"the reason..."

"He put that hunger in your heart,
He put that fire in your soul;

His love is the reason...”

Just when I think I will have to write these posts - without new songs as keynotes - Love pours out a fathomless blessing. Today's song is from the group Unspoken. I love their video for  "Reason."  And if I see a big handful of balloons in the sky -- I hope you will be holding them!

I was never a particularly athletic or adventurous girl, teen, woman.  I did not dream of climbing mountains, winning competitions, or swimming the English channel. 

I wanted to be a good girl, read through the fiction section of every school and community library, write a book, learn a musical instrument, marry a nice man, and have children.  

I was a good girl.  In hindsight, I am most grateful to have known myself through the lens of that desire.  

But why didn't I want more. I don't know.  It was just what I desired.  For many years I thought I was somehow stunted in an area of life that my friends and siblings shared -- a desire for adventure, travel, sports.  

I worried that I was a bookworm, a slacker, someone most at home and happy in small, dark, quiet spaces.  I gravitated towards libraries, out-of-the-way coffeehouses, and closets -- yes, literally closets.

I tried.  I tried to want to play outside, join a team, go on an adventure -- but I was always eager for the game, competition, expedition, adventure, vacation to be over. 

For a while I let myself be called an "introvert" -- but somehow that felt off - untrue.  I wasn't a kind of a person.  I was just me.  

That was when I started to listen for spiritual inspiration, and it came in two sentences from the very first page of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy:

"Desire is prayer
and no loss can occur
from trusting God with our desires
that they may be molded and exalted
before they take for in words and in deeds.

Prayer is God's gracious means
for accomplishing whatever has been
successfully done for the Christianization
and health of mankind. "

It suddenly occurred to me that if desire was prayer, and prayer was God's gracious means, that my desires were not mine at all -- they were God's means for moving my heart in the direction of His purpose for me. He way of blessing the world - and He would fulfill it.

As the song says:

"What He started in you,
He's gonna finish..."

He doesn't put that desire there and expect us to make it happen. Or as my friend Mike shared from Francis Thurber Seal's biography, Christian Science in Germany:

"God sent me on a mission,
He's certainly not going to
drown me on the way."

Eddy assures us in the last portion of her "Daily Prayer," from The Manual of the Mother Church:

"Thy kingdom come,
let the reign of divine Truth,
Life, and Love be established in me,
and rule out of me all sin,
and may Thy Word,
enrich the affections of all mankind,
and govern them."

It was God's Word that was enriching my affections - my desires - for quietude, stillness, goodness, beauty, family, harmony. It was not my personal desire. I have no personal desire. When I fully yielded to this truth of truths, I started to love my life. I was not an introvert, I was just me. Uniquely suited to God's placement of my gifts in the completeness of creation. I was not a kind of person. I was all that God was -- He was drawing forth from His Allness what he needed me to desire every moment.

I was not some lesser version of man/woman -- one that didn't want to go hiking or swimming or climb the Himalayas, or pay soccer, or run a marathon, I was completely capable of doing all those things as the full expression of divine Being -- but God was not enriching my affections for those things. He was causing me to desire a life of contemplation, stillness and service to others. Elsewhere in Science and Health, Eddy writes:

"Unfathomable Mind is expressed.
The depth, breadth, height, might,
majesty, and glory of infinite Love
fill all space.

That is enough!"

I am enough. You are enough. We each include the depth, breadth, height, might, majesty and glory of infinite Love -- and from this enough-ness, God calls us into His desire for us -- in order to fulfill His purpose in the larger scheme of things.

I may not be interested in sky diving, but I love reaching the heights of Mind to soar o'er time and space. I may not want to raft a river running at 4,000 cubic feet per second, but I wake up each morning excited to explore every channel of thought I find. I may not have any desire to see the seven wonders of the world or eat in a cafe in Portugal, but the seven synonyms of God still stun me with their beauty and I am deeply satisfied with the bread of Life.

I am not an introvert, I am not a less social, less adventurous, less competitive version of man.  I am not less of anything. I am the full expression of all He has enriched my affections for. I am His. He is at the root of all my desires. And it is enough.

offered with Love,

Cate

"humility and manhood..."

"when the dreams
that you're dreaming
come to you,

when the work
you've put in
is realized,

let yourself feel the pride;
but always stay humble and kind.

“it won't be wasted time,
so always stay humble and kind...”

When this post started percolating, it wasn't hard to find a song to give it voice. Tim McGraw's  "Humble and Kind"  couldn't be a more perfect.

This morning I heard a little boy stand up in a gathering of his peers -- and some much older and very much-admired young men -- and say, "we shouldn't just be focusing on our own personal achievements, but we should be helping others too."

It wasn't a big deal in the context of the meeting's purpose - encouraging spiritual thinking. But it was so brave in the context of a current world mindset - one where competition and comparisons seem to thrive, and humility and the celebration of another's gifts, is seen as weakness.

If you know my husband, you know that he is the least competitive man on the planet. I think he has a "genetic" predisposition towards letting the other guy go first, encouraging his "opponent" to succeed, and lifting up the guy in front of him - or behind him, as the case may be. It is what I love most about him. His lack of self-promotion. His natural inclination towards helping others find their place in the world -- even when it means stepping aside himself. In fact, more often than not, I have seen him not only step aside, but have used his own time in that "space," as an opportunity to better prepare that place for his successor. He is a nest featherer -- for others.

And this morning, as I looked around that room full of boys and men, I could see my husband as a little boy. Scrawny-bodied, horn-rimmed glasses, a mop of floppy hair in a nondescript color. Imagining this was not hard, since there were a dozen photos of him on the wall. And thinking about that little boy, my throat tightened - not just with love for him, but for all of the humble and kind men who had helped to raise him to be the man he is today.

Around the world, at dinner tables and in locker rooms, at bedtime and on the playing field, fathers and mothers, coaches and trainers, are being given a platform for encouraging a version of manhood that will be either self-focused, or service-focused. This morning I heard fresh promise in the voice of a young boy. He is choosing to serve others as he navigates a world full of competition and personal ambition.  He is choosing humble and kind. And, he is recommending it to his friends, mentors, and leaders.

Years ago, when our daughter was playing club volleyball, a weekend tournament was being held at a private girls school known for its privilege. The parking lot was filled with luxury cars, and the host team entered the gym carrying monogrammed backpacks. I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated. But when I exited my Jeep, and looked up at the stone wall of their beautiful large sports complex, I saw this quote:

"Humility isn't thinking
less of yourself,
it's thinking of yourself - less."

It caught me up short. I decided I was going to look for humility that entire weekend. And you know, it was everywhere. Those moms arriving in sleek sports cars and tank-like SUVs, were spending their weekend serving home-baked brownies at the snack table. Those monogram-emblazoned team members were cleaning the locker room between games. Their booster club was selling snacks to support a sister-school in another, under-privileged country.

Humility is not weakness -- it is our greatest strength. It is not the conquering of others, but the conquering of selfishness, pride, and arrogance. Humility confidently sets self-concern aside, knowing that one's truest self is spiritually designed, defined, and governed by God. Humility frees us to fully use those God-given talents and strengths for uplifting,  serving, encouraging, and revealing the gifts in others. And in doing so, we improve the world we live in.

Today, I was so moved by the humility of a young boy. Each day I am deeply touched by the humility of good men. Good boys, good men in a good, good world.

Mary Baker Eddy gives some sense of this, in referencing Shakespeare, when she writes:

"Let your watchword always be:
“Great, not like Caesar,
stained with blood,
But only great as I am good.”

Here is to good men, nurturing good boys -- to be humble and kind.

offered with Love,

Cate

"You were only waiting for this moment to arise..."

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings
and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting
for this moment to arise..."
Lennon/McCartney

We'd been friends and colleagues. We loved music and coffeehouses, Joni Mitchell and anyone singing "Blackbird."  It was our song. 

I'd sat knee-to-knee with her in faculty senate meetings. I'd listened to her ideas on countless conference calls, and we'd enjoyed talking mission and vision in the company of colleagues with opposing points of view. I'd helped her with curriculum planning.  She'd helped me with tenure, promotions, and appointments decisions.  The goal was a better institution, not to be better than one another.  Ten-year plans and organizational strategies were our favorite board games.  I trusted her.  I respected her.  And in the blink of a moment, our relationship was gone. 

As our career paths had crossed, converged, and diverged over the years, we'd each had opportunities and disappointments, successes and setbacks.  We were each other's shoulder to cry on, and biggest fan.  That was, until one of us broke through a glass ceiling of sorts, and became the other's "boss."

I'd never felt more misunderstood and alone.  Navigating this new territory was terrifying.  No matter what I said it was taken as a slight.  No matter what she said, it felt like an attack.  Our mutual friends were traumatized, our families were confused, and our hearts were breaking.

The funny thing was, I now know that we were both praying…humbly, meekly, importunately. And we were both hearing our “angels” (God’s thoughts passing to man, spiritual intuitions – pure and perfect) but, in our own, personal angel-inhabited versions of heaven, we were, each, the only one who could possibly be right…leaving us both alone. She stole my voice, I undermined her vision, which of us had more authority, “who’s on first” …and on, and on it went, until we found ourselves avoiding department meetings if we thought we’d run into eachother.

Then one night I was sitting in my office, long after the cleaning crew had come through, and I heard sobbing from the other end of the hall.  I wondered if it might have been a graduate assistant with boyfriend troubles, and decided to offer my sage twenty-something counsel. 

I got up from my desk, headed towards the "bullpen" at the far end of the hall where staff assistants and student interns, had their desks. 

But the sound of crying became fainter with each footstep.  So I turned and headed back toward "our" end of the hall, where private offices lined the corridor.  As I passed my own office and continued further away from the bullpen, the weeping got louder until I was standing in front of my friend's office.  It was obvious.  She was in deep emotional pain.  These were not frustrated, angry tears, this was the sound of a broken heart.

I didn't have to know if I was at the core of her heartbreak, just the thought that I might be, was more than enough.  Tears flooded my eyes and washed the darkly imagined personal sense script of hurt, and ego-centric "me-vs.-thee" thinking from my heart.  The compassion I immediately felt for my friend...in that moment...was like light radiating from within.  A laser-like Love that cut through mis-understanding with the only kind of "understanding" that ever really matters...an understanding heart. 

It didn't matter who was "boss."  It didn't matter which of us had a better working understanding of the lives of early women thought-pioneers, or a more scholarly understanding of the importance of suffrage, or who understood the history of feminism or spiritual texts that honored the divine feminine.  The only understanding that really mattered was our sisterhood, our compassion for one another.  The only thing that would make a difference was an understanding of where someone else might be coming from, what they might be going through, and how they might be feeling. The understanding that mattered was the kind that was synonymous with compassion, not intellectual achievement or scholarship.

In that moment of compassion, divine Love pierced the membrane of self, and deflated the ego. 

I tiptoed away from my colleague's door and back towards my own office where I picked up the phone and called her at her desk.  I somehow knew that if my own ego-hardened heart could be spiritually re-booted, perhaps so could hers.  I can now see that we'd both been hoodwinked by "the ego," and we were discovering that it was time to kick it out of our relationship...together.

When she answer softly...probably having seen my office extension displayed on her phone console, I told her I'd noticed the light under her office door and wondered if she wanted a cup of tea and some of the girl scout cookies I'd brought in that morning.  I knew I was on sacred ground, we shared a great love for Thin Mints...and eachother.

Within ten minutes, we'd started over...tea, chocolate cookies...and understanding.  We were not two isolated blackbirds singing in the dead of night...alone and broken.   We were women, sisters, friends...waiting for "this moment to arrive" like an updraft, a thermal of Love, lifting us above competition, hierarchy, comparison, and the insidious invitation to jockey for position. We were beyond glass ceilings...we were soaring in the space of Love's genderless sky where all sing...where all sweep, and glide, and speak, and dance in Pneuma's ever-equalized, rarified spiritual enviroment. No drop in pressure, no ozone layers of pride and selfishness, no toxic envy or arrogance....just Love.

We would go on to celebrate eachother's victories, encourage one another to dream very special dreams...even after we ceased to have offices on the same hall...make big differences, in an even bigger world, and pledge to never stand on the shoulders of another woman, but link arms with our fellow sisters and rise together on that updraft of spiritual compassion and love...to bring other women higher with us as we learned to fly.

I am so grateful for the sisterhood of sweet-throated blackbirds...sharing a thermal is the best way to travel!!

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS