"Safe in the arms of Love..."

"I want a heart to be forever mine,
I want eyes to see me satisfied,
Gonna hang my heartaches out to dry...
Someday I'm gonna be safe in the arms of love,
Safe in the arms Of Love"

I heard the first verse of Martina McBride's "Safe in the Arms of Love," the other day, and there wasn't a moment's hesitation to my response...

"Hey, I've got that...I've already got all of that."

And it was a feeling that ran very deep...like an underground river.  I didn't have to reason it out, or ponder it for a long time...it was as immediate, and present, as any feeling I've ever had.  And I think maybe, it just might be, that Jesus' message of "the kingdom of heaven is within you" is finally getting through! 

It infinitely clear that, the only heart that will ever be "forever mine," is...well, mine.  That the one, and only, love that I can always be sure of, is the love that I am feeling...for God, and for others.  It's within me...and nothing can take it away.  Nothing, and no one, can deprive me of its constancy, its reliability, its ever-presence.  It's source is God, Love...so, by reflection, it is mine...and it's forever mine.  Because I am His, forever His. 

That doesn't mean that the affection, warmth, and tenderness that I feel,  from others...my loved ones -- family and friends...brings any less sweetness, happiness, and joy.  Quite the contrary.  I experience each moment of their love with an even greater wonder and delight because it is no longer a measure of how much love I have in my life.  The love in my life is full and overflowing...but it comes from within...not without.   It's only defined by the love I have to give, not the love I hope to get.

And as for those "eyes that see me satisfied..."  Well, they look back at me from the mirror every morning.  I know that, as Mary Baker Eddy says, in her poem, "Satisfied":

"It matters not, what be thy lot
so Love doth guide."

It no longer matters whether I am experiencing a lot of love, or that my lot in life...at any given moment....is lean with aloneness, or gaping with opportunities to grow in grace, to be a blessing in the world I walk in.  As long as I am letting Love guide my heart, my motives, my speech and actions, I have the right to be...and am... satisfied.  And I can see this contentment in myself, and know that it is unshakeable.

So tonight, as I sit here thinking about all the campers, counselors, staff, and bunkhouse parents...who have gathered at various summer camps across the country to grow spiritually, and make new friends ...I am feeling such deep peace knowing that the kingdom of heaven is within each of us, that our hearts are guided solely by Love, that we are  safe in, and as, His outreached arms of extended blessings...and, that we are...right now...satisfied. 

rest well....

Kate

"Dream it...anyway..."

"My Father worketh hitherto
And I work..."
- Jesus Christ

Anyone who has had the joy of hearing Martina McBride perform “Anyway”(click on this link to watch the inspiring video) from her new Wake Up Laughing CD, which hits the stores today, will know why this song is the keynote of today’s post.   I believe it's what Jesus’ message of love was all about.  Jesus encourages us, through his humble example, to live lives of love, of generosity and grace…not as a means to an end, but because it is who we are.  

I haven’t read The Secret and I pray that those who have found hope in its message, continue to be blessed. But for me life isn’t about praying, or thinking, or focusing on good in order to get good… good something or anything.   For me, I pray because it is who I am.  Faith and hope aren’t a pathway towards fulfillment and success…they are the success. They are the very substance of all that I desire and dream to have…”a faith that will not shrink when pressed by every 'foe'.”  To feel hunger for peace, to long for joy, to ache for mercy…to have loved for the sheer joy of learning that I am capable of loving…not in order to “get” someone to love me in return, but because it is life itself…is a breathtaking view of myself as God’s daughter.   This is "the secret"  practiced by most of my role models...Mandela, Ghandi, Mother Theresa...and, I think...you.

When my marriage of over twenty years ended… after we had both worked so long and hard…I felt like such a failure.  There were moments when I felt as if I had spent all those years on my knees in prayer... in vain...or hadn't prayed enough.  But one day, while praying,  it became so clear to me that we had not failed for one moment to try...to give it our all...in giving it all to God.  We had not failed in waking up each day with great hope in our hearts.  We had never ceased to have faith that God would give each of us a clear “answer of peace”.  Moreover, through it all we never failed to love our children with every bit of our being.   When it did become clear what needed to take place, it was, I believe, our love for one another, not dissatisfaction or hurt, that allowed us to move forward with grace and dignity.  No matter what it looked like to others. 

"...You can spend your whole life
building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway

You can chase a dream
that seems so out of reach
and you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway,
I do it anyway..."

After our son’s birthmother chose to parent him,  rescinding her provisional surrender, there were many concerned friends (and family members) who asked me if I regretted having poured my heart and soul into caring for her during her pregnancy, being her birthing partner and loving/nursing "our" son while she came to her decision.  They wanted to know if I would have given less, not loved as much, held back my heart a little more.  No.  I wouldn’t trade one moment of that experience for the freedom from the pain of having given of myself so completely, surrendered so willingly, and having wept so honestly…because I loved him….and her….with all my heart.  And moreover,  through that experience I learned that the heart, my heart, is a very flexible muscle and it has the capacity to expand beyond what the world (with all its conditions) would tell me it is capable of.   I now know that the suggestions which would try to say "I will love completely, but only if things turn out this way..." are just that...suggestions.  Love is not conditional...we can always love more.   And sometimes that love tells us to surrender, to let go, to walk away...out of love.

"This world’s gone crazy
and it’s hard to believe
that tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart,
for all the right reasons,
and in a moment they can choose to walk away
Love ‘em anyway

God is great,
but sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway,
I do it anyway

I remember working my first presidential campaign.  I knocked on doors, passed out flyers, handed out buttons, marched in rallies and stayed up many nights folding leaflets…and my candidate didn’t win.  But would I trade all that I learned about myself as a passionately invested citizen for a few more nights in front of the television watching some 70’s sitcom instead of hitting the streets talking about my candidate's platform or working at campaign headquarters?  Never.  I campaigned because it was who I was…and it is who I am today.  I wanted to make a difference then…and I want to make a difference now.  It’s who I am...I’d do it anyway, and so would you…because we love this carzy world, we love our sons and daughters, we love our friends and family, we love one another....strangers on the street… and even more importantly we love God and are so blessed to have these opportunities to show our love for Him through this loving, hoping, giving, dreaming...singing.. 

So maybe, when we hear this song we can smile inside and remind ourselves that life is all about being true to ourselves, to our loved ones, our world and our God…not as a means to an end, but because it’s who we are.  And no matter what anyone else thinks or does, we have the right to love, live, laugh, dance, trust, dream, hope, pray…anyway.

"...You can pour your soul out singing
a song you believe in
that tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway,
sing it anyway

I sing, I dream, I love…."

...I write …anyway

with Love,
Kate

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Last year, in celebration of the holiday season, Hallmark released a new James Taylor CD of songs and carols.  On this collection was a song that within an hour of first hearing it,  I began replaying it over and over again for spiritual inspiration and comfort, and in it I found direction on a journey that, at best, felt most dark and bleak. 

This song, a traditional carol written by Christina Rossetti in 1872, is one that Taylor and his partner on this recording project, Dave Grusin, breathe new life into with their haunting arrangement.  "In the Bleak Midwinter..." (full lyrics below) includes the following prayer:

"Then what can I bring 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 bring Him?
I must bring my heart."

My days were filled with the colorful busyness of the holiday season...choosing just the right gifts, wrapping presents, making and carrying out travel arrangements for loved ones, cooking, baking, chauffeuring children and meeting with patients, tea with friends.  This busyness, with all the details of caring for others, allowed me to push down the deep sadness and pain that poked constantly at the edges of my smile. I felt like I couldn't even begin to consider what were looming questions about my life and the lives of those I loved.

My nights, however, seemed like a colorless empty pit...a void so dark and abysmal that I often felt,  once I had the children settled in for the night, I would never climb out of  the utter confusion I felt about how to take steps towards a solution.  Even the process of discovering what those steps might be, seemed lost in a quagmire of emotion, culturally interpreted issues of respectability, and my own fear of failure and rejection. Night after night I would put on my running shoes and pound the streets in our neighborhood, and cover miles on the local track, praying for direction and guidance.  I often wasn't sure whether I was using running, metaphorically, to get away from my problems, or to move towards a solution...but I ran, and ran, and ran. 

By the last week in December I had listened to Taylor's CD so often that I had all the words to each of the songs memorized.  "In the Bleak Midwinter" was my step by step mantra for covering the endless track-based miles I convered each week (an earlier blog speaks of Martina McBride's "In my Daughters' Eyes" and how that song gave some direction to thoughts during the "street" sections of my nightly running that winter). 

One particularly cold night as I stood, bent over at the waist, mid-track...having just finished an exhausting two mile "loop"...I realized that the above quoted stanza was also running, side by side with me,  in a loop through my head, and it wasn't stopping from exhaustion.   One part of my nightly routine was to take a break after each two miles on the track and go to the long jump pit where I would move through a series of yoga-based stretching positions under the treeless bowl of stars above me. 

As I found my balance in the Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-facing Dog) position that night tears rolled down my temples...gathering and freezing in the stray hairs that had fallen in front of my face.  I was bringing to that moment every sacred hope I had cherished for a peace-filled resolution to what seemed like almost an insurmountable dilemma.  I was hearing over and over in my prayers, "What then can I give Him...I must give my heart".  I returned to Balasana (Child's Pose) as I exhaled and released myself from every self-presevationist instinct that I had left to retain control over my own heart.  I gave that which I most thought I could control and hold sway over, my own heart...my own right to be the architect of my expression of love.... into His hands under the stars that night. 

As my tears froze on my face I wept for what I knew I no longer could control, determine, "make happen"...I gave up my right to define outcomes, design impressions, or preserve pretenses....I surrendered my right to decide how I was going to be seen, how my motives were going to be interpreted, or how those around me were going to feel about me.  What could I give him in this moment of worship, in the midst of these feelings of profound emptiness...  I could give Him my heart.  It was really all He ever wanted from me.  The only gift that made a difference in my worship.  So I did.  I gave him all that I loved, all that I hoped would symbolize love in my life...I gave Him my fondest hopes, deepest desires, my most longed for outcomes. 

I didn't finish my run that night.  I lay on my back in the long-jump pit until I was almost too cold to move and "let go" more and more with each exhale of steamy breath into the clear star-filled night.  I watched stray clouds move across a mid-cycle moon and knew that I was walking into a wilderness I could not anticipate the landscape of.  I rose to my feet and took a variation of the Tree Blows in the Wind position, yielding to a divine pneuma or wind that would "blow me where It listeth" ....I became a willing willow rather than an intractable and rigid oak.  I walked the rest of my course that night and was keenly aware that something in me had shifted into a new and unknown place of worship and sacred surrender.   I walked away from my control and into Her arms...for her "Mother's kiss".

I gave Him/Her my heart and didn't try to hold on enough to pull it back if things got scary.  And they did. 

He/She still has my heart.  God has proven to me this year that when I give Him all that is dear and precious and most holy and sacred in my life, He cares for it in ways I could never have expected, anticipated or imagined. 

He has a plan for you too....trust Her with your heart....She will tenderly care for Her young, She will protect and preserve its innocence, purity, its most tender desires and fiercest loves.  He is the Creator of your heart and the conductor of its rhythm, the choreographer of its beating...trust Him/Her.   What then can you give Him?....you must  give your heart".

In the bleak midwinter, icy wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow on snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long..so long ago.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim rising in the air;
Oh, but holy Mary, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a Mother's kiss.

Heaven cannot hold Him, nor can earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall fall away when He comes to reign.

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 I can I give Him: I must give my heart.

- Christina Rossetti

Kate