"to be known, rather than remembered.."

"memory,
i can dream
of the old days,
life was
beautiful then..."

I've never really liked this song. But, that said, it is the perfect keynote for this post. And if I have to listen to it, I would prefer to hear Barbra Steisand's version of "Memory," than any other.

This experience was pivotal in my understanding of healing. It happened over thirty years ago, but the Truth I discovered that day, is as fresh today as the day it flooded my heart.

A relationship that meant everything to me was falling apart at the seams. It would seem that whatever had drawn us together in the beginning had been lost forever. For the other person, but not for me. I wanted our relationship to continue so desperately. I loved him with every ounce of my being.

It was clear to me that he was just not remembering how good it was. How amazing it had been. All the reasons that we had come together in the first place. So I sent him cards filled with reminders. "Remember our first date? Remember those early months when we couldn't wait to meet at the end of the day and share our inspiration and insights. Remember that trip to...

The more I remembered, the farther away he moved from the closeness we had once enjoyed. I felt bereft. It was so easy for me to remember. And I thought those memories were our lifeline back to all the good we had known together.

One day, when things were at their darkest, I woke to a late spring snow storm. The roads were impassable. It would be a "snow day" for me whether I wanted to be home alone or not. And during that time, home alone was excruciating. So many reminders of "how good it had been."

I knew I couldn't "go there," so I made myself a cup of tea and pulled my books, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, off of my desk and curled up in front of the wood stove for a morning of study.

I don't remember what the theme of that week's scriptural study was, but I do remember two things that shifted my heart. One, was the story of Peter's raising of Tabitha from Acts 9, starting at verse 36. Following her passing after an illness, Peter is called to her home, where he finds her friends - weeping widows who who brought him to the upper chamber where she lay surrounded by some of the coats and garments she had made while she was alive.

But it is this next passage that woke me up:

“But Peter
put them all forth..."
 

I got it. It was suddenly so clear to me. I, too, was clinging to memorials. When all along, divine Love was breathing fresh purpose into our relationship. Immediately on the heels of that realization, a statement from Science and Health came to mind:

“If a friend be with us,
why need we memorials
of that friend."
 

I knew I had to let go of all the "reasons" from the past. My loved one didn't need to be bombarded with memories, he needed to be trusted. He needed for me to release us both from the past. If we were to continue, it would be because God's purpose for our relationship was still vital to His plan for us.

Another statement from Science and Health helped me arrest that behavior. Eddy says:

"Make no unnecessary inquiries
relative to feelings or disease."
 

So I stopped. Cold turkey. I stopped asking him how he felt. I stopped wondering "what if..." I worked every day to simply show up in the presence of God's purpose for us.

This isn't about a nice, neatly tied up "healing" of a relationship. Each day we each showed up willing to discover more about our love for God, through our love for each other. But most importantly, I stopped looking backwards to affirm or define my relationships -- with God, with my loved ones, with my body. It allows relationships to evolve with purpose. It requires the discipleship of knowing -- versus remembering It's a spiritual demand that takes devout focus on loving God as the only "I am."

And isn't this what Peter was so clear about. Tabitha wasn't a memory, she was an idea of God. A reflection of divine Mind. And I love the definition of the word "reflect," as "deep thinking or pondering." Tabitha was God was thinking, not what he was remembering. And Peter knew that he too could know her, not through the widow's memorials, but through an understanding of her present identity.

This would have been so edifying for Peter -- the last thing we would have wanted, was to be remembered for his past denials of Christ, but known for the faithful man of God, the faithful apostle he was day-by-day as he fulfilled his holy purpose.

This spiritual demand to know, rather than remember, blesses everyone and everything. I once thought of myself as someone with a great memory. Now I know myself as someone who knows - not remembers - God. As someone who knows Love. It is enough.


offered with Love,

Kate

"to know, know, know You..."

"to know, 
know, know Him,
is to love, love, love Him;
and I do..."

 Sometimes, when I read the Psalm, "Be still, and I know that I am God," I hear Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, and Dolly Parton's To Know Him is to Love Him," as the background music -- when it's not The Fray's "Be still, be still and know..."  Not all the lyrics, usually just those first few lines.

I love that the Psalmist encourages us to know God. For most of my life I confused knowing God, with thinking about God. But knowing is very different from thinking.

Webster's defines "knowing" as: 

"to have developed 
a relationship with (someone) 
through meeting 
and spending time with them; 
to be familiar or friendly with..." 

Thinking about God, is not the same as really knowing God.  Relationships require something more than just thinking about the one we love.  They require listening, the sacrifice of one's own self-certainties, exploring common ground, and spending time together in discovery.

In the context of this kind of knowing, it is incumbent upon us to make space for a relationship that isn't just cognitive, but experiential.  The Psalmist encourages us to discover how it actually feels to know God.  To allow ourselves to feel our oneness with divine Love.  To let ourselves experience the sweetness of carving out time each day for communion with our first love -- God.  To trust God -- a little more -- with each challenge.  

Jesus -- who, more than any other, gave us an example of what it means to be "in relationship" with God -- encourages this kind of knowing when he said:

"Ye shall know the Truth, 
and the Truth shall make you free."  

God is Truth.  So, if we know -- are in relationship with -- God, we are made free.  Free of fear, because we are in relationship with Someone who we know loves us, has all the power in the Universe, and is always present.  With that kind of a Father, why would be ever be afraid? 

We are free of the need to figure things out -- in hopes of avoiding the discomfort of feeling exposed and vulnerable to all the "what ifs" of human thinking.  For this is what the human mind does -- it thinks.  It thinks about things.  The human mind does not have the capacity to know.  Only to think about.  It remembers, imagines, speculates, and wonders about.  It is never really at peace.  It is always mulling things over, adding up pros and cons, figuring out a plan, imagining a strategy, wanting, wishing, worrying.

For me, knowing is a feeling.  It is the way a child feels when she is lying in the arms of Someone with whom there is no need for words.  It is the feeling of not needing to think about anything -- just feel.  In her "little book," Rudimental Divine Science, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

"You must feel and know
that God alone governs man..." 

Not think about and then hopefully feel.  But feel and know.  the integration of the affection and intuition -- of Love and Mind.   To feel the love of God is to know the love of God.  Knowing is synonymous with feeling -- not thinking about.  And this feeling -- and knowing -- is a promise, not a suggestion.  She lovingly states that we must experience God in this way.

To know God is not an activity of the human mind, it is a feeling of the heart.  It is what we experience when we stop all the thinking, and discover that we are always being held in the arms of a loving parent who we know -- loves us beyond measure.

offered with Love,

Kate

"know, just know..."

"Be still, and know that I'm with you.
Be still, and know that I am here.
Be still, be still, and know..."

In the darkness, peace felt fragile. Every mistake I'd ever made seemed to parade itself across the backdrop of my closed eyes. Sleep evaded me.

I had been lying there for hours, rehashing decisions that seemed so much clearer in hindsight. I was so tired of being haunted by all the ways I could have done things differently: gone to the right -- instead of the left, paused for one minute longer, held my peace -- instead of speaking. I was exhausted from thinking and re-thinking.

I lay there awash in regret while the house breathed its winter sounds. I'd been praying -- without ceasing -- when a simple scripture from the Psalms -- and one that is central in this beautiful lyric from The Fray's, "Be Still." broke through.

Be still. And know. I am. It was the perfect reminder. I needed to get off the hamster wheel of human thinking. I needed to be still, and know. Not think, but know. I stilled, not just my thrashing, sheet-twined body, but my unsettled heart. I lay on my back, folded my hands, and took long deep breaths until I felt the sweetness of a quiet mind.

Then I asked myself: what do you know to be true? Not, what do you think is true? But what do you absolutely know to be true -- right now. Then I listened. Within moments it came. "I know I am." It was simple and pure. I know that I am conscious. I know that I am aware of loving my husband, my children. I know that I am capable of gratitude -- right now. I know that I still [always, persistently, nevertheless] love God, good. I know that I am able to be truthful, quiet, humble, loving.

It may not seem like a profound insight -- but in the dark, when the demons of regret are circling and thoughts rush around like wild creatures in an approaching storm -- it is like having the gentling hand of a divine Parent rest upon your heart.

I didn't fall asleep immediately that night. But the darkness changed from foreboding to comforting. I felt swaddled in the stillness like an infant -- it's closeness calming my heart and mind. Thinking gave way to knowing, and in that knowing there was a sweet peace.

In Scripture, John tell us:

"Yes shall know the Truth,
and the Truth shall make you free." 

He didn't say, "ye shall think the truth, and the truth shall make you free," but know. The different between thinking and knowing is a profound one for me. There is a peace in knowing what I know vs. thinking about something.

