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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is an old Kikuyu proverb that says:

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

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

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

"to give someone your undivided attention"

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

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

Ahhh....

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

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

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

[photo credit:  another stunning Nathaniel Wilder image 2010]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS