"womanhood - never taken out of man..."

"No, no, they can't
take that away from me.
They can't take that
away from me..."

I woke up this morning with Judy Garland's  "They Can't Take that Away from Me"  bubbling around in my head. This particular video makes me happy -- her exchanging the female models for male dancers makes me smile and seemed an appropriate keynote for this post. The song -- well, only the title is relevant.

I thought I'd written about this experience years ago, but a deep dive into the more than 700 posts on this blog didn't turn it up. So, in light of Women's History Month I thought I might revisit it.

Our daughter was just a tiny infant. It was my first week in south Africa and after a challenging start to our adoption journey together, we were peacefully settled on a friend's game farm near the Botswana border. We'd arrived during a hunting party and one morning after the men and boys left on safari, our host and I settled in to read the Bible Lesson together.

I sat with my new daughter in my lap, listening to my new friend read from Scripture, and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. It was a deeply peaceful moment for me. At one point her middle school age son came in to explain that he had decided not to join his dad, brothers, and their guests but would be heading down to the watering hole to spend time birding. He was sad that his older brothers had teased him about not being "man enough" to go hunting.

I could tell that this was sad for him -- and for his mom. After he left the room, we resumed our reading of the Bible Lesson. The very next verses from Scripture were from the story of Adam and Eve -- an allegory in the Book of Genesis that as Mary Baker Eddy explains in Science and Health is:

"a statement which is the exact opposite
of of the scientific truth as before recorded...

a false history in contradistinction to the true."

The true that Eddy is referring to is the First Chapter of Genesis account of creation where God makes man in His imagine and likeness -- male and female. An account which closes with the benediction:

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

Thus the heavens and the earth
were finished, and all the host of them."

Then my friend read this passage from the Second Chapter account of Adam and Eve -- the false story:

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman.

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man."

I think my breath stopped rising in my chest for just a moment. Everything became very, very still. I will never forget hearing - as clear as a bell:  "Man's womanhood was never taken out of him. This is a lie."  I shared this with my friend and we sat there for a very long time talking about this remarkable truth.

As I looked down at my sleeping baby, I could see -- and feel -- her wholeness.  She was not just a beautiful baby girl -- she was everything in the universe.  She was the very expression of God's completeness.  And I was not her "mother" I was her parent.  I was the expression of that Father-Mother wholeness -- and so was her dad.

We are all whole. We are not male or female, but male and female. We are each complete. This wholeness is the key to our health -- a word whose etymological root is in the word "whole." An etymology which it shares with the words well, wealth, wellness, holy. We are all whole, wholly intact and holy. Each of us. We are not parts of one another, or portions of the divine. We reflect that All-in-allness of God's being.

Later that day my friend's young son came in happy and eager to share that his brothers had spontaneously offered to stay back from the afternoon shoot, and help him work on his birding stand near the watering hole.

There is rarely a day that goes by, that I do not think of that moment in a colonial South African kitchen when I saw with absolute clarity the imposition on man -- men and women -- of that false account of creation in which man has his womanhood removed from him.  What a lie. Claiming the wholeness of man, is every woman's divine right.

We are not defined physiologically, but spiritually. We are the direct -- pixel-for-pixel -- image and likeness of God who is Father-Mother, Love. There is nothing missing from any one of us. Just because I have white hair, and my sister has brown hair, doesn't make us different "kinds" of humans. Physiology has no bearing on our wholeness as children of God. God is All-in-all, we are each that likeness -- All-in-all of us.

As we celebrate National Women's History Month, I hope we can begin to recognize and celebrate the spiritual wholeness of man, woman, child. Son, daughters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles,he, she, child, parent, them, they... We are all whole -- we are not parts, we are not defined by our parts. We are defined by Love, reflected in love.


offered with Love,

Kate

"Everywhere..."

"I need you everywhere,
and as long as you're beside me
I need never care
For to love you is to
have you everywhere..."
-     John Lennon

I know that the original lyrics to Lennon's "Here, and There, and Everywhere," were written for a girl...but, that's just not the way I hear it these days.   Please forgive the liberty I have taken here....again.

It all started last fall, when I was writing a post about the omnipresences of Spirit, sharing a healing I'd experienced on the heels of realizing that any suggestion of something -- good or bad -- being exclusive to one location, person, body part, activity, etc....and not to another...is a lie.  A lie.  The opposite of the truth.  Not even a little bit true.  Not containing even one tiny molecule of truth.  No matter how good it may look, or how bad it may feel, it is a lie.  Period. 

Mary Baker Eddy promises in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that:

"Love (God) is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."

In the study and practice of Christian Science, the word "Love," when capitalized, is another name for God...along with Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, and Truth.  These terms, or names, are synonymous - meaning that they are interchangeable...that the presence of one, directly implies the presence of the others. So, for example, if Love, as Eddy promises, is impartial and universal, so is Principle (order), Soul (beauty), Life (vitality), Mind (intelligence),  Spirit (substance), Truth (health).

I have come to see that this law of universal impartiality is the truth about God's relationship to each of us...individually and collectively.  It is a law that is reliable and foundational to our trust in Him as our Father...a Father who has no favorites. He never plays one child against another in His universal family.  And this truth holds us in a closer, gentler bond of sweet union and affection ...it embraces us in the gospel (the good news) of His generous, impartial Love.  The children in this family never need to compete for their divine Parent's affection, attention, resources, or time.  What a wonderful place to grow up!

I wonder sometimes, though, if we really live out from the liberty that this truth affords.  We talk about Spirit, God, being All-in-all.  And our prayers sing of a God who is omni-present...both present - as in everywhere, and present - as in always,  "now," in this moment.  But do we really trust these promises? Do we rest our hopes, our expectations,  and our freedom from the fear of "well, that's great for him/her...but not for me," upon them?

The other day I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) on my drive across Kansas.  Reports of a stalled financial recovery and the ongoing collapse of the housing market, were followed by stories of congressional resistance to extended unemployment benefits, corporate corruption that continues to result in exorbitantly inflated bonuses for CEOs, and then, a heart-rending account of a young father who'd been the responsible provider for his family, until his middle management job had been cut and the loss of income was forcing them out of their home. Here was a man who desperately wants to work, but can't find a job...any job. 

My heart was sick, and soon my tummy was feeling sick, too.  I could easily see the cause-and-effect connection that wanted to present itself: "See Kate, you are completely upset by the ample evidence that God's love for humanity is partial and exclusive...resulting in growing a socio-economic caste system of haves and have-nots, therefore you are experiencing this unsettledness as an upset stomach."  But I knew that this kind of reasoning would get me nowhere. I needed to start with the truth of being, not lies, if I was going to get anywhere in addressing this turmoil.

I turned off the radio.  And as I began to pray for peace in my heart...and my tummy...I was reminded of the healing I'd experienced last fall, and the truth of God's universal omnipresence I'd come to trust, return to, and rely on, pretty consistently since then.  I reminded myself that if something...good, or bad...seems localized, it is a sure sign that it is a lie.   Truth, being synonymous with Spirit, cannot be contained, personalized, partial,  portioned, isolated, or exclusively experienced...by a segment of society, or a body part.

I prayed out from God's impartiality.  I claimed that the only things that were, or ever could be experienced as true and real, were those things that can't be localized.  Things like joy and peace...have you ever tried to feel peace only in your ear or your elbow, affection only in your wrist, or hope in your little toe.  But, even though my tummy was soon feeling well again, I couldn't seem to let the sense of sorrow go.  I found myself wrestling even more vigorously with the evidence of socio-economic inequity all around me.   I knew it wasn't going to dissolve without clear spiritual reasoning, so I persisted, continuing to go back to two of my base spiritual truths... over and over again:

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

and that:

"Love is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."

As I prayed for clearer insights and spiritual guidance, I saw that although I loved these statements from Science and Health,  somehow they weren't quite enough.  I wanted scriptural bedrock...the inspired word of the Bible as a place to build my mental house on. This was what I knew I was reaching for. 

As a spiritual law student, the Bible is my constitution...it constitutes the foundation on which I build, and rest, my case in defense of our God-given liberty as spiritual thinkers.  It is my divine law library where I can often be found, at all hours...day and night...seeking precedence for placing unshakeable trust on the timeless, irrefutable laws of Spirit.

Persisting in prayer throughout the day, God led me quietly, and quite forcibly, to the exact Biblical truth that would ground my faith, and steel my trust.

It's probably important to explain, here, that as a student of Christian Science, I accept the premise that the first Chapter of Genesis (through the third verse in Chapter 2) is the spiritual record of Creation.  And the fourth verse of Chapter 2 through Chapter 5, as allegorical examples of how the opposite of truth...or the opposition to truth...would present itself to our thinking, and thereby color our experiences.

And in the midst of my Scriptural study I found this:

"We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

YES!  Because this statement appears in the second chapter of Genesis, the record of creation that we believe is a lie...we get to thumb our nose at anything that mocks divine Love, anything that parades itself in front of humanity as injustice, inviting us to limit our hopes and defile our view of our Father and His love for us.   This false story refers to, and tries to get us to accept the false premise of a partial God, with a "special" tree.  It asserts that good and/or evil could be localized in one exclusive, and isolated, tree.  A lie.  And the fact that this story was placed in this "lying" second chapter of Genesis gives us the Biblical basis, the scriptural authority, for dismissing it as a fallacious tale...as an inversely instructive fable.  And by inversion, by stating what the lie, the opposite of the truth, looks and sounds like, it serves to point us towards the truth, God's impartial love...constitutional law for every citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  It gives each of us authority for rejecting this suggestion of divine selectivity, out of hand.

If something tries to say that goodness is here, and not there; that health is in one body part, but not throughout the entire system; if it tries to convince you that some have, and some don't, or that one person/group deserves good..justice, mercy, joy, peace, prosperity, wellness...and another doesn't, it is a bold-faced lie.  If you buy it in any form, it will come sneaking in through the back door of your experience, and bite you in the proverbial donkey.

Dismiss this lie of partiality with as much conviction as you would reject an imposed penalty for breaking an inhumane and unconstitutional law...therefore, a law that was never really a law to begin with...a law that never has, never is, and never will be... a law!  Dismiss it as confidently as if your neighbor came up to you one day and said that you were going to prison because you smiled on a Tuesday.  Well, you know, with absolute certainty, that there is no law that prevents you from smiling on Tuesday...so smile, laugh, kick up your heels, dance in the streets...you are free.  You are always free...impartially, universally, absolutely, spiritually, Biblically, joyfully free.

with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaniel Wilder 2010]