"inexhaustible energies...."

“...and I was dying for some freedom
but now I hesitate to go.
I am caught between the promise
and the things I know...”

I'm sure it's no surprise, but I really love Sara Groves’ “Painting Pictures of Egypt.” It has been especially meaningful, for me, this summer. Particularly a in connection with our camp inspirational theme, Mary Baker Eddy's call to action:

""Every step of progress, is a step more spiritual."

Every step...really? Sometimes I don't know if this is a promise, or a dare!

But, since I long for my steps to be "more spiritual," I'm taking it as both. And in light of my need for clear shepherding in these "steps more spiritual," I've been immensely grateful for Biblical role models, as I respond to this urging.

And this summer it's been a lot of "me n' Moses" time.

Yep, I’ve taken up residence in the desert...pitching my tent and inhabiting the Biblical account of his encounter with the burning bush...again.

This is not a new place for me to hang out...or a new spiritual mentor. I really love this guy. I seem to get caught up in his story on a regular basis. Insights and lessons around every rock. And I always come away with another “aha!” from our time time together...whenever I am willing to wander in the wilderness with him. Bare feet on holy ground, angels speaking out of the fire, and then there's always Emily Dickinson’s:

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush
afire with God,
But only he who sees
takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and
pick blackberries."

Ahhh, I ask you: "how rich with spiritual metaphor can one story be...."

It never seems to get old. Year after year, this story feeds me like forty years of manna in the wilderness.

There was that summer, some years ago, when I realized that “I AM,” is the only name that God gives Himself. Reading this story, it became so clear to me that if I was thinking in the context of “I was,” or “I will be,” I was not thinking out from the presence of God, as “I AM.” The "here" (as in I am present with you), and the "now" (as in to "stay in the present" tense...not the past or future) This was a paradigm-shattering insight at the time, and has continued to be foundational to my understanding of being.

And then there was the summer of the environmentally-conscious Sunday School student. A boy who helped me see that the burning bush ...which was not consumed...was a precedent-setting case of Biblical law for energy production without the consumption of resources. It was immediately clear to him, upon hearing the story, that Moses was able to see that the bush was burning...therefore it was putting off light and/or heat...but was not being consumed in the process. And without the consumption of the bush, there would be no waste byproduct...in this case smoke, or carbon emissions...to negatively impact the environment.

But this summer it was a question posed by a tired camp counselor, that has had me immersed in this story once again.

She asked, “how do you pray about exhaustion?”

Well, not surprisingly, it was this timeless story that immediately came to mind. So, I shared with her the Sunday School insight related above, and told her how helpful it had been to me in thinking about my own energy. I could expect to function efficiently without the consumption of my resources – strength, inspiration, alertness, creativity, humility, grace, etc. – and therefore no exhaustion...the waste by-product of resource consumption.

Exhaust, I reminded her, was the stuff that comes out of the back of a car...it is a waste, and it stinks. To say, “I am exhausted,” is a waste of your time, and it stinks!!

But as I was reading the story again, I saw how it all tied together:

Moses had a pretty good life as Zipporah’s husband. After the emotionally devastating discovery about his identity: "sorry Moses, you aren't a really a prince of Egypt, you are actually the son of a Hebrew slave," a traumatic exit from Egypt, and a long journey through the desert, he had finally found a legitimate place within a family. He had a good job, and seemed content. He spent his days tending sheep for his father-in-law.

But God has another plan for him. He is going to be asked to journey back to Egypt, face his identity crisis head on, go toe-to-toe with his former “brother,” try to convince the Hebrews he once participated in enslaving to trust him to deliver them from bondage, encourage them to follow him without question, handle the logistics of getting them out of Dodge, and then make another long journey through the desert with thousands of men, women, and children safely in tow, arriving at an undesignated "promised land."

That’s one pretty daunting, tiring, and exhausting assignment.

So, God gives Moses this “sign." He shows him that there can be a tireless source of energy...one that doesn't run out, doesn't produce exhaust, and results in no waste.

A brilliant example of God’s love, and His prescience...his foreknowledge of what His child will need in order to carry out this holy purpose.

And it is this “sign” stops Moses in his tracks. He “gets it.” It humbles him to the point that he takes off his shoes...a sign of surrender to a higher authority.

When the plan is laid out, Moses asks “how,” and God says, “I will be with thee.”

When Moses asks why should they believe me, God tells him to say, “I AM hath sent me unto you.” Now, the only reference to “I AM” that the children of Israel would have, would be their own conscious sense of being, their innate hunger to be free...they’d never read the book of Exodus, and Moses’ conversation with God.

But these two reminders: that God is with us in every task, and that the “I AM,” of being...not the I was, or I will be...is there, at all times, to deliver us from enslavement, from the consumption of our resources, from the waste of our time, and from exhaustion...is as effective today as it was centuries ago. Biblical precedence I can rest my case on throughout the day, in every activity, and with every "step more spiritual."

When I know that God is with me, that I will always have the infinite well of divine Being to drawn upon for inspiration, insights, ideas, solutions, strength, creativity, then I am not afraid to approach even the most daunting task with courage and confidence.

And when I remember to stay in the “I AM” of the moment -- the only place that God is -- refusing to be distracted by the haunting strains of remembering what I left behind in Egypt’s past, or the lured into imagining what it might be like in the promise land of the future...I cannot be consumed, or exhausted.

Mary Baker Eddy, gives us such sweet, and practical, encouragement when she says;

"God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, can never impoverish, the divine Mind. No exhaustion follows the action of this Mind, according to the apprehension of divine Science. The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work."

and elsewhere:

"Goodness and benevolence never tire.
They maintain themselves and others
and never stop from exhaustion."

I love these promises. and I love this story...I can’t wait to discover it’s next lesson...

with Love,
Kate

"fresh forms and strange fire..."

"When desire leads me astray
When all that's pure seems lost in gray,
When sin attracts like gravity,
I pray for humility.

When human pride fights for its way,
Self-justified, I would say,
"Why can't the world live righteously?"
Then I pray for humility.

For this is all my God requires.
She is the Cause that inspires
Me to live unselfishly,
In childlike humility."
- Susan Mack

I love The Solo Committee's recording of "Humility" and have found myself singing it this weekend as I've  pondered Mary Baker Eddy's statement at the very beginning of Miscellaneous Writings 1883  - 1896:

"Humility is the stepping-stone to a higher recognition of Deity.
The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire
from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world."

This is the poem that gave birth to itself in the space of that pondering...not sure what it wants to say...but here it is:

But
I am  a
prince of Egypt
the son of
Pharaoh
what am I doing here
in the desert with
sheep and
goats
a nursemaid to lambs
hiding from
myself
in the caves and
crevices of a mountain
like a wayward
boy
afraid to be a man...

No, I have brought you here
to find
strange fires and
fresh forms
to singe the memory of royal
privilege from your brow
I will pour the warmth of
your mother's prayers and
the memory of a sister's tears...as sweet as the
Nile's song...over you to melt the
gold signet
from your heavy hand
freeing it to
indulge in the
extravagance of
modest work ...

the flames of the evening fire
are nothing
compared to this
hot ember in your soul
hungering for something
simple and
true

the
insistent
I AM
of unblemished innocence and
an unshaken purpose,
without the
pride and
pomp of
princely power and
the cold grip of an ego that
masters slaves,
but not its
own hot anger and
cool will

when this self
dissolves and
the
forms that
rise from its ashes
are fresh with
forgiveness and
hope and
unbridled promise

you must
take
nothing
with you
that sparkles with
Egypt's riches
but
walk unburdened
with lambs
and sleep beneath
a silent sky

And you will see
the dissolution...
the immolation...
of your 
ego in every
bush that burns with the red of
a changing season,

the rocks that cleave and
weep
will tell your story of
being broken open
so that something fresh and
cleansing could pour forth
its inexhaustible grace on
those thirsty for the truth...

the sea
will sing a ballad of
how wide your arms were spread to
receive your birthright, but
closed tightly to the
pride that pursued you
on your journey out of
privilege...
chariots filled with
achievement,
accomplishment, and acclaim...
an army of conspirators 
pursuing you with 
a vengeance..
afraid that
humility's sweet promise,
might spark a rebellion,
inspire a race
a nation
a people
a child's dream of
freedom

You will find 
home
shelter
refuge
in
places where
ownership is not
a goal
and manna falls
like communion
wafers on the
lips of
widows and babes.

You will see the
outline of
a hidden, holy light
on the branches
of every bush
a burning, guiding light
that
illumines
a bow of beauty on the cloud
while it
smolders
on the sand
like sun through a glass
burning
whatever is self-enflamed with pride
and fustian
leaping and licking at
the
brittle, empty desire to be
seen,
known,
recognized,
noted
celebrated,
admired,
remembered,
remarkable...

if you take its pulsing ember
into your heart,
what will
you choose to
set on fire?
what is it
that you will
let Love's inextinguishable flame
melt
from the cold
iron grasp
of the ego
fist...
always ready
to fight for
its own
life

it is a strange fire
that
leaps into the space of prayer
and
consumes the earth...earthy, while
it never touches the Christ within

it
sets free
all that was captured
in the dross,
the chaff,
the chrysalis of
selfishness and pride...
and when the flame
dies and all that is left are
the hot coals of
Love
it will 
reveal
humility
like a butterfly
stretching from within
to fly
and flutter
and send a shiver
a stirring
a quivering pulse of
song through
the air
beyond the things of time
and space
high
above the savannah
across a prairie
along the China wall
through a river's gorge
to rustle the dry leaves of
a thorn tree,
to move the
gentle hand of a woman
keening beside
a child
hot, tired, small, and 
hungry from
the rains that never come
and the crop that never grows...
it will touch her like a memory
a soft fluttering...
a breeze
that wakes
a white-winged angel thought
"the unseen breath of Spirit is here"
and then she remembers
"ahh..it is the unseen that moves the grasses"
and hope revives
and
the child
shudders
at the touch of her love
fearless and sure
and the certain
fire
of
life
strange and silent
now flickers and flames and
burns
anew in
a mother's heart
where
humble hopes
are enough
to
face the dawn
in a village
where
goats and lambs
sleep with widows and
infants
and
bushes burn
but
are not consumed
by the
African sun,
but
bear
peppers
to sell and coffee
to roast and
corn to
place on a child's
tongue ...
the eucharist
of humility...

"...put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest, is holy ground..."

offered with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Ashley Bay 2009]

The Solo Committee: Carey Loomis, Sue Loomis, Susan Mack