"there was Jesus..."

"when the life I had,
came crashing to the ground;

when the friends I had,
were nowhere to be found;

there was Jesus..."

Dolly Parton and Zac Williams' song, "There Was Jesus," has meant so much to me.

In my faith tradition, we don't talk a lot about our relationship with Jesus. We talk more about the presence of the Christ.  We acknowledge the Christ in consciousness. But this post not about that deeply spiritual concept of Christ. It is about my relationship with Jesus.

"Why?" you may ask, would I write about this, -- especially when I was doing so well at not stirring things up. Because, it isn't honest for me to post month-after-month about the healing power of the Christ, and not acknowledge a relationship that is second only to my love for God.

You see, when everything is stripped from you, and you are left without human comfort, you find him. And once you have found him, you never let him go.

The details of my loneliness -- during a particularly challenging time -- are not important. Suffice it to say that Mary Baker Eddy perfectly described it when she wrote:

“Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love."
 

Been there. Felt that. And in that seeming vacuum, I found him. Not "him," as in a guy in a white robe, but him as a mentor, a shepherd, a friend -- the one who would lead me out of the emptiness of abstraction, and into the fullness of his living, breathing, palpating love.

In Scripture we are introduced to the man who would inspire gospel choirs to sing: "what a friend we have in Jesus."  To know his friendship is to never be alone again.

I remember well the nights that I sat alone in a near empty apartment and realized that I had no one to call. I had spent all day "taking calls," but felt undeserving of the same unconditional, spiritual acceptance that I try to bring to every call that comes into my office.

You see, I've made choices that did not always align with what others expected of me. My reservoir of trust - in my own ability to intuit divine guidance - sometimes runs low. There are times when I have taken all of my cues about myself, from the opinions of others. And those opinions have, at times, been full of derision.

Sitting in the dark, the light from streetlamps all that illumined the empty silence of an empty room, I begged God for something clear and unquestionable. If I was a bad person, tell me - so that I could repent and change. For all I really wanted was to love, trust, and honor Him - more each day.

What He sent me - however - was not a message. It was a man. It was His son. And in the dark, my heart is flooded with his story. I have felt held in the comfort of his example, his words, his self-sacrificing love.

In my sorrow -- he was there. In my self-doubt - he was there.  With the woman, taken "in the very act" -- he was there. With the mother begging for her daughter's life -- he was there. His words, his comforting touch, his trust in our Father's love -- it has been there to hold me close. It is there to whisper assurance. It was there to rebuke, to restore, to return me to our shared home in the Father's house - time and time again.

Sitting in the silence, I was sitting with him. Not with a specter. Not with a character from a story. Not with a superhero. I was sitting with Jesus. I was asking him about our Father.  Asking him to tell me about His love.  I was weeping in his arms. I was pouring out my heart's deepest questions, and he invariably turned me to his timeless message - "the kingdom of God is within you." Be still. Listen. I am here. I will not leave you comfortless. I have come to you."

Of the 809 times that Mary Baker Eddy refers to Jesus in her writings, 646 of them are without reference to him in connection with "Christ." And though she refers to Christ 868 times, only 494 of those instances are where it is not in connection with "Jesus" or "the Church of Christ, Scientist."

Her relationship to Jesus has humbled me. One night, when my family was living in the carriage house at Eddy's last former home on Beacon Street in Chestnut Hill, I offered to do the security check on "the big house," -- a condition of our residency. As I climbed the stairs - flashlight in hand - I came to her bedroom, and paused. I was curious about the "images" that she surrounded herself with during her darkest hours.

Eddy faced many dark nights in that last house. Her days were filled with writing, healing, founding the Christian Science Monitor, helping to guide church leadership, and facing a world that questioned her every move and decision. Her household would later recount how dark those nights actually were for her at times.

And that night, I noted that on the wall, directly opposite her bed - in that small modest room, were three images. A small painting of a pastoral scene, a familiar painting of Daniel in the Lion's Den, and a portrait of Jesus. One that you might see in many Christian homes of her day.

It took my breath away - to think that she would wake in the night to a painting of Daniel's unfailing trust, a scene reminiscent of her girlhood in Bow, and a portrait of Jesus. I will never forget the feeling of wanting to feel what she had felt when she looked at it. It left me with a longing for something more than just words about Jesus. I wanted to know why his portrait hung on her bedroom wall and what it meant to her.

One night sitting alone in a dark apartment, I understood.

offered with Love,

Kate

"be still, be still, and know..."

"Be still, and know that I'm with you.
Be still, and know that I am here.
Be still, be still, and know..."

In the darkness, peace felt fragile. Every mistake I'd ever made seemed to parade itself across the backdrop of my closed eyes. Sleep evaded me.

I had been lying there for hours, rehashing decisions that seemed so much clearer in hindsight. I was so tired of being haunted by all the ways I could have done things differently: gone to the right -- instead of the left, paused for one minute longer, held my peace -- instead of speaking. I was exhausted from thinking and re-thinking.

I lay there awash in regret while the house breathed its winter sounds. I'd been praying -- without ceasing -- when a simple scripture from the Psalms -- and one that is central in this beautiful lyric from The Fray's, "Be Still." broke through.

Be still. And know. I am. It was the perfect reminder. I needed to get off the hamster wheel of human thinking. I needed to be still, and know. Not think, but know. I stilled, not just my thrashing, sheet-twined body, but my unsettled heart. I lay on my back, folded my hands, and took long deep breaths until I felt the sweetness of a quiet mind.

Then I asked myself: what do you know to be true? Not, what do you think is true? But what do you absolutely know to be true -- right now. Then I listened. Within moments it came. "I know I am." It was simple and pure. I know that I am conscious. I know that I am aware of loving my husband, my children. I know that I am capable of gratitude -- right now. I know that I still [always, persistently, nevertheless] love God, good. I know that I am able to be truthful, quiet, humble, loving.

It may not seem like a profound insight -- but in the dark, when the demons of regret are circling and thoughts rush around like wild creatures in an approaching storm -- it is like having the gentling hand of a divine Parent rest upon your heart.

I didn't fall asleep immediately that night. But the darkness changed from foreboding to comforting. I felt swaddled in the stillness like an infant -- it's closeness calming my heart and mind. Thinking gave way to knowing, and in that knowing there was a sweet peace.

In Scripture, John tell us:

"Yes shall know the Truth,
and the Truth shall make you free." 

He didn't say, "ye shall think the truth, and the truth shall make you free," but know. The different between thinking and knowing is a profound one for me. There is a peace in knowing what I know vs. thinking about something.

I didn't have to do battle with those demons -- Mind, God, had asserted Its divine authority. Knowing, overwhelmed human thought-taking. Gratitude for what I absolutely knew to be true, swept away the cobwebs of speculation, regret, memory, and imagination. The final chapter of Mary Baker Eddy's textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, titled "Fruitage," includes testimonies of healing. C.B.G. of Hudson, Massachusetts shares this experience - and it so perfectly describes what I felt that night -- and continue to feel, each time thinking yields to knowing:

"I closed the book and with head bowed in prayer
I waited with longing intensity for some answer.
How long I waited I do not know, but suddenly,
like a wonderful burst of sunlight after a storm,
came clearly this thought,

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

I held my breath — deep into my hungering thought
sank the infinite meaning of that “I.”
All self-conceit, egotism, selfishness, everything
that constitutes the mortal “I,” sank abashed
out of sight. I trod, as it were, on holy ground.
Words are inadequate to convey the fulness of that
spiritual uplifting, but others who have had similar
experiences will understand. From that hour I have had
an intelligent consciousness of the ever-presence
of an infinite God who is only good." 

For me, this knowing space, is a place of such profound peace that I never want to leave it. I find myself looking for ways to return to it throughout each day. I seek the quiet spaces, the covert places, where I can curl myself into the knowing -- the I am of being, the consciousness of Love alone as Life. It is the place of stillness -- nevertheless-ness. It is the place I love.

offered with Love,

Kate

"if not now, tell me when..."

"it will take
a change of heart
for this to mend,
but miracles do happen
every shining now and then,
if not now,
tell me when..."

I spent a week grieving. Then I realized it was time to accept the gift of this moment in history.  To embrace the opportunities we have to be emboldened by love.

When I want a musical kick-in-the-bumm, I turn to Carrie Newcomer. She always reminds me that self-indulgence is not allowed in the heart of a spiritual warrior. I love her recording of "If Not Now." It reminds me that "everything that happens -- happens not to us, but for us."

I needed this reminder. I was on the verge of doing what we nesting creatures do. I wanted to pull into my shell, hide under the covers, slip beneath the wings of someone wiser.

But only for a while. And it was there in the silence, and in the remembering of who I am and what I am capable of accomplishing in service to my God and His children. I found the courage to do something more. I could build nests. I could be someone who quietly gathers the discarded bits and forgotten pieces of this  movement, and builds a safe place for the incubation of dreams.

This doesn't need to be a time of disappointment, but greater appointment. We have been called into this moment for a holy purpose. And it is upon this landscape of stark realization -- that there are millions of people hurting and angry --  that we can find our voice. There is a song to be sung, a message to deliver, a gift to give. And we are that gift. As Scripture assures us:

"prove me now herewith,
saith the Lord of hosts,
if I will not open you
the windows of heaven,
and pour you out a blessing,
that there shall not be
room enough to receive it..." 

Will there ever be a time like this one? A time when kindness stands out in such stark relief against the backdrop of hate. A time when clear integrity is seen in a sea of gray uncertainty. A time when acceptance - based on impartial, and universal Love - is felt where bigotry lurks in the darkness. This is our time. This is our calling.

Recently someone asked me if I didn't feel the hand of an earlier doctrine of racial-purging, religious registry, and white nationalism reaching into this time. Yes, I have -- the comparisons are pretty insidious. But we are not the people of that time. We are wiser, more aware, and we are empowered by what we now know - about where this kind of thinking leads. And we are ready to say "no."

In her collection of addresses, articles, and letters titled Miscellaneous Writings 1888 - 1896, Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Be “of one mind,”
“in one place,”
and God will pour you
out a blessing such as you
never before received.
He who dwelleth in eternal light
is bigger than the shadow..." 

This is our time. This is our "now." We can be of one mind in this place. We can unite in the Principle of all unity -- Love.   Or as Kahlil Gibran writes:

""In friendship, or in love,
two, side-by-side, raise hands together
to find what one cannot reach alone." 

Whether we are marching in peaceful protest, creating sanctuary cities, refusing to let our Muslim neighbors register alone, or dancing, praying, petitioning and singing our love -- we are not alone. We are in this time together. We will not hide. We will love boldly and courageously.

I love thinking of this statement from Eddy as a benediction on our place in this historic hour:

"There is with us at this hour this great, a great blessing;
and may I say with the consciousness of Mind
that the fulfilment of divine Love in our lives
is the demand of this hour — the special demand..." 

We are not being imposed upon by hatred, hatred has been exposed by Love. The demands that are being made upon us are the demands of Love. Love is asking us to shine like stars against the backdrop of a midnight sky. Love is demanding that we step up and be counted.  Darkness cannot hide the light. This is our time to be the light of Love. To shine. To be our most brilliant selves. To be a candle in the storm.


offered with Love,

Kate

"If I survive…"

"Mother,
do not cry.
Queen of Heaven,
protect me always.
Hail Mary,
full of grace..."

Those words, etched on the walls of a Gestapo jail in Auschwitz, inspired composer, Henryk Gorecki's "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs." It could have been the soundtrack of my childhood.  Its tone -- low, sad, and sweet. If I had heard it then, I might not have felt so alone.

But actually, it was a small book that gave me hope, courage, comfort, and forbearance. I can remember standing in our middle school library and seeing the word, "Night" embossed into the faded cotton spine of Elie Wiesel's book, on the eye-level shelf in front of me.

I took it down with shaking hands, and opened it with trembling fingers.  I knew in an instant that it was my book. That he was my hero. I knew his story. Everyone did in those days. But to know that he had written a book about night -- the most terrifying time of day for me -- was a gift of supreme grace.

No, my monster didn't come with guns and swastikas. My family wasn't murdered. I did not live in a rat and flea-infested barrack with hundreds of other prisoners. But for me - a small girl with a quiet heart - my hell felt just as dark and hopeless.

I borrowed "Night" from the library that day and took it home in my plaid book bag. I remember slipping it under my pillow and knowing that even if I couldn't read it right away, it was there to remind me that I was not alone in the night. The fact that others had faced even more torturous events - had survived, had gone on to become advocates for innocence, and had rediscovered their relationship with a God they'd once doubted - was a lifeline for me.

With a small flashlight, deep under my covers, I read and I cried -- night after night. It was Elie's honesty that gave me the strength to hold on to my sanity. It was his survival that emboldened my hope.

You see, it was one thing to suffer years of abuse and then have it suddenly end when my abuser discovered his relationship to God. It led me believe that God was now protecting me, and that if I only kept a keen hold on that divine link -- I would be safe. But when a life-event triggered the abusers return to his old behaviors, I was deeply shaken. Where was God?   Nothing I did - no prayer I prayed - seemed to be able to arrest his steep spiral into self-hatred and the hatred for others that followed.

I had no one I could talk to.  No one except the authors I'd made my best friends in the night.  I still took all my sorrow to them.  Elie Wiesel, Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, those wonderful Bronte Sisters…   The abuser's threats to the lives of those I loved, kept me silent and compliant. I was afraid. But I was not alone, there had been millions of girls and boys who'd faced villainous torture and paralyzing fear -- night-after-night -- in places like Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka.

Wiesel shares in "Night," a conversation that he had with another prisoner.  It gave me a safe place to take some of my own questions:

“Why do you pray?"
he asked me, after a moment.

"Why did I pray? A strange question.
Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

"I don't know why," I said,
even more disturbed and ill at ease.
"I don't know why."

After that day I saw him often.
He explained to me with great insistence
that every question possessed a power
that did not lie in the answer.

"Man raises himself toward God
by the questions he asks Him,"
he was fond of repeating.

"That is the true dialogue.
Man questions God and God answers.
But we don't understand His answers.
We can't understand them.
Because they come from the depths
of the soul, and they stay there.
You will find the true answers,
Eliezer, only within yourself!"

"And why do you pray, Moshe?"
I asked him.
"I pray to the God within me
that He will give me the strength
to ask Him the right questions.” 

I prayed for God to give me the right questions. I prayed that I could let go of the "why" question:  Why me? And instead, begin to ask questions like, What can I do to protect my sisters? How can I be brave? Who am I? Where is my goodness?  The questions themselves refocused my thoughts and gave me courage and strength.

Then, in a 1981 New York Times interview, Wiesel would again come to comfort my wounded heart, diffuse my anger, encourage my hopes, and give me a path towards the freedom I longed for. He said,

“If I survived,
it must be for some reason.
I must do something with my life.” 

Once again, it met me where I was, and walked me forward out of a particularly dark chapter.  I knew that Elie had also struggled with his faith. And yet, he had persisted and prevailed.

Today, with the news of his passing,  my heart is both heavy and grateful. I will miss the dream of one day meeting him. I will miss the conversations I have imagined. I will miss asking him a million questions. But I will not allow myself to miss out on asking God to help me ask the right questions for each day's journey out of darkness and into His light-filled purpose for me.

Someone recently told me that I needed to forget the past, and move on. Like Elie, I do not believe that this "forgetting," is my path. Forgiving, yes. Forgetting, no. When I am remembering, I am holding something in consciousness. In that moment it is not in the past, it is very present. By recognizing this, I can decide how to think in that moment about that "memory." And in doing so, with Love's help, I can reclaim it for good.

I would never think to tell someone to forget -- to wipe something out of their conscious awareness -- anymore than I would tell someone to forget Jesus' crucifixion, or Mandela's imprisonment. Not when we are given the opportunity to reclaim those moments for God. To deny evil its claim as a creator. By this reclaiming -- we realign out lives with one divine Cause.

Each of us will experience something that has the potential to carve out in us a space of compassion, non-judgmental, alertness, humility, courage, patience, gratitude, vigilance. For me, the dark chapters were only context -- not content. I am made up of better things. And yes, my faith was tested -- but it was not found wanting. I have been through the valley of the shadow -- but I didn't stay there. And every step of the way, God was with me. It was all for some reason.

Thank you Elie Wiesel for being there in the night. Thank you for reminding me that every life has purpose. That every moment has a reason.

offered with Love,

Kate

"a vision softly creeping…"

"Hello darkness,
my old friend.
I've come to talk with you, again..."

Something about Nouela's cover of Simon & Garfunkels' "Sound of Silence perfectly captures the tone of my most recent night-ponderings.

Last week, an encounter with persistent, acute pain afforded a wonderful opportunity to explore my beliefs - and what I thought I understood - about the nature of pain. I didn't back away from the lesson, nor did I try to just "get it over with." I walked right into the invitation to probe perplexing questions more thoughtfully.

Doubt tried to hijack many moments of genuine peace. "What if the pain really did have meaning, and I was foolishly ignoring it? What if it never ended, and I could never, ever think a truly peaceful thought again?" And most aggressively, "What if the pain was really part of me, and had taken up residence in my body -- like a noisy tenant?"

But as I was pondering these questions, another thought quietly invited me to consider its veracity. If pain actually has meaning -- if it means that there is something amiss at the site of the discomfort -- how do you reconcile that, with the concept of phantom pain?

Phantom pain, is pain that one feels at the site of a limb that has been amputated. Discomfort that seems to come from a body part that no longer exists. Many amputees report feeling sensations of movement, tingling, or pain in an arm or leg that was surgically removed.

I had never given this much thought until this recent injury left me in acute pain. Everything tried to say, "This pain means something about your body. Pain is a message, and you need to heed its meaning. You should take it easy, or have it examined to find the root cause -- so that it can be addressed and treated."

But then I thought about phantom pain. When an amputee feels discomfort in a limb that no longer exists, he/she quickly dismisses it as "phantom pain," with no meaning. They know that there is no injured leg to be diagnosed or treated -- and so there is no need for alarm. They don't need to go get the arm checked out.  There is no arm to examine.  They aren't fearful or impressed.

Why then, do we think that pain has a direct correlation to the site where the sensation is seemingly occurring? Why do we think that pain is a reliable or infallible indicator of our state of health? Why -- when we feel pain in our hand -- do we go and have the hand checked for injury or disease? Why do we react to discomfort in any location by having an examination, to see if there is something wrong? All of these questions flooded my consciousness, sweeping away any concern that I'd been harboring.  Concern that pain had information for me.  Washed away in a coursing river of timeless Truth.

Or, more subtly, we think pain is telling us something about its location -- something that can help us heal it "spiritually." For example, we are feeling discomfort in our elbow. Well, an elbow is a joint. A joint is the coming together of two parts of our arm. Hmmm -- this must have something to do with a relationship. Well yes, I have been having a challenge with that colleague. So, I think I will look up every spiritual article I can find about healing a joint. Gotcha!

We have to be alert to what we think is informing us. We aren't led to healing truths -- or testimonies about healing -- by a shared localization of pain or the details of a problem. We are attracted to spiritual statements of Truth, because of what they are reminding us about God - His love for us, and our trust in Him. Not because of a shared experience with localized pain, fear, disease, or injury.

I am starting to see that all pain, is phantom pain. Just as the pain in an amputated limb is not in the limb, any discomfort we feel is not localized. It has no localized cause, and therefore, a cause - or solution - can't be found by examining the site to find the point of origin, in order to fix it or treat it.

And it's the same with phantom anger, or phantom frustration. Phantom resentment, or phantom fear. We think we feel fear, frustration, anger, or doubt, and then we try to trace it back to a locus of origin. If I feel angry after a visit to the grocery store - where I had a long wait in line -- it must be that I am an impatient person. Then I go after my impatience as if it were the real cause, of my real anger. But it's not. That anger, is just a sensation. One that is trying to get me to look for a cause -- other than divine Love -- as the source, and condition, of my angry identity.

I don't have to fix the anger to become a patient person. I am a patient person because that is the way that God made me. I am not self-created, self-determinted, self-diagnosed, or self-fixed.

Here's what often seems to happen with physical discomfort. Perhaps I feel pain when touching a spot on my arm.  I wonder what caused it.  It's a subtle invitation to think back, and trace it to a recent time when I may have stumbled in the middle of the night, and put my arm in direct contact with the doorjamb. Well then, I conclude, I must be clumsy, vulnerable, and easily bruised -- arm, feelings, human history. Or perhaps I'm stumbling in the middle of the night because I'm getting older and losing a nimble sense of balance and recovery. Or, what if I am getting up in the middle of the night too often? What if…. Soon I am spiraling down a vast vortex of self cross-questioning.

But, all pain, is phantom pain.

Just as darkness cannot fully eradicate the presence of light, but only suggest its absence. So pain tries to convince us that there is an absence of peace -- of God, good. And that, perhaps, this absence is localized, and connected to a particular bodily location. And because we now believe that there could ever be a spot where good is absent, we are left feeling vulnerable, exposed to the possibility that we could even further capitulate into disease, doubt and despair.

But these suggestions of pain are phantoms. They have no location. They are causeless. Peace, however, (the opposite of pain) is a self-assertive power that cannot be limited, contained, or localized. It is All-in-all and therefore indicates the presence of all that is impartial and universal -- Spirit, God, good, harmony, peace, joy.

In her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states:

We are sometimes led to believe
that darkness is as real as light;
but Science affirms darkness
to be only a mortal sense
of the absence of light,
at the coming of which
darkness loses the appearance
of reality.

So sin and sorrow, disease and death,
are the suppositional absence of Life, God,
and flee as phantoms of error
before truth and love."
 

Something about this insight - into the phantom nature of pain, anger, frustration, and doubt - has left me feeling alive to our inalienable right to feel free from the lie that pain holds information or meaning about our lives, our bodies, and our hopes.

It's time to disconnect pain from having cause, location, meaning.  Refusing it any power to alarm us. Pain is phantom, disembodied -- without a body or a home. It throws its voice like a ventriloquist. But it doesn't have the power to take up residence or even gain entrance into the kingdom of God -- within us.

offered with Love,
Kate

"until you learn to love yourself..."

"Let Me love you
and I will love you, 
until you learn
to love yourself..."

A dear friend recently sent me a link to Neyo's version of this song. And as she intuited, I fell in love with the lyrics. But it has has been Jacob Artist's interpretation of "Let me Love You" from a Glee episode, that has spoken to my heart this morning.

I remember one of my first big question in Sunday School was, "How can I love another as myself, when I don't know how to love myself?" And I remember Mrs. Garren's soft answer as if she were sitting in front of me today, "You can't."

But she didn't leave me there. She opened her Bible and found a passage (from I John 4:19) that I noticed she'd tabbed for herself with a small slip of paper and had carefully outlined in pen.

Then, with tears ready to spill from her eyes she read:

"We love Him,
because He first
loved us."

It was clear that this passage held great meaning for her and that she was extending it to me as a gift of love.

It's taken me decades to understand what she wanted for me that Sunday morning.  You see, Mrs. Garren was not just my Sunday School teacher, she was my friend and confidante. She was the first grown-up I'd ever talked with about God, and she was the first person with whom I'd ever shared how small, helpless, and insignificant I felt in a very dark world.

Later she would encourage me to speak with someone -- a teacher, a practitioner, my mother -- about what I was feeling, but I just couldn't.   For many years it was the memory of those tears -- gathering on her eyelashes that morning as she read to me about God's love -- which gave me hope, and helped the most. 

 I knew she knew, and I somehow sensed in her tears that she loved me. And that she loved me enough to want something for me.  She longed for me to know how to love myself, so that I could love (and be loved by) others. So she turned me to the best teacher and textbook she knew -- the life of Jesus.

And although it took me years to understand the true promise and power in that passage, its seed never left the ground of my heart. She'd planted something that she trusted would grow -- slow and sure -- until it was ready to push itself through the soil of my hopes and bear fruit.

I believe that she was encouraging me to look at myself in the mirror of Christ's love, and discover the person she saw. To let myself feel God's mercy in the wake of mistakes. To let myself experience forgiveness when I thought I least deserved it. To watch blame and regret dissolve in the tear-soaked space of His infinite, unconditional love. To let myself be loved, so that I could know how to love.

She knew I'd been a good girl, a very good girl. That I'd tried in every way to earn the love of others. But she alone knew that my heart was a shattered place full of self-doubt and secret pain.  To know that she loved me -- still, and to know that she thought I deserved God's love was like rain upon arid ground.

But she also knew that I could never really love others with confidence, without first loving myself. That to give my love -- no matter how generously -- to others without first loving myself was like giving someone a grab bag gift. I wouldn't know what was inside, or if I really even believed it was good, or liked it, but hey, it's better than nothing -- not really!

By turning me towards the light of this Scripture Mrs. Garren was giving me a greater gift than I could ever even have imagined at the time.

Never underestimate the small seeds of love you sow. When sown with love and watered with tears they begin to take root. Trust Love to bring those seeds of kindness to fruition. Love never fails.

I love this passage from Mary Baker Eddy's article, "Love," in her Miscellaneous Writings, 1883 - 1896:


"Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf. I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results. Unless these appear, I cast aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal.

Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power. As a human quality, the glorious significance of affection is more than words: it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; the silent, ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows; the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk; the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark places of earth."
  
Yes, this is the way He love us -- and we do deserve it. And by example, this is how we've been taught by Him to love others. To love another as we have learned to love ourselves -- this "self" that He loves so deeply, impartially, universally, and unconditionally -- is all He asks. He knows us, and loves us. He gives us to one another as fully known and valued gifts of love.

Thank you Mrs. Garren for loving me.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Be still, be still, and know..."

"When darkness comes upon you,
and sleep no longer finds your bed,
remember all the words I said,
Be still, be still, and know..."

Oh my goodness.  

The Fray's "Be Still" took me by surprise. 

As much as I love this scripture, it was the wholeness of the song itself that stopped me in my tracks tonight. Beautiful, haunting, and honest.  It reaches the place in me that identifies with the Psalmist, weeps with "the woman," and begs for another chance to prove my devotion with a contrite Peter.

This message, to "be still, and know," is simple, and profound. It asks me to just show up, and trust. To be consistent, and sincere. To be be quiet, and listen with every molecule of my being.  To wait and watch -- without imagining or remembering -- and simply to know.

Last night I was hurting...physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I know, I know, in Truth, you can't hurt spiritually. But sometimes it feels otherwise. It can feel as if you have given everything to what you believe is God's purpose for you, and you are spent. 

It's a feeling of surrender that goes beyond what you could ever imagine possible, without collapsing in on yourself and imploding.  You think you just may have found the point of "thus far and no father," and that there is truly nothing left.    

But, it's not true. It's never true.  There is always more.  There is always infinitely more.  The spiritual resources  needed to serve our Father faithfully come from a fathomless spiritual well.  They can never be depleted.  You have them by reflection, not possession.  They are the gifts of grace...unearned and inexhaustible.  

But I digress.  I do that sometimes.  

Anyway, back to the song.   I don't know The Fray. I don't know anything about the band, their genesis, their music, or the story of how this song came about. I don't need to. What I do know, is that whoever is responsible for this song, knows me. 

 The Psalmist knows me, the composer knows me, the vocalist knows me. They have to...I can feel it.  Every note feels like a friend who's "been there."  This feeling of "being known" washed over me in ways that are inexplicable, the first time I heard this song.

As poets, composers, and fellow beings they've come together  and reached into the darkness with their music. They've stretched themselves into the chasm of my vulnerability and found my hand. Then reaching, reaching, reaching -- as far down as needed -- they've pulled me up and out of the ego's dank well, into the warm light of God's profound love.  By the end of the song I am in the company of angels.

The other day a friend and I were talking. She was telling me how much she longed to "be known." I completely understood. I have been there. And I've always cherished the experience -- as she has -- of feeling known by another person.  In some ways, there is nothing so beautiful.  There is something quite extraordinary about not having to explain yourself, or apologize for your human idiosyncrasies.

But as wonderful as it is to be in the presence of someone who "gets" you, it's never really going to be enough to satisfy our deepest longings in the middle of the night.  

That personal kind of "being known," is dependent on someone else -- an "other." It lives in the warm space of a relationship. It thrives "between" two people.

But, in the middle of the night -- when I most need to know that there is never, ever, going to be a place, a time, or a circumstance that I am truly alone -- I am often by myself.  This is when a song, a poem, a scripture or a winged thought can be "a friend of the friendless", "a guardian in the gloom."         

For me, there is something almost transcendent about hearing a song that reminds me that there is a deeper sense of being known.  A knowing that goes beyond familiarity with the peculiarities of someone's human history, preferences, and personality.    

To read a Psalm written by an errant, repentant King and have it drive you to your knees, because you've shared those timeless feelings of regret and penitent hope. To discover that a disciple of "our Lord," was as hungry for mercy as you have been. To feel spiritual sisterhood with a woman whose tears fell in such abundance that they washed her Master's feet. 

Tonight, just when I yearned to feel "not so alone" in the darkness, and longing for light, this song reached me. I feel so blessed, and known -- by a Psalmist, a songwriter, a singer, and especially by the Source of their creativity and grace...my Father- Mother God. 

And in the knowing and being known,  the hurt dissolved -- entirely.

shared with Love...always,  

Kate

"...in your name I find meaning..."

"...I'm hanging on another day
Just to see what you will throw my way
And I'm hanging on to the words you say
You said that I would...would be ok

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain there's the healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on
I'm still holdin' on,
I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you..."
-     Lifehouse

The other day I felt like I was "falling apart," in much the same way that Lifehouse articulates in this lovely, plaintive song of hope, and longing, titled "Broken."  But it was also just the reminder I needed.   When I heard it, I was feeling particularly lonely in the aloneness of a moment, and it immediately brought me peace. 

I love that line, "in your name I find meaning."  And the "you" in whose name alone I "find meaning" is the great "I AM" whose presence feels as intimate to me as my own hopes and dreams, sorrows and joys...the very private thoughts I cherish in the dark silence of the night. 

When I was still a very young woman, but thought I was all grown up and more than ready to fly solo, my mother and siblings...with whom I had been living since my dad's passing...moved to another state.  In some ways one might think I would have been happy and relieved.  I'd worked two or more jobs for a few years in order to help pay for our rent, utilities, food and family expenses, and this might mean a bit of a break from those demands.  But that wasn't how I was feeling.

Yes, I was excited to be out on my own.  I'd found a Manhattan couple who'd purchased a gentleman's farm in our rural community and talked them into letting me renovate the loft of their beautiful barn into a loft apartment in exchange for rent.  And I was thrilled by the opportunity to creatively redefine the space, by their trust in my twenty-one year old chutzpah, and for my first real privacy...I'd always lived in other people's spaces and had always dreamed about my own apartment.  But there was also a sadness about living away from my mother, sisters, and brothers.

I moved my few belongings into a small storage space in the barn that was heated, had been insulated for winter, and had a tiny bathroom in the corner.  I'd cook on a hot plate and use a tiny little dorm-size refrigerator until I'd finished the renovation.  I had a twin bed pushed under the barnwood eaves and a little table with two chairs. I'd brought three small paintings I done in high school, ones that the school had had framed for an exhibit at the local library.  I used my simple cedar hope chest for storing my clothes and I'd hung my three dresses (and two waitress uniforms I needed for my second job) on a nail at the end of the room.  An antique embroidered linen pillowslip folded over a wooden dowel served as a curtain on the one small window framed by rough barnwood.  I loved way the sunrise looked through the ripply green-tinted glass each morning and vowed to make that window a centerpiece in the renovation. 

That first night after I washed my mug and bowl out in the bathroom sink, dried them with the worn blue and white checked dishtowel I'd begged my mom to let me keep with me, I brushed my teeth and climbed between the soft white sheets and under the colorful quilts that represented the entirety of my dowry.  I'd always loved vintage linens and had gathered bits and pieces over the years from my grandmother, a generous neighbor who'd shared her treasures, and a dusty antique shop in the village we'd lived in while I was in high school.

I turned off the small lamp that sat on an upturned fruit crate that served as my first bookcase and lay in the dark.  I'd grown up in a family of eight children.  I'd shared a bedroom with as many as four of my sisters, depending on the size and number of bedrooms a house had, all my life.  We'd always lived in small houses.  Houses in which our rooms were so cozy, and close to one another, that I could hear my brothers whispering in their room while I read in my bottom bunk across the hall.  I'd never, ever, heard or experienced the kind of visceral silence I was greeted by that night once I'd turned the lamp off.  It was as if someone had sucked every bit of sound out of the room.  I was aware of my heartbeat, my own thoughts, the sound of my nightgown rustling against the soft cotton of my sheets.  I was aware of the unique rhythm of my own breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out. 

This was so new to me.  New, and lonely.  Soon I was aware of more than just my breathing, and my heartbeat.  I was aware of the sound of my own crying. I was alone in the dark, I was falling apart, and I was hyper-aware of everything around me.  And more importantly, everything within me.  I discovered that if you listen closely you really can hear the sound of tears dropping from your eyelashes, rolling along your cheek and falling to the pillowcase under your face. I discovered just how much I really did miss my family.  I missed all the sounds I'd complained about throughout high school when I'd thought all I wanted was "a room of my own."  I missed my sister purring in her sleep, my mother's tapping of her fingers on the kitchen table as she enjoyed a late night cup of tea in the quiet of her own house long after midnight.  I missed the mewing of babies and the turning of more than a half dozen children in their beds while I read.

I missed them. And I was aware of missing them.  It was quiet enough that nothing distracted me from the sound of the love that was happening in my heart.  

This missing them in the silence of the dark was my first awareness of the deep intimacy we each have with our God.  In my aloneness, I discovered that I was really not alone.  There were new thoughts coming to me every moment.  I was feeling the seeping in of a new awareness of my love for my mother, appreciation for my sisters, I could feel the presence of my dreams for the future, and my hunger for meaningful love and purposeful work.  I could actually feel my desire for my sister Nancy's bony spine against mine as we slept back-to-back in the double bed we'd shared at times during childhood.

This awareness of "me", my hopes, my desires, my thoughts, my sadness and longing, was rich with being, was full of the "I AM" of conscious being...God. For me, this is what Mary Baker Eddy is talking about when in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she refers to:

"...the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity..."

I learned to love the silence of that small bed under the eaves, because it introduced me to myself...the self that had an inner life.  The self that was no longer being drowned out by all the hustle and bustle of being one of many voices, movements, breathing in a big family.  The self that was conscious of the infinitude of her identity and was discovering that right there, within her own conscious being, lay all the important answers she'd been looking for. 

My silent life in a drafty barn didn't last long...but I have never forgotten it in the ensuing years, as the quiet spaces started filling in with husband, children, phone calls, patients, guests, dogs, washing machines, dishwashers, computers and babies. 

And to this day, when I am feeling most alone in the world, it is not people I seek to surround myself with...even the people I love the most...it is the silence of a darkened room.  My favorite time of day, the time of day - the space - that fills me, and satisfies me most...so that I have something real to give others...are those moments just after waking, when I have not heard a sound, moved even a single finger or probed a toe seeking to feel the sheets or rustle the bedclothes. Those are the moments before I have opened my eyes to see the light of day playing on the pear colored walls of our bedroom. And it is in this timeless time that I am aware, in that profound silence, of the "great I AM" that is me, my conscious being. 

In these moments of great intimacy with my God, I am most keenly atune to the "pain" of missing loved ones...a profound love that heals.  I am most appreciative of the joys of having thoughts that are beautiful and rich with purpose...even if just to me.   I am most conscious of knowing that I am never alone...but always filled with Him...with Her...with the I AM that is the only real oneness that matters...the only I or US that all other relationships spring from.

In the silence of a my first waking thoughts, I find God...the kingdom of heaven within. And this same infinite nearness of the divine is there for each of us...all the time.

with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

When "stars come out in darkness..."

My dad was a simple man.  I don't remember him (or our mother) ever taking a weekend holiday, vacation, or outing without at least one of his eight children tagging along.  One of his favorite ways to spend a rare Saturday off from his two jobs was to pack up the station wagon with our twenty-by-ten-foot canvas tent, a cooler of bacon, eggs,  and pancake batter, the camping "kit" with plates, forks, old frying pan, etc. and head into nearby Mount Charleston on a Friday evening.  Dad and the older children would often set up the tent and unroll  sleeping bags in the dark while Mom made sure that everyone was ready for a night under the stars. 
After the youngest children were tucked in,  we could hear Mother softly cooing a lullaby.  Through her long repertoire of hymns to the accompaniment of hooting owls and mountain crickets...or whatever it was that made all that racket...Dad would climb up onto the picnic table with my sister and I and point out stars and constellations. 

I well remember one night when I was still in middle school and not at all happy that I had left behind a slumber party and the promise of staying up all night watching old movies and eating caramel corn...all for sitting on a splintery table with my dad and my younger sister.  Life seemed so unfair at the time and being the "oldest of eight" a cruel and unusual punishment.  I asked him why we couldn't just look at the stars in our backyard from the comfortable aluminum lawn chairs with the green and white plastic webbing.  I reminded him that if we were at home he could be holding a fresh cup of Sanka and listening to Frank Sinatra while he looked at the stars.  What I didn't say was that if we were there I wouldn't have to keep him company while he did it. 

He smiled and began to tell me that in the city there were so many lights from the street lamps and stores that you could hardly see the stars.  But that in the mountains where there was almost no artificial light, the night sky was so dark that you could easily see each star, constellation, planet, and even the Milky Way if you knew what you were looking for.   So the three of us lay back on that graying picnic table and listened to my mom singing, and I wondered if he was right and why it was even important.

I didn't wonder for long.  

My dad passed on just after my senior year of high school.  And almost forty years later I can still remember, like it was yesterday, that night of star gazing and quietly calling out the names of constellations and planets to each other.  Late at night when I am sitting on the porch of my cabin at camp high in the Rocky Mountains, and I can see stars so clearly in the night sky, I can almost hear my mother's voice singing hymns.  If campers were to wake up and look out onto the lawn, they might often find me in my jammies lying on my back on top of the picnic table near the bell tower picking out Orion, the Big Dipper, or Cassiopeia singing softly to myself "Hush now..whisper who dares" or "...I will listen for Thy voice..."    Dad's lesson of the stars really hit home for me when my days have sometimes felt very steeped in darkness.

I am learning that sometimes it is in our darkest hours that the light of kindness shines through so resplendently that we are changed forever.  In the bas relief of that darkness, luminaries of charity and compassion are delineated upon our hearts forever into new constellations of loveliness and grace.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her small volume Miscellaneous Writings has this to say about stars and human greatness:

   "The lives of great men and women
are miracles of patience and perseverance. 
Every luminary in the constellation of human greatness,
like the stars, comes out in the darkness
to shine with the reflected light of God. "

I have known times of darkness...and of light.  It has been in the context of the deepest darkness however that I am learning what most matters in life and what makes the biggest difference in the lives of the broken-hearted, the misunderstood, those longing for forgiveness, or those praying for peace.

I have learned the value of kindness...the way it can illumine the vast emptiness void of compassion, warm the chilled air of disdain, soften the steely hardness of hate... and the power kindness has to energize our hopes and restore our faith in humanity... is fathomless.

Each moment of life-transforming grace I experienced in the past year was extended by the humble hand of kindness.  Small kindnesses are often lost sight of when we are navigating day to day in a vast sea of admiration, respect, and acceptance.  But when our motives become scrutinized, our character assassinated by insinuation and our decisions  weighed in the balance of assumption and opinion...and found wanting by those whose presume they have the right to dissect the decisions and choices of others with the tiny sharp knives of self certainty...small kindnesses act as beacons of light in a roiling sea of despair, loneliness, and remorse…and can be life-saving.

One evening, when my heart was so laid low by misunderstanding, it was the embrace offered by one courageous school administrator at a public gathering that lifted my eyes and my posture.  It restored my hope not only in the spiritual tenets to which we were united in adherence to (and that he and his wife were so clearly living), but in the confidence I had that my life, lived with spiritual integrity, would speak louder and more convincingly to the community of faith we shared than anything I could say.

Another morning as I sat waiting with trepidation for a young woman I had known and loved since her childhood to arrive at my office, I was almost faint with apprehension.  I knew that I needed to share with her some very sensitive news about my life.  News that, for me was sad, but which also included the promise of great future joy for me and my family.  I knew this news could be disturbing to her and might weaken the strong ties of love and faith we shared.  Once she arrived I gently unfolded my story and she unquestioningly threw her arms and her acceptance around me almost drowning me in her love, respect, and care.  Her "Oh Kate I just love you and want you to be happy, feel love and be at peace" still rings in my heart today and continued to resonate as a clear beacon of kindness through some of the long days of sadness I faced.

On another particularly difficult late Spring afternoon I was reeling from the seismic effects of unfounded gossip when a dear friend arrived on my doorstep with a bouquet of spring flowers in hand and a card with a sweet message of support.  This friend had driven in rush-hour traffic to reach me in time to stem the imposed tide of self-doubt and regret that threatened to pull me under its tow.  She restored in me a "rest in the truth" that brought deep peace.   I felt a renewed confidence in the unflagging certainty I have long known that to live with spiritual integrity is more important than popularity or praise.  Her kindness had done more to shore up my faith in God's ability to cut through the swirling debris of rumors and speculation with simple truth... than any of the intellectual wrestling or mental arguing  I had been engaged in all day long.

These small instances of kindness, extended in the midst of darkness,  have often been enough to illuminate my path out of the confusing labyrinth of sorrow, uncertainty and self-doubt. Although these moments of light have been rare, there have been enough of them to lead me back home to where I could rest with my hand in God's and be at peace with where He has taken me on this journey.

This Christmas as my family and I quietly celebrate the joy of being together, of sharing our love with an ever widening circle of moms, dads, sisters, brothers, cousins, grandmothers, and friends, I am humbled by the lessons of grace I have been shown by a loving God through your small acts of kindness.  You may not know who you are but you have made a difference in the way I look at my life and the things that matter most.  You are luminaries of human greatness through your small acts of kindness, compassion and charity.

Tonight as I post this piece, I consider the simple crystal star that sits on top of our small Noble fir scattered with tiny white lights and the six ornaments carefully placed by our children, and I think of the light that each of you has shed on my darkness.  Through my tears the lights on that simple Christmas tree become a constellation of stars brightening the corner of our home and my heart, and  I remember the way stars could fascinate a simple man and cause him to love the darkness for what it showed him of the light.  I am grateful for his patience with my 13 year old self as we watched stars shoot through the night sky from our perch atop a weathered picnic table with our hands behind our heads and our eyes trained towards a vast blanket of midnight velvet scattered with diamonds.  I continue  to appreciate darkness for what it can teach me about light and what is truly important. 

I know what happens when stars of kindness find us in our darkness.  And I will never forget that far more precious than the gifts we receive (or give) of admiration...wealth, beauty, accomplishment, fame.....is kindness.

("Christmas tree" nebula - a cluster of infant stars )

"If it wasn't for the night
  So cold this time of year,
The stars would never shine so bright,
  So beautiful and clear;

 Even then somehow in the bitter wind and cold,
Impossibly strong I know,
   Even then a bloom as tender as a rose,
Is breaking through the snow
In the dark night of my soul,
In the dark night of my soul. "

- David Wilcox

K & J

Love, not terror, is contagious

With today's latest news of yet another attempted school shooting, this one thwarted by a courageous school administrator, buzz about the contagious nature of these copycat acts of "playground terrorism" seems to be reaching a feverish pitch. 

At the same time we are already being overwhelmed by a flood of well-meaning recommendations that we get early flu inoculations to preempt the contagious nature of viral elements that seem especially prevalent during the winter months.  

Both of these concerns, virulent in their ability to move through the system of social consciousness, are quite aggressive and frightening to parents and children...therefore, to families...locally and globally.

But there is a way of looking at contagion that leaves us  feeling the dominion and authority that Light must feel in it's association with darkness.

There is an old tale of three elements (and many versions of this tale, so please bear with me if this version is not consistent with the one you have heard)....water, cold, and wind...these three pals are walking in the wilderness one day when they come upon a cave in the side of a mountain.  Sitting a the edge of the cave is their friend, Heat....trembling with fear.  "Why what's the matter dear friend, why are you so afraid?" they asked.  Heat could barely get the words out, "Darkness..." he whispered.  "I went in and turned up the temperature of my heat as high as I could and still I could not get rid of it....it wouldn't budge!" 

So sure of her abilities to roust out such demons, Water says, "I will go in and drown darkness."  So, in she goes and before long she comes dribbling out with her droplets scuttling into the corners...."I poured every drop of myself into that cave and filled it to the brim and still the darkness wouldn't budge...this is one very scary enemy." 

Wind, the blustery blowhard of the group, says with a flourish, "Well, show me the way because if there is one thing I am sure of it's my ability to blow anything out of my path..."  So in he goes blowing with all his might...but after only a few moments, out he comes with a gasp....reduced to a little puff, and says with barely a breath, "Oh my goodness...that is one immovable foe!"

Cold, with her frigid stare and icy touch has had enough.  "I will freeze this darkness until it shatters and lies in cold shards on the ground" and in she stalks.  But it is not long before she darts out in terror.  Her icy touch melting in the heat of her own fear.  "I don't know what that is, she says, but I can't seem to make it even shiver, much less shatter." 

So there they sit on the edge of the cave's opening licking their wounded pride and terrified of an adversary they cannot budge when along comes Light.  Full of warmth and radiating her love for everything her hand touches... revealing its inherent beauty,  she sees her comrades broken and afraid.  Her heart leaps to warm them and she asks, "dear friends, what could have possibly left you so unsettled and afraid."  "Darkness.." they whisper.  "Hmmm...I don't know of this darkness," she marvels.  "And you don't want to" they murmur in hushed tones.  Then they begin to tell her their story.  "Oh," she says, "I will go in and see if I can find it and talk with it about sharing the space with us."  "Oh no, please don't" say her three comrades, but Light is fascinated.  She has never seen Darkness, so in she goes.  A few moments later she returns to the opening of the cave, perplexed and baffled.  "I couldn't find this darkness you are talking about," she says, "everywhere I went, it was not there...not even in the corners."

Water, Cold, and Wind, being the smart (and now humbled) elements that they were decided then and there to join forces with light and enter that cave...today they live in one of the most beautiful places in the world....the Grand Canyon. 

Now, before you jump all over this sweet story and point out all of the inconsistencies...yes, at night there is darkness in the Grand Canyon...etc....just take the point intended into your heart for a moment.  When we are "walking as children of light" we cannot detect darkness...around us or in others.  When walking as children of health (this word comes from the root word "whoelth" which is "wholeness") there is no disease....absence of health.  Are we trying to freeze out terrorists, are we attempting to blow the cover off hatred...or... are we walking so completely as the very light of love, the very light of goodness...illuminating the inherent beauty, spiritual reality, and grace in every situation, person, season...that we can't even find darkness, fear, harm, terror, hatred.

Mary Baker Eddy says, "To light there is no darkness, all is light."  To love there is no hate, to appreciation there is no criticism, to the presence of health (wholeness, wellness, well-being) there is no dis-ease...no absence of health or well-being to antidote.  This is not a blind denial of a problem, quite to the contrary, it is an acknowledgment and appreciation of the presence of the truth...the truth that at any given moment and in any given situation we can find the presence of God...the presence of Love, Principle, Soul...in the concern of a family member, the orderliness of nature...all trees grow towards the light, root systems seek out water....in the precision and reliability of a mathematical equation.   And since there is only one "measure"  of God ... infinite ALL....each (however faint) instance of God's presence is the promise of His All presence...no matter how obscure at that moment...keep watching, keep your focus on presence of the light...because it indicates the presence of the Sun....the full radiance of the day.

So....what about contagion....don't be as concerned with what the news would try to spread or what it is trying to convince you is spreading....be so occupied with what you are broadcasting,  spreading...are you spreading joy, love, appreciation, goodness, kindness, compassion....then like our friend Light, not only will you never find the darkness...even in the corners, but those who accompany you in thought or experience....those whom your thoughts dwell on (intimately, locally, or globally) or who share your company....will be thereby benefited.

Spread light...remembering how fast it travels and how pervasively it reaches...if you need a reminder of how quickly and broadly joy and laughter spread visit this wonderful video in which a very serious yogi shares his practice of Laughing Yoga

with Love,





Kate