"it's all i need to know..."

"God is Love,
God is Love,
if it's all I ever learn in life,
it's all I need to know..."

Outside my cabin, I could hear a group of girls serenading a boy's cabin just down the hill. Their sweet voices lifted into the night sky like fireflies turning into stars. I closed my eyes hoping to capture some of their joy as it rose over the tall pines that stood like sentinels watching over us all.

I was reaching for joy, but it seemed so beyond my grasp that night. I'd received a call earlier in the evening that shook me to my core. Sorrow and bewilderment circled like coyotes looking for a place in my heart. I was on full alert, but tired. I needed a companion in the watch. Mindy Jostyn's beautiful, "God is Love" was a friend in the dark.

I let her remind me through the night that if I took nothing away from this experience -- but an understanding of what it meant that God is Love -- it would be enough. The hope of healing was alive in me. But what that healing would look like seemed elusive. In some ways, I didn't even know what to hope for. Would I stop feeling sad? Would the pain disappear? Would my heart cease to ache? Would someone tell me that the call I'd received earlier had never really happened?

I'd been sitting in the dark for hours, when I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to read from Mary Baker Eddy's primary text on spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. I had a long history with finding healing and comfort in her pages. It was exactly what I needed at that moment. I turned on the lamp and opened my dog-eared copy randomly.

My eyes fell on these words from a longer sentence:

"...the proof of healing, 
a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love." 

It washed over, and through, me like a dam breaking upstream. The proof of healing wasn't going to be seen in a changed physical picture. I wasn't going to hear different news, or wake up to a different report. But I would know this healing. I would have absolute proof of healing.  I would feel it in a "a sweet and certain sense that God is Love" filling my heart -- filling my life.

I turned off the lamp and returned to the stillness of the night. I listened to Mindy's voice -- and I knew I was healed. I felt it. It started as a glowing ember at my core. I felt Spirit breathe upon its presence - all the hope, trust, and affection I held in my heart. Before long, I could feel that "sweet and certain sense that God is Love" radiating, warming, and filling every dark corner of the night. I was healed. I had proof.

Elsewhere in Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy assures us:

"The depth, breadth, height,
might, majesty, and glory
of infinite Love fill all space.
That is enough!" 

And it really was. It was enough, just to know that, "God is Love." I could actually feel that it was the most important thing I would ever learn in life, and that it was all that I would ever really need to know.

On the surface of things, nothing had changed. But deep within my heart I actually felt it -- that sweet and certain sense that God is Love -- and it was all the proof of healing I needed.  I have returned to this experience many times since that night.

In fact, just today my heart was heavy. The news was overwhelming. One alarming report after another. One disturbing account immediately on the heels of the last. The information was coming rapid fire. It felt like I had been praying -- without ceasing -- for days. I couldn't even imagine what healing might look like when there was so much to be healed, and so many issues to be prayerfully addressing. 

 As I stood at the stove waiting for the tea kettle to boil, the strains of Mindy's "God is Love," washed through my heart like the soundtrack from a favorite film. I recalled that night, over a decade earlier, when I had felt so engulfed in grief. And I remembered -- the only proof of healing I needed to feel was:

"a sweet and certain sense
that God is Love" 

I closed my eyes, quieting the clamor of the human mind.  And there it was -- the feeling. That sweet and certain sense that God is Love filling my heart. It was all the proof I needed. It was enough. 


offered with Love,

Kate

"small things..."

“If there’s one thing that I’m keeping
out of all the things I’ve found
is that the best way to be heard sometimes
is not to make a sound.

And the things we want the most
fetch not a penny nor a pound,
and all it takes to find your feet
is just to stand your ground...”

I came across The Audreys' recording of"Small Things"this morning, and it felt like a tuning fork resonating within the very core of my being. Like the familiar, insistent, gentle...but firm, voice of my divine Parent.

I've been thinking a lot about the word "modesty" this summer...especially in light of Mary Baker Eddy's statements:

"The honest student of Christian Science is modest in his claims and conscientious in duty, waiting and working to mature what he has been taught."

and

"I am persuaded that only by the modesty and distinguishing affection illustrated in Jesus' career, can Christian Scientists aid the establishment of Christ's kingdom on the earth."

and

"Few people at present know aught of the Science of mental healing; and so many are obtruding upon the public attention their ignorance or false knowledge in the name of Science, that it behooves all clad in the shining mail to keep bright their invincible armor; to keep their demonstrations modest, and their claims and lives steadfast in Truth."

This concept of modesty is one that I keep coming back to, over-and-over again.

One of the most subtle taunts of the ego is the invitation to "be great." To have a great career, a great marriage, a great story to tell, a great accomplishment to attach our identities to, or a personal moment of greatness to celebrate as our own...like a thing we can possess and capitalize on. The bigger the better...right? I'm not so sure. In this age of "reality" television, great houses, great wins/losses, great wealth, great tragedies, and great dramas seem to be what it takes to get attention.

But Eddy, in referring to this age-old question, "who shall be greatest?" quotes Shakespeare:

"Great, only as I am good."

When did "being good," stop being "good enough?" The word "God," comes from the word "good." And in fact, in the first Chapter of Genesis, it states that:

"God saw all that He had made,
and behold it was very good."

If "good," was good enough for God, when did it stop being good enough for us. Why would we ever want to be more than what pleases Him.

This desire to be great, to have greatness, and to spin simple goodness into attention-grabbing greatness, comes with a lot of ego-baggage. It can't exist without an attending sense of hierarchy. To be great, we have to be better than good. We have to be better than something that is "not so great..." or, "just good." We have to have made a bigger difference, seen farther, accomplished more.

Whereas goodness levels the playing field to the basis of:

"God saw all that He had made,
and behold it was very good.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,
and all the host of them."

Finished. Done. Complete. Nothing more to be accomplished. And it's good. All good. Impartially, and universally good. Good as All-in-all. And good's only portion...all. No more, no less. Every person perfectly, completely, very good. Every story, healing, demonstration, accomplishment, achievement impartially, equally, immeasurably good. No hierarchy of good. Just good. Modestly good, inherently good, joyfully good...simply good.

I was recently reminded of an experience I had a number of years ago when I was helping to match inspirational speakers, with new venues for introducing Mary Baker Eddy's writings to an ever-expanding audience of readers.

One afternoon, a bookstore liaison called asking if she could schedule a particular speaker for an event at a large store in her own community. She explained that she had heard this speaker on a number of occasions, and that she just loved her message of inspiration and healing. She was especially eager to invite her friends and neighbors to the event, as the talk included a very dramatic, "BIG" healing. It just so happened that the event fit perfectly into the speaker's schedule. The host was thrilled.

On the Monday following the event, I called to see how it went. And I was surprised to discover that she felt pretty lukewarm about the talk. She was disappointed that the speaker had left out the dramatic healing, and had instead shared a "little" healing, of a headache, she'd had on her way to the bookstore that afternoon. I encouraged her to trust that the speaker had been praying for direction about what to share, and that she could be supporting the community's receptivity to the message...however modest.

Later that day the speaker herself called in. Without sharing what the host had shared earlier, I asked about the event at the large bookstore. She was thrilled with how it had all gone. She did, however, share that she'd been struggling with a severe headache all morning and that as she'd prayed for the event, the pain had completely dissipated. She said that she normally shared a "big" healing during this talk, but was led to replace it with the more modest healing of the headache, from that morning. She said that it just felt so "real" and "good" in that moment. And, that she had surprised herself in doing so.

But, even more surprising to her, she explained, was that quite a number of folks had come up to her afterwards and told her how much they appreciated her sharing that verymodest healing.

Later that week a "reader response card" (a postcard that was inserted in the back of each copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures published for bookstore sales) came in to our office from someone who had identified their purchase as connected with that particular talk. I smiled when I read, in the comments section, that he/she had purchased the book because the speaker had shared a healing of a simple headache. And that if it had been something more serious, the purchaser would not have felt that spiritual healing was something he/she could trust enough to try for themselves...but a headache was "doable."

I've never forgotten this. What if the speaker had let the "ego" drive her, inviting her to set aside a simple, good healing as "not enough," for a more notable, memorable, remark-able healing with more of a "wow" factor? It takes a radical act of humility to be simply good. And I can't help but wonder if the ideas in Science and Health would have seemed as approachable, practical, and "doable" to those new readers, had she opted for the "big" story.

Modesty. Simplicity. Goodness.

These qualities of heart...are as sweet and good as a cup of pure, clear, drinkable cold water. And to the thirsty child, it is a life-saving gift.

We have no record of Jesus talking about his own great works. We only have record of what others saw, and were led to bear witness to. In fact, when asked, by John's disciples, if he was "the one," or if they should look for another, he told them to go and "tell" (another Gospel record says, "show") John what things ye have seen.

This modest man, helped to define love for humanity. And Love is, as Eddy alludes in this statement from Science and Healthcharacterized by silence, meekness, and modesty:

"Love, redolent with unselfishness,
bathes all in beauty and light.
The grass beneath
our feet silently exclaims,
"The meek shall inherit the earth."
The modest arbutus
sends her sweet breath to heaven.."

This summer, as I've wandered the riverbanks of the Arkansas, hiked in the foothills and mountains, and spent sun saturated hours in the sage-peppered arroyo of the high desert, I've been letting "all nature" teach me about goodness and it's characteristic modesty.

And I have concluded that I am only just beginning to scratch the surface on what I can learn about Love, from Her lessons in this extraordinary classroom. The ego always wants something more, bigger, better...it always will. But today I am so deeply satisfied, and content, with goodness. And these have been good days. Days full of simple, small kindnesses. It has been more than enough.

Mother Teresa once said:

"There are no great things
to accomplish in this world,
only small things
done with great love.."

When I think of the small things I have witnessed..done with great love...I am profoundly humbled.

The only thing "great" is God. We are blessed in the presence of His goodness.

with Love,
Kate

"The simple things remain....."

"I'll light the fire
You place the flowers in the vase
That you bought today..."

Mmmm....flowers in a vase,  a fire, and windows illuminated with evening light....such simple pleasures from simple things.  This song gently nips at the heels of my busy-ness.  Whenever life seems too complicated, and wading through a jungle of choices overwhelms me, I can always count on the sound of a song, like Crosby, Stills, and Nash singing "Our House," to soften the sharp edges of the insistent  "okay, but when...," weed out the bramble of "too much again,"and carve out a neat space of "Thy will be done" for me to curl up, and nest in.   

This is the space of deep peace and satisfaction.  In this simple room of simple thoughts, all the "stuff" that claims to have meaning...all that clamors for importance...fades  into the periphery, and what really matters takes center stage on the blank canvas of a de-cluttered consciousness. 

As my husband once shared with me:

"‎The simplicity of the Christ untangles the complexity of human affairs."

This afternoon, I have been cherishing the untangled, the uncluttered...the simple things that, as Jim Brickman sings in his song of the same title,  remain.   This poem is my heart's longing....in words:


I yearn for
simplicity...

precisely placed
goodness,
positioned by
a divine hand,

a small house,
clean windows
a few
books
water, sunlight,
and silence...
white linens, an apple,
and
unmeasured hours
filled with
love and honesty,
paper and
ink

words
written
thoughtfully,
beautifully,
simply,
with care...

I hunger for
the falling away
of all that
distracts and
complicates

Free from
the want of
more

living
in the space
of God-graced
thoughts

walking in the
path of
a holy
purpose

to be
completely,
fully,
wholly
satisfied

where
less
is
not more...
but All,
in all. 


May your hours be filled with simple things....and love, always with Love,


Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Clara Oyer Robertson Cooper 2010]

"...simple and profound..."

"Tis the gift to be simple,
'Tis the gift to be free.
'Tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves
in the place just right,
it will be in the valley
of love and delight..."

I woke with "Simple Gifts" as my morning prayer.  Simple gifts.  Nothing complex, complicated, or difficult, but simple. sweet, and timeless.  As ancient, and new, as the first cry of a baby.  Thirteenth century Sufi poet, Hafiz says:

"We should make all spiritual talk simple today."

Over 600 years later, spiritual reformer, Mary Baker Eddy would write:

"When hearts speak, however simple the words,
its language is always acceptable
to those who have hearts."

and elsewhere in her primary work on spiritual healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she would state:

"Love one another," is the most simple
and profound counsel of the inspired writer."

Here is my heart's simple reflection, in its native tongue:

The ego
begs for words...

it wants me to
say something

it 
pleads
for pithy platitudes,
researched,
inspired,
scholarly words,
rich with
similes and metaphors
perfectly mined quotations,
poetry that sings
like notes
from the
lute of a repentant King...
prayers that
will turn the key...
treatments
that unlock the door
to the
inner sanctum
of the
temple.

But they
have no
power
anywhere,
but in the heart of
the inner ear,
the space of the hearing,
the heart of the
hungry who
sits waiting
for
a simple
wafer,
a
sip
of
wine...

My words,
her words,
his words,
their words...
are interesting,
beautiful,
rich with allegory.

They are woven with
golden threads of
Scripture
and
the musings of
a
saint
who walked the
streets of
India
feeding
children,
or a prince
who
sat beneath
a tree
and wept
for
all
the pain
he'd never
seen.

But these words
themselves,
they do not
heal,
transform,
liberate...
cure.

"Love one another."

Love.

simply, love...

love one.
just one,
then,
love another...and
another...

love.

It is enough.

The Quakers understood it from the space of extended silence and a deep cavernous listening for the echoing of His breath upon their heart.  And they sway to the music that sings without words, without complex stanzas and a carefully turned phrase...and they bow to His calling, and bend to His will, and turning, turning...they come round right within themselves....within the kingdom...within.  Where simplicity is a delight.

"When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend,
we will not be ashamed.
To turn, to turn
will be our delight.
Till by turning, turning
we come round right."

Simply....gratefully,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I see them bloom, for me and you..."

"...I see trees of green,
red roses too
I see them bloom,
for me and you
And I think to myself,
what a wonderful world..."

This performance of "What a Wonderful World" by k.d.lang and Tony Bennett is so beautiful, that the dogwoods weep in pink blossoms, and the hyacinths drip deep purple tears along the garden path whenver it plays.  And besides all that, it was the song I heard in my heart tonight,  when a gardening memory poked through my prayers like crocuses in March. So here goes...

It was my first real garden...and I'd imagined it for more than a dozen years.  All I needed was my own little acre, and now I had it.  Okay, so it wasn't an acre, but it was ours.  Well, that wasn't true either.  It became ours, but at the time of this story, we were "leasing, with an option to buy."  But I didn't care.  I had enough hope to "build a dream on," and enough dreams to plant a garden...or two, or three...in.  Okay, so I planted gardens in every spot I could imagine bursting with vegetables, flowers, herbs, and fruit. 

The first year we "cleared the land," carved out some space for a lawn, an ambitious vegetable garden...marked out with a low picket fence for stepping over, beds for lavender, sage, lamb's ear, and rosemary, a kitchen garden off the back porch, a well-drained rise from the sidewalk to the butter yellow picket fence for the palest pink trailing "Baby Blanket" rose bushes, an arbor gate with jasmine climbing from tubs on either side, morning glories wrapping their fingers around cotton twining at the far end of the front porch, and a white "evening" garden in the back by the lilac bushes.  And we were patient.  I knew that the first year my perennials would not have "taken" and that I was reclaiming the soil...but year two...sigh.   All through the not-so-lush-and-gorgeous first summer, I dreamed of year two. 

Year one, we harvested a meager crop of tomatoes, peppers, corn, and squash.  And even though our haul was less than bountiful, I was grateful for so much.  I'd felt "one with the earth and the sky, one with everything in life," as I planted marigolds between rows of cucumbers, for detracting insects, and loved me the scent of the sweet peas climbing up, and over, the trellis just this side of the tall sunflowers by the fence.   At summer's end, I composted, turned the soil, cleaned out beds for winter and lay straw over the late fall harvest to protect squash and potatoes from an early Colorado snow storm.   And dreamed of the next summer when we'd be on our way to an "established garden," to borrow a phrase from red-suspendered Roger Swain of PBS's The Victory Garden...which, along with Julia Child's The French Chef, were my favorite shows...thank you WGBH - Boston.

When year two arrived I was chomping at the bit like a race horse.  Bulbs popped through the black soil, blossomed into pink and white tulips, deep purple grape hyacinth, and daffodils, faded, leaves folded to send nutrients back into the bulb, while I waited for the real deal.   Summer's bounty. 

I planted annuals...pansies, geraniums, petunias, I sowed seed...and seedlings I'd grown from seed...within the pickets of the vegetable garden, and I doted over perennial beds like a mother fluffing her child's pillows.

Before long I had...not much. I didn't understand it.  It didn't look beautiful colorful, lush and tranquil.  So I bought more plants.  Planted them and stepped back, but I was still disappointed after two weeks. I thought it would have filled in, filled out, become my version of "The Secