"sending big waves into motion..."

"Like a small boat
on the ocean
Sending big waves
into motion
Like how a single word
can make a heart open..."

When Sam asked me to write a post using Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," as the keynote, I was intrigued. I'd never heard of Rachel -- or her song -- but once I did, this post gave birth to itself. I just got out of the way. Here what fell on the page:

I'd spent so many years trying to prove my worthiness. I'd chased a sense of belonging -- to family, church, and in the communities I've lived in. Enough.

I refuse to fight any longer for a personal sense of validation. And actually, I have discovered that I don't need to. I am enough. In her song, Rachel sings, "a single word can make a heart open…"

That is the line that simply took my breath away.  You see, once upon a time, not so long ago, I had a life-altering experience that supplied the "one word" I'd been waiting for. The word was "no."

I had been holding my breath, waiting for someone to to take note of my worth -- for far too many years. I'd done everything - shy of standing on my head - to get a thumbs up. Then one day, I got a clear, decisive thumbs down. And it was wonderful.

Sure, the first moment or two was filled with "what did I do wrong?" "Give me another chance -- please -- I'll try harder to win you over. I promise, I'll do better next time." 

 And there were many times in the following days - and weeks - when I thought it actually meant something about me that I didn't measure up. As if looking through any human lens could serve as an accurate assessment tool for measuring a person's merit. For weighing worth, validating value.

But I soon came to realize, that it never would. It never could. And it just didn't matter. Really. I knew I had given "it" my honest, genuine, authentic all, and it was still not enough -- for him, for her, for them.

That "no," was actually the key to my freedom. It released me.  It wasn't a "no" to my dreams and desires.  It was only a "no" to their participation in it.  I was free.  I was free to be empowered from within.   

In the wake of their "no," I could begin to look in another direction. And I chose to look towards my relationship with God for any - and all - meaningful information about my peace, my purpose, my place in the world. That relationship was intact and unwavering. My trust in His love for me was sound. 

Like a small heavy-keeled boat, I was secure in my spiritual seaworthiness. I was deeply grounded in an unsinkable certainty that I knew Him, felt His presence, and was filled with His grace.

What I also learned through this experience was that a clear "no," is sometimes the most wonderful version of "yes." To know -- without a shadow of a doubt -- that permission from others is just not going to be yours, actually frees you to stare unflinchingly into abyss of your own heart's fathomless worth. For this is the province where God is Sovereign -- enriching your affections for what is really yours.

Nothing that is truly ours, requires someone else's approval or permission. When we feel inspired and impelled by that deeper demand from within -- we are driven to find ways to live those desires moment-by-moment. We stop asking for permission.

I think that, for me, parenting has been one of the most powerful examples of this. For such a long time I thought that I needed to have a child to be a mother. But mothering is a verb. I could mother colleagues, nieces, neighbors, countries, causes. I didn't need to wait for the validation of a baby. I didn't need someone to choose me as the adoptive parent of their infant or child. I could mother -- nurture, encourage, support, cherish -- without hesitation, without apology.

Whatever it is yours to do, you know it in your heart. You don't have to think it into being.  You don't need to poll the opinions of others to find consensus.  Your purpose springs from that sacred place in you that is so deeply aligned with divine Love that nothing can extinguish its primordial fire. 

Are you impelled to heal -- then heal. Are you kept awake by a desire to write, to keep bees, to partner, to coach? Then do it -- even if the "doing" begins with simply and importunately  praying for the integrity and success of that industry, institution, activity in the world.

If you love the thought of being in a marriage and you have not met Mr. Right -- so? Love marriage. Love the office of husband so much that you would never criticize, demean, or undermine that office in any way. No matter how it is being carried out by those around you. 

 Uphold the best view of that office in your conversations, interactions, and in support of your family members and friends. Nothing can make you think of that office in any way that violates your highest sense of its potential to bless -- not even someone else's behavior. You own your right to uphold your highest sense of husband, boss, mother, friend, world leader, global citizen. Take possession of it and defend it.

Don't wait for the validation of the "right" person, place, or thing, to live your relationship with whatever God is impelling in you. Don't wait for permission from an employer's "hiring" to live your desire to do, what it is that you love -- whether it is to exercise a skill, share a talent, or support an organization's mission. Their "no," may just be your "yes" in finding a clearer, brighter path towards the realization of a deeper sense of what it means to fulfill your divinely-designed purpose, to answering your highest calling.

Mary Baker Eddy says, on the first page of her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:


"Desire is prayer, and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires…"


These desires -- which she clearly identifies as prayers -- are actually:

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

I'm learning to trust this truth. To act upon it without permission from anyone -- but God. I am discovering that when the eyes of my heart are fixed on Him, I cannot be disappointed. I am empowered by His reign in my heart -- enriching my affections and governing them.  

You may not be a big ocean liner - filled with folks lining up to party with you.  But, you may find that you are like a small deep-keeled boat, happy to do whatever it is that small boats do.  Perhaps you will carry the Christ, or hold those who are casting their nets -- within.

Offered with Love,

Kate

"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

"Like a small boat…"

"Like a small boat
on the ocean
Sending big waves
into motion
Like how a single word
can make a heart open..."

When Sam asked me to write a post using Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," as the keynote, I was intrigued. I'd never heard of Rachel -- or her song -- but once I did, this post gave birth to itself. I just got out of the way. Here what fell on the page:

I'd spent so many years trying to prove my worthiness. I'd chased a sense of belonging -- to family, church, and in the communities I've lived in. Enough.

I refuse to fight any longer for a personal sense of validation. And actually, I have discovered that I don't need to. I am enough. In her song, Rachel sings, "a single word can make a heart open…"

That is the line that simply took my breath away.  You see, once upon a time, not so long ago, I had a life-altering experience that supplied the "one word" I'd been waiting for. The word was "no."

I had been holding my breath, waiting for someone to to take note of my worth -- for way too many years. I'd done everything - shy of standing on my head - to get a thumbs up. Then one day, I got a clear, decisive thumbs down. And it was wonderful.

Sure, the first moment or two was filled with "what did I do wrong?" "Give me another chance -- please -- I'll try harder to win you over. I promise, I'll do better next time." 

 And there were many times in the following days - and weeks - when I thought it actually meant something about me that I didn't measure up. As if looking through any human lens could serve as an accurate assessment tool for measuring a person's merit. For weighing worth, validating value.

But I soon came to realize, that it never would. It never could. And it just didn't matter. Really. I knew I had given "it" my honest, genuine, authentic all, and it was still not enough -- for him/her/them.

That "no," was the key to my freedom. It released me.  It wasn't a "no" to my dreams and desires, only a "no" to their participation in it.  I was free to be empowered from within.   

In the wake of their "no," I could begin to look in another direction. And I chose to look towards my relationship with God for any - and all - meaningful information about my peace, my purpose, my place in the world. That relationship was intact and unwavering. My trust in His love for me was sound. 

Like a small heavy-keeled boat, I was secure in my spiritual seaworthiness. I was deeply grounded in an unsinkable certainty that I knew Him, felt His presence, and was filled with His grace.

What I also learned through this experience, was that a clear "no," is sometimes the most wonderful version of "yes." To know -- without a shadow of a doubt -- that permission from others is just not going to be yours, frees you to stare unflinchingly into abyss of the heart. This is the province where God is Sovereign -- enriching your affections for what really is yours.

Nothing that is truly ours, requires someone else's approval or permission. When we feel inspired and impelled by that deeper demand from within -- we are driven to find ways to live those desires moment-by-moment. We stop asking for permission.

I think that, for me, parenting has been one of the most powerful examples of this. For such a long time I thought that I needed to have a child to be a mother. But mothering is a verb. I could mother colleagues, nieces, neighbors, countries, causes. I didn't need to wait for the validation of a baby. I didn't need someone to choose me as the adoptive parent of their infant or child. I could mother -- nurture, encourage, support, cherish -- without hesitation, without apology.

Whatever it is yours to do, you know it in your heart. You don't have to think it into being.  You don't need to poll the opinions of others to find consensus.  Your purpose springs from that sacred place in you that is so deeply aligned with divine Love that nothing can extinguish its primordial fire. 

Are you impelled to heal -- then heal. Are you kept awake by a desire to write, to keep bees, to partner, to coach? Then do it -- even if the "doing" begins with simply and importunately  praying for the integrity and success of that industry, institution, activity in the world.

If you love the thought of being in a marriage and you have not met Mr. Right -- so? Love marriage. Love the office of husband so much that you would never criticize, demean, or undermine that office in any way. No matter how it is being carried out by those around you. 

 Uphold the best view of that office in your conversations, interactions, and in support of your family members and friends. Nothing can make you think of that office in any way that violates your highest sense of its potential to bless -- not even someone else's behavior. You own your right to uphold your highest sense of husband, boss, mother, friend, world leader, global citizen. Take possession of it and defend it.

Don't wait for the validation of the "right" person, place, or thing, to live your relationship with whatever God is impelling in you. Don't wait for permission from an employer's "hiring" to live your desire to do, what it is that you love -- whether it is to exercise a skill, share a talent, or support an organization's mission. Their "no," may just be your "yes" in finding a clearer, brighter path towards the realization of a deeper sense of what it means to fulfill your divinely-designed purpose, to answering your highest calling.

Mary Baker Eddy says, on the first page of her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:


"Desire is prayer,
and no loss can occur
from trusting God with our desires…"


These desires -- which she clearly identifies as prayers -- are,

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

I'm learning to trust this truth. To act upon it without permission from anyone -- but God. I am discovering that when the eyes of my heart are fixed on Him, I cannot be disappointed. I am empowered by His reign in my heart -- enriching my affections and governing them.  

You may not be a big ocean liner filled with folks lining up to party with you, you may find that you are like a small deep-keeled boat, happy to do what boats do.

Offered with Love,

Kate

"resolving things into thoughts..."

"It's only words,
and words are all I have..."

I've always loved the Bee Gee's song, "Words." As a girl, I felt that in the absence of physical stature, authority, or resources, words were all I had. Words represented limitless ideas, thoughts, inspiration. There was no false measurement of an idea -- they were simply, always infinite is scope.

No matter what was going on in my life, I could always retreat to the space of consciousness, a place where these infinite thoughts and ideas waited like eager friends. I'd listen, they'd answer all my big questions, and we'd create beautiful word sculptures from the raw materials of ideas, thoughts, metaphors and symbols.

This was always enough for me. So what happened?

If you've read my recent post, "the evidence," you might sense that I am in the space of deep paradigm-shifting. It often seems as if inspirational texts -- that I once thought I "got," -- are now, so new to me. It's almost like I've joined Alice, and stepped through the looking glass. Everything feels a bit upside down, and I'm a wonder-filled child again.

Take this much-loved, and familiar passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scripture by Mary Baker Eddy:

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

Okay, so here's how I always interpreted this: I had desires. And those desires were articulated as prayer.  Meaning, I could trust them to be "of God," since prayer is, as Eddy states earlier on the same page, "God's gracious means..."

So, I'd continue:  I have these God-inspired desires - prayers.  I can trust them to be moulded and exalted by Him, before they take form in words and in deeds...

Isn't there something missing here? Aren't the words and deeds just a stepping stone to their final form? Actual things?  Things like stronger muscles, bigger bank accounts, a better job.  Well, not according to this statement.  It says that words and deeds are the form.

But that wasn't what I had been thinking -- or expecting -- for a very long time.  Somehow I'd gotten the impression that these word-symbolized ideas, thoughts, and deeds, would eventually lead to more tangible forms.

For example,  take my desire for home. I would pray, and would be inspired with ideas that would take "form" in prayers.  These ideas, I understood to be the spiritual substance of home. Ideas like: "the spiritual foundation of home is kindness, respect, charity, a foundation that is deep, enduring, God-based, and reliable."  

It was my privilege, as a spiritual thinker, to consciously cherish those ideas and put them into practice.  Then, when understood sufficiently, they would take form -- or have manifestation -- in a house. Thus giving "form" to a spiritual sense of home. 

But that doesn't seem to be what Eddy is saying in the above-referenced statement. And for that matter, my interpretation of that statement, was not necessarily borne out in the lives of prophets and apostles.   I respected these Biblical thought-leaders for their deep spiritual sense of home and place.  Yet, when I thought about it, I realized I didn't know all that much about their houses.  I knew about their ability to find peaceful resting places in the wilderness, deserts, "the valley of the shadow of death," and on dusty roads -- but nope, not so much about their houses.

Yet Eddy states that words and deeds are the form. And when I started thinking about the people I deeply admired -- Jesus, Gandhi, Mandela, Angelou, Lincoln -- I realized that I didn't know much about their houses, bodies, bank accounts, or neighborhoods either. It wasn't their "things" that recommended them, it was their legacy of thoughts and deeds which were timeless -- eternal.

Suddenly everything became alive with a limitless spiritual reality -- right then and there!  The very atmosphere of consciousness felt pulsing with tangible, reliable, infinitely substantive forms.  Forms that were already completely, fully realized. 

Now, everything I am reading about "thought" it has a new sense of promise. Take this stanza from Eddy's poem, "Satisfied:"

"And of these stone,
and tyrant's thrones,
God able is,
to raise up seed,
in thought and deed
to faithful His..."

Yes! Yes! Yes!  In thought and deed.  Not in the right job, houses, cars, more youthful bodies, improved stock portfolios, but in "thoughts and deeds." Thoughts and deeds that are the evidence -- the seed realized -- the fruition, the substance, the reality. 

For so many years I've expected good thoughts to resolve themselves -- when considered metaphysically -- into things.   For example:  an understanding of abundance, would resolve itself into the "demonstration of supply" -- money.  A deeper spiritual sense of motherhood unfolds as a tangible "demonstration of family" -- a loved one found, marriage, a child conceived or adopted, siblings reunited, improved relationships.

But I don't think this is what Eddy is saying.  She is encouraging us to "resolve things into thoughts," and to "exchange the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul" -- not the other way around.

So, perhaps our houses, our loved ones, financial responsibilities, our servant-bodies, the need for transportation, the demands of being part of a community -- locally or globally -- are simply the "things" that God lovingly provides as encouragement.  Encouragement to go deeper, higher --  to go back to the spiritual well, the Source of those symbols.  These divine gifts keep us invested in a deeper desire for the real substance of life -- those thoughts, words, and deeds that are indissoluble, infinite, eternal, and enduring.  Perhaps they are the things that lead us to their resolution --  into more inspired thoughts, and kinder deeds.

This is a shift for me. To stop thinking that my desires -- my prayers -- are not going to take eventual form in "things."  And to discover that these desires have already been evidenced -- so perfectly --  in words, thoughts, and deeds.  

Elsewhere in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states: 

Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts,
and exchanges the objects of sense
for the ideas of Soul."

We are not resolving infinite thoughts, into things that are limited.  Into measurable, restricted forms. These boundless thoughts are expanding our sense of being -- not reducing them.

I am finding that to be truly "satisfied," with these expansive spiritual forms is the simplicity in Christ that I have been seeking.  In this space I feel happy, innocent, childlike, and free. Free to be completely grateful in every moment of trust, to appreciate each instance of faith, inspired thought, beautiful words, a kind deed, infinite hope.  No more waiting or wanting.

Last night I was lying in the dark and I realized that when I align myself fully with this deeper sense of being satisfied, there is nothing more to desire. I am completely present with every thought and word that comes to my heart.  There is no want.  My contentment is secure.  I know that no one can stop me from listening for God's thoughts, and watching them take form in words.  And immediately, I can bless others with those thoughts.

And really, can there be any greater deed that you, or I, or anyone else can ever do than to bless another with our God-moulded and exalted prayers of appreciation? Or a Love-inspired gift of right spiritual identification? The genuine desire for them to know God's presence and power in their lives?  Nothing can stop us from doing these good deeds all night and day. 

A friend once shared with me a concept that has been attributed to Mary Baker Eddy, but without documentation of that attribution.  Whether Mary Baker Eddy is responsible for it or not, it has been helpful to me -- so I will share it here in the way that I think about it: 

Let's say you have a quarter.  That quarter is a symbol.  We -- society, the federal treasury, the market -- have determined, and agreed, that this symbol represents twenty-five cents, or one quarter of one dollar.  We accept that measure of its symbolic worth -- based on current treasury numbers.  Supply and demand markets tell us how much, in goods and services, we can expect to get in exchange for this quarter.  

But if we step back a bit and look at things spiritually, that quarter is just a symbol.  And what it symbolizes is very different when we start -- as Eddy instructs -- with the All-in-allness of God.  If this symbol exists, it exists as a representative of good, of value, worth, appreciation for the creativity and services provided.  And since these qualities -- goodness, value, worth, appreciation are spiritual they only have one measure -- All.  You can't get just a little bit -- or even a moderate amount -- of anything spiritual.  The only measure of Spirit is infinite, all.  Therefore the only measure of its expression is infinite, all -- all the time.  

To be in the presence that quarter -- which is a symbol of value and worth -- is to experience the presence of the All-in-all of what it represents.  All value is yours, all worth is yours, all goodness is yours -- abundantly.  No process, no growth, no maturity -- and no decay.   The symbol -- a quarter, points us to the true "form" -- the presence of value, worth, appreciation, goodness.  Thus we have resolved things -- the quarter, into infinite thoughts -- again, value, worth, appreciation, goodness.  

These "forms" are enough. They are not the means to another "end." They are not the way we get good things, or even better things. They are the end itself -- the all, the everything I have ever wanted, needed -- or desired.  To know the full value of love, to appreciate the good that is in the world, to discover the immortality, strength and beauty of a relationship with the divine. 

I will stop here -- this is a topic that is still becoming fully formed for me.  And as I've often said, this is my experience -- it is what is true for me, today.

shared with Love,

Kate