"forever hushed..."

"And echoes
in the sound,
of silence..."

I wrote about this experience in a post from 2006. Having just revisited that post, I realized how much clearer its message is for me today. There is a sound to peace. It is a sound that overarches the noise of pain and fear. It is the  "Sound of Silence."  I hope you enjoy this Pentatonix version of Simon and Garfunkel's classic.

Here is, what I hope will be, a more concise version of this experience:

The routine was the same. Pick the girls up from preschool. Drive home while they stripped themselves of shoes, socks, sweaters. Arrive home. Open the door of the van. Watch them run in the back door. Gather shoes, socks, sweaters, books, totes. Find them in the kitchen, banging their sippy cups on the counter next to the refrigerator while screaming, "I want juice, I'm thirsty, give me juice." Over, and over, again. Day after day.

And I would drop everything, and get them juice.

Until one day, I stood in the kitchen looking at them and thought, "why don't they just get their own darned juice?" Good question. So I just stood there. I didn't rush to get them what they wanted, but just watched what was happening. And it occurred to me - quite quickly - that they were only screaming because they knew that they didn't have the authority - or the strength - to open the refrigerator, hold the heavy pitcher, and pour the juice without spilling it. They knew that I did, and they were trying to convince me to do what they wanted me to do.

They weren't screaming because they had power, but because they felt powerless.

So, I took a deep breath and said, "Girls, put down your sippy cups, put your shoes and socks in the mud room, hang your sweaters and backpacks on the hooks, go potty, wash your hands and come back downstairs, and I will get you juice. And they did it. Just like that.

As I stood there -- somewhat in shock -- I just knew this was a more profound insight for me, than how to manage our after school routine.

I had been in pain for days. A voice had been screaming in my head, "I am in so much pain, I cannot think." Over and over again. But all the while, I had been thinking. It hadn't been able to stop me. I had been thinking. I had been loving. I had been reading, and praying, and helping others.

It was as much a helpless, incoherent sound as the girls' urgent screaming had been. It was simply trying to get me to give up, lie down, go to sleep -- or worse. But, it couldn't make me do those things. It could only try to convince me to do those things myself. And I had been refusing -- but barely.

When I saw that pain -- and for that matter, fear -- were not powers, but powerless voices, I stopped thinking that they had information for me. They were sounds, rather than conditions. They were not informants.  They didn't have some underlying meaning about my life, my body.  They were not leading me to a "why."

With this realization, I began to stand up to them in a different way. I no longer felt bullied. I could look at each situation with dominion. I was not a victim of the noise. The noise had no authority. No embodied entity to push me around.

That experience happened almost twenty years ago. It has been a milestone in my understanding of the insidious nature of pain and fear. These passages - among many - from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures have been the edifying authority in my understanding of how to silence their inarticulate voices:

"It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion."

and

"Spirit will ultimately claim its own, — all that really is, — and the voices of physical sense will be forever hushed."

Truth -- not Kate thinking about Truth --  is lifting her voice with supreme command and declaring: "God is All-in-all." And in the face of Truth's authority, the inarticulate sound of pain, fear, doubt is forever silenced in its own oblivion. Love hushes the screaming of the physical senses, and peace is forever Sovereign.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"imposible - until it's not..."

"There’s light in the night,
from stars long gone;
A half-formed thought,
becomes a song;
We rise from our grief,
and go on;

It’s impossible. impossible.
Impossible, until its not..."

This afternoon I have been listening to a number of cuts from Carrie Newcomer's newest CD, "The Point of Arrival." But it was her song,  "Impossible Until Its Not," that stopped me in my tracks. It spoke to questions that, as a Christian Science practitioner, I hear all the time. Have you ever seen evidence of this particular healing, transformation of character, challenge overcome? How many times?

This is one of the reasons that I love understanding Christian Science as a law - rather than a therapeutic system of treatment for fixing problems.

As in the practice of criminal justice, one precedent-setting case is all that it takes to establish the inviolability of law. A good attorney knows his/her law library well enough to cite precedence when arguing his/her case before a judge. Once precedence has been established - and cited - the point at issue does not need to be argued. One rests one's case, and moves on.

I can't describe how many times a day I return, confidently, to this point of law. And I love that Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"When disease is once destroyed
in this so-called mind,
the fear of disease is gone,
and therefore the disease is thoroughly cured."

and

"When once destroyed by divine Science,
the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears."

Just once. All it takes is one precedent-setting case of spiritual superiority, and you can rest your case upon the inviolability of that Law -- for everyone. Wow!

I think about this all day -- everyday. I search the Scriptures and read little else in a desire to more fully steel myself against any lie that would say that God is not "supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual."

A burning bush that is not consumed -- the precedent for unconsumed resources. A once-dead son returned to his widowed mother's household -- a precedent-setting case that Jesus rested his own demonstration of eternal Life upon.  Proof of Life -- once-seen as spiritual law -- demonstrated as resurrection.  A limited sense of supply, eclipsed by Love's unwavering flow of individual and collective goodness.

In countless Bible stories, the chapter "Fruitage" in Science and Health, as well as in each recounted healing in Mary Baker Eddy's other writings, the articles and testimonies found in the monthly and weekly periodicals - the Christian Science Sentinel and Journal, healings shared during Wednesday testimony meetings -- all are precedent-setting cases that we can rest our trust upon.

Last week there was a story in The New York Times - "A Woman, 71, Doesn't Feel Pain. Now, Scientists, Know Why: Mutation." It caught my attention immediately. Ahh yes, another recorded instance of the superiority of Soul over sense -- precedence.

Whether or not "scientists" had assigned a reasonable narrative to her lifelong freedom from pain -- relegating it to a gene mutation, or not - it has happened.  The article goes on to discuss Ms. Cameron's genetic predisposition to painlessness and her freedom from anxiety.  I loved hearing this.  We are all Genesis-predisposed to this God-given peace.  And it comes with this scientific assurance:

"And God saw everything
that he had made
and behold,
it was very good.

Thus the heavens and the earth
were finished."

Finished! There is no more to our story.

Because this painless sense of being has happened for one of us -- it is precedence for all of us. I'm resting my case upon it. God created us filled with peace - not pain. Peace is feeling the presence of God's love. This peace must be experienced - impartially and universally. There is no personal mutation. We all have the right to a pain-free, anxiety-free existence.

John gives us the perfect benediction on this promise in the last chapter of Revelation -- which is the last book in the Bible. Here he assures us:

"And God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain:

for the former things are passed away.

And he that sat upon the throne said,
Behold, I make all things new.

And he said unto me, Write:
for these words are true and faithful.

And he said unto me, It is done.
I am Alpha and Omega, 
the beginning and the end.

I will give unto him that is athirst
of the fountain of the water of life freely."

It is done. The gift of grace. Not something earned. Not a reward for our good works - but the impartial, impersonal, universal law of Love.

I love the practice of this Law.  Impossible things are happening every day.

offered with Love,

Kate

"write, hard and clear..."

"Don't cry out loud,
just keep it inside,
and learn how to hide
your feelings..."

Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud," was a theme song in my early twenties. Put on a smile, never let them know you were hurting, don't admit your mistakes or failures. How did that go?

It didn't work. By the time I was in my late twenties, I was bottoming out. I had a moderately successful career in education -- but that was about it. My relationships were in shambles -- all except for the ones where I held the purse strings and felt some sense of control. My body was falling apart, and I felt scattered all over the philosophical map -- a spiritual homelessness that I pretended didn't bother me. Sometimes it takes something as minute as a pinprick to burst the bubble of denial. Mine seemed like a slow leak.

Recently I came across a quote that served as a reminder that my journey back from the facade of self-certain control about my "story," came in a series of small moments. Ernest Hemingway once advised:

"Write hard and clear
about what hurts."  

That statement scared me. The things that hurt were ugly. I felt exposed and broken whenever I even thought about them -- how would I ever be able to write them down? And yet, I knew writing was one of my great loves. But I also knew that if I was ever to be able to write with conviction, I would one day have to find a way to write about the darkness -- in order that it might give context to the light.

After coming back into a working relationship with God - through the study and practice of Christian Science - I felt that there was so much that I was grateful for -- and I had to write about it. My life was transforming, my heart was healing, and my hopes were soaring. I wanted that to be my only story.  

But everything I wrote felt pale to me. It was all daystar. A healing of self-worth almost disappeared without the contextual backdrop of decades filled with self-destructive behavior. To the most distant star, is the night ever too dark? I thought it was. I wanted a new setting. I longed for the beautiful, good, and true to be the only page on which my life-story was written.

The problem with that was, that it just wasn't true. 

 So, now to the purpose of this post, which is ultimately the purpose of this blog.  Here it is.  I needed to say to anyone who felt that their story was too ugly to acknowledge or own, "you are not alone."  You see, I had felt so alone for so many years. I couldn't imagine that any spiritually-inspired person -- engaged in a healing ministry -- could have a story as dark as mine. It made me feel like an imposter.

That was, until I met a woman who wasn't afraid of her truth. In fact, she used the darkness of her childhood as a platform for the brightness of the lamp that God had lit in her heart.

She reminded me that Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The spiritual sense of truth
must be gained,
before Truth can be understood."  

Note the capitalization of the word "truth." The lower case truth denotes the actuality of our human experience. The upper case Truth points to the fact that God is All-in-all. That there is no moment, situation, experience or memory that is without God's presence, power, and love. To deny my life as ugly and dismissible, was to deny that God was All-in-all. I needed to own those stories, not as human mistakes or failures, but as a divine adventure in which I could find the face of God in the most tragic moments.

I remember one very specific memory that haunted me for decades. I was being serially threatened by someone I should have been able to trust to care for me. It left me feeling like a small animal that didn't deserve to be treated humanely. But reclaiming that moment for God and recasting the story as an opportunity to find the face of God in the midst of darkness, I began to see that right there, right in those moments of terror and humiliation, I was aware that what was happening was wrong. I was clear and sure that what I was experiencing was not the way that a child should be treated.

It took me five decades to write that story. I wrote it hard and clear. I wrote it honestly and I wrote it with God - and not a frightened child or an evil grown-up - as the main character. I was able to write with complete honesty about my hurt, without having it hurt me any longer. If fact, that story elicited hundreds of notes, calls, and comments from men and women who had faced similar life-narratives. 

I found that when I write about what is hard, it suddenly becomes clear that God was always there, always with me, always giving me the courage, wisdom, strength to navigate each experience.

Elsewhere in his vast archive of advice on writing Hemingway states:

"All you have to do
is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence you know."

 
The truest sentence I know is always the one that has God as it's subject, love as its verb -- and me - as the one who has experienced the presence and power of that love - as its object. I can only write a true sentence from my own experience -- and hope it reminds others that they are not alone.

This is the reason I write, this is the reason I pick up the phone, this is the reason I do everything I do -- to let someone know that they are not along in the darkness -- or a pale insignificant star in the harsh light of their day.

Today, I cry out loud, and I listen quietly. I am grateful to have learned to write hard and clear about what hurts -- so that it is defanged and doesn't hurt anymore. Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"Think of this, dear reader,
for it will lift the sackcloth
from your eyes, and you will behold
the soft-winged dove descending upon you.

The very circumstance, which your suffering
sense deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares.

Then thought gently whispers:
“Come hither! Arise from your false
consciousness into the true sense of Love,
and behold the Lamb’s wife, — Love
wedded to its own spiritual idea.”

." 
May you feel this wedded bliss with your one true Love - the main character in every story.    


offered with Love,

Kate

"my first love..."

"You are still my first love,
You're my guiding light
You're with me in the fire
You lead me through the night..."

Last week I returned from a love-affirming trip to California, where I had the honor of marrying two beautiful men, and visiting with my sister and her family.

The drive out had been an exercise in refuting the evidence of the senses. Thirty hours in the car, and all of them spent in prayer. First, because I loved having that time to commune with God. And second, because I was facing a very painful physical situation. Not going, was not an option. So prayer became the only path to getting there. By the day of the wedding, I was pain-free -- but that is another story.

This post is about my return trip -- another thirty hours in the car. And although this thirty hours was not what I'd  expected, it was so filled to the brim - with love and prayer - that it was even more beautiful than I could have imagined. All week, I have loved listening to Chris Tomlin's "My First Love." It perfectly keynotes this experience.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  This story begins on a foggy Monday in San Francisco.

As I drove away from my sister's home that morning, I was completely free of the pain that had kept me awake, and in focused prayer, for the entire drive out only days earlier. My heart was filled with humble gratitude -- for what I'd learned about my love for God, and God's love for me.  During those agonizing hours alone in the car, I'd lived my resolve to completely trust in His care. 

But now, I was looking forward to a peaceful drive home. I was thinking about the scenery I'd actually be able to enjoy this time around, about the sidetrips I was hoping to make in little towns along the way, and the music I was going to be able to sing along to. For just a moment, I indulged in a sigh of relief, after what had felt like a long siege.

Once over the Golden Gate Bridge, I parted with my sister, her husband, and their sweet dogs - Mollie and Bear. I felt confident about my trip strategy, and I had my heart set on an early evening stop in the small mountain town of Truckee where I would grab a light dinner before sunset. 

Leaving Truckee - as the sky turned from blue, to salmon, to lavender - I was a bit surprised that I had yet to fill the car with music. But the silence had been such good company.  And I knew I had a long night of driving ahead. James Taylor, Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt, and others would get their due as I navigated the Great Basin and the Great Salt Lake under a star-studded sky.

Heading through Reno, my heart was overflowing. I recounted with gratitude, all that I'd witness of God's healing/transforming love that weekend. It had been such a beautiful time of devotion to friendship and family. I felt so blessed.

Just after I saw Reno fading in my rearview mirror, traffic came to a sudden stop. No warning, no signage, just stopped. I knew I was heading into the "wilderness" phase of my drive -- hours and hours of empty landscape from Reno to Salt Lake City with very few towns in between. I needed to do it in the dark, as the daytime temperatures had been hovering between 105 and 110 degrees across the desert that week. I had my fuel stops planned, and I knew where the best rest areas were for pulling over and napping. But my schedule was dependent on doing this portion of the drive during the cooler night hours.

After about 45 minutes of sitting at a stand still -- with only a handful of cars coming in the other direction on Interstate 80 -- a car finally pulled onto the medium and told us that there was a wildfire raging in the foothills, and that it had jumped the interstate. We were being turned around and sent back to Reno for a detour.

Heading back towards Reno, I started feeling unsettled and shaken. I knew the detour would take me completely off schedule. Besides that, I would be on a two-lane highway in the middle of the night -- a highway known as the "loneliest highway in America," -- no kidding. But, if that was where I was being taken, I would go there. All plans of listening to my favorite Pandora playlist evaporated. I was committed to a night of silence -- and prayer.

About an hour into the detour, Something told me, "take that left hand turn." So I did -- obediently. My GPS guide went a bit ballistic, so I turned her off. Now, it really was, just me and God. 

 I knew I had gone about an hour south, and then an hour east. Heading north again, I knew I would likely reconnect with the Interstate. This seemed like a tangential, but logical, plan.  Since I would be alone in the middle of the night, the Interstate seemed like the better option.

But when I reached I-80 it was almost apocalyptical. I drove through the tiny side-of-the-highway town, and followed the signs to the on ramp. The town felt deserted, and when I pulled onto the Interstate, it was absolutely empty of cars and trucks. Driving east, I realized I was the only vehicle traveling on either side of the road. Suddenly, I was engulfed in smoke. But the Voice told me to keep driving. So I did.

On my right and left, I saw rivers of flame flowing through canyons and racing down the hillside towards the interstate. "Keep driving," the Voice kept repeating, "I am with you in the flames." So I did. Mile-after-mile of dense smoke, empty highway, flames visible through intermittent breaks in the ash-filled night air. Flames that crested the hillsides to the north and south. And every once in a while, there would be a clearing above --  where stars were cradled in a bowl of midnight sky.

I was not afraid. I knew the truth -- that beyond all that smoke,  there was a clear night sky. I knew that I was not alone. Just as I had not been alone on the drive out -- when pain tried to suck any sense of peace from my experience.  I knew that I was not a fragile mortal, alone in the car driving across the Great Basin. I was with the One I loved. I was with the One who loved me even more than my husband, my children, and my community. I was with my first love -- God.  I was clear about one thing.  I only knew how to love anyone -- including my loved ones -- because of this first Love.

So, I listened the way one listens to their first love. I listened to my Beloved tell me about Him. About His love for creation. About His beautiful universe. About His love for me.  About His love for the couple I'd married earlier that week.  About His love for our children, my sister's work, my friends, the geo-political world I'd been so concerned about all winter and spring.

I'd always loved taking road trips with those I loved -- boyfriend, finance', husband, girlfriends -- and eventually, with my daughters. I loved listening to them tell stories about their lives. I loved asking things like, "when you hear this song, what is the first memory that comes to mind," or "what are your dreams, your hopes, your plans."

But that night, I listened to God with the same eager intimacy -- with a sweet sense of being alone together in the dark on an empty highway with the one I loved -- with my first love.

In the book of Revelation, John admonishes the church at Ephesus saying:

"I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience...
and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee,
because thou hast left thy first love..."  

I smiled thinking of this verse that night. It had always been one of my favorite passages in Scripture. I just loved it, but I didn't know that I always knew what it felt like -- really felt like -- to know God as my "first love."  That night, I felt it. 

 On the drive out, the pain had demanded that I needed to turn to God -- to know Him -- in order to simply get through the night. But this was different.  This was love. 
There was a sweet intimacy to our time together in the wilderness of the Great Basin, with wildfires raging around us. Right there, in the car, we were quietly, intimately, peacefully in oneness -- amid the smoke, and the darkness, and the emptiness of that lonely highway.

Sometime during the night - after I seemed to have driven well-beyond the fires - I pulled into a rest area.  I hoped to take a short nap before the sun came up, and the temperatures in the desert rose. I curled into the backseat and felt so tenderly held by my "first love." However, when I awoke in the cloying heat, I was feeling very ill.  But it just didn't matter -- I knew I was going to be fine. I was with my Love. I called a Christian Science practitioner for support, and pulled back onto the highway, letting only His voice speak to me, and tell me what I felt. 

Seventeen hours later I pulled into our driveway. It had been such a sweet, holy journey.  After I turned off the engine, I just sat there in the silence. It had been the most beautiful road trip of my life.

I will never forget this time with my first love -- my always, and forever, and eternal  -- first love.


offered with gratitude -- and with Love,

Kate

"fear has to face the God you know..."

"O my soul
you are not alone,
there's a place where fear
has to face the God you know..."

There are spiritual experiences that defy being framed adequately by words. Mary Baker Eddy once wrote about this inability of words, saying that, "she lisped in numbers, for the numbers came." That is how I feel.

Sometimes it is more the sound of a song, than its words, that represent the heart's story. That is the case for me with this experience. But Casting Crown's beautiful "O my Soul."  speaks to the grace I felt, but can still barely hint at.  There is no way to adequately describe the full breadth of what this healing means to me.  But I will try.

For weeks I was in constant pain. Day and night. Nothing brought comfort or relief. The symptoms were aggressive and frightening. I was being bombarded with suggestions of specific diseases -- names, prognoses, timetables. And as frightening as it was, I had to get up each morning and persevere. I had to constantly ask myself, "Kate, what can you do -- right now?"

This moment-by-moment stepping into what I could do -- was all that kept me from abject terror. I was still a mom with the day-to-day responsibilities of raising our youngest children. I had work that I loved and am devoted to. Patients that I was committed to seeing spiritually. I needed to be able to go on. But it was getting more difficult. Day and night I prayed, claiming my spiritual freedom from the specific symptoms.

When I found it hard to think clearly I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me. Her unwavering clarity about my spiritual wellness was a lifeline. I can't tell you the specifics of what she said, but one night it became utterly clear to me that I was playing a metaphysical game of whack-a-mole. I would address one symptom, or suggestion of mortality and physical vulnerability, and another would raise its ugly head. Each symptom brought with it, a whole family of reasons to be afraid. I would get on top of one fear, and another would taunt me anew.

That night, as I was lying in the dark praying, the thought came so clearly, "This is not about what you think you are afraid of, it is all about the fear itself."  Typing that sentence now - and reading it - it looks so benign and so "well, of course -- duh!?!?!?" But in that moment,  it was such a big thought, so radical, so paradigm-shifting -- that it took my breath away.  I could see that fear existed without the symptoms, without the specific suggestions, without any reason for the fear.  Fear was the "enemy," not what I thought was causing my fear. Not what I believed I was afraid of.

The symptoms, the names of the disease, the prognosis, the "what-ifs," the pain that had grabbed my attention and had not let go -- were not the cause of fear. Fear was the cause of the symptoms. Like I said, I am lisping in numbers here. It is so much bigger for me than what I can possibly describe.

In that moment, everything took a turn. I wasn't trying to get rid of a disease, its symptoms, or its evidence -- so that I would not be afraid. I was going after fear itself. I stopped thinking that I was afraid of something. Or that fear was the by-product of a scary physical situation. Fear was the master manipulator -- suggesting symptoms, names of diseases, reasons it all "made sense" : heredity, contact, association. Fear was creating a story that justified itself, and reasons for its hold on my thoughts. Fear was keeping me focused on getting rid of symptoms that fear had compiled, and then added up to present as a forgone conclusion which it called a frightening disease. Fear kept me chasing after decoys. But I was no longer duped, I was going after fear itself -- not its minions.  I knew I was on the right track.

Yet that was only the first "aha" of the night -- the next one was even more vital. And it came so swiftly that I gasped. It wasn't me going after anything. This was God's "battle." God, Love, loved me. Love had never left me alone. Love had never neglected me. John gives us this promise in Scripture:

"there is no fear in Love..." 

The presence of Love in our hearts, destroys even the possibility of fear in us. Because Love is so clearly present in our hearts and lives, fear just cannot be. Love and fear can no more coexist than light and darkness. It wasn't a matter of me loving in a certain way, so that I could eradicate fear from my life.  That was God's province.  I felt love,  I knew the power of love, I had witnessed the presence of love -- therefore fear had never, could never, and would never be able to exist in this Love-based environment. The kingdom of God that is my heart and fills my life. Love destroys fear -- period. And I was as sure of the presence of love in my heart, as I was of my own existence.

Each time a symptom would assert itself, each time the name of a disease would suggest that I was doomed, each time the thought would come, "I am afraid of..." I would reaffirm -- I am not fear-susceptible.  I am Love-based, Love-filled, Love-aware, Love-driven, Love-defined.

I found myself turning to Mary Baker Eddy's autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, for courage, and confirmation that what I was glimpsing -- was true. In the chapter, "The Great Discovery," she writes:

"Science saith to fear, “You are the cause of all sickness; but you are a self-constituted falsity, — you are darkness, nothingness. You are without ‘hope, and without God in the world.’ You do not exist, and have no right to exist, for ‘perfect Love casteth out fear.’" 

She didn't say perfect love casts out disease, pain, sickness, symptoms, etc. But that perfect Love casteth out fear. She didn't say that the patient, or the practitioner, saith to fear, "you are nothingness..." But that Science saith to fear, 'you are nothingness...'' Science is doing all the talking.  Science, the laws of God, saying to fear, you are nothing. Moment-by-moment I felt my trust in this Science -- in this law of God operating, universally and without partiality -- grow and strengthen.

All symptom-based thinking, all disease-based treatment fell away. This had nothing to do with symptoms, pain, or disease.  This was all about God saying to fear,  "you are nothing." Not me.  Fear didn't have to face me, it had to face God -- the God I know to be all-powerful,  ever-present, always knowing Love.  Silly fear. 

And yes, this symptom-based thinking is insidious.  For example:  I remember at one point thinking that I should reach out to someone -- for spiritual treatment -- who had faced the same symptoms or disease, and found healing. As if the symptoms, or the name of a disease, would lead me to a healing perspective, or a healing solution.  As if a disease could inform my search for spiritual tender-kindness, absolute confidence in the presence of Truth.  Those who needed healing hadn't sought out Jesus -- to heal their leprosy -- because he'd been healed of those symptoms himself. They didn't seek him out because he had been blind, lame, deaf, lunatic. Experiencing disease didn't recommend him -- Love did. And his understanding of Love rendered fear nothing.

The specifics of a claim -- poverty, pain, hatred, disease, anger, death -- are distractions. They are not at the root of our fear. Fear is at the root of their symptomology. And fear is nothing. It is without hope -- without God in the world.

This healing has been one of the most beautiful awakenings in my life. And yet, if you had asked me before this experience if I thought that I already understood the truth of this Truth -- I would have said, "well of course, yes..." But I hadn't -- really. And you know, as profound as this insight feels,  I know that this Truth will just continue to evolve and grow even deeper in me.  But tonight, I am just so deeply grateful for what I have begun to glimpse -- day-by-day.  As I said, I lisp in numbers...


offered with Love,

Kate

"He will not let go…"

"what lies ahead,
I'm not sure I know.
But the hands that holds,
this flailing soul,
He will not let go..."

Blinding pain ripped through my body like a bolt of lightning. In that moment, I didn't know what to think, or how to think. When it retreated, and darkness came again, it was like slipping beneath the surface of a cool dark pond. And I surrendered.

Until it came again. A screaming. A crashing. Something sharp and raw that shattered me into a million shards of pain and fear. All I wanted to do was let go and slip into oblivion. "Yes, that's right. Go ahead, and just let go," it whispered in a taunting hiss. And I considered it.  That was until I realized that even if I were to completely give up, give in, and let go, "He Will Not Let Go." of me.

I love this beautiful song by one of my favorite inspirational recording artists, Laura Story. Her music is so honest and simple that it takes my breath away.

There have been moments in my life when I've felt like giving up on my own ability to hold on. Times when the hurt was so deep, or the hopelessness so unfathomable, that looking beyond a single step felt impossible.

I remember that night - quite a few years ago now -- when the above-referenced pain was unbearable. Living with it seemed too much to bear.  Each minute felt like an eternity. Each tick of the bedside clock was torturous. As I lay there, it occurred to me that I could just give up, let go, and slip away. It would be so easy. The thought of it was so tempting.

But it was at this very moment, that I felt the presence of something profoundly clear. The thought came, "As if! As if your willingness to let go, would change the fact that I love you, and that I am holding on to you. You are the very manifestation of Me, as Life. I will not let go."

This single thought woke me up from the lie of self-determinism. It wrested from my grip, the false notion that I was in charge of my life. That it was mine to sustain, to choose, or to throw away. I realized that I had absolutely no power to make that choice. God had all the power, and He was holding on to me. He would never let go.

With the realization that I was powerless to give up, the pain began to retreat. It no longer had the authority I'd given it.  I no longer believed it could inform me about whether to hold on, or to give up and let go.  It was a decision that I'd always thought was mine to make. But the fact was, I was here, I was conscious. I still loved my children. I could still be grateful. I was still able to appreciate beauty.  Suddenly, I was no longer paralyzed by the pain and fear.  I was enveloped in an undeniable truth -- Life was insisting Itself as conscious existence - as me.

I asked myself, "In all your life, have you ever actually been aware of being unconscious?" I had to admit, I'd never experienced the kind of deep blackness.  I'd never existed without an awareness of "I AM" -- which was the very thing that I was so fearful of.  It was what I thought pain was a precursor to.  But in fact, every night I'd peacefully yielded to sleep -- without any fear of never waking up again or being relegated to a dark mental abyss. And every day, I woke up feeling a sense of uninterrupted being.

I had always been held -- deeply and inextricably held -- intact, in perfection, in grace, in consciousness. Life had never let go of me. And whether I was holding on or not, I was being held.

The pain that had terrorized me, lost its power to inform or alarm me when I realized that it could not carry out its threat. My life was in the hands of God.  My awareness of being was under the sovereignty of Mind. My right to love, to be grateful, to pray and to bless was intact.

I've been grateful for two statements - in particular - from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, when acute or chronic pain has threatened to hold a deeper, darker meaning:

"No evidence before the material senses
can close my eyes to the scientific proof
that God, good, is supreme."

"Spirit’s senses are without pain,
and they are forever at peace.
Nothing can hide from them
the harmony of all things
and the might and permanence of Truth." 

Nothing can hide from me an awareness of God's tender hold on my life. Nothing can close my eyes to the love of my divine Parent. He will never let go.

While searching for a photo to illustrate this piece, I came across dozens of photos of us holding our daughters when they were babies.  And an online search turned up hundreds of photos of mothers and fathers holding their infants. They all looked so beautiful -- so full of tenderness, strength, and love.

Then I looked at the same photos, but imagined the parent out of the picture. The babies looked vulnerable, their positions awkward, their bodies small and fragile. It was exactly how I felt that night -- like a flailing, unsupported naked being exposed to the unknown.  Knowing that God was always there, holding me, changed everything that night -- from paralyzing fear to feeling that I was nestled in my Father's arms.  Held in a deep and abiding relationship with my divine Parent.

Whatever you might be facing, you are not facing it alone. God is holding you in perfect peace, in eternal Life, in tender love. He will not let go.

offered with Love,

Kate

"where shall the gaze rest…"

"It is well,
it is well,
with my soul…"

When I consider the Truth behind the following healing, I can almost hear Amy Grant's, "It is Well," echoing in my heart.

This healing starts with my friend Emily. One Wednesday evening, she stood up at our mid-week testimony meeting and shared a recent healing she'd experienced.

She said that during an overseas expedition she broke her collarbone. The injury required that she return home early and have it attended to by a physician. She was grateful for his/her kind care. After the initial examination and stabilization of the shoulder, Emily thanked him -- moving forward in praying, exercising movement, expecting healing, and expressing freedom.

And yet, when she later went back for a follow-up visit, the physician was not surprised by what new x-rays reported. The healing was proceeding according to his expectations. There was no exclamation of a miraculous healing. He was not at all surprised by the progress that had -- or hadn't, in his assessment -- taken place.

You may think that this sounds a bit anti-climatic, but for me it was amazing.  It was exactly what I needed to hear. Emily was fine. Emily was the one that was somewhat surprised his assessment. She was pain-free and was able to hike and bike with full range of motion. She was surprised that the x-rays and the doctor's evaluation didn't reflect the freedom that she was feeling.

But isn't that wonderful!  To realize that there was little, or no, correlation between the freedom that Emily was actually experiencing, and the x-rayed image of the bone, or the doctor's opinion. It didn't change the fact -- Emily was free.

I can't even begin to express how much it meant to me that the "body" could be reporting -- through an X-ray -- that nothing had really changed, and yet Emily was free.

It begged the question: "Where are you getting your information from?" and "What evidence are you letting inform your prayers, your hopes, your confidence?"

This realization had an immediate effect on a physical situation I'd been praying about for weeks. Yes, I'd felt the power of the Word in my prayers. I'd felt freedom from the paralyzing fear that this situation was persistent and incurable. I'd felt inspired and clear. But each day when confronted with persistent aggressive symptoms, I'd be on  my knees wondering what more I needed to know, pray, feel. 

Emily's healing gave me the courage to, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Look away from the body,
into Truth and Love…" 

Suddenly it became ludicrous to me that I had been looking to the body for an "all clear." I'd been listening for its report, waiting for it to tell me whether I was whole, sound, strong, and free. 

Instead I began asking Truth and Love -- God -- what was true, and what I was capable of. Could I love? Yes. Could I pray? Yes. Was I capable of answering the phone, walking to my office, being still, helping others? Yes.

The body and it's reports of discomfort, weakness, exhaustion -- the chronic rehashing of symptoms -- was no different than that x-ray Emily had been shown, or the doctor's  interpretation of its message.  He assessed it based on his best thinking, but was it true?  In like fashion, I had been looking at, listening to, assessing, and interpreting what my body was saying -- but was it true?

When I stopped asking it for information -- and then giving weight and meaning to that information -- I was free. Free from taking the pulse of the situation, and then determining my peace, my capabilities, or how to pray, based on its report.  I stopped trying to read meaning into that report. And at some point, I realized that I was free from believing that it told me anything about my life.

Elsewhere in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy asks:

"Where shall the gaze rest
but in the unsearchable
realm of Mind?

We must look where we would walk,
and we must act as possessing all power
from Him in whom we have our being." 

I realized that I could - at any given moment - get my information from God, and immediately act as possessing all power from Him in whom I have my being. And I did.

This deeper, Soul-sense has changed everything.  When we are willing to be still -- nevertheless, constant, consistent -- we are going to God for our information, and we know exactly what we need to know.  This report is changeless  -- I am well, you are well, we are well -- whole, pure, complete, strong, kindly-affectioned, God-sent, free.

offered with Love,

Kate

"not even that far…"

"stop,
in the name
of Love.."

I woke up that morning in great pain -- again. But also with The Supremes 1965 hit single "Stop, in the Name of Love," playing in an an endless loop.  Yes!  Perfect. That was exactly what I wanted.  No,  it was what I needed -- for it to just stop.

It had been going on for way too long and I was tired, discouraged, and ready to be free. I had children to care for, calls to take, a community to support. I wanted to be purposeful and free to serve.

As I lay there in the silence of pre-dawn, I asked God what I needed to understand. What shift in my thinking needed to take place? What Truth was already present and graspable? I stilled the chatter of human thinking, and just listened.

The first thought that came was:

"Thus far,
and no father..." 

I let that inspiration -- that angel message -- seep in slowly and find its ground. And because I was feeling very confident about this Michael-like spiritual assertiveness, I was a bit surprised when Gabriel gently whispered:

"not even that far." 

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy defines angels as:

"God's thoughts passing to man,
spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect;
the inspirations of goodness, purity and immortality,
counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality." 

And then she defines two different types of angels - Michael and Gabriel - thus:

"Michael's characteristic is spiritual strength.

Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love.

These angels deliver us from the depths.

The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death."
 

Michael had been helping me hold the line, but Gabriel pulled me back from the battle. I had been wanting the pain to stop and was ready to go to war.  But what I needed to understand, was that the pain had never started.

Just as in coming out of a dream, when I woke up to this fact I no longer had a battle to wage. God had never left me vulnerable to injury, disease, or fear. God's presence had been continuous.

I could see this truth so clearly when I realized that I had never stopped loving my daughters. And because I knew that I could never have created that love myself, it was the perfect indicator that a divine power was always at hand - and at work - in my heart. God presence had been perpetual and persistent. That was enough.

I was now awake to the ever-presence of God -- of Love. The pain dissipated in the same way that the terror we feel in a dream disappears when we awaken from the dream. Just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light, pain couldn't exist - even for an instant - in the atmosphere of Love.

In Pulpit and Press, Mary Baker Eddy reminds us of Jesus' promise:

"The kingdom of God is within you.”
"Know, then, that you possess sovereign power
to think and act rightly, and that nothing
can dispossess you of this heritage
and trespass on Love." 

We are not the gatekeepers, Love is. We aren't in the business of kicking pain out of the temple, Love maintains an environment where pain cannot breathe, cannot gain purchase, cannot survive.

I did not need the pain to stop, I needed to understand that it never started. God had never left me. His ever-present ministering Love had no contests. He doesn't win the war, there is no war.

with all my love -- and with Love,

Kate

"a vision softly creeping…"

"Hello darkness,
my old friend.
I've come to talk with you, again..."

Something about Nouela's cover of Simon & Garfunkels' "Sound of Silence perfectly captures the tone of my most recent night-ponderings.

Last week, an encounter with persistent, acute pain afforded a wonderful opportunity to explore my beliefs - and what I thought I understood - about the nature of pain. I didn't back away from the lesson, nor did I try to just "get it over with." I walked right into the invitation to probe perplexing questions more thoughtfully.

Doubt tried to hijack many moments of genuine peace. "What if the pain really did have meaning, and I was foolishly ignoring it? What if it never ended, and I could never, ever think a truly peaceful thought again?" And most aggressively, "What if the pain was really part of me, and had taken up residence in my body -- like a noisy tenant?"

But as I was pondering these questions, another thought quietly invited me to consider its veracity. If pain actually has meaning -- if it means that there is something amiss at the site of the discomfort -- how do you reconcile that, with the concept of phantom pain?

Phantom pain, is pain that one feels at the site of a limb that has been amputated. Discomfort that seems to come from a body part that no longer exists. Many amputees report feeling sensations of movement, tingling, or pain in an arm or leg that was surgically removed.

I had never given this much thought until this recent injury left me in acute pain. Everything tried to say, "This pain means something about your body. Pain is a message, and you need to heed its meaning. You should take it easy, or have it examined to find the root cause -- so that it can be addressed and treated."

But then I thought about phantom pain. When an amputee feels discomfort in a limb that no longer exists, he/she quickly dismisses it as "phantom pain," with no meaning. They know that there is no injured leg to be diagnosed or treated -- and so there is no need for alarm. They don't need to go get the arm checked out.  There is no arm to examine.  They aren't fearful or impressed.

Why then, do we think that pain has a direct correlation to the site where the sensation is seemingly occurring? Why do we think that pain is a reliable or infallible indicator of our state of health? Why -- when we feel pain in our hand -- do we go and have the hand checked for injury or disease? Why do we react to discomfort in any location by having an examination, to see if there is something wrong? All of these questions flooded my consciousness, sweeping away any concern that I'd been harboring.  Concern that pain had information for me.  Washed away in a coursing river of timeless Truth.

Or, more subtly, we think pain is telling us something about its location -- something that can help us heal it "spiritually." For example, we are feeling discomfort in our elbow. Well, an elbow is a joint. A joint is the coming together of two parts of our arm. Hmmm -- this must have something to do with a relationship. Well yes, I have been having a challenge with that colleague. So, I think I will look up every spiritual article I can find about healing a joint. Gotcha!

We have to be alert to what we think is informing us. We aren't led to healing truths -- or testimonies about healing -- by a shared localization of pain or the details of a problem. We are attracted to spiritual statements of Truth, because of what they are reminding us about God - His love for us, and our trust in Him. Not because of a shared experience with localized pain, fear, disease, or injury.

I am starting to see that all pain, is phantom pain. Just as the pain in an amputated limb is not in the limb, any discomfort we feel is not localized. It has no localized cause, and therefore, a cause - or solution - can't be found by examining the site to find the point of origin, in order to fix it or treat it.

And it's the same with phantom anger, or phantom frustration. Phantom resentment, or phantom fear. We think we feel fear, frustration, anger, or doubt, and then we try to trace it back to a locus of origin. If I feel angry after a visit to the grocery store - where I had a long wait in line -- it must be that I am an impatient person. Then I go after my impatience as if it were the real cause, of my real anger. But it's not. That anger, is just a sensation. One that is trying to get me to look for a cause -- other than divine Love -- as the source, and condition, of my angry identity.

I don't have to fix the anger to become a patient person. I am a patient person because that is the way that God made me. I am not self-created, self-determinted, self-diagnosed, or self-fixed.

Here's what often seems to happen with physical discomfort. Perhaps I feel pain when touching a spot on my arm.  I wonder what caused it.  It's a subtle invitation to think back, and trace it to a recent time when I may have stumbled in the middle of the night, and put my arm in direct contact with the doorjamb. Well then, I conclude, I must be clumsy, vulnerable, and easily bruised -- arm, feelings, human history. Or perhaps I'm stumbling in the middle of the night because I'm getting older and losing a nimble sense of balance and recovery. Or, what if I am getting up in the middle of the night too often? What if…. Soon I am spiraling down a vast vortex of self cross-questioning.

But, all pain, is phantom pain.

Just as darkness cannot fully eradicate the presence of light, but only suggest its absence. So pain tries to convince us that there is an absence of peace -- of God, good. And that, perhaps, this absence is localized, and connected to a particular bodily location. And because we now believe that there could ever be a spot where good is absent, we are left feeling vulnerable, exposed to the possibility that we could even further capitulate into disease, doubt and despair.

