"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

"If I survive…"

"Mother,
do not cry.
Queen of Heaven,
protect me always.
Hail Mary,
full of grace..."

Those words, etched on the walls of a Gestapo jail in Auschwitz, inspired composer, Henryk Gorecki's "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs." It could have been the soundtrack of my childhood.  Its tone -- low, sad, and sweet. If I had heard it then, I might not have felt so alone.

But actually, it was a small book that gave me hope, courage, comfort, and forbearance. I can remember standing in our middle school library and seeing the word, "Night" embossed into the faded cotton spine of Elie Wiesel's book, on the eye-level shelf in front of me.

I took it down with shaking hands, and opened it with trembling fingers.  I knew in an instant that it was my book. That he was my hero. I knew his story. Everyone did in those days. But to know that he had written a book about night -- the most terrifying time of day for me -- was a gift of supreme grace.

No, my monster didn't come with guns and swastikas. My family wasn't murdered. I did not live in a rat and flea-infested barrack with hundreds of other prisoners. But for me - a small girl with a quiet heart - my hell felt just as dark and hopeless.

I borrowed "Night" from the library that day and took it home in my plaid book bag. I remember slipping it under my pillow and knowing that even if I couldn't read it right away, it was there to remind me that I was not alone in the night. The fact that others had faced even more torturous events - had survived, had gone on to become advocates for innocence, and had rediscovered their relationship with a God they'd once doubted - was a lifeline for me.

With a small flashlight, deep under my covers, I read and I cried -- night after night. It was Elie's honesty that gave me the strength to hold on to my sanity. It was his survival that emboldened my hope.

You see, it was one thing to suffer years of abuse and then have it suddenly end when my abuser discovered his relationship to God. It led me believe that God was now protecting me, and that if I only kept a keen hold on that divine link -- I would be safe. But when a life-event triggered the abusers return to his old behaviors, I was deeply shaken. Where was God?   Nothing I did - no prayer I prayed - seemed to be able to arrest his steep spiral into self-hatred and the hatred for others that followed.

I had no one I could talk to.  No one except the authors I'd made my best friends in the night.  I still took all my sorrow to them.  Elie Wiesel, Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, those wonderful Bronte Sisters…   The abuser's threats to the lives of those I loved, kept me silent and compliant. I was afraid. But I was not alone, there had been millions of girls and boys who'd faced villainous torture and paralyzing fear -- night-after-night -- in places like Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka.

Wiesel shares in "Night," a conversation that he had with another prisoner.  It gave me a safe place to take some of my own questions:

“Why do you pray?"
he asked me, after a moment.

"Why did I pray? A strange question.
Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

"I don't know why," I said,
even more disturbed and ill at ease.
"I don't know why."

After that day I saw him often.
He explained to me with great insistence
that every question possessed a power
that did not lie in the answer.

"Man raises himself toward God
by the questions he asks Him,"
he was fond of repeating.

"That is the true dialogue.
Man questions God and God answers.
But we don't understand His answers.
We can't understand them.
Because they come from the depths
of the soul, and they stay there.
You will find the true answers,
Eliezer, only within yourself!"

"And why do you pray, Moshe?"
I asked him.
"I pray to the God within me
that He will give me the strength
to ask Him the right questions.” 

I prayed for God to give me the right questions. I prayed that I could let go of the "why" question:  Why me? And instead, begin to ask questions like, What can I do to protect my sisters? How can I be brave? Who am I? Where is my goodness?  The questions themselves refocused my thoughts and gave me courage and strength.

Then, in a 1981 New York Times interview, Wiesel would again come to comfort my wounded heart, diffuse my anger, encourage my hopes, and give me a path towards the freedom I longed for. He said,

“If I survived,
it must be for some reason.
I must do something with my life.” 

Once again, it met me where I was, and walked me forward out of a particularly dark chapter.  I knew that Elie had also struggled with his faith. And yet, he had persisted and prevailed.

