"and I want to remember..."

"When children play on Christmas day
and snow is flung,

When I feel I haven't had a friend
since I was young,

When I'm feeling tired of myself
and everyone,

Lord remind me,
Lord remind me..."

This post (from last year) is my invitation to join in an "advent" celebration of the 24 questions and answers from the chapter "Recapitulation" from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This deep, and reverent, dive has been transformative for me.  

But, this post is about so much more. It is about the meaning and power of Christmas in our lives. I hope you find it helpful -- and hopeful -- as you enter this blessed season....

I was looking for an Amy Grant song to keynote an earlier post when I stumbled upon this exquisite song by Jon and Valerie Guerra on Amy's Facebook page.

Sometimes a song comes along that begs its own post, "Lord Remind Me" is one of those songs.

The holiday season -- from Thanksgiving to the year's end -- has always been my favorite time of year. I cherish long-held traditions and nurture new ones that have found purchase in the sweet soil of our family home. The tree goes up the day before Thanksgiving, White Christmas. Little Women, The Holiday, and Love, Actually fill the screen that weekend. Then comes the Christmas music -- too many favorites to note. 

One of my favorite "traditions" comes between December 1st and the 25th, when I pray with each of the twenty-four questions in the chapter, "Recapitulation" from Mary Baker Eddy's textbook for spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as my version of an advent calendar. One question deeply pondered, each day, as we move towards Christmas.

But this year, while many loved traditions have been carried out, I have felt a bit detached. Perhaps it's because its the first year that none of the children were here for me to lasso into choosing the tree, watching White Christmas, or baking pies.  And although I felt a bit sad, I wasn't really doing anything about it. I was aware that the tree went up too quickly and I was alone in the kitchen while I baked cookies and listened to White Christmas, but I chalked it up to our version of empty nest syndrome after over three decades of day-to-day parenting.

That was when I came upon "Lord Remind Me," and fell to my knees. The true meaning of Christmas came alive in me. This wasn't about trees and cookies, films and carols. It wasn't even about traditions long-loved. It was about something timeless and humbling. It was about remembering that nothing was impossible to God. It was about forgiveness and healing, about kings that kneeled before a baby, and a boy who trusted angels. It was about a girl who said, "yes," and the message of "on earth peace, good will to men."

Is there anything we need more today? Is there any message more timely, or a time more hungry for this message?

As Jon and Valerie sing with such reverence and humility:

"when I hear the news,
and hear another war's begun,
and I wonder if God's
on the side f either one,
I hear bullet, nail, or handcuff
you bore all of them,
and in the light
my heart's as dark as anyone's.

Lord remind me, Lord remind me
that the shepherds head the angels
break the silence in the field,
that the wise men found a baby
and they could not help but kneel

Lord remind me, cause its Christmas
and I want to remember..." 

And I do want to remember. I want to feel the power of this story drive me to my knees. I want to feel it change my heart and break through any sense of brittle self-certainty and icy indifference that might have gathered, like frost, on the tender places where I want to feel the heartbreak of my brothers and sisters in Aleppo, or Chicago, or Washington, DC.

There is a sweet, holy cry for the Christ to enter the manger of our hearts in this song:

"Tell me, how He loves me,
tell me, how he wants me,
tell me the story
like I've never heard before..." 

This is the part that broke through to the softest, deepest part of me. The words split me open and love for Him spilled from every part of my being. To think what he gave. To remember what he did. To know his love -- it is everything.

"...and I'll sing it
like the angels sing it,
with my whole heart sing it,
to Him who's worth
a thousand songs and more..." 

Hymns and carols came alive in me. My heart was an angel's heart singing from the stars. I walked out into the cold night and sang for him who loves us so. I lifted my voice in praise, and hope, and humble adoration for the child who brought kings to their knees, and for the man who would be king of kings.

I sang through tears of repentance and joy:

"Glory in the highest,
glory in the lowest,
glory that shines when nothing
seems to shine at all

Glory in the highest,
glory in the lowest
glory, Immanuel..." 

And isn't this the message of messages, "Immanuel..." which is translated, "God with us..." So tonight, I raised my voice to the heavens and sang, "Glory in the highest, glory in the lowest, glory Immanuel..."  Then, a flock of geese rose from the lake, circled above, and -- I like to believe -- carried that message in their own voices to the far corners of the earth.


offered with Love,

Kate

"the babe of healing..."

