversations, He would say to them:

"When they ask you 'who are you?'  Say, 'Me, I am a God-carrier.  I am God's partner.  I am created in the image of God."

Tutu went on to say that these women would walk out of church on cloud nine, with their backs slightly straighter.  "Each one of us," he said,  "is a God-carrier."  It was exhilerating to see...it was amazing. 

The Bible.  The Word.  The very thing that the early sub-African British and European missionaries came to disseminate, the very religiously superior reasoning for oppression, the very thing that "Christian Europeans" felt gave them the upper spiritual hand in suppressing the traditions, cultures, lives of native populations...calling them infidels and savages...was the very key to their true, and lasting, authoritative emancipation from oppression.  

Amy Grant and Micahel W. Smith sing "The Word is a Lamp unto My Feet" with a new message for me this morning as I write this.  

But Sunday morning, when I heard the authority of voice, the confidence of spirit, the inspired cry to rise against oppression, with which Desmond Tutu spoke of the Bible's promise, I could no longer sit in the car. 

I felt that moment's calling.  The weary bridge-builder, the peace marcher, the human rights advocate, the spiritual "feminist," the environmental activist in me absolutely flew out of that car.  Nothing was going to stop me from sharing The Word with anyone who was willing to hear its pure, clear, refreshing, revitalizing, restorative, recuperative, invigorating, rallying cry of spiritual self-governance, emancipation, and freedom from oppression, victimization, or discouragement.

I will repeat what, for me, was Desmond Tutu's gift to a world confused about what to do next.  How to respond, spiritually, to a world at war, in financial crisis, afraid of its neighbors, and feeling victimized by natural disasters and corporate greed:

"If 'these people' had wanted to keep us oppressed,
then they should never have given us the Bible."

It's really never about oppressive people, it's about oppressive beliefs, suggestions, concepts that would demoralize, stratify, and separate us into haves and have nots, good and bad, right and wrong...or even, right and left.  But when we can rip off the mask of it being about different kinds of people and take up arms against the beliefs that are causing us to take sides against one another's freedom, success, and peace of mind, we are can truly live as "joint heirs with Christ" and eliminate the apartheid, apartness, that is always at the heart of what will steal our freedom and oppress our spiritual right to live as brothers and sisters with one Father-Mother, God. 

Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Citizens of the world, accept the glorious liberty
of the children of God, and be free, this is your divine right."

Today I am singing a new protest song with Michael, and Amy, and anyone else who loves this message of hope and freedom:

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path..."

And it is. The Bible (which is the Scripture of my faith tradition, but certainly not the only scripture filled with inspiration for anyone longing for a spiritual path to freedom) is full of stories of promise and encouragement. The Israelites at the edge of the Red Sea, Joseph held in Pharoah's prison, Job convicted by opinion, David enslaved by the shackles of regret and remorse, Jesus walking through the angry crowds untouched, Peter finding freedom...through Christ's precious love...from the chains of guilt and self-doubt. Stories of hope and deliverance. It chronicles the accounts of women, and men who, like Jesus, remembered what was "written," and stood on the promise of what "could not God do."

Thank you Krista, Desmond, and all who have knowingly, or perhaps even unwittingly, shared "the Word" through your life, your witness, your mission...you have given someone a window on their God-bestowed and God-defended freedom...the key to their own emancipation.

with loving hope,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS