"I'm barely breathing..."

"I'm falling apart,
I'm barely breathing;
with a broken heart
that's still beating.

In Your name
I find meaning
so I'm holding on,
I'm holdin' on,
I'm holdin' on,
barely holding on to You..."

I was looking down at the delicate white scar that runs from the wrist on my left arm three inches towards my inner elbow, when Lifehouse's  "Broken"  came on my Pandora station. The coincidence took me by surprise -- but in a gentle, self-compassionate way. I wanted to hug the girl I once was.

I've had dark chapters in my life, but this was one of the darkest. I'd driven over 3,000 miles across the United States -- leaving everyone I knew, in hopes of a fresh start. But the second largest city in the country was not the land of milk and honey I'd hoped for. Hours after reaching the first outskirts of the metropolis, I finally reached my destination. I felt lost in a dystopian abyss.

Within a few months, I felt more alone than ever. I had a temporary job -- just waiting for the school year to start so that I could begin teaching again.  But everyone I met seemed obsessed with body image and partying. I was living with a roommate who seemed to bring a different "date" home every night. My commute consisted of an hour - each way - on the freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Nothing felt familiar and I was lost.

But, I was a survivor -- or at least that was what I told myself.  I would persevere, I would forge on, I would not give up. On the outside I was focused and determined. On the inside I was barely breathing. When I left my academic, social, and professional roots 3,000 miles behind, I felt like I also left my spiritual lifeline.

One evening, while helping a friend prepare for a party, I was cutting strawberries, kiwis, and apples for a fruit salad when I suddenly realized that I had better get in the shower before they arrived home. I had already undressed when I remembered that I'd forgotten to add the pineapple. Since I was alone in the apartment, I walked to the kitchen and found a large butcher knife in the drawer. Holding the pineapple with my left hand, I hurriedly attempted to lop off the top of the pineapple. The knife slipped and suddenly I was standing there naked - with a butcher knife stuck deeply in my forearm. Had it really been an accident? Or had I sub-consciously intended to put a stop to the emotional pain I was in? These were the questions that flashed through my mind in the blink of an eye.

Graphic, I know. But I still remember the slow motion stillness of that moment as if it happened yesterday. My life was in such a complete shambles that I wondered whether it was even worth trying to get help. Maybe I should just sit down on the kitchen floor and let the quiet peace that had suddenly come over me,  continue to spread throughout my body.

But in an instant, I woke up from the hypnotic pull of just giving in -- and chose to live. I pulled the knife from my arm, grabbed a towel from the counter to put pressure on the wound, and walked calmly out the front door to knock on the door of a person I'd never met. Seeing me standing there - almost naked, covered in blood, she sprung into action. She found my pants on the bathroom floor, helped me into them, wrapped me in a bath towel, forced me into her car, and drove me to the very nearest hospital emergency room, only two blocks away.

Within minutes I was rushed into surgery. Because they needed for me to remain conscious - so that I could respond to questions about movement and feeling - I watched the surgeon place layers of tiny stitches in my arm, reattaching flesh, nerves, and blood vessels. I don't remember any pain.  I think I was still just so surprised by my clear choice to live.

The next months of physical recovery were a blur. As a child, I had learned to pray. I began to pray again in earnest. I amazed the surgeon, the orthopedic specialist, and the physical therapist by regaining full use of my hand and fingers within six weeks of the injury. My professional life blossomed when school started, but my emotional and spiritual life continued to free fall. I didn't know how to find my way back. I knew I wanted something real and sustainable, but it seemed as far away as the outskirts of that city's limits -- green and verdant beyond the smog and industry.

One day, while walking home from a local park, I passed a Christian Science Reading Room. I looked in the window with such longing. I wanted to go home, but I felt broken and stained. I read the marked Scriptural selection in the window with a sense of sorrow. The next Sunday morning, I walked past the Christian Science church - just as their services were starting. But I was too afraid to walk in. What if someone who knew my mother or sisters and recognized the family resemblance?  What if they asked me questions? I continued down the sidewalk with tears in my eyes.

I wasn't ready yet. But I now see that each step, taught me something. The injury taught me that I wanted to live. My calm, clears sense of peace during the surgery taught me that I really had learned something about trusting God during my childhood. My recovery showed me that I knew how to pray. My hunger for Scripture helped me see that I really did know where the answers lay. My sorrow when walking past the church showed me that I wanted spiritual nourishment and fellowship.  I just couldn't see the forest for the trees - yet.

A few months later my sister would force me to join her for a family reunion in another state. Once there, something finally broke open and I asked my mother if I could borrow her Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that first night.  The rest is history -- and another long story.

Tonight, when I looked down at that hairline scar that runs up my forearm -- I smiled. I couldn't help but think of Mary Baker Eddy's promise in Science and Health:

"Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sackcloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you.

The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers:

“Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb’s wife, — Love wedded to its own spiritual idea."

Sometimes it takes distance to see the path that was laid out for you all along. I was never alone. I was never forsaken or hopeless. The waymarks were there -- every step of the way. I am so grateful.

offered with Love,

Kate

"i'm barely breathing…"

"I'm falling apart,
I'm barely breathing,
with a broken heart,
that's still beating..."

I can't hear Lifehouse's "Broken," without remembering.

It's been almost two decades now, but the moment is seared on my fingertips. The pattern of the damask on the love seat where I was sitting that day burned into my flesh. The light coming through the mullioned panes in the bay window. The fragrance of steam rising from the teacup poised at my lips.

This was the setting for my "crisis of faith."  You see, if there was one thing I'd been sure of -- my entire childhood -- it was that I would do anything for my family. I would allow myself to be shattered into a million pieces, if it would hold us all together. And I was convinced, that I had done, just that. I was sure that, because I had put my love for my family before everything else, I was heeding the voice of an overarching universal Love.  For in this place of loving them most,  I felt detached from the suffering, the sadness, the loneliness of it all.

But that day, almost 30 years after the suffering had subsided, I heard words I never imagined, "you know, I really never felt that I loved you as a child…"

How could that be. How could I have sacrificed everything for someone who could blithely admit that I'd never been loved -- much less, appreciated for all I'd gone through. I felt betrayed. Not by this person who was so oblivious to the fissure she'd set off in the fragile shell of my heart, but by God.

How could God have let me suffer so persistently, when the one I was devoted to helping, didn't even love me. It was more than I could bear. I felt as if I could actually feel the small cracks inside tear through my being. I wondered if I would survive the moment without going insane. Madness insinuated itself at every turn. The fight I'd waged against disassociation for most of my life, was taking me down for the count.  It seemed likely that this battle was on the verge of ending -- with me in a straightjacket.

For so many years, I'd survived by holding on to the promise that God loved me, and that even if I couldn't understand the reason for my circumstances, I could cling to the hope that the love that I had for my family was more than enough evidence of God's presence in my life, to keep me safe and sane.

The days that followed this careless moment of confession were surreal. I wandered through my days in a haze of "just keep it together, Kate. Don't let anyone know you are losing your mind. You have children, you have a career, you have responsibilities. You can do this, you did it as a girl, you can do it now." But I couldn't. As a girl, I'd had God. I'd held on to the promise of spiritual purpose. Without God, I had nothing.

As the madness descended, I disappeared. I hid in my work, I escaped into a closet where darkness was a friend and the voices that hissed, "you were never loved…" were somewhat drowned out by the sound of silence. I wept for the death of hope. I mourned the loss of my one truth -- I'd been loved, it had all been for a divine purpose.

One of our neighbors was a grief counselor, and although I didn't feel comfortable pouring out my whole miserable life story to her, I found myself wandering over for tea -- often. I needed to know that someone out there cared about those of us who felt bereft and completely lost in sadness.

I listened intently as she talked about the books she was reading, the exercises she used to help her clients heal, the messages that made a difference. But nothing was finding its way through the sharp cracks in my heart, and reaching the soft flesh of my pain.

Then one day, while sitting in my dark little closet under the eaves -- and yes, it really was a closet. I felt something begin to rustle in my heart. It was like the light I was hoping would reach in through the cracks from without, was pouring out through them from within. There was a warm feeling of love, a soft light, radiating outward. It burnished the edges of each fissure and caused them to glow like fire-touched shards of ancient pottery.

All the hope I had for being healed by a system, a person, a message of comfort was obscured by the power of this inner surety -- I had been loved by God. A clear knowing that I was, in those moments of crucifixion, the very love of God being shown to my family -- regardless of what they thought, saw, or felt about me.