I didn't have to do battle with those demons -- Mind, God, had asserted Its divine authority. Knowing, overwhelmed human thought-taking. Gratitude for what I absolutely knew to be true, swept away the cobwebs of speculation, regret, memory, and imagination. The final chapter of Mary Baker Eddy's textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, titled "Fruitage," includes testimonies of healing. C.B.G. of Hudson, Massachusetts shares this experience - and it so perfectly describes what I felt that night -- and continue to feel, each time thinking yields to knowing:

"I closed the book and with head bowed in prayer
I waited with longing intensity for some answer.
How long I waited I do not know, but suddenly,
like a wonderful burst of sunlight after a storm,
came clearly this thought,

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

I held my breath — deep into my hungering thought
sank the infinite meaning of that “I.”
All self-conceit, egotism, selfishness, everything
that constitutes the mortal “I,” sank abashed
out of sight. I trod, as it were, on holy ground.
Words are inadequate to convey the fulness of that
spiritual uplifting, but others who have had similar
experiences will understand. From that hour I have had
an intelligent consciousness of the ever-presence
of an infinite God who is only good." 

For me, this knowing space, is a place of such profound peace that I never want to leave it. I find myself looking for ways to return to it throughout each day. I seek the quiet spaces, the covert places, where I can curl myself into the knowing - the I am of being.  I curl into the consciousness that "Love alone as Life."  And it is in this place of stillness --  this nevertheless-ness that I remember what I know. It is the place I love.

offered with Love,

Kate

"to know the Truth..."

"You are the one that we praise,
You are the one we adore,
You give the healing and grace,
our hearts always hunger for..."

Selah's recording of "Wonderful, Merciful Savior" was just the simple message my heart was hungering for today.

I have been thinking about two Scriptural messages this afternoon:

"Ye shall know the Truth,
and the Truth shall make you free."

and:

"Be still and know,
that I am God."

These are simple messages. And this is a simple post. I have spent the last few years quietly aware of the difference between thinking and knowing. For me, thinking happens in the head, while knowing is a presence in the heart. Thinking is the human mind doing what it love best -- reasoning, assessing, processing. While knowing is the silencing of the human mind and giving space to the radiance of divine Truth flowing from the kingdom of God -- within.

I have become keenly aware of how often the human mind wants to justify itself by thinking about God. But Consciousness is not waiting for the engagement of the human mind. Consciousness -- the ever-presence of the divine Mind - as impartial and universal Love -- is not contingent upon an engaged human thinker -- any more than the law of gravity is contingent upon our thinking about it's operation, in order for us to be held to the earth.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote:

"Whether mankind will every consciously
follow the law of Love, I do not know.
But he law will work, just as
the law of gravitation will work,
whether we accept it our not."

The egoic human mind loves to think that it is a vital partner in the operation of divine law. It needs to feel that its cooperation is necessary for God to be God. But whether we are thinking about God, or just letting God be All-in-all to us, it doesn't change this ever-operative law of Love.

I read, I pray, I study, I worship -- because I love God. Not because God needs my consent in order to be God to me. I love reading about His nature, listening for His voice, hungering for ways to celebrate my love for Him. Loving Him is what I know in the very deepest part of me. It is not something I have to think about. I just know it. And what I know, frees me from what I think.  


offered with Love,

Kate

"be still, be still, and know..."

"Be still, and know that I'm with you.
Be still, and know that I am here.
Be still, be still, and know..."

In the darkness, peace felt fragile. Every mistake I'd ever made seemed to parade itself across the backdrop of my closed eyes. Sleep evaded me.

I had been lying there for hours, rehashing decisions that seemed so much clearer in hindsight. I was so tired of being haunted by all the ways I could have done things differently: gone to the right -- instead of the left, paused for one minute longer, held my peace -- instead of speaking. I was exhausted from thinking and re-thinking.

I lay there awash in regret while the house breathed its winter sounds. I'd been praying -- without ceasing -- when a simple scripture from the Psalms -- and one that is central in this beautiful lyric from The Fray's, "Be Still." broke through.

Be still. And know. I am. It was the perfect reminder. I needed to get off the hamster wheel of human thinking. I needed to be still, and know. Not think, but know. I stilled, not just my thrashing, sheet-twined body, but my unsettled heart. I lay on my back, folded my hands, and took long deep breaths until I felt the sweetness of a quiet mind.

Then I asked myself: what do you know to be true? Not, what do you think is true? But what do you absolutely know to be true -- right now. Then I listened. Within moments it came. "I know I am." It was simple and pure. I know that I am conscious. I know that I am aware of loving my husband, my children. I know that I am capable of gratitude -- right now. I know that I still [always, persistently, nevertheless] love God, good. I know that I am able to be truthful, quiet, humble, loving.

It may not seem like a profound insight -- but in the dark, when the demons of regret are circling and thoughts rush around like wild creatures in an approaching storm -- it is like having the gentling hand of a divine Parent rest upon your heart.

I didn't fall asleep immediately that night. But the darkness changed from foreboding to comforting. I felt swaddled in the stillness like an infant -- it's closeness calming my heart and mind. Thinking gave way to knowing, and in that knowing there was a sweet peace.

In Scripture, John tell us:

"Yes shall know the Truth,
and the Truth shall make you free." 

He didn't say, "ye shall think the truth, and the truth shall make you free," but know. The different between thinking and knowing is a profound one for me. There is a peace in knowing what I know vs. thinking about something.

I didn't have to do battle with those demons -- Mind, God, had asserted Its divine authority. Knowing, overwhelmed human thought-taking. Gratitude for what I absolutely knew to be true, swept away the cobwebs of speculation, regret, memory, and imagination. The final chapter of Mary Baker Eddy's textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, titled "Fruitage," includes testimonies of healing. C.B.G. of Hudson, Massachusetts shares this experience - and it so perfectly describes what I felt that night -- and continue to feel, each time thinking yields to knowing:

"I closed the book and with head bowed in prayer
I waited with longing intensity for some answer.
How long I waited I do not know, but suddenly,
like a wonderful burst of sunlight after a storm,
came clearly this thought,

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

I held my breath — deep into my hungering thought
sank the infinite meaning of that “I.”
All self-conceit, egotism, selfishness, everything
that constitutes the mortal “I,” sank abashed
out of sight. I trod, as it were, on holy ground.
Words are inadequate to convey the fulness of that
spiritual uplifting, but others who have had similar
experiences will understand. From that hour I have had
an intelligent consciousness of the ever-presence
of an infinite God who is only good." 

For me, this knowing space, is a place of such profound peace that I never want to leave it. I find myself looking for ways to return to it throughout each day. I seek the quiet spaces, the covert places, where I can curl myself into the knowing -- the I am of being, the consciousness of Love alone as Life. It is the place of stillness -- nevertheless-ness. It is the place I love.

offered with Love,

Kate

"she knew..."

"Mary did you know
that your baby boy
would give sight
to a blind man..."

"Sometimes a light surprises," one loved hymn suggests. Today was a day of surprising illumination for me.  First, I discovered Ceelo Green's breath-taking version of "Mary Did You Know?," from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett's film, The Bible. But that wasn't the only light that took my breath away today.  The other will never leave me.

I love going to church. I love hearing scripture read aloud. This morning I felt like a child listening to loved stories at bedtime. As I was savoring the familiar passages from Luke -- ones that recount Mary's conception of Jesus, her run to Elisabeth's house to confirm the miracle of her cousin's pregnancy, and her "Magnificat," her song of praise -- I sensed something was missing.

I looked at the citations included in the passages being shared, and there was a gap. So, I opened the Bible lying next to me, and read:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced
in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded
the low estate of his handmaiden:

for, behold,
from henceforth all generations
shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty
hath done to me great things;
and holy is his name.

And his mercy
is on them that fear him
from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength
with his arm;
he hath scattered the proud
in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty
from their seats,
and exalted them
of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry
with good things;
and the rich
he hath sent empty away.

He hath holpen
his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers,
to Abraham,
and to his seed for ever..." 

Oh, she knew.

This was no frightened girl. This was a wise, inspired young woman. I don't know why I'd marginalized her as timid maiden who'd been swept up in God's plan for humanity -- a human vessel for incubating the divine idea.  But that paradigm was shattered this morning. I held my breath in awe of this strong, consciously willing, inspired woman of God.

In the breadth of a heartbeat she became something more to me than she'd ever been before. Her story was no longer that of a human mother following her beloved son -- hoping for a moment of audience with him.  An over-attentive mom, eager to see him succeed.

No, she too was God-appointed.  Her's was a life-long mission -- and she knew it.  She was wise enough to be still. Prudent enough to "hold these things in her heart." She knew when to speak, and when to be silent. But she never forgot.

She was the first harbinger of salvation. Hers was the first voice to proclaim the advancing reign of humility, charity, and grace. She was the one person who was always with him, from Bethlehem to Calvary -- and was waiting at the tomb.

She not only carried his body in her womb, but his mission and his purpose in her heart. And it was she who refused to let anyone -- even Jesus himself -- forget the promise.

She was not just his livery, but his teacher. Not just his mother, but the one who knew -- and remembered. I can only imagine the lessons in courage, trust, grace, and self-surrender she taught her son.

This morning she came alive for me in a new way. And I can answer, without a shadow of a doubt, that the woman who said, "be it unto me, according to Thy word," - knew her son would give sight to a blind man, recommend charity, raise the dead, feed the hungry, exalt humility, denounce self-righteousness, and bring salvation to a waiting world.

Yes, I am completely certain that she knew.

humbly offered,

Kate