"she knew..."

"Mary did you know
that your baby boy
would give sight
to a blind man..."

"Sometimes a light surprises," one loved hymn suggests. Today was a day of surprising illumination for me.  First, I discovered Ceelo Green's breath-taking version of "Mary Did You Know?," from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett's film, The Bible. But that wasn't the only light that took my breath away today.  The other will never leave me.

I love going to church. I love hearing scripture read aloud. This morning I felt like a child listening to loved stories at bedtime. As I was savoring the familiar passages from Luke -- ones that recount Mary's conception of Jesus, her run to Elisabeth's house to confirm the miracle of her cousin's pregnancy, and her "Magnificat," her song of praise -- I sensed something was missing.

I looked at the citations included in the passages being shared, and there was a gap. So, I opened the Bible lying next to me, and read:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced
in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded
the low estate of his handmaiden:

for, behold,
from henceforth all generations
shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty
hath done to me great things;
and holy is his name.

And his mercy
is on them that fear him
from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength
with his arm;
he hath scattered the proud
in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty
from their seats,
and exalted them
of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry
with good things;
and the rich
he hath sent empty away.

He hath holpen
his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers,
to Abraham,
and to his seed for ever..." 

Oh, she knew.

This was no frightened girl. This was a wise, inspired young woman. I don't know why I'd marginalized her as timid maiden who'd been swept up in God's plan for humanity -- a human vessel for incubating the divine idea.  But that paradigm was shattered this morning. I held my breath in awe of this strong, consciously willing, inspired woman of God.

In the breadth of a heartbeat she became something more to me than she'd ever been before. Her story was no longer that of a human mother following her beloved son -- hoping for a moment of audience with him.  An over-attentive mom, eager to see him succeed.

No, she too was God-appointed.  Her's was a life-long mission -- and she knew it.  She was wise enough to be still. Prudent enough to "hold these things in her heart." She knew when to speak, and when to be silent. But she never forgot.

She was the first harbinger of salvation. Hers was the first voice to proclaim the advancing reign of humility, charity, and grace. She was the one person who was always with him, from Bethlehem to Calvary -- and was waiting at the tomb.

She not only carried his body in her womb, but his mission and his purpose in her heart. And it was she who refused to let anyone -- even Jesus himself -- forget the promise.

She was not just his livery, but his teacher. Not just his mother, but the one who knew -- and remembered. I can only imagine the lessons in courage, trust, grace, and self-surrender she taught her son.

This morning she came alive for me in a new way. And I can answer, without a shadow of a doubt, that the woman who said, "be it unto me, according to Thy word," - knew her son would give sight to a blind man, recommend charity, raise the dead, feed the hungry, exalt humility, denounce self-righteousness, and bring salvation to a waiting world.

Yes, I am completely certain that she knew.

humbly offered,

Kate

"I am waiting in a silent prayer..."

"...I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened
by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone,
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now
Be with me now

Breath of heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of heaven..."

Like Kathy Matthea's "Mary Did You Know," Sara Groves' "Breath of Heaven" fills my heart whenever I think about a young girl, a gentle man, a babe of promise, and a quiet manger on a starry night. 

In her small volume, The Handmaid and the Carpenter, Elizabeth Berg writes of Mary's time in the manger:

"A hard pain came upon her. She rose up, clenched her teeth, and pulled on the rope. When the pain subsided, she lay back down and allowed herself one more moment of pity for her poor circumstances: She lay on the floor of a stranger's stable. Somewhere, water dripped. The air was foul with the scent of the animals and their droppings. Wind blew in through the cracks in the walls. She closed her eyes.  So be it."

"So be it"...

And we wonder where a young man learned to say, "Into thy hands I commit my spirit?" 

This story has no season.  This story cannot be assigned, or relegated to, a single holy day.  It is a story that serves us every day, and for me, its holds it greatest promise at night...in moments raw with the cold chill of despair, and rancid with fear, doubt, uncertainty, and pain. Moments when I must go deeper. Moments when the stillness of my inner life outweighs the drama of the ego's stories. Moments when I am aware of the profound importance of spiritual in-vironmentalism and my role as an invironmental advocate.  

I remember a night, one winter, when the snow blew under the doorjamb, the cold bit into my bones while I shoveled the walk, and tears froze to my bottom lashes - hard and sharp against my cheeks.  My heart was heavy with questions which were piling up like the heavy snow I coud barely lift, and the thoughts that pierced my peace were as relentless as the driving ice storm that had blown through earlier in the day.

Why....
Why....
Why....

Why God....

And there were no answers.  Are there ever?

