"I listen to the Wind..."

"I listen to the wind,
to the wind of my soul.
Where I'll end up,
well, I think only God really knows..."

It's been forty-six years since I first ran my thumbnail down the edge of the cellophane on the Cat Steven's "Teaser and the Firecat" album that I'd gotten for my 17th birthday.

Within days I'd memorized every word. Within weeks my dad was threatening to break that album into a million pieces -- if my sister and I played it one more time.

Today, I can still listen to that album, and remember which song comes next.  I know the exact moment when the next track will start, and am able to anticipate the momentary pause in his voice -- during a poignant verse. "The Wind," is still my favorite song.  It's lyrics still leave me feeling both hungry and satisfied all at once.

I have asked myself so many times, "Why did he not want water -- even once? Why was not wanting water important? What was the devil's lake?"  There are some songs that it will take me a lifetime to understand. This is one of those songs. And yet, for all of its mystery -- and perhaps because of it -- I love this song.  Always have, always will.

Some songs reveal themselves in bits and pieces. About 25 years ago I had an experience that helped me gain some insight into this song, especially the line:

"I listen to my words,
but they fall far below..."  

Our daughter was about 4 years old. It was a snowy morning and I was in a hurry to get her to preschool before heading back to my office for a full day of calls and appointments. I buckled her into the passenger seat of our old car and came around to the driver's side.

When I say "old car," I mean really old car. We were a very young family with a very modest income. The car I was driving - although clean and reliable - was rusty, worn, and road weary. I'd patched the floor with cardboard, and the clutch pedal had lost its rubber pad.  

That morning, as I hurriedly pressed down on the clutch to start the car, the snow-covered sole of my shoe slipped off the pedal.  Its metal edge popped up suddenly and caught my ankle bone.  I heard -- and felt -- a sharp crack.  The pain was excruciating.

Our daughter loved to pray. She knew that this was what her mommy did for other people. She loved to sit at her little desk and pray for her dolls and her stuffed animals. But sometimes, she would also pray for her friends and our dog. 

In that moment - sitting in the silent car - I knew that I couldn't walk back into the house and call someone to help me. So I turned to our daughter, and asked her to pray for mommy.

Immediately she closed her eyes. Within seconds I realized that all of the pain was gone and I could freely move my ankle. I have to admit I was surprised at how instantaneously the situation changed.

I turned to our daughter and exclaimed that I'd been healed. Her expression said, "of course."  I thanked her, and asked, "When you were praying for mommy, what were you thinking?"

I will never forget her response -- or the look of exasperation on her face. It was as if she was repeating something to a child she'd been instructing, on the same subject, for years.  And I still hadn't gotten it. She said:

"Mommy,
when I pray
I don't think,
I listen."  

It literally took my breath away, and then it changed my sense of what it means to pray -- forever.

It also explained -- for me -- something Mary Baker Eddy writes on the first page of her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, in the opening chapter, titled "Prayer":

"Prayer, watching and working,
are God's gracious means..."  

Prayer is not my means for reaching out to God. It is God's means for communicating Truth to human consciousness. Prayer is not my means for mentally rehearsing scripture, inspiration, or quotes. Prayer is God's means for reaching deep into my heart with His/Her Truth -- revealing whatever I need to know in, and about, any given situation.

My job was not to think, but to listen. To listen from a very deep place of humble surrender.  To listen with the childlike trust of a toddler attentive to her parent.

Earlier, in the Preface of Science and Health, Eddy states that:

"The human mind is not a factor
in the Principle of Christian Science..."
 

Silencing the human mind is a constant discipline. For over twenty-five years now, I have been humbly reminding myself that "to pray," is not to think, but to listen.  

The human mind so desperately wants to be a contributing factor, a collaborator, a partner with the divine.  It wants to believe that it can create a prayer.  That it can create an environment ripe for a miracle. Create a thought that will flip the switch on a situation.  Silly ego mind -- you are not a creator.  You are not a factor in the Principle of Christian Science -- the law of God. 

So, over and over again, throughout each day and long into the night, I arrest the human mind's desire to be heard.  I silence its running dialogue with itself.  And I quietly listen for the voice - the Word - of God to speak to human consciousness.  And where I end up -- where this listening will take my heart -- only God really knows.


offered with Love,

Kate

"and the Lord was with Kate..."

"Let's feel what we cannot feel.
Know what we cannot know.
Let's heal where we couldn't heal.
Oh it's a mystery, Love is a mystery.
Oh it's a miracle, a miracle..."

I've already written about this experience in a post from 2009 titled, "And He walks with me..." It continues to inspire me almost daily -- evaporating the mists of pain, lack, fear, inharmony with the sunlight of pure Truth.  And in light of some recent realizations I've had about faith, trust, evidence, and the forms that our desires take when we allow them to be moulded and exalted by God, it begs to be re-visited.

There is no obvious or direct relationship between Sara Grove's beautiful song, "Miracle," and this experience.  But there is something about the way they both make me feel that connects them in my heart.   They beget an effortless sense of trust in God's presence.

Now the story.  It started with a fall that left me unable to walk -- or even crawl -- to the bathroom through a long night of pain.

A friend's kindness lifted the burden of how to navigate the logistics of getting the girls to school and caring for our puppy.  But I was still in grave discomfort and unable to move after she got everyone out the door.  I was alone in bed, the house was quiet, and I could barely think beyond the pain.

But it is what happened in the pulsing silence that still takes my breath away. I looked to my left, and there -- opened on the pillow next to me -- was the full-text of weekly Bible Lesson, a small leaflet-sized collection of Bible verses and inspirational citations from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

And one Scripture, at the top of the page -- from the story of Joseph in prison -- caught my eye. It read, "And the Lord was with Joseph."

As I read it, something in me shifted. No, it was not the unnatural alignment of bone in my ankle, or an irritated nerve -- but my heart. I suddenly felt -- with complete confidence -- that if "the Lord was with Joseph" - in prison, then of course I could trust that He was with me in my warm, clean, comfy bed.

And I stopped being afraid. Period. It was enough. I knew that if the Lord was with me, there was no better, safer, more wonderful place to be -- in all the world, than right where I was -- every moment.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt that I was with God.  And I knew, that there was nothing more to know about that situation. I never gave another treatment.  I rested my case. I returned to that single Truth -- that the Lord was with me -- countless times.  And I can honestly say that I never tried to figure out what more I needed to know.

The change in my ankle didn't happen quickly -- or even slowly. But I wasn't concerned.  I didn't feel steeped in process -- spiritual or physical.   I felt healed of any sense of separation from God.  I felt peaceful and confident.  I knew I was perfectly at one with my divine Source. I trusted this deep spiritual calm to be all the proof I needed.  I trusted that my peace was the evidence that I was whole.

One day, more than six weeks after the fall, I was still on crutches and unable to put any weight on my ankle in the morning. The picture had not changed one bit. But by lunchtime, I was walking freely and not needing crutches or assistance. 

I had done nothing more than return to the truth that, "the Lord is with Kate." That thought filled my heart with peace.  It was all the proof -- or evidence -- I needed.

It still is.  It fills my life.

shared with Love,

Kate

"...earth stood hard as iron..."

"In the bleak midwinter,
icy winds may moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone...

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 can I give Him?
I must give my heart."
-Christina Rossetti

James Taylor's version of "In the Bleak Midwinter" is a sound that speaks more than all the words lined-up, ready to dance through the singer's lips and fall like gentle snow on the shoulder of its listener.  I've heard this song performed by other extraordinary singers, choirs, and recording artists, but few  match the sound of this one recording for me. 

This afternoon I went to find an earlier post that used a Corinne May recording, that is also quite lovely, and discovered that I have written a piece each year using this Christina Rossetti lyric as a keynote.  So I am including all three of those "In the Bleak Midwinter" posts here in case you would like to read them.

Now for this year's "In the Bleak Midwinter" story. 

It was a cold February morning and I was on crutches after severely injuring my ankle in "freak fall" earlier that month.  I'd found my peace the first day, while lying in bed struggling with pain that seemed to shatter my thoughts and send them splintering off in un-focused directions of terror and aloneness, when I picked up my Bible lesson and read the statement, "..and the Lord was with Joseph."  And it struck me immediately that if the Lord was with Joseph in prison, he was with me, right there in bed, and it became all that mattered...all that I cared, or wanted to think, about .  He'd been with Nelson Mandela in prison, Jesus in the sepulchre, Corrie Ten Boom in a concentration camp...their examples of finding a resonant peace and an unshaken dignity in the midst of bleak conditions gave me strength.

The same friend who'd called earlier that morning to check in, knowing that my husband was working out of state, got the girls to school, picked up our puppy, and brought food and crutches.  But once she'd left, I was alone...with God. The details of that story are found in a post from last February titled, "And he walks with me..."  (linked here). The next few weeks, once the girls were at school, were spent alone at home with my divine Parent.  I was able to "crutch" to the car and drive the girls to school and back, but once up the stairs and in the house again, I'd remain pretty non-ambulatory...at my desk or in bed taking calls, praying and writing.

After a few weeks however, I was still crutching around, unable to put any weight on the ankle, and the swelling was still quite evident.  I'd gotten down the icy front steps without incident one morning so that I could drive the girls to school, but when I pulled back into the driveway I hadn't noticed that short walk from the driveway to the steps was covered with black ice.  I placed my crutches on the ground and swung myself off the front seat and as I balanced on my "good foot" lifting the crutches to the next position forward, the rubber caps on the bottom of the crutches slipped on the ice and I lost my balance hitting the ground hard...ground that stood "hard as iron...water like a stone" covering its surface. 

The fall hurt, knocked the wind out of me, I wasn't sure how I would get to a standing position without crawling all the way up the steps and to be honest I just felt humiliated, tired, and as broken as the poor Nutcracker in Tchaikovsky's ballet.  But in my case there was no Sugar Plum fairy to spirit me off to the Land of Sweets and make me whole again.  There was no husband, there was no ...oh my gosh, there was no cell phone. 

That was when I started to panic.  My cell phone had flow out of my hand and was ringing from under the bushes that surround our front porch.  I felt helpless and hopeless.  I wanted to cry...I wanted to cry "uncle"...enough!

That was when I actually felt the first gentle touch of God's hand on my shoulder, "shshhing" me and asking me to "be still," and I stopped long enough to actually listen.  With my elbows in the dirt and my legs all akimbo under me on the hard ground of winter, the strains of "...earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone..." started singing through my heart. 

I rolled onto my back and looked up at the bleak gray winter sky and let the plaintive "sound" of the last verse speak to me of God's care for a baby in a cold manger, a man in a prison cell, and me on "earth as hard as iron".  I grasped the full weight of the last verse in my heart:

"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 can I give him?
I must give my heart.

I stayed there on my back letting the warm weight of those words sink into the core of my being.  I stared up though the moaning black fingers of the bare dogwood tree...and her overarching neighbor, the ancient prickly pod-decorated sweet gum tree...at a sky so gray and steely I could actually feel the word "bleak" with my eyes.  So I closed them and pushed my focus inward towards the space of my heart.  I wondered, "How could I give Christ my heart in that moment...crumpled on the walkway?"

And I realized it was simple.  I could be conscious.  I could be grateful.  I could love, and pray, and sing, and think, and "praise God"...Laus Deo! I could do all those things.  I was able-minded. I was fully capable of loving. And, I could make more of a difference in the world from a position of abject humility, rather than standing strong and hard as iron, anyway.  I was right where I needed to be in that moment...that was all I needed to know.  I could give my heart.

So I did.  I stayed focused on the space of my heart...the cold ground, the damp air, the gray sky lost their bleakness.  I let love pour out in radiant waves of affection...stronger and stronger... with each ripple spreading farther and farther out from its center.   Love for my husband, my children, my family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, community, the world, the universe...larger and larger, concentric circles of appreciation, respect, honor, blessing, peace reaching out from the living, breathing, glowing molten magma core of Love that abides in each of us.

I don't know how long I lay there.  I only know it was long enough to melt the ice I was lying on.  And when I opened my eyes, I saw that the mailman was approaching at a pretty good clip, with a look of genuine concern on his face.  I assured him that I was fine...and I was. 

He helped me right myself, find my bearings, brush myself off, retrieve my phone from under the bushes, get my books from the car, spryly crutch up the front steps, before handing me the mail...as I thanked him for all he had done.  He told me that he usually drove his truck through our neighborhood in the winter, delivering mail from the warmth of his vehicle, but that this morning he had felt almost pulled from his vehicle by the desire to go door-to-door hoping to run into someone and strike up a conversation.  So with that...we did.

We had a lovely conversation about his family, our neighborhood, my children, his parents, the schools, my husband's work, health care, and God.  I'd learned once again, as Mary Baker Eddy assures us, that:

"The very circumstance, which your suffering sense
deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares."

It was a perfect morning for entertaining angels...in the bleak midwinter.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS