"on the brink of everything..."

"All the things
that used to matter,
they don't mean so much today;
Toss the seeds and watch them scatter.
The birds and wind take them away,
till there is nothing in my way.

I can't see past this horizon,
I can't say what's waiting there.
I never sang 'cause I knew something,
I sang because it was a prayer.
The finest one that I could bear..."

Carrie Newcomer's new song, "On the Brink of Everything," inspired by Parker J. Palmer's book of the same title, had me at hello. Partly because it is Carrie, but also because it is so enigmatic and paradoxical.

The first time I listened to it, I was sure she was referring to being on the brink of self-discovery. Then I looked at the subtitle for Palmer's book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, and I wondered if it wasn't a reference to on the brink of passing. Finally, I gave up trying to figure it out. In truth, it just didn't matter. I only had to listen to it from where my own heart was. And for me, it was about being on the brink of a new horizon.

So I stepped back, and surveyed my own heart. I'd been climbing hard for a number of months. Bushwhacking through a jungle of self. Scrambling through a scree field of ego -- the ground constantly shifting as I uncovered yet one more instance of self-preservation - my awkward stumble through I/me/mine-thinking. But I was above tree-line now. I could see the summit. I was on the brink.

But of what?

Absolutely nothing new.

Metaphorically, the air I was breathing was made up of the same elements -- oxygen, hydrogen - Truth, Life Love. The Source of my thinking was unchanged. I was the reflection of the one Infinite Mind. All that this Mind included - intelligence, inspiration, insight - was still, nevertheless, present and probe-able to me. I was not going to find more of anything -- anywhere.

All the Love that I had ever known was still with me. Love was never more present, more powerful, more attentive or embracing in one moment or place, than another. The spiritual climb I had been on, had not made Love more accessible or intense. The view of the summit seemed closer. But in fact, if I could see it, it was really a false summit. Was I ever going to reach a place where I could rest from my desire to know more of the infinite nature of God's love.

So, what was I on the brink of? Perhaps this. Just this. The inscrutable knowing that every footstep taken, puts us on the brink of the next footstep. There is no "arriving." We are already there.

We live at the standpoint of our oneness with divine Love. Every moment is another opportunity to look -- not above us, or ahead of us -- but next to us. To see, hear, feel, taste, and know that:

"the Lord is with me,
blessed am I...”

I remember the first time I fell in love. I didn't care where we went. I didn't care if we did anything. I didn't care when we got "there," or even if we returned. I only cared that my hand was in his. I only cared that it was his voice I heard, his presence I was in. Wherever we were, whatever we were facing -- it was all good, because we were together.

Each step we took, we were on the brink of everything. We were on the verge of a moment where we would see something, and it would be new because we would be seeing it together -- through the lens of "us."

For me, this is this moment.

This very moment. For all of us. We are not on the brink of new careers, new relationships, new adventures -- big events and grand accomplishments. We are on the brink of one more step with our hand in the hand of the One we love. The One who loves us more than all the world. Because in our relationship with Him, there are no others. We are "all the world" to Him -- and he to us.

Just as a mother completely loves each of her children. So God completely loves each of us. We are not loved by God, in the context of "others." To divine Father-Mother Love, there are no others. When I am with one of my daughters, I am not thinking of her in the context of her sisters.  I am absolutely and completely with her. I am delighting in her.  I am focused on her.  And it is the same with her sisters.  As Hymn 237 promises, we are:

"one with Him, forever near...”

No comparisons. No competition. No rushing ahead to get out in front of the crowd. No scrambling through scree fields to be the first to plant our flag. Just step-by-step, hand-in-hand with the One we love.  And the One who loves us. Our eyes, not on "the summit," but on the face of our Beloved.  Together with Him, on the brink of everything -- one step at a time -- a whole new world of living love together. 

And if we really love Him, we will love what he loves.  We will look at ourselves with great affection.  We will spend time with His children - seeking to discover about them, what He knows and loves. Not rushing on to the next false summit.  We will linger in the moment -- listening to them in the same the way that we listen to Him.

offered with Love,

Kate

"falling in love with You..."

"take my hand,

take my whole life too.
for I can't help
falling in love with You..."

I want to tell the great love story of my life tonight. Pentatonix touching version of, "I Can't Help Falling in Love" is the perfect musical backdrop.

I love falling in love. But I also love staying in love. I have never wanted anything but the deep and lasting kind of love. The love that never wanes, but only grows fuller with time.

I have been blessed with just a few great loves in my life - my list is short, but none have been casual or insignificant.

One of the things that I have learned, is that love changes you. Love is a power. It refuses to be contained or localized. You cannot love, without having the boundaries of your heart enlarged. Love dissolves all of the rigid outlines that we impose upon ourselves. "I can love this, but not that." "I am this kind of person." "I could never do that."

But losing in love has also changed me. Each time I have felt my heart break, I have turned to God for wisdom, guidance, strength, courage -- and for comfort.

Then one morning, when my heart felt shattered - again, I opened my Bible to this passage from Revelation -- and yes, it was a revelation:

"Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write;
I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience,
and how thou canst not bear them which are evil:
And hast borne, and hast patience,
and for my name’s sake hast laboured,
and hast not fainted.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love..." 

I had been using God, to help me through each of my relationship struggles. But in that moment, I realized that I'd had it all upside down and backwards. I could suddenly see that the love I was seeking most -- the infinite, eternal, enduring kind -- would only be found by using each and every relationship, as an opportunity to deepen my relationship with my first love -- not to get, keep, or fix my relationship with others.

Love is a funny thing. When we are in love with someone, we think of them all the time. We long for any amount of time - that we might steal away with them. What they love, becomes our own love. Because the object of our affection enjoys skiing, we try to ski -- even though we really, really don't like hanging out in the cold.

When we love someone, we find ourselves wanting to do what made no human sense - only moments before. We actually find ourselves wanting to give up the right to self-indulgence, for shared responsibility. We long to do something as self-sacrificing as having children -- the ultimate exercise in self-denial. Then, through our love for those sweet children, we open our hearts to their friends, interests, school community -- the worlds they live, work, and play in.

When I fell back in love with my first love -- God, I was naturally more in love with His children, His world of ideas, His glorious creation.  The good that He delights in, became my great delight.  The Truth that occupies His Mind, filled me.

And when I trusted that this "first love" was the core influence in the heart of every one of his children, my relationships with others ceased to be my obsession, but became the opportunity that I was always looking for, in order to spend time more with my first love. I stopped using God to improve or repair my relationships, but used those relationships to deepen my love for Him/Her.  My time with my first love, became the most wonderful part of my days and nights.

Just a glimpse into my greatest love story.

offered with Love,

Kate

"please, stir my heart..."

“Please stir my heart.
Take me back to the fire.
And bring to me
recollections of joy,
renew my first desire...”

Listening to Sara Groves' "Stir My Heart" tonight made me think about John's admonition to the church at Ephesus, in the book of Revelation:

“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience
and hast borne, and hast patience,
and for my name's sake hast laboured,
and hast not fainted.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love...”

I think this is my greatest hope...that I never leave my "first love." Sara's song speaks to that desire. It is a prayer that God will send me whatever reminder I need to "not forget." Whatever "fire" will burn away the chaff of self-satisfaction, self-certainty, and self-righteousness, to reveal my childlike "first love" for my Father's face...in all things.

I think of sweet Peter...so sure of his love for the Christ, and yet when given the opportunity to stand with the Master, he denies him thrice. What sorrow he must have felt...what desire for "another chance."

And Jesus, the man whose affections defined "love," knows Peter's heart. He knows the fervency of Peter's desire to prove his fidelity to his "first love," and in one of his last human acts of supreme compassion, he asks Peter,

“Simon, son of Jonah,
lovest thou me,
more than these?”

And in doing so, he gives Peter the greatest gift...the one that will change the course of Peter's life from one of self-doubt, self-loathing, and regret, to a life of fidelity to his "first love."

And Jesus not only asks him once, but three times...he gives him the opportunity to redeem each of the three denials fully and faithfully. And then he tells him how he can prove his love -- to "feed my sheep."

Isn't this what we all want most? To be able to affirm our faithfulness to our "first love," if we have become distracted or have strayed? And then to be given a practical way to live, and prove, that faithfulness wholeheartedly. What divine kindness...what an act of grace.

There is something so powerful about this song. It illustrates what Mary Baker Eddy refers to as:

"...the struggle for recourse to the spiritual..."

And I believe that it is this realignment with our "first love," our original love, our eternal, and preternatural love for our Father-Mother God that brings us that deep, core, primordial peace we all long for in the most primitive parts of our being.

So when, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Miscellaneous Writings:

The human heart, like a feather bed, needs often to be stirred,
sometimes roughly, and given a variety of turns, else it
grows hard and uncomfortable whereon to repose."

I pray with Sara's song:

“Please stir my heart.
Take me back to the fire.
And bring to me
recollections of joy,
renew my first desire...”

with a fervent hope,

Kate