Today, with the news of his passing,  my heart is both heavy and grateful. I will miss the dream of one day meeting him. I will miss the conversations I have imagined. I will miss asking him a million questions. But I will not allow myself to miss out on asking God to help me ask the right questions for each day's journey out of darkness and into His light-filled purpose for me.

Someone recently told me that I needed to forget the past, and move on. Like Elie, I do not believe that this "forgetting," is my path. Forgiving, yes. Forgetting, no. When I am remembering, I am holding something in consciousness. In that moment it is not in the past, it is very present. By recognizing this, I can decide how to think in that moment about that "memory." And in doing so, with Love's help, I can reclaim it for good.

I would never think to tell someone to forget -- to wipe something out of their conscious awareness -- anymore than I would tell someone to forget Jesus' crucifixion, or Mandela's imprisonment. Not when we are given the opportunity to reclaim those moments for God. To deny evil its claim as a creator. By this reclaiming -- we realign out lives with one divine Cause.

Each of us will experience something that has the potential to carve out in us a space of compassion, non-judgmental, alertness, humility, courage, patience, gratitude, vigilance. For me, the dark chapters were only context -- not content. I am made up of better things. And yes, my faith was tested -- but it was not found wanting. I have been through the valley of the shadow -- but I didn't stay there. And every step of the way, God was with me. It was all for some reason.

Thank you Elie Wiesel for being there in the night. Thank you for reminding me that every life has purpose. That every moment has a reason.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Where You lead..."

"Where You lead
I will follow...
Anywhere, that you tell me to.
If you need,
you need me to be with you...
I will follow,
where You lead..."

It's midnight on a late August night in 1971. We're sailing Sunnies out to the island after a long shift at the Inn. Sally has her transistor radio in the small sailboat next to mine.  Carole King's "Where You Lead," comes on, and all twelve of us...in six different boats scattered like stars on the moonlit surface of Lake Champlain...begin singing along.

We're awake, we're done with work, we don't have to report to the kitchen again until 4:30 the next morning.  So we sail, and we sing.

We were happy.  We were following our hearts to the small, isolated island where we would take a moonbath, and dance under the stars. We would talk about hopes and dreams, and boys and college.  And we did just that, showing up for kitchen duty the next morning happier and more full of energy than ever.  We'd been invigorated by our outing, not exhausted.

Fast forward to 2011....that's about 40 years later, in case you don't want to do the math.  It's March, the girls (this time my twin 13 year old daughters, myself, and a few girlfriends of varying ages) are on a beach in Florida for Spring Break.  We are eagerly awaiting the appearance of the supermoon (the phase of the moon in which it comes closest to the earth all year).  Okay, so I am eagerly awaiting, they are skeptically indulging my excitement. 

I want to experience this phenomenon with them.  I am smitten with the pearly orb hanging low over the Gulf of Mexico, laying a path to somewhere magical and full of promise across the sea.   I hope we can sit and talk about dreams and hopes and my stories of being girls one summer in Vermont.   They run to the veranda, giggle and scream when someone pops out of the dark and scares someone else, and then say that it's "just a moon," and go back to their movie. 

It's not Vermont, it's not 1971...for them.  But for me, it calls up so many thoughts about my path from there to here, and from then to now. 

If I look at any one leg of that journey, I might be sad, disappointed, elated, angry, confused, peaceful...

But, looking back at the last 40 years, as a singular journey, I can see how each short...or long...section of highway taken, each fork in the road, each intersection I've paused in, has been exactly where I needed to be, with exactly the traveling companions I've needed to be with, every step of the way.

I've never thought I was following someone, or something, other than the voice of love.  Really...

Even when I made decisions that I thought, at the time, were fear-based, I can see now that they were my highest sense of following the path of love at the time.   As my sense of love has evolved, becoming more and more aligned with an understanding of its source -- the Love that is God, the higher motive, for each step of my journey, has become clearer to me.  I needed to grow in my understanding of Love.  But I don't know that the journey would have been any different.  If it had been,  I wouldn't be the me that I am today.

