"Kickin' this stone..."

"Kickin' this Stone
kickin' this Stone…
kickin' these blues out into the open light
where moss can't grow…

…Kickin' this stone
Down this long highway
All across the countless miles
From the cradle to the grave
Past all my mistakes
With all their guilt and shame
Through the gentle rain of tears
Sweet forgiveness came…"
-     Johnsmith

I love church…especially the Wednesday evening tradition of my own faith.  I am never too inspired, too peaceful, too sure of my own spiritual ground to not have it bless me in unexpected ways. 

I have learned that if I leave all my costumes, roles and titles out on the sidewalk, and just enter the door with a hungry heart…I leave fed.

Last night was no exception…and the blessing was so surprisingly BIG.  The inspirational readings were on "opinion."  Our little group meets in a storefront on a wonderful walking neighborhood street full of shops and restaurants and coffeehouses. So we place a sandwich board out on the sidewalk.  It lists the theme of our meeting and invites everyone to feel welcome.  When my husband saw the sign last night, he initially thought it said that the meeting was going to be about "onions"…thank goodness he was wrong.

The readings were strong and compassionate.  The impotence of opinions rang through every citation.  I could easily nod my head in agreement.  Mary Baker Eddy says, "…mere opinion is valueless." I concur.  But as much as I agreed with where the readings and hymns took us, I felt like crying…church often does this to me. 

It was so easy for me to see that this spiritual premise about the valueless-ness of opinion is true.  I can readily accept that any mere opinion about someone or something is absolutely valueless to me as a spiritual thinker.  So why was this message stirring up so much sadness in me? 

As I probed around in the darkness while sitting quietly in our small congregational circle, I came upon the stone that was gathering moss in my heart.  It wasn't my opinion of others - or others' opinions about me - that made me heartsick.  It was my opinions about myself.  I realized that I had entertained opinions about my own mistakes and choices that left me filled with quiet regret and remorse. 

I sat there and wondered if those feelings would ever abate, when I heard a young college professor and research scientist begin to speak about a recent healing he had experienced.  I heard him say, "people often think that science is about proving something, but science is about disproving a hypothesis…and it only takes disproving it once to prove that it is not scientifically true."  He went on to explain that if something is scientifically true, it must be true EVERY time. So if it can be disproved even once, it is not really true.

This sent a shockwave through the dark places of self-doubt I had been wandering around in.  I was wallowing in a space where I was sure I could easily spend the rest of my life trying to prove that the bad opinions I held of myself were not true... that I would have to prove in hundreds of thousands of different ways that I was not a bad mother, a negligent sister, a forgetful friend, a less than perfect wife.  But I suddenly saw that each time I WAS a good mother, an attentive sister, an alert friend, a compassionate neighbor, a good wife, I had disproved those false opinions I had harbored in the dark regions of my heart and stubbed my toe on. 

I could kick them into the light and let them be good and precious stones…cleansed by tears, bleached by the sun, strong and ready to use for building a better view of myself...a foundation strong and sure.

It only takes one act of kindness, fidelity, attentiveness, patience, humility to disprove the validity of false opinions about ourselves...and others.   It's good to be a scientist.  To be Christian in my practice of this Science - even with myself - is heavenly.

You can see why I love church…

Gratefully,
Kate

"there is a great gulf fixed...."

"all you ever wanted
was my heart, my simple heart
to You, that's all
that really mattered...”

Selah's  "Broken Ladders"  reminds me that when I follow Jesus' example, I am following someone who loves God more than self. Someone who is so willing to deny the ego -- at all costs.

It is his life of self-examination and humility that touches me most deeply these days. Every story, every parable, every wise word, and selfless deed is a signpost leading me into a deeper sense of my own oneness with God.

And this oneness with the divine cannot exist where there is a separate ego that I am defending, grooming, protecting, exalting. But within a deeper desire to for self-nothingness, every gospel story comes alive with new meaning and guidance.

This week, it was the parable of the rich man, and the beggar:

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence."

There are a few more citations to this parable -- but this is the part that was included in my Scriptural study this week, so I am focusing on it.

For such a long time, I thought that Jesus, in the telling of this parable, was judging the rich, and comforting the poor. But something about it has never sat peacefully with me.

It just seems so contrary to the same Jesus who refused to get embroiled in judging the woman who was "taken in adultery, in the very act." The Jesus who would rather write in the sand, than weigh in on an obvious case of moral turpitude.

But, if I am nothing else, I am persistent. Or as my teacher and mentor once said, "you are like a dog after a bone, when it comes to this "stuff." No argument here.

Speaking of dogs and bones -- that is where this parable came to life for me. As I read it, listened to it, and studied it over-and-over-again this week, one section in particular stood out to me:

"And desiring to be fed with the crumbs
which fell from the rich man's table..."

It was like a bur in my side. I knew that passage felt familiar. And I knew exactly where it was from. It is, for me, one of the most profound shifts in Jesus' ministry:

"And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."

And suddenly I could see, this was not a parable in which Jesus was passing judgment on the behavior of others, but a window on his own inner wrestling.

Before the Canaanite woman's approach and cross-questioning, Jesus was on the fast-track to becoming the Messiah. A royal priesthood. Someone clad in the finest linen and purple. The Messiah was a nationalistic leader. He was expected to defend the Jewish nation's right to the promised land, as the chosen people.

