"Like a small boat…"

"Like a small boat
on the ocean
Sending big waves
into motion
Like how a single word
can make a heart open..."

When Sam asked me to write a post using Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," as the keynote, I was intrigued. I'd never heard of Rachel -- or her song -- but once I did, this post gave birth to itself. I just got out of the way. Here what fell on the page:

I'd spent so many years trying to prove my worthiness. I'd chased a sense of belonging -- to family, church, and in the communities I've lived in. Enough.

I refuse to fight any longer for a personal sense of validation. And actually, I have discovered that I don't need to. I am enough. In her song, Rachel sings, "a single word can make a heart open…"

That is the line that simply took my breath away.  You see, once upon a time, not so long ago, I had a life-altering experience that supplied the "one word" I'd been waiting for. The word was "no."

I had been holding my breath, waiting for someone to to take note of my worth -- for way too many years. I'd done everything - shy of standing on my head - to get a thumbs up. Then one day, I got a clear, decisive thumbs down. And it was wonderful.

Sure, the first moment or two was filled with "what did I do wrong?" "Give me another chance -- please -- I'll try harder to win you over. I promise, I'll do better next time." 

 And there were many times in the following days - and weeks - when I thought it actually meant something about me that I didn't measure up. As if looking through any human lens could serve as an accurate assessment tool for measuring a person's merit. For weighing worth, validating value.

But I soon came to realize, that it never would. It never could. And it just didn't matter. Really. I knew I had given "it" my honest, genuine, authentic all, and it was still not enough -- for him/her/them.

That "no," was the key to my freedom. It released me.  It wasn't a "no" to my dreams and desires, only a "no" to their participation in it.  I was free to be empowered from within.   

In the wake of their "no," I could begin to look in another direction. And I chose to look towards my relationship with God for any - and all - meaningful information about my peace, my purpose, my place in the world. That relationship was intact and unwavering. My trust in His love for me was sound. 

Like a small heavy-keeled boat, I was secure in my spiritual seaworthiness. I was deeply grounded in an unsinkable certainty that I knew Him, felt His presence, and was filled with His grace.

What I also learned through this experience, was that a clear "no," is sometimes the most wonderful version of "yes." To know -- without a shadow of a doubt -- that permission from others is just not going to be yours, frees you to stare unflinchingly into abyss of the heart. This is the province where God is Sovereign -- enriching your affections for what really is yours.

Nothing that is truly ours, requires someone else's approval or permission. When we feel inspired and impelled by that deeper demand from within -- we are driven to find ways to live those desires moment-by-moment. We stop asking for permission.

I think that, for me, parenting has been one of the most powerful examples of this. For such a long time I thought that I needed to have a child to be a mother. But mothering is a verb. I could mother colleagues, nieces, neighbors, countries, causes. I didn't need to wait for the validation of a baby. I didn't need someone to choose me as the adoptive parent of their infant or child. I could mother -- nurture, encourage, support, cherish -- without hesitation, without apology.

Whatever it is yours to do, you know it in your heart. You don't have to think it into being.  You don't need to poll the opinions of others to find consensus.  Your purpose springs from that sacred place in you that is so deeply aligned with divine Love that nothing can extinguish its primordial fire. 

Are you impelled to heal -- then heal. Are you kept awake by a desire to write, to keep bees, to partner, to coach? Then do it -- even if the "doing" begins with simply and importunately  praying for the integrity and success of that industry, institution, activity in the world.

If you love the thought of being in a marriage and you have not met Mr. Right -- so? Love marriage. Love the office of husband so much that you would never criticize, demean, or undermine that office in any way. No matter how it is being carried out by those around you. 

 Uphold the best view of that office in your conversations, interactions, and in support of your family members and friends. Nothing can make you think of that office in any way that violates your highest sense of its potential to bless -- not even someone else's behavior. You own your right to uphold your highest sense of husband, boss, mother, friend, world leader, global citizen. Take possession of it and defend it.

Don't wait for the validation of the "right" person, place, or thing, to live your relationship with whatever God is impelling in you. Don't wait for permission from an employer's "hiring" to live your desire to do, what it is that you love -- whether it is to exercise a skill, share a talent, or support an organization's mission. Their "no," may just be your "yes" in finding a clearer, brighter path towards the realization of a deeper sense of what it means to fulfill your divinely-designed purpose, to answering your highest calling.

Mary Baker Eddy says, on the first page of her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:


"Desire is prayer,
and no loss can occur
from trusting God with our desires…"


These desires -- which she clearly identifies as prayers -- are,

"God's gracious means
for accomplishing whatever
has been successfully done
for the Christianization
and health of mankind."

I'm learning to trust this truth. To act upon it without permission from anyone -- but God. I am discovering that when the eyes of my heart are fixed on Him, I cannot be disappointed. I am empowered by His reign in my heart -- enriching my affections and governing them.  

You may not be a big ocean liner filled with folks lining up to party with you, you may find that you are like a small deep-keeled boat, happy to do what boats do.

Offered with Love,

Kate

"Let's be a miracle..."

"Let's feel what we cannot feel,
know what we cannot know,
Let's heal where we could not heal.
Oh it's a miracle,
Love is a miracle,
let's be a miracle..."

"That's not possible." she said. "It's just too much to expect." Thus far, and no father...

I thought of "her" as I listened to Sara Groves', Miracle tonight. The "her" was me. But the version of me, the one who thought that something could be "beyond loving," now seemed somehow foreign, distant, a specter of sorts.

It wasn't always that way. Over the years, there were many things that, I thought, were beyond my capacity for loving...and, actually, they were.

They were beyond my capacity for loving, but not God's. And when I finally began to understand that, in reality, I had no capacity for love of my own, I was able to see that the infinite well of Love...from which I was drawing upon for the little, easy kinds of loving...was actually fathomless. infinite, and "not of mine own self" -- at all. It never was, and it never would be.

And once I realized this, it seemed silly not to draw on it all the time. To draw upon it more deeply, boldly, and courageously than ever before. To draw upon it for the purest, clearest, holiest living waters of Love's bounty.

This afternoon, I had an experience that was a tiny example of how this shift in my heart has changed the way I see my relationship to the miracle of loving. It seems like such a small thing on the surface, but I felt it to the marrow of my being.

I'd received an email that I found very hard to digest. Everything about it poked at what I love, and what I believe to be true. Of course, the ego (or mortal mind...whatever languaging works best for you) immediately took my feelings of "how could he/she" as an invitation to say, "well, that person/position is certainly wrong, unkind, unlovable." But "it" (the ego) had forgotten that I am no longer the person who once had limits to her loving. I am on my toes these days. I know its nasty tone...it is the voice of judgment...especially assertive when it feels indignant, self-righteous, justified in judging another, because of some perceived slight.

I was actually pretty quick (this time) in realizing that I could not afford the luxury of judging anyone, including the writer of the email, as someone who had perpetrated a slight on me, or my beliefs. It was clear to me that if I allowed myself to judge them, it would make me a perpetrator...someone who judges others. And a cycle of the victim becoming the perpetrator ensues. And that's a ball that will just continue to bounce back and forth, picking up speed, until someone really gets hurt in the crossfire.

So, I stopped. Yep, I just stopped. I sat back in my chair, and asked myself, "Kate, what is keeping you from loving this person...right now?" It was immediately clear, "Nothing!" Not one single thing. My identity wasn't defined by anything anyone else said, or did, but by the way, the "how", I love. And I wasn't going to willingly, or consciously, violate my identity by giving up my right to love unconditionally, impartially, and universally...ever.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

““If I love you,
what business is it of yours?”

Which, for me, aligns with Paul's statement from Romans:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us
from the love of God...”

Nothing...no person, place, or thing can separate me from my right to love...anything and everything, at all times, in all places, under all circumstances.

Loving...being the very love of Love...is my business. It is my life. It is my "one true thing." It is all that I am sure of. It is what I rest my hope, my confidence, my sense of identity upon. No matter what storms may seem to be roaring "without me," I cannot be made to feel separate from the love of God. I can always find my peace by returning to the center of my knowing, the Scriptural promise that nothing can separate me from love of God.

I don't need anyone's permission to love...it my right to love whatever is in my path. To love every moment. To love him, and her, and those, and that. It is a divine imperative that is asserting itself in each of us. The human will does not have the capacity for that kind of loving. It is not a decision, it is not the result of human endeavor, or the product of noble effort...it simply a miracle of grace.
A miracle of grace -- of Love's influence on our hearts, and it's reflection in our lives. And since, as Mary Baker Eddy says in her poem, "Love":

"Love alone is Life."

We are fully alive, every moment that we are undeterred, and borderless, in our loving. Every small act of kindness, every time we put down our weapons of self-preservation, and love beyond what feels "safe," we are that miracle of grace. It makes me happy to discover how many "miracles" I can find within myself on any given day. Because, there's just always an opportunity to love more right beyond the borders of what we think is impossible....

with Love,


Kate

"Pentecost: one people, one Voice..."

"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..."

I can't get enough of the Wailin' Jennys "One Voice" this week.  It speaks to me of something I am seeing for the first time about "the day of Pentecost" in the book of Acts.

The story goes:

"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

"And suddenly there cam a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Sprit gave them utterance.

"Now when this was noised abroad, the mulitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language."

I've always believed this story, but couldn't imagine experiencing it.  But today, I not only expect to experience it, I know that I have...and often.  And I believe that you have too.

Let me explain.

About 20 years ago, I heard socio-anthropologist Jean Houston (I've written about her story before) share an experience she had as a little girl.  According to my recollection, it goes like this:

Jean's father was a comedy skit writer for ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen, and his wooden-headed dummy, Charlie McCarthy.  Going with her father to the Bergen's apartment to play with Charlie (while Edgar and her dad worked on skits) was a big treat for her. 

One Saturday her dad asked her if she would like to go play with Charlie. 

Of course!

So off they go in a taxi to the Bergen's apartment near Central Park.  They take the elevator, unannounced, up to the penthouse doors that are just a hair's breadth ajar.  They can hear Edgar and Charlie in dialogue.  Mr. Houston assumes that Edgar is rehearsing an act, and wants to see how it's going. 

He motions for Jean to stay hushed, pushes the door open a bit more so that they can watch.  There is Edgar in a chair with Charlie on his lap.  But as they listen, they realize that Edgar is not rehearsing a comedy routine, he is asking Charlie all the most important questions of his heart.  "Is there a God?"  "What is my purpose?" "Where is God when bad things happen? 

And Charlie is answering...and he is answering wisely and profoundly.

Houston realizes that they are listening in on a very private "conversation" and clears his voice, announcing his presence.  Edgar jumps and turns.  Houston, trying to diffuse the moment's surface tension with humor, asks, "okay, who's the new writer?"  Edgar meekly replies, "Charlie."  Houston, says, what do you mean, of course, you are the writer, Charlie is just a wooden-headed dummy. And Edgar explains, "You don't understand, when I ask Charlie all the most profound questions in my heart, I have no idea how he is going to answer."

This experience changed the course of Jean Houston's life.  From that moment on, her eyes were open to what she calls "human potentiality," and the depth of the unseen divinity...wisdom, compassion, grace, humor...buried within each heart, mind..."soul." 

And from the first moment I first heard her story...I got it. It changed everything. It changed the way I thought about conversations, prayers, lectures, congregational sharing...everything.  No matter who we call for help, go to hear speak, show up in conversation with, we are only...through the collective experience of being with another or others...giving ourselves the permission to stop what we are doing, and hear the divine voice that is constantly speaking within our own consciousness. 

We just can't imagine that if we stopped, and stood in the silence of our own Christlikeness, we would hear the wisdom of the ages...as it relates to our own unique needs.  And, we would hear it in a language that resonates with our own life experience, cultural context, earnest longings, and where we are in our spiritual journey.   We would hear it in "our own tongue."

Let me give one example before signing off so that I can go into my own "Pentecostal room" for a while.  Okay?

Not long after hearing Jean's story about her dad, Edgar, and Charlie, I answered the phone in my office one night.  The person was in great discomfort.  I agreed to give treatment, but she asked if I could just talk to her a bit.  I listened for inspiration, and the thoughts that came were lovely, and fresh.  So fresh in fact, that I made notes myself on a pad of paper that I always kept by my phone for just that reason. 

We hung up, and she agreed to call me back within the hour.  At that moment I was called away from the office for a few minutes, and when I returned, the phone was ringing.  I answered it, and it was the woman who had called just minutes before. 

She began by telling me that it was a very quick "healing" and that, "When you said, 'da, da, da, da, da...'"  Well, I am sitting there at my desk, looking down at the copious notes that I had taken, and I hadn't said anything that she thought she had heard me say.   But, she had heard, exactly what she needed.

And the more I looked at my notes, the more I realized that what I had "heard" and thought I'd said, was exactly what I needed to hear from God about something I'd been struggling with for some time, but hadn't given myself permission to stop what I was doing for others, and pray about for myself.

Her reaching out to me, and me showing up in the office and picking up her call, was just the permission that we'd each given ourselves to stop and listen for spiritual guidance and inspiration.  And the only Voice that answers that call, is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit...and it is always answering from within.

I believe that on the day of Pentecost, everyone in that room was earnestly longing for inspiration, guidance, comfort in the face of Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension...and what it all meant to the future of this new community of "believers."  They heard in their own hearts, the language of their heart...and spoke out from that language those healing, transformative messages that were meaningful to each of them.

Each time I turn to God, with my entire being, for answers...whether it is in the privacy of my own home, taking a call from a friend, in community at a lecture or talk, or as a part of a collective readership nurtured by an inspired text...it is a Pentecostal moment.  We will each hear from God, what we need to hear, in our own tongue.

Back into the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings...with Love,  
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

If you would like to hear "One Voice" in a recorded quality (with lyrics), rather than the video of the live performance (above)...here is the link.

And if you would like to read an earlier post titled"This is the sound of one voice..." which also uses "One Voice," as its keynote...here is the link to that post.