To believe that my journey could have/should have been different, I would have to believe that I am a co-creator with God.  That God created me, but that my choices could override His omnipotence, and therefore,  I could re-create myself (based on good or bad journey choices) in a way that is not according to His design.  This seems to undermine my sense of God as all-powerful, good.  

For me, this means that I am exactly who God wants me to be today.  My path is, and always has been, under His divine guidance.  I could never have taken the tiller away from Him and charted my own course full of what...to my limited sense of things...look like mistakes, bad decisions, choices, or wrong turns. 

During this journey, I may have misunderstood "why" I thought I was taking the turn in the road that I chose to take, but it never changed my course or my journey. It only gave me reason to believe that I played a role in charting my course, that I was an ill-equipped and accident-prone mortal who had control of the steering wheel...could sin and suffer...and that because of this, I could easily make navigational errors.  It was this misunderstanding that steeped me in the kind of "what if" thinking that led to a suffering "sense"...view of, or feeling about...any given situation.

Rather than see each situation as a mistake, a tragedy, the result of sin (any separation from God), I can experience that same moment as an opportunity to grow in grace. Grace, expressed in patience (with myself or others), meekness (refusing the inclination to be angry or resentful), love (to deepen my compassion, understanding, affections) and good deeds (asking myself, not, "why did this happen," but, "what can I do to help.") . 

When I am so focused on my own growth in grace, the less I look around measuring, comparing, judging the actions or choices of others. When our experiences intersect, it is only as an opportunity for me to be my best self.

The more I have discovered that my motive in life is not outcome-based: to get love, or be humanly perfect, or have things, but reflection-based: to love like God, to deepen my patience, hone my compassion, surrender self, and embrace a more universal sense of well-being, the more that the whole journey makes sense...and so do all those twists and turns that led me here.

So, as I discovered by following my daughters' directions (as they listened to the GPS on our trip), I don't need to know the name (or number) of the exact route I will be taking in 45 miles or 37 minutes, I just need to trust that when I get there, and make that turn, the divine GPS will tell me where to go next. The me of the past loved maps...I could look ahead. It's time to embrace "not knowing" with spiritual enthusiasm. Bring on the GPS!

The journey only seems tangential and random....it's not.  One of my favorite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien reads:

"Not all who wander are lost."

I don't think any of us are lost...to an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God who loves us, and never lets us stray.

with Love, 

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Lord, my life is an empty cup..."

"Lord my life is an empty cup.
Here's my heart,
would You fill me up?
I'm face to the ground,
forsaking my pride,
leaving my will,
my burdens behind.

All I want, all I need
is just to be with You,
just to be with You..."

Today, Paul Beloche's "Just to be with You," beautifully captures one not-all-that-long-ago morning's practice of "emptying the cup."

And recent conversations with close friends have helped me clarify (for myself) how critical this practice of releasing mental tightness...and expelling the toxins of the ego...is to being present and prepared for the day - to show up thirsty for a more refreshed sense of spiritual purpose, to arrive on the doorstep of dawn, with a clean cup...empty, ready and waiting for Him to fill me anew.

For instance, the other day I woke up with a wretched ego hangover from too much of "me" based thinking the night before. I'd allowed myself to fall asleep without establishing that my day really starts, Biblically with: "and the evening and the morning were the first day..." Starting from a proper sense of evening...clear understanding that my life proceeds from the peace and rest of a day well lived and redeemed...makes all the difference.

Mary Baker Eddy defines evening as:

EVENING.  Mistiness of mortal thought;
weariness of mortal mind; obscured views;
peace and rest.

I love this definition. I think it is brilliant that she, first, addresses all the ways that our sense of evening can be twisted and misrepresented by false perceptions that we are experiencing a total absence of light, and then "snap!" she points out the beauty of its, evening's, more subtle lighting and reclaims it all for God. 

I love the evening...no shadows of self to distract and impress...just a suffusive, softly radiant, reclaimed "peace and rest."  The light that is present is not as bright as "noonday"...much less blindingly dramatic, and brilliant...but for some reason I find it easier to get clear of "Kate" outlines when the light that is there, is more modest, somehow quieter and less direct.  In the twilight of "evening" I am conscious of a more graceful, less in the spotlight "me."

And in this space of "evening" I find myself resting upon, and proceeding from a real peace. A peace that "floweth as a river," rather than from all of Kate's decisions, choices, mistakes, plans and strategies. Evening begins with claiming my right to see myself as God-sent into each moment with a holy purpose. The details of what happened, who said what to whom, how it all went down, and the outcomes, results, successes, and failures of the day...are of no consequence when I realize that God has given me countless opportunites throughout that day, to discover more about who I am as His beloved child, Her divinely radiant reflection.

But back to this particular morning. As soon as I woke up, I realized that I'd gone to bed steeped, not in a peaceful sense of evening, but in the darkness of a long, starless night. And as I'd slid into the black chasm of night's total darkness, I'd been hoping to escape physical and emotional exhaustion. I'd felt as if all my resources had been drained by the demands of the day, every mental muscle strained, every ounce of emotional poise stripped...and I was seeing myself through the lens of a very limited range of motion and focal distance.

And I felt it.  I felt it in every cell of my being.  So, what did I need to do. 

I needed to establish a proper sense of "morning":

MORNING. Light; symbol of Truth;
revelation and progress.

Ahh, light, revelation, and progress! 

First, light.  I stretched.  I let the light, which is at the center of my being, radiate out from a fully extended heart. I imagined each mental molecule inhaling to the point of expanding its "skin," it's membrane, so that when it exhales, all the toxins of "the ego" are released.

Second, revelation.  I wrote.  I let every thought...and I mean every thought...be revealed, exposed, run wildly naked, falling exhausted onto the open, empty page. I wasn't impressed by any of it. The cycle of self-justification and regret that seemed so overwhelming in the dark, secret place of the ego, was clearly not "my thinking" when exposed to the light of Truth...my unbroken relationship with the divine...that "indissoluable spiritual link" which establishes me in the likeness of my Maker.

Third, progress.  To progress, we need to make progress...to move forward.  I love the active sense of this word as a verb. To step into the next moment with purpose, hand-in-hand with God -- with Love -- is to step away from the darkness of the night before. Just knowing that I can always find a proper sense of evening...day-by-day and moment-by-moment....is to feel the joy of standing before God as an empty cup, a challis, the holy grail, waiting for "the inspiration of Love."

Dear divine Love, I am yours...waiting to be filled, each moment...

...with Your Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Another day..."

"...Oh, wake up Susie
Put your shoes on
Walk with me into this light..."
-     James Taylor

The minute I heard this video, of James Taylor singing "Another Day,"  which my friend Amy posted on Facebook, I thought of my love for the hours between dusk and dawn.  In the Bible's first chapter of Genesis, it says, "And the evening and the morning were the first day"...and the second day, and the third day, and on and on until creation was complete and given the benediction that, "God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good, thus the heavens and the earth were finished..."   I love this.  I love thinking that my day begins with a proper sense of "evening" and naturally evolves into the "morning," and not the other way around.   In part, Mary Baker Eddy, spiritually defines these terms as:

"Evening: ...peace and rest"

"Morning:  Light, symbol of Truth; revelation and progress."

Of course, there is always the demand, in beginning one's day with the evening, to arrest any mistiness of thought...and weariness of mind...that would obscure our views of Divinity, present as humanity.  But once that is done, I love establishing the foundation of my day by beginning with a clear sense of peace and rest in the evening.  Then I can watch, in the hours between the evening and the morning, for those "first faint morning beams" of inspiration and promise wakening me to new view of divine goodness and love...in my life and in the lives of others.  When the morning dawns, I am filled with a confident expectation of revelation and progress throughout the day. In this "space" the night (or evening) is not the opposite of day, but is folded into the delight, wonder, and promise of its beauty.

But back to my love for the night...and one instance of why.