But this woman - a non-Jew no less - throws the worst kind of wrench in that plan. She brings his plan into alignment with his message.  And without pointing fingers, she helps him see the inconsistency. Once seen, his entire ministry shifts.

He begins referring to Samaritans and strangers in his parables. He is giving water to the woman at the well in Samaria. He is found eating with Greeks and Romans. His love is inclusive. His message is universal. His healing is impartial. All are worth, all are welcome, all are whole. The kingdom of God is his nation and it is within everyone. The child of God is his brethren. The beggar - hungering after righteousness, health, and comfort -- is his mentor.

But, he must have also wrestled with the once-upon-a-time arrogance of  "I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel [the Jewish nation.]"  How to reconcile his own journey from royal priesthood to hungry beggar? How to gently -- but honestly -- share this shift with his disciples and his followers? How to humbly own his journey? How to love us enough to let us walk this path with him?  A parable.

And, I love that through this parable, he claims his right to identify himself rightly - with the beggar - when he says:

"And between us and you [the rich man]
there is a great gulf fixed:

so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence."

Such complete redemption.  Such a clear sense of no longer being on that side of the gulf.  Of that old, self-certain "rich man," who can never again cross over, and enter his consciousness of being. He claims his place on the side of the beggar - those hungry for the Love of an all-inclusive Father.

He reminds us that once we have seen the impartial and universal nature of God's love for all -- we can never return to the hell of hierarchies. The brimstone of thinking that there are those who are worthy, and those who are less.  The uncertainty of wondering which side of the gulf we will find ourselves on at any given moment.

Can I just say how much I love this man's example of self-examination and compassion. I love him - more than I can possibly say. Selah's song says what is in my heart:

"Wonderful, merciful Savior,
precious redeemer and friend;

who would have thought
that a Lamb would,
rescue the souls of men? "

offered with Love,

Cate

"to love mercy..."

"wonderful,
merciful Savior;
precious redeemer,
and friend..."

Sometimes I listen to Selah's, "Wonderful, Merciful Savior"  just to remember how expansive God's love is - and to give thanks.

For so much of my life, I seemed to live from mistake-to-mistake. It was never intentional. But it did seem to be the path I walked.

When I returned to the study and practice of Christian Science, I was so grateful for this passage from the book of Micah:

"He hath shewed thee,
O man, what is good;
and what doth the Lord
require of thee,
but to do justly,
and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God..."

I loved these clear and simple instructions. I could do this. But it was the "love mercy," part that felt like a bit of a "no-brainer" to me. Who didn't "love mercy?" Why would that be a requirement. It seemed so natural.

That was until the first time I wasn't the biggest mistake-maker in the room. It happened. It was a small injustice. But I felt it, and I was a bit [okay, more than a bit] self-righteous about the other person's misstep. Shouldn't there be consequences, repercussions? But no, there was mercy.  There was leniency.  Really?

Thank goodness for the Weekly Bible Lesson outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly. That week's collection of citations from Scripture, and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy included the above-referenced spiritual instruction from the book of Micah. 

Reading it -- in the context of my self-righteous indignation about the other person's mistake -- I finally "got it."  It was easy to love mercy, when you were the person being shown mercy. But what about the mercy that is being shown to another.  What about the need for real consequences when a mistake has been made? That is when loving mercy, is not as easy.

In these times of "he said, she said," and deep polarization -- with accusations flying like flaming arrows in the battle scene from Braveheart -- it is always easy to see another's mistakes.  And it is even easier to feel indignant.  Especially when the guy on the other side seems to be shown what we deem is unmerited forgiveness or leniency.  Sometimes we feel even further wronged by what we perceive as a failure to impose an appropriate consequence.

These are the moments when the injunction to "love mercy" becomes a rigorous spiritual imperative. It requires the exercise of our utmost trust in divine Love.  In Its overarching justice, oversight, and correction -- according to the operation of Principle -- not our personal sense of right and wrong.

To love mercy is to trust that our Father-Mother God has "got this." This summer, I walked straight into the fire of my own past mistakes. This passage from Mary Baker Eddy's autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, perfectly describes that chasm of self-sorrow:

"Into mortal mind's material obliquity 
I gazed, and stood abashed. 
Blanched was the cheek of pride. "

It wasn't the past mistakes of a young girl that I saw in this obliquity of self. But the pride, self-righteousness, and self-certainty of a woman who had lost sight of what it meant to live in a state of "constant self-immolation," as Eddy suggests.

But rather than look for someone else's mistakes to focus on,  I didn't look away. I gazed into that space of self-examination with a deep trust in divine Love's ability to mercifully correct and restore Her child's innocence and humility. And that is when the remainder of that paragraph, from Retrospection and Introspection, came alive for me:

"My heart bent low before the omnipotence of Spirit, and a tint of humility, soft as the heart of a moonbeam, mantled the earth. Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane and Calvary, spoke to my chastened sense as by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen fountains were unsealed. Erudite systems of philosophy and religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing promise and potency of a present spiritual afflatus. 

It was the gospel of healing, on its divinely appointed human mission, bearing on its white wings, to my apprehension, “the beauty of holiness,” — even the possibilities of spiritual insight, knowledge, and being."

