"Lord, remind me..."

"When children play on Christmas day
and snow is flung,

When I feel I haven't had a friend
since I was young,

When I'm feeling tired of myself
and everyone,

Lord remind me,
Lord remind me..."

I was looking for an Amy Grant song to keynote an earlier post when I stumbled upon this exquisite song by Jon and Valerie Guerra on Amy's Facebook page.

Sometimes a song comes along that begs its own post, "Lord Remind Me" is one of those songs.

The holiday season -- from Thanksgiving to the year's end -- has always been my favorite time of year. I cherish long-held traditions and nurture new ones that have found purchase in the sweet soil of our family home. The tree goes up the day before Thanksgiving, White Christmas. Little Women, The Holiday, and Love, Actually fill the screen that weekend. Then comes the Christmas music -- too many favorites to note. 

But my favorite "tradition" comes between December 1st and the 25th, when I pray with each of the twenty-four questions in the chapter, "Recapitulation" from Mary Baker Eddy's textbook for spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures as my version of an advent calendar. One question deeply pondered, each day, as we move towards Christmas -- and every year it transforms me.

But this year, although I have dutifully carried out each of these traditions -- as well as a few more -- I have felt a bit detached. Perhaps it's because its the first year that none of the children were here for me to lasso into choosing the tree, watching White Christmas, or baking pies.  And although I have felt a bit sad, I wasn't really doing anything about it. I was aware that the tree went up too quickly and I was alone in the kitchen while I baked cookies and listened to White Christmas, but I chalked it up to our version of empty nest syndrome after over three decades of day-to-day parenting.

That was when I fell upon "Lord Remind Me," and fell to my knees. The true meaning of Christmas came alive in me. This wasn't about trees and cookies, films and carols. It wasn't even about traditions long-loved. It was about something timeless and humbling. It was about remembering that nothing was impossible to God. It was about forgiveness and healing, about kings that kneeled before a baby, and a boy who trusted angels. It was about a girl who said, "yes," and the message of "on earth peace, good will to men."

Is there anything we need more today? Is there any message more timely, or a time more hungry for this message?

As Jon and Valerie sing with such reverence and humility:

"when I hear the news,
and hear another war's begun,
and I wonder if God's
on the side f either one,
I hear bullet, nail, or handcuff
you bore all of them,
and in the light
my heart's as dark as anyone's.

Lord remind me, Lord remind me
that the shepherds head the angels
break the silence in the field,
that the wise men found a baby
and they could not help but kneel

Lord remind me, cause its Christmas
and I want to remember..." 

And I do want to remember. I want to feel the power of this story drive me to my knees. I want to feel it change my heart and break through any sense of brittle self-certainty and icy indifference that might have gathered, like frost, on the tender places where I want to feel the heartbreak of my brothers and sisters in Aleppo, or Chicago, or Washington, DC.

There is a sweet, holy cry for the Christ to enter the manger of our hearts in this song:

"Tell me, how He loves me,
tell me, how he wants me,
tell me the story
like I've never heard before..." 

This is the part that broke through to the softest, deepest part of me. The words split me open and love for Him spilled from every part of my being. To think what he gave. To remember what he did. To know his love -- it is everything.

"...and I'll sing it
like the angels sing it,
with my whole heart sing it,
to Him who's worth
a thousand songs and more..." 

Hymns and carols came alive in me. My heart was an angel's heart singing from the stars. I walked out into the cold night and sang for him who loves us so. I lifted my voice in praise, and hope, and humble adoration for the child who brought kings to their knees, and for the man who would be king of kings.

I sang through tears of repentance and joy:

"Glory in the highest,
glory in the lowest,
glory that shines when nothing
seems to shine at all

Glory in the highest,
glory in the lowest
glory, Immanuel..." 

And isn't this the message of messages, "Immanuel..." which is translated, "God with us..." So tonight, I raised my voice to the heavens and sang, "Glory in the highest, glory in the lowest, glory Immanuel..."  Then, a flock of geese rose from the lake, circled above, and -- I like to believe -- carried that message in their own voices to the far corners of the earth.


offered with Love,

Kate

"the unspeakable gift..."

