"catching the unseen..."

"and He will raise you up

on eagle's wings..." 

Watching a lone eagle this afternoon reminded me of how it feels to settle in to the place of prayer - listening for God's voice to lift me higher.  An eagle doesn't just sit on the edge of a branch or a cliff, with her wings tucked -- waiting for the thermal to lift her up.  There is a moment of reciprocity.  A moment when she lifts her wings and steps off into what cannot be seen, but is felt.  It is as real for her, as the granite beneath her talons.

Once there is this moment of connection -- the opening of her wings and stepping forward, uniting with the ever-present current of air (or thermal) she catches -- there is flight. There is a choreography that cannot exist without this unity.  The thermal cannot be seen without the form of the eagle to give it visibility, and the eagle is motionless without the invisible current that lifts her.

I love this relational aspect of prayer.  Yes, God is ever-present and always speaking, guiding, directing, protecting us -- and for this I am so forever grateful. But there is something so beautiful, and sweet, and powerful about the "dance" of opening my heart, and stepping into the "presence" -- of actively listening.  This is not a petitioning, but a celebration of Soul.  It is song, and dance, and poetry. It is the marriage of lyric with melody and movement. It is pure and refreshing.  It is both comforting and inviting. 

This kind of prayer isn't asking for anything. For why should we need to ask,  when our all-powerful, Father-Mother God already knows all -- and loves us, so much. This prayer wants nothing but to be one -- to dance -- with the Divine.  This is not the day-to-day "rushing about madly,"  while knowing that God is "in charge" kind of praying.  It is something quite different. 

This is the prayer of sitting quietly in the lap of the Father just to feel His arms around you.  It is feeling your heart beating along with His. It is to be so still that His breath stirs the downy hairs at the nape of your hopes. It is to be known - with such tenderness that you sigh more deeply into His care with each trusting release.

I never doubt that the thermals of Spirit will be there when I step off the ever-crumbling ledge of human control or worry -- the undulating edge that my life often looks and feels like.  Those moments when thunderheads blacken the horizon, and I think I can neither see a divine plan -- before or behind. When it looks as if lifitng my wings will put them right into the path of a lightning bolt.  I do it anyway, and there is a rush of peace when I feel that invisible current under my heart -- lifting it above doubt and despair.  It is not unlike the rush of love I feel when I look into my daughters' faces and remember that God trusted me with His precious child.

When it seems as if I'm falling out of grace.  I pause for just a moment, and shift in this space of listening.  And I can feel yet another current of God's love carrying me out of the descent. 

This is what prayer feels like to me.  I love riding these thermals of Love -- in joyful celebration of Her unseen ever-presence.  It is how I remind myself that what is unseen is often more powerful than what is not. It is to be raised up, "on eagle's wings.". 

offered with Love, 

Cate

"Right on time..."

"I wish for you to be free from doubt,
when you feel left behind, or left out -
when the world seems brighter everywhere else,
and your mind is lost inside a wishing well...
right on time,
you're right on time..."

This afternoon I discovered that my husband "gets" me...and, in fact, he get me better than I realized. The other day I was feeling blue. Usually when I have those moments...moments when I've reached an inner impasse...I at least have some sense of what is standing in my way. But this time, nada. It was just an emotional labyrinth of...well, blueness.

It usually wasn't debilitating, so I "carried on." Often I stumbled, but most of the time, I could catch myself. Yet that day, just under the surface, there was a feeling of emotional emptiness. A disorientation that left me wobbly. I didn't want to talk about it with anyone. However at one point, I found myself wandering into Jeff's office, for...what seemed like...no apparent reason. I sat down on the floor with my laptop but just stared at the screen. I wasn't really sure why I was there, but I also didn't feel like I could be anywhere else.

A few minutes later, he asked me if I would like to hear a song by an artist he'd met at a folk music conference. "Sure," I said, although I was barely listening. Clearly, my ears were hearing the music, but my heart just wasn't connecting the dots. When it was over, I thanked him for sharing, but didn't make any further comments about the song.

Jeff must have realized that something was "off," if I didn't have anything to say. But rather than pressing me for a review, he quietly emailed me a link to the song so that I could listen to it when I was ready. Since it was pretty obvious that I really wasn't ready then...and actually, I wasn't ready for days.

Over the course of the week, I opened his email five or six times, and still wasn't impelled to listen. So, I returned it to my inbox. Until today. For some reason, today, I was ready...it was exactly the right time.

Working alone at the kitchen table, I blithely opened his email, and clicked on the link.

From the very first chord, something reached down into the soil of my heart and started to tug at the dock root of some pretty deep weeds. These were weeds of regret, guilt, and self-doubt. Listening to Ellis' song, I realized, immediately, that I'd never really gotten to the base issue of my sorrow -- the one that seemed to be sending shoots up in random places...always catching me by surprise.

Ellis is a gamin-faced pixie of a singer-songwriter. And in her thoughtfully written "Right on Time" she gets right to the heart of my sadness...choices that were poorly timed, misaligned steps, interrupted plans...regrettable decisions.

I don't think I need to go into how this kind of thinking eats away at our peace. At the heart of regret is an inflated sense of our own power in our lives...a self-centered determinism that leaves God out of His own creation. But since it doesn't make sense spiritually, it can't thrive in an environment where God, good is the only Cause, Creator, and Choreographer.

Ellis' song reminded me that God has been in charge of every single, solitary step on my life path. There has never been a moment when I have changed the tempo, rushed headlong onto the stage of my life, or tripped myself up...or down.

I may not understand where the next step will lead me, or how the timing fits, but I can trust God. The music is His, and so is the choreography. Every moment of my life, every transition, every entrance and exit is already...right on time.

Jesus trusted the timing of his life to the governance of His divine Chronographer...and Choreographer!! I want to follow in his steps.

Ellis sings:

"When everywhere you look you see regret.
Caught up in the past, and what might have been.
What we can never know, will make our heads spin.
A little love, a little trust, a lot of forgiveness
Right on time,
You're right on time...

What if we're right on time,
right on time,
what if we're right on time..."

I am starting to see...in so many ways...that we are always "right on time." It may seem messy. Our short-sightedness may mistake a step out-of-time, for the prelude to a fall. But trusting in God always brings us into alignment with a divine plan.

That's when we discover something lovely in our most awkward steps...

Jeff understood that all he had to do was trust that Love was leading him to share Ellis' song with me. And when the time was right, he knew I'd be led to listen to it. I'm so grateful that I can now share it with you...

with Love,
Kate



I hope you enjoy Ellis Delaney's"Right on Time"...when you are ready.