But then something fluttered onto my heart as soft and perfect as a snowflake:

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord. 
Be it unto me according to Thy Word." 

And suddenly, there was nothing but the quiet of a starry night.  The clouds broke, the winds stilled, the snow still fell gently from somewhere high in a sky as black and clear as a bottomless quarry.

In the wake of surrender my new question became:

"How..."

How would You have me navigate this moment?  How can I love more like You?  How shall I behave towards others in service to You?  How should I speak to him, her, them? 

And the answers came as easily, and as sweetly, as a perfectly formed snowflake .  Love unconditionally, be impartially kind, sincere, honest, consistently gentle, be acceptingly open, be willing to adapt, listen deeply, serve humbly, give generously...judge no one.


It was no longer a question of why, but only how...how to be, moment-by-gently-falling-moment...and there was a great calm and the storm ceased...and within the environment, the invironment, of my deepest thought, there was nothing but a manger.

   ...with a breath of heaven.

living in the "how" of His love...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"With a blessing in my soul..."

"I will be like Mother Mary
with a blessing in my soul,
and I will give the world my eyes
so they can see..."
-     Jason Robert Brown

Maria sent me a video clip of "Christmas Lullaby" the other day.  Watching  it brought home a Christmas question I've been walking with for the past few weeks. 

It goes something like this:

"What is it that you are "great with" today?"

It comes from a Bible verse in the book of Luke that says: 

"And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child."

I remember what it felt like to be "great with child."  I remember the sense of wonder with each tiny, fluttering butterfly kick.  I remember the expectancy, the delight, the deep cherishing of our child's identity.  I remember knowing...with my entire being...that this child was pure, holy, complete, good.  I remember feeling absolutely focused with purpose and vision.  Whether I was carrying a child under my ribs, or in my heart during an adoptive journey, the fullness of love, devotion, and clarity were the same.

So I am asking myself...moment-by-moment....what is it that you are carrying expectantly, with joy, vision, hope, and grace.  What is it you are "great with" right now. 

And since it is clear to me that my only purpose is to just show up...each and every second...completely willing to love what is in the space of "Thy will be done,"...the answers are flowing, and growing, and flowering by the moment. 

Here is just a sampling of the 'babes"  I have been pregnant, or "great with" with this week:

-  I am great with hope for humanity, our planet, all creatures.

-  I am great with "a fervent desire for growth in grace, to be expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds."

-  I am great with a desire to live a love that "is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals."

-  I am great with a deep hunger for questions that lead me, not to answers that are steeped in certainty, but to questions that foster compassion and understanding.

-  I am great with delight in each paradox as it unfolds new views of divinity placed, like a hidden gift, in humanity. 

-  I am great with a longing for childlike pleasures and treasures...dancing, laughing, a smooth stone, a construction paper chain, a perfect snowflake on a piece of burlap.

-  I am great with a keen awareness that kindness is the gold standard, that humility is the highest ambition, and that wholeness is the only measure of a man...every man, woman,  and child...all creatures, great and small.

-  I am great with gratitude for each moment of life...and the opportunities it affords for living love.

-  I am great with a desire to breathe out a blessing with every thought exhaled.

-  I am great with a love for silence...in the storm, and in the solace of a cloistered heart.

-  I am great with contentment...satisfied by "conscious worth"....to know the simple gifts of consciousness,  to be aware of the thoughts, questions, ideas, images of beauty...the love in my heart.

-  I am great with abandon, utter surrender...letting go of the need to become...become better, become improved, become something...and just be.

-  I am great with the abundant resources that afford me the opportunity to be generous with all that I have...humility, simplicity, creativity, modesty... and not focused on what I have-not.

-  I am great with the extravagant joy of just being good...it is enough. 

These are just of few of the babes that I have been nurturing, cherishing, and stroking my hand over, as they dance within the belly of my full heart.  These are the "spiritually mature" ideas I am loving forward into a waiting, expectant, eager family of Love.  These are the children of promise  I am holding close, while they sing to me a lullaby of peace, in the night.

Mary Baker Eddy twice quotes Shakespeare in her counsel to those who wished to grow in the graces of spirit:

"Great  not like Caesar ,
stained with blood,
But only great  as I am good."

Oh to be good.  Not great, but great with goodness.  It is enough.

all love to each of you...may you be great with, big with, pregnant with infinite blessings, and may the "babe of Christian healing" fill your life with purpose and hope....

always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[many of the quoted statements above are familiars, loved phrases and sentences from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy that have become as dear to me as most loved friends.]

"Mary, did you know..."

"Mary, did you know
that your baby boy,
would someday walk on water?
Mary, did you know
your baby boy would
save our sons and daughters..."
- Mark Lowry

It wouldn't really be Christmas, if Kathy Matthea's  "Mary, did you know?" didn't begin to sing itself through my heart like a lullaby of grace.    And, I think, she did know. I believe that Jesus' mom knew the promise of peace her son was.  The promise of goodwill.  The promise of healing and redemtion.

  Nothing he did to ignore her, nothing he said to deter her, nowhere he went to escape her...could hurt her.   She was his mommy.  

The young girl in the manger, was also the woman who was "last at the cross."  She was there when the angels sang of his wonder,  she was there when shepherd kneeled in holy benediction on a frozen earth, she was there when the cattle lowed a humble lullaby.  She was there when lame men lept, when the blind saw men as trees walking, the leper was cleansed, when kings wept...and she was there with spices, for anointing, at the tomb. 

I forgot this message for a while.  I forgot the power of love that his mother's story prophesies.   It all got lost in a fuzzy sort of abstraction that separated the divinity of the Christ message, from humanity of Jesus and his story. But Mary Baker Eddy encourages us to "take the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal life," and states that "the divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus." So how did I get so lost. The Bible I love so much, and do take as my sufficient guide, is full of the Christ message as told through the stories of Jesus' humanity. Countless stories of his very human, unconditionally loving behavior. Well, where do I think he learned how to love like this...with an affection that is unreasonable to the human mind and goes beyond the boundaries of what seems deserving.  I believe it was from a woman who never forgot what she knew. 

I have seen (and felt from my own mom) this kind of relentless, persistent, unflappable love in action...and it takes my breath away.  It always has, and it always will.

I have a very good friend.  Over a decade ago, her child decided that it was no longer importan to have a close relationship with his mother.  He was a man now, and no longer needed a mom.  She had raised him -- and according to him, not as well as he would have wished.

She had bathed, fed, supported, and believed in him for over 20 years, but he felt that she'd let him down financially. After his father's passing, he'd had to pay his own way through college.  His friends hadn't.  He felt that she should have made better long-term financial decisions.  He blamed her for his college loan debt.  And, he later explained, felt that if he had to work extra long hours at work to pay it down, reclaiming that time by not spending time calling, or visiting, with her, was the price she had to pay. 

Sure, he'd show up for holidays and family gatherings, but he wasn't going to make the same mistakes she'd made and put so much attention on these family relationships at the expense of his financial security.  He was going to be a success.  Anyway, she had church friends and neighbors, couldn't they call her on weekends.

And although her friends would say that this beloved son had been the apple of her eye, in his eyes she just hadn't done it right enough.  Couldn't she have just been a bit more...well, you name it...loving, strict, kind, affectionate, alert, trusting, prudent, generous.  But even that didn't matter now, he was an adult.  No need for mom to concern herself any longer, he was his own person.

I'd remembered this loved son as young boy.  He was sweet, gentle, and adored.  But when I met him next, he was a grown man with a chip on his shoulder. 

"Imagine," he said to me when we ran into each other,  "my mom wants me to come home for the holidays.  Can you believe it?"  He explained, hoping for an ally, that he had a life to live, a purpose to fulfill, a woman to meet, lives to touch with the genuine wonder of his deep spiritual commitment to God.  "And anyway," he said to me that afternoon on a park bench, "didn't Jesus say..." and then he paraphrased this section of scripture from Luke:

"There came then his [Jesus'] brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.  And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.

And he answered them, saying, "Who is my mother, or my brethren?"

And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, "Behold my mother and my brethren!  For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."

Okay.  Can I say here that if I hadn't know him as a sweet, gentle boy, I might have shaken him silly.  But I loved his mom...and she loved him...so...I prayed.

And that was when it occurred to me, that his seeming disregard for his mother's role in his life, was not going to change her love for him.  Her love for him was unconditional.  Her love for him was "without question."  He was still her little boy.  He was still the child that his mother (this same woman he was so quick to dismiss as irrelevant) had loved, cherished, cared for, believed in, and adored.  He was still the precious child she believed could do anything he set his heart to. 

So I took a deep breath, and in the space of that breath, I remembered my own earlier years of immaturity...and dismissiveness...with my mother.  It was such a clarion call to compassion and meekness.

And, I knew that this once precious little boy, was now a deeply spiritual young man.  We shared a love for God, a love for the Bible, and a genuine hunger for spiritual answers. So together, in the gentle, informal way that friends share inspiration, right there on the park bench, we explored the complete story of Jesus' relationship with his mom, Mary.  My young friend and I went to the master for answers. As contemporary disciples, we truly wanted to understand the role that parents play in the lives of their children - and vice versa. And together, we were led to that precious moment of redemption at the foot of the cross, when a boy looks down at his own mother and says:

"Woman behold thy son."

And then, I believe he says, to himself...in front of his disciple, John, and not to him:

"Behold, thy mother."

As we sat there thinking about his words, we couldn't help but remember Jesus the boy, who at 12, leaves his parents without telling them where he was going, during a family trip, to sit and chat with rabbis and lawyers in the temple.  We are a bit shocked by the young man of thirty, who rebukes his mother at the wedding they are attending together in Cana.  And then later, we watch on as this much sought after spiritual teacher, dismisses her in the story above. 

But, it is at Calvary, in the shadow of the cross, with only two companions and his mother - who has always loved and believed in him - standing by when all others have fled, that he finally acknowledges his mother's role in his life, and makes provision for her care after his passing.  And in doing so, he attends to her heart, and gives us a model for human behavior.  

Mary, did you know?  Yes, I think she knew   She knew who her son was and the promise his life held, for a waiting world.  I think all mothers know this very thing about their sons and daughters. We know the promise our children offer to a world hungry for innocence, strength, intelligence, beauty, grace, courage, integrity.  We know the truth of all that they can be...and we bear witness to that promise every day.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her child, because the mother-love includes purity and constancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal affection lives on under whatever difficulties."

What a promise!  No interruption in the eternally flowing affection of mother-love in the lives of either the parent, or the child...now, or ever.

The story of Jesus' relationship with his own mom is a gift to each of us.
 
My friend's son and I both "got it" that crisp autumn day in the park.   And when Christmas rolled around, we were both with our moms.

My friend has been so blessed by her son's willingness to be led into a deeper affection for his mother. She enjoys spending many of her holidays with a loving, kind, deeply spiritual and attentive son who never misses an opportunity to include his mom in his life.  And I am blessed by his friendship, by the lesson we learned together that day in the park, and by his willingness to let me share this story.

warmly....

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Mary, did you know..."

"...Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered
Will soon deliver you..."
-Greene/Lowry

I have thought about this verse from "Mary, Did You Know?" (enjoy this Kathy Matthea version...my favorite) a good deal over the past few weeks.  Both in light of my visit to South Africa where I spent just more than two weeks with my daughter,  and most recently after reading Laura's fascinating and thought-provoking post last week, "Book Review: Do you Know Who Your Children Are?"   I am convinced that our children...who we think are put into our lives as helpless wee ones for us to care for...are really what will save us from ourselves.

As I sat with my daughter on the beach each day...or lay next to her at night before we fell asleep...it became so obvious that this daughter had been critical in giving birth to the best parts of the woman I have become.  My love for her has demanded more honesty, integrity, courage, and true love...than any other person, place, activity, purpose, or thing in my entire life.  

This child that I thought I would play a critical role in "raising"...has raised my expectations of myself.  She has made me want to live in accord with higher standards of womanhood than I could ever even have imagined before she came along.  She, and her sisters,  are the reason I have persisted in my quest for a better understanding of grace.  They are the impetus behind my struggle for a better sense of moral courage rather than a blanket acceptance of cultural paradigms that, in some ways, are as beloved...and defended... as hallowed sacraments.

My baby girl...who I love with every fiber of my being...came not just so that I would have someone to love and care for - and that she would have someone to love and care for her - but to make me new.  She came to make me want to be new and fresh and wise and innocent and good...especially good...every day since her birth.  She came to deliver me from any self-indulgent complacency with my own idiosyncrasies and peculiar way of doing things.  She came to arrest my devolution into self-righteousness and pride.  She came to remind me that I want to be better because I want to give her a better example of loving authentically and living with integrity. 

My baby girl has walked on the unstable water of my mortal insecurities, frailties, and the wishy-washiness of opinions and demanded that I know my God and stand on Truth with absolute trust in His nature as Love...because I want it for her. 

Whenever I have sought a true centering, an unwavering conviction that there is a God, it is my love for my daughters that I rest upon.  This love is so overpowering that I have no response but to yield to its demand on me to be my most God-like.  It has owned me from the day I knew that to "mother" was what I wanted more than anything else in the universe.  This love has borne me, carried me into places I would never have gone unbidden from the moment I knew I was being asked to parent my first child.  This love has strengthened my resolve when I felt like collapsing, released my rigid grasp when terror kept me holding on to something other than God, and caused me to surrender everything in fidelity to its call.  This love is the one thing I am absolutely certain I had nothing to do with creating...and can do nothing to destroy.  It is the thing that leaves me praying every moment of every day:

"Behold, the handmaid of the Lord,
be it unto me according to Thy will."

Dear Father-Mother God...thank you for these daughters, Your unspeakable gifts,
Kate