"it's all i need to know..."

"God is Love,
God is Love,
if it's all I ever learn in life,
it's all I need to know..."

Outside my cabin, I could hear a group of girls serenading a boy's cabin just down the hill. Their sweet voices lifted into the night sky like fireflies turning into stars. I closed my eyes hoping to capture some of their joy as it rose over the tall pines that stood like sentinels watching over us all.

I was reaching for joy, but it seemed so beyond my grasp that night. I'd received a call earlier in the evening that shook me to my core. Sorrow and bewilderment circled like coyotes looking for a place in my heart. I was on full alert, but tired. I needed a companion in the watch. Mindy Jostyn's beautiful, "God is Love" was a friend in the dark.

I let her remind me through the night that if I took nothing away from this experience -- but an understanding of what it meant that God is Love -- it would be enough. The hope of healing was alive in me. But what that healing would look like seemed elusive. In some ways, I didn't even know what to hope for. Would I stop feeling sad? Would the pain disappear? Would my heart cease to ache? Would someone tell me that the call I'd received earlier had never really happened?

I'd been sitting in the dark for hours, when I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to read from Mary Baker Eddy's primary text on spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. I had a long history with finding healing and comfort in her pages. It was exactly what I needed at that moment. I turned on the lamp and opened my dog-eared copy randomly.

My eyes fell on these words from a longer sentence:

"...the proof of healing, 
a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love." 

It washed over, and through, me like a dam breaking upstream. The proof of healing wasn't going to be seen in a changed physical picture. I wasn't going to hear different news, or wake up to a different report. But I would know this healing. I would have absolute proof of healing.  I would feel it in a "a sweet and certain sense that God is Love" filling my heart -- filling my life.

I turned off the lamp and returned to the stillness of the night. I listened to Mindy's voice -- and I knew I was healed. I felt it. It started as a glowing ember at my core. I felt Spirit breathe upon its presence - all the hope, trust, and affection I held in my heart. Before long, I could feel that "sweet and certain sense that God is Love" radiating, warming, and filling every dark corner of the night. I was healed. I had proof.

Elsewhere in Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

"The depth, breadth, height,
might, majesty, and glory
of infinite Love fill all space.
That is enough!" 

And it really was. It was enough, just to know that, "God is Love." I could actually feel that it was the most important thing I would ever learn in life, and that it was all that I would ever really need to know.

On the surface of things, nothing had changed. But deep within my heart I actually felt it -- that sweet and certain sense that God is Love -- and it was all the proof of healing I needed.  I have returned to this experience many times since that night.

In fact, just today my heart was heavy. The news was overwhelming. One alarming report after another. One disturbing account immediately on the heels of the last. The information was coming rapid fire. It felt like I had been praying -- without ceasing -- for days. I couldn't even imagine what healing might look like when there was so much to be healed, and so many issues to be prayerfully addressing. 

 As I stood at the stove waiting for the tea kettle to boil, the strains of Mindy's "God is Love," washed through my heart like the soundtrack from a favorite film. I recalled that night, over a decade earlier, when I had felt so engulfed in grief. And I remembered -- the only proof of healing I needed to feel was:

"a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love" 

I closed my eyes, quieting the clamor of the human mind.  And there it was -- the feeling. That sweet and certain sense that God is Love filling my heart. It was all the proof I needed. It was enough. 


offered with Love,

Kate

"Unfallen"

"...I am a good child Born of God's breath Whatever would try to shake me Deliver me almighty one... Show me the ways of purity Teach me Thy paths where I'm to be A lamb of God Never will stray out on his own God is my stay, I'm not alone There's never a chance of falling..." -     Michelle Armstrong

Yesterday we launched the new design for my website.  It has been an extraordinary journey with two remarkable friends.  My sister, Fawn, was the Soul-filled, patient, creative, and visionary designer. And my long-time friend, and website guru, Mark Peesel, took her vision and turned it into pixels and code and voila...binary beauty!   The first time I saw all of the elements together, integrated into one lovely space, I burst into tears.  It was like looking at a beautiful painting that used every color in my heart.  The tones, images, music, text...were a perfect articulation of how I feel about my work, my journey, and the stories that I share with others about God's presence in my life.  Stories that often leave me feeling a bit naked.  This new design clothes my heart in radiant garments I could never have imagined for myself.  I feel a bit like Cinderella who may have imagined a pretty dress, but not the "something quite magical, and beyond her wildest hopes and dreams" that her fairy Godmother had in Mind. Thank you Mark and Fawn (and Mark's codemaster, Ryan)...you have made it happen...and I am so touched by your willingness to spend this last year tweaking, and editing, and adjusting colors, spacing, text, and images to get it "just right."  You have built a home for my heart, an office for my work, a retreat for the tired, a soft, supple, buttery-to-the-touch binding for the stories I tell.  And to each of the photographers* who have given me permission to share their images...I am so grateful. So back to tonight's song. The above lyrics are from "Unfallen."  It is the first song you will hear if you visit my website,

www.thoughtgentlywhispers.com

You can also get there through the portals of: www.katerobertsoncs.com, www.growthingrace.com, or www.prayerbasedsolutions.com.  "Unfallen" is followed by Mindly Jostyn's "In His Eyes." A song that I wrote a post about last January, also titled, "In His Eyes."  (Thank you to Mindy's family for honoring me with permission to use her extraordinary song,  of compassion and healing, on the site.) Now for "Unfallen." I've known Michelle Armstrong since she was a girl...a camper, a counselor, chef, a "gentle beam of living love" whose smile could light up the dark places of the earth, and whose voice, when floating between the willowy aspens and lodgepole pines, at camp,  was like the purest of rare oils poured on the roiling emotions and  churning fears of teen who were facing extreme adventures, navigating new interpersonal terrain, and finding their way through the forest of identity and society.  Hearing her sing hymns and lullabies to campers...once she became a counselor herself...was akin to watching a horse whisperer gentle the thrashings of a wild mustang.  Mi and I have stayed most closely in touch over the years, through her mommy, Laura.  Laura is a friend and colleague.  She is a Christian Science nurse whose practice of "comfort's art" inspires and humbles me each summer as we partner in caring for children at camp.  Her touch is gently, her eyes are kind, her voice is sweet, and her laughter is light.  But don't be fooled,  her trust in God is as firm, strong, and resilient with conviction as one of the steel cables used for belaying campers at the high ropes course.   Michelle and her sister Heather, have learned well...from their mommy, the art and science of compassion.  My love for Mi's music goes back as far as I can remember.  I loved watching her from across the lawn on the porch of her cabin cradling her guitar and softly working through chords and lyrics as she crafted new songs she would later play to her campers at bedtime, sing at the end-of-session variety show, perform during a reunion talent showcase, or harmonize with her friends on stage of Valerie Lodge as we sang "Whither" by the candle light to campers on the last night of camp. She is a brilliant songsmith and an extraordinary talent.  Her star is bright with promise.  And that promise is due, as much...if not more, to her motives for sharing her music.  She is, at her core, a healer.  A nurse.  A artist painting with the colors of love, joy, peace, and purity. So it was no surprise when I saw her performing at a spirituality-based youth conference for teens who had gathered to explore global activism from a spiritual perspective. She was, as always, breath-taking.  Performing with a number of other great musicians, she "rocked the house."   There were familiar songs off her CDs, "Apples," and "Lemons"...and new offerings as well. I enjoyed every moment of that evening's entertainment.  And it would have been enough to satisfy my craving for a bit of Mi live...at least for another year....   But when we ask God for bread, we are not given a stone...however beautiful a gem-stone it may be.  I needed something more that weekend.  I needed a gentle reminder that my hand had never left the firm grasp of my Father-Mother God.  That He/She was holding me, guiding me, guarding me...even when I seemed to have wandered off the trail.  I needed to know that my path, however bramble-infested, circuitous, or meandering, had never taken me into an abyss...one I feared I'd never be able to fully return from...no matter how hard I tried. And that wasn't an easy thing for me to remember that weekend.  I was surrounded by former acquaintances, and work colleagues, I hadn't seen in years.  Years that could only be characterized, from the outside, as a long chapter in the wilderness, and interpreted...by some...as full of missed signposts, and detours.  Yes, there were truly, lovely instances of affection and recognition, and  I was deeply grateful for sweet moments of warmth and kindness, but there were also fear-based perceptions, misinterpreted moments of chilly dismissal.  But whether it was intended or not, it was what I thought I was feeling.  And it left my heart shivering with self-doubt, and wishing for a dark corner to curl up in and retreat from the demons of despair, hopelessness, and regret. I'd gone hoping to serve, and although I'd thoroughly enjoyed every moment of sharing my love for spiritual healing with teens and adult participants as planned, by Sunday morning I just wanted to keep walking past the appointed place for our worship service, and continue off into the woods until it was time for the closing celebration.  I'd thought about having "church" by myself, in the room I shared with another volunteer, and had even gone there after breakfast, deciding to pray and read Scripture alone, when something literally propelled me off the bed, and out the door.   As I walked through a gentle spring mist, along the gravel road, up a knoll, and over a series of rolling hillocks towards the "chapel" my heart felt as if it were just too heavy to carry.  I arrived at the service during the first hymn and found a seat off to the side, and behind, a group of folks whom I'd "felt" a distance, an uncharacteristic coolness, from all weekend.  Although we'd worked closely together in the past,  that weekend it seemed as if I couldn't bridge an invisible chasm, and it left me feeling sadder than I'd felt in a very long time. I don't remember the Scriptural selections, but I do remember praying The Lord's Prayer, and quite literally,  in silence, weeping those words, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,"  then hearing Mary Baker Eddy's spiritual interpretation echoing back, "and Love is reflected in love" ...wondering if I had the right to even hope to feel the audacity of renewal,...to hope for hope.   As I sat there, shoulders quaking, wishing I could melt into the carpet below me, or disperse...like vapor...into the air circulating through the rafters above us...sitting as still as a scared bunny in the grass, I heard the first heart-stopping chords from Michelle's guitar.  The low, warm tones reached deep, deep, deeper down inside of me to find the place that felt cold and small, each syllable breathing fresh, soft life onto what were the dying embers of self-worth.  The clear, crisp, refreshing air of Truth gently fanning a barely flickering flame of hope that I might still have something left to give, that I could possibly bring gifts that were still of value, or that my heart could, perhaps, make a difference in someone's life that day. I don't remember one word of the service that followed Mi's solo that morning. I'd drunk her words until they overflowed from the vessel that was my heart, pouring over me, through me, around me...cleansing, baptizing, lifting me like a small sailboat over and above the rocky shoals of selfjudgment, sorrow, suggestion, and despair to where "the winds and waves can shock, oh nevermore." There are no words to describe the healing power of Mi's song, "Unfallen" in my life. I left that community gathering peaceful and whole. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy helps us see that,

"If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted."

Sometimes the broken heart that needs binding...is our own.  We must have whole hearts ourselves, if we are to open the prison doors for the sick, and fellow travelers who are longing for freedom from sin and sorrow. Eddy also says that:

"Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love - be it song, sermon, or Science - blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty."

Mi's song did all that...and more.  I am forever grateful. Later I contacted Michelle, to tell her about the healing I'd experienced during her sacred performance, to inquire if there would be a recording of it in the future, and to ask her permission for extending it as a musical welcome for  visitors to my website...my virtual office...and she said, "yes."  I visit often. It has been the soundtrack of my resurrection ever since, and I can't stop listening to it.  It is a constant reminder that baptism, redemption, and hope are not only possible....but promised.  "Unfallen" still reaches in, and it recalibrates my heart, each time I hear it. This song speaks to each of us.  It is Christ's message of salvation and purity, innocence and freedom.   I believe that every man, woman, and child hungers to feel, and know, that they are, at the core of their being, inviolate and untouched.  I hope you will let yourself be bathed in the warm beauty of its purity, refreshed by its promise, and buoyed by its message of your inherent worth as "a good child". Thank you Mi, I love you so very much. Your music fills the world with beauty and my heart with peace....healing, redeeming, overpowering, resurrecting peace. with Love, Kate Kate Robertson, CS * artists whose images have blessed my website...and whose friendship continues to bless my life:
Nathaniel Wilder Erin Laningham Rachel Laningham Megan Laningham Ashley Bay Fawn Talmon Caitlin Moss Lila June Jones Collin Wolfe Susan Golay Sune Tamm-Buckle Floyd Jones A. Paulson "Edge Fog" original painting by Duncan Martin

"a sweet and certain sense..."

"God is Love,
God is Love,
if it's all I ever learn in life,
it's all I need to know..."

Outside my cabin, I could hear a group of girls serenading a boy's cabin just down the hill. Their sweet voices lifted into the night sky like fireflies turning into stars. I closed my eyes hoping to capture some of their joy as it rose over the tall pines that stood like sentinels watching over us all.

I was reaching for joy, but it seemed so beyond my grasp that night. I'd received a call earlier in the evening that shook me to my core. Sorrow and bewilderment circled like coyotes looking for a place in my heart. I was on full alert, but tired. I needed a companion in the watch. Mindy Jostyn's beautiful, "God is Love" was a friend in the dark.

I let her remind me through the night that if I took nothing away from this experience -- but an understanding of what it meant that God is Love -- it would be enough. The hope of healing was alive in me. But what that healing would look like seemed elusive. In some ways, I didn't even know what to hope for. Would I stop feeling sad? Would the pain disappear? Would my heart cease to ache? Would someone tell me that the call I'd received earlier had never really happened?

I'd been sitting in the dark for hours, when I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to read from Mary Baker Eddy's primary text on spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. I had a long history with finding healing and comfort in her pages. It was exactly what I needed at that moment. I turned on the lamp and opened my dog-eared copy randomly.

My eyes fell on these words from a longer sentence:

"...the proof of healing, 
a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love." 

It washed over, and through, me like a dam breaking upstream. The proof of healing wasn't going to be seen in a changed physical picture. I wasn't going to hear different news, or wake up to a different report. But I would know this healing. I would have absolute proof of healing.  I would feel it in a "a sweet and certain sense that God is Love" filling my heart -- filling my life.

I turned off the lamp and returned to the stillness of the night. I listened to Mindy's voice -- and I knew I was healed. I felt it. It started as a glowing ember at my core. I felt Spirit breathe upon its presence - all the hope, trust, and affection I held in my heart. Before long, I could feel that "sweet and certain sense that God is Love" radiating, warming, and filling every dark corner of the night. I was healed. I had proof.

Elsewhere in Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

"The depth, breadth, height,
might, majesty, and glory
of infinite Love fill all space.
That is enough!" 

And it really was. It was enough, just to know that, "God is Love." I could actually feel that it was the most important thing I would ever learn in life, and that it was all that I would ever really need to know.

On the surface of things, nothing had changed. But deep within my heart I actually felt it -- that sweet and certain sense that God is Love -- and it was all the proof of healing I needed.  I have returned to this experience many times since that night.

In fact, just today my heart was heavy. The news was overwhelming. One alarming report after another. One disturbing account immediately on the heels of the last. The information was coming rapid fire. It felt like I had been praying -- without ceasing -- for days. I couldn't even imagine what healing might look like when there was so much to be healed, and so many issues to be prayerfully addressing. 

 As I stood at the stove waiting for the tea kettle to boil, the strains of Mindy's "God is Love," washed through my heart like the soundtrack from a favorite film. I recalled that night, over a decade earlier, when I had felt so engulfed in grief. And I remembered -- the only proof of healing I needed to feel was:

"a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love" 

I closed my eyes, quieting the clamor of the human mind.  And there it was -- the feeling. That sweet and certain sense that God is Love filling my heart. It was all the proof I needed. It was enough. 


offered with Love,

Kate

"In His Eyes..."

"..In His eyes, you're a fire
that never goes out
A light on the top of a hill
In His eyes you're a poet,
a painter, a prophet
With a mission of love to fulfill
Outside there's a world
so enchantingly strange
A maze of illusion and lies
But there's never a story
that ever could change
The glory of you in His eyes

In His eyes you're a radiant
vision of beauty
A gemstone cut one of a kind
You're fine as a diamond,
deep as a ruby
Rare as a jade in His mind
No need to believe
all you may have been told
No need to live in disguise
You're brighter than silver,
purer than gold
A pearl beyond price in His eyes

You're an innocent child
in the sight of His face
No cause for blame
For fear or disgrace
He sees only goodness,
His vision is true
And nothing can change
the perfection of you
in His eyes

In His eyes, you're a fire
that never goes out
A light on the top of a hill
You're a rose in the forest,
a prelude from Bach
A triumph of heavenly skill
Outside there's a world
that keeps breaking your heart
And tearing your dreams down to size
But guiding you homeward,
piercing the dark
Is the lovelight that shines
in His eyes

Now and forever,
that light never dies
You're dearly beloved
in His eyes..."

- Mindy Jostyn/Jacob Brackman
"In His Eyes"
(this is just an audio sample...you will want to own this..trust me)

Sometimes there isn't a need to write something new.  It's especially true when what's already been written so perfectly articulates a feeling or a hope,  that to expound on it would be like painting a rose,  embellishing a diamond, photo-shopping the colors in a South African sunset, or trying to enhance the serenity on a newborn's sleeping face...or explain the love of a sister's embrace.

So I will let Mindy's lyrics above -- by far one of the greatest spiritual songs ever written, and this exegesis on I Corinthians 13 and I John 4  -- sent to me by my friend, Leslie...speak what is in my heart today. 

Love
by Sanders

When I am loved, I can make mistakes. I can lose my temper. I can be late, I can cry, I can grow at my own pace because LOVE IS PATIENT.

When I am loved, I know that encouragement and reproof will be given gently, and that things that are important to me will be important to the one who loves me because LOVE IS KIND.

When I am loved, I know that I can have talents and strengths and successes that may be even greater in some areas than the one who loves me, and that those talents and strengths and successes will be encouraged and supported, because LOVE DOES NOT ENVY.

And I know that I will not be in competition with the one who loves me because LOVE ISN'T PROUD.

Whatever either of us can learn to be - simply makes us a stronger unit of love. When I am loved, I can know that my interests and feelings and tears and laughter count. I can trust my deepest needs and greatest fears to the one who loves and know that I will be listened to and protected and cradled because LOVE IS NOT RUDE OR SELF-SEEKING.

When I am loved, I know that my bad moods or hard days or selfish times won't be met with intolerance or standards of performance that I can't measure up to. I know that it's alright to be imperfect. I know that I have some freedom to say things that I might not really mean or react immaturely or to release a little frustration because LOVE IS NOT EASILY ANGERED.

I have more than one chance, I have a lifetime of chances. When I am loved I can make a mistake today and not have to apologize for it for the next three years because LOVE MAKES NO RECORD OF WRONGS.

When I am loved the very nature of God becomes real to me because LOVE REJOICES WITH THE TRUTH.

When I am loved, I come to know God. When I am loved, I have a place to run and hide from the attacks of Satan where I am safe. I have a refuge. I have a place where I know I am always welcome because LOVE PROTECTS.

When I am loved, I am allowed to know the hidden thoughts of the one who loves because LOVE TRUSTS.

When I am loved, I have the joy of becoming everything that God intends for me to become, everything that He promises I can be, because LOVE HOPES, and hope is built on what we know is going to happen.

And, finally, when I am loved I don't have to be afraid that it will go away today or tomorrow or forever, because LOVE PERSEVERES.

Thank you to God for the unspeakable gifts of His love, your friendship, the experiences - tears and triumphs - we've shared, and the words that flow between us like sap among the trees and saplings of the Aspen Grove...that is really just one tree.

always,
Kate

Mindy's CD "In His Eyes can be purchased through her website: www.mindyjostyn.com.

photo credit*: my daughters, Emma and Clara (taken by their dad, Dwight Oyer 2002)
*from our private collection, please do not use or copy

"Abide with me...."

"Abide with me
Fast breaks the morning light
Our daystar rises
Banishing all night
Thou art our strength
O Truth that maketh free
We would unfailingly abide in Thee…"
-     W. H. Monk

Today I am thinking a lot about what it means to really abide in God, to "abide in the doctrine of Christ"….not just visit.

This timeless hymn's last verse, and I always seem to hear it in Mindy Jostyn's beautiful voice,  began to give me a glimpse…

"…I know Thy presence
every passing hour,
I know Thy peace,
for Thou alone art power;
O Love divine,
abiding constantly,
I need not plead,
Thou dost abide with me."

