"Hanging by a moment..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Love alone is Life."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"...just remember in the winter..."

"It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying
that never learns to live…"
- Bette Midler

All winter long I looked out my kitchen window through the empty branches of the pear trees in our back yard to the park just beyond.  The sky above its 1,371 acres of dry and brittle winter grass, was laced with the spindly black trunks and branches of the thousands of sycamore, maple, oak and linden whose leaves had fallen by late November.

Day after day, in bright sunshine or lowering clouds they stood naked, uncomplaining as January buffeted them with ice and March winds howled.  Day after day I watched them with joy…without concern.  Why?

Because I knew that spring would come.  I was absolutely certain that warmer days would call forth bud and blossom.  I was confident that by May we would be taking our walks under a canopy of green again.

I have been thinking about this all morning.  There have been days when certain parts of my life have felt like those trees in winter.  Things that once seemed green and lush often appear, on the surface, lost, naked and vulnerable.  A project put on hold, a dream cherished for so long that it seems silly to continue hoping it will come true, a schism in a once vital friendship, a body of work lost in a fire, a hurricane, a hard drive failure.

How often have I been guilty of looking at the starkly naked evidence of loss and forgotten the law of spring.   How often have I, in  looking back at the lushness of a summer season, forgotten to welcome autumn…and winter.

In Ecclesiastes it says, "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven…a time to plant and a time to reap…a time to break down and a time to build up…a time to weep and a time to laugh…". This gives me great peace.  I am no longer inclined to think that when I am in a weeping season that I have done something wrong, or, more likely, not done something I should have done, or thought…or prayed.

When I am most certain that my life is not defined by, or limited to, this chapter…this chronological timeline between birth and death…and I am least afraid of "dying," I am most willing to live my life fearlessly, and with courage.  When I am absolutely sure that no matter how much I lose I can never be deprived of my right to give, I am most generous.  Only by opening my hand and letting go, am I best positioned for accepting something new.

All winter long I lingered over the winter view from my kitchen window.  It was as if we had an apartment in Paris overlooking Versailles.  With the leaves off the trees between our house and Art Hill, I could see the museum perched on her pedestal in the park.  At night she was luminous in the golden glow of twilight.  Through the night her palatial lights cast an old world elegance on our neighborhood.  In the lush months of spring and summer it is difficult to see her through the tall canopy of leaves between my kitchen window and where she stands. 

It has often been in the bleakness of winter-like seasons in my life that I have learned the most about myself…I discover a resiliency, courage, patience I didn't remember I had.  And I learn so much about those around me.  It is when the winds of distain howl most loudly that I am most aware of the stillness of a friend's kindness.  

I have learned to love winter, not just as a prelude to an anticipated spring, but because it is often in the midst of winter that I am able to see things that are not as visible when all the world is lush and green and bursting with color, fragrance, and harmony.

"...When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose."

On to Spring…
Kate