"everyone knows God..."

"Yes, I'm thankful for
the Lord above,
the gift of His unending love,
the promise kept
that there is so much more.

These are the things
I'm thankful for..."

Dillon Cate's cover of Garth Brooks' and Trisha Yearwood's Thanksgiving anthem,"What I'm Thankful For,"* was my husband's solo offering at our church service yesterday -- and it took my breath away with its simple beauty.

Because I knew the love, devotion and humility Jeff brought to sharing that gift with the congregation -- for me, it was less a performance, and more - a prayer.

Our service is a simple one that concludes with time for sharing testimonies of healing by those who are gathered in worship. We'd brought a friend who was unfamiliar with this Thanksgiving tradition, and I have to admit I was listening to everything that was shared at the service, through the lens of his heart. What was he hearing? Would it make sense, resonate, inspire?

Most of the remarks were thoughtfully shared and filled with reverence and thanks. But there was one testimony that brought me to tears. It leveled the playing field. We were no longer a congregation of church members and visitors, we were all one - in the thing most essential.

My friend, Linda Clarke, rose and began her testimony by saying that, although others in the congregation had shared how many generations of family members had practiced our faith, she was a first generation Christian Scientist. In one sentence she had swept away all sense of religious heredity, hierarchy of faith, or any distancing one might feel from the direct and immediate relationship to divine Love -- that is inherent in each of us, and unites us all.

Then she went on to share an experience she'd had at a recent Bible Workshop she'd hosted as the Adult Program Director at the Adventure Unlimited Ranches. She said that in the opening session, Bible scholar, Kristy Christian, had said:

"everyone knows God.
I want you to think about this..."  

It was so simple, and so profound.  Yes! Because everyone knows love -- and God is Love -- everyone knows God.  Because everyone experiences Life -- and God is the Source of all being -- everyone experiences God. It was an accessible truth.  One that unites us all. 

Later, when interviewing Linda for this post, she said, "I always try to look at people as the image and likeness of God -- in perfection. But this was different, to see a homeless person, or someone I might not agree with, or even someone who has done something I can't support, as really "knowing God," -- able to hear His angel messages -- this has given me a lot to think about. It has made such a difference for me."

The deep love for others, that resonated through her remarks, was like the "cup of cold water," that Mary Baker Eddy speaks of "millions of unprejudiced minds," waiting and watching for. I couldn't imagine anyone - in that overflowing Thanksgiving Day gathering of friends, family, and guests - who wouldn't feel loved, honored, and included through this view of themselves and others - as knowing God.

In her remarks, Linda went on to share how trusting in this fundamental fact -- that everyone knows God -- frees us to love unconditionally.

Linda's testimony was the perfect message for each of us --from the "third, forth, or fifth generation" Christian Scientist, to our unprejudiced young guest. It lifted any sense of exclusivity -- a secret handshake or password-protected entry into the kingdom of God. It affirmed that this kingdom is within each of us.  That it is accessible, and has one Sovereign -- omnipotent and omnipresent Love -- who as Mary Baker Eddy assures us in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is:

"impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."  

What a gift to us all. This, for me, was the message of messages.  It is the basis for true individual, familial, local, national, and global peace. Everyone knows God. When we trust this Truth -- we can live fully, share generously, and love freely.    


This message of God's inclusive love is something I am deeply grateful for -- thank you Linda.

offered with Love,

Kate


*If you would like to hear Garth Brooks', Trisha Yearwood, James Taylor and Kim Taylor's performance of,"What I'm Thankful For," here is that link.

"this is the sound of one voice..."

"This is the sound of one voice
One spirit, one voice
The sound of the One who makes the choice
This is the sound of one voice..."

We often feel that we are so alone in the thoughts we think.  That what we care about...our hopes, dreams, values, and visions...are our own.  But what if this song by the Wailing Jennys, "One Voice," is the truth of our one being, founded and grounded in one Spirit.  This one Spirit is the sweet wind that blows through us making music grand and gentle.

"...This is the sound of voices two
The sound of me singing with you
Helping each other to make it through
This is the sound of voices two..."

I've often wondered why we long for companionship.  Why the Bible promises that God, "setteth the solitary in families."  If we are already united in the oneness of Spirit, why do we hunger for this two-ness? 

For me, it boils down to consistency of being.  Whether it is in a marriage, or an enduring friendship...parenting a child or a lifetime of sharing memories as siblings...these one-on-one relationships serve as a window on the consistency of our progress as patient, kind, compassionate, nonjudgmental selflessness beings.  It is one thing to be kind to a stranger or an acquaintance in a moment of inspiration...but to be consistently kind to our husband, sister, best friend, daughter...this is something quite divine.  

"...This is the sound of voices three
Singing together in harmony
Surrendering to the mystery
This is the sound of voices three..."

Sharing our love with another is pure joy.  Staring into the eyes of our beloved, or communing with a bestest and dearest friend is sweet bliss.  But opening the arms of that precious relationship to include another...a child, a new friend, someone in need... expands our reach.  Or as the Bible says, it "enlarges the place of thy tent;...stretches forth the curtains of thine habitations: spares not, lengthens thy cords, and strengthens thy stakes..."  Our stake in humanity...our humanity...is strengthened when we selflessly share someone we love with another someone.

I saw this so clearly earlier this summer at camp.  Our twins, Emma and Clara, share everything. They love eachother so devotedly.  They live, sleep, play, learn, travel, and work together all year long. They share many good friends, but there is always a sense of their oneness...within the context of any friendship.  But this summer they opened their arms to include their cousin Tatiana.  There were so many times when I would catch sight of Emma (or Clara) with Tati, while Clara (or Emma) engaged in other activities, Or sometimes, it was both girls with Tati, and there was such a deep sense of inclusiveness that you could actually see it in their eyes, their body language..hear it in their laughter.  This opening up of their love for one another to include Tati was beautiful to see.

"...This is the sound of all of us
Singing with love and the will to trust
Leave the rest behind it will turn to dust
This is the sound of all of us..."

No matter how many are within the tent, we are not just individual tents...nomadic tribes in a searing vast desert of unrealized human hopes and broken dreams...huddling around our family fires in sympathy with one another, and for solace.  We are a village with a great Father who loves us, and is leading us all in a rising song of harmony, joy, and unity. 

Our dreams are shared dreams, and they are supported, sustained, and realized by our one hope to live together in peace and unity...fellowship and cooperation. We are not isolated, solitary, self-determined mortals who must look out for ourselves, or be left to starve in the desert.  We are one spiritual family caring for one another's needs, cherishing eachother's dreams, looking for opportunities to enlarge the place of our tent by taking another in and feeding him at our table piled high with love.

"...This is the sound of one voice
One people, one voice
A song for every one of us
This is the sound of one voice
This is the sound of one voice..."

This is the sound of one voice because that one voice...echoing through the chambers of memory and expectation...is God's.  And each of us can pick up the tone, rhythm, and melody of that divine voice and join in a song of:

"Pure humanity, friendship, home, the interchange of love, [which] bring to earth a foretaste of heaven. They unite terrestrial and celestial joys, and crown them with blessings infinite." 
- Mary Baker Eddy

Listen carefully and you will hear its soft strains...of Love...

with love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Christian Hagenlocher 2009]

"Limitless undying love which shines around me..."

"...Sounds of laughter, shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me

Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on
across the universe..."
- The Beatles
"Across the Universe"

At the time, I wasn't really sure why this song spoke to me tonight but it did.  I was outside in the yard with Mollie when suddenly the sky grew dark, the wind began to blow, and the tiny white blossoms from the towering black locust trees rained down on me...and around us...like a benediction.  

I suddenly felt so at one with everything around me.  My skin did not define where I stopped and the rest of the world began...it was just a frame for one of the images I included in consciousness, but was not the sum total of my being.  I was as much the locust blossoms as I was my hand...no more...no less.  I was one with every single molecule of each idea, concept, and image I was experiencing.

I threw my arms wide and spun around while the blossoms swirled around me and caught in my hair, the wind ruffled the hem of my skirt, and the grass kissed the arches of my feet.  Every movement of my body was a molecular dance of intention shifting space within and around me.  Choreographed by a divinely intelligent Creator, painting the space I shared with trees and blossoms and grass and air in broad strokes of color, movement, texture, and form. 

I could see with such clarity that each and every molecule in the universe existed at the behest of God.  Each expressed conscious alignment within Mind's direction.  Each enjoyed the peace of knowing it was being divinely guided every moment, and could enjoy the dance that the winds of Spirit (Pneuma) carried them on as they fulfilled their purposes as the manifestation of Love.  A collaborative effort of molecules that coalesced as a body for helping a stranger, a plate of food for feeding the hungry, a tree for giving shade to the weary, pages of a book for inspiring the reader searching for insights. 

Each molecule a divine idea...the expression of the All-in-allness of God's being.  Each molecule fully capable of being whatever Love needed it to be at any given moment, so that in uniting with other divinely purposed molecules a world of wonder, delight, joy, affection, beauty, peace...could be painted on the canvas of being.

As I raised my face to the sky...catching petals from locust blossoms on my tongue...I felt as though I was taking communion from a divine hand.  And when the rain started...drop by drop falling on my face, streaming down my temples, washing thorugh my hair...that water turned into the wine of baptism, brotherhood, benediction.  I felt oneness with, and "across the universe".  

I couldn't help but remember something Mary Baker Eddy writes in Pulpit and Press:

"Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically number one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine source, and daily demonstrate this. Then you will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillion in being and doing right, and thus demonstrating deific Principle. A dewdrop reflects the sun.  Each of Christ' little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore is the seer's declaration true, that 'one on God's side is a majority.' A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or crown the tree with blossoms.  Who lives in good, lives also in God, — lives in all Life, through all space."

or as Kenny Loggins sings in Conviction of the Heart, "one with the earth, with the sky, one with everything in life...."

Enjoy both songs tonight...and feel the breath of God whispered against your cheek with each soft breeze...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...listening to You I get the music..."

"See me,
feel me,
touch me,
heal me"

This line from the rock opera "Tommy" helped me swim up from dreaming this morning.  It felt like there was a mini Woodstock version of their historic 1969 performance under my pillow. More of the song's lyrics popped me up and out from under the covers...ready to discover what today had to offer:

"Listening to you I get the music.
Gazing at you I get the heat.
Following you I climb the mountain.
I get excitement at your feet!
Right behind you I see the millions.
On you I see the glory.
From you I get opinions.
From you I get the story."

This is where I'm staying today.  Following God's voice -- the Christ in my consciousness, sitting at His feet…where all the excitement of experiencing spiritual healing, transformation, awakening is happening…from here I can catch the waves of joy and ride them all the way into shore over and over again.. 

There are millions…billions…no, an infinite host of hearts to join with in singing a silent hymn of praise…when we are listening for His version of the story.  His is the only opinion that matters to me: "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good….thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."

This morning it was like I had a set of spiritual earbuds in my ears, and a God-loaded iPod in my heart.  Listening to Him I am getting the music.  Sometimes the music is a pumping, driving beat…a surging, soaring song of joy and praise…a backbeat of "I am that I AM" as constant as an African drum song.  Other times the rhythm is as soft as brush strokes on a tympani.  Only the most silent heart, keening for its message, hears the song of stillness…"nevertheless, nevertheless…" beneath each gentle shush, shush, shush.  But it's always there. 

I remember some years ago I was perplexed by the use of the word "fear" in the Bible in both a negative and positive context.  There were references to "fear no evil" and to "fear the Lord".  The questioning persisted like the voice of a cricket under the stairs. As I sat with this conundrum one afternoon it occurred to me that the early wordsmiths were not creators, they were only men and women trying to describe what they were experiencing.  The word "fear" was their attempt at attaching a linguistic symbol to a feeling or experience so that they could describe it later to someone else. 

Mary Baker Eddy states in her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection:  

"After my discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge I had gleaned from schoolbooks vanished like a dream.

   Learning was so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God in man's origin and signification."

Well, I thought, "she is my Leader, I think I'll follow her on this road too."  And so I began to reason, "Since God is the only Cause and Creator, every idea, every word, must have a divine origin."  And in looking for that divine origin and signification I could start with the etymology, the root, of the word symbols that early linguists had used to describe those experiences and feelings.   I went to a very large old dictionary in the library where I was studying and praying that day and in the etymological definition for the seventh version of the word listed there was this definition: "focus: to be so transfixed on something that you can't think about anything else".  This made such sense to me.  Of course I could fear the Lord.  I could so focus on God that I couldn't be aware of anything else.

This was the divine history of this word, concept or idea.  This was the God-based version of those feelings that I could reclaim as divine. 

So…today I am sitting at the feet of Him...walking wtih my Father's hand in mine.  Gazing into the face of a Love so deep that I can feel the heat…the warmth of His affection for His creation…including me, and mine…and all.

This is my song today,
Kate