"i was a free man in Paris..."

"I was a free man in Paris,
I was unfettered and alive..."

Whenever I hear Joni Mitchell's  "Free Man in Paris"  I think of a story that was shared with me over a decade ago. It was related to me as a true story, that has led to more than a few healings since I first hear it.

As the story goes, there was a slave who was promoted to the position of valet. He served his confederate, industrialist master faithfully. He was quiet, elegant, and unassuming. When his master would go on business trips, he would travel with him. Because he was a slave, he didn't sleep in the hotels where his master stayed, but remained outside or in quarters provided for servants.

Soon he was traveling the world with his master. On a particularly cold Parisian night, he finished his duties and returned to the entrance of the hotel where his master was staying, expecting to wait till morning for his master's first call. Bundled up at warmly as he could be, he huddled out of the cold in the alleyway next to the hotel.

Soon the doorman wandered over to where he was and asked him what he was doing. He explained that he was a slave and that his master was a guest in the hotel. He went on to say that he would wait there until his master needed him the next day.

The doorman looked at him and said, "Sir, this is Paris. Slavery is illegal here. You are free." The slave, waking up to the reality of his freedom, walked away. He never went back. He accepted his freedom.

You see, slavery was still legal in the United States. But in France, slavery had been abolished in 1794. He was not in a place where laws of slave ownership would be enforced. He was -- quite literally -- a free man in Paris.

How often to we walk around thinking that we are in a "country" that has laws that we are enslaved to, and under the enforceable jurisdiction of? That we live in a body with laws of decay and decline. That we operate in a world where laws of socio-economic privilege and penalty prevail. That we are under the thumb of educational hierarchies and intellectual tyranny?

We stand huddled against the cold wall of a building, thinking we are slaves and that if we were to leave, we would be hunted down, shackled in chains, and imprisoned for life. When in fact, we live, move, and breathe in Him. We are not citizens of a land where "enslavement to the most relentless masters" is enforced, or enforceable.

We are citizens of the kingdom of God. We are free men, women, and children in this safe place where slavery has been abolished. We do not live under the tyranny of laws that say we must subscribe to heredity, caste, class, health-predictions, educational hierarchies, socio-economic predestination.

We are free. We can walk away without looking back. I promise.

Not long ago I was struggling with a physical challenge that seemed to make movement very difficult. I was mentally slammed with all the reasons why this was not only reasonable, but expected -- at my age.

One Saturday, as I started a cleaning project, I put a favorite Joni playlist on my iPod - and yes, I still have one of my daughters' old discarded iPods. The first song that came up was "Free Man in Paris." I immediately thought of the story shared above. At the same moment, I bent down to clean under a table, and felt an all too familiar pain.

But this time I didn't just keep moving through it. Or huddle in the cold light of acceptance next to it. I decided to walk away from it. I was not mortal. I did not live in a "country" where the laws of birth, maturity, decay, death were enforced. I was not trapped in a body that was defined by those laws - or enslaved to them. I was a free woman in the kingdom of God.

Every step, every bend, every swipe of the dust cloth was a step away from the feeling that I was waiting for a false master to tell me where I could go what I could feel, and how I could experience my life.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

"The enslavement of man is not legitimate.

It will cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God-given dominion over the material senses. Mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God."

We answer to one Sovereign, one Law-giver, who is Love. This Love is omnipotent. There is no opposition to His supreme statutes of freedom and liberty. This is where we live. This is the country of our citizenship.

offered with Love,

Kate

 

"never trapped..."

"such a cozy room,
the windows
are illuminated..."

Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Our House," must be a go-to song for me these days. Obviously, since I used it in a post, only a few weeks ago. But this time, it really is about a house. A house with walls and doors and windows.

When I was a junior in high school, our family of eight moved from a large house in a small college town in new Jersey, to a 1,000 square foot carriage house in a rural estate. If 1,000 square feet is hard to imagine, let me map it out for you. There were two floors. Each was 20" X 25" with a wide staircase bi-secting each floor.

On the first floor, on one side of the staircase, was a living room -- about 7 feet by 20 feet. And on the other side of the staircase, was a kitchen with an eating area, also about 7 X 20. Upstairs, under the eaves, was one long bedroom, "for the girls," (5 of us - eventually) that was the same dimensions as the kitchen. On the other side, were two tiny bedrooms -- one for our parents and one for the three boys. And a very tiny bathroom. Yes, if you are doing the math, those numbers don't really add up. That's because soon after our move into that house, our mom would give birth to twins -- bringing our occupancy up to 10 people in 1,000 square feet.

So, why am I writing about this little carriage house today? It's because I am hearing so many instances where people are feeling trapped in their houses, and restricted from all the ways that they have historically found a sense of freedom and social range of motion.

You see, I was a girl who needed quiet. I still am - I guess. It is more important to me than air or food. But when you have ten people living in a very small space -- and two of them crying infants -- quiet is not something you ever get. In the warmer months, I could walk out the front door and into the woods, or down to the stream at the bottom of the hill, but we were not close enough to a town to go to a library or coffeehouse.

So, in the winter months -- it was all ten of us in a large clapboard box with no privacy or sound isolation. If I wanted "my own space," my only option was to go to my bed at end of our long, narrow bedroom under the eaves and read. But there were no earbuds or noise-cancellation devices to isolate yourself from the cacophony of ten people clattering around day - and night.

Some years later, when my own family of five moved into a small 1,200 square foot cottage, I felt trapped. With only two bedrooms, our own toddler twins slept in youth beds at one end of our small master bedroom, while our 11 year old daughter had a tiny bedroom under the eaves. One bathroom. Kitchen, living room, and a minuscule office for my work -- we were snuggled in tight.

One rainy, winter day, I was feeling particularly housebound. I called my mom in hopes of her commiseration. But she was having none of it. "Kate, what was your favorite house growing up?" she asked out of the blue. I didn't have to think about it for more than a second. "The carriage house," I quickly replied. "And," she asked, "how big was that house, and how many people were in it?" Without waiting for me to answer, she told me, "ten people on two 20 X 25 foot floors of living space with a wide staircase in the middle." I did the math -- 1,000 square feet, 10 people, 100 square feet per person. And that was my favorite childhood home -- of many. It brought me up short.

I have thought about that conversation so many times over the years as we have moved from rambling suburban houses, to urban flats and small town "cottages." What makes a space "home?" What makes it a place where we feel peaceful, secure, and warmly welcomed each time we open the front door? It is a question that is so important as we navigate these times of self-isolation and sheltering in space.

I think it has nothing to do with square footage or amenities, the number of bodies or the quality of sound isolation or the toys we surround ourselves with to keep us distracted. It has to do with how well we use the space within our hearts. How well we exercise retreating into the "kingdom of God," for privacy, solace, harmony, creativity, and deep inner peace. It has to do with the love we express, and the love we feel in that space.

It was what I learned, during that time as a 16-17 year old girl trying to find herself in the midst of family bedlam, that has given me the tools to navigate this period of self-isolation without feeling trapped. To know that I could retreat into myself -- and the peace of knowing that there was more to me than my circumstances -- is re-defining this quarantine. We are never trapped. We are always free to wander the beautiful space within. I was then. I am today. So are you. So are we all.

We each have a very, very, very fine house that is bulwarked in freedom, not restricted by walls. A house whose rooms are filled with opportunities for restoration and renewal. Whose windows are open wide to the music of the spheres -- songs of Soul, and the lullabies of Love.

offered with Love,

Kate

"you are safe..."

"One thing
I can promise you;
I promise
you're safe with Me..."

When I first heard Megan Nicole's "Safe with Me," it felt like a love letter from God.

In light of recent news reports about the latest pandemic threat, safety seems to feel fragile for many people. The other day someone asked me why I wasn't afraid. It was clear form the way she asked the question,  that there was a deep longing for peace of mind and freedom from fear.

I didn't answer quickly. I din't want to appear cavalier. I wanted to be sure that there was nothing but compassion in my heart. But they had detected something so deep that I felt a spiritual receptivity in their inquiry.

So I explained that in Scripture, when Moses is asked by God to return to Egypt -- the place he had fled for fear of his life -- and free His people from generations of slavery and bondage, Moses asks God who he should tell the Israelites had sent him to do this great thing. The ensuing conversation between God and Moses goes like this:

“And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
 

For me, this is the clearest name for God that I know. The Children of Israel hadn't read the chapter of Exodus. They hadn't heard this scriptural account before. So for them, "I am..." wasn't code for God.  It was simply what it was -- their own sense of conscious being.

The very fact that they could feel that sense of "I am..." was all the authority they needed for their emancipation from slavery.  "I am" indicates the presence of God, and assured their right to freedom from bondage.

And it assures the security of our health. The safest place on earth, is where the "I am..." of your being is present. Because this is where God -- the great I AM is.  Every time you say, "I am..." you are declaring the presence - and power - of God. You are affirming your oneness with divine Love.

A number of years ago, a work colleague and I were having a conversation about feeling safe. I asked him if he'd ever felt afraid. He recounted a time in the early 1970s when he'd been a young man at the height of the Viet Nam War, and his birthdate was assigned a very low draft number. He said that he was a pacifist and besides being opposed to war, he was also very afraid. He thought about filing as a conscientious objector or fleeing to Canada to avoid serving in a war that he was opposed to.

In the midst of this moral wrestling, he called a spiritual mentor who told him that since God was the only "I am.." wherever "I am" was, was the safest place on earth. It stilled his fears, and strengthened his trust in God's ever-present care for him -- and for all the boys, girls, men, and women who would be deployed to serve in Viet Nam.

Soon after that realization, his draft number was called, he showed up for his physical, went through basic training, and was deployed to Viet Nam. He was assigned to an intelligence unit and spent his entire time sequestered in the highest level of security. But every day, he prayed that each man, woman, and child - touched by that conflict - could feel safe in the presence of their own consciousness of  "I am..." -- which always points to the presence of God -- the great I AM.

We are all safe in this knowledge that God's presence is assured every time we think or say, "I am..." In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

“Security for the claims
of harmonious and eternal being
is found only in divine Science."
 

Divine Science -- the Science that overarches all other natural sciences - laws of nature -- is sovereignly self-enforcing. This Science is based on the irrefutable law of God.  The law that states God's All-in-allness. All good, in all. All purity, in all. All innocence, in all. All safety for all.

I am safe. You are safe. We are all safe...

offered with Love,

Kate

"you have safe passage through my heart..."

"so I'm gonna
stand up,
take my people
with me;
together we are going
to a brand new home..."

I really, truly hope that if you do nothing else after finding this post, you will watch this video of Cynthia Erivo's studio recording of "Stand Up," from her Academy Award winning film "Harriet." And if you haven't seen the film, please, please, please do.

I was first introduced to the film through this music video when it was shared with me last month. It took me apart. I felt it in my bones. All of it. The fear, the triumph, the disappointment, the frustration, the trust in God's care for each of us as we navigate an underground journey from sense to Soul, and from shackled - to free. Whether we have been bound by actual chains, self-doubt, socio-economic underprivileged, or opinions about who we are and what we are capable of rising above - this film strikes the marrow.

Yesterday my dear friend Molly posted a quote, on Facebook, that resonated so deeply with me.  It set a match to something I have been thinking about for months.  And its fervency stopped me in my tracks:

“Grant people
safe passage
through your thoughts:
no judgment,
no condemnation..."
 

It reached down into my heart and gripped me in a way that wouldn't let go.  I felt a clear, Harriet Tubman-like calling. "Yes," it said, "this is my purpose." To be safe passage. To make sure that everyone who comes through my heart - and soul and mind - is taken in, nourished, re-clothed, hidden with Christ in God, and brought to freedom -- on to the other side.

It hasn't always been that way for me. At least not as "impartially and universally," as Mary Baker Eddy insists must be true about real, genuine, authentic, spiritual love, in her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

God knows I tried. But often fell short. Oh, I could always hold the course pretty well on a day-to-day basis. That is, until someone said something cruel, or hurt someone I loved. Then watch out. My heart was often not a safe place for someone to wander through, if I thought their words or actions were undeserving -- unkind, mean-spirited, inhumane, etc.

But Harriet's example, and Cynthia's song, and Molly's sharing of that unattributed quote -- which she heard from a friend-of-a-friend who didn't remember where she'd heard it --  woke me up. And it suffused every mental molecule with a fresh, clear purpose statement:

“be safe passage..."
 

So, what does that look like for me? I'm just finding out.  But, I intend to get clearer and clearer about this every day. In fact, every single hour, of every single day. If I see a child throwing a tantrum in the grocery store, what am I going to do? Well, I hope will do everything I can to provide that mother/father and their child a gentle pathway through my heart, and through our individual and collective sense of community. No judgment. Only deep compassion, an open heart, willing hands, a ready smile of understanding.

But what about those whose words or actions I really struggle to understand as humane or "christian?" If I can't seem to give them safe passage, that's on me. And I better find it my heart to do so. The work may be long and arduous. I need to be able to discern the broken child behind the angry man, the wounded girl masquerading in sarcasm or disinterest.

But, I can do this. I have a fierce desire to live on purpose -- and I will find a way. For "they" are all my people. Not just the ones I like. Not just the ones who like me. Not just the ones I agree with. I will free the slave, and the slave owner. All His children are my people -- and I will take them with me to a brand new home -- the kingdom of heaven within us all. Impartially. Universally. My heart is an underground railroad. I will be safe passage.


offered with Love,

Kate

"all I remembered..."

"and all I remembered,
was your back..."

I don't actually know if I can clearly say what is in my heart today -- but I will try. The first time I heard Kelly Clarkson's song,  "Piece by Piece," I thought that perhaps my tears were coming up from a well so deep, it was fathomless. It spoke to such profound feelings of abandonment.

It always reminded me of the story of Hagar in the Bible. Hagar is the captured slave of Sarah, Abraham's wife. She serves Sarah faithfully. When Sarah is unable to produce an heir for Abraham, Sarah give Hagar to her husband. Hagar becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Ishmael.

Years later, Sarah, herself, becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac.. Her son, is now Abraham's second son. When she becomes concerned about Isaac sharing his birthright with Ishmael, she asks Abraham to cast Hagar out of their community - with her son. Abraham asks God for guidance, and God tells him to do what Sarah has asked. Promising Abraham that He, God, will take care of Hagar and Ishmael.

Abraham takes Hagar and his first born son to the wilderness and leaves them there with a vessel of water. When the water runs out, Hagar is frightened and begs God to not let her see the death of her son. God hears the child's cry and water springs from a rock. Ishmael goes on to become the father of his own branch of Abraham's tree.

Whenever I read (or heard) that story, I always wept inside. Hagar had only been an obedient servant to her mistress. She had allowed herself to be given to Sarah's husband for the producing of an heir. For Sarah to cast her out, and for Abraham to abandon her - and his own son -- seemed cruel and heart-breaking to me.

That was, until quite recently. I was reading this story of Hagar again one morning.   I was so ready for the tears of empathy - for her plight  - that always came. When suddenly, something washed over me that was new and fresh. It was joy.

The story shifted into light. Hagar was a captured slave. She had served her mistress and her mistress' husband faithfully. One day, she and her son -- the patriarch's heir -- were given their freedom. Freedom. Not abandonment. Abraham didn't kick her out, and keep the boy back so that he could control his destiny. He emancipated Hagar. He let her take her son with her.

I got it. Neither of us had ever been abandoned. We had been freed. We were taken to the border of our lives -- the place where the slavery ended.  And although it seemed like a wilderness -- it was the place where we discovered our oneness with the One who would never leave us and would never break our hearts.

In that moment, my story changed. I had never been left behind, abandoned, or had someone turn their back on me. I was free. I was free to be taken up in the arms of Love. I was free to exercise my spiritual maturity. I was free to discover how much God cared for me - and why He had never left me. And would never leave me on my own.

I had read this story so many times. But in one moment, what had once been heart-breaking, was now healing, restorative -- redemptive.

I will leave this here. There are not enough words to say what is in my heart.


offered with Love,

Kate

"i was a free man..."

"I was a free man in Paris,
I was unfettered and alive..."

Whenever I hear Joni Mitchell's  "Free Man in Paris"  I think of a story that was shared with me over a decade ago. It was related to me as a true story, that has led to more than a few healings since I first hear it.

As the story goes, there was a slave who was promoted to the position of valet. He served his confederate, industrialist master faithfully. He was quiet, elegant, and unassuming. When his master would go on business trips, he would travel with him. Because he was a slave, he didn't sleep in the hotels where his master stayed, but remained outside or in quarters provided for servants.

Soon he was traveling the world with his master. On a particularly cold Parisian night, he finished his duties and returned to the entrance of the hotel where his master was staying, expecting to wait till morning for his master's first call. Bundled up at warmly as he could be, he huddled out of the cold in the alleyway next to the hotel.

Soon the doorman wandered over to where he was and asked him what he was doing. He explained that he was a slave and that his master was a guest in the hotel. He went on to say that he would wait there until his master needed him the next day.

The doorman looked at him and said, "Sir, this is Paris. Slavery is illegal here. You are free." The slave, waking up to the reality of his freedom, walked away. He never went back. He accepted his freedom.

You see, slavery was still legal in the United States. But in France, slavery had been abolished in 1794. He was not in a place where laws of slave ownership would be enforced. He was -- quite literally -- a free man in Paris.

How often to we walk around thinking that we are in a "country" that has laws that we are enslaved to, and under the enforceable jurisdiction of? That we live in a body with laws of decay and decline. That we operate in a world where laws of socio-economic privilege and penalty prevail. That we are under the thumb of educational hierarchies and intellectual tyranny?

We stand huddled against the cold wall of a building, thinking we are slaves and that if we were to leave, we would be hunted down, shackled in chains, and imprisoned for life. When in fact, we live, move, and breathe in Him. We are not citizens of a land where "enslavement to the most relentless masters" is enforced, or enforceable.

We are citizens of the kingdom of God. We are free men, women, and children in this safe place where slavery has been abolished. We do not live under the tyranny of laws that say we must subscribe to heredity, caste, class, health-predictions, educational hierarchies, socio-economic predestination.

We are free. We can walk away without looking back. I promise.

Not long ago I was struggling with a physical challenge that seemed to make movement very difficult. I was mentally slammed with all the reasons why this was not only reasonable, but expected -- at my age.

One Saturday, as I started a cleaning project, I put a favorite Joni playlist on my iPod - and yes, I still have one of my daughters' old discarded iPods. The first song that came up was "Free Man in Paris." I immediately thought of the story shared above. At the same moment, I bent down to clean under a table, and felt an all too familiar pain.

But this time I didn't just keep moving through it. Or huddle in the cold light of acceptance next to it. I decided to walk away from it. I was not mortal. I did not live in a "country" where the laws of birth, maturity, decay, death were enforced. I was not trapped in a body that was defined by those laws - or enslaved to them. I was a free woman in the kingdom of God.

Every step, every bend, every swipe of the dust cloth was a step away from the feeling that I was waiting for a false master to tell me where I could go what I could feel, and how I could experience my life.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

"The enslavement of man is not legitimate.

It will cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God-given dominion over the material senses. Mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God."

We answer to one Sovereign, one Law-giver, who is Love. This Love is omnipotent. There is no opposition to His supreme statutes of freedom and liberty. This is where we live. This is the country of our citizenship.

offered with Love,

Kate

 

"just turn around…"

"there's no need to feel defeated,
don't let it get you down;
sometimes the only way to get back
home, is to turn around..."

I was searching for the link to another - more familiar - song to keynote this post, and serendipitously came across Anthem Light's, "Turn Around." It spoke to me, I hope it does to you.

The other day I woke up feeling a nagging sense of futility about a situation. I'd reasoned, examined, and weighed the human details. I'd prayed for direction in choosing one course, over another. I'd listened for guidance -- but I wanted the guidance to be clear: Do this, or do that. Period.

I moved to my favorite spot at the kitchen counter.  I was trying to still the anxiety building inside, when a small mountain bluebird -- one of the first of the season -- began flying into the windows.  Windows that face our lake, and the mountains to the west. He was feet forward, as if to grasp a branch. His was not a violent crashing, but more like a frustrated attempt to reach a goal. Time and time again, I went outside to dissuade his futility. And each time he returned.

Then the thought came to me, "watch, and learn." So first, I watched him from my side of the glass at the kitchen counter. Then, I walked outside and watched him quietly from his point of view. And I got it. He was looking at the reflection of trees, sky, lake, and mountains in the glass. In fact, at the very spot on the window he kept flying into, was the reflection of a beautiful piñon pine that sits just beyond our deck.  From the branches hang a variety of bird feeders.

I wanted to clasp him gently in my hands, and show him that all he needed to do was turn around.  Then, instead of banging himself against a two-dimensional -- although beautiful -- reflection of the original, he would be flying freely towards the real deal. He'd be able to curl his toes around the branch he was seeking, feel the shade of the pine boughs, drink from the water in the stone birdbath, and reach the feeders -- full of sunflower, nyjer, and millet seed -- prepared just for he and his friends.

I returned to the kitchen counter and asked God again: What do I need to learn from this? And it was so obvious. I'd been trying to find direction by looking at the human situation.  Examining the details, cast of characters, and trajectory the unfolding story based on what I was able to gather from the information at hand. I needed to turn around and consider what Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Breaking away from the mutations
of time and sense, you will neither
lose the solid objects and ends of life
nor your own identity.

Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal,
you will rise to the spiritual consciousness
of being, even as the bird which has
burst from the egg and preens its wings
for a skyward flight." 

And elsewhere she says:

"we must first turn our gaze in the right direction,
and then walk that way. We must form perfect models
in thought and look at them continually,
or we shall never carve them out
in grand and noble lives." 

I had been looking at the human reflection, when I could have been looking to the original -- to God -- for the information I needed.  The truth about God was all that would really give me confidence in, or about, any situation.

I began to ask myself a series of questions that morning. Do I really trust that God is Love?  Am I planting my hopes on His care for me, and mine, and all?  Or am I measuring His love, by what I was experiencing each time I flew into the window? Was I building my nest in His invariable nature as infinite, eternal Love?  Or was I frustrated by the changeable nature of human sense, with its subjectivity -- personal opinions, cultural mores, shifting policies? 

These questions helped me turn -- and turn again.  Until I stopped being distracted by the pretty reflection, and actually felt the real deal.  Flying towards the actual, instead of flying into the pretty -- although insubstantial -- reflection.  It was just the reminder I needed.

Since then, I have been actively "turning around," as I move through my days. It's made such a difference. And the little bluebird? Well, He finally did just turn around. Now he, and his partner, are building a nest in the actual bluebird house we put up to welcome them each spring. They feed from the feeders, drink from the birdbath, and rest - from their nest-building labors - in the cool branches of our piñon pine.

I love that we can always stop flying into the window, be still for a moment, remember where our gaze should rest, then turn towards God, and find the spiritual good that is always waiting -- just to bless.

with Love,

Kate

"not even that far…"

"stop,
in the name
of Love.."

I woke up that morning in great pain -- again. But also with The Supremes 1965 hit single "Stop, in the Name of Love," playing in an an endless loop.  Yes!  Perfect. That was exactly what I wanted.  No,  it was what I needed -- for it to just stop.

It had been going on for way too long and I was tired, discouraged, and ready to be free. I had children to care for, calls to take, a community to support. I wanted to be purposeful and free to serve.

As I lay there in the silence of pre-dawn, I asked God what I needed to understand. What shift in my thinking needed to take place? What Truth was already present and graspable? I stilled the chatter of human thinking, and just listened.

The first thought that came was:

"Thus far,
and no father..." 

I let that inspiration -- that angel message -- seep in slowly and find its ground. And because I was feeling very confident about this Michael-like spiritual assertiveness, I was a bit surprised when Gabriel gently whispered:

"not even that far." 

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy defines angels as:

"God's thoughts passing to man,
spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect;
the inspirations of goodness, purity and immortality,
counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality." 

And then she defines two different types of angels - Michael and Gabriel - thus:

"Michael's characteristic is spiritual strength.

Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love.

These angels deliver us from the depths.

The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death."
 

Michael had been helping me hold the line, but Gabriel pulled me back from the battle. I had been wanting the pain to stop and was ready to go to war.  But what I needed to understand, was that the pain had never started.

Just as in coming out of a dream, when I woke up to this fact I no longer had a battle to wage. God had never left me vulnerable to injury, disease, or fear. God's presence had been continuous.

I could see this truth so clearly when I realized that I had never stopped loving my daughters. And because I knew that I could never have created that love myself, it was the perfect indicator that a divine power was always at hand - and at work - in my heart. God presence had been perpetual and persistent. That was enough.

I was now awake to the ever-presence of God -- of Love. The pain dissipated in the same way that the terror we feel in a dream disappears when we awaken from the dream. Just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light, pain couldn't exist - even for an instant - in the atmosphere of Love.

In Pulpit and Press, Mary Baker Eddy reminds us of Jesus' promise:

"The kingdom of God is within you.”
"Know, then, that you possess sovereign power
to think and act rightly, and that nothing
can dispossess you of this heritage
and trespass on Love." 

We are not the gatekeepers, Love is. We aren't in the business of kicking pain out of the temple, Love maintains an environment where pain cannot breathe, cannot gain purchase, cannot survive.

I did not need the pain to stop, I needed to understand that it never started. God had never left me. His ever-present ministering Love had no contests. He doesn't win the war, there is no war.

with all my love -- and with Love,

Kate

"I will open my hands..."

"I believe in a peace
that flows deeper than pain.
That the broken find healing in love.
Pain is no measure of his faithfulness.
He withholds no good thing from us,
no good thing thing from us.
I will open my hands,
I will open my heart."

I've been thinking about the insidious nature of pain this week. How loudly it screams, and how it tries to convince us that it resides within us, and therefore must be our pain. But it's not.

Pain, disease, fear, poverty, sorrow are never ours. They are impersonal. They only try to parrot, or mimic, the impartial and universal nature of God's goodness, healing, and peace, that Sara Groves' sings about in her new recording, "Open My Hands."

This week, as I've prayed deeply about the power of peace, and the impotence of pain, two experiences, in particular, have been constant reminders that I can rest my case on the law of Love. That precedence has already been established, cited, and ruled admissible in the court of Spirit. And that finding freedom from pain's unjust sentence is man's inalienable right...right here, and right now.

I return to the power, and authority, of these experience, as shared in: "Screaming has no authority..." (from October of 2006), and "Turn the beat around..." (from July of 2010), more often than you might think.

I know that I've often felt helpless in the face of pain, but Mary Baker Eddy has provided me a lifeline, in those moments of darkness, when she says in her writings, Miscellaneous Writings, 1883 - 1896 and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"No evidence before the material senses
can close my eyes
to the scientific proof
that God, good, is supreme."

and

"Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless;
nor are the so-called laws of matter primary,
and the law of Spirit secondary."

What promises! Pain [evil] is not supreme, and good is not helpless. Quite the opposite. Good is supreme, and therefore pain is helpless in its presence...in the sovereignty of peace. Peace is not the absence of pain. Peace is not an absence. Peace is a presence. Peace is not found in the vacuity of pain's retreat. Peace is substantial. Peace is a power. Peace is self-assertive and confident. Peace has authority, and pain flees before its strength...as naturally as darkness flees before the light of day.

In the final stanza of her poem, "The New Century", Eddy assures us that:

"The dark domain of pain and sin
Surrenders — Love doth enter in,
And peace is won, and lost is vice:
Right reigns, and blood was not its price.."

Pain can often feel like a vice...racheting a tighter and tighter hold on our freedom, but Love comes in, and pain surrenders, fleeing from the authority of God's law....the law of impartial and universal goodness that is irrespective of person. Love, unburdened by the false fears of human thought-taking and self-determinism...of what we could of done, thought...even prayed...differently. Peace isn't waiting for us to think the right thought. Peace is the voice of Love speaking to human hearts, minds, and bodies...a tuning fork that realigns everything according to His purpose for us.

Just as pain is not a personal failing or weakness, peace is not a personal achievement. Peace is God's impartial and universal substance. It constitutes every mental molecule of our being, and we can no more be denied its power in our lives, than we can do something to suddenly make light retreat in the face of darkness.

It's a promise...it's the Law.

of Love...
Kate

"Freedom's just another word..."

"Freedom's
just another word for
nothing left to lose..."

Yesterday was Independence Day in the United States.  And Janis Joplin's lyric (above) from "Me and Bobby McGee," kept suggesting itself for consideration.  Not the whole song, mind you, but just that one verse.   But it's a lyric that seems to surface regularly. 

I was never a big Janis-Joplin-screaming-in-the-microphone fan.  So, I rarely listened to her recordings...by choice (although I enjoyed the above-linked rare unplugged studio recording).  But if you grew up in the 1960s, and listened to the radio, this was one song that you couldn't miss, and this particular lyric has always poked at me.

For some reason, it always seemed to upset the apple cart in my Type-A, "high achiever" world.  I'd always associated freedom with gain...not loss.  If I was successful, I would have more, and having more, I would be able to do things that would feel like freedom.  I would be able to live where I wanted, donate to causes I believed in, buy a home that could never be sold out from under us, provide for my family, travel at will, make decisions without worrying about "how much," and, most importantly, I would have the freedom to do work that I loved, rather than work I had to do, just to make ends meet. 

Freedom, I believed, came with more.  Slavery, oppression, fewer choices...came with less. 

I lived within this paradigm for many years....too many years.  But at the deepest level, it wasn't working for me.  Freedom didn't come with more.  In fact, the only thing that seemed to come with having more, were more decisions, responsibilities, and stuff.  

The more that I got what I thought I wanted, the less satisfying it was, and the harder I had to work to maintain it all.   The more often I got what I wanted, the more I wondered if I hadn't just "made it happen" and then I wasn't sure if it was really what was really right for me.  The minute I accomplished my "getting," I would begin to doubt whether it was a gift from God, or just me working really hard.

And this didn't just relate to things...jobs, houses, cars, etc....it was also a side-effect of striving to elicit more admiration from others, achieving more of what was expected of me, having more to say, more control, more to weigh in on...more, more, more.

It was like walking along a beach filled with beautiful shells and not being able to pass even one by without wanting to add it to my collection.  I was out of control. 

That was until I lost it all.   And not only did I lose all the stuff, but I lost the thing that had given me a false sense of worth...the hard won admiration of others.  Most importantly though, I lost that sense of myself, which kept track of personal goals and chronological milestones., other peoples opinions of me and my ability to make things happen. 

And in doing so I gained real freedom.

I learned that "more" was a very fickle "friend."  One moment I was flying high on the wings of accomplishment, and the next I was scrambling across a scree field of mistakes. 

I thought that freedom was something I had to defend, fight for, hold on to...or I would be lost, vulnerable to oppression, and in jeopardy of becoming possessed. But, in that space of losing it all...I discovered that there were things I could never lose or be dispossessed of....and this discovery was my first taste of true liberty. The kind of freedom that Mary Baker Eddy refers to as a "divine right"...and one that we need to only "accept." 

While wandering aimlessly through a particularly low, and despairing, chapter of personal emptiness, I found that this very space of void..."the desert of my human hopes"...was actually a diamond mine, overflowing with those precious things of real value, that I could never lose...honesty, the joy of being at peace with my own thoughts, meekness, my love for others, an appreciation of beauty, hope, faith, humility, patience...and, I was still able to do the work that I loved, right there...right in the middle of that seeming void.  It was revolutionary...for me. 

And it was here that I discovered true freedom.  The freedom to think my own thoughts, the freedom to love without reason, the freedom to show up each moment anticipating a divine surprise...whatever it might be. 

Janis goes on to sing:

"It ain't nothin' honey
if it ain't free..."

I am learning that she's right.  All the stuff we can gather around us, accumulate, purchase, desire, make happen...can be lovely, entertaining, comforting, etc.  But they aren't where we find freedom.  Freedom comes  with a recognition of the unshakable presence of those things that are free...those things you don't have to bargain for, earn, negotiate, maintain, improve, fear to loss of...they come fully developed, perfect, and without condition.  They are yours and you can take them wherever you go. 

This is the kind of freedom I am celebrating today....

In a poem titled, "Woman's Rights" Mary Baker Eddy outlines the constitutional rights that lead to true freedom:

"...The right to worship deep and pure,
To bless the orphan, feed the poor;
Last at the cross to mourn her Lord,
First at the tomb to hear his word:

To fold an angel's wings below;
And hover o'er the couch of woe;
To nurse the Bethlehem babe so sweet,
The right to sit at Jesus' feet;

To form the bud for bursting bloom,
The hoary head with joy to crown;
In short, the right to work and pray,
"To point to heaven and lead the way."

This was her list of rights, that no one could take away...what are yours?

with Love,

Kate

"Everybody has a right..."

"The price you pay for freedom,
might just be your liberty.
Everybody has the right
to be free...."

In this video, Bob Lucas', "Everybody Has a Right," is beautifully rendered by my "sister," Lisa.  Her voice pleads for individual and collective surrender.  It implores us to release our hold on the hearts, and lives, of others.  It speaks to what is inherently generous in us...and it is timeless.  It speaks to that which loves to watch butterflies, hummingbirds, a leaf carried on the river's song, geese in migratory flight .

It would have been hard for me to watch it, tonight, and not make the connection between it's message of liberty, and that of countless other freedom songs I've long loved.   From "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," to "We Shall Overcome," men and women of every race and color have employed music to share their cry for emancipation.

I remember standing on the steps of my high school in the late sixties and singing:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord...

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy,
let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
While God is marching on."

We were just kids poised on the brink of a future, we were absolutely certain was filled...to the brim...with humanity's collective hopes for religious, racial, and gender freedoms.  Civil rights, women's rights, the right to worship, the right to vote...all these things were calling us forward.

Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers were our heroes.  And we really did think that we were on the verge of something so revolutionary, that the world would never be the same.  We had a dream...we still do.

Lisa's rendition of "Everyone has a Right," reminds me of that gray January day. We were a rag tag group of long-haired teenage revolutionaries...in mini skirts, jeans, and fringed buckskin vests...singing the only freedom song we knew well enough to sing without hesitation .- we'd all memorized it in grade school.  We sang because singing united us in protest of all that seemed so unjust...a war, segregation, gender inequality in education, sports, business, finance, family.

Our plea was simple.  Please let us go.  Please release your hold on our lives' promise.  Please let us, and our brothers and sisters of color, have the freedom to...well, just be.  To be all that our hearts have desired, our minds have dreamed, and our hopes have propelled us towards.

Another "sister," Heather, reminded me...today...that Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote:

"I refuse to accept the view, that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war, that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

I do too.  I believe, with all my heart, that "unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word," and we will all be free.  When we love someone...or many someones...we are selfless enough to yield our hold on their hearts, their lives, their dreams.   We rejoice in their liberty, we celebrate their independence, we delight in watching them pursue their God's inspired hopes.  We sing...

Still singing...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaniel Wilder 2010]

"he mus' know sumpin'..."

"...Ol' man river,
dat ol' man river
he mus' know sumpin',
but don't say nuthin'.
He jes' keeps rollin',
He keeps on rollin' along..."
Jerome Kerns

October, 2008.  "Obama Headquarters" the notation in my calendar reads. It makes me happy.  It is a beautiful day.  Campaign headquarters is about 5 blocks from our house and I love walking through the "old neighborhood."  It is a neighborhood that once heard the sounds of the 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair,as they were happening...within earshot...just across Forest park.

I walk from our block filled with University housing and stately re-furbished turn-of-the-century brick homes, through less gentrified streets noisy with children playing and plastic flowers in peeling window boxes, to quieter blocks where men, who were once boys, sit on porch steps, and women who were once girls...fan themselves with folded paper, smooth the skirts of voluminous housedresses, and laugh from their place-in-the-shade just under the sloping roof of a once-grand porch. 

Songs like William Warfield's "Old Man River,"  Louis Armstrong's "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," and Judy Garland's "Meet Me In St. Louis," provide the inner soundtrack for this loved journey through streets that I love.  I can't help but open my heart to the beauty of the day, the once-upon-a-time grandeur of what this neighborhood was, and the promise of the future. 

This is the poem that I found as a journal entry for that day:  

"I love this
neighborhood,"
I think,
as I walk
briskly
along
broken concrete
sidewalks
lifted and cracked
by the roots
of hundred year old
sycamores
planted for the
1904 World's Fair.
I am
on my way to
somewhere
else...
a place where
I have purpose,
somewhere
I am needed,
where I have
"things to do
and people to see"

The houses are
like
once-upon-a-time
grand dames
who still
show up in
boucle' suits and
pillbox hats
as ladies-who-lunch
and go for
martinis-at-5
but their
lipstick is
not as straight as
it once was,
and
orthopedic shoes
have replaced
open-toed
red pumps with ankle straps and
real silk
stockings with
seams up
the back.

He calls to me from a
crumbling stoop.

"Ma'am.."

A tip of his brown felt
fedora,
the other thumb looped
around a striped suspender,
his wing-tipped oxfords are polished
to a  spit-shine
a skill learned by many-a-soldier
in 1944.

"Sir,"
I cheerfully parry back, without
missing a beat in the
staccato of my late October
step...
I am happy.
I am
gaily skipping along
under leaves of gold and
scarlet filtering the
bright light of
an autum blue
sky.

"sweet tea?"
he returns.

"pardon?'

"sweet tea?"
he repeats, lifting a glass and a
round pitcher filled with
tea and ice and mint-leaves
floating on top
like
barges on the
Mississippi.

"i would...."
but I have places to go
and people to see.

I have a campaign to volunteer for.

why, we are going to elect the first
black man ever nominated, to be
the President of the United
States of America. 

"sweet tea?" he asks
again.

And I remember he is the man. 

"yes," I say, "that would be
lovely."

And he makes room for me on
his crumbling porch steps.

But first he pulls a pressed and
neatly folded handkerchief...from the pocket of
his white button down shirt, yellowed with age, but
perfectly starched and ironed...and
lies it on the top step for me to sit upon
like a flourished cape across
a muddy rivelet.

I am a princess and he is a gentleman with
sweet tea and  a
handkerchief, a voice like
Dr. King, a smile like
Satchmo, and
stories I will listen to
with the hunger of
a granddaughter
aching for her
history.

Stories that will make me laugh
with the telling of,
break with the knowledge of,
and weep over, long after
his grandson arrives home,
and I have continued
walking down a sycamore-shaded
city street on
a crisp October day.

His stories will fuel my resolve,
and inspire my prayers...

...not for the election of "a man"
but for the emancipation of
all men, women and children...
emancipation 
from the slavery of
"time-honored systems" and
the kind of hatred that is borne of
ignorance...
ignorance,
and
years of never
being willing to sit with
one another,
linger on a porch step,
accept a jelly-glass of
iced sweet tea,
and hear
each other's
stories...
and
weep...

still, with hope...audacious hope,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Oh, I've been travelin' down this road too long..."

"...That part of me left yesterday
the heart of me is strong today
No regrets im blessed to say
the old me dead and gone away.

Ohhh, I've been travelin' on this road too long
Just trying to find my way back home
The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..."

If you are familiar with this song and have issues with certain words used in the rap portion of this song, I apologize in advance.  But this song, quite literally, insinuated itself on the landscape of my heart today and begged to have its sobering, and yet encouraging message of reformation and redemption pondered more deeply. 

I am including the link to Justin Timerlake and T.I.'s Youtube video of "Dead and Gone" for your thoughtful consideration.   It's provocative backstory is the context by which some of its questionable language begins to make sense.  It sets a scene...one in which the miracle of hope rises from cracked asphalt like a Phoenix leaving behind the ashes of hatred and discouragement. 

Walking by an urban convenience store/gas station this morning, waiting in line behind a young man...ipod blaring loudly enough for me to hear the music from his earbuds, and then again overhearing it drifting from a young couple's radio in the park...I couldn't help but smile each time the chorus resurfaced through the briskly delivered rap narrative.

I didn't need to know the rest of the song...this line, "The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..." brought quick tears to my eyes.  Is it really possible to find that kind of freedom from the past?  Or more importantly, is it possible to walk away from a past view of ourselves, and the roles we think we have been handed in life?  You know the ones, those graphic character descriptions in the front of a tattered, dog-eared old "ego" script we've been carrying around with us for way too long, handing it out to everyone we meet and asking them to read lines with us.  Can we really drop the script and confidently tell that slimy "director" we aren't interested in being cast in that ridiculous role..."thanks, but no thanks, for that script to nowhere!"

There was a time when I may have only had the courage to whisper "yes" to others...patients, friends, loved ones. But today I say "yes" resoundingly, I laugh "yes", I sing "yes" at the top of my lungs while I dance my "yes" in the streets, with tears of joy streaming down my cheeks and a smile as wide as the Mississippi spread across my face.

It is never too late to find real freedom from a false view of ourselves, and the way that this false "ego" acts out its hideous, gargoyle-like part.  This false ego has never assimilated itself into the fabric of our real being.  It has never become one with the man, woman, or child "us" God knows, loves, preserves, and defends as our one and only true "I am," the consciousness of His presence in, and as, our only Life...our only Reality.  

There is a way.  There is a way of being in this world that is free of all the old stories we tell ourselves about victimization, broken dreams, self-promotion, and crippled potential.  We are NOT those stories...no matter how long we have been repeating them to ourselves as our truth...or our parents' truth or some badge of courage based on overcoming a "real" enemy...those perpetrators called mistakes, chance, misfortunate, or heredity.

There is a path towards lasting freedom, waymarks along the way, as well as wise and loving guides to help you stay the couse.  More on this in the future.  But for now, I think I'm going to go have a cup of tea, a piece of dark chocolate, and sit in the sunshine celebrating "new views of divine goodness and love"*...it's a pretty great day to be alive to my child self...no ego, no past, no ambition...just happy to be sharing the planet with each of you...

"...I turn my head to the east
I dont see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the west
still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the north,
swallow that pill that they call pride
The old me is dead and gone,
the new me will be alright

Ohhh, I've been travelin' on this road to long
Just trying to find my way back home
The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..."

I am so grateful...for "all things new"...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

*Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love." - Mary Baker Eddy

[Photo credit:  Meghan Laningham]