This hymn has long been a companion in times when I have felt like I was standing on the precipice of change…looking down into the chasm of "what if", wondering when the fall will come, if it will hurt, and then backing away as if God needed my consent to move me forward.

In those moments it is as if I forget that I am not waiting for Him to put His hand in mine so that with Him I could handle…or maybe even survive…the fall, but that He is the very chasm I am backing away from.  He is All-in-all.  There is no place, circumstance or situation I can find myself in that He is separate from.  It is my perception of the chasm as darkness and emptiness that I need to replace with the understanding of His omni-presence.  Where could I fall, but, as my grandmother used to say, "into the wideness of His lap."

One winter I faced a life-threatening health crisis.  One that left me feeling as if I was no longer on the precipice of a chasm, but already within one of those spiraling slides at the playground…only this one was a dark tunnel of pain and fear.  I could not see a circle of light at the end…only more darkness.  I was spinning out of control.  I could not find a way to stop myself.  I was gripped by the fear that without health insurance, the medication I might need for pain management so that I could stay mentally free enough to pray for myself would devastate us financially, the terror of not being able to care for my daughters…the doubt that I could face another night without losing my spiritual poise...seemed to draw me deeper and deeper into the tunnel.

Late one night as I lay on my back under a blanket of crushing pain and fear, the words from this hymn started to pierce the palpable blackness with pinpicks of the light.  And it was enough. With only the glimmer of light from those tiny pinpricks I found my lost courage cowering in a corner.  I slipped out of bed, into an old cardigan and padded my way across the cold wood floors, through pools of golden lamplight and into my office. 

The panes of glass in the French doors were frosted and the harsh edges softened, the lamplight from the city streets cast a soft beam upon the painting above my desk.  It is a painting by artist Brooks Anderson of the Collegiate Peaks, a range of 14,000 foot mountains that cradle the Arkansas Valley.  It is my heart's home.  It is where camp is located, and readers of this blog know that this is where my thoughts rest when I am lost in prayer. 

That night, lying in the dark, I had wondered if I would ever see my "home" in the valley again…if I would ever sit on the porch of my cabin, "Crows Nest" and look out at the Sleeping Indian range and listen to the laughter of campers and counselors on the lawn of Valerie Lodge.   As I stood in the deep blue pre-dawn light filling my office I realized that a beam of streetlamp light had found the spot on the painting where camp sits…in the palm of those five fingers…five avalanche chutes that fill with snow each winter and are often still traced in white when summer begins. 

I thought of Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, -
  he will look out from them upon the universe..."

For the next few weeks this speck of paint became my home…my abiding place with God…the focus of my mental space…I looked out from the perspective I have when I am at camp…the "God with us" that is so evident when I watch teens abandon selfishness and help eachother, listen to hearts hungering for "something more", and feel the glow of their inspired journeys.  I sat on my porch looking out from the space of that painting in my office night after night while the winds of winter shook the tall sycamore trees and scattered the lamplight around me.  I used that painting to re-focus my vantage point.  I was not alone in the dark, in pain and afraid…I was sitting on the porch of Crowsnest watching God work His wonders.  I could feel His presence in their smiles, hear His voice in their laughter, see His hand in their discoveries. 

While the world slept in the hibernating cold of a long winter's "night" I was awake and alive to His promises.  I was living in a dot of paint, the slip of a sable brushstroke, a flick of light on canvas...I was abiding in summer's lanscape of healing and discovery, the space of expectation...pregnant with healing...full of the evidence of His love.

I did go back to camp that summer.  I sat on my porch and it was wonderful, glorious, beautiful…but then,  I had already been there all winter…I knew it would be.

With Love,
Kate

"Biospirituality...celebrating the sacred in all life"

“…Like a river that runs to the ocean
Like a ray reaching out from the sun
Like the leaf and the vine, the grape and the wine
I and my Father are one…”

Our good friend Mindy Jostyn left us songs on her “Coming Home” album with lyrics so pure, sweet, and spiritually evocative that I can’t help but hear them when I pray. Many folks know Mindy through her hauntingly beautiful "In His Eyes", an anthem of compassion and hope, but this one, “I and My Father Are One” speaks to me of the spiritual nature of the universe…plants, creatures, sky, planets, the very soil itself.   Or as Gary Kowalski suggests in his treatise from Animal Blessings (June Cotner, Editor): “We must join in a biospirituality that will acknowledge and celebrate the sacred in all life.”

"Though our fears may estrange and divide us
May we seek to dissolve them through love
We are sister and brother, each bound to the other
And one with our Father above..."

I was thinking about this concept of biospirituality yesterday on my walk/run through Forest Park..the extraordinary 1,371 acre jewel-in-full bloom only a block from my house. (Those of you who live in St. Louis, don’t miss this hidden Shangri-la which sits right in the middle of our city…it’s 500 acres larger than NYC’s Central Park.)

It came to me with such clarity that since every molecule in the universe is an idea of Mind made manifest, then every blade of grass, grain of asphalt, every breath of air I breathe is a reflection of Mind, God’s conscious worth, deserving appreciation, gratitude and recognition for its contribution to the universe. 

It asks nothing of me…I should ask nothing of it. Shouldn't we be able to live side by side as respectful neighbors..in a spiritual biosphere. Yet regardless of how nature is treated, it gives so much to me…to all of us…of its beauty, strength, humility, grace…that I must, today, give of what I have.  Awareness.

So as I walked and ran through this spiritual art museum filled with living canvases, sculptures, and fabrics of rock, water, air, organisms, creatures and plant life, I acknowledged their giving.  Along my seven-mile course I said thanks a thousand times to creation for its gifts.

We are one…because we all share one Father, Mind, which creates and governs us all.  There is no separation.  This environment is not an abstract “thing”, or a group of disparate material elements and objects that we can dismiss as lesser or insignificant to our greater spiritual purpose.  Since God is All-in-all, what surrounds us is never more, or less, than the allness of God made manifest, visible and appreciable.  Animal rights, recycling, fuel efficient ways for staving global warming are not items on a political agenda…they are not red or blue issues, they are not a choice.  They are what they are and always have been...a way of showing our gratitude to God…the expression of kindness to one’s neighbor, to one’s family, to one’s all-inclusive, species-less community of spiritual brotherhood.

Our son, Jeremy, has renewed my passion as an environmental activist. I have to admit that my resolve to recycle had flagged since the first Earth day celebration in Mr. Price's biology class on April 22, 1970. I had become disillusioned by rampant consumerism and a culture obsessed with accumulation and disposal. But Jeremy has helped me remember the promise I made as high school sophmore in the Spring of 1970 when we all pledged to be caretakers of this earth. He has reminded me that every piece of cardboard, every plastic water bottle recycled is a gift of appreciation to the world of water, rocks, rivers, sky and air that so blesses my experience every day. We share this earth and as Mary Baker Eddy tells us "as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme". It is His earth and we share the universe with all of its inhabitants in one bond of unity.

Or, as Mindy puts it:

"...One in purpose, one in power
One in the moment, one with a flower
One in kindness, one in peace
One in the Mind that foresees our release..."

Each blossom on every tree sings a song of renewal, of fresh starts and new growth.  Every napping duck floating on the ponds that pepper this park with cool refreshment paints a memorial to the wisdom of trusting the buoying power of Spirit to uphold us as we rest in His care.

"...Like a seedling that grows in the forest
Like the light shining forth from the sun
Like a branch and the tree, a drop and the sea
A hymn and the choir, a flame and the fire
I and my Father are one..."

I pray you have a moment…even if it’s only to look out your window or reach down and let your hand brush along the new grass as you walk to your car...to commune in gratitude with this biospiritual community with which we share space in the universe.  I believe that Mary Baker Eddy encouraged us to respect this biospiritual family when she reminds her readers:

“Mind maintains all identities from a blade of grass to a star
as distinct and eternal.”

That a blade of grass has a distinct and eternal identity is breathtaking and sobering. What have I to learn from this humble teacher?  I think I’ll head back out for another class in humility and grace.  Then down to the pond for Trust 101.

"...One in purpose, one in power
One in the moment, one with a flower
One in kindness, one in peace
One in the Mind that foresees our release.”

- Mindy Jostyn
Thank you Mindy...

Kate
(and, Jeff as editor)