"i've been changed. yes, really changed...."

"I don't know how
to love him;
what to do,
how to move him

I've been changed;
yes, really changed..."

It's been 46 years since I first heard Yvonne Ellian's hauntingly beautiful performance of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar. I was barely more than a girl, how could I have understood what she was singing about? But I did. Or at least I caught a glimmer of the kind of love that could transform you.

I have known this kind of love. I have been blessed by it, confused by it, and yes, changed by it. There are times when it felt very personal. The kindness of this stranger, the compassion of that neighbor, the way "he" saw me, the words she spoke in my darkest hour. That kind of love.

In our humaness we want to cling to it -- to them. To make that person our beloved, our best friend, our savior. I did.

But experience has taught me that this kind of transformative love cannot be possessed. It cannot be held in our arms. For love to be transformative, it must be infinite, impartial, impersonal. It must be released into its native element -- the All-in-allness of universal being. To attempt its containment is to limit our own sense of its power.

I think of this each year when I consider Mary Magdalene's pivotal role in the Easter story. There is some question about how and when the Magdalene encountered Jesus -- was she the woman of questionable reputation who crashed the Pharisees dinner party and washed the Mater's feet with her tears, or was she a successful business woman from the coastal town of Magdala? We don't know. But here is what we do know. Out of her, Jesus cast seven demons. Whether those demons were fornication or ambition - he cast them out.

Either way, once touched by Jesus' love, there was no going back. She follows him as a 13th disciple. And when the time came for someone to be with him - in his hours of agony on the cross - it was she, and his mother, who joined the disciple John in that holy watch.

When all hope seemed lost - and the rest of the disciples had retreated to an upper chamber - it was Mary Magdalene and his Mother who went to the sepulcher with oil and sweet-smelling spices to anoint his body.

And when the angel appeared, quietly heralding her Master's resurrection, she was ready, waiting, expectant. Why? Because she had already experienced the resurrection of life in herself. She knew what the Christ was capable of. More than the resurrection of the flesh, it was the resurrection of her own innocence, that convinced her that the impossible -- was possible.

And, when she joyously rushed to tell her brethren disciples that their Master was alive, their distrust of her message received the risen Savior's stern rebuke for their hardness of heart in not believing her.

The Magdalene's unwavering love for, and trust in, the Christ-message of resurrecting Love, is an integral part of the Easter story. It sings with as full a voice as the Savior's own. It is as much her story, as his. It is one of the greatest love stories of all time.


offered with Love,

Kate

"the writing's on the wall..."

"for You,
I have to risk it all,
for the writing's on the wall..."

The other night Sam Smith's recording of  "The Writing's on the Wall" found its way to the top of my playlist.  About the same time that I was thinking about Jesus' night in the garden of Gethsemane. Suddenly it wasn't James Bond that Sam was singing about -- it was Jesus.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to know you were going to be arrested and crucified. Yes, he also knew that a resurrection was part of God's plan for him, but still...

I keep thinking about his spiritual preparation for this ultimate opportunity to demonstrate his love for mankind -- by modeling his unprecedented trust in God's omnipotent goodness. His willingness to give each of us a precedent-setting case of what happens when you "risk" it all for Love.

We know that he was a student of earliest scripture. As a good Hebrew boy, he was familiar with the stories in the Old Testament. He would have heard of Daniel's night in the lions' den, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, of Moses' journey through a parted sea with the Children of Israel. He would have memorized the Psalms and learned from Job. He was ready.

He had been humbled, tempted, lauded, questioned, exalted, pursued, defended, and defamed. He had spent 40 days in the desert, was the honored guest at weddings and feasts, read in the temple, was pursued by a mob, and fed multitudes. He was ready.

He had seen water made wine, men turn from their self-righteous anger, lepers made clean, a bent woman straightened, money from the mouth of a fish, thousands fed, a blind man seeing, and the dead raised to life. He was ready.

Last summer a friend shared three short sentences in a talk. They were:

You belong here.
You are ready.
You are not alone.

There has not been a day - since hearing those three sentences strung together - that I have not claimed them for myself and others. The comfort of knowing that we have been sent into each moment for a holy purpose. The confidence inspired by realizing that we are prepared and ready for this experience with spiritual skills, tools, resources, experiences, and proofs. And the abiding sense that we are not alone as we stand in this moment. Divine Love is with us every step of the way. Isaiah shares this promise:

"Now thus saith the Lord, Fear not -- when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert..." 

And the Pslamist, David writes:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou are with me..."

Jesus would have known these promises from scripture. They must have been a great comfort to him. I know they have been for me. If the writing's on the wall -- and we know that we must pass through the fire of self-immolation, then the writing is also on the page, telling us how we can do navigate this passage with spiritual courage, strength, wisdom, and trust.

John relates this promise from Jesus:

"In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

What love he has shown us. What gifts of compassion and understanding he has left for us. No one was awake with Jesus in the garden to take notes. Yet we know what happened there - the plea, the tears, the surrender. He, himself, must have left record of this night of gloom and glory with his followers. Perhaps he left this record as  encouragement for all who he knows will follow him in their own path of devotion to God and mankind.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says this about our own sometimes tear-strewn path in following his example:

"It is possible, — yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman, — to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness."

As hard as that may seem to imagine,  we -- every child, man, and woman -- are ready to do this. We are well-prepared. Our spiritual storehouses are well-stocked.

As Paul writes in II Corinthians:

"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."

Not long ago, I found myself in a very dark place. It was unexpected and unsettling. I reminded myself over and over again: I belong here. I am ready. I am not alone. I was willing to accept that this seeming darkness was really the backdrop for a brilliant Truth to be seen more clearly. Day-by-day I searched scripture, listened in prayer, waited patiently. I looked for God's presence in my life -- in hundreds of tiny ways -- reminding me that I was not alone. When the light broke -- it was not in opposition to the darkness, but enhanced by it.

We are prepared to see the lowering cloud for what it is -- the promise of healing, reviving rain. We can run for cover, or we can stay and watch the desert blossom as the rose. Arms stretched wide, face turned up to receive His bow of promise.

We belong here.  We belong in every moment of our own awakening to spiritual life and its possibilities -- whether it be through the doors of the temple, in the silence of a sanctuary, or on the path of our own cross-bearing. We are ready.  We are well-equipped with scriptural truths, confidence-inspiring experiences, prayer-based encouragement, and his life-affirming promises. And we are not alone. We have Jesus' example -- and most vitally, we have the kingdom of God at hand, with us, within our hearts.

Yes, the writing's on the wall. But His Word is written in our hearts.


offered with Love,

Kate

"be it far from thee Lord..."

"All my devotion,
and misguided loyalty;
swinging my sword
in the garden,
while you pray
for your enemies..."

A few years ago, I found a wonderful collection of contemporary Christian songs called, "The Story." I often find fresh perspective on Scriptural stories from them. Dan Haseltine and Matt Hammett's song,  "Empty"  was a beautiful compliment to my study of the Easter story this morning.

I was reading outside the lines -- beyond the citations of Scripture that were recommended for study -- and remembered an experience I had some years ago. The son we'd been in the process of adopting had been taken back by his birthmother and I was devastated. I hadn't held back in loving him. He had my heart. There were moments when I could step back and see the bigger spiritual picture, and they other times when I just felt empty.

Friends and family members were loving and supportive. Sometimes that support came in the guise of outrage at what we'd gone through. It was easy to slip into the arms of their commiseration and be assured that it just wasn't fair.  It wasn't fair -- we'd done everything "right," and now, here we were with an empty nursery and broken hearts. Their sympathy was comforting.

But one week, while considering the disciple Peter's career-trajectory - as one of Jesus' closest companions. I thought  about his eagerness, his persistence, and his bumpy road from fisherman to fisher of men. I discovered that two of the accounts appear back-to-back in the 16th chapter of Matthew's gospel:

"When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar–jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven..."

and

"From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

In the first instance, we have Peter identifying Jesus correctly as, "the Christ, the son of the living God," -- and then when he tries to defend Jesus, saying that it would be wrong for a man of such goodness as Jesus to be arrested and crucified, he is rebuked by his Master, and called "Satan."  Something about that story hit me like a cup of cold water -- being thrown in my face.

In the breadth of a heartbeat, I knew I could no longer accept the sympathy of those who loved me, as if I were a victim -- small, vulnerable, shattered, and broken. Oh yes, I was so very grateful for their love, and I could appreciate their intent, but I could no longer accept this version of my own story -- one that painted me as a casualty of someone else's choices, decisions, mistakes. It deprived me of my own God-sent journey. It was a denial of my right to see myself as whole, and to exchange a crucified sense of my mommy story - the cradle song and natal hour, for a resurrected sense of  genuine motherhood -- unmoved, unwavering, unshaken.

I believe that Jesus knew that for him to lean into Peter's "be it far from thee Lord," was to allow space for the breach -- the suggestion that for even one moment of his life, his story was out of God's supreme control. Peter's righteous indignation only soothed the personal ego -- it had no life in Christ.

Jesus doesn't call Pilate "Satan" -- nor the the priests who were behind his arrest, or Judas who led his captors to him. They were not the "problem." The real snake was the ego -- that which seeks to be defended.  The false narrative that would suggest that his life mission was a series of "whew, dodged another mortal bullet." These were the real enemy of the Christ -- his eternal manhood as God's own beloved son.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times this insight has blessed me in the ensuing 30 years. Whether it is my own self-sympathy when facing a challenge, or the well-intentioned "not you..." offered by a friend or loved one, it doesn't take long to remember that, as Mary Baker Eddy promises in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, next to the marginal heading, "Uses of suffering":

"The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life in divine Science..."

I want to learn life in divine Science. If my disappointments and ceaseless woes are the beginning of a new lesson -- bring them on! I will try to receive them with the same clear sense and calm trust that Jesus teaches us.

Whenever I begin feeling sorry for myself, wondering "why" I am facing this problem or that challenge, I re-visit the chapter, "Atonement and Eucharist" in Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures - again.  It always reminds me why I love being a scientist, and how grateful I am for each opportunity to deepen my trust in the law of Love within the laboratory of human experience.

This chapter of Jesus' story -- the neglect, betrayal, arrest, crucifixion -- was the ultimate platform for proving his love for his Father, his trust in God's care, and for modeling the love that triumphs over hate, despair, pain, and fear.

offered with Love,

Kate

"beloved, it is time for you to rise..."

"Beloved, it is time
for you to rise..."

This morning as the sun crested Sleeping Indian, I couldn't help but think about another Easter weekend. It was over a decade ago, but the memories are as fresh as this morning's dew.

David Wilcox's "Rise," brings it all back. And along with the memories, tears of gratitude.

I wrote about the experience in 2006 when it was still quite fresh.  Revisiting that post, this afternoon, was profoundly moving for me. Here is an excerpt:

"Depression which had only been a far-off land - visited by other people - became my prison. Escape seemed to come only with dreaming, and sleep was the vehicle for getting to this place of reprieve. I lived in limbo between the waking reality of my sadness, and the hypnotic invitation to escape from that sadness, through sleep.

"Depression -- and the constant invitation by pharmaceutical companies to join the club of millions who suffer from countless symptoms that only their drug can relieve -- invites its victim to let go, and sink deeper. To give in to the weight of its pull, like a tired swimmer in an endless whirlpool of overwhelming emotions.

Wilcox's "Rise" was a life preserver thrown to me when I was most exhausted from that downward spiral..."  

Today, that depression seems like a bad dream that I simply woke up from. But at the time, I couldn't even imagine rousing myself, much less breaking free.

Recently, someone suggested that depression was something  a mutual friend just needed to "snap out of." I tried to explain that -- when you were in the midst of it -- it wasn't as easy as that.  It felt very ominous and real.  Depression felt like a living thing.

I remember the feeling of being caught under a heavy cloud of darkness. And at the time, I found myself thinking about that feeling a lot.  What did it mean, when did it start, how had it changed?  But it was the feeling of heaviness which gave me my first clue that -- perhaps -- there was a way out. 

I realized that I could only be aware of the heaviness,  because I had experienced something else - something lighter. I was aware of the difference.  That meant that the lightness was still part of my consciousness. And somehow, I knew that lightness and joy were better - more natural - than the heavy darkness.

This realization was like the sun breaking through. In fact, I remember one day in particular when a shaft of sunlight coming through the bedroom window was like an invitation. I engaged with it. I let it call me out from under the bedcovers and onto the back deck where I delighted in the dance of a pair of mourning doves. 

As I watched them, it occurred to me that I actually cared about them. I wanted to get up and fill the bird feeder. Love for these gentle beings was giving me a sense of purpose, and it was bringing me such pure joy. I held on to the fact that I could actually feel and experience that simple joy -- for many days.

Someone once asked me if I had forgotten how to pray during that time. No. Actually, I prayed without ceasing. In fact, I think I learned something very beautiful about prayer during those dark days. Prayer was not something I did.  It was not my thinking. Prayer was/is, as Mary Baker Eddy says on the first page of her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"God's gracious means..."  

Because I didn't trust my own thinking, I stopped thinking -- and started listening more humbly, attentively, hungrily for the voice of my Father-Mother God. The inspirations that came were not "of me," -- that was clear.  They were so pure and lovely that they often brought me to my knees in abject gratitude.

Depression was my tomb. Depression was the lonely place where I began to strip away the false sense of human endeavor, and accomplishment. I really didn't trust "my mind," but I trusted the Mind that held the stars in order, that called the leaflet to the sun, that poured inspiration into my waiting heart.

I was sad, but I was alive. I was sad, but I wanted happiness and goodness for my daughters. I was sad, but I was able to get up and make breakfast for my family. Yes, I was sad, but that was just a feeling -- and feelings weren't necessarily facts. They didn't define me. I was sad, but I could love.  This defined me -- even to myself. 

These small moments of love lived, were like a kind stranger calling a frightened kitten out from beneath a dumpster. Before long, I was drinking the milk of the Word from the hand of the Divine.

As I ponder the Easter story tonight, I can't help but think of how many small resurrections we each face. For some of us, these resurrections come in the form of a renewed sense of wonder. For others it may come in the form of new love. For many, it appears as healing in a relationship that held no hope. And for others, it is the stone of sadness being rolled away from the where we have "buried our fondest earthly, [and heavenly] hopes" -- as Eddy suggests.

Jesus' resurrection was an event of unprecedented import and opened an entire new world of spiritual expectancy for the human race. Life triumphed over death, love over hate, and hope over despair. For each of us, this event -- which took place over 2,000 years ago -- offers the promise of freedom from the depressing thought that we are mortals subject to laws of heredity, history, and psycho-social theories of chance and unpredictability. 

 In her, First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy writes:

"A great sanity,
a mighty something buried
in the depths of the unseen,
has wrought a resurrection among you,
and has leaped into living love. "  

This "great sanity" of being -- is living love. This is the sanity that lays waste to depression. This resurrection - this mighty something - may seem buried within the depths of the unseen, but it is there. It is the kingdom of God within each of us.  And it leaps into action at the call of love.

May your heart feel the joy of this Easter promise. May you feel the peace of this mighty something -- and may it work a resurrection among you, and yours, and all -- leaping, and singing, and living love.


offered with Love,

Kate

"Light my fire..."

"The time to hesitate is through.
No time to wallow in the mire.
Try now we can only lose.
And our love becomes a funeral pyre.

Come on baby light my fire,
come on baby light my fire,
come on baby light my fire...."
- Jim Morrison

I was sitting here in the Hub (the camp office) asking if anyone could recommend a song to go with a poem about self-immolation [Webster defines this term as: "suicide by fire"], and my friends broke into a very cute rendition of "Light My Fire."  So, here it is...the song, and the poem. 

This poem fell onto the page as I considered what it would take to truly embrace Mary Baker Eddy's use of the word "self-immolation" in statements like:

"Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind."

as well as her references to the mythical Phoenix in this passage from The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany:

"A great sanity, a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen, has wrought a resurrection among you, and has leaped into living love. What is this something, this phoenix fire, this pillar by day, kindling, guiding, and guarding your way? It is unity, the bond of perfectness, the thousandfold expansion that will engirdle the world, — unity, which unfolds the thought most within us into the greater and better, the sum of all reality and good."

Ahhh...living love...this is the phoenix fire that leaps and licks at our ego selves...bring it on!! 

I am a
nestling
a Phoenix
a sweet
something
emerging,
emerging
emerging...
never born
and never dying

only self-immolation
and resurrection

self-immolation
and resurrection

self-immolation and
resurrection,
resurrection,
resurrection...

over and over
again...
and again..

I am ready.

Sometimes it is the
heart that burns,
white hot and
fervent...
smiling,
eager for the resurrection

and sometimes
it is the body...

the body of selfish desires
the body of spectred dreams
the body of wants and woes,
sorrows and imaginings

I am not afraid
of the
immolation,
but
I
refuse to
live in the
in between,
the space
where the ego
still stands
pained
by the
letting go

I welcome the
Phoenix fire
let it burn
thoroughly
fervently
hot and
scrupulously
an
all-consuming
incineration of
what would
keep me from
loving without reason,
unconditionally,
and with abandon


Let its flames engulf
the me,
the my,
the mine
of
success...
and failure,
of what I think I've earned...
and what I'll
never be...
let the veneer,
the paint
the flash of self
blister and
peel
in the
heat of unselfed
loving...

I am weary of
carrying around
the 
"not quite" 
incinerated ashes
of resistance,
the "almost" immolated
still peppered
with bits of bone
and broken incisors
fragments of
all
that once
gnashed and gnawed
at the details of
who's to blame,
good human choices made,
and what went wrong...

a limboed
state of
regret and pride,
of what we wanted, or
what could have been...

I want,
I long for,
I ache to know
the
complete
dissolution of
the veiled ego,
the clouded past,
the "what never was"
and is no
longer,
and really
  shouldn't be...

I can do this...

I can walk so fully into the
fire
that there is nothing
left
to carry back out
but the gold,
the silver,
no rust...
no dross...
no smell of fire...
just a sweet nestling as pure
as the
"form of the fourth"*

There is no flickering ember of
the past's tinseled
moments of selfish
indulgence and accomplishment,
neither the grime
of dark alleys
filled with ghosts and
sorrows waiting
to pull me down
down
down
further and further
down....

no bits and pieces of
another time,
a former me,
a maybe him...
or what if her 
to
cling to new
downy feathers
soft and wet
as we
emerge from the
clean, white
ash of
this
God-stoked
Phoenix
pyre.

Just dust and
ash...
fine as silt
to soften the journey
like a powdery
Colorado
snowfall...
just a dusting,
quickly blown away by
Spirit's,
Pneuma's fresh winds of
I am..now
always
now.

yes,
I am!

I am
innocent
pure
good
willing
open
eager
unsullied
sweet
gentle
kind
new
I am
the I AM
that never was a
"was"
and seeks no promise
of
who
she
will be.
But sings the
sweet silver 
song of
I am
I am
I am
I am
all that
the
I AM
is
today...in this moment
of grace...

"here am I, send me..."

hungry for more grace...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

* Daniel 3: 25