"Wonderful, merciful savior,
precious redeemer and friend --
Who would have thought that a lamb could
rescue the hearts of men..."

I realized today that I am not ready to return to "business as usual." I love this season. I love the focus on the nativity. On the life story of Jesus of Nazareth.

I was watching this  beautiful video of Selah's "Wonderful, Merciful Savior," and remembered how meaningful it was for me to discover Mary Baker Eddy's own love for Jesus. I've written about that night, briefly, in the post, "One December Night in 1910."

Since then I've seen how deeply she loved Jesus. Not just the Christ he embodied, but the man who was willing to be "the highest representative" of that office.

Sitting next to her bed that December night, looking up at the portrait of Jesus which hung on the opposite wall, in her direct line of sight from where she slept -- and faced her darkest moments -- I realized how important his example was for her...and is for me.

It is not just his divinity that inspires, but its coincident humanity. The bold boy, the eager student, the hard-working carpenter, the tired passenger, the patient teacher -- the tempted, the angry, the forsaken, the forgiving, the merciful -- the willing man of God, the playful son of Mary.

When I think of those "unspeakable gifts," we are asked to give thanks for, it is his humanity that chokes me up. Those are the "gifts" that leave me speechless. 

I think it's why I love this little film clip (with it's subtitles) that underscores Selah's, "Wonderful, Merciful." It reminds me that this was a boy, a woman's son, a father's apprentice, someone's friend. He was part of a community.

When I was in high school I served and participated actively on the teen board for my local Adventure Unlimited Chapter. I loved it so much. But because we only met for activities once a month and held board meetings even less frequently, and I often missed the camaraderie of those gatherings.

Fortunately, our rural high school had an active non-denominational youth group that met weekly to plan and host activities that were wholesome and fun. I loved this too, since most of my high school friends were active in this group.  And as much as I enjoyed bowling, or ice skating, it was the conversations that kept me coming back.

There was one in particular conversation that I will never forget. It was with a guy I'd watched from a distance for a long time. He was peaceful in a way that wasn't lonely. He seemed to be just as happy hacking around with his friends in the hallway at school, as he was sitting alone in the library staring out the window at a migrating community of geese.

I wanted what he had.

One night, after a dance at our town community center, he'd taken a break from the pick up basketball game in the gym to come sit outside and get some fresh air. I was there to find relief from the room-jarring noise level. 

 He sat down on the bench next to me, and didn't say anything for a while. So I didn't either. We knew one another well enough to say "hi" in the halls and to participate in group discussions about faith and politics, but we'd never spoken one-on-one.

After a few moments he asked me, "Have you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior?"

I thought this was a pretty bold, and personal, question to start a conversation with. And I was caught off guard enough to answer it without self-editing. I said, "No, we don't do that in my church."

"Hmmm," he said, "you might want to do that some day." Then he turned to me, gave me a hug, said he would pray for me, and got up and went back to his basketball game. And although we became better friends through the rest of high school, we never talked about that conversation again.

And for as long as I knew him, I never felt my faith was questioned, wondered about, or judged. But his question never left me.

After high school, and the sudden passing of my dad, I explored many philosophies, religions, and beliefs systems before coming back to my childhood faith. But I was never led to formally "accept Jesus" as my personal savior and "be saved." I wasn't opposed to it. It just hadn't been part of my faith journey.

But that night, after sitting next to Mary Baker Eddy's bed and seeing Jesus' portrait on the wall not 15 feet from where she faced her darkest moments, I knew I wanted -- and needed -- to feel a sense of "relationship" with Jesus, as much as I felt with "the Christ." Both became important to me.

In her, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, Eddy suggests that:

"It is most fitting that Christian Scientists
memorize the nativity of Jesus."

As I've studied her writings, I've also learned how deeply she felt about Jesus -- someone she identified as "the greatest man who trod the globe."

I love him too. More than words can say. He is the man who has had the most profound influence on my life. He is the man I want most to emulate in my all ways. He is the teacher I have learned the most from.  He is the model of true humanhood for me.

I think my high school friend knew that I needed to have this kind of relationship with Jesus. 

 Knowing all that Jesus was able to navigate with deep spiritual grace and poise, I can see why my friend was so unconditionally peaceful.

We learn most, from those we love most. 

with every hope...

Kate

"And she brought forth..."

"Now I'm not one to second guess
what angels have to say,
but this is such a strange way
to save the world..."

Once again, a friend's sharing of a video gave birth to this post on a night when I didn't know what He wanted me to write about...thank you. 

"A Strange Way to Save the World," by Michael Card is the perfect soundtrack for the space my heart has been in since last night's candlelight service at our sweet little storefront church. 

The readings from Scripture -- and from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, were all based on the timelessness of the Christmas story.  And were sparked by the realization that the phrase "brought forth" also means (according to Webster) "to attract; to draw towards oneself" as in "to bring forward, to accept".  For me, this definition has given new life to such familiar, and much loved, statements like:

"And the earth brought forth...."  [Genesis]

"And she [Mary] brought forth her first born son..."  [Luke]

"The illumination of Mary's spiritual sense put to silence material law and its order of generation, and brought forth her child by the revelation of Truth, demonstrating God as the Father of men."  [Science and Health]


"Soul is the divine Mind, - for Soul cannot be formed or brought forth by human thought, - and must proceed from God; hence it must be sinless, and destitute of self-created or derived capacity to sin."  [Miscellaneous Writings]

For me, it makes conception, gestation, and birth one fluid, beautiful motion.  A graceful acceptance of the spiritual substance of those things that are flowing/radiating from God within us, the cherishing of them within our heart, and then an immediate flowing outward of their coincidental form, beauty, outline, and purpose.  It is a divinely choreographed movement that reminds me of a river's flow from it's Source, eddying for the briefest of moments within the crook of the river's womb, yet continuing to flow towards the broader waters of the sea.


But I digress...back to our candlelight service.   

As I sat there, I couldn't help but think of these images.  And after the readings were shared, we prayed in silence, and a hymn was sung, the meeting was opened for testimonies of healing and inspiration.

There were so many lovely thoughts "brought forth."  But it was during my friend, Amanda's, remarks that something broke open inside of me about this beautiful and timeless Christmas story. 

Amanda was saying that she had been led to cherish the concept of "expectation" and "expectancy" all that day, asking herself questions like, "What am I expecting?" and "How large is my expectation of God's love and care?"

As she was speaking, so earnestly from the heart, I heard the question - within me, "Do you remember when you were an expectant mother?   Well, think of it...you weren't empty, waiting to be filled, but right in that time of "expectancy" you were already full. You were cherishing what was already alive and growing within you...you were pregnant with the promise and its fulfillment."  

I could see that the time in my tummy, was only an eddying, not a creating or a waiting to be.   The waters of my child's true substance were always flowing from their divine Source, and were continuing to flow freely forward towards the broader ocean of God's purpose for her.  She was never "mine."  I could never contain her, any more that the river is being contained while it eddies in a lovely cove or inlet along its course. 

It was like a light turning on in my soul. 

I could suddenly see that when we are led to cherish an expectation...it is not in anticipation of its possible fulfillment, but the celebration of what already is present and living in, and around, and through us.

I love thinking of expectant father, Joseph, as the humble receptacle of a divine covenant.  Much the way a riverbed holds the waters of the river.  While at the same time, those same waters gently carve out a newness to its outline.  It begs the question, what is defining the shape of the river, the earthen banks...rocks, mud, trees, or the flowing of the water...or both?  

Joseph begins our story as the perplexed, but trusting, fiance' of a young girl, and the Christ  carves out in him a timeless place in history as a fully vested father, the purest of manservants to the Lord's promised "peace on earth, good will to man." 

An obscure village, this simple carpenter, a rough hewn stable, an unmarried girl, a babe - "beloved, replete, by flesh embound"...all filled with a divine purpose. 

A strange way to save a world...maybe. 

But what is it that you are expectant with tonight?  What is it that you think can't possibly "make sense?"  What will you take into the quiet manger for a star to reveal, for wisemen to worship, for kings to bring gifts to the feet of, and for shepherds to bow before?

What will you "bring forth" from the fullness of your heart...from the quiet sanctuary of your earnest longings, already pregnant with promise...and fulfillment?

sitting with you in expectancy, and with a heart full of love on this holy night...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[quotes above are from the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy]