"to love first…"

"And while others think
of reasons not to love,
we love,
because he first loved us..."

I hope you will let Cheri Keaggy's "Because He First Loved Us," touch your heart tonight.

Recently I woke knowing that it was time for a deep shift in my understanding of what it means to love. It felt like a profound un-centering, a need for an adjustment of the mental aperture. As if my oneness with God -- with Love -- was calling for greater clarity, and I was a bit out of focus.

Having felt this kind of invitation to "grow in grace" before, I knew I was standing on holy ground.  I also knew that I  needed to be still -- and listen.  And gratefully, the guidance I was seeking came gently.  I  was reminded of an experience I'd had late one December night when I needed spiritual direction and comfort. 

The memory was clear. I'd been visiting Mary Baker Eddy's last former home and I remembered seeing a framed painting of Jesus in her small bedroom.  I had been moved deeply by the realization that it was his example which she'd turned to for inspiration and encouragement during her own long, dark nights.

On the heels of this memory, came a statement from the book of John:

"We love him,
because he first
loved us." 

I knew immediately where the shift in my understanding of Love needed to take place. What followed was a sentence from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The miracle of grace,
is no miracle to love." 

Grace, in Webster's Dictionary, is defined as:

"The unearned and unmerited favor of God" 

In an instant the veil over my heart parted, and I could see beyond what I'd long-assumed was "enough" love.

As a child I had experienced things that, I became convinced, were unforgivable. And yet, through long nights of prayer I'd been shown how to forgive.  For years, even the very thought of being free from feeling victimized was unimaginable. And then suddenly, it wasn't.  It was my truth.  And with that freedom came the ultimate surprise -- I felt the will to love. And it was genuine. In a heartbeat, I could love those I'd feared -- something that had seemed unreasonable only moments before. It was more than I could have dreamed, and I was satisfied.

But Love's capacities are infinite, and so must be our capacity to reflect of its fathomless depth. And on that recent morning I woke knowing there was more. But I didn't know how to find it. So I became very still. I asked myself, "what represents the greatest love to you?" And without a second's hesitation, I knew.  It was "trust." To trust, and to feel trusted. 

I'd felt it in my daughters' unquestioning trust that I would always do my best for them. And even more so, I felt it every day as I considered God's trust in me, and my capacity to love and care for His precious children. I have felt it in His mercy when I have fallen short. And in the redemptive power of grace during my darkest moments of self-doubt and fear.

And yet, I had somehow thought that I could actually love, without trusting. Oh yes, I could forgive, and I was even willing to love.  But trust, when I felt that the person in question needed to earn my trust? Unimaginable. I believed that trust was something I could parcel out or withhold. But that day I found myself asking, "Kate, who do you think you are actually you withholding this trust from?" And the answer was -- myself. I was depriving myself of loving fully, extravagantly, unconditionally.

The moment I realized that there could be no real loving without trust, I felt the old boundaries of what I thought was possible shatter around me, and my heart had room to stretch into a new space.  I could love first.

Love loves. It can't be shackled by another person's behavior. Love is not conditional, it doesn't need a reason. Love doesn't wait for the permission of circumstances. Love trusts.  Love completely and unflinchingly trust the absolute sovereignty of Its own irresistible agency working within the fathomless depths of each human heart. Again, I was reminded that:

"The miracle of grace,
is no miracle to Love." 

Or to us -- by reflection. Forgiveness is only the first step. But to truly love, we have to trust in the presence and power of Divinity operating as humanity. 

 Jesus taught us how to live this radical kind of trust in countless ways. Mary Baker Eddy says that he "acted boldly against the accredited evidence of the senses." 

 Everything he experienced in his last days, must have screamed that he'd surrounded himself with disciples who were undeserving of his continued faith in their fidelity. Yet he entrusted the future of his beloved ministry to these very men who had -- only days before -- forsaken, doubted, and denied him. It brings into clearer focus for me, Eddy's statement:

"Out of the amplitude
of his pure affection,
he defined love." 

Tonight, I am so moved by the way Grace never leaves us self-satisfied and imprisoned within the false boundaries of what we think we are capable of. Love calls us from the chrysalis of where we have become comfortable with "enough," and shows us something we hadn't even imagined was possible. Where once we crawled -- now we stand ready to fly.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Hanging by a moment..."

"I'm desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
I'm chasing after You..."
- Jason Wade

In the last few weeks I have had three photographs come into my life.  Each one has reached me at a different stage in what seemed like a process towards greater self-discovery.  It is the journey I wonder if Lifehouse isn't singing about in "Hanging by a Moment" 

"...I'm falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until You make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with You..."

There is s stillness in this hanging.  There is a way of being upside down to yourself.  It's almost as if the very air around you could disturb the process if you move too quickly or speak before you are ready to.

"...Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take Your invitation
You take all of me now..."

There have been moments when I have felt that I was hanging, like this climber, by the tips of my fingers from a precipice.  Waiting...on belay...for the next fingerpost to reveal itself, like magic, in the face of the rock.
There are other moments when I know that if I were to hang there forever, it would be enough to just be connected to that rock, by the slenderest thread, ad infinitum.   I am at peace with my suspension from His firm hold on me.  And actually that's the most wonderful part, the more I think I am holding onto God, the more I realize I have it all wrong.  He is holding on to me.  And you know, there is nothing I can do to loosen his grasp on my life, my hopes, my salvation.  In those moments of divine suspension, I actually do forget all that I am lacking, all the ways that I think I am completely incomplete as a mortal, and I find myself really believing that His invitation, to "take me as He sees me"...all of me...is a gift of grace.

"...I'm falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until You make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with You..."

This is the real deal, the Love that all other loves spring from. And you know, I can only truly let myself go, and love others...without fear of rejection, betrayal, hurt...because I have fallen even more in love with Him.  I think I could hang here forever, so tenderly connected to Him with all that I am, Suspended in His timing, waiting until He moves me to take the next step in any...and every...relationship in my life.

For me it is like the butterfly in the chrysalis. She is hanging from the rock by a single fragile thread that has unimaginable tensile strength...with nothing beneath her.  It is actually helpful for me to remember that the butterfly inside doesn't yet know that there is light, air, wings, flowers...flight.  All she knows is her hold upon the rock.  Soon there will be movement, a paradigm-wrenching trembling which will escalate until she has shaken herself free from the dark uncertainty of the chrysalis.  Until then, she can't even imagine that soon she will spread the wings she doesn't yet know she has, and soar on the winds of God's purpose for her.  But until that moment comes, she has only one thing to do...hang on to the rock.

"...I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with You..."

I am living for the only thing I know.  There are a lot of things that I think I know, and even more things that I have opinions about, but there is only one thing I am absolutely, positively sure that I know.  And that one thing is, as Mary Baker Eddy, says in her poem, "Love":

"Love alone is Life."

And since, as John avers, "God is Love," the above statement in conjunction with another of Eddy's statements, "God is All-in-all" reminds me that God, Love is All-in-all.  In everything, in everyone, governing every thought, motive, action, decision, choice, and outcome. It is enough. 

Somedays, when I find myself running madly in circles looking for answers, searching for meaning and inspiration, hoping for "something new"...I can stop to realize that all I need to do is "hang" for just a moment with Him.  With what I know about Him...as Love.

"...There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind..."

In the stillness of that space with Him, I remember what I know. Nothing in the world can change my mind.  Love is all that matters.  Love is all that makes a difference.  Love is the only goal, the only accomplishment, the only holy grail.  To find the love that burns like an inextinguishable ember in my heart and let it glow, burn, radiate, sing, laugh, purify my motives, motivate my actions, be my life.

"...There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else..."

Just hanging by a moment here with You,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credits:  Caitlin Little, Ashley Bay, Joan Knoll 2009]

"after all, you're still you..."

"...Time changes everything
One truth always stays the same
You're still you
After all
You're still you..."
Josh Groban
"You're Still You"

I was talking to a friend the other day about a butterfly's journey from caterpillar to winged beauty.  I shared with her that the caterpillar sheds her entire skin four times before she finally enters the chrysalis. Four complete surrenderings of all she knows of herself and still the real transformation hasn't even begun to happen.  

 I have been thinking about this -- alot.  Each time she loses every inch of her outward being.

And each time she must think, "Whew, this was BIG!!  I am brand new -- I am in a completely new skin."  

 But what she doesn't realize is, that this shedding of her entire outer layer is nothing compared to what will happen once she enters the chrysalis of her own making.  That's the real metamorphosis -- the dissolution of her entire being into a black soupy liquid from which will emerge as a butterfly. 

But she has no known frame-of-reference for this "becoming." 

She doesn't just go from being a fuzzy caterpillar to a skinnier, sleeker caterpillar that sprouts beautiful diaphanous wings. She completely dissolves. 

I shared with my friend that - of late - I had become a bit obsessed with the spiritual implications of this necessary "soup" stage in the butterfly's metamorphosis.  I couldn't stop thinking: What was still present during this soup stage?  What is left of the original?  

 And what did that original being know - or think - during this time of "soup"?  Was she even aware that there was nothing left of the old form?  Or was she oblivious of the changes to her form - in light of the "sanctuary space" she was occupying? 

Questions, questions, questions -- thank goodness I am most at home in the space of the question, eh!  

 Since that earlier conversation, my friend had also begun pondering these concepts and she said that Josh Groban's song "You're Still You"  had come to mind as inspiration.   Wow!  

It was a perfectly wonderful answer for me, too. 

No matter what transformational shifts we seem to go through in our lives, we are never less that who we are, who always have been, and ever will be.  Our spiritual essence -- the radiant Soul "soup" of our identity as the reflection of the Great I AM -- a child of God, the All-in-allness of God expressed as individual humanity. This, I believe, is the fundamental substance of our being that never changes. 

 It all leaves me speechless with wonder and in awe of His majesty.

These are concepts I have been thinking about for a very long time. And I don't think I am anywhere near the end of mining the butterfly's metamorphosis for spiritual lessons.  

But, I am finding that just the title of Groban's "You're Still You" brings me great peace.  It is inciting an even deeper stirring within.  I wonder if it doesn't give us a glimpse into what is.   Perhaps even a deeper spiritual centering.  A clearer lens on our indwelling core identity -- one that is untouched by changes in form, surroundings, or self-referencing points.  Self-stories that make us feel safe and securely hooked into a familiar reality.

The following is a poem I have been writing for some time. I was finally led to put it down on paper during a recent workshop I participated in with some extraordinary spiritual thinkers.  It continues to morph, and evolve, as insights unfold.   

 I offer it with a profound love for the butterfly, and her willingness to enter the chrysalis of faith.  I am humbled by her as she yields to the hand of her Maker -- an Artist who paints diaphanous wings of beauty -- from soup.  I simply love this God of ours!!

"You're still you...after all...You're still you"

Does it hurt...
     this becoming?

four times
she sheds a past she'd come to own
    
does she wonder
     "will it ever end?"

if she knew of the
dissolving that would follow...
the melting of the only
          "ego" she had ever known

would she plead
"take this cup"
and then surrender all to...
               "Thy will be done..."
         
do butterflies
     weep
when wings burst  from soup
       that was once
          tight skin she thought defined her

Does the call
     to fly
terrify one
     who, until the moment of her release
          had only crawled with
     all feet firmly planted on
          what...to her...was solid ground
         
hanging in
     the dark chrysalis
          does she realize
     that her
          becoming
     shakes leaves and branch and stem
    
the entire world of ants living on the edge
     busy with their scurried gathering

I asked her once
     she said,
          "I can't remember
               when I was not a butterfly..."

Mary Baker Eddy must have lived in the space of the butterfly, for her to understand the faith it takes to be able to yield to the dissolution of the ego -- for the promise of wings.  I love that she wrote:

"Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood."

The Truth of who we are is ever-present.  The butterfly must have great faith in this promise of eternal self-awareness to be able to surrender all outward evidence of her identity to the spiritual evidence of conscious being.  There is still so much to learn from her.  I sit at the butterfly's feet waiting for the next lesson...
Kate

Addendum:

A frequent reader and long-time follower of this blog reminded me that I had posted a butterfly poem three years ago.  Here is the link to it: "Chrysalis Surrender" I had forgotten how long this fascination with butteryfly consciousness had been inhabiting my heart. 

with Love,
Kate

postscript:

two of my dear friends have posts on their blogs that are directly related to this discussion...Travis Thomas and Duncan Wilder...click on their names to go to these posts...with Love,
Kate

Do butterflies cry...

"Emerge gently from matter into Spirit."
- Mary Baker Eddy

The poem below, though written over a year ago still brings me to my knees in self-surrender...that drive across the Kansas prairie was just one segment in a spiritual journey so cloaked in darkness and isolation that I sometimes wondered if I would emerge in a form recognizable as me...even to me.  The transformation continues...I am starting to get used to the butterfly me.....

Chrysalis Surrender

Is this how it felt when
the earth shook
and the waters parted
and a man
          born blind
came seeing....

darkness

dissolution

shattering

uncertainty

release

surrender

i am not ready
     i cried out
alone and frightened
     car radio
playing one
     old Journey
          love song
after another
     as I drove through tears
          and rain
               and the sweet ache
                    of it all

          the darkness rushes
               past the window
                    as I fly through
               the silence
                    of a Kansas prairie
               the color of ravens
                         surrounding
                              my cocoon of
                         steel and song

          will I emerge from this chrysalis...
               this casing.... like a
                    butterfly
               transformed by
          a midnight journey through dark
               cornfields and sunflowers


take me in Your arms
wrap me in
Your promise
Father
hold me close to You and breathe
Your message of grace
into my heart...

i serve You
i love You
i long for You in my life

if You are at the core
of this
shattering
let me
yield to it
and
have the patience to
let You
and only You
put me back together
in Your way
according to
Your plan
full of
You

only You
can
eclose me from
this tight
swaddling
of
darkness and
despair, uncertainty
and doubt
into....

what...
I do
not yet
know


can prayer
really
look
like
a tear...
wept

do butterflies
cry






Kate