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

A friend's recent post on Facebook reminded me of an early December night, many years ago.  It was a time when all I wanted was a baby to love, to hold, and to cherish.

I'd called a friend and mentor during one of my darkest moments. I poured out my heart's sorrow. I could actually feel the compassion that filled the pregnant silence. It was as palpable as a hand reaching through the darkness. Soon, my weeping stilled, and my breathing evened.

Then, when he knew I was ready to listen, he asked me if I was ready to give birth to the most precious babe on earth -- the babe of Christian healing. I knew he was referencing a passage by Mary Baker Eddy from an article titled, "The Cry of Christmas-tide," published in her collected Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:

"Unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given.

"In different ages the divine idea assumes
different forms, according to humanity’s needs.
In this age it assumes, more intelligently
than ever before, the form of Christian healing.
This is the babe we are to cherish."
 

He reminded me that, more than ever before, this was the babe I needed to cherish -- not just for myself, but for the world.

Then, he gently suggested that I return to a series of twenty-four questions and answers that make up the entire curriculum for Eddy's course on Christian Science healing. Questions that are found in the chapter "Recapitulation," from her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Beginning on page 465 and concluding on page 497 we are given a path for seeking -- and finding -- healing. Twenty-four questions on thirty-two pages.

He told me that each December, he did this himself. He took one question per day and studied her answer. Then he pondered how he might answer that same question, based on what he had experienced as a healer throughout the year.

He assured me that these next precious days of gestation would bring forth this "babe," and I would be ready to cherish it with my whole life's purpose. These questions would prepare my heart. They were the promise of a new birth.

So, I did. And I still do. Each December 1st, I begin with the first question: "What is God?" I deeply consider Eddy's simple, cogent, complete, and profound answer.  Then I ask myself, "Based on what you have learned this year, what is God to you?" 

You see, I long to know God, myself.  

I am profoundly grateful for Mary Baker Eddy's waymarks as she chronicled her own journey towards a deeper understanding of what it means to "know the Lord." 

But I don't want to simply read her travel diary, and look at her photos -- I want to go where she has gone.  I long to feel that landscape under my feet.  To breathe that holy air.  And by revisiting those questions -- and then searching my heart for answers that ring with a true tone -- I align myself with the I AM THAT I AM.  For me, it is one of the most holy traditions of the season.

Last night, I couldn't wait to begin this year's season of expectancy, gestation, and birth. In fact, I was so eager that I rose just after midnight and took up that first question. The brevity and clarity in her answer took my breath away:

Question. — What is God?

Answer. — God is incorporeal, 
divine, supreme, infinite Mind,
Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth, Love.
 

And as I pondered my own journey --  with that question as a spiritual waymark -- my heart opened to new views. What a revelation! Everything that I've discovered about God's allness, power, and grace this year has deepened my trust in the spiritual reality of all things.  It has informed my understanding of healing.  Over and over again, it has been my spiritual anchor in moments self-doubt and uncertainty. I wrote down my most current answers to that first question, and filled page-after-page, long into the night.

Tomorrow I will take up the second question. Then the third. And each day I will feel this babe grow stronger in me -- again.

For me, this Christmas exercise -- first practiced over 25 years ago -- was (and is) life-transforming. It has continued to renew and refresh my understanding of how to realize the healing presence of God. In fact, I find myself repeating it throughout the year.  And although I've been blessed with inestimable joy in parenting each of our children, it is this "babe of Christian healing," that has filled my heart with purpose, and brought unfathomable peace when my womb felt empty.

From experience, I know that on December 25th I will be looking into the face of this beloved babe. I will see this healing Christ in the unwavering spiritual innocence of universal humanity. This is the babe that I will hold close, and never let go of.  This is the babe that will never let go of me.

And each day as I ponder these questions I will be waiting, as Amy Grant sings in "Breath of Heaven," in a silent prayer for the birth this babe in my own heart.

For me, this is the great gift -- healing.  It is what we all seek.  To know that we are whole, well, complete in the All-in-allness of God's great love.   Or, as Mary Baker Eddy promises in "The Cry of Christmas-tide:"

"This is the babe we are to cherish.

This is the babe
that twines its loving arms
about the neck of omnipotence,
and calls forth infinite care
from His loving heart."
 

offered with Love,

Kate