But these suggestions of pain are phantoms. They have no location. They are causeless. Peace, however, (the opposite of pain) is a self-assertive power that cannot be limited, contained, or localized. It is All-in-all and therefore indicates the presence of all that is impartial and universal -- Spirit, God, good, harmony, peace, joy.

In her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states:

We are sometimes led to believe
that darkness is as real as light;
but Science affirms darkness
to be only a mortal sense
of the absence of light,
at the coming of which
darkness loses the appearance
of reality.

So sin and sorrow, disease and death,
are the suppositional absence of Life, God,
and flee as phantoms of error
before truth and love."
 

Something about this insight - into the phantom nature of pain, anger, frustration, and doubt - has left me feeling alive to our inalienable right to feel free from the lie that pain holds information or meaning about our lives, our bodies, and our hopes.

It's time to disconnect pain from having cause, location, meaning.  Refusing it any power to alarm us. Pain is phantom, disembodied -- without a body or a home. It throws its voice like a ventriloquist. But it doesn't have the power to take up residence or even gain entrance into the kingdom of God -- within us.

offered with Love,
Kate

"a better story…"

"I want to add to the beauty,
I want to tell a better story..."

I love Sara Groves' "Add to the Beauty." I often find myself singing it, when I'm being handed a script with a storyline that isn't mine. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Christmas Eve I was walking down the hill from my cabin, to the lodge, for the evening. We'd been blessed with warm temperatures that day, following a storm that had dropped almost a foot of snow earlier in the week.  Snow had been melting from cabin rooftops and porches all afternoon. But as the sun set, temperatures began to fall quickly. And puddles of melted snow, turned into sheets black ice on decks and walkways.

One minute I was calling out a greeting to a friend, and the next I'd lost my footing and come down hard on the ice -- flat on my back.

The first thought that came to me was, "this is not my script, or my story."  But I couldn't breathe and the pain was excruciating.  Within seconds, I felt strong hands lifting me up, and someone assuring me, "God is Love, and you are loved." But I still couldn't breathe, much less talk. Soon a young man I knew well, reached my side and helped me to my feet. I continued to insist to myself, "this is not my story."

By the time we reached the lodge, the pain was overwhelming, and I had to find a quiet place where I could vehemently claim my right to stay on my feet, and conscious.

Then I remembered an experience I'd turned to -- many times -- when someone called my office, with a very vivid story.

It was many years ago and I was participating in weekly lunch meetings for those who were either interested in entering the public practice of spiritual healing, or those who were already fully vested in this work. We would meet in a large conference room, to share experiences and offer encouragement to one another.

It was hosted by the manager of the department that nurtured the public offices of spiritual healers from around the world. She was a good friend and an even better advocate for this work we both loved.

At this particular meeting someone asked her what had been most helpful to her -- over the years -- when a patient would share the graphic details of physical injury, or illness.

She started by facilitating a brief discussion among those gathered, until the conversation veered off in another direction. Then, a few minutes into the next topic, she said, "Oh my gosh, you wouldn't believe what happened to me the other night?" Then she went on to tell the story of how she'd come out of our office building, just after dark, and hadn't realized that the bitterly cold February winds had turned the daytime-wet sidewalks, into black ice. Within seconds she'd lost her footing and fallen hard on the ice.

We were all looking at her with rapt expressions. Then she stopped, sat back in her chair, and asked us, "How many of you just went down on the ice with me? How many of you could see the whole scene and could almost hear the thud?" Almost every one of us raised our hand.

Then she went on to say, "That, is what I try to remember when someone calls my office, and feels the need to share the details of a particularly graphic challenge they are facing -- emotionally, physically, or financially. I remember to listen with the intent of knowing how to wake them up, but to not go down on the ice with them. I practice not imagining the fall, the anguish on their face, the tears they must have shed, the pain they must be feeling."

I've never forgotten that story. There is a difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is being able to stay awake yourself, while gently rousing someone from a nightmare, understanding that they need to be assured -- by someone who is not caught up in the dream -- that the nightmare is over, was never real, and that they are safely awake. Sympathy, however, is getting sucked into the nightmare with them, and then trying fix the problem, or make it better from within the dream.

Christmas Eve, everything begged me to believe that the story of a debilitating fall, was my story.  That it really happened, and now I had to react to it. I was being handed a script: Kate falls on ice, people come to help her, she is able to walk, but is in a lot of pain. Kate prays, gets better, has a testimony to give. Not!

I never fell out of God's care, from his government, or beyond a state of grace. There is a better story: Kate was on the way to the lodge, ran into friends, someone told her, "God is Love, and that she was loved." Another friend offered his arm as they both navigated the beautiful winter night. There was a lovely dinner. There was laughter, gratitude, kindness. There was uninterrupted peace. This is the story I am choosing to have experienced, and the one I will tell.

In her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, Mary Baker Eddy shares:

"It is well to know, that our material,
mortal history is but the record of dreams,
not of man’s real existence, and the dream
has no place in the Science of being.

It is “as a tale that is told,”
and “as the shadow when it declineth.”
The heavenly intent of earth’s shadows
is to chasten the affections,
to rebuke human consciousness
and turn it gladly from a material,
false sense of life and happiness,
to spiritual joy and true estimate of being.

The awakening from a false sense of life,
substance, and mind in matter,
is as yet imperfect; but for those lucid
and enduring lessons of Love
which tend to this result, I bless God."  

That night, as I let go of the story and dropped the script, I also let go of the sidebar stories of pain and injury. It was never "my story." There was never anything to fix.  There was nothing to change. No drama to retell. Only the presence of God to rejoice in. I had a better story to live, and to share.

It was a holy night…and the stars were brightly shining.


offered with Love,

Kate