The fissures in my heart became the windows of my soul. I was not hiding in the dark, waiting for the light of day to stave off the madness, I was the light. I was not the shattered shell.  I was the inner light -- the divine magna -- bursting forth from within.

My crisis of faith was over. I knew that nothing could ever -- again -- deprive me of who I was. I was not the object of love. I was not a child hoping, waiting, praying to be loved. I was the very love of Love. This had always been my purpose, my identity, my life -- all along.

I had not let go.  I had held on long enough. I had not lost my faith in God. I had found a new sense of who I was in relation to God. My love for God and my trust in His love for me, was never going to be a guarantee that I would feel loved by others.  Nor would it justify the sacrifices made. My love for God and his love for me was enough. It was, in fact, everything. It always had been, and now, it always would be.

Every time I read this statement from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, I smile. I had long thought that if God loved me, I would find a place where there were no disappointments or woes. But I have since discovered that this is exactly where my most profound spiritual discoveries actually have their beginnings:

"Our disappointments
and ceaseless woes,
turn us like tired children
to the arms of divine Love,
then we begin to learn life
in divine Science."
 

My "crisis of faith" was not an interruption of my love for God, my faith in His omnipotent goodness, or my trust in his care. It was actually the beginning of a higher and deeper understanding of how invulnerable my relationship to Love, and my purpose as Love's reflection, is.

I remember, some years ago -- after having this experience -- hearing of Mother Teresa's crisis of faith.  I understood.  It is possible to love God supremely, to give your life to His service and the care of his children, and still be shattered by the suffering in the world - your own or that of others.  But it is this breaking open of the heart, that allows compassion to pour out with with greater understanding.

And I -- for one -- am grateful for every opportunity to draw closer to Him.

offered with Love and profound gratitude,
Kate

"...in your name I find meaning..."

"...I'm hanging on another day
Just to see what you will throw my way
And I'm hanging on to the words you say
You said that I would...would be ok

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain there's the healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on
I'm still holdin' on,
I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you..."
-     Lifehouse

The other day I felt like I was "falling apart," in much the same way that Lifehouse articulates in this lovely, plaintive song of hope, and longing, titled "Broken."  But it was also just the reminder I needed.   When I heard it, I was feeling particularly lonely in the aloneness of a moment, and it immediately brought me peace. 

I love that line, "in your name I find meaning."  And the "you" in whose name alone I "find meaning" is the great "I AM" whose presence feels as intimate to me as my own hopes and dreams, sorrows and joys...the very private thoughts I cherish in the dark silence of the night. 

When I was still a very young woman, but thought I was all grown up and more than ready to fly solo, my mother and siblings...with whom I had been living since my dad's passing...moved to another state.  In some ways one might think I would have been happy and relieved.  I'd worked two or more jobs for a few years in order to help pay for our rent, utilities, food and family expenses, and this might mean a bit of a break from those demands.  But that wasn't how I was feeling.

Yes, I was excited to be out on my own.  I'd found a Manhattan couple who'd purchased a gentleman's farm in our rural community and talked them into letting me renovate the loft of their beautiful barn into a loft apartment in exchange for rent.  And I was thrilled by the opportunity to creatively redefine the space, by their trust in my twenty-one year old chutzpah, and for my first real privacy...I'd always lived in other people's spaces and had always dreamed about my own apartment.  But there was also a sadness about living away from my mother, sisters, and brothers.

I moved my few belongings into a small storage space in the barn that was heated, had been insulated for winter, and had a tiny bathroom in the corner.  I'd cook on a hot plate and use a tiny little dorm-size refrigerator until I'd finished the renovation.  I had a twin bed pushed under the barnwood eaves and a little table with two chairs. I'd brought three small paintings I done in high school, ones that the school had had framed for an exhibit at the local library.  I used my simple cedar hope chest for storing my clothes and I'd hung my three dresses (and two waitress uniforms I needed for my second job) on a nail at the end of the room.  An antique embroidered linen pillowslip folded over a wooden dowel served as a curtain on the one small window framed by rough barnwood.  I loved way the sunrise looked through the ripply green-tinted glass each morning and vowed to make that window a centerpiece in the renovation. 

That first night after I washed my mug and bowl out in the bathroom sink, dried them with the worn blue and white checked dishtowel I'd begged my mom to let me keep with me, I brushed my teeth and climbed between the soft white sheets and under the colorful quilts that represented the entirety of my dowry.  I'd always loved vintage linens and had gathered bits and pieces over the years from my grandmother, a generous neighbor who'd shared her treasures, and a dusty antique shop in the village we'd lived in while I was in high school.

I turned off the small lamp that sat on an upturned fruit crate that served as my first bookcase and lay in the dark.  I'd grown up in a family of eight children.  I'd shared a bedroom with as many as four of my sisters, depending on the size and number of bedrooms a house had, all my life.  We'd always lived in small houses.  Houses in which our rooms were so cozy, and close to one another, that I could hear my brothers whispering in their room while I read in my bottom bunk across the hall.  I'd never, ever, heard or experienced the kind of visceral silence I was greeted by that night once I'd turned the lamp off.  It was as if someone had sucked every bit of sound out of the room.  I was aware of my heartbeat, my own thoughts, the sound of my nightgown rustling against the soft cotton of my sheets.  I was aware of the unique rhythm of my own breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out. 

This was so new to me.  New, and lonely.  Soon I was aware of more than just my breathing, and my heartbeat.  I was aware of the sound of my own crying. I was alone in the dark, I was falling apart, and I was hyper-aware of everything around me.  And more importantly, everything within me.  I discovered that if you listen closely you really can hear the sound of tears dropping from your eyelashes, rolling along your cheek and falling to the pillowcase under your face. I discovered just how much I really did miss my family.  I missed all the sounds I'd complained about throughout high school when I'd thought all I wanted was "a room of my own."  I missed my sister purring in her sleep, my mother's tapping of her fingers on the kitchen table as she enjoyed a late night cup of tea in the quiet of her own house long after midnight.  I missed the mewing of babies and the turning of more than a half dozen children in their beds while I read.

I missed them. And I was aware of missing them.  It was quiet enough that nothing distracted me from the sound of the love that was happening in my heart.  

This missing them in the silence of the dark was my first awareness of the deep intimacy we each have with our God.  In my aloneness, I discovered that I was really not alone.  There were new thoughts coming to me every moment.  I was feeling the seeping in of a new awareness of my love for my mother, appreciation for my sisters, I could feel the presence of my dreams for the future, and my hunger for meaningful love and purposeful work.  I could actually feel my desire for my sister Nancy's bony spine against mine as we slept back-to-back in the double bed we'd shared at times during childhood.

This awareness of "me", my hopes, my desires, my thoughts, my sadness and longing, was rich with being, was full of the "I AM" of conscious being...God. For me, this is what Mary Baker Eddy is talking about when in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she refers to:

"...the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity..."

I learned to love the silence of that small bed under the eaves, because it introduced me to myself...the self that had an inner life.  The self that was no longer being drowned out by all the hustle and bustle of being one of many voices, movements, breathing in a big family.  The self that was conscious of the infinitude of her identity and was discovering that right there, within her own conscious being, lay all the important answers she'd been looking for. 

My silent life in a drafty barn didn't last long...but I have never forgotten it in the ensuing years, as the quiet spaces started filling in with husband, children, phone calls, patients, guests, dogs, washing machines, dishwashers, computers and babies. 

And to this day, when I am feeling most alone in the world, it is not people I seek to surround myself with...even the people I love the most...it is the silence of a darkened room.  My favorite time of day, the time of day - the space - that fills me, and satisfies me most...so that I have something real to give others...are those moments just after waking, when I have not heard a sound, moved even a single finger or probed a toe seeking to feel the sheets or rustle the bedclothes. Those are the moments before I have opened my eyes to see the light of day playing on the pear colored walls of our bedroom. And it is in this timeless time that I am aware, in that profound silence, of the "great I AM" that is me, my conscious being. 

In these moments of great intimacy with my God, I am most keenly atune to the "pain" of missing loved ones...a profound love that heals.  I am most appreciative of the joys of having thoughts that are beautiful and rich with purpose...even if just to me.   I am most conscious of knowing that I am never alone...but always filled with Him...with Her...with the I AM that is the only real oneness that matters...the only I or US that all other relationships spring from.

In the silence of a my first waking thoughts, I find God...the kingdom of heaven within. And this same infinite nearness of the divine is there for each of us...all the time.

with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS