"the purpose of revenge..."

"I have been in
the revenge business so long,
now that’s it’s over,
I do not know what to do
with the rest of my life."

My friend, Sandi, shared this brief clip from an interview with Mandy Patinkin, about "his favorite line," [quoted above] from the classic film, The Princess Bride.

You see, when Mandy Patinkin speaks, I listen. He is a man of integrity and courage -- in my very humble, and admiring, opinion.  Time and again, he has chosen humanity over celebrity.  That means something to me.

Revenge is not a subject I've had much experience with.  I have really known very few vengeful people.  My exposure to that way of dealing with emotional injury is very limited.  

It's only been in the last few years that I've noticed how vengeance poisons a person's nobility of character, and limits their contribution to society.

As human beings, we all make mistakes.  We say things we regret. We act out in ways that are contrary to our best intentions.  We react to things said or done - to us - in ways that undermine our highest sense of who we are.  But for the most part, I have always seen, and experienced, a return to grace.  A general forgiveness of one another.  A desire to preserve one another's humanity.

But Mandy's interview made me realize that over the course of the past few years, I have noted an alarming social acceptance of vengefulness.  I can't help but ask myself, "How have we moved from the beauty of mercy, to the coarseness of revenge?"  Mandy's final statement in the above clip:

“And I love that line - because the purpose of revenge, in my personal opinion, is completely worthless and pointless. The purpose of existence is to embrace our fellow human being, not be revengeful, and turn our darkness into light. That’s the line I love from the movie."
 

agrees with everything I believe about this wasted emotional response to injury, disrespect, or hurt.  Isn't the purpose of our very existence the expression of love - in greater and greater degrees. Aren't we called to expand the heart's capacity to forgive, to show compassion, to model grace?

In fact, in Scripture Jesus enjoins us, "love your enemies." Isn't this the very opposite of revenge.  Every vengeful thought, word, and deed is a wasted opportunity to stretch our old boundaries, and grow into a more expansive and perfect love.

Imagine how little Jesus, Gandhi, Mandela, and Eddy would have accomplished if they had been consumed with seeking revenge on those who had caused moral, physical, or social injury to them. They didn't waste their time settling old scores. They filled their lives with examples of forgiveness, mercy, grace. Today we still look to their examples when the ego seeks redress, but our spiritual selfhoods know there is a higher ground, a more enriching response.

Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, in her groundbreaking collection, The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany:

“Each day I pray:
“God bless my enemies;
make them Thy friends;
give them to know
the joy and the peace of love.” 

What a beautiful prayer to counter the baseness of the ego's petty desire for vengeance. To arrest the base suggestion that we will find personal satisfaction in our ability to settle the score, or "show them."

May each of our hearts rise above the pull of self-justification.  May we refuse to become insensitive to vengefulness. May we grasp the opportunity for maturing affections. And may revenge never become so natural to our sensibilities that we forget our common humanity - and the right to extend the gift of mercy, forgiveness, grace to all.


offered with Love,

Kate

"let the record show, I did not consent..."

"a friend who taught me
right from wrong,
and weak from strong,
that's a lot to learn,
what can I give you
in return..."..."

This post will be two-pronged in its message. The first is simply this: thank you President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama. Thank you for your dignity, humility, grace, and compassion. You have taught us that there is a fierce, but gentle, greatness found in meekness, humor, grace, and humility. You have been an example of what it means to "go high," when they "go low." I came upon this Glee version of "To Sir with Love and it says so much of what was in my heart.

The other purpose of this post, is to put on record for my children, their children, and their children's children -- unto a thousand generations -- my conscientious objection to the outcome of this election. I sense that this will be a moment in history that will live on as a lesson to future generations. I would never want my family to wonder where I stood. I stood with compassion, I stood with the defense of human rights, I stood with nobility of character, integrity, and respect for all.

Last week I wrote that I "couldn't ever remember re-posting someone else's piece in its entirety," but today's article by John Pavlovitz, "Let the Record Show," copied below, warrants repeating here -- for me. I don't know that if I'd written a piece to say the same thing, it would have been an exact replication -- I don't think I would have been as brutally honest. But I would have wanted to be. Something is deeply wrong here. I feel that we must remain alert, vigilant, and prayerful. This piece allows me to go on record with my conscientious objection -- so I am re-sharing it below. 

This is not political.  It is not about one ideology or another.  This, for me, is moral.  It is about humanity, honesty, faith, hope, affection, meekness, compassion, and temperance.

This is one of those times when I actually do hope that what is posted on the internet lives forever in cyberspace. I hope that if my great, great, great grandchildren ever wonder how I voted -- they will be able to know which side of history I stood on. If I'd lived in 1944 Germany, 1915 Armenia, 1995 Bosnia, or 2015 Syria, I would have wanted to go on record in the same way.  I have posted Pavlovitz article in its entirety here.  Yes, there are statements that I may not have made, using exactly the same language. But saying no to hatred and fear is not about politics or language -- it is about Love, and when speaking about Love, words are never adequate, quite perfect, or enough. 

Let the Record Show
by John Pavlovitz 

"Let the record show that I did not consent to this.

Let it show that I did not vote for this man, that he did not represent me, that I did not believe he was deserving of being here, that I grieved his ascension.

Let History record my objection to him, to the ways he humiliated women and vilified Muslims and threatened protestors and disregarded people of color.


Let it record my repulsion at his tremendous cruelty, his lack of compassion, his contempt for dissension, his absence of simple decency.

Let witnesses mark down my disgust at the way he boasted of infidelity, at how he ridiculed a disabled reporter, at the way he attacked female opponents for their appearance, at the way he marginalized immigrants.

Let it be remembered that I did not look the other way when women accused him of assault, when the reality of his Russian alliances came to light, when he refused to share his tax records—though large portions of the American media and its people chose to.

Let it be remembered that I did not buy into the fear that he perpetuated of those with brown skin or hijabs or foreign birthplaces.

Let the record show that I looked on with disbelief as he spent countless early morning and middle-of-the-night hours following the election on social media, broadcasting a steady stream of petulant, insecure, incoherent messages instead of preparing to do a job he was ill-equipped for and seemingly not all that interested in.

Let the record show that I watched him assemble a Cabinet of billionaires and bigots, of people woefully unqualified to steward our children, our safety, our healthcare, our financial stability—and that I was horrified by it all.

Let it be remembered that my faith would not allow me to fall in line behind this man while so many professed religious people did; that I saw nothing resembling Jesus in him, and that to declare him Christian would have been to toss aside everything I grew up believing faith in Christ manifested in a life.

Let History record my grieving at the racism and bigotry and homophobia that characterized his campaign, marked his supporters, and is evident in his assembling Administration.

Let it be known that I was one of the more than 65 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton; who understood that though not perfect, she was an intelligent, experienced, passionate public servant with the temperament, commitment, and qualifications to lead and lead well.

Let the record show that I greatly lamented the day of his inauguration, and that I promised to join together with other good people to loudly resist and oppose every unscrupulous, dangerous, unjust and dishonest act this new Administration engages in.

History has been littered with horrible people who did terrible things with power, because too many good people remained silent. And since my fear is that we are surely entering one of those periods in our story, I wanted to make sure that I was recorded for posterity:

I do not believe this man’s actions are normal.
I do not believe he is emotionally stable.
I do not believe he cares about the full, beautiful diversity of America.
I do not believe he respects women.
I do not believe he is pro-life other than his own.
I do not believe the sick and the poor and the hurting matter to him in the slightest.
I do not believe he is a man of faith or integrity or nobility.
I do not believe his concern is for anything outside his reflection in the mirror.

I believe he is a danger to our children.
I believe he is a threat to our safety.
I believe he is careless with our people.
I believe he is reckless with his power.
I believe America will be less secure, less diverse, less compassionate, and less decent under his leadership.

And if I prove to be wrong, it will be one of the most joyful errors of my life. I will own these words and if necessary, willingly and gladly admit my misjudgment because it will mean that America is a better and stronger nation, and the world a more peaceful place.

But right now I don’t see that happening.

Right now I am worried for my country, concerned for our planet, scared for the future of my children, and greatly saddened that 62 million Americans seem okay with all of this.

Let the record show that I was not okay with it.

Not at all."

As Pavlovitz writes, I hope that I am wrong -- it would be a joyful error. I pray that I am wrong. I do part with Pavolovitz belief that we are less secure, compassionate, and decent under this man's leadership. Not because I trust anything that the new president says he will (or won't) do but because I trust that God is more powerful than any man, and that Love is more powerful than hate. That we are all more attentive to the workings of Love in our hearts, than the clatter of coins in our pockets.

offered with Love -- and hope,

Kate

"if not now, tell me when..."

"it will take
a change of heart
for this to mend,
but miracles do happen
every shining now and then,
if not now,
tell me when..."

I spent a week grieving. Then I realized it was time to accept the gift of this moment in history.  To embrace the opportunities we have to be emboldened by love.

When I want a musical kick-in-the-bumm, I turn to Carrie Newcomer. She always reminds me that self-indulgence is not allowed in the heart of a spiritual warrior. I love her recording of "If Not Now." It reminds me that "everything that happens -- happens not to us, but for us."

I needed this reminder. I was on the verge of doing what we nesting creatures do. I wanted to pull into my shell, hide under the covers, slip beneath the wings of someone wiser.

But only for a while. And it was there in the silence, and in the remembering of who I am and what I am capable of accomplishing in service to my God and His children. I found the courage to do something more. I could build nests. I could be someone who quietly gathers the discarded bits and forgotten pieces of this  movement, and builds a safe place for the incubation of dreams.

This doesn't need to be a time of disappointment, but greater appointment. We have been called into this moment for a holy purpose. And it is upon this landscape of stark realization -- that there are millions of people hurting and angry --  that we can find our voice. There is a song to be sung, a message to deliver, a gift to give. And we are that gift. As Scripture assures us:

"prove me now herewith,
saith the Lord of hosts,
if I will not open you
the windows of heaven,
and pour you out a blessing,
that there shall not be
room enough to receive it..." 

Will there ever be a time like this one? A time when kindness stands out in such stark relief against the backdrop of hate. A time when clear integrity is seen in a sea of gray uncertainty. A time when acceptance - based on impartial, and universal Love - is felt where bigotry lurks in the darkness. This is our time. This is our calling.

Recently someone asked me if I didn't feel the hand of an earlier doctrine of racial-purging, religious registry, and white nationalism reaching into this time. Yes, I have -- the comparisons are pretty insidious. But we are not the people of that time. We are wiser, more aware, and we are empowered by what we now know - about where this kind of thinking leads. And we are ready to say "no."

In her collection of addresses, articles, and letters titled Miscellaneous Writings 1888 - 1896, Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Be “of one mind,”
“in one place,”
and God will pour you
out a blessing such as you
never before received.
He who dwelleth in eternal light
is bigger than the shadow..." 

This is our time. This is our "now." We can be of one mind in this place. We can unite in the Principle of all unity -- Love.   Or as Kahlil Gibran writes:

""In friendship, or in love,
two, side-by-side, raise hands together
to find what one cannot reach alone." 

Whether we are marching in peaceful protest, creating sanctuary cities, refusing to let our Muslim neighbors register alone, or dancing, praying, petitioning and singing our love -- we are not alone. We are in this time together. We will not hide. We will love boldly and courageously.

I love thinking of this statement from Eddy as a benediction on our place in this historic hour:

"There is with us at this hour this great, a great blessing;
and may I say with the consciousness of Mind
that the fulfilment of divine Love in our lives
is the demand of this hour — the special demand..." 

We are not being imposed upon by hatred, hatred has been exposed by Love. The demands that are being made upon us are the demands of Love. Love is asking us to shine like stars against the backdrop of a midnight sky. Love is demanding that we step up and be counted.  Darkness cannot hide the light. This is our time to be the light of Love. To shine. To be our most brilliant selves. To be a candle in the storm.


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

"In the deepest part, the healing came..."

"...Never would have believed it
till I felt it in my own heart
In the deepest part
the healing came..."
- Sara Groves

In response to last Tuesday's post "so like still water," which referred to a life-threatening illness, one regular reader of this blog...someone who was able to make the connection between this passing reference, an article* on my website, and an earlier post that mentioned my healing of cancer...asked a wonderful question:

"What song do you associate with the moment in
which you knew you were healed of cancer, and why?"

I loved the way this reader was so sure that I would, most certainly, have a musical keynote for any significant experience in my life.  And although, I have talked about how I prayed through the circumstances surrounding the diagnosis, the deterioration of my health, the terror I felt as the physical symptoms escalated, and some of the emotional issues associated with facing that diagnosis, I don't think I have ever written about the "healing" itself.   Perhaps it is time. 

But first, the song.   Hmmm...what song do I associate with this healing...with the irrefutable cure, the end of the pain, the reversal of physical deterioration, and being able to stand toe-to-toe with the threat of death.  I didn't have to think for a second.  "Something Changed" by Sara Groves.  Although it had not been written or recorded when I went through this experience, the moment I heard it, I felt...again...that sweet dissolving I experienced at the very moment of awakening and inner transformation I associate with my cure.

I'd had many inbreaking moments of grace...of courage, a persistent awareness of God's presence, the power of Truth to lift me "ayont hate's thrall", but the symptoms hadn't subsided or changed, and the full awakening didn't come until one afternoon when I thought I'd hit rock bottom...in every way.

A group of us had left work early to drive a few hours north of Boston for a folk concert.  The artist was a friend who had recorded a new album and we were going to hear him perform songs from the new release at a little high school in New Hampshire.  All fears of my life ending way-too-soon, being forgotten, feeling insignificant and dismissible, were screaming, "see, I told you, you were nothing" throughout that drive.  I was in so much pain and I felt as if I would, as I had for weeks, lose every ounce of food I had tried to eat. 

I was grateful when we stopped at a seedy, old gas station to fill up, and took immediate advantage of the opportunity to visit the restroom.  It was the most filthy, horrible, gut-twisting restroom I had ever been in.  As I kneeled in front of the toilet with my arms wrapped around the porcelain, trying to steady myself as I retched endlessly,  my first thought was, "Okay, it can't get any worse than this...perhaps I could just die right here and now....dear God, I can't do this anymore!!"  

But it wasn't just the retching, the pain, or the fear I couldn't "do anymore"...it was the hate.  I hated.  There I have said it.  I hated what the collapse of an adoption had done to my heart.  I had stopped trusting.  I had stopped believing in my own worth, and therefore in my worthiness to be loved.  I was suspicious, fearful, and didn't want to die...unloved.  I loved my family, my friends, my work colleagues.  But I didn't feel like I had anything left of myelf to give them that had value, in reciprocity.  I was an empty shell of a person.  

But right on the heels of that thought, came the message, "Nothing can separate me from the love of God, neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature..."  I realized that even though I felt so unloveable,  I had not sunk to a depth of despair, so deep, that I couldn't love.  Even in the midst of a situation that felt very, very unlovable and justifiably debilitating...I could love.    I looked around that nasty, groady, disgusting bathroom and smiled.  Right there, right in the midst of that...I could love.  I could love. I could love.  I could love.  It didn't matter if I thought I was being loved, it mattered that I could love.  Nothing could take that away from me...not even the howling, insidious voice of hatred. 

I got up off the floor. Scrubbed my hands and face with some scratchy pink powdered soap -- a smell that reminded me of my early childhood.  A chapter from my childhood that found me, many Saturday mornings, washing  my hands at my dad's gas station after scrubbing toilets and sinks...with scratchy pink soap.  I looked in the grimy, scratched mirror, and smiled at the gaunt, bruised version of me looking back in wonder,  and felt such an extraordinary love for her, for the woman who could love in the midst of pain, heartbreak, and fear...and for the little girl that I had once been, as well.

In that moment something changed inside me.  It was as if every cell in my body remembered what its purpose was, and shifted into molecular alignment with that purpose...to love.   Or, as Mary Baker Eddy encourages us to understand about ourselves:  "Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique."

I knew, then, that it was over.  And it was. 

That's the moment I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was irrevocably cured of cancer.  This would not be the last time this disease would suggest itself. But it was the last time it would give me pause. And although there were dozens of healing moments leading up to that fully awakened sense of life as "Love alone..." -- this is the one, that I think, the reader was asking about....and "Something Changed"  is the song. I don't know that a "healing" always looks, or feels, like this. I believe that healings can take many forms. This is simply my story, of what I experienced, in that instance.

Paul wrote to the Romans...yes, the Romans:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I think I caught, just a glimpse of what he was saying, and it changed everything. I was more than the pain, more than the fear, more than the hatred...I was just more than I ever knew I could be...and that more, was love.

offered with love,

Kate 

*If you would like to read more about this healing you can find one account on the "How" page of my website...just click on the article titled, "Cancer Healed" originally published in the Christian Science Sentinel.  If it would be helpful to have the context surrounding those healing moments leading up to this cure, you can find them in this section from this blog..