"first we fold in, then open out...."

"first we fold in,
then open out;
there is a faith
that's only found in doubt..."

This post did not start as an idea clothed in words. It started as a feeling. And then a name. Carrie Newcomer. So I went to Youtube and pulled up Carrie's station. The title,  "The Point of Arrival," gave words to the feeling. So I listened to the song -- which I'd never heard before. Yes. That was it. The feeling now had a sound, and a shape.

Now for the words. I woke up this morning and it was the feeling of kicking a ball that came to me. Now this is quite funny. For one thing, it is because I don't have any relationship to balls -- soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs. As a child I was ball-averse. I very much disliked anything that had to do with balls.

It wasn't till our daughters became soccer, volleyball, and Polocrosse athletes that I saw any reason to change my relationship to balls of any sport. And, at best, it was a distant relationship. One of an observer with a foreign object that seemed to have no purpose other than to come hurtling through space at you -- at random speeds.

So for me to wake up with the feeling of kicking a ball was actually quite arresting. So, as I do with all strange feelings, I sat with it. Thought about it. Plumbed it for some spiritual meaning.

Carrie's song helped me find what I was listening for. It is a paradox. One of my favorite things about being a conscious being, is being able to recognize a paradox and ponder it deeply.

This morning's paradox is all about the motion of kicking a ball forward. One has to drawn back the foot, in order to add velocity and distance. If you try to kick a ball from a straight leg, stationary, starting point it doesn't have near the speed, precision, or trajectory. Try it.

I have been praying about the hundreds of young men and women who will soon be leaving summer camps for the next legs of their life journey. I have heard some version of trepidation in their individual and collective voices. "I feel safe here. What if I'm not as funny, selfless, purposeful, focused when I leave here? What if I get too busy to read Scripture? What if I forget how it feels to pray?"

This concern is filled with a desire.  And it voices itself as either a desire stay longer in the place they are in, or to not have to "go back" to the life that they left before summer began -- to return to towns, friendships, school settings where they did not feel that they had previously been as kind or spiritually confident as they have been at camp.

I understand this feeling. I am feeling it too. This summer has been all about God's trajectory for my life. I have said, "yes," to opportunities that in other years I might have found a way to sidestep. In some instances I have returned to places where I'd made grave mistakes in the past -- in order to find peace and resolution. In other instances I have stepped back from my personal preferences -- for example: I like dry air and cool night, I like familiarity, I want to be near my dogs -- in order to walk forward into opportunities that were completely without a roadmap.

For those of you who are natural adventurers this might seem like a walk in the park. For me, a spiritual homebody, it was like waking up from that dream.  You know, the one where you have gone to school in your pajamas - and then realized it wasn't a dream. You actually are in math class and everyone is whispering about your flannel nightie.

But what I have been feeling today - as I've embraced this adventure - is the feeling of kicking a ball. Each time I have drawn back -- whether it is to return to a place I need to find redemption and healing in, or from my sense of personality, I am moving forward into the next moment with greater freedom, purpose, strength, and precision. Each time I have folded in and dealt with a past mistake or a deep fear of the unknown -- I open out with a new grace.

And in that motion, there is an almost imperceptible pause between the drawing back, and the moving forward. An immeasurable, timeless moment where I feel God's presence and power. It is as if, for a quadtrillisecond, there is an absolute stillness filled with peace - just before I am sent forward into the next moment - of being at play in the fields of the Lord.

This post may not make any sense to you. I am sorry if that is the case. Perhaps, I am writing it for the sole purpose of watching the feeling take shape in words. I don't know if writing this is a drawing back, the sweet pause, or the hurtling forward. But I know I am feeling God-sent this morning.

Each camper and counselor, in every camp around the world, who has spent time in servant leadership and spiritual self-discovery will soon return - be drawn back into - schools, friendships, towns, families where they will be poised for the pause -- and then they will be sent forward into a world so ready for the young men and women they have become. "Children" who are wiser, gentler, less self-focused, more intentional. And we will all be better for their summer of vision and service.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"...the root of the root of your own soul..."

"Poems reach up like spindrift
and the edge of driftwood
along the beach,
wanting...
They derive from a slow and
powerful root
that we can't see..."
- Rumi

A friend called the other day.  He asked, "My God Kate, where the hell are you these days?  I read your blog, I see the quotes you put on Facebook, and there is a part of me that thinks you've gone mad.  And then there is another part of me that thinks I am seeing you...the real you...for the first time.  It's damned disorienting!"

I nodded, from the other end of the line, in complete surrender, and with utter resignation.  "I know the feeling..." I said with a soft smile of sympathy as I shook my head almost imperceptibly.  "I come face-to-face (and heart-to-heart) with this strange, and oh-so-curiously disarming version of my 'self,' every day," I thought, "in the mirror of my own soul."

These days, I am living in a space of divine paradox.  I have never felt more grounded...and yet, un-tethered.  I have never felt more at peace...and less worried about chaos.  I have never wanted less...and had more. I have never felt more intrigued by the questions...and less interested in finding answers.  I have never felt more content with aloneness...and a better friend.  I have never felt more dead to want...and more alive with purpose.  I have never been more fully empty...and more filled with promise.  And all of this...all at once.

But, I've also never felt more clearly the healing, transformative, redemtive wholeness of spiritual consciousness. This, for me, is the space of understanding where, as Mary Baker Eddy says, "loss..." really, "...IS gain," [emphasis added]. Not, "loss is only temporary, and only seen as loss, until we get gain, again..." Nope, right here and now, right in front of my eyes, "loss IS gain."

Navigating the landscape of this paradoxical inner labyrinth always seems to take on new dimension in the middle of the night. In this quiet space, up becomes blue, light becomes yesterday, and the number nine smells like lavender. All things are spiritual, and I can walk through the flashing images of this mental flipbook, and beyond, into the contiguous space of Consciousness...where the paper is changeless, and the view is spiritual.

I have been finding companionship...during the wee small hours between midnight and dawn...in the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, Emerson, Blake, Eddy, King David, Browning, Dane, Henley...and on...and on.  Poetry is my native tongue.  It makes sense to me, then, that this language of my own spiritual infancy, would be the most familiar...a syntax, a rhythm that rings most true...when I am seeking the voice of a friend along the way.

Last night it was my 13th century Sufi cousin, Rumi (music in video by Yanni),who sang to me in the darkness:

"For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely,
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You descended from the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come ---
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You were born from the rays of God's Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you deceive Us with this outer show?
O friend, We can see the truth in your eyes!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

After one moment with that glorious Friend
you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic.
Your eyes were sweet and full of fire.
Come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

The King of the Tavern
has handed you an eternal cup,
And God in all His glory is pouring the wine.
So come! Drink!
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Soul of all souls, Life of all life - you are That.
Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving - you are That.
The road that leads to the City is endless;
Go without head and feet
and you'll already be there.
What else could you be? - you are That."

- Rumi

For today, this helps me understand Mary Baker Eddy's statement that:

"...conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart,
and nothing else can."

I quietly offer this....with Love,


Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaiel Wilder 2010]