"to love mercy..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

offered with Love,

Kate

"when I was fourteen..."

"Send me away 
with the words
of a love song..."

For the last year - or so, I have been hearing the first line of something -- but I haven't known what it was meant to become. A post, a poem, a conversation I needed to have with someone? Then today, I heard it in the context of the Hemingway quote that gave voice to the last, most recent post on this blog, "Write hard and clear about what hurts."

That was when I knew. That first sentence was a prompt, a reminder.  And it wasn't giving up.  It was saying, over-and-over again, "You need to write about this:

"when I was fourteen..." 

So today, I stopped and listened. And it was like a sucker punch to my heart.  I sighed deeply.  "Yes," I thought, "this is what once hurt, and needs to be written."

A few years back, there was a song, by The Band Perry, titled,"If I Die Young," It may sound self-indulgent, dramatic, and morbid, but whenever I heard it I wanted to weep for the girl I was at fourteen. Sometimes death comes to us in ways that aren't an escape - we just have to find a path through.

When I was fourteen, my life finally felt like it was becoming livable. The abuse I'd endured since the age of four had all but stopped -- when my family began to explore a deeper understanding of our individual and collective relationship with God.  We still moved houses regularly, but I had a real friend for the first time in my life. A friend that I wasn't related to.  A friend that didn't disappear when we changed neighborhoods and zip codes.

You see, even though we changed schools, we still lived in the same town and went to the same church. I was still able to participate in the same camp-based local activities. For the first time, there was continuity in my life - one that extended beyond my family.  And there was hope for a future that included my dream of having a life-long friend -- something I'd only read about in books.

I loved my new Sunday School friend.  We rode bikes, sat by the pool, went to movies, and talked about things that mattered.

And then one day, we had a family meeting. My parents told us that we were moving -- again. But this time it was going to be out-of-state and time zones away. Spontaneous phone calls, movies, sleepovers on weekends -- were over. Long-distance phone rates would make calling impossible.

Saying goodbye that last Sunday after church was one of the most painful moments of my childhood. As our parents waited, my friend and I said goodbye and promised to write letters -- every day. Later that week my family loaded up our station wagon and we were on the road to a new state, a new town, new schools, a new neighborhood, and a new church home. I saved my babysitting money, I bought pretty stationery and postage stamps. I wrote my friend almost every day. She never wrote back.

For a year I checked the mailbox daily - the minute I got home from school. If it was empty, the first question I would ask my mother as I flew through the kitchen door was, "Was there a letter today?' There never was.

You may be wondering why I feel the need to write about this tonight -- isn't it just water under the bridge? Well, besides the fact that I kept hearing that one line: "When I was fourteen..." it is because it was a great hurt that I can now write hard and clear about.  

And if I have learned anything after six decades of living in this world, it is that we are never alone in the pain we have experienced. To feel dismissible when you are doing everything to connect with another human being is heartbreaking. It can make you want to "die young" -- as it did me.  So, if there is someone out there feeling this kind of loneliness -- I need for them to know, you are not alone.

For many people, their lives are filled to the brim with continuity and connection. They grow up in loving homes, they have the same friends throughout childhood, they are embarrassed by indulgent parents, and overwhelmed by a hyper vigilant community that knows everything about them and the details of their lives. 

 If you are one of those people, I can't tell you how much I envied you -- most my life.

But for some of us, life was lonely. We dreamed of familiarity, connection, continuity of place and people. When we finally had a friend, we were willing to do anything to keep that thread intact. And sometimes we made grave mistakes. We over compensated, we gave gifts that seem too generous, we called, wrote, texted more than we should, we hesitated to say "the hard things" for fear of being rejected or dismissed, we are too easily crushed and too quickly hurt. We take things too personally. We are too grateful one minute and too needy the next.

If you have lived a life filled with family, friendship, connection, and community you are blessed. If you have a friend who has come into your life and seems too needy, or too willing, or too eager to write, call, text -- please be patient and kind. If your child has a friend who moves away and writes them a letter - please encourage them to reply. It may be the single most important thing they do for another human being. Rejection hurts.  Childhood rejection is devastating -- even when it is done without malice or rancor -- which I am absolutely certain was the case with my Sunday School friend.  She was just a girl herself.  She just had a full life.  I was simply that extra drop that flowed over the edge of the cup.

But, I still remember the name of my friend. I still think about her all the time - almost 50 years later. I wonder if she ever read my letters -- on pretty stationery spritzed with Love's Baby Soft perfume and filled with all the details of a 14 year old's life in a strange new place where she felt more alone than ever before. 

 Did she like the four-leaf clovers I found, pressed, and tucked in with the program from my new school's homecoming festivities. Did she ever even read the poem about friendship that I finally found the courage to send?  Did she ever wonder whether the boy I told her about was kind or funny?  

She was beautiful and popular.  She had many friends.  Her life didn't change when I left. I was just a small, shy girl who she meant the world to. A church friend. But to me, she was my first real friend. 

 Sometimes, I just think of what she may have missed -- a lifelong relationship with someone who thought she was very, very special. Someone for whom she was a refuge of friendship, in an unfriendly world. Someone who would have never let her down.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection:

"There is no greater miracle
known to earth, than perfection
and an unbroken friendship."

 
I pray she knows that I would have been in her corner forever. I would have done anything to be the friend she may have needed someday - and could always turn to.

Since then I have been blessed by some amazing friendships. But being a friend is not something I am always confident about. I am often awkward in groups, I shut down if I feel insecure, I don't always know what to say, I take things too personally, I need a "job" to be at ease in social settings.  Yet I am always trying to be the friend I never had as a child, or as a teenager.

I don't think I am the only one who has ever felt "friendless."  Friendship is hard.  It requires a level of vulnerability that leaves us feeling naked in a crowd. It also requires trust in a Love that overarches those moments when we do feel alone in a world obsessed with group selfies, and accumulating "likes," on social media.  A love that can't be measured, apportioned, given, taken back, extended, or unfriended.

Elsewhere in her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy offers this encouragement to anyone who has ever felt lonely and friendless:

"Would existence without personal friends
be to you a blank? Then the time will come
when you will be solitary, left without sympathy;
but this seeming vacuum is already filled
with divine Love."

 
This statement was a promise for me as a fourteen year old girl waiting for a letter in the mail.  And tonight, as I look back at that chapter in my life, I realize God was always there in my heart.  I was filled with love and hope.  I was the one who had the courage and strength to love someone, even when there was no response.

Tonight I am writing as hard and clear as I can, about something that once hurt, but is now a memory of the sweet, shy girl I was. The girl who never stopped hoping.  I write, in hopes that it will help someone else remember how rare and remarkable it is - in this world - to be loved and believed in by another person.   And maybe - just maybe - to hold hands across the miles with someone else who feels alone.  If you write, I promise -- I will always answer.

offered with Love,

Kate

"write, hard and clear..."

"Don't cry out loud,
just keep it inside,
and learn how to hide
your feelings..."

Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud," was a theme song in my early twenties. Put on a smile, never let them know you were hurting, don't admit your mistakes or failures. How did that go?

It didn't work. By the time I was in my late twenties, I was bottoming out. I had a moderately successful career in education -- but that was about it. My relationships were in shambles -- all except for the ones where I held the purse strings and felt some sense of control. My body was falling apart, and I felt scattered all over the philosophical map -- a spiritual homelessness that I pretended didn't bother me. Sometimes it takes something as minute as a pinprick to burst the bubble of denial. Mine seemed like a slow leak.

Recently I came across a quote that served as a reminder that my journey back from the facade of self-certain control about my "story," came in a series of small moments. Ernest Hemingway once advised:

"Write hard and clear
about what hurts."  

That statement scared me. The things that hurt were ugly. I felt exposed and broken whenever I even thought about them -- how would I ever be able to write them down? And yet, I knew writing was one of my great loves. But I also knew that if I was ever to be able to write with conviction, I would one day have to find a way to write about the darkness -- in order that it might give context to the light.

After coming back into a working relationship with God - through the study and practice of Christian Science - I felt that there was so much that I was grateful for -- and I had to write about it. My life was transforming, my heart was healing, and my hopes were soaring. I wanted that to be my only story.  

But everything I wrote felt pale to me. It was all daystar. A healing of self-worth almost disappeared without the contextual backdrop of decades filled with self-destructive behavior. To the most distant star, is the night ever too dark? I thought it was. I wanted a new setting. I longed for the beautiful, good, and true to be the only page on which my life-story was written.

The problem with that was, that it just wasn't true. 

 So, now to the purpose of this post, which is ultimately the purpose of this blog.  Here it is.  I needed to say to anyone who felt that their story was too ugly to acknowledge or own, "you are not alone."  You see, I had felt so alone for so many years. I couldn't imagine that any spiritually-inspired person -- engaged in a healing ministry -- could have a story as dark as mine. It made me feel like an imposter.

That was, until I met a woman who wasn't afraid of her truth. In fact, she used the darkness of her childhood as a platform for the brightness of the lamp that God had lit in her heart.

She reminded me that Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

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

Note the capitalization of the word "truth." The lower case truth denotes the actuality of our human experience. The upper case Truth points to the fact that God is All-in-all. That there is no moment, situation, experience or memory that is without God's presence, power, and love. To deny my life as ugly and dismissible, was to deny that God was All-in-all. I needed to own those stories, not as human mistakes or failures, but as a divine adventure in which I could find the face of God in the most tragic moments.

I remember one very specific memory that haunted me for decades. I was being serially threatened by someone I should have been able to trust to care for me. It left me feeling like a small animal that didn't deserve to be treated humanely. But reclaiming that moment for God and recasting the story as an opportunity to find the face of God in the midst of darkness, I began to see that right there, right in those moments of terror and humiliation, I was aware that what was happening was wrong. I was clear and sure that what I was experiencing was not the way that a child should be treated.

It took me five decades to write that story. I wrote it hard and clear. I wrote it honestly and I wrote it with God - and not a frightened child or an evil grown-up - as the main character. I was able to write with complete honesty about my hurt, without having it hurt me any longer. If fact, that story elicited hundreds of notes, calls, and comments from men and women who had faced similar life-narratives. 

I found that when I write about what is hard, it suddenly becomes clear that God was always there, always with me, always giving me the courage, wisdom, strength to navigate each experience.

Elsewhere in his vast archive of advice on writing Hemingway states:

"All you have to do
is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence you know."

 
The truest sentence I know is always the one that has God as it's subject, love as its verb -- and me - as the one who has experienced the presence and power of that love - as its object. I can only write a true sentence from my own experience -- and hope it reminds others that they are not alone.

This is the reason I write, this is the reason I pick up the phone, this is the reason I do everything I do -- to let someone know that they are not along in the darkness -- or a pale insignificant star in the harsh light of their day.

Today, I cry out loud, and I listen quietly. I am grateful to have learned to write hard and clear about what hurts -- so that it is defanged and doesn't hurt anymore. Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Think of this, dear reader,
for it will lift the sackcloth
from your eyes, and you will behold
the soft-winged dove descending upon you.

The very circumstance, which your suffering
sense deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares.

Then thought gently whispers:
“Come hither! Arise from your false
consciousness into the true sense of Love,
and behold the Lamb’s wife, — Love
wedded to its own spiritual idea.”

." 
May you feel this wedded bliss with your one true Love - the main character in every story.    


offered with Love,

Kate

"As a tale that is told..."

"Lay down your burdens,
I will carry you,
I will carry you,
my child,
my child..."

Amy Grant's new CD, How Mercy Looks from Here, launched today. But it's her classic, "I Will Carry You," that swept through my heart one night. I'd tossed and turned for hours.  I was burdened by a passel of stories lying so heavy on my heart that I almost couldn't breathe. And the feeling was no longer isolated to the realm of the mental and emotional, it had become physical.

As my husband rested peacefully beside me, and the girls were nestled snuggly in their rooms, I was wandering the hallways of "what" and "why" -- as if it was there, that I would find were a reasonable "cause" for the pain I was in.

I needed to think clearly, and the only relief I could find from the discomfort was in a hot bath. Slipping into my favorite middle-of-the-night sanctuary all was quiet. Buoyed in the silence of warm water I felt less distracted by the weight of the pain. I was able to listen more clearly for God's voice. And that's when the first strains of Amy's "I will carry you..." washed over me.  I let it's message lead me, and  I let go.

I opened my hands and released all that I had been grasping for.  I let my desire for a reason-able story -- one that would somehow explain what I needed to pray about --  fall away.  And I drifted ever deeper -- effortlessly -- into a conscious awareness of God's love.

The next thought that came washing through me was a Psalm:

"We live our lives

as a tale that is told..." 

Ah yes, this is exactly what I been searching for. I needed to be reminded that I could, actually, let the stories dissolve -- to go from being well-developed personal memoirs into mere words strung together on a timeline, and from word strings into a collection of letters, and from letters into strokes of a pen, and from the stroke of a pen, into ink that softly dissolved into the watery ether -- the buoying omni-presence of His abiding love. They were not mine, because they were not His.

The bath became a womb for my most childlike, pure, peaceful, and innocent self. I was not an anthology -- a compendium of dramas, tragedies, love sagas, and the occasional comedy. I didn't have to carry this "me" encyclopedia around, and unpack it as my identity.   It wasn't ever going to be a reliable reference for discovering what was causative each time that "me" wondered "why."

My only "why": "because God sent me into this moment for a holy purpose." My only thought: "Thy will be done." My one true feeling, "an abiding trust in Him."

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her small collection, Pulpit and Press:

"You have simply to maintain
a positive, scientific sense of unity
with your divine Source
and daily demonstrate this."

I could do that.

Yes, I could always do just that.

 The rest I placed in God's hands -- joyfully acknowledging, now and forever, His supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

with Love,

Kate

"Am I only dreaming..."

"...Do you understand
Do you feel the same
Am I only dreaming
Is this burning an eternal flame..."
- The Bangles

In their 1980s classic, "Eternal Flame," the Bangles ask, "Am I only dreaming?" I thought I would always know, without a shadow of a doubt, the answer to that question...until one morning.

You see, I've always been a lucid dreamer.  From the time I was a little girl...in fact, for as far back as I can remember...I've thought of dreaming as my own alternate universe.  And it was a dimension I loved...alot.   I've flown over mountains and through river canyons, with nothing more than my arms for wings, and only a slight leaning of my head, in one direction or another,  to steer by.  I've shared space with fairies and talking sea turtles on whose backs I've crossed great seas.  

I've always known when I was dreaming and when things got scary in a dream, I could "change channels," move my attention over to another, less threatening dream for a while, and avoid what was frightening or uncomfortable...returning to the orginal dream when I thought we'd gotten through the scary parts.   Or just wake up!  It was always my choice.

Dreaming was my escape, my vacation.  I liked dreaming, and I was pretty adept at it.  I knew how to create the optimal situation for dreaming.  I had mastered the art of the dream.  If I slept for four to five hours, woke up for at least ten minutes...but no more than thirty,...and then went back to sleep, I could be fully engaged in a very realistic dream within minutes.  My dreams were rarely "nightmares."  Life itself was usually more nightmarish than my dreams.

I became good at living "on purpose" in my dreams as well.  As a spiritual healer I often prayed, gave treatments, and saw patients in my dreams.  My dreams were becoming as real to me as my everyday life.  For the most part,  both were populated by the same people, although there were characters in each...my day life and my night life...that did not exist in both.  For many, many years I did not take issue with this strange co-existence...but all that began to change when I started probing the acuracy of my own version of what I considered "reality".

For over two decades I'd held onto hard-to-dismiss, heart-shattered feelings about something someone had said to me.  In my daydreams I would rehearse a conversation in which I imagined myself confronting the person, having my say, and smartly turning on my heels, leaving with my dignity...and my recovered self-worth...in tact.   But I never felt like I had the courage,  the confidence, or the steely, flint-like heart...to say it all.

One morning, however, after returning home from a very early pre-dawn trip to the airport to drop off a friend, instead of heading straight into the office for an early work day, I very clearly heard a voice urging me to return to bed and get a bit more rest.  It came on the heels of long week of sleepless nights full of prayer, listening, writing, and study.  This message was gentle and kind.   It was not a message of avoidance or escape.  It did not feel like the hypnotic, snakelike suggestion of "go to sleep, go to sleep...."  --  I knew that one pretty well - this was a voice of genuine love.  And I was obedient.

Within moments I was asleep and dreaming.   And it was a vivid, realistic dream.  In it, I was able to approach the person I'd long-imagined confronting, and I spoke my mind, didn't wait around for a response, but turned on my heels...just as I had planned to for two decades...and left feeling completely self-justified.

But it didn't end there...in my dream, it immediately became clear that what I had said was ill-timed and just plain wrong...and mean.  New information came to light quickly, and I was horrified by what I'd done.  But it was also clear that what I had said (and more importantly, the way I'd said it) could not be taken back, would have long term ramifications, and would cause a schism in an important relationship.  I was left with a stricken view of myself and my actions.   I had betrayed my highest sense of my self...and I would have done anything to turn back the hands of time and have the option of never having said a word.

That was when I woke up and realized it was just a dream.   I was so happy I started to smile..and then sighed with great relief.  I jumped out of bed and got started on my day.  As I was standing in the kitchen, the doorbell rang, and when I opened the front door, to my surprise the person I'd confronted in my dream was standing there.  I was thrilled to see them...in light of what I'd discovered about my misperceptions in my dream...and greeted them with an ebullent "good morning."  But imagine my horror when, the person looked at me with disappointment and derision, and  asked me what my confrontation from the day before had been about, and why I would say such things.  My friend was hurt and angry, and I realized I hadn't been dreaming at all.  Oh my gosh, I'd actually confronted them, and it had been as pointed, and devoid of emotion and pathos, as I'd always, sort of, hoped for...but now deeply regretted.

And that was when I woke up...again.  I'd been dreaming again. But now, I was awake.  Again, I was so happy.  Whew!!

But to my horror, this happened three more times.  Just when I thought I was awake, and that it would all be okay because I'd only "done it" in a dream, something would happen and I would discover that I'd actually said hurtful things, accused my friend of what I'd always believed them to have done, and had self-righteously stomped off full of my own self-certainty. And then I'd wake up again...in the dream...thinking I was awake. It was horrible.

I was living in my own version of a dreamer's "Ground Hog Day."  I didn't know how to wake myself up, and I didn't know if I was actually awake or asleep in each instance.  I wasn't sure if I would ever wake from the dream that I was unkind and judgmental, or if I was awake all along.   

Just when I was convinced that I really had been  horribly self-righteous, accusatory, and unkind to someone I loved...someone who I now realized had never really meant to hurt me -- or my feelings -- decades earlier, I heard the phone ringing.  I reached for the receiver, on the table next to my bed, and on the other end was the person I had so wrongly accused in my dream.  This is someone who never calls me in "real life," so now I am sure I am dreaming.  But this time, instead of hearing their hurt, confused, angrily perplexed tone of voice...in response to my accusatory confrontation..their voice was loving, light, kind, and warm. 

This time, I knew I was really awake.  This was the real voice of my friend.  One I hadn't been able to hear for two decades.  I realized that this was the voice that my friend had always used with me, but I had always been listening as if I was under water.  I had listened to every conversation, seen every situation, felt every emotion through the lens of a falsely perceived offense, and a repeatedly imagined (on my part) self-defensive retort.    I was so ready to let it all go after my "Ground Hog Day" endless series of dreams, so that I could finally hear, see, feel...experience...our friendship, through the lens of Truth. 

Although the call seemed random in the course of things, since we rarely called one another anymore...I knew it was a divine gift.  Every step of that morning's journey into dreaming had been designed by a loving God.  My hand had been held all through that hellish experience by my loving, corrective divine Parent, who knew I was ready for freedom from the daydream I thought was real, as well as from the night dream I thought I wanted to escape into.

I discovered that for over two decades I had been dreaming everytime I thought about my friend as having hurt me.   I kept thinking I was awake, but as long as I was looking at my friend through the lens of a behavior that was less than Christlike...loving, kind, honest, pure, good, sincere, faithful...it didn't matter...I was dreaming.  It didn't matter whether I thought I was awake or asleep.  The burning hurt, anger, and roiling emotions I had fanned by imagining how I'd confront my "friend" was an eternal flame leaping at the tender places in my heart that could have held gentler feelings if only I'd been awake to who we both were as children of God.

When the dreaming finally left me feeling horrible about myself over, and over, and over, and over again..feeling as if I had said something I wished I could take back, and yet kept finding myself back in the dream...I was the, and I think only then, finally ready to let go of the dreaming on all levels...awake or asleep.   I could see my friend as they had really always been...kind, loving, joyful, genuine...as my friend.  Not someone I needed to confront, but someone I was honored to be in a relationship with.  The buried feelings of hurt and anguish were gone with the real light of day.   All I could see, hear, feel...was the presence of a friend.   And as Mary Baker Eddy says:

"One wonders that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful."

When we wake up to the truth of being...the truth that God is All-in-all, at all times, in all situations, and under all circumstances...one can't help but wonder how anyone can every seem less than beautiful to us.

My love for escapist dreaming ended that morning.  I have been dream-free, at least in the traditional sense of escaping-reality-with-my-head-on-a-pillow kind of dreaming...ever since.  I rest well, and I now know that the only reality I am willing to experience, is the one that has the character and nature of the Christ.  I am only willing to enter a reality that looks at every single moment through the lens of Love...the expectation of good in, and of, everyone...including myself.   I really, really like living lucidly, loving expansively, and soaring above the clouds of personal sense...right here, right now, all the time, waking or sleeping...but always learning. Now my dream-related hope is that I can fly through the Grand Canyon, consort with fairies, and sail the seven seas with singing sea turtles...in my waking hours!!!

Always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS