"all I have needed...."

"all I have needed
Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness,
Lord unto me..."

There are songs that feed my soul when I am sad, or lonely, or just feeling a bit disconnected from my best self. This afternoon, it was Chris Rice's version of "Great is Thy Faithfulness." I wasn't searching for it -- it was just there. Like a reminder. Like a prayer.

I would like to think that I am immune to the way that others treat me, those I love, and those I have yet to meet -- locally and globally. But I think, that at least for me, this would signal my ascension -- the ultimate dissolution of the ego. I am obviously not there. But every day I seek the grace to let the opinions and actions of others inform me less. I am discovering that this grace is, truly, all that I need.

I've never felt this need more clearly. It has breathed new life into a favorite passage from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"What we most need, is the prayer
of fervent desire for growth in grace,
expressed in patience, meekness, love,
and good deeds."  

Yes, this grace is what I most need. But, it is also already what I most desire -- fervently.

Over the years I have written about healings I have experienced. About character traits transformed. About physical challenges overcome. About financial needs met. But, it is this wrestling match with the ego that continues to give me a run for my spiritual money. 

Why am I ever surprised by this? Isn't this what would keep us from feeling the spiritual freedom we ultimately seek? The ego -- which is never personal -- is simply that false sense of being. One which constantly asserts that we are separate entities from the one Source of all existence -- God.

The ego says, "You are special. You started from unique circumstances -- good, bad, privileged, doomed. You have the opportunity to either exploit this personal good, or overcome the unfortunate circumstances of your life. You can change it all. You are self-determined and self-created. You are the master of your own destiny. Now, mortal, go make something great of yourself -- or screw it up royally.  It's all up to you."

But this kind of thinking can also lead to self-blame, feelings of inadequacy, failure, victimization. "If only I..."

Where is God in either of these equations? The Divine is relegated to a help meet -- serving our self-determined, or self-condemning, agendas. This God is neither omnipotent, nor omniscient. This Deity needs our consent -- our spiritual buy-in -- to have any power. This not-so-all-knowing, knows only what we tell Him we want or need. This God is not the Source of our being, but the biased arbiter of our success or failure.

This is what the ego presents -- a self-determined mortal on the treadmill of his/her own design. And it is a treadmill that will never stop turning. Churning out endless scenarios of self. One minute a self that achieves, the next minute a self that can be deceived or deceiving. One day a testimony of healing, the next a nightmare of pain.  In one scene a confident spiritual healer, the next a fragile ego on the brink of tears.

Our only hope is grace. Grace, among other definitions, is the "unmerited and unearned favor of God." Ahhh -- this is where a fathomless peace lies. Not in our own efforts, but in an effortless trust in His/Her faithfulness -- in the unconditional and impartial nature of Love -- a love that is not personally circumscribed, but universally giving. A love like the sun -- that shines on the dandelion, as brightly as on the rose.

Tonight, I am leaning into that grace. I am kicking the ego out of its hiding place -- under a thin-skinned mortal sense of self. I am trusting Love to be impartial -- to pour It's grace upon us all - to refresh and renew every heart in the healing waters of God's all-presence.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Everywhere..."

"I need you everywhere,
and as long as you're beside me
I need never care
For to love you is to
have you everywhere..."
-     John Lennon

I know that the original lyrics to Lennon's "Here, and There, and Everywhere," were written for a girl...but, that's just not the way I hear it these days.   Please forgive the liberty I have taken here....again.

It all started last fall, when I was writing a post about the omnipresences of Spirit, sharing a healing I'd experienced on the heels of realizing that any suggestion of something -- good or bad -- being exclusive to one location, person, body part, activity, etc....and not to another...is a lie.  A lie.  The opposite of the truth.  Not even a little bit true.  Not containing even one tiny molecule of truth.  No matter how good it may look, or how bad it may feel, it is a lie.  Period. 

Mary Baker Eddy promises in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that:

"Love (God) is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."

In the study and practice of Christian Science, the word "Love," when capitalized, is another name for God...along with Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, and Truth.  These terms, or names, are synonymous - meaning that they are interchangeable...that the presence of one, directly implies the presence of the others. So, for example, if Love, as Eddy promises, is impartial and universal, so is Principle (order), Soul (beauty), Life (vitality), Mind (intelligence),  Spirit (substance), Truth (health).

I have come to see that this law of universal impartiality is the truth about God's relationship to each of us...individually and collectively.  It is a law that is reliable and foundational to our trust in Him as our Father...a Father who has no favorites. He never plays one child against another in His universal family.  And this truth holds us in a closer, gentler bond of sweet union and affection ...it embraces us in the gospel (the good news) of His generous, impartial Love.  The children in this family never need to compete for their divine Parent's affection, attention, resources, or time.  What a wonderful place to grow up!

I wonder sometimes, though, if we really live out from the liberty that this truth affords.  We talk about Spirit, God, being All-in-all.  And our prayers sing of a God who is omni-present...both present - as in everywhere, and present - as in always,  "now," in this moment.  But do we really trust these promises? Do we rest our hopes, our expectations,  and our freedom from the fear of "well, that's great for him/her...but not for me," upon them?

The other day I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) on my drive across Kansas.  Reports of a stalled financial recovery and the ongoing collapse of the housing market, were followed by stories of congressional resistance to extended unemployment benefits, corporate corruption that continues to result in exorbitantly inflated bonuses for CEOs, and then, a heart-rending account of a young father who'd been the responsible provider for his family, until his middle management job had been cut and the loss of income was forcing them out of their home. Here was a man who desperately wants to work, but can't find a job...any job. 

My heart was sick, and soon my tummy was feeling sick, too.  I could easily see the cause-and-effect connection that wanted to present itself: "See Kate, you are completely upset by the ample evidence that God's love for humanity is partial and exclusive...resulting in growing a socio-economic caste system of haves and have-nots, therefore you are experiencing this unsettledness as an upset stomach."  But I knew that this kind of reasoning would get me nowhere. I needed to start with the truth of being, not lies, if I was going to get anywhere in addressing this turmoil.

I turned off the radio.  And as I began to pray for peace in my heart...and my tummy...I was reminded of the healing I'd experienced last fall, and the truth of God's universal omnipresence I'd come to trust, return to, and rely on, pretty consistently since then.  I reminded myself that if something...good, or bad...seems localized, it is a sure sign that it is a lie.   Truth, being synonymous with Spirit, cannot be contained, personalized, partial,  portioned, isolated, or exclusively experienced...by a segment of society, or a body part.

I prayed out from God's impartiality.  I claimed that the only things that were, or ever could be experienced as true and real, were those things that can't be localized.  Things like joy and peace...have you ever tried to feel peace only in your ear or your elbow, affection only in your wrist, or hope in your little toe.  But, even though my tummy was soon feeling well again, I couldn't seem to let the sense of sorrow go.  I found myself wrestling even more vigorously with the evidence of socio-economic inequity all around me.   I knew it wasn't going to dissolve without clear spiritual reasoning, so I persisted, continuing to go back to two of my base spiritual truths... over and over again:

"The starting point of divine Science is
that God, Spirit, is All-in-all,
and there is no other might, nor Mind."

and that:

"Love is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."

As I prayed for clearer insights and spiritual guidance, I saw that although I loved these statements from Science and Health,  somehow they weren't quite enough.  I wanted scriptural bedrock...the inspired word of the Bible as a place to build my mental house on. This was what I knew I was reaching for. 

As a spiritual law student, the Bible is my constitution...it constitutes the foundation on which I build, and rest, my case in defense of our God-given liberty as spiritual thinkers.  It is my divine law library where I can often be found, at all hours...day and night...seeking precedence for placing unshakeable trust on the timeless, irrefutable laws of Spirit.

Persisting in prayer throughout the day, God led me quietly, and quite forcibly, to the exact Biblical truth that would ground my faith, and steel my trust.

It's probably important to explain, here, that as a student of Christian Science, I accept the premise that the first Chapter of Genesis (through the third verse in Chapter 2) is the spiritual record of Creation.  And the fourth verse of Chapter 2 through Chapter 5, as allegorical examples of how the opposite of truth...or the opposition to truth...would present itself to our thinking, and thereby color our experiences.

And in the midst of my Scriptural study I found this:

"We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

YES!  Because this statement appears in the second chapter of Genesis, the record of creation that we believe is a lie...we get to thumb our nose at anything that mocks divine Love, anything that parades itself in front of humanity as injustice, inviting us to limit our hopes and defile our view of our Father and His love for us.   This false story refers to, and tries to get us to accept the false premise of a partial God, with a "special" tree.  It asserts that good and/or evil could be localized in one exclusive, and isolated, tree.  A lie.  And the fact that this story was placed in this "lying" second chapter of Genesis gives us the Biblical basis, the scriptural authority, for dismissing it as a fallacious tale...as an inversely instructive fable.  And by inversion, by stating what the lie, the opposite of the truth, looks and sounds like, it serves to point us towards the truth, God's impartial love...constitutional law for every citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  It gives each of us authority for rejecting this suggestion of divine selectivity, out of hand.

If something tries to say that goodness is here, and not there; that health is in one body part, but not throughout the entire system; if it tries to convince you that some have, and some don't, or that one person/group deserves good..justice, mercy, joy, peace, prosperity, wellness...and another doesn't, it is a bold-faced lie.  If you buy it in any form, it will come sneaking in through the back door of your experience, and bite you in the proverbial donkey.

Dismiss this lie of partiality with as much conviction as you would reject an imposed penalty for breaking an inhumane and unconstitutional law...therefore, a law that was never really a law to begin with...a law that never has, never is, and never will be... a law!  Dismiss it as confidently as if your neighbor came up to you one day and said that you were going to prison because you smiled on a Tuesday.  Well, you know, with absolute certainty, that there is no law that prevents you from smiling on Tuesday...so smile, laugh, kick up your heels, dance in the streets...you are free.  You are always free...impartially, universally, absolutely, spiritually, Biblically, joyfully free.

with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaniel Wilder 2010]