"i believe that You are with me..."

"I believe
You are the answer
to every tear I’ve cried;

I believe
that You are with me..."

When Corinne May's  "The Answer" started playing on my Pandora Christmas collection this morning, it stopped me in my tracks. Such a small musical offering moved me to tears. So, so complete.

Some years ago it was this simple statement from Genesis:

"And the Lord was with Joseph..."

that brought me complete peace. I'd been injured and was unable to get out of bed. I was afraid. And then I realized that even if I were to never take another step, the same Lord that was with Joseph in prison, and with Mary as a young pregnant mother, was with me. How could I be anything but peaceful knowing that I was with my Father-Mother God -- the Source of all good.

It was really that simple. I lay back against the pillows and just let myself be held in that knowledge of God's presence. It was enough. If I was conscious -- it was God that was present as Mind. Because I could feel  love for my daughters -- God was present as Love -- the Source of all affection.

Day after day I returned to this place of: "and the Lord was with Kate." And I let each moment reveal its purpose. When fear would scream what I couldn't do. I would ask God, "what can I do?" Somedays it was to simply sit up and reach for the phone. To pray. To be grateful. To crawl to the bathroom.

Then one day, it was to walk to my desk with the aid of crutches. Soon it was to drive my daughters to school -- grateful for a car without a clutch.

Throughout the entire experience it was "and the Lord was with Kate..." that brought peace. It was knowing that "the Lord was with Kate," that brought joy.

This wouldn't be the last time I would face the threat of immobility, but it would be the last time that I would face it feeling helpless and alone.

I can't even begin to tell you how often I return to the Truth that "the Lord is with -- each of of us" for myself, for our children, and for those who feel that they are navigating the world all by themselves. It fills my heart with a deep peace.

And isn't this the answer to all of our questions? That God -- the Source of all good -- is with us. Is with our children. With our leaders. Is with those who feel angry, frustrated, fearful, desperate -- to comfort, guard, guide, supply, sustain them.

No matter what you may be facing, the Lord is with you. This is enough of heaven within us -- to quiet all our fears.

offered with Love,

Kate

"The sun never says...."

"Silent, wordless, everything was still.
You breathed us, yearned for us,
our hearts began to thrill..."

I'm not sure why Corinne May's "Your Song," brings this story to life, for me.  But, perhaps, it is the message of surrender.  Yes, maybe it is...the message of giving one's self to a greater purpose -- which she sings so humbly about -- that reminds me of that day.   Whatever it is...here's the story.

The air was soft...fragrant with the scent of wood fire, and eery with the echoing call of loons...that mid-October afternoon in 1988.  My husband was traveling in South America, and I was enjoying the "alone" time...reflectively.  

It was, for me, the most beautiful time of year.  I loved each quiet hour of walking along the water's edge on our small New England pond, and cool evenings spent staring out to sea from my sandy perch on a nearby beach.  

This particular afternoon was no exception, it was spectacular.  The bright leaves of autumn were still clinging to tree branches along the shoreline, and reflected in the still blue water of the pond.  It took my breath away.  I pulled my sweater close, making my way towards our dock, and up the pathway through the now empty wild blueberry bushes and raspberry canes.     

Walking through the leaves, I was lost in thought.  I'd been pondering a recent call from a friend.  She was in the throes of heartbreak, and needed to be with someone.  I'd invited her to come spend the weekend with me on the water, and was waiting for her arrival.  

Love and loss were not foreign, or distant, to me that autumn.  I'd experienced a fair share of recent heartaches, and I knew how thought-consuming they could be.  

I also understood how lonely it felt to suddenly not be part of a the dreams you'd hoped would soon come true. And from past experience, I knew how an unexpected breakup could leave you asking the "why" question -- obsessively.

It didn't take long until I was plunging heartlong into the past.  I found myself thinking about a heart-shattering breakup of my own.  Wondering what had, at the time, not made me love-able enough.  Asking myself if I was still "that girl."  The girls who was always trying to prove her deserving.  And remembering how much I tried to transform myself into whoever I needed to be so that "he" would want me.  Oh my, how I'd so wanted, to be wanted.    

But as I scuffed through the leaves that day, I could see -- for the first time -- that my version of a "love" story, was full of me.  If I loved someone, shouldn't I be loved in return.  If I was in love, didn't I have the right to expect to feel loved.  And not just loved, but loved best.  To be someone's one, and only, love.  To feel loved, by the object of my loving.  Me, me, me. 

It was about this time, in my self-reverie, that a stanza from the 15th century Persian poet, Hafiz came to mind: 

"Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky." 

I found my knees buckling with something akin to swooning.  It was as if all the colors in the autumn landscape started shimmering with a new light.  And it wasn't just a visual light.  It was a light that actually had sound.  It was a visceral light...one that somehow felt like the sparks from a Fourth of July sparkler against my skin. 

And it was a light that had sound, playing a song of love along the strings of my heart, my soul, my mind.  

Its message reached me in a new way as I hovered between a version of love that was full of attachment to an object of my affection,  and a sense of love that needed no personal target, radiating light without any specific object of intention.   

The sun was my teacher.  So I let her show me what love does.  How love acts. 

For instance, I knew it was a beautiful sunny day.  Hadn't I said, just that, a dozen times that morning? "Wow, what a beautiful sunny day!"  And yet, I hadn't even looked up at the sun...no, not even once...to be verify that fact.   

The reason that I knew it was a beautiful sunny day, was by what the sun was doing to...the effect it was having on...everything it touched.  Not by looking at the sun itself. 

I knew it was a beautiful sunny day, by the way the sun's light danced over the surface of the pond, brought out the colors in the asters and chrysanthemums, caused the leaves to turn and pivot towards it's warmth -- revealing all the sides of their changing beauty.  By the way it warmed the stones along the shoreline, dried the bark of the fallen tree trunk I was sitting on.  I had no doubt about the sun's presence. 

The sun was beautiful, because of how it revealed the beauty, texture, usefulness in everything it touched.  Not because it called attention to itself.  

Then I remembered a statement by Mary Baker Eddy:

"The sunlight glints from the church-dome,
glances into the prison-cell,
glides into the sick-chamber,
brightens the flower,
beautifies the landscape,
refreshes the earth."

and 

"It is Love which paints the petal
with myriad hues,
glances in the warm sunbeams,
arches the cloud with the bow of beauty,
blazons the night with starry gems,
and covers the earth with loveliness."
 

I realized that Eddy saw Love, and the sun, as metaphorically related.  And in that instant, I did too.  This was, actually, what I was witnessing in every breath of light.  Love, brightening the flowers...painting the petals with myriad hues.  

And isn't this exactly what true love...the kind of love that reflects God -- the source of all love...does.  It reveals the best in everything, and everyone, in the path of its shining.  It doesn't try to change a leaf to a twig, but it does cause the leaf to dance.  It doesn't try to own pond, it makes it sparkle.  

Until that day, love was something I wanted, and thought I needed, to feel as a sentient experience.  I needed to be the object of someone's loving...a partner, a friend, a child.  

But love, real love, like the sun is not sentient, it is radiant.  It doesn't wait to feel love from something else, in order to be stimulated to react in a way that is loving. It doesn't take in the feeling of being in a relationship with another person, and then decide how to process it.

Real love, is radiant.  It lives deep within us and radiates out from a core -- the core -- relationship with the Source of its being, God.   It is not sentient.  It does not wait for the permission of the senses.  To find the right object -- based on how it looks, what it does for a living, whether it shares interests -- to shine its light, and illumine what is good and beautiful in another.  

Love looks out from an inner vision, an inner light and sees only the beauty it naturally in the lovelight of its shining.  To radiant love, all is lovely. 

That day, by the water's edge,  I realized that real love is true vision.  It sees only what it knows is true, from deep within the fathomless well of its own light.   

Love doesn't take in a collection of pixels, a body of sentiently gathered information, process it...decide to think about it in a more loving, spiritual way...and then spit out a better picture.  Love never sees anything but the loveliness of its own radiant revealing. 

When my friend arrived she was so beautiful to me.  I realized that all I could do, was radiate peace, joy, and contentment...a vision of loveliness.  

with Love, 

kate

  

"the answer..."

“I believe you are the answer
to every tear I've cried...”

Last night, I took my most yawning question to God in prayer.

His answer came in the form of a song...again.

Corinne May is one of the voices that seems to have deep spiritual resonance for me. Much like a tuning fork, it helps me find the true tone.

And in that place of perfect pitch...of sacred stillness, this song,  "The Answer" felt like just that...an answer. Not a "whew, glad I've got that figured out now," kind of answer. But a feeling of peace...a consciousness of His presence...that I could rest my hopes upon.

My prayer today is that we each feel that, "through the crosses we must carry"...our hearts are ever more closely bound to Him.

I'll let this song speak for itself....

with Love, 
Kate

"Everything in its time..."

"...Some folks try astrology,
some turn to crystal balls...
To find an answer,
to get through it all.
I just fall on my knees
and I try to pray, and
and in the silence I can hear Him say,

'The river runs, and the river hides,
out to the ocean, and under the sky.
I promise you, the answer will come.
Hold on to patience, and watch for the sign,
...Everything in its time..."
- Corinne May

Sometimes I get so impatient with God.  I want to know when...and how, and what, and who.  I find myself asking, "When will you tell me what you want from me?  When will I know, what I need to know next?  Where should I be and what will I do there?" 

This Corinne May song, "Everything in Its Time," is such a great reminder.  It assures me that I can surrender my timetable, and trust His omniscient plan. 

This trust, in God's itinerary, must have been at the core of one 12-year old boy's willingness to walk away from his "Father's business," when his mother interrupted his trajectory, and asked him to continue walking his journey with her for a while longer.  (Luke 2: 40 - 52)  It must have been hard for him, to set aside his own  sense of purpose.  But it was this overarching spiritual purpose, and his willingness to surrender, that his mother "held in her heart," while he matured into the fullness of His Father's promise. 

And it didn't happen over Spring Break,  that "while longer" lasted another eighteen years.  Eighteen years of trusting that the conversation, which he began in the temple with rabbis and doctors, would resume "in its time."

I have been thinking about this...a lot...lately, the surrender of mortal timetables, for the acceptance of an unseen, but certain, promise of divine unfoldment. It is a spiritual posture that requires a willingness to truly trust in the eternality of Life.  It requires a grasp of the fact that we are never, ever, simply poised on a random point along a narrow, limited mortal timeline, but we are always traveling along an infinite spiritual vector. 

A "vector," as I learned from Mark, the nurse I met in a mountain clinic one Sunday morning, is a "line" that has a well-established starting point, and clearly defined direction, but no destination.  A vector continues on infinitely in this unalterable direction...sometimes intersecting with other vectors -- creating points of significance along the way...but never reaching a final destination.

I like thinking of a river in this way. It starts from the mountaintop and flows towards the sea. It doesn't stop when it reaches a lake, a boulder, a mountain...it may eddy for a while...but eventually, it just continues its flow towards the sea.

These points of intersection and significance may often seem like destinations reached, challenges faced, relationships beginning/ending, or tasks accomplished, but they are really only...ever...moments of profound God-based self-discovery, opportunities for lessons in grace, orchestrated rests filled with deep listening, and instances of salvation --  divine "ahas," in which we realize that we are never alone, without purpose, or recourse.

I am gently yielding to this version of living, in which I am simply an eager student along a God-drawn spiritual vector.  I love having a clearly defined starting point for every relationship, activity, and desire. There is real peace in letting go of destinations and outcomes, while staying completely focused on retracing and starting out, each moment as needed, from my one "true north"...God.   It is a divine discipline to constantly be recalibrating my steps according to my true direction...the "hows" of my life...kindness, honesty, integrity, trust, respect, meekness, patience, compassion.

Remarkably, Mary Baker Eddy has given me the clearest, and most profoundly useful, and unfailing instruction for this new approach to spiritual orienteering in her statement:

"The starting point of divine Science is that God, Spirit,
is All-in-all, and there is no other might nor Mind."

This starting point, together with the well-defined MORAL. compass she outlines on page 115 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

MORAL.  Humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.

have been critical as I've struck out on this journey towards infinitely greater spiritual trust and discovery-based self-awareness that is rooted in my understanding of God. 

One of the questions I have been asking myself, as it relates to direction, is, "what is it that tells me when I am, truly, on the right path?" And one of the answers that revealed itself in prayer, and which feels most authentic, comes from a much-referred to (on this blog) Sara Groves' song titled, "Add to the Beauty," in which she says,

"I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story.
I want to shine with the light
that's burning up inside me..."

That better,  beautiful story, for me, is always going to be the one in which God is the only hero, and the light of His love illumines every narrative, every bit of dialogue, every inner landscape with self-knowledge, humility, love, and grace.

I know that, as long as I keep my starting point, and my moral compass, clearly in focus...I will never get lost in the quicksand of self.  And that I will experience, "Everything In Its Time," because, on a vector, I have an eternity...infinity...to discover all that He has in store for me, and mine, and all...everything exactly as it should be...in its time.

more on spiritual vectors in future posts, but for now...with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaniel Wilder 2010]

"In the arms of the angel..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Here am I, send me.." 

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

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

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

I hope it was enough. 

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