The other night someone dear to me called at about two in the morning...heart aching, peace shattered, confidence quaking.  She thought she was calling too late.  I assured her that I was very much awake, had been, and was certain, that I was awake for no other reason than to be completely ready for her call.  This was the absolute truth. 

I'd had a full day, a fuller evening, and a very, very full night of calls and emails...but as I finished up the last reply, folded the final load of laundry, started the dishwasher, and walked the dog...it was so clear to me that the physical and mental weariness that had been screaming at me all night as reasonable, was suddenly like an annoying, little gnat buzzing around my head.  I could easily swat it away in light of the joy I knew I'd feel in speaking with my friend.

As I've explained above, night is my favorite time of day.  It is so rich with silence, fathomless space, and inspiration.   I wish I could stay awake all night and only take cat naps occasionally through the day.  I've never been a big sleeper.  It seems like such a waste of all that silence.  The need for sleep is not something I have prayed about, overcome, or "demonstrated over".  It's just the way I arrived. I believe that this must be what God intended for me to "be" from the beginning...and I have been faithful. 

As a child I was, in fact...and much to my parents exasperation...very, very faithful to my appointment as someone who "refused to go to sleep."  I was often caught reading hours and hours after "lights out."  After I'd almost burned down the bunkbeds my sister and I shared by taking the wall-mounted lamp off the wall and putting it under my covers, my parents let me leave the lamp on, for as long as I wanted to read, on the condition that I was up, dressed, and off to school on time each morning.  I was.

I really do trust that if God wanted me to get my rest by sleeping, he would begin by putting the desire for sleep in my heart.  It hasn't happened yet! But this is also why I believe that this is not the way it is, or should be, for everyone...or anyone else. This is why there is such beautiful "diversity of spirits" in the universe of fellowship. God puts our desires in our hearts in individual ways so that there are both night owls and early birds...that way all the moments of the day are loved!!! Anyway, back to my story...

So when my friend called I was happier than a child sitting on the front steps holding a new ball, hoping someone would come by to play catch.  I'd been reading, thinking, praying, listening for exciting new ways to look at thing spiritually, and so the joy of having someone to listen together with...for ideas, inspiration, unfolding direction...was a slice of pure happiness for me.  

It wasn't a case of me walking her into the light, but the two of us walking together in the radiating light of love that our united hearts created when we came together in the dance of "Our Father...give us this day...".  It was like having two batteries, instead of just one, in a flashlight.  The connection of our two hearts coming together in a united hunger for a divine sense of  purpose, brought a light which illumined a rich field of inspiration and direction, white for our harvesting harvest.  The resulting bounty fed us both to overflowing.

The hours sped by quickly as we talked and listened and laughed and talked.  But by dawn we were both so deeply rested that our voices were light with joy as we said our "love you, talk to you later"s.

The only place the word "exhaustion" has in my vocabulary is as a waste product the come from a combustible engine.  I am not combustible.  I do not depend upon a stimulus/reaction model to nerve my endeavors, to drive my actions, to kindle my desires, to encourage me to work, or to motivate my behavior.  I have no space in my life for any waste...and exhaustion is a waste of my time...day or night.

The Biblical precedent for my confidence came from a Sunday School student, who, when we looked together at the story of Moses and the burning bush that was not consumed, found promise for the environmental challenges we face in an expanding carbon dependent global community.  As he said, "The bush burned, so it put off energy...heat, light...but it was not consumed, so there was no waste."  Brilliant, and out of the mouth of a babe.  It figures!!

No exhaustion with the expending of useful energy. 

Mary Baker Eddy says two things that I love about active, purpose-filled sleepless, but restful, hours:

"The highest and sweetest rest,
even from a human standpoint, is in holy work."
and
"The consciousness of Truth rests us more
than hours of repose in unconsciousness."

I am resting the case of my wakeful heart on these Law-based promises, and on Biblical precedence.  And so far, these divine promises from my Father-Mother God,  have been kept throughout my life. Thanks Amy for posting "Another Day". I loved it.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS