"we have done this hard thing..."

"there at the table
with my head in my hands..."

I wrote the following post on the day of the inauguration in 2017.  I was bereft.  Clarissa's message of hope has given me courage and patience throughout the last four years.  These were some of the hardest years of my life.  There were times when I didn't think I would survive them.  I have.  We have.  

I have had my trust in human decency tested.  I have wept in horror, and I have felt deflated by the complete disregard for our responsibility to one another.  I have prayed through long nights of pain and sorrow over the separation of children and their parents at the border.  I have been on my knees more than on my feet.  But through it all, I have trusted that with God, only good was possible.

Returning to this post today - four years later - has been important.  I am not the same person who wrote it.  I am softer.  I hope I am kinder.  I pray I am more resilient,  I know I am more trusting.  I made it.  There were times when I didn't think I would.  But here we are.  We have done this hard thing.  

I know I have used Carrie Newcomer's beautiful, "You Can Do This Hard Thing before. But it is the only song that feels right for keynoting this guest post by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which speaks so perfectly to the challenge of these times -- and what we are capable of.

I am sitting here at the kitchen table.  It is well before dawn on the day of Martin Luther King's birthday. I just couldn't sleep. This week will make unique demands upon us for a deep spiritual poise.  I could almost feel the heart of humanity pulsing in the quiet. I believe that many of us are wrestling with some hard questions about this moment in history.  After hours of prayer, I opened my laptop, only to discover this remarkable piece. It was the perfect answer.

I can't remember -- in more than 700 posts on this blog, stretching over 12 years -- ever re-posting someone else's piece in its entirety. But Estes' article, "We Were Made for These Times," copied below, says it all so beautifully - and with such profound grace - that I needed to share it with those I love. I hope it edifies your hope, strengthens your resolve, and reminds you that you, too, were made for these times.

We Were Made for These Times
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."

I am so grateful to Clarissa Pinkola Estes -- author of Women Who Run with Wolves -- for sharing her heart, her wisdom, and her compassion with us through this piece. I will let it seep into my heart and refresh my holy purpose.  We can do this hard thing, because we were made for these times.

offered with Love,

Kate

"i believe..."

"I believe most folks
are doing about the best they can;

and I know there are some things
that I will never understand..."

It must be Carrie Newcomer season in my heart. I can't seem to get enough of her lyrics or her music. Her beautiful  "I Believe,"  reminds me of something my husband often says:

"Everyone is doing the best they can
with the information and experience
they have to date."

It's become an axiom for me. I return to it whenever I feel exasperated by someone's choices, words, or actions - even my own. I am doing the best I know how, based on the information and experience I have to date - at each moment.

None of us is intentionally doing our worst. I truly believe that.

I don't think I could live in a world where I thought that people were intentionally setting out to hurt, trick, use, or abuse others. Where people could "go rogue," and had the self-determinism and power to extricate themselves from God's omnipotent control.

But, there are days when holding-my-toes-to-the-fire of really living this Truth is difficult and painful. There are times when injustices feel intentional, and unkindnesses seem deliberate. When greed appears to rule over charity, and lust for power over humility. But even then, I know what I believe. And I believe that God is supreme. Always supreme - not just when someone consents to His sovereignty.

For you see, this is not about another person's choices or actions - for me. It is about my relationship to God. Do I believe that He is all-powerful? Do I trust His promise that we are all His children? Do I honestly believe that we are made in His image and likeness? Governed by love? Our affections enriched by His Word?

Anything less is a violation of my love for Him, and my trust in His care. And isn't this the most vital act of love for God - to trust Him? As a parent, there is nothing more loving than to have our children can say, "I trust you mom."

Well, I trust You, dear Father-Mother God. I trust that You have all of Your children under Your divine care. That each of us is learning lessons that may not be clear to us when we look at one another's path from the outside. Who am I to judge another person's journey.  The arrogant may be on their way to a remarkable lesson in humility. The greedy to learn something new about charity.

I have to trust our common Father to know the lessons we each need on our journey from sense to Soul. From seeing things through the distorted filter of personal sense, to experiencing life through a clear God-centered lens of love and trust.

In her Manual of The Mother Church, Mary Baker Eddy shares this "Daily Prayer" under the Article "Discipline" for members:

"Thy kingdom come let the reign
of divine Truth, Life, and Love,
be established in me
and rule out of me all sin,
and may Thy Word enrich the affections
of all mankind and govern them."

This prayer is with me all day, every day. It brings focus to my discipleship. It shows me whose sins I should be aware of, and addressing -- mine. And then it encourages me to leave the affections of others, to God's care and government.

What we love determines who we are. I can leave mankind's love for charity over greed, patience over frustration, integrity over corruption, kindness over absorbed self-interest - to God. To God's Word speaking directly to every man, woman, and child's consciousness.

This prayer, coupled with my husband's constant reminder that "we are all doing the best we know how with the information and experience we have - to date," - has brought me much-needed peace in these troubled times.

God is informing each of us, and He is giving us experiences that will soften and strengthen our hearts. And as brothers and sisters in Christ, we can inform our neighbors about value of consideration, honesty, thoughtfulness, integrity -- not by our words, but by our actions. And in shared loving company we add to to one another's library of experiences to draw upon. For, in the words of Ram Dass, aren't we all just "walking each other home?"  

This is what I believe.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"i am the cup..."

"i am the cup,
mended and washed,
i am the true container
for all that I've lost;

"for all that i've lost
and gathered again,
is only what hangs in the air,
when the music ends..."

 Carrie Newcomer's  "Visitation,"  speaks to me today, in a much different way than it did earlier this month.

You see, I wrote a post with this song - and title - two weeks ago.  But Blogger changed it's editing and formatting platform this week, and for some reason that post disappeared.  So I have no record of what it said.  But this is the perfect metaphor for what I want to say today. 

I am not who I was two weeks.  I am new.  You are new.  We are listening to this song, writing this post, and reading it from a completely new space of spiritual discovery.  

I think about the clay that sits in the palm of my hand before a prayer takes form in a vessel - a cup - that will hold something yet unknown.  

So today, let yourself be new.  Let your prayers be new.  Let them be free of your words. Let them be the song of divine Love whispering her fresh messages to you.  As our toddler daughter once said to me: 

"Mommy,
when I pray
I don't think,
I listen."

 May your prayers be full of deep listening and less thinking. 

with Love, 

Cate 

"in the quietness of now..."

"oh, abide with me,
where it's breathless and it's empty;

yes, abide with me,
and we'll pass the evening gently;

stay awake with me,
and we'll listen more intently..."

Oh, Carrie.

Carrie Newcomer's  "Abide,"  is a most perfect description of the shared silence I so value in our marriage.

There are many day -- and even more nights -- where we share the space of our small home without sharing words. And yet, I have rarely felt so completely heard, understood, and known.

It is this "quietness of now" which allows each of us to serve our communities in the ways that we are most inspired to do -- moment-by-moment. I feel loved and supported in the deep silence of this space we occupy together.

To know that the person I am with, is listening into the quiet - with me - is such a comfort.  And it brings great peace.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her 1898 communion message:

"My sense of nature's rich glooms is, that loneness lacks but one charm to make it half divine — a friend, with whom to whisper, “Solitude is sweet.” Certain moods of mind find an indefinable pleasure in stillness, soft, silent as the storm's sudden hush; for nature's stillness is voiced with a hum of harmony, the gentle murmur of early morn, the evening's closing vespers, and lyre of bird and brooklet.

“O sacred solitude! divine retreat!"

I have been so blessed to have a life partner, children, dogs, and a friend, who share my love for simplicity, solitude, and silence. In these relationships, I have found the most profound kind of companionship. They are my sanctuary - my home.

I feel blessed -- pure and simple. I feel so blessed.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"til I can carry on..."

"Will you remember,
and bring me sprigs of rosemary
be my sanctuary,
til I can carry on,
carry on, carry on..."

Hearing Carrie Newcomer's "Sanctuary," my heart was immediately filled with appreciation for those who have held me during dark days of doubt, pain, or fear -- and sometimes all three.

The more I thought about what made each of them a sanctuary in my darkest hour, the more I realized it was their silence. Their willingness to just sit with me, pray with me, let me weep, or simply let me be quiet without comment. To let me discover the lesson that was waiting in that moment. Yes, this is what made their presence feel like a safe place -- a place of refuge.

Too many times we try to find the right words. Words that will fix their problems, eliminate the source of their sorrow, fill their emptiness, or assuage their grief. Often, words are only a bandaid for our own fear that we have nothing to give. When so many times, what is most needed, is not found in human platitudes -- however lovingly proffered.

In those moments, what our hearts most cry out for -- is to know that we are not alone. For someone to help us wait in the silence for the real answers -- the ones that can only be found within the vast wellspring of what feels like our own breaking heart. Answers that come from this deep spiritual interiority, are the only answers that sustain us, restore our hope, and endure beyond a conversation. These are the answers we feel versus hear. These are the answers that are ours alone.

When the adoption of our first child changed course and his birthmother decided to parent him herself, there was nothing anyone could have said that would have staunched the hemorrhaging of my heart. I had prayed with him, slept with him, sung him lullabies, and fed him by the light of the moon. My heart hadn't waited.  It hadn't held back just because we we'd yet to secure the final legalization of his adoption. He was my son. I loved him.  I felt inconsolable.

After he no longer occupied his nursery, I was bereft.  One day, a very dear friend came by, and quietly helped me pack up the gifts we'd received - toys and small clothing - and send them to his mom.  Once we'd re-boxed the soft mobile, moved the bassinet to the garage, and folded the sheets, she gave me a long hug and then sat with me while I cried.   After she left, I found a notecard, with nothing but this statement from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, handwritten in her careful script.  It read:

"In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings,
we must deny sin, and plead God's allness..."
 

She hadn't said more than a few sentences during our entire morning together.  But she knew my heart.  She knew, that for me, the word "sin," represented anything that would try to convince me that I (or anyone else) was separated from the love of God. My friend didn't need to say anything more.

She didn't need to share with me her own sorrow over our loss, she didn't need to assure me that another child would come along, she didn't need to remind me that I'd done nothing wrong, or that what had happened to us was terrible. She just needed to point me in the direction of that quiet sanctuary of earnest longings.

From that moment on, when the sympathy of others was too much to bear, I knew where to go, and what to do. And when the loneliness of an empty nursery crashed like waves upon my heart -- it was her quiet heart that I turned to, and found refuge in.

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give one another is the gift of silence, the gift of listening without the need to fix the problem or fill in the holes where words would seem to fit so nicely.

To every friend who has every let me weep in her arms, or has just been willing to sit by the river with me, and say nothing -- thank you.

I love this verse from Carrie's song:

"This one knocked me to the ground.
this one dropped me to my knees.
I should have seen it coming
but it surprised me.

Will you be my refuge,
my haven in the storm?
Will you keep the embers warm,
when my fire's all but gone,
all but gone..."
 

It's the question we ask with our tears. And it is the question that is answered by sisters, brothers, pastors, neighbors, friends, practitioners, nurses, emergency personnel, parents, teachers, residence counselors, hospice volunteers, and so many others who are willing to stop, be still, and let us feel the presence of something shared in the space of that silence. And I -- for one -- am so deeply grateful.

offered with Love and profound gratitude,
Kate

"stand up and show your soul..."

"there at the table
with my head in my hands..."

I know I have used Carrie Newcomer's beautiful, "You Can Do This Hard Thing before. But it is the only song that feels right for keynoting this guest post by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which speaks so perfectly to the challenge of these times -- and what we are capable of.

I was sitting there at the kitchen table.  It was well before dawn on the day of Martin Luther King's birthday. I just couldn't sleep. This week would make unique demands upon us for a deep spiritual poise.  I could almost feel the heart of humanity pulsing in the quiet. I believe that many of us are wrestling with some hard questions about this moment in history.  After hours of prayer, I opened my laptop, only to discover this remarkable piece. It was the perfect answer.

I can't remember -- in more than 750 posts on this blog, stretching over 15 years -- ever re-posting someone else's piece - in its entirety. But Estes' article, "We Were Made for These Times," copied below, says it all so beautifully - and with such profound grace - that I needed to share it with those I love. I hope it edifies your hope, strengthens your resolve, and reminds you that you, too, were made for these times.

We Were Made for These Times
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."

I am so grateful to Clarissa Pinkola Estes -- author of Women Who Run with Wolves -- for sharing her heart, her wisdom, and her compassion with us through this piece. I will let it seep into my heart and refresh my holy purpose.  We can do this hard thing, because we were made for these times.

offered with Love,

Kate

"it's all a part of sacrament..."

"it's all a part
of sacrament,
as holy as
the day is spent..."

Oh Carrie, you never let me down. When I need a song to speak my heart, I can always find one in your catalog. Thank you for "Holy as the Day is Spent," It is perfect.

I don't know if there will eventually be a song to go with this post -- if one come, wonderful. I will have posted it above, if you are reading this.  However, this piece is not song-driven, but love-demanded. It is a post of gratitude.

Sometimes a friend's contribution to the color of our lives is profound, but deeply subtle. Her impact on me is just that -- profoundly subtle, but infinitely rich.

You see, when I met her, I was older, but she was wiser and more sophisticated in ways that I didn't even know existed. The woman I am today, wears the impress of her love for all things beautiful.

I grew up in a house without art. Or at least that is my memory. I remember there were two paintings on canvas boards that were hidden away in a box.  They were from my mother's brief exploration into the world of painting as a child. But I cannot remember any other artwork on our walls, save the refrigerator art of 8 children.

By the time I met her, my collection of artwork was limited to a few framed prints and a wooden deer that an old friend had carved from a piece of maple he'd found in the Maine woods. I didn't know, what I didn't know. And I didn't know what it meant to love -- what I'd rarely been exposed to -- original works of art in a private home.  Oh, I was very aware of museum art.  But real people didn't own paintings, they only owned prints of paintings that hung in museums.

But my friend knew that original art was accessible, and rather than make fun of my "collection," she began to introduce me to her love for the way light catches the texture of actual paint on canvas. She sowed in me a love for the rich colors found in textile antiquities.  She cultivated in my heart a hunger for original works of sculpture that could be touched and held in your hands -- rather than just look at from the other side of a velvet rope at the Museum of Fine Arts.

We never talked about it. Her cultural awareness, my naivety -- but it was always there.  This actually surprises me today.  I was shy, but I was also quite eager to learn. I think that by the time we could have discussed it, I was too embarrassed to tell her that the framed Sargent print I'd purchased at the MFA Gift shop, was the finest piece of art I'd ever owned. So, I just watched her navigate the world of real art. And I watched with the absorbed interest of an acolyte.  I wanted to know everything, and she was generous with her sharing.

I remember the first original piece of art I purchased for my own space. It was a small oil on canvas by a young artist whose work made my heart tighten -- and I loved it. From there I branched into larger pieces with a bolder confidence in my own preferences for color, subject-matter, texture.

Before I knew it, I'd discovered the joy of patronage. To find a young artist whose work delighted my soul, and to begin  collecting, or gifting, his/her original work.

I remember asking my husband once if there was anything that he had always wanted -- thinking he might describe for me a particular model of car, or a signature guitar. But he became very quiet and told me that he had always wanted to own a painting by a childhood friend who had become a fine artist. He loved his work. That sealed eternity for us in my heart. And although gifting him with that painting took a couple of years, it is still one of my favorite moments in our marriage.

Now you may think that this is a strange post for someone who writes about the intersection of the spiritual and the visceral. The collision of the inner landscape with the outward experience. But that is just what this post is about.

For me, art is a sacrament. Webster defines "sacrament" as:

“an outward and visible sign,
of an inward or spiritual grace..."
 

Yes, this is what this post is all about. It is about a woman who introduced me to the sacrament of beauty. The "beauty of holiness.:  She could have left me to my own sensibilities. But instead she shared with me her love for what had life and texture, visual pathos and poetry.  I love her.  I think of her each time I escape into the deep and sacred space of a Brooks Anderson landscape, a Melissa Miller sky, a Caitlin Heimerl vista, a Debra Myers abstract, a Nancy Pollack "equation," a Carol Carter bird-in-flight, a Lillian Sly floral, or a Duncan Martin shoreline.

Today, our few walls are lined with the paintings of artists we love -- and believe in. Some have been purchased on a "whim" and others on installment plans. While we drive old cars, and buy most other things at resale/consignment shops, we invest in art. We invest in the birth of beauty, rising from the hearts and hands of those who are boldly and courageously willing to share their inner landscape with us. 

I cannot begin to say how grateful I am for the kindness my friend showed me in taking me to her favorite galleries, lunching with me at the Museum of Fine Arts - while discussing a recent exhibit, allowing me to hang her textile fragments in my office, introducing me to Shaker simplicity, or sharing her love of texture and color with me as if I were her peer in appreciating art. It changed me.

And yes, there is now a song. You may have noticed.

offered with Love - and fathomless gratitude to you -- my dear friend,

Kate

"all that I have written, seems like straw..."

"All that I have written,
seems like straw to me..."

- Thomas Aquinas

So begins Parker Palmer's essay, "Does my life have meaning?" -- which the blogsite, dumbofeather.com, excerpted as a post. If you have a moment, it is a wonderful read.

I love Parker J. Palmer's writing. And his recent collaboration with Carrie Newcomer has enriched my spiritual life greatly. Their pairing of prose and music feeds the soul. I hear it in their song,  "Abide."  It points to the fertile space of shared silence.

Now back to this post. There is something about Aquinas' statement:

"All that I have written

seems like straw to me."

that makes me feel lighter and breathe more easily. To know that what I have written doesn't have to stand for decades. That I don't have to say it perfectly. I only have to say it. This is so wonderful.

For too many years I thought I had to find my voice, leave a legacy, share a message. I don't. I only have to speak the truth. To live my life honestly. To write only what divine Love has put in my heart, and in my pen -- and then let it be. I don't have to explain it. I don't have to even understand it. I just have to trust its Source.

This is what maturity has taught me. Truth can't be owned. Love can't be possessed. Soul is impersonal. Spirit cannot be contained. There is no such thing as "my idea."

You might think this realization would be deflating -- on the contrary, I have never felt so buoyed. I don't have to concern myself with making it perfect. I get to watch it -- whatever "it" is -- find its purpose, audience, resonance, and evolution with a sweet sense of spiritual trust and detachment.

Yes, all that I have written does seem like straw. But not in a bad way. 

Not long ago my friend Bobby Lewis was sharing some ideas with a group of students about Jesus' parable of the tares and the wheat. In this beautiful message story we are told that, at the time of the harvest, the servants will bind the tares [straw-like weeds] into bundles to burn them.

I'd always thought that this meant that the tares were something bad to be destroyed. But Bobby reminded the class that in a desert culture, finding kindling to start a fire was near impossible. Dried tares, that had been bound in bundles, would be quite valuable for starting fires.

These days, that is how I think of the words that I write. For a  moment, some will find a hungry heart. But for the most part, they will serve as kindling for some new poet with a heart full of fresh fire.

I am good with this. It makes me happy. That is enough meaning for me.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"to see past this horizon..."

"All the things
that used to matter,
they don't mean so much today;
Toss the seeds and watch them scatter.
The birds and wind take them away,
till there is nothing in my way.

I can't see past this horizon,
I can't say what's waiting there.
I never sang 'cause I knew something,
I sang because it was a prayer.
The finest one that I could bear..."

Carrie Newcomer's new song, "On the Brink of Everything," inspired by Parker J. Palmer's book of the same title, had me at hello. Partly because it is Carrie, but also because it is so enigmatic and paradoxical.

The first time I listened to it, I was sure she was referring to being on the brink of self-discovery. Then I looked at the subtitle for Palmer's book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, and I wondered if it wasn't a reference to on the brink of "passing."  Finally, I gave up trying to figure it out. In truth, it just didn't matter. I only had to listen to it from where my own heart was. And for me, it was about being on the brink of a new horizon.

So I stepped back, and surveyed my own heart. I'd been climbing hard for a number of months. Bushwhacking through a jungle of self. Scrambling through a scree field of ego -- the ground constantly shifting as I uncovered yet one more instance of self-preservation -- my awkward stumble through all the I/me/mine-thinking. But I was above tree-line now. I could see the summit. I was on the brink.

But of what?

Absolutely nothing new.

Metaphorically, the "air" I was breathing was made up of the same elements -- oxygen, hydrogen [or spiritually, Life, Truth, and Love.] The Source of my thinking was unchanged. I was the reflection of the one Infinite Mind. All that this Mind included - intelligence, inspiration, insight - was still just as present and probe-able to me. I was not going to find more of anything -- anywhere.

All the Love that I had ever known was still with me. Love was never more present, more powerful, more attentive, or embracing in one moment or place, than another. The spiritual climb I had been on, had not made Love more accessible or intense. The view of the summit seemed closer. But in fact, if I could see it, it was really a false summit. Was I ever going to reach a place where I could rest from my desire to know more of the infinite nature of God's love.

So, what was I on the brink of? Perhaps this. Just this. An inscrutable knowing: that every footstep taken, puts us on the brink of the next footstep. There is no "arriving." We are already there.

We live at the standpoint of our oneness with divine Love. Every moment is another opportunity to look -- not above us, or ahead of us -- but next to us. To see, hear, feel, taste, and know that:

"the Lord is with me,
blessed am I...”

I remember the first time I fell in love. I didn't care where we went. I didn't care if we did anything. I didn't care when we got "there," -- or, even if we returned. I only cared that my hand was in his. I only cared that it was his voice I heard, his presence I was in. Wherever we were, whatever we were facing -- it was all good, because we were together.

Each step we took, we were on the brink of everything. We were on the verge of a moment where we would see something, and it would be new because we would be seeing it together -- through the lens of "us."

For me, this is this moment.

This very moment. For all of us. We are not on the brink of new careers, new relationships, new adventures -- big events and grand accomplishments. We are on the brink of one more step with our hand in the hand of the One we love. The One who loves us more than all the world. Because in our relationship with Him, there are no others. We are "all the world" to Him -- and He to us.

Just as a mother completely loves each of her children. So God completely loves each of us. We are not loved by God, in the context of "others." To our divine Father-Mother, there are no others. When I am with one of my daughters, I am not thinking of her, in the context of her sisters.  I am absolutely and completely with her. I am delighting in her.  I am focused on her.  And it is the same with her sisters.  As Hymn 237 promises, we are:

"one with Him, forever near...”

No comparisons. No competition. No rushing ahead to get out in front of the crowd. No scrambling through scree fields to be the first to plant our flag. Just step-by-step, hand-in-hand with the One we love.  And the One who loves us. Our eyes, not on "the summit," but on the face of our Beloved.  Together with Him, on the brink of everything -- one step at a time -- a whole new world of living love together. 

And if we really love Him, we will love what he loves.  We will look at ourselves with great affection.  We will spend time with His children - seeking to discover about them, what He knows and loves. Not rushing on to the next false summit.  We will linger in the moment -- listening to them, in the same the way that we listen to Him.

offered with Love,

Kate

"first we fold in, then open out...."

"first we fold in,
then open out;
there is a faith
that's only found in doubt..."

This post did not start as an idea clothed in words. It started as a feeling. And then a name. Carrie Newcomer. So I went to Youtube and pulled up Carrie's station. The title,  "The Point of Arrival," gave words to the feeling. So I listened to the song -- which I'd never heard before. Yes. That was it. The feeling now had a sound, and a shape.

Now for the words. I woke up this morning and it was the feeling of kicking a ball that came to me. Now this is quite funny. For one thing, it is because I don't have any relationship to balls -- soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs. As a child I was ball-averse. I very much disliked anything that had to do with balls.

It wasn't till our daughters became soccer, volleyball, and Polocrosse athletes that I saw any reason to change my relationship to balls of any sport. And, at best, it was a distant relationship. One of an observer with a foreign object that seemed to have no purpose other than to come hurtling through space at you -- at random speeds.

So for me to wake up with the feeling of kicking a ball was actually quite arresting. So, as I do with all strange feelings, I sat with it. Thought about it. Plumbed it for some spiritual meaning.

Carrie's song helped me find what I was listening for. It is a paradox. One of my favorite things about being a conscious being, is being able to recognize a paradox and ponder it deeply.

This morning's paradox is all about the motion of kicking a ball forward. One has to drawn back the foot, in order to add velocity and distance. If you try to kick a ball from a straight leg, stationary, starting point it doesn't have near the speed, precision, or trajectory. Try it.

I have been praying about the hundreds of young men and women who will soon be leaving summer camps for the next legs of their life journey. I have heard some version of trepidation in their individual and collective voices. "I feel safe here. What if I'm not as funny, selfless, purposeful, focused when I leave here? What if I get too busy to read Scripture? What if I forget how it feels to pray?"

This concern is filled with a desire.  And it voices itself as either a desire stay longer in the place they are in, or to not have to "go back" to the life that they left before summer began -- to return to towns, friendships, school settings where they did not feel that they had previously been as kind or spiritually confident as they have been at camp.

I understand this feeling. I am feeling it too. This summer has been all about God's trajectory for my life. I have said, "yes," to opportunities that in other years I might have found a way to sidestep. In some instances I have returned to places where I'd made grave mistakes in the past -- in order to find peace and resolution. In other instances I have stepped back from my personal preferences -- for example: I like dry air and cool night, I like familiarity, I want to be near my dogs -- in order to walk forward into opportunities that were completely without a roadmap.

For those of you who are natural adventurers this might seem like a walk in the park. For me, a spiritual homebody, it was like waking up from that dream.  You know, the one where you have gone to school in your pajamas - and then realized it wasn't a dream. You actually are in math class and everyone is whispering about your flannel nightie.

But what I have been feeling today - as I've embraced this adventure - is the feeling of kicking a ball. Each time I have drawn back -- whether it is to return to a place I need to find redemption and healing in, or from my sense of personality, I am moving forward into the next moment with greater freedom, purpose, strength, and precision. Each time I have folded in and dealt with a past mistake or a deep fear of the unknown -- I open out with a new grace.

And in that motion, there is an almost imperceptible pause between the drawing back, and the moving forward. An immeasurable, timeless moment where I feel God's presence and power. It is as if, for a quadtrillisecond, there is an absolute stillness filled with peace - just before I am sent forward into the next moment - of being at play in the fields of the Lord.

This post may not make any sense to you. I am sorry if that is the case. Perhaps, I am writing it for the sole purpose of watching the feeling take shape in words. I don't know if writing this is a drawing back, the sweet pause, or the hurtling forward. But I know I am feeling God-sent this morning.

Each camper and counselor, in every camp around the world, who has spent time in servant leadership and spiritual self-discovery will soon return - be drawn back into - schools, friendships, towns, families where they will be poised for the pause -- and then they will be sent forward into a world so ready for the young men and women they have become. "Children" who are wiser, gentler, less self-focused, more intentional. And we will all be better for their summer of vision and service.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"imposible - until it's not..."

"There’s light in the night,
from stars long gone;
A half-formed thought,
becomes a song;
We rise from our grief,
and go on;

It’s impossible. impossible.
Impossible, until its not..."

This afternoon I have been listening to a number of cuts from Carrie Newcomer's newest CD, "The Point of Arrival." But it was her song,  "Impossible Until Its Not," that stopped me in my tracks. It spoke to questions that, as a Christian Science practitioner, I hear all the time. Have you ever seen evidence of this particular healing, transformation of character, challenge overcome? How many times?

This is one of the reasons that I love understanding Christian Science as a law - rather than a therapeutic system of treatment for fixing problems.

As in the practice of criminal justice, one precedent-setting case is all that it takes to establish the inviolability of law. A good attorney knows his/her law library well enough to cite precedence when arguing his/her case before a judge. Once precedence has been established - and cited - the point at issue does not need to be argued. One rests one's case, and moves on.

I can't describe how many times a day I return, confidently, to this point of law. And I love that Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"When disease is once destroyed
in this so-called mind,
the fear of disease is gone,
and therefore the disease is thoroughly cured."

and

"When once destroyed by divine Science,
the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears."

Just once. All it takes is one precedent-setting case of spiritual superiority, and you can rest your case upon the inviolability of that Law -- for everyone. Wow!

I think about this all day -- everyday. I search the Scriptures and read little else in a desire to more fully steel myself against any lie that would say that God is not "supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual."

A burning bush that is not consumed -- the precedent for unconsumed resources. A once-dead son returned to his widowed mother's household -- a precedent-setting case that Jesus rested his own demonstration of eternal Life upon.  Proof of Life -- once-seen as spiritual law -- demonstrated as resurrection.  A limited sense of supply, eclipsed by Love's unwavering flow of individual and collective goodness.

In countless Bible stories, the chapter "Fruitage" in Science and Health, as well as in each recounted healing in Mary Baker Eddy's other writings, the articles and testimonies found in the monthly and weekly periodicals - the Christian Science Sentinel and Journal, healings shared during Wednesday testimony meetings -- all are precedent-setting cases that we can rest our trust upon.

Last week there was a story in The New York Times - "A Woman, 71, Doesn't Feel Pain. Now, Scientists, Know Why: Mutation." It caught my attention immediately. Ahh yes, another recorded instance of the superiority of Soul over sense -- precedence.

Whether or not "scientists" had assigned a reasonable narrative to her lifelong freedom from pain -- relegating it to a gene mutation, or not - it has happened.  The article goes on to discuss Ms. Cameron's genetic predisposition to painlessness and her freedom from anxiety.  I loved hearing this.  We are all Genesis-predisposed to this God-given peace.  And it comes with this scientific assurance:

"And God saw everything
that he had made
and behold,
it was very good.

Thus the heavens and the earth
were finished."

Finished! There is no more to our story.

Because this painless sense of being has happened for one of us -- it is precedence for all of us. I'm resting my case upon it. God created us filled with peace - not pain. Peace is feeling the presence of God's love. This peace must be experienced - impartially and universally. There is no personal mutation. We all have the right to a pain-free, anxiety-free existence.

John gives us the perfect benediction on this promise in the last chapter of Revelation -- which is the last book in the Bible. Here he assures us:

"And God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain:

for the former things are passed away.

And he that sat upon the throne said,
Behold, I make all things new.

And he said unto me, Write:
for these words are true and faithful.

And he said unto me, It is done.
I am Alpha and Omega, 
the beginning and the end.

I will give unto him that is athirst
of the fountain of the water of life freely."

It is done. The gift of grace. Not something earned. Not a reward for our good works - but the impartial, impersonal, universal law of Love.

I love the practice of this Law.  Impossible things are happening every day.

offered with Love,

Kate

"on the brink of everything..."

"All the things
that used to matter,
they don't mean so much today;
Toss the seeds and watch them scatter.
The birds and wind take them away,
till there is nothing in my way.

I can't see past this horizon,
I can't say what's waiting there.
I never sang 'cause I knew something,
I sang because it was a prayer.
The finest one that I could bear..."

Carrie Newcomer's new song, "On the Brink of Everything," inspired by Parker J. Palmer's book of the same title, had me at hello. Partly because it is Carrie, but also because it is so enigmatic and paradoxical.

The first time I listened to it, I was sure she was referring to being on the brink of self-discovery. Then I looked at the subtitle for Palmer's book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, and I wondered if it wasn't a reference to on the brink of passing. Finally, I gave up trying to figure it out. In truth, it just didn't matter. I only had to listen to it from where my own heart was. And for me, it was about being on the brink of a new horizon.

So I stepped back, and surveyed my own heart. I'd been climbing hard for a number of months. Bushwhacking through a jungle of self. Scrambling through a scree field of ego -- the ground constantly shifting as I uncovered yet one more instance of self-preservation - my awkward stumble through I/me/mine-thinking. But I was above tree-line now. I could see the summit. I was on the brink.

But of what?

Absolutely nothing new.

Metaphorically, the air I was breathing was made up of the same elements -- oxygen, hydrogen - Truth, Life Love. The Source of my thinking was unchanged. I was the reflection of the one Infinite Mind. All that this Mind included - intelligence, inspiration, insight - was still, nevertheless, present and probe-able to me. I was not going to find more of anything -- anywhere.

All the Love that I had ever known was still with me. Love was never more present, more powerful, more attentive or embracing in one moment or place, than another. The spiritual climb I had been on, had not made Love more accessible or intense. The view of the summit seemed closer. But in fact, if I could see it, it was really a false summit. Was I ever going to reach a place where I could rest from my desire to know more of the infinite nature of God's love.

So, what was I on the brink of? Perhaps this. Just this. The inscrutable knowing that every footstep taken, puts us on the brink of the next footstep. There is no "arriving." We are already there.

We live at the standpoint of our oneness with divine Love. Every moment is another opportunity to look -- not above us, or ahead of us -- but next to us. To see, hear, feel, taste, and know that:

"the Lord is with me,
blessed am I...”

I remember the first time I fell in love. I didn't care where we went. I didn't care if we did anything. I didn't care when we got "there," or even if we returned. I only cared that my hand was in his. I only cared that it was his voice I heard, his presence I was in. Wherever we were, whatever we were facing -- it was all good, because we were together.

Each step we took, we were on the brink of everything. We were on the verge of a moment where we would see something, and it would be new because we would be seeing it together -- through the lens of "us."

For me, this is this moment.

This very moment. For all of us. We are not on the brink of new careers, new relationships, new adventures -- big events and grand accomplishments. We are on the brink of one more step with our hand in the hand of the One we love. The One who loves us more than all the world. Because in our relationship with Him, there are no others. We are "all the world" to Him -- and he to us.

Just as a mother completely loves each of her children. So God completely loves each of us. We are not loved by God, in the context of "others." To divine Father-Mother Love, there are no others. When I am with one of my daughters, I am not thinking of her in the context of her sisters.  I am absolutely and completely with her. I am delighting in her.  I am focused on her.  And it is the same with her sisters.  As Hymn 237 promises, we are:

"one with Him, forever near...”

No comparisons. No competition. No rushing ahead to get out in front of the crowd. No scrambling through scree fields to be the first to plant our flag. Just step-by-step, hand-in-hand with the One we love.  And the One who loves us. Our eyes, not on "the summit," but on the face of our Beloved.  Together with Him, on the brink of everything -- one step at a time -- a whole new world of living love together. 

And if we really love Him, we will love what he loves.  We will look at ourselves with great affection.  We will spend time with His children - seeking to discover about them, what He knows and loves. Not rushing on to the next false summit.  We will linger in the moment -- listening to them in the same the way that we listen to Him.

offered with Love,

Kate

"every little bit of it..."

"There it is,
just below,
 the surface of things;
in a flash of blue
and the turning of wings..."

It's Sunday night. I am sitting here in the near-dark reviewing the sweetness of a week filled with simple and profound moments.  Moments of love, trust, and courage lived. Carrie Newcomer's "Every Little Bit of It,"is a perfect benediction song.  I hope you will take a moment and listen to it.

The other day I was sitting at my desk hungry for something I could not put my finger on. It wasn't just a want, it was a need. I needed to feel the presence of divine Love guiding my prayers.

I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I let every self-directed thought slip through the fingers of human insight and reasoning. I was suspended in the silence when something touched the periphery - like the darting of a hummingbird.

I stayed very still. I waited. It came again. First a glimpse of light. Then more focus. I barely breathed. It wasn't words. It was a feeling. It hovered and then it landed -- just long enough for me to see into the eyes of its undeniable truth.

I didn't think. I didn't move. I held on to the feeling of its brief brush against my heart. I let it rest.  I felt it sink deeper. I let it become what it was for me -- a moment of Truth. A moment when I knew the face of God.

I had been feeling undeserving. I'd been yearning for His mercy and grace. I'd been reaching through the darkness for a glimmer of light. When it came, it's touch was so tender. It's message so clear. It's Source so undeniable. That in a moment's sharp intake of recognition, I felt the actual presence of these four words from a much-loved hymn by John Goss:

"ransomed,
healed,
restored,
 forgiven...”

The message was so simple. So simple that I still don't have words for what I felt. Perhaps someday. But for now, it was enough to feel its flutter against my heart. To feel the whir of its heartbeat throughout my being. The promise of His mercy in its grace.

I didn't need to see a changed human situation. What I needed was to feel the undeniable presence of divine Love. In Pulpit and Press, Mary Baker Eddy defines "proof of healing" as:

"a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love...”

And that is exactly what I felt. It was more than enough.

offered with Love,

Kate