"This journey is my own..."

"why would I want to live for man
and pay the highest price
what does it mean to gain the whole world
only to lose my life...

So I do what I do
to make a good impression
This journey is my own
And so much of what I say
is to make myself  look better
This journey is my own..."
-     Sara Groves

With Sara Groves on my ipod, "This Journey is My Own," became my companion song as I drove through the breath-takingly beautiful Arkansas Valley yesterday.   With Antero, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Yale...mountain sentinels...starboard, and the river port side, I was aware that these geographical markers were keeping me on course in the same way that the equipoise of honesty and compassion, integrity and affection,  serve as navigational buoys as I move through the choppy, or calm, waters of my day.  

I've experienced many kinds of spiritually transformative moments in the last few decades, but I think the one that I am most grateful for tonight is an ongoing dissolution of the "me" that actually thinks that she needs the approval of others, more than she needs to be right with herself...especially the approval of those I love, and hope love me.

In the past, I've paid a very high price in trying to gain the appreciation, acceptance, and acknowledgment of others, only to realize that by doing so I had lost "my life" in direct proportion to my desire for gaining the whole world...and its approval.  And to tell you the truth, it is never worth it.  It leaves my heart feeling cold, and achingly empty.   If I can't be "me" and be loved...if I must be something I am not, to be accepted...what have I really gained?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Nada,  Zip. Zero.  If people love a version of me that is not genuine, then the genuine me is not loved at all.  And this, my friends, is a painfully sad way to live.

We each face hard choices...moment-by-moment...as we navigate our individual journeys towards spiritual self-awareness and our place in the human family.  I find that I am often asking myself critical questions like:  Do I say the thing that will make other people happy, things that will make them like me, and will assure them that I am "with the program," or do I speak, act, live out from "mine integrity,"  -- a clear conviction about God's voice, and direction, in my life?   Do I let myself be guided by a God-centered inner compass, or am I swayed by human opinions about my decisions and my choices?

This journey is my own.  I alone am accountable to God for how I traverse the steep hillside...and the narrow way.  And it is all about the "how" these days.   Am I speaking with an authentic voice?  Am I obediently following the leadings of Truth as my conscience and Love point out the way?  Am I honest?  Is my heart impartially and universally filled with affection and patience?  Do I live my convictions with humility and non-judgment? 

These are the questions that keep me up at night...and, to be honest, fill my days with purpose.  I find that when I am so engaged in my own journey, I have little time to, as Phillips Brooks once said, "direct the wanderings of [my] brothers' lives." Then, salvation...my salvation...is what holds primacy in my sense of purpose, and I can hear God's "thou art mine," with sweet clarity and peace.

The full text of Brooks' quote follows:

"God has not given us vast learning to solve all the problems, or unfailing wisdom to direct all the wanderings of our brothers’ lives; but He has given to every one of us the power to be spiritual, and by our spirituality to lift and enlarge and enlighten the lives we touch."

Mary Baker Eddy, noted in her own hand, following the appearance of this statement on a document found in her papers, "The secret to my life is in the above."

Yes, this journey is my own and I am trying, each day, to walk it in a way that I don't end up losing my life, in order to gain the whole world.  Gaining the whole world...it's just not all it's cracked up to be.  So, I think I will, as Sara sings, live, and breathe, for an audience of one..." The only One.

may your days be filled with moments of  supreme peace...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"and I can see it in you..."

"It's in the blooming of an orchid
It's in the baby when she talks
It's in the sugar of a maple
And in silence of a hawk…
It's in your hungry neighbor
It's in the digging of a shrew
It's in the belly of the Buddha
And I can see it in you…"
Joe Crookston

It's the fourth day of March.  It's Super Tuesday II. Primaries are being held in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island.  Here in Missouri it's a Winter Wonderland.  Big, fluffy snowflakes are drifiting down from a dove gray sky blanketing the city in silence.  There is a blustery wind sending swirls of visible cold around the ankles of students braving their way from apartments and co-ops to the corner coffeehouse.  But our family is almost cocooned in the warm smells of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven and a vanilla candle near the stairs…the sound of the twins' laughter in the playroom and folk music seeping out from under Jeff's office door. 

It feels like the best parts of Christmas have been resurrected today.  The warmth of family and baking, the sweet sacredness of gratitude, the stillness of winter's promise…a child being born in a manger.  Today has that sense of quietness.  As if to remind me that underneath all this snow and cold there is a miracle growing…a small bulb has been sleeping -- waiting for just the right moment when warmth and light and the song of robins will call it to the breakfast table of Spring. 

I feel that promise today.  I sense that for all of us, there is a silent, unseen something calling us to a greater awakening…to rise and open our eyes to all that is budding and blossoming in consciousness…right now.

In 1994 some colleagues and I began witnessing a conscious stirring in collective human thought…an awareness of the inherent internal hunger for spirituality.  New books were being written and published that encouraged readers to probe and explore the unseen and unknown, television hosts were beginning to address the inner live of their guests, films were being produced with themes of transformation, redemption, forgiveness.

By 1996 we were fully engaged in this quest for all things spiritual and by the year 2000 we no longer had to convince one another that prayer had a radical impact on the our lives…it was no longer a question…it was a generally accepted paradigm for 87% of those polled.  When thinking back on that fateful days in September, 2001...the senseless acts of violence launched in New York and Washington, DC...events that held our hearts hostage, I am so grateful that we were a community of thinkers prepared to pray.  We were already primed by this hunger for something deeper, able to respond from a core of spiritual beliefs that had been nurtured by  whatever faith tradition or spiritual practice we had embraced.  And we did.  We responded from that core and discovered the best in ourselves.

Today the attacks on our peace are quite different…more subtle perhaps…but no less aggressive and frightening.  Unemployment in the double digits, millions of people losing their homes, a recession looming, and a health care crisis that for many keeps them awake at night often wondering what terror might lie hidden beneath the skin…their own or that of a loved one.

Our reponses and solutions could be the same today when terror rages within, as it was almost seven years ago…this time, instead of just starting with prayer and then looking outside of ourselves for a sense of peace, safety, security and hope, we can return to those core practices that gave us such direction and empowerment in the days following 911...and stay there. Perhaps we could continue by taking down the fences and boundaries that leaves us on an "us" and "them" playing field. 

What would change today if we were to treat everyone like out neighbor.  What if we were to think about our co-worker...whose child is ill requiring her to miss work...with the same compassion we showed the mother who hadn't seen her missing son since the Trade Towers fell and our hearts almost leapt out of our chest because we were so eager to extend our love to her...from wherever we were across this land.  What if the man who lost his job because of plant layoffs were treated with the same willingness to "pitch in" as the firefighter who was injured that day in September saving lives.  What if we were to pray for the millions of homeowners facing the loss of their homes as we did for those Trade Center neighbors who were displaced in the wake of jet fuel smoke over Manhattan.

We are all one.  We all live out from the same place…the kingdom of heaven.  We all have one supreme leader…a divinely good God.  We are citizens of one race…humanity.  We all have the same hopes…to love and be loved…to feel that we make a difference in the world, that our purpose is clear, and that we are valued for what we do.

We all have access to the same space of silence within…the place where God speaks to us of His ever-presence and love.  

So today, rather than looking to CNN or MSNBC to tell me what the state of our economic health, security or promise is…I am going deeper…I'm asking God how I can best serve Him.  Who does he need me to love, comfort, help, care for? 

There is something rising in all of us today.  It has been pushing its way through the cold soil of complacency and self-determinism, apathy and consumerism, frustration and distrust...it is strong and it is steady, it never gives up on us.   This unseen something knows the core of who we are as the children of God, it is stubbornly persistent as only hope can be…it is the very I AM in us that is springing forth…rising and rising to burst through the soil and breathe the light.

When we are silent we can hear it breathing in us, we can feel the shifting of the soil around our heart, we can smell it like scent of a crocus bud still striving beneath the dark rich earth.  Today I am grateful for the silence of the snow, the quiet of the frozen ground where something beautiful and grand is growing strong.  I am ready for Spring.

"O little town of Bethlehem,
   How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
   The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
   The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
   Are met in thee tonight.

O morning stars, together
   Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King,
   And peace to men on earth;
Where charity stands watching
   And faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
   And Christmas comes once more.

How silently, how silently,
   The wondrous gift is given;
So God imparts to human hearts
   The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
   But in this world of sin,
Where meekness will receive him, still
   The dear Christ enters in.
- Phillips Brooks

The Christ in springing forth from the soil of our hearts...from the kingdom of heaven...Bethlehem in each of us...each moment...no one is left out.
Kate