"location, location, location..."

"our house
is a very, very, very
fine house..."

I could find a perfect correlation between Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Our House," with this post -- but it would be a reach. I just love it. And it's about a house. So....

This post is about a different kind of house. A house that is not just historic and well-built, but eternal.

In this week's Bible study is Jesus' parable of two houses:

“Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
 

As I have written about before, my first "aha" moment with this parable came some years ago, when I realized that  by building his house on the rock, it did not mean that the "wise" homeowner would not face storms. In fact, the same exact storm assails both houses. The only difference is -- one doesn't fall.

For so many years, I thought that by building my house on a rock, I was somehow insuring that I would not face storms -- or at least not as rough a storm as if I hadn't. So, when I faced the battering waves of fear, doubt, illness, lack, inharmony -- I thought I'd failed to build on the right foundation. It was somehow my fault. Back to the spiritual drawing board. This insight has helped me immeasurably. I don't go there anymore. The same storm assails both houses. The only difference - if I build on the rock, my house will not fall.

But this week's realization was just as profound for me. The parable is not about the house - at all. It has nothing to do with the builder's skill or the materials he/she has chosen. It is, in fact, all about location, location, location.

Where are you building? Are you choosing to cast about for "the right," view outside the window? Or, are you casting within -- building your house - your consciousness of things, on the gospel message of "the kingdom."

In Luke, when the Pharisees try to trick Jesus into laying the foundation of his ministry in a particular place -- Jerusalem or Nazareth, with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Samaritans, or Canaanites, we read:

“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there!

for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."
 

Where are we founding our sense of being - of actual existence? Our own, or another's? Are we seeing ourselves - or our neighbor - as being planted in this dogma or that doctrine? This party or that side? One nation, race, religion, gender -- or another? Or, are we seeing each of our fellow creatures as houses built on a Rock -- the kingdom of God? A location that is ever-constant and never-variable - within?

I have lived in 61 houses to date. Here is what I have learned about house hunting. Houses can be renovated, added on to, fixed up, torn down, and rebuilt.  New carpet, fresh paint, window boxes, and shutters.  But...

The location is changeless. If a particular location gets intense western sunlight all day -- that's not going to change. If the soil is rocky or near the ocean, surrounded by rolling hills or majestic mountains -- that's not going to change. If you are building your sense of being on what is temporary, shifting, and variable -- it will, by its very nature, change.  If you are building the structure of your life on what is changeless, within -- that will always be there to cultivate. And when the storms come, you will not fall.

Location, location, location - within...

offered with Love,

Kate

"Be here now..."

"Be here now.
No other place to be.
All the doubts that linger,
just set them free.

Let good things happen.
Just let them come --
into every moment,
like the rising sun..."

 There is something so peaceful about Mason Jenning's "Be Here Now." It reminds us that there is really no other place we can be, but here...now.

But how many hours have I wasted thinking "if only." If only I could be "there," then I would be happy. If only I could be back in a time "when," then I could make changes that would have brought healing. If only I could fast forward and know what was coming, then I could relax and be at peace with things as they are today.

But I clearly remember the day I realized that every one of those hours spent anywhere but here, and now, was time spent focused on something besides God.

God's name -- the only name He give Himself (excuse the gender assigment) is "I AM." So for me to let my thoughts dwell anywhere but in the "I AM" of being -- I am here, I am now -- is to feel separate from God. To feel separate from love, beauty, peace, goodness, grace.

I've spent way too many hours wondering "if only." Wanting to go back and make different choices, live in a different place where I'd have different choices, chase a future where the choices are boundless. But it's all fruitless. I am here. I exist now. This is the truth.

Mary Baker Eddy says, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The spiritual sense of truth must be gained,
before Truth can be understood."

 For me, this says, that until I understand the presence and power of God -- operating as the only Cause and Creator of my life - as it is right here, and right now -- I will never find God, Truth, anywhere else...ever.

Sobering, and beautiful.   At least for me.

Shared with love,

Kate

"September grass is the sweetest kind..."

"Well, the sun's not so hot
in the sky today
And you know,
I can see summertime slipping on
Slippin' away
A few more geese are gone,
a few more leaves turning red
But the grass is as soft
as a feather in a featherbed…"

- James Taylor "September Grass"

Today was one of those September Grass days.  The sun wasn't so hot, the air was cool, and the sky was as blue as a robin's egg. 

I was thinking about this all day in light of a comment Suzette shared in our worship circle last night.  Suzette is from Maine.  Ahh… Well not so quick, she and her children have recently relocated to St. Louis.  She explained that some folks have questioned why she would have left a wonderful home in a beautiful coastal village for a Midwestern city. 

Suzette went on to share that she and her family had felt divinely guided along each step of this relocation, and how they had experienced prayer-based consensus regarding their motives…and the logistics…of their move.

Then she told a story about a friend who, when living in a prairie state, learned to look at the wide blue western sky as his "ocean"….and how on a drive through suburban St. Louis that afternoon she had realized that her new city was just as "beautiful" as her previous location.

I loved this story.  I have often lost this chord of deep satisfaction with the current geographical details of where we live…usually after a trip home to Colorado…and bemoaned the fact that I am "here" and not "there".   So, this afternoon I decided to go in search of my own beautiful St. Louis.  Jeff's schedule included helping coach the girls' soccer team and I chose to tag along. 

Once there, I grabbed my CrazyCreek ground chair, my car quilt and my books and headed to a sun-drenched patch of grass under the wide canopy of a huge oak tree.  I scooched myself into a V-shaped space between the knees of two large roots and leaned my head against the warm bark of her trunk. 

The air was cool enough that I needed to tuck my quilt around my knees and wrap my large scarf around my shoulders but it was glorious.  Dappled sunlight fell through the leaves and onto the pages of my book.  Its warmth sank deeper and deeper through the layers of scarf and quilt until I felt it to the core of my bones.  I closed my eyes and let the golden late-afternoon light bathe my face in a flush of sunset pink.

The sounds of coaches, my husband, daughters, and their friends softly reminded me of all that I am blessed with.  The grass between my fingers was so soft to the touch, that I couldn't  help but recall Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light.
The grass beneath our feet silently exclaims, "The meek shall
inherit the earth." The modest arbutus sends her sweet breath
to heaven. The great rock givesshadow and shelter. The sunlight
glints from the church-dome, glances into the prison-cell, glides
into the sick-chamber, brightens the flower, beautifies the
landscape, blesses the earth."

I felt like I was in the holiest of sanctuaries.  Right here in the middle of St. Louis.  Trees, grass, sky, air, roots, shadow, shelter…the sounds of my family and friends…those things are right here.  Right where God has sent me to be…today. 

I am loving St. Louis, and I am loving autumn.  Something in me begins to quiet when I can feel the sun on my face through cooler, crisper air.  There is a gentling to my inner wrestling…the voice is more kind,  more full of mercy and encouragement.   It is almost as if this inner voice knows that we are heading towards Thanksgiving and a time of harvest…the time for gathering the substance of a tare-scattered growing season.  It is almost as if there is foreknowledge that we are, indeed, swelling towards a season of Christ-birthing in our lives.  Whatever it is, I am grateful to have discovered it right here in the Midwest this year.

"Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
And if I were a bird
I would fly about the earth
Seeking the successive autumns."
- George Eliot

Kate

Photo credit: Dwight Oyer 2003