Here was the mercy and redemption that brought hope, promise, and purpose. This was the Love that silenced self-hate. The Truth that vanquished error. The Soul that leaves us feeling worthy of our work, not relieved from duty.

I think I will leave this here. Let us strive to not only do what is good, and walk humbly, but to truly love mercy. Love it for everyone. Love it with all of our trust.  Our trust in the Source of its power -- Love.  It is Love's province, to redeem and reform.

offered with Love,

Kate

"to forgive..."

"do you want to be free,
do you want to believe,
do you want breathe again,
live again, love again..." 

I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when my eyes caught the title of a post on the Sojourner blogsite, "Are Christians Supposed to Forgive Abusers?"

It made me think of Sara Renner's hauntingly beautiful song, "Forgive".  It is a song that has brought such healing peace to me over the years.

But it also reminded me of an experience I had over 25 years ago.  I was on a panel of speakers addressing the topic of addiction from a spiritual perspective.

We were fielding questions from the audience when a young mother stood up and asked, "What if my husband is abusive while using drugs, do I leave him -- or do I need to stay and pray for him?  I love him but I don't know how to forgive him?"

The auditorium became silent.  For some reason, the rest of the panelists turned to me -- perhaps because I was the oldest on the panel and a woman.  But I felt trapped.  I'd witnessed  so much abuse in my life.  I didn't know what to say.  The atmospheric pressure in that hall felt heavy and demanding.

I stopped breathing and sat in the absolute stillness of my true being -- not a girl who'd been molested, not the young woman who'd been beaten unconscious -- but the daughter of God.  Someone who had never been touched by anger or fear.  One whose right to love had never been violated or stunted by trauma.

But what should I say? What could I say?  The theme of the conference was, "The Love that Heals."  And that was the thought that filled me like a soaring balloon. Whatever I said, it had to be about Love -- at every point.

I heard myself begin slowly, "Sometimes we have to love someone enough to separate ourselves from them when they are behaving -- or making choices -- that we absolutely know they will regret when they awaken from the dream of a false sense of who they are.  We have to love them enough to say "no" in a way that doesn't allow them to act out those hideous lies in our presence.

In that moment, it became as clear as day to me -- Love is always the motive.  Sometimes we have to leave.  Not because we hate or despise the other person, but because we love them too much to let them use us in a way that they will regret. Not because we are afraid, but because we love their true nature.  

We walk away from being a witness to any violation of their deepest humanity.  We remove the opportunity for self-loathing. We let nothing obscure their path to self-forgiveness.

This wasn't just a cool thought.  It was visceral.  I felt the truth of this inspiration course through every vein in my body.

I didn't need to forgive the perpetrators of my abuse, or the abuse of others -- I needed to love them enough to not let my human thinking about them -- and our story -- get in the way of their direct and immediate relationship with God, divine Love.

In her "Daily Prayer," Mary Baker Eddy asks us to give up our right to be the forgiver, the savior, the assessor, the judge and jury:

"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."

As I sat there listening to the other panelists share their thoughts, in response to her question, it all began to make sense to me.  My job wasn't to figure out whether someone deserved my love, my forgiveness, or even my consent to their right to experience God's mercy -- my job was to trust God's direct and unwavering presence in their hearts.  It is God's province -- not mine -- to make someone aware of their mistakes, to correct those lies, to move them beyond behavior that was regrettable.  It is God's love that frees them from the bondage of falsely identifying themselves.

What I could do, was deprive anyone of "me" - as a prop in their dream.  And I could do that out of love, not out of fear or anger.

I could separate them from my hurt feelings -- and thereby separate myself from them as well.  I could forgive - forego - any sense of sin -- a word which shares the same etymological root as the word "sunder, to separate" I could forego the belief that I, or anyone else, could ever be separated from God as Love.

I could set clear boundaries for what was acceptable behavior from a child of God.  I could love enough to not let someone violate those boundaries -- with me.

This was not about letting go, but letting God.  It was about loving more, not less.  It made room for healing and restoration.  It opened the door to redemption and promise.

What it boiled down to -- was Love.  Love, love love love love.

This insight has helped me more times than I can say.

When someone asks, "Do you forgive me?" I am perplexed and stunned by the question. I can't help but remember Jesus' beautiful plea from the cross:

"Father forgive them..." 

He doesn't say: "Father, show me how to forgive them." But Father, forgive them.   The forgiveness is all Thine.  

In referring to this Scripture, Mary Baker Eddy states in her last published work, The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany: 

"In our struggles with sin and sinners, 

the we drop compliance with their desires, 

insist on what we know is right, and act

accordingly, the disguised or the self-satisfied

mind, not ready to be uplifted, rebels, 

misconstrues our best motives, and calls 

them unkind.  But this is the cross.  Take it up,

-- it wants the crown; and in the spirit of our 

great Exemplar pray: 

"Father, forgive them; 
for they know not

what they do." 

In each of these profoundly practical statements of inspiration and guidance, we are looking at the most currently recorded words of two deeply spiritual mentors: Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy - on the subject of forgiveness.  

Forgiveness is "of the Father."  For me, Eddy's "Daily Prayer," and Jesus' example from the cross, are the highest sense of forgiveness known to man.  Forgiveness is not mine to give. It happens in the sacred sanctuary of one's relationship with the Father.  

While it is our privilege to step back -- and let the dear Christ enter in -- to heal.    

offered with Love,

Kate 

"to love first…"

"And while others think
of reasons not to love,
we love,
because he first loved us..."

I hope you will let Cheri Keaggy's "Because He First Loved Us," touch your heart tonight.

Recently I woke knowing that it was time for a deep shift in my understanding of what it means to love. It felt like a profound un-centering, a need for an adjustment of the mental aperture. As if my oneness with God -- with Love -- was calling for greater clarity, and I was a bit out of focus.

Having felt this kind of invitation to "grow in grace" before, I knew I was standing on holy ground.  I also knew that I  needed to be still -- and listen.  And gratefully, the guidance I was seeking came gently.  I  was reminded of an experience I'd had late one December night when I needed spiritual direction and comfort. 

The memory was clear. I'd been visiting Mary Baker Eddy's last former home and I remembered seeing a framed painting of Jesus in her small bedroom.  I had been moved deeply by the realization that it was his example which she'd turned to for inspiration and encouragement during her own long, dark nights.

On the heels of this memory, came a statement from the book of John:

"We love him,
because he first
loved us." 

I knew immediately where the shift in my understanding of Love needed to take place. What followed was a sentence from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The miracle of grace,
is no miracle to love." 

Grace, in Webster's Dictionary, is defined as:

"The unearned and unmerited favor of God" 

In an instant the veil over my heart parted, and I could see beyond what I'd long-assumed was "enough" love.

As a child I had experienced things that, I became convinced, were unforgivable. And yet, through long nights of prayer I'd been shown how to forgive.  For years, even the very thought of being free from feeling victimized was unimaginable. And then suddenly, it wasn't.  It was my truth.  And with that freedom came the ultimate surprise -- I felt the will to love. And it was genuine. In a heartbeat, I could love those I'd feared -- something that had seemed unreasonable only moments before. It was more than I could have dreamed, and I was satisfied.

But Love's capacities are infinite, and so must be our capacity to reflect of its fathomless depth. And on that recent morning I woke knowing there was more. But I didn't know how to find it. So I became very still. I asked myself, "what represents the greatest love to you?" And without a second's hesitation, I knew.  It was "trust." To trust, and to feel trusted. 

I'd felt it in my daughters' unquestioning trust that I would always do my best for them. And even more so, I felt it every day as I considered God's trust in me, and my capacity to love and care for His precious children. I have felt it in His mercy when I have fallen short. And in the redemptive power of grace during my darkest moments of self-doubt and fear.

And yet, I had somehow thought that I could actually love, without trusting. Oh yes, I could forgive, and I was even willing to love.  But trust, when I felt that the person in question needed to earn my trust? Unimaginable. I believed that trust was something I could parcel out or withhold. But that day I found myself asking, "Kate, who do you think you are actually you withholding this trust from?" And the answer was -- myself. I was depriving myself of loving fully, extravagantly, unconditionally.

The moment I realized that there could be no real loving without trust, I felt the old boundaries of what I thought was possible shatter around me, and my heart had room to stretch into a new space.  I could love first.

Love loves. It can't be shackled by another person's behavior. Love is not conditional, it doesn't need a reason. Love doesn't wait for the permission of circumstances. Love trusts.  Love completely and unflinchingly trust the absolute sovereignty of Its own irresistible agency working within the fathomless depths of each human heart. Again, I was reminded that:

"The miracle of grace,
is no miracle to Love." 

Or to us -- by reflection. Forgiveness is only the first step. But to truly love, we have to trust in the presence and power of Divinity operating as humanity. 

 Jesus taught us how to live this radical kind of trust in countless ways. Mary Baker Eddy says that he "acted boldly against the accredited evidence of the senses." 

 Everything he experienced in his last days, must have screamed that he'd surrounded himself with disciples who were undeserving of his continued faith in their fidelity. Yet he entrusted the future of his beloved ministry to these very men who had -- only days before -- forsaken, doubted, and denied him. It brings into clearer focus for me, Eddy's statement:

"Out of the amplitude
of his pure affection,
he defined love." 

Tonight, I am so moved by the way Grace never leaves us self-satisfied and imprisoned within the false boundaries of what we think we are capable of. Love calls us from the chrysalis of where we have become comfortable with "enough," and shows us something we hadn't even imagined was possible. Where once we crawled -- now we stand ready to fly.

offered with Love,

Kate

"My heart will be blessed…"

"my heart wants to sigh
like a chime that flies,
from a church on a breeze..."

I was rendered speechless by Lady Gaga's "Sound of Music Tribute performance at the 2015 Academy Awards. What an amazing reminder to billions of viewers: never. label. anyone.

This week has been filled with instances of this very reminder. Even when someone has given you decades of information about who they are, don't believe it. We are not the accumulated sum of our human histories. It isn't written in indelible ink unless God wrote it. 

We are reminded in Lamentations that God's mercies are new every morning. We are new every morning, and great is His faithfulness to this promise.

Recently I was given the gift of redemption. The opportunity to be seen for who I am today, and not for who I was forty years ago. The person who gave me this gift was once a young girl I'd known when I was in my early twenties. I had probably given her every reason label me as a disappointment -- someone who had let her down, not lived up her expectations, and failed to keep my promises.

But even though I'd carried around my earlier failings -- like an over-loaded knapsack on my back -- she had long since decided to love me for who she always knew I could be, rather than the disappointments I'd long-imagined she saw when my name crossed her path.

The night I received her friend request on Facebook -- and later a private message that said, "I am so happy to find you," -- I bawled like a baby. She went on, in that first message, to tell me that she never gave up the hope of our reconnecting. When she'd learned from a mutual friend that I was living a life of service to others -- something even I might not have expected in those long ago days -- she said, "I always knew you'd do something wonderful with your life." Wow.  I was speechless with wonder.

There were many people who hadn't felt the same way that she did about me. Folks who didn't have such high expectations for my future. Including me. People whom I hadn't disappointed -- not nearly as badly as I thought I'd let her down. But her faith in my innate goodness -- and her belief in my promise -- were untouched by my own lack of faith in myself. I'd acted on my flagging self-worth, she'd refused to let it inform her expectations for me.

Tonight -- watching Lady Gaga's performance -- I was reminded of how important it is to celebrate the good we see in people each day, while still letting them surprise us along the way.

No matter how old we are, no matter what we have done with our past moments, no matter how often we have disappointed ourselves - or others - we can wake up each morning with fresh hope in our hearts. Hope that we really can:

"climb every mountain,
ford every stream,
follow every rainbow,
till we find our dream..." 

It's so easy to fall into a pattern of self-doubt based on past regrets. There is nothing difficult in going along with that storyline. Acting out labels we've placed on ourselves, or only seeing others through the labels we've placed on them.  But we don't have to.  We can do this differently.

We can start tonight -- by redeeming this day's accumulated information about ourselves or others.  Just try it.  Go back and review the day -- look at where you have made a difference, helped someone in need, corrected a mistaken way of thinking about yourself or others, shared, listened, or forgiven.  Then let this be your only record of the day.

And once you have claimed this day's beauty, grace, and wonder, take the next step. Establish in your heart that you are a child of God. That God's love alone defines you, your purpose, and your promise. Rest upon this one true fact about yourself. Then, be willing to rise in the morning, surprised by God's love for you and His unspeakable gifts of inspiration, transformation, and grace.

And while you are at it, be willing to give this same gift of "all things new," to everyone you come in contact with. Let their lives delight and surprise you.

You may just find that your world is filled with the sound of music, a few of your favorite things, dreams that will need all the love you can give, and a heart that is blessed. I know my heart was surprised -- and blessed -- tonight.

offered with Love,

Kate

"You are more..."

“You are more
than the choices that you've made,
You are more
than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more
than the problems you create,
You've been remade...”

I came upon Tenth Avenue North's song,"You are More,"and it took my breath away. It said everything I wanted to say to "her" tonight.

Her, is me. And it's you, and him, and her...and so many other girls, women, men, and boys I've met, listened to, shared Scripture with, encouraged, comforted, held, and prayer with.

We are all more.

Accepting the fact that we are more than our mistakes...well, that's not too much of a stretch for the spiritual thinker...right?

But I would posit, that we are also more than our human accomplishments and achievements. We are more than our biggest dreams and our wildest imaginings.

Until we can fathom the infinite range of what it means to be all that God is...we are still more.

And about this "remaking," which Tenth Avenue North refers to...it is ongoing. It is God's constant reclaiming of us, of our right to be "more." It never stops. It is insistent, perpetual, proprietary, demanding. It is a divine imperative that only wants one thing...our hearts. It never stops homesteading, setting up shop, claim-staking its sovereign territory, carving out a kingdom...in our lives.

It is a voice....the Voice, that never stops singing:

"You are more..."

Maya Angelou, in titling her 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, references a stanza from African American poet James Laurence Dunbar's "Sympathy:"

"I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, 

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, 

When he beats his bars and would be free; 

It is not a carol of joy or glee, 

But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, 

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – 

I know why the caged bird sings...."

And I know why this song, "You are More," is giving words to my prayers today.

The Psalmist, David...the King who wrote most personally about the power of tender mercy and divine promise, of long falls from grace, pinnacles of praise, and of God's restoration of the "soul," once wrote: 

"Create in me a clean heart, 

O God, 

and renew a right spirit within me..."

He knew...

David knew why the caged bird sings, why the abandoned babe reaches to touch the face of love, why the empty womb calls us towards a Romanian orphanage, why the forgotten never stop hoping to be remembered, the imprisoned dream of freedom, the diagnosed refuse to consent, and those believed to carry the smallest promise, have the audacity of hope to think they can make a difference...

I believe it is because we are all more...so much more...infintely more...

with Love, 

Kate

"Moving mountains within..."

"Do you want to breathe again,
love again, live again...
forgive..."

I was sitting in the office recently, praying for guidance in my prayers, when I received the following note/comment from a reader, and it was just the reminder I needed. Thank you dear friend.

"This post [from 2007] came to my thought today as I was praying and thinking about something from my past.

I love what you shared at the end of your blog,

"But this time it was as if the next line was illumined by a spotlight: “And when ye stand praying, forgive..”

I realized that for so long I wanted someone to pay for what had happened to me when I was little, I guess I felt like they should suffer. I wanted someone else to feel bad and sorry. I thought this would make me feel better.

I don't feel that way anymore I have realized that the only way to peace and healing is through forgiveness, forgiving myself and others. Learning to forgive is what is moving the mountains in my heart. I am able to see this so clearly now.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful experience in your life. It has helped me and provided me with inspiration. xoxo"

Dear Friend:
Thank you for sharing your experience...here is the original post you referenced:

"Until you moved the one in me..."

“I never thought
that mountains could be moved
That they could be cast into the sea

I never realized your words
Were Oh so true
Until you moved the one in me.”
- Reed Hess

I haven’t heard these lyrics in over twenty years, but I can still remember how I felt that morning, in the early 1980s, when I tiptoed down the stairs of our basement recording studio as singer/songwriter Reed Hess was laying down vocal tracks from behind the glass window where he sat, eyes closed, alone in front of the piano. 

I can remember the scruffy burnt orange and brown sculptured-loop carpeting with raw edges that covered the narrow stairs leading down to the control room.  I can remember exactly how it felt to run my fingertips along the front edge of that scratchy step, halfway down the stairs where I'd been stopped in my tracks by Reed’s rich voice practically praying those words into the microphone, and burning them onto my heart.

To really know that mountains could be moved.  That was what I wanted.  And Reed had found the words to express my deepest hopes. I can still hear the timbre of his voice, singing what I had been praying each day for years...that decades of fear and despair in me could be dissolved. That mountains could be moved.

I believed in God.  I trusted that He loved me and that He had the power to heal sickness, raise the dead, and transform the sinner.  But I didn’t truly really know if He could move the mountains (and there was a range of them) in my heart. 

Yes, I was deeply grateful for every bit of progress in my spiritual excavation work, since returning to the study and practice of Christian Science.  I had absorbed the universal truths it explained, and had discovered how practical its application was in my life.  I had taken an advanced course in how to heal spiritually, and had left a long career in education to devote my life to helping others as a Christian Science practitioner.  I had experienced and witnessed healings of urgent, chronic, heredity-based and acute physical, emotional, financial, and relationship challenges.  I was absolutely confident in God’s supreme power…"as in heaven, so on earth." 

I was an active member of my church and I was dedicated to this Bible-based approach to living.  I shared it with anyone, and everyone, I met.  Yes, I was sure, confident, certain of God’s love for everyone...but me.  I had seen so many lies about man’s perfection dissolve, when placed under the light of God’s love for others…but could not imagine that it would ever really get at the deep dark stuff in my life.  Other people’s problems just weren’t true…that was easy for me to see.  But I was fully aware…up close and personal….of all my misdeeds and I knew that they had actually taken place, and I felt that my memory of them was pretty accurate.  And that accurate recall was hard to swallow.  In almost every instance, it was hard to forgive...and especially hard to forget.   I had made many mistakes and could see how reasonable it was that my mountains of guilt and self-doubt were not only justified….but there to stay.

When I heard Reed’s voice pour out of the speakers in the control room, I wanted to burst right through that door, and ask him what it actually felt like when God moved his mountains.  But I was patient, and sat on the step waiting for him to emerge from that dark cocoon of silence.  And when he did, I was there waiting. I asked him, "What does it feel like?" 

“Oh,” he said with a sigh, "it feels just like it sounds…like a mountain has been lifted from your soul…”

“But what do I have to do?” I pleaded. 

I felt like I was in an old Kung Fu episode where “Grasshopper” returns in hazy memory to a moment with his Master. They are alone in soft light and seen through a filtered lens.  The child version of the David Carradine character waits for the Master to share a profound, life-saving wisdom.

“Well”, Reed replied, with eyes that were kinder than I thought I deserved, “what did Jesus say?” 

“Oh my goodness!” I thought.  “Is this some kind of born-again brush off?  Does this look like a Christian rally with WWJD (what would Jesus do?) buttons and bumper stickers being passed out like Koolaid at Jonestown?  No, this was a deeply wounded person asking for direction, humiliating herself in front of one of her husband’s clients, and a good friend.” 

What did Jesus say?  Please, I was very familiar with Jesus’ statement to his disciples.  I didn’t even have to look it up.

“And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass he shall have whatsoever he saith. 

Therefore I say unto you, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

I politely thanked him and filed his response away….far away.  Once again I was sure I  had misread something that had appeared to me to be God’s brilliant light of inspiration. 

I continued for years to pray.  The looming burden of my mountains became less daunting in the context of a growing sense of "rightness" I was beginning to feel about myself, and my place in the world…especially the spiritual community I served.  I gave of myself, and I got approval, admiration and respect.  My giving was genuine, the acceptance was authentic.  This went on for many years as I gave more generously, served more tirelessly and got more…acceptance, respect, approval.  My mountains, however, had not been removed…instead, my view of them had become more distorted while I squinted my eyes in the bright light of admiration. 

But, quite often that verse from Reed’s song would wash over my heart, or wander through my thoughts like a babbling brook discovered as a refreshing surprise on a long hike.  I’d drink from it and then pick up my heavy pack again, and keep going. But I never asked myself why a song that I had only heard briefly was still running through my thoughts with perfect clarity….every word remembered, every note felt, the singer’s voice as fresh and full in recall as it was the first time I heard it.  I didn’t spend much time asking "why" because I was a busy wife, mother, church member, healer, community advocate…so I must be alright….right?

All this came crashing down around me the first time I did something that really stripped me of the approval I'd come to need like a drug. I felt as if, once again, I was that young woman (this time not so young) sitting on those scratchy orange and brown steps burdened by my own sorrows and mistakes…hungry for freedom from depression and self-doubt.  The mountains in me were looming, I felt the weight of their menacing presence.

And, again, Reed’s song came to me:

“I never thought
that mountains could be moved...
that they could be cast into the sea.

I never realized your words
were, Oh, so true
until you moved the one in me.
Until you moved the one in me...”

These words returned over and over until one dark night...when the mountains of regret and sorrow sat so heavily on my heart that I didn’t think I could breathe...I also remembered his answer to my question years earlier, “What do I need to do?" This was a conversation that I'd stored far, far away from immediate thought. But, “What did Jesus say?” was echoing through time and space.  I surrendered to Reed’s response and decided to actually see what, I thought I already knew,  Jesus had said.  I got up from bed and went to the Bible sitting on my desk and opened it to Mark:

“And Jesus, answering, saith unto them, "Have faith in God.

For verily I say unto you: that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 

Therefore I say unto you, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

But this time, it was as if the next line was illumined by a spotlight:

“And when ye stand praying, forgive..”

I think I can now tell you, for myself, what it feels like to have a mountain removed and cast into the sea. 

"I never realized your words
Were Oh so true
Until you moved the one in me…"

Thanks Reed…

Kate

Since I don't have access to an online accessible recording of Reed Hess' "The One in Me," here is a link to Sara Renner's website where, if you scroll down the index of songs on the left margin, you can click on a sample of her song "Forgive." Sara has also given me permission to have "Forgive" as one of the three songs that keynote my website...and I am so deeply grateful. If you go to the music player in the bottom left of the homepage, "Forgive" is the third song (after Michelle Armstrong's "Unfallen" and Mindy Jostyn's "In His Eyes") that will automatically start playing when the home page opens. If you would like to go straight to Sara's song, you can advance the player to the 7:56 minute marker. Otherwise, enjoy the gift of these healing songs from three extraordinary spiritual singer/songwriters.

"The honest cries of breaking hearts..."

"The tears of shame for what's been done,
the silence when the words won't come,
are better than a Hallelujah sometimes...

We pour out our miseries.
God just hears a melody.
Beautiful, the mess we are.
The honest cries of breaking hearts,
are better than a Hallelujah sometimes..."

If you know, or love, someone like me...someone who persistently longs to experience God's tender mercies -- the uncommon grace found hidden in a common moment -- listening to Amy Grant's, "Better Than a Hallelujah," might just give rise to something unexpected and holy...bursting from your heart.

That afternoon may have felt like a thousand other springs in suburban St. Louis for the people I ran into.  Dogwood trees carried umbrellas of delicate pink and white blossoms.  The grass, sprinkled with wild violets, was as green as Easter basket cellophane, and the breeze was a silky 71 degrees that floated over your skin like a vintage slipdress.

Mothers picked up toddlers from preschool, track coaches held stopwatches on the sidelines, and I stood in the doorway of a building I never thought I'd feel welcome in again.  But I was.  I was greeted with warmth, embraced with fondness, treated with respect, and ushered in with courtesy.

I am sure that, for everyone I met, their gestures of friendship and kindness were just "business as usual"...a commonplace occurrence in the course of their day.  But for me it was the rolling away of a stone on my heart.  It was a holy day, a day of mercy, a moment of grace, a resurrection within, an Easter Sunday on a Tuesday afternoon.

Afterwards, I returned to my car...and wept honest tears of gratitude, and love...love, not just for God, whose tender mercies have taken me apart and put me back together in ways I will never be able to fully explain, but for each moment of human kindness I've experienced on my journey towards that threshold.  Without those, I would never have had the courage to face my fears, overcome self-doubt, and walk out of the tomb of my own making.

So, as you move into this weekend...I invite you to look for ways to be the expression of the Prodigal's father...eyes on the horizon, expectant of innocence, prepared to run towards the weary child, to envelope him/her in a warm embrace, and welcome them home....

...with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I can't make you love me..."

"I was young and caught in a crowd
I didn't know then, what I know now
I was dumb, and I was proud
and I'm sorry..."

A new reader sent me a link to this video clip of Kate Miller-Heidke's "Caught in a Crowd" and I love it.  I remember being on both sides of this coin.  Both the girl-child who put acceptance and popularity above what she truly felt was right, and the teenager who felt forsaken by those she thought she could count on as friends.

But then there is another "me" who watches this video.  It is the one who has stood up for a friend, when others turned their back.  This is the me I wish I'd always allowed to show up, every moment...and whose face I seek  in the mirror each day, as I navigate the waters of my community and the world I live in.

As most readers know, my childhood was a seemingly endless series of moves.  New houses, neighborhoods, towns, schools.  As a girl, I was small, shy, and bookish...and I was teased.  I now know, that some children think teasing is funny, and use it as a way of reaching out to someone they want to know.  But this certainly wasn't something I was aware of  then.  As a little girl,  being teased felt like being hated. 

At other times, children at a new school would try to intimidate me, and make me feel embarrassed about my academic accomplishments or creativity.  Whenever I would ace a spelling test or receive a compliment from a teacher or a dance coach, I would experience rejection, which sometimes felt like the whole world was in opposition to my identity. 

But it wasn't the teasing that was most painful.  Or even the feeling of having an entire class of fellow students making fun of me. Since I was only being me...quiet, bookish, artistic. It was none of those things that hurt the most.  It was simply being ignored. 

Being ignored was the worst.  It was sitting in the lunch room and looking up as each girl came away from the lunchline...tray loaded with jello, mac and cheese, tomato soup, cupcakes...hoping, as they walked towards me, that they would join me at my otherwise empty table, only to have them look through me and make happy eye contact with the girls across the room.   It was the horror of having finally found the courage to pass a note to the girl who had played with me on the playground that morning, hoping it was the beginning of a new friendship, only to see her slide it under her binder and never look back.

Early on, my mom taught me a little poem that went with me to school every day...and I think saved my heart from breaking:

"When others hate, oppose, ignore...
Help me Lord to love them more."

I think Mom knew that as long as my heart was still beating, still trying to love more and more, it couldn't atrophy, get hard and brittle, shatter and break.  It would stay warm and alive, and would feel like it, my heart, had a vital role to play in saving its host...me.

I can also remember one of those times. I was a junior in high school.  I think it might have been one of the first years I'd everreturned to the same school for a second September.  I knew a few kids, had made some friends the previous spring, and I think a boy might have even liked me.  I felt like I could, perhaps...maybe, just be me and not have to work so hard at making people like me. 

One day I was standing at the counter of the student council "store" (a window outside the lunchroom where you could buy t-shirts and spirit pennants with our school's name and mascot blazoned across the front in green and gold) when a very serious boy I sat next to in my typing class came out of the lunchroom, and as he turned to say, "hi," he tripped and dropped his books.  As I bent to help him pick up his papers and splayed binders, one of the popular boys who played football kicked one of those books across the corridor just as he reached for it.  It sent the rest of the football team, also standing around the student council store, into gales of self-congratulatory, mean-spirited laughter.

Only moments before I had been on the verge, the very cusp, of acceptance and popularity.  I had on my favorite box-pleated blue plaid mini skirt (or at least it was as mini as I could get, hemming it, in fast whip stitches, on the short bus ride from our house to school that morning) and the boy I liked was paying attention to me.

But somthing much deeper kicked into gear that day.   I had been the new girl way too often, and had suffered so horribly at the hand of the popular kids in every other school I'd attended, to let my typing class friend become the object of their derision, all alone.

So I shot Mr. Fullback a look of disappointed pity mixed with my best version of compassion, helped Thomas gather the last of his chemistry notes, and walked with him to the library....my favorite room in the building.  Leaving my new, and once hoped for, football and cheerleader friends laughing and teasing us about being the new "Mr. and Mrs. Four Eyes Brainiacs."  But rather than actually become the latest butt of Mr. Fullback's jokes the next day, and  for the rest of the semester (something I was almost sure would happen) he actually seemed to like, or perhaps even respect, me a little after that day.   Or perhaps I didn't care quite as much as I thought I did.  

Of all the lessons I remember from that year of "not being the new girl," that day outside the lunch room was one of my favorite moments of self-realization.    Unfortunately, there were also times when I was "caught in a crowd" and didn't stand up to the way my new more popular friends were behaving.  For those times I am truly sorry.

Bottom line, I have learned that being ignored is more painful than either hatred or opposition.  It is a dismissal of our identity.  It says "you don't deserve my response" and it just plain hurts.  But I have also learned that it is only practiced by those who are afraid of being associated with what they fear will reveal their own self-doubts and insecurities...and so, what it now says to me is that they just need to be loved more. 

A young friend contacted me recently.  She had been praying for the spiritual strength to rise above the hurt of being verbally bullied at her school.  She felt that, so far, she'd been able to navigate her days with poise and courage, and without tears.  But this day she was absolutely shattered.  After her sobbing subsided a bit, she was able to explain that she felt as if the other girls at school looked right through her as if she wasn't even there.  But even though that hurt...alot...she still felt that could handle it most of the time.  But what had her at the very edge of the abyss, unable to hold on, was a week of waiting for one of the girls she'd "friended" on Facebook, to accept her invitation. 

Each day she would rush home from school to check in, and see if the girl's profile picture had appeared in her friends list.  It hadn't.  She said that, "being ignored was worse than being bullied."  She felt helpless.   "What is wrong with me? What have I done?  What can I do to make it better?"  It was the not knowing that made her feel terribly helpless, and alone.

I was so grateful that I could share my mom's little poem with her.  We talked for a bit until she was more peaceful.  I knew I had given her one of my "five smooth stones"...something I'd proven in my own battle with the Goliath of self-doubt.  She reported the next day that she no longer felt like a victim of "being ignored," but as if she was "like David, only a girl."  God was asking her to just be herself, and "love more."  It made her feel like she "had the power!"

And she did. 

As Bonnie Raitt says in her song, "I Can't Make you Love Me":

"Here in the dark, in these lonely hours
I wil lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no you wont...
Cause I can't make you love me, if you don't..."

The goal is not to make someone love us.  It is to love, love, love...and love more, because it is our identity, our only way of truly feeling the power of God as Love, coursing through our veins as the animating, revitalizing, restorative, regenerative current of true Being.

Thanks, Mom, for giving me this little poem, and for teaching me how to use the most lovely "smooth stones" in battling indifference, and becoming me...the true me, the real me, the me that can stand alone with God, and without fear...it's much better than just getting "caught in a crowd."

love you Mommy,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS