"to be known, rather than remembered.."

"memory,
i can dream
of the old days,
life was
beautiful then..."

I've never really liked this song. But, that said, it is the perfect keynote for this post. And if I have to listen to it, I would prefer to hear Barbra Steisand's version of "Memory," than any other.

This experience was pivotal in my understanding of healing. It happened over thirty years ago, but the Truth I discovered that day, is as fresh today as the day it flooded my heart.

A relationship that meant everything to me was falling apart at the seams. It would seem that whatever had drawn us together in the beginning had been lost forever. For the other person, but not for me. I wanted our relationship to continue so desperately. I loved him with every ounce of my being.

It was clear to me that he was just not remembering how good it was. How amazing it had been. All the reasons that we had come together in the first place. So I sent him cards filled with reminders. "Remember our first date? Remember those early months when we couldn't wait to meet at the end of the day and share our inspiration and insights. Remember that trip to...

The more I remembered, the farther away he moved from the closeness we had once enjoyed. I felt bereft. It was so easy for me to remember. And I thought those memories were our lifeline back to all the good we had known together.

One day, when things were at their darkest, I woke to a late spring snow storm. The roads were impassable. It would be a "snow day" for me whether I wanted to be home alone or not. And during that time, home alone was excruciating. So many reminders of "how good it had been."

I knew I couldn't "go there," so I made myself a cup of tea and pulled my books, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, off of my desk and curled up in front of the wood stove for a morning of study.

I don't remember what the theme of that week's scriptural study was, but I do remember two things that shifted my heart. One, was the story of Peter's raising of Tabitha from Acts 9, starting at verse 36. Following her passing after an illness, Peter is called to her home, where he finds her friends - weeping widows who who brought him to the upper chamber where she lay surrounded by some of the coats and garments she had made while she was alive.

But it is this next passage that woke me up:

“But Peter
put them all forth..."
 

I got it. It was suddenly so clear to me. I, too, was clinging to memorials. When all along, divine Love was breathing fresh purpose into our relationship. Immediately on the heels of that realization, a statement from Science and Health came to mind:

“If a friend be with us,
why need we memorials
of that friend."
 

I knew I had to let go of all the "reasons" from the past. My loved one didn't need to be bombarded with memories, he needed to be trusted. He needed for me to release us both from the past. If we were to continue, it would be because God's purpose for our relationship was still vital to His plan for us.

Another statement from Science and Health helped me arrest that behavior. Eddy says:

"Make no unnecessary inquiries
relative to feelings or disease."
 

So I stopped. Cold turkey. I stopped asking him how he felt. I stopped wondering "what if..." I worked every day to simply show up in the presence of God's purpose for us.

This isn't about a nice, neatly tied up "healing" of a relationship. Each day we each showed up willing to discover more about our love for God, through our love for each other. But most importantly, I stopped looking backwards to affirm or define my relationships -- with God, with my loved ones, with my body. It allows relationships to evolve with purpose. It requires the discipleship of knowing -- versus remembering It's a spiritual demand that takes devout focus on loving God as the only "I am."

And isn't this what Peter was so clear about. Tabitha wasn't a memory, she was an idea of God. A reflection of divine Mind. And I love the definition of the word "reflect," as "deep thinking or pondering." Tabitha was God was thinking, not what he was remembering. And Peter knew that he too could know her, not through the widow's memorials, but through an understanding of her present identity.

This would have been so edifying for Peter -- the last thing we would have wanted, was to be remembered for his past denials of Christ, but known for the faithful man of God, the faithful apostle he was day-by-day as he fulfilled his holy purpose.

This spiritual demand to know, rather than remember, blesses everyone and everything. I once thought of myself as someone with a great memory. Now I know myself as someone who knows - not remembers - God. As someone who knows Love. It is enough.


offered with Love,

Kate

"Here I am..."

"I am here in the dark.
I'm the song inside your heart.
I'm the missing piece
you've had all along.

I am here when you call.
When you rise,
and when you fall.
I am here,
I am here,
here I am..."

I can't seem to get enough of Amy Grant's new CD. Her new song, "Here" is the perfect keynote for this post.

Recently I was asked how it felt to experience healing. It was a good question, and I wanted to honor the genuine spiritual hunger behind it. So, I asked if I could think about it and "get back to you."

I knew I had to speak from my experience, and mine only. So I went to a place --within myself -- where I could be absolutely still.  Then I revisited some of my most profound moments of spiritual awakening, healing, and transformation. It didn't take more than the breadth of a heartbeat before that very same feeling washed over me in visceral waves of holy remembering.

There are no words to describe it fully save:

"I am here..." 

This I am is not a human presence -- mine or anyone else's. It is the deep I AM of timeless, changeless, conscious Being. It is the I AM that is -- for me -- God.  It is infinitely near, while still being radiantly unconfined.  And I am as sure of this I AM, as I am of being conscious. It is like honey coursing through every cell of my being -- sweet, warm, heavy with the weight of promise, a constancy that goes beyond what I could ever imagine, and clear as a river of crystal.

It is very different from human thought-taking -- the kind of human reasoning that wants to believe what it thinks it knows.  And it takes me by surprise -- every time. Yet the moment I feel it, I am free. There is nothing but absolute trust.   It is not a trust that is invested in, or holding out for, any particular outcome.  It is an unequivocal, absolute trust in the divine.  A trust that surrenders self-determinism and says -- at the deepest level, with child-like joy:

"Thy will be done." 

When I feel this deeply innate sense of trust -- one that so naturally lets go, and yields everything to God's presence -- I can't even fathom why I ever wondered or worried about anything. It is how I imagine a small child must feel when she gives herself up to sleep in the arms of her parent.

Yet it's not a surrender to an "other."  It is a full-bore letting go, a yielding to the Truth of being -- the core of who I truly am -- eternally.  It is a feeling of sinking deeper and deeper into the great vastness of the kingdom of heaven within. A feeling of being submersed and yet, held aloft at the same time. It reminds me of learning to float as a child. Relaxing my entire body into my mother's arms, and then discovering that she had lowered her arms and I was being buoyed by the same water that had -- only moments before -- yielded to the touch of my tiny fingers.  


This feeling of being "with the Lord," is the best feeling I've ever known. No one can take it from me. Nothing can shake me loose from it's hold. Spiritual texts, words of inspiration, prayers of longing -- no matter how holy -- can only open my heart, and point my hopes in the right direction.   Towards the enduring promise that God's presence is as close to me as my consciousness of existence. This is the feeling that I lean into every moment, of every day.  That's my answer -- what's yours?

offered with Love,

Kate

"If I could save time..."

"If I could save time in a bottle,
the first thing that I'd like to do,
is to save every day till eternity passes away,
just to spend them with you..."

Listening to Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle," always made me feel pensive and sad. Would I ever be able to say I'd finally found enough time? For my loved ones, my responsibilities, fulfilling the desires of my heart?

Time was something I needed more of...all the time. I needed more time for study when I was a student. More time for getting projects done at work. More time for being with my children. More time between monthly bill paying...to marshall our resources for the next round of monthly bill paying. More time for saying hello, getting my point across, covering my bases, focusing on "the important things," saying goodbye. There was never, ever, enough time.

But, a couple of years ago I came across a Christian Science Sentinel interview conducted by Jeffrey Hildner, with physicists, Laurance Doyle and David Carico, titled "How Can We Master Time? Instead of Letting Time Master Us?"

The interview is time-shattering and brilliant. I felt almost deconstructed and re-assembled while reading it. In it are so many extraordinary insights for one to glean from these remarkable thinkers.  But immediately, it was these truths that were absolutely shape-shifting for me:

"Doyle: Mary Baker Eddy recognized that time is a falsity. It's a delusion. You don't want more of it -- you want to get rid of it. Getting rid of time is on eof the things that relates direction to Christian Science healing...

"Hildner: Einstein...came to believe late in life that time isn't merely relative, or in the eye of the beholder -- time is unreal. I have the full quote here. It's from Einstein's letter to the widow of a friend who had reacently died:

"To those if us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present and future, is only an illusion, if a stuboorn one." (Jim Holt, "Time Bandits," The New Yorker, February 28, 2005, pg. 85).

"Carico: Something that keeps coming to my thought is not to fall into the mistake of accepting a mortal sense of the present as being somehow more real than a mortal sense of the future or past." Reality is timeless, and Mrs. Eddy said

"Eternity, not time,
expresses the thought of life,
and time is no part of eternity."

"The mortal measurement of time includes future, present, past. And it's possible, I think, for the mortal mind to lock on to the present as being somehow better than the future or past; where as, in reality, it's timelessness that we're going after.

"As far as Jesus' expression of that, I'm remembering his statement, "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58) Jesus wasn't saying, "I am a mortal living at this moment in time, who also lived in past times." He was saying, "I'm timeless. Because I'm immortal, I'm timeless." So, when we use the word now, we're kind of limited by language. Now, in the highest sense, means eternity, which includes past, present, and future, all at once."

Okay, I don't know about you, but those insights completely took my sense of time apart, and re-calibrated my understanding of life, consciousness, and eternity.

And it also affirmed an experience I'd had about a decade earlier.  One that brought with it a complete healing of "the past."

I was sitting in church, during our weekly Wednesday testimony meeting. I'd been listening for what I could share gratitude for, when I remembered a healing I'd had as a child.

As the details of that healing began to come into clearer focus, so did attending bad memories of a time filled with terror and sadness. Before long I was shaken, haunted by flashbacks so unsettling I could barely breathe.

When the thought came, "Why do I have to be so haunted by a past I can't do anything about?  And since it's already happened, there's nothing I can do to change it," I wanted to cry.

Then, something pierced the sadness, and I suddenly saw something new. 

I was thinking, and I wasn't thinking in the past.   I was thinking about what I called "the past" but my thinking was very much in present. And if my thinking was in the present-tense, I could decide how I wanted to think about it...right then.

As I sat there, I began to reconsider that very lonely, frightening time of my life. And instead of focusing on the terror I had let characterize my memory of those years, I decided to reclaim individual moments of clarity and strength.  

I recognized that there were flashes of peace scattered through those memories. There were moments of an unexplainable calm...moments that had kept me hopeful -- alive to a future free of torment.  

I decided to embrace these thoughts.  Thought that I was thinking in the present tense.  Thoughts, not memories, as the prevailing truths about that time.

Then I stood up and shared my testimony of gratitude for the sweet healing that had originally urged me to revisit that time in my childhood.

After that night in church, I was never haunted by those "memories" again.

My thinking is never about a past, present, or future segment on a timeline.  When I am thinking...about anything...I am thinking in the present.  And how I think, is defined by my relationship to God, as Mind.  My surrender to Him as the only Creator of my conscious experience is all that defines the eternity of my now...including past, present, and future. 

Whether I seem to be haunted by a terrifying past, melancholic about a lost moment, feeling nostalgic about an experience with a loved one, or taunted by an imagined, or even longed-for future, I am thinking about it in the present.  It is a present thought, and I can choose "who" is the source of my consciousness, and align my thoughts accordingly.

So, back to my original concern about needing more time...I'd like to revisit the sentence I quoted from Doyle, earlier in this post.  As well as a follow-up statement from later in the same article:

"Doyle: Mary Baker Eddy recognized that time is a falsity. It's a delusion. You don't want more of it -- you want to get rid of it. Getting rid of time is on eof the things that relates direction to Christian Science healing...

"Time is the basis of all limitation in matter. It's the basis of the concept of mortality. Mrs. Eddy defines time as:

"Mortal measurements; limits;...
matter, error..."

"And so we have to watch ourselves not to say: 'I need more time. I need more error.  I need more limits...'" 

Like I said...life-altering. The last thing I need, is more time...

shared with Love,

Kate

"til we find our place..."

"It's the circle of Life,
and it moves us all,
through despair and hope,
through faith and love.

Till we find our place
on the path unwinding...
In the circle,
the circle of Life..."

Do you remember sitting in the darkened movie theatre with your toddler, preschooler, gradeschool-age child, or friend...and hearing the first stirrings of Africa rising like a drumbeat
through the theater.  That song, "The Circle of Life," still gives me chills. 

As it did the other day, when my grandson was visiting.  I'd put one of our vintage Disney Hi-Ho Sing-along DVDs on to, well, to sing-along with, and from the moment I heard that first "Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba, Sithi uhm ingonyama..." I was fighting back the tears.  

How did 17 years go by so fast?  Here I was holding the precious son, of the beloved daughter I'd first seen this movie with, at another time, and in another place...so long ago.  It was unsettling....and lovely. 

It wasn't just that the years had melted into moments, but that I could see the evolution of my own thinking about life and my purpose here, on this planet. 

As I listened to that opening song, I realized that my path has been circular. And thank goodness it has.   It's sometimes been a hard climb, and often felt like an insurmountably rugged way.  But, by taking a circuitous path, I have been able to make progress in baby steps...and trust me, I needed baby steps. 

I am not a "vertical" climber...I am a hiker.  I walk around the mountain, rather than trying to scale solid granite rock faces, in a day.    But when you are walking in a circluar pattern, it is almost impossible to see very far ahead of you.   And it requires trust.   Trust that moving in the direction of the sun, is up...trust, that as long as you keep moving, you will go up...however incrementally and slow.   And even though this often meant that I couldn't anticipate the amazing scenery that was coming, I was equally protected from seeing..and worrying about...the challenges I would face.

These past few years, I really haven't had any choice but, to "just put one foot in front of the other."  But, because I couldn't see too far ahead, or linger on views behind me,  I've found that, moment-by-moment, I really have been able to take at least one more step forward...however difficult...in this circle of life. 

Not seeing too far ahead, I wasn't tempted to rush towards this precious moment of delighting in the presence of one sweet little boy.  And by not being able to fixate on the path behind me, it was impossible for me to cling to bygone days...days that I might never have wanted to leave.  A circular path kept me moving...and I am grateful.

And anyway, if I am really clear about why I'm on this life journey,  I am not looking out in front of me...or behind me...I am looking up.  That's my destination anyway...just closer to Him.

Mary Baker Eddy, makes reference to the Psalmist's encouragement, when she says,

"Step by step will those who trust Him find
that "God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble."

Step-by-step...for me...it is the circle of life, and I am finding that it moves us all through despair and hope, through faith and love...  I've gathered some lovely wildflowers along the way, seen some incredible views...but nothing compares with feeling the sun...the warmth of His Love...on my face.

We just have to trust, take the next step...and keep looking up...with Love,

Kate


*I thought you might like the option of hearing/seeing Elton John's more ballad-like video  of "Circle of Life" including playful lion cubs...enjoy.