"Light my fire..."

"The time to hesitate is through.
No time to wallow in the mire.
Try now we can only lose.
And our love becomes a funeral pyre.

Come on baby light my fire,
come on baby light my fire,
come on baby light my fire...."
- Jim Morrison

I was sitting here in the Hub (the camp office) asking if anyone could recommend a song to go with a poem about self-immolation [Webster defines this term as: "suicide by fire"], and my friends broke into a very cute rendition of "Light My Fire."  So, here it is...the song, and the poem. 

This poem fell onto the page as I considered what it would take to truly embrace Mary Baker Eddy's use of the word "self-immolation" in statements like:

"Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind."

as well as her references to the mythical Phoenix in this passage from The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany:

"A great sanity, a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen, has wrought a resurrection among you, and has leaped into living love. What is this something, this phoenix fire, this pillar by day, kindling, guiding, and guarding your way? It is unity, the bond of perfectness, the thousandfold expansion that will engirdle the world, — unity, which unfolds the thought most within us into the greater and better, the sum of all reality and good."

Ahhh...living love...this is the phoenix fire that leaps and licks at our ego selves...bring it on!! 

I am a
nestling
a Phoenix
a sweet
something
emerging,
emerging
emerging...
never born
and never dying

only self-immolation
and resurrection

self-immolation
and resurrection

self-immolation and
resurrection,
resurrection,
resurrection...

over and over
again...
and again..

I am ready.

Sometimes it is the
heart that burns,
white hot and
fervent...
smiling,
eager for the resurrection

and sometimes
it is the body...

the body of selfish desires
the body of spectred dreams
the body of wants and woes,
sorrows and imaginings

I am not afraid
of the
immolation,
but
I
refuse to
live in the
in between,
the space
where the ego
still stands
pained
by the
letting go

I welcome the
Phoenix fire
let it burn
thoroughly
fervently
hot and
scrupulously
an
all-consuming
incineration of
what would
keep me from
loving without reason,
unconditionally,
and with abandon


Let its flames engulf
the me,
the my,
the mine
of
success...
and failure,
of what I think I've earned...
and what I'll
never be...
let the veneer,
the paint
the flash of self
blister and
peel
in the
heat of unselfed
loving...

I am weary of
carrying around
the 
"not quite" 
incinerated ashes
of resistance,
the "almost" immolated
still peppered
with bits of bone
and broken incisors
fragments of
all
that once
gnashed and gnawed
at the details of
who's to blame,
good human choices made,
and what went wrong...

a limboed
state of
regret and pride,
of what we wanted, or
what could have been...

I want,
I long for,
I ache to know
the
complete
dissolution of
the veiled ego,
the clouded past,
the "what never was"
and is no
longer,
and really
  shouldn't be...

I can do this...

I can walk so fully into the
fire
that there is nothing
left
to carry back out
but the gold,
the silver,
no rust...
no dross...
no smell of fire...
just a sweet nestling as pure
as the
"form of the fourth"*

There is no flickering ember of
the past's tinseled
moments of selfish
indulgence and accomplishment,
neither the grime
of dark alleys
filled with ghosts and
sorrows waiting
to pull me down
down
down
further and further
down....

no bits and pieces of
another time,
a former me,
a maybe him...
or what if her 
to
cling to new
downy feathers
soft and wet
as we
emerge from the
clean, white
ash of
this
God-stoked
Phoenix
pyre.

Just dust and
ash...
fine as silt
to soften the journey
like a powdery
Colorado
snowfall...
just a dusting,
quickly blown away by
Spirit's,
Pneuma's fresh winds of
I am..now
always
now.

yes,
I am!

I am
innocent
pure
good
willing
open
eager
unsullied
sweet
gentle
kind
new
I am
the I AM
that never was a
"was"
and seeks no promise
of
who
she
will be.
But sings the
sweet silver 
song of
I am
I am
I am
I am
all that
the
I AM
is
today...in this moment
of grace...

"here am I, send me..."

hungry for more grace...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

* Daniel 3: 25

"Less like scars...more like character..."

"It's been a hard year,
but I'm climbing out of the rubble.
These lessons are hard
Healing changes are subtle
But every day it's...

Less like tearing, more like building
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel You here
And You're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful

It seemed out of my hands,
a bad situation
But You are able,
and in Your hands the pain and hurt
look less like scars and more like...
character..."
-Sara Groves

I couldn't help but think of Sara Groves' "Less Like Scars" tonight...I think you will see why...

The following post, from this blog, was written and published originally in June of 2007.  A dear friend sent me a link to it, because it had been meaningful to her.  To be honest, I had forgotten writing it, so it was a wonderful gift to receive.  Just as wonderful, was the realization that it still rings as true for me today, as it did almost three years ago.  My purpose has not changed.  I still contribute posts to this blog for the very same reason.

My friend sent me this gift of love...tonight I am re-gifting it to you as a re-declaration of purpose...my purpose.  It is my truth, and it is more precious than gold, frankincense, or myrrh.  It is a purpose statement that has not changed...one bit.  I like that.  I like knowing that it is through my purpose...a holy, Love-inspired sense of purpose, that I find a contiguous thread of authenticity in my being.  It is helping me to see that I am becoming what I long to be...really, truly, genuinely be...a woman of my word.  I have trusted God's hand in designing my purpose statement, and am discovering that He has set His seal upon it, and impressed it firmly on my heart. What a gift to give someone.

As this decades comes to a close, and a new one is given birth, I promise to keep this spiritual purpose clearly, distinctly, precisely in focus. 

Here is the original post with the addition of this audio clip of "You are Not Alone":

"…you are not alone
_ I am here with you
_Though we're far apart
_You're always in my heart
_you are not alone…"_
- Michael Jackson

Someone asked me the other day why I write these posts twice every week.  Was I trying to teach readers something new about spirituality…no, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy...as well as countless other inspirational books, magazine articles, blogs and websites are lovingly dedicated to this kind of pedagogy.  Was I trying to get my writing seen by blog surfing publishers….no.  Did I have an irrepressible urge to write…yes, but this is not the reason I blog. 

I have been writing and journaling (at least two hours a day) daily for many, many years…I write a lot.  I didn't need another focus for my writing life. 

So, as I sat in front of this computer screen pondering that question: "Why do you blog?" the AOL icon at the bottom of my screen started bouncing to alert me that a new message was in my mailbox.  I shook myself from the reverie of self-examination to check the message in case there was an urgent need for attention.  This is the email that greeted me (shared with permission…all personal and identifying information deleted):

Dear Kate,

I had a difficult day and then read your web-log ("Sunrise, Sunset") and nearly burst into tears. Of all the many things I have wanted to ask you is how you bear this very thing … this changing and growing and going. I feel it as sadness and loss. I can't seem to find joy there.

My little girl, the world's very best baby, is turning (age deleted). I love to see what she is becoming, but I miss the girl she was even last year.

I have more birthday preparations and it's late. I want to thank you again for your writing and the healings on your website. I turn to it so frequently during the day.

Love, ______

In reading her message I remembered with such clarity why I post on this blog each Tuesday and Thursday…it is not to share my insights or inspirations, it is not to see my words self-published on the internet, it is not to receive notes of praise…it is for one reason…and for me, there is just one message:

"You are not alone."

Just before I sit down at my computer,  to write a piece for posting, I try to become very quiet and listen for a silent cry that speaks to my heart….I am listening for the tears of those who feel -  that in the darkness of their own private sadness or confusion - they are alone.  That somehow, they are the only ones who have ever felt this frightened, angry, hurt, hungry for compassion or kindness. 

And then I listen for my own heart.  What in me is reaching out from the posture of "experience?" What is it that might bring them honest comfort and be a beacon of faint light in their darkness?  What story can I offer?  What can I share that will assure them that someone else has been there and that there is a way out? 

I am, in each posting,  trying to say…"I will sing loudly so that you can know that you are not alone in the darkness.  I will sing to remind you that God is there…right there in your own heart… impelling you forward.

"...Just the other night
I thought I heard you cry
Asking me to come
And hold you in my arms
I can hear your prayers
Your burdens I will bear
But first I need your hand..."

To know that we are not alone...that God is there at every turn, pause...at every juncture, to take our hand and lead us into our own light...is a message so powerful that it brings me to my knees.  To know, also, that God has appointed angels of kindness in our lives...friends, sisters, mothers, brothers...to be the hand we feel, the song we listen for...this makes me weep with gratitude.

Here is my reply to my friend's email (with some minor editing):

Dear....

I burst into tears sometimes, too, when I later read the raw nakedness of what I have felt about something and have fearlessly (or naively) posted to this blog. 

These issues of motherhood, and this journey in discovering my ever-evolving indentity as a spiritual woman, living in a world that constantly invites us to want, want, want...more, more, more...are such powerful catalysts for my own spiritual development (de-envelop-ment).  They strip me clean, day-after-day, of all pride and ambition, and leave me childlike in my need for a divine Parent's embrace and care.

I often find that the ideas I have shared are actually still very new to me when I finally read them myself. It is almost as if I wrote the words, without even thinking of them...as if they poured out of my fingertips without passing through the medium of this false mind that would like to call itself sovereign in my life….memory, speculation, imagination. 

I am learning that they come from a more silent space - the heart.

But as for your question:  "how do you bear this very thing … this changing and growing and going?"

I really don't know, other than to say that I try to use each day as a Love-impelled search for God...whether it looks like a triumph, or is filled with tears...it doesn't matter.  As a mother, I realize that the best thing I can give my daughters is HONESTY about the journey.  Allowing them to think that I have it even one bit more "figured out" than I really do, is cruel, and sets them up for failure by comparison. 

So...I am staying focused on integrity in parenting my children...integrity of heart, mind, spirit, actions, words...emotions.  It is sometimes very messy and organic...but it is true...and I like truth...alot...

with love,  Kate

This is my truth.  I really don't write from a longing to be heard, I don't write from a need to say something profound or pithy....but I do write from the deep desire answer the call of  someone crying in the dark, to let them know that they are not alone.  Yes, this is my truth, and I try to follow the wise counsel, and example, of my favorite author when she says:

"I speak from experience."
- Mary Baker Eddy

Back to December 31, 2009...

What a lovely year this has been.  What a gift it has been to see, as Sara sings in "Less Like Scars" that in God's hands my life looks, and feels:

"...Less like tearing, more like building
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel You here
And You're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But You are able
And in Your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like
Character

Less like a prison, more like my room
It's less like a casket, more like a womb
Less like dying, more like transcending
Less like fear, less like an ending

And I feel You here
And You're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But You are able
And in Your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars

Just a little while ago
I couldn't feel the power or the hope
I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing
Just a little while back
I was desperate, broken, laid out, hoping
You would come

And I need You
And I want You here
And I feel You

And I know You're here
And You're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad, bad situation
But You are able

And in Your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars
And more like character..."

Yes, less like scars...more like character.  I hope that in His hands, your life feels that way too.  On to a new decade, a new year, a new day, the next moment - with hope...

in His hands,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Colleen Johnston Campbell]

"Sing, sing a song..."

"Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud
Sing out strong
Sing of good things, not bad
Sing of happy, not sad

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last
Your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not
Good enough for anyone
Else to hear
Just sing, sing a song

La la la la la
La la la la la la..."

Okay, it's time to fess up.  Yes, I love Joni, Dan, James, Jackson, Carly, Bob, Jim…all things folk.  But in high school I was a closet Carpenters fan.  Karen Carpenter and I shared the same vocal range.  Low.  Only she had range…I just had low.  So, I sang her songs constantly while I was walking alone in the woods, mucking out a horse stall, or hanging baskets and baskets of near frozen laundry on the clothesline in the bitterly cold January snow and wind.  Might I sense some personal trauma over having ten people in our family and no clothes dryer??? Not to worry, today I actually miss the scent of stiffly frozen towels in my arms after a long day of drying in the winter sun.

Anyway…once I started teaching elementary school and having children of my own, I learned that the above "Sing a Song" could be called up the moment a fifth grade boy decided to describe some disgusting thing in order to gross out the teacher, me…and any other girl with a weak stomach.  It became a joke in the classroom.  If I jumped to the end of the chorus and started singing "La la la la la…la la la la la la…" at a louder volume than the offending student was talking, it was a cue that I didn't want to hear it.  Or that I would be making a bee-line for the girls' room.

Now I have twin fifth-grade daughters who take great delight in describing yucky, disgusting stuff.  And "La la la la la…la la la la la…" still works when I don't want to hear what Billy Joe Bob did with his peas and carrots in the school dining room. 

It's also good for interrupting any endless loop of thinking that gets a foothold in my thought and won't let go. 

Last week my Bible study was focused on a number of scriptural reminders to "sing a new song."  This intrigued me.  How often do I let an old song play over and over again in my head.  Sometimes it is a seemingly harmless "old song" that I find myself chanting almost mindlessly. A little ditty like, "Why get a headstart on that project…you've always done your best work under the pressure of a deadline" or "of course you're obsessed with getting it right, you're the oldest child in your family."  But sometimes it is not as easy to recognize these songs as particularly negative. The old song…is just old.  It's a perfectly good song, but it's one that has become so comfortable and familiar in my head that I am no longer thinking about what I am singing. Often these are songs that were once prayers, but have become more like a well-worn blankie I curl up with rather than a refreshing new perspective on life, love, purpose…being.

Even these perfectly wonderful old songs sometimes need to be replaced with a "new song."   A  song that wakes you up to who you are today…rather than offering you a look back through the softly filtered lens of the past. Perhaps even back to a time when those old songs came alive…perhaps during a long siege – a health, financial, or personal crisis that was eventually healed…and they were fresh and new and brought needed peace, comfort, hope, and comraderie.  And as wonderful as I felt when I first discovered that version of a song, or learned those particular chords, what I need today is the demand of learning and discovering a something new about myself and my relationship to the laws of  music through a new song.

So today I am trying to remember to really listen to what is "playing" in my head…and in my heart.  To be conscious of what I am singing along with as I go about my day.  Am I replacing the endless loops of "old songs" in my head--some of which may indeed look, sound, and feel like beloved old inspiration…well-worn insights, prayers, or perspectives--with a new song?  I want to learn new words.  And when a loved old song starts to play, I hope I can at least find a new way to sing it.  I am looking forward to fresh inspiration about what the lyrics are trying to say today…instead of congratulating myself on already knowing all the words.

"…Don't worry that it's not
Good enough for anyone
Else to hear
Just sing, sing a song…"

Kate

"O life that maketh all things new..."

"Oh life that maketh all things new
The blooming earth,
The thoughts of men…"

I have been wrestling with what feels like a gorilla for the past few weeks…again.  I was beginning to feel as if this match would never end.  I had been over the same pros and cons at least a hundred times.  I had looked at it from the same twenty angles.  I had considered the impact each option would have on everyone involved.  Then I walked away from it for some broader perspective.  But I kept coming back to the same almost conclusions.   I kept hoping that someone would intervene, that there would be an eleventh hour reprieve from not only the situation itself, but from my constant mulling over of the options and consequences.  

That was when the above line from a much-loved hymn (with words from Samuel Longfellow) came to mind.  It was like having a soft spring breeze blow through a stuffy room that has been closed up all winter.  I could expect my thoughts to be made new.

I didn't have to think that those same pros and cons were going to be the extent of my thinking on this issue. I didn't have to feel helpless and hopeless waiting for outside intervention.   I could come to my prayers with an open heart for hearing something completely new...each moment. 

My dilemma involves the closing of a major highway in our city.  It has been the primary artery for getting from our home in an urban neighborhood to our children's school in the suburbs.  We have generally enjoyed a 20 minute door-to-door trip on each of the four legs we travel every day.  Twenty minutes to take them there and twenty minutes back every morning.  Then twenty minutes to go pick them up and twenty minutes back home.  Occasionally we have hit a traffic sang and our trip takes 30 minutes, but it has been painless. 

With the closing of the highway we are looking at our commute doubling.  Doubling!!!  I have been frantic.  Could we/should we move?  What surface street routes will be quickest?  What time will we need to leave by in order to get the girls to school on time?  Can we possibly impose this kind of commute on our children, our family and friends who will be visiting our home from time to time?  The questions just wouldn't stop.  What was the most right, the most loving, the kindest thing to do…for everyone?  If we leave our neighborhood, what are we saying about our commitment to joining hands with our neighbors who will also be navigating this difficult situation.  Neighbors who may not have the freedom or the resources to relocate in the midst of this real estate market.

And beyond that, we love our neighborhood.  We love being a part of an urban community with a major university only a block away.  We love having a neighborhood school on our corner where children from the neighborhood play kickball and hopscotch on the asphalt and run around the block for PE. We love interacting with thought-leaders who are wrestling with public policy, health-care, human rights, literature and technology at our local coffeehouses.  And we love it not just for ourselves, but for our children.  We love that our daughters have access to museums, the zoo, galleries, coffeehouses, and people who introduce diversity and texture into their experience.  We love that our son had a job through his senior year of high school at the local coffeehouse where he met university students, professors, neighborhood characters, and urban legends.

But we also love that our children feel peaceful and happy about the suburban school they attend.  We are grateful that they feel so invested in their school community and enjoy friendships that have been nurtured since preschool.  We appreciate the freedoms they experience in a suburban setting…having a dog, a yard to play in, closer proximity to friends/relatives making the planning and execution of playdates much easier. 

As the deadline for the highway closure draws closer and closer I have been a bit panicky.  We have to DO something…don't we??? 

But this hymn gives me peace.  I don't have to do anything but trust God to "make all things new".  To give me new thoughts about this adventure each day.  We will know each moment of every day what is the right route to take, when to leave, and how to make the best use of the time we will spend together in the car.  And if there are other options we need to consider, God will make them clear to us…we won't have to frantically search for answers…they will bloom naturally out of our love for everyone involved. 

And I finally realized that this isn't just about finding an answer for me and my commute, for me and my family. It is about, as Mary Baker Eddy suggest in her poem, Mother's Evening Prayer: "His arm encircl[ing] me, and mine, and all." Every driver on the roads with us will be guided rightly, led to take routes that keep traffic flowing smoothly and gracefully…like a ballet of cars and drivers and passengers…all being directed by a grand and wise Choreographer.  We are in this together.  We are a community.  We are neighbors.   Our community garden will not be over crowded.  We have been planted by a divine hand, watered with grace, encouraged by the sunlight of honest affection, nourished with faith, and grounded in our trust in His promise…our thoughts - our routes, timetables, choices and decisions - will be made new. 

"From hand to hand the greeting flows
From eye to eye the signals run,
From heart to heart the bright hope glows,
The seekers of the Light are one..."

the adventure begins...with Love,
Kate