"the writing's on the wall..."

"for You,
I have to risk it all,
for the writing's on the wall..."

The other night Sam Smith's recording of  "The Writing's on the Wall" found its way to the top of my playlist.  About the same time that I was thinking about Jesus' night in the garden of Gethsemane. Suddenly it wasn't James Bond that Sam was singing about -- it was Jesus.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to know you were going to be arrested and crucified. Yes, he also knew that a resurrection was part of God's plan for him, but still...

I keep thinking about his spiritual preparation for this ultimate opportunity to demonstrate his love for mankind -- by modeling his unprecedented trust in God's omnipotent goodness. His willingness to give each of us a precedent-setting case of what happens when you "risk" it all for Love.

We know that he was a student of earliest scripture. As a good Hebrew boy, he was familiar with the stories in the Old Testament. He would have heard of Daniel's night in the lions' den, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, of Moses' journey through a parted sea with the Children of Israel. He would have memorized the Psalms and learned from Job. He was ready.

He had been humbled, tempted, lauded, questioned, exalted, pursued, defended, and defamed. He had spent 40 days in the desert, was the honored guest at weddings and feasts, read in the temple, was pursued by a mob, and fed multitudes. He was ready.

He had seen water made wine, men turn from their self-righteous anger, lepers made clean, a bent woman straightened, money from the mouth of a fish, thousands fed, a blind man seeing, and the dead raised to life. He was ready.

Last summer a friend shared three short sentences in a talk. They were:

You belong here.
You are ready.
You are not alone.

There has not been a day - since hearing those three sentences strung together - that I have not claimed them for myself and others. The comfort of knowing that we have been sent into each moment for a holy purpose. The confidence inspired by realizing that we are prepared and ready for this experience with spiritual skills, tools, resources, experiences, and proofs. And the abiding sense that we are not alone as we stand in this moment. Divine Love is with us every step of the way. Isaiah shares this promise:

"Now thus saith the Lord, Fear not -- when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert..." 

And the Pslamist, David writes:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou are with me..."

Jesus would have known these promises from scripture. They must have been a great comfort to him. I know they have been for me. If the writing's on the wall -- and we know that we must pass through the fire of self-immolation, then the writing is also on the page, telling us how we can do navigate this passage with spiritual courage, strength, wisdom, and trust.

John relates this promise from Jesus:

"In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

What love he has shown us. What gifts of compassion and understanding he has left for us. No one was awake with Jesus in the garden to take notes. Yet we know what happened there - the plea, the tears, the surrender. He, himself, must have left record of this night of gloom and glory with his followers. Perhaps he left this record as  encouragement for all who he knows will follow him in their own path of devotion to God and mankind.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says this about our own sometimes tear-strewn path in following his example:

"It is possible, — yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman, — to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness."

As hard as that may seem to imagine,  we -- every child, man, and woman -- are ready to do this. We are well-prepared. Our spiritual storehouses are well-stocked.

As Paul writes in II Corinthians:

"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."

Not long ago, I found myself in a very dark place. It was unexpected and unsettling. I reminded myself over and over again: I belong here. I am ready. I am not alone. I was willing to accept that this seeming darkness was really the backdrop for a brilliant Truth to be seen more clearly. Day-by-day I searched scripture, listened in prayer, waited patiently. I looked for God's presence in my life -- in hundreds of tiny ways -- reminding me that I was not alone. When the light broke -- it was not in opposition to the darkness, but enhanced by it.

We are prepared to see the lowering cloud for what it is -- the promise of healing, reviving rain. We can run for cover, or we can stay and watch the desert blossom as the rose. Arms stretched wide, face turned up to receive His bow of promise.

We belong here.  We belong in every moment of our own awakening to spiritual life and its possibilities -- whether it be through the doors of the temple, in the silence of a sanctuary, or on the path of our own cross-bearing. We are ready.  We are well-equipped with scriptural truths, confidence-inspiring experiences, prayer-based encouragement, and his life-affirming promises. And we are not alone. We have Jesus' example -- and most vitally, we have the kingdom of God at hand, with us, within our hearts.

Yes, the writing's on the wall. But His Word is written in our hearts.


offered with Love,

Kate

"be it far from thee Lord..."

"All my devotion,
and misguided loyalty;
swinging my sword
in the garden,
while you pray
for your enemies..."

A few years ago, I found a wonderful collection of contemporary Christian songs called, "The Story." I often find fresh perspective on Scriptural stories from them. Dan Haseltine and Matt Hammett's song,  "Empty"  was a beautiful compliment to my study of the Easter story this morning.

I was reading outside the lines -- beyond the citations of Scripture that were recommended for study -- and remembered an experience I had some years ago. The son we'd been in the process of adopting had been taken back by his birthmother and I was devastated. I hadn't held back in loving him. He had my heart. There were moments when I could step back and see the bigger spiritual picture, and they other times when I just felt empty.

Friends and family members were loving and supportive. Sometimes that support came in the guise of outrage at what we'd gone through. It was easy to slip into the arms of their commiseration and be assured that it just wasn't fair.  It wasn't fair -- we'd done everything "right," and now, here we were with an empty nursery and broken hearts. Their sympathy was comforting.

But one week, while considering the disciple Peter's career-trajectory - as one of Jesus' closest companions. I thought  about his eagerness, his persistence, and his bumpy road from fisherman to fisher of men. I discovered that two of the accounts appear back-to-back in the 16th chapter of Matthew's gospel:

"When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar–jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven..."

and

"From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

In the first instance, we have Peter identifying Jesus correctly as, "the Christ, the son of the living God," -- and then when he tries to defend Jesus, saying that it would be wrong for a man of such goodness as Jesus to be arrested and crucified, he is rebuked by his Master, and called "Satan."  Something about that story hit me like a cup of cold water -- being thrown in my face.

In the breadth of a heartbeat, I knew I could no longer accept the sympathy of those who loved me, as if I were a victim -- small, vulnerable, shattered, and broken. Oh yes, I was so very grateful for their love, and I could appreciate their intent, but I could no longer accept this version of my own story -- one that painted me as a casualty of someone else's choices, decisions, mistakes. It deprived me of my own God-sent journey. It was a denial of my right to see myself as whole, and to exchange a crucified sense of my mommy story - the cradle song and natal hour, for a resurrected sense of  genuine motherhood -- unmoved, unwavering, unshaken.

I believe that Jesus knew that for him to lean into Peter's "be it far from thee Lord," was to allow space for the breach -- the suggestion that for even one moment of his life, his story was out of God's supreme control. Peter's righteous indignation only soothed the personal ego -- it had no life in Christ.

Jesus doesn't call Pilate "Satan" -- nor the the priests who were behind his arrest, or Judas who led his captors to him. They were not the "problem." The real snake was the ego -- that which seeks to be defended.  The false narrative that would suggest that his life mission was a series of "whew, dodged another mortal bullet." These were the real enemy of the Christ -- his eternal manhood as God's own beloved son.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times this insight has blessed me in the ensuing 30 years. Whether it is my own self-sympathy when facing a challenge, or the well-intentioned "not you..." offered by a friend or loved one, it doesn't take long to remember that, as Mary Baker Eddy promises in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, next to the marginal heading, "Uses of suffering":

"The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life in divine Science..."

I want to learn life in divine Science. If my disappointments and ceaseless woes are the beginning of a new lesson -- bring them on! I will try to receive them with the same clear sense and calm trust that Jesus teaches us.

Whenever I begin feeling sorry for myself, wondering "why" I am facing this problem or that challenge, I re-visit the chapter, "Atonement and Eucharist" in Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - again.  It always reminds me why I love being a scientist, and how grateful I am for each opportunity to deepen my trust in the law of Love within the laboratory of human experience.

This chapter of Jesus' story -- the neglect, betrayal, arrest, crucifixion -- was the ultimate platform for proving his love for his Father, his trust in God's care, and for modeling the love that triumphs over hate, despair, pain, and fear.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Higher, higher and higher..."

"Your love is lifting me higher
Than I've ever been lifted before
So keep it up, quench my desire
And I'll be at Your side forevermore

You know Your love
Keeps lifting me
Keeps on lifting
Higher, higher, and higher...."
-     Jackie Wilson

Okay, so this is another recycled song.  But I can't help what springs, like a Broadway musical number, into my head sometimes. And today it was, Jackie Wilson's classic, "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher."  And it happened at the strangest moment.  

So, I am sitting in church, well actually not just sitting in church...as in, sitting back and listening to the service...no, I was conducting the service.  And even though I had read the scriptural selections, and their correlative passages from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, more than a dozen times this week, it was the juxtaposition of two, or more, statements that took me by surprise.  Almost to the point of needing to stop the service and ask for a moment to recalibrate where I was, and what I was supposed to be doing. 

I just wanted to snap my fingers and be able to call up one of those moments you see on television where everything freezes while the main character assesses the situation. But I couldn't. I had to keep reading.  But that didn't mean that I could stop thinking, thinking, thinking...or put the musical number inside my head on pause. And the choreography looked alot like this video of the ACM Gospel Choir singing "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher," on BBC's Last Choir Standing. In hindsight I see that this is, in and of itself, a moment of progress…I no longer heard a mournful dirge when I considered these concepts, but a joyful “hallelujah” of sorts. 

But I digress.  Here are the citations, from Science and Health that caught in my thought, and wouldn't let me breathe for a moment or two:

"Though entitled to the homage of the world and endorsed pre-eminently by the approval of God, his [Jesus] brief triumphal entry into Jerusalem was followed by the desertion of all save a few friends who sadly followed him to the foot of the cross."

"That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin-filled storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus' intense human sacrifice."

"This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love."

"Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it."

Words swirled like snow in the dry, cold air of winter...words and phrases like:  cross, intense human sacrifice, highest, elevating...Love, Love, Love.

cross...elevating...highest....

I couldn't help but remember a thought that had startled me some years ago.  It had wrested me from a self-congratulatory sense of complacency about my spiritual ambitions.   From a false sense of what it meant to go up higher, and it hasn't let go.  My steps have been haunted, or encouraged, by it ever since.  And just when I think I "get it," I have a moment like the one I had on Sunday. And immediately, that earlier "aha!" moment...which happened years ago...is as clear and riveting as it was that sunny Colorado afternoon.    The story goes: 

I'd been thinking about this citation from John:

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me."

While considering its relevance, as a spiritual model for nurturing my young practice of spiritual healing, I'd had an epiphany. Prior to that moment, the mental imagery I'd always entertained, when thinking about this statement, included Jesus going up into a mountain "and when he was set his disciples came unto him" or Jesus feeding the multitudes on a hillside, or speaking from the temple altar, or praying from the bow of a boat "above his fellows". 

But imagine my Christ-stricken sense of things..."heart chastened and pride rebuked"...when I realized that the next citation established the context, and the setting, for his delivery of that line:

"This he said, signifying what death he should die."

Oh my gosh, he wasn't talking about being lifted up from earth -- by acclaim, accomplishment, or celebrity -- to the human heights of achievement...a platform, a podium, a pedestal, a soapbox, or a mountaintop.  No, he was speaking of the cross...he was saying that all men would be drawn to him, not through the hierarchy of priestly "climbing," but from the summit of the cross.  They would be drawn to how he walked through this moment of "intense human suffering" with bleeding footsteps...and a sense of purpose.  They would find great spiritual comfort and encouragement for their own journeys, in his having experienced even more agony than they would ever even imagine, and still be inspired and able to express compassion and grace.

Looking more closely at this high point in his career, we don't see a man who has achieved earthly success.  He has actually failed, substantially, to "measure up" according to the religious standards of his time and culture. And I wonder, if we didn't already know the end of his story, how he'd fare under current standards of scrutiny. Consider his record towards the end of his career. He's failed to heal Judas of betrayal, to convince the temple elders of his Messiahship, to gather the religious elders to his ranks, to turn Peter from his path of disloyalty, to liberate himself from Pilate's imprisonment, and horribly unjust sentencing as a criminal among criminals...and ultimately, his crucifixion. And, as Eddy reminds us, "He opened not his mouth in defense of himself." Was he not praying? Why wasn't he inspired with the right words? A well-reasoned argument that would have resulted in a dismissal of his case and release from incarceration? Wouldn't this have been right...a "demonstration" of God's love? 

And not only does he fail according to the "world's" measures of success, he is unable to draw any but one of his disciples to this altar of "intense human sacrifice" in those final moments.  He is hanging from a cross, in the company of a murderer, a thief, women, and the one who is faithful, and beloved.  Why did they follow him...why do we?

He is now broken...shattered by the hatred he did not heal...how much could he hold, accomplish, achieve, accrue, with hands full of holes?  How could he think, much less pray  -  for himself or others  -  with a crown of thorns around his head? Who would follow a man with holes in his feet...a man, who at best, is now only able to take halting, stumbling, faltering footsteps...how would he walk, much less lead? Perhaps he knows that it is in this moment of broken hands, pierced lungs, throbbing head, and bleeding feet that we finally learn that it really is, always has been, and always will be God that we live, and move, and have our being in. That He is the only "doer," and that it is His prayers that heal, His word that comforts, His footsteps that lead.

Eddy describes this moment in Christian history, and her own relationship to it:

“Pitying friends took down from the cross the fainting form of Jesus, and buried it out of their sight. His disciples, who had not yet drunk of his cup, lost sight of him; they could not behold his immortal being in the form of Godlikeness.

All that I have written, taught, or lived, that is good, flowed through cross-bearing, self-forgetfulness, and my faith in the right.”

She saw that this was his summit, this was his God-crowned height, this was his divine commission. 

And what of us? Is this really where he is encouraging, urging, demanding that we "follow" him?

So how do we do it without being filled with terror? 

Back to today's heart-stopping moment...

"Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it."
-Mary Baker Eddy

Yes, as the song says: 

"...Your Love is lifting me higher
Than I've ever been lifted before..."

Jesus said, "take up your cross and follow me..." But, what is my cross?  What is it that will begin to crucify the false ego...day-by-day.  What is it that will lift me up from that view of myself as "of the earth, earthy" to behold "the Lord of heaven and earth" within my own heart?  Only Love can...only Love will...only that unreasonable love which sweeps away the gossamer web of self, and walks mindlessly (but always Mind-fully) into the sickroom, faces the lion in his den, lifts the sinner from the sin, and speaks gently to the frantic child's heart...only this love has the power to impel us in following him as we take up our own cross. 

This love that is of God, takes me by surprise and moves me to act well outside of the ego's paradigm...in loving my children, changing my behavior, serving others, allowing the reformation of my own character, putting someone else's needs above my own,  focusing light on another's work/accomplishments and letting them shine...it is only this love that could ever even possibly give me, even a modicum of the courage required to follow him.  And each time I do, I discover that the view from this summit, is breath-takingly lovely...

To embolden my resolve...and find the inspiration and encouragement that is much needed in order to follow his footsteps each day...I return, over and over again, to Eddy's chapter, "Atonement and Eucharist," in Science and Health, .  It is here that she reminds us,

"Our cup is the cross..."

and further promises us,

"If good enough to profit by Jesus' cup of earthly sorrows,
God will sustain us under these sorrows."

These are just two of many remarkable statements she makes about Love-inspired cross-bearing. And this cup that is the cross...it is a good thing. But we can only find the strength to lift it to our lips, and let it lift us, through Love...the inspiration of Love..."the wine our Master drank and commended to his followers."  

"So take it up, quench my desire
And I'll be at your side, forevermore..."

Okay, I'm Yours. I will follow and rejoice...I promise...
Kate


[above photo: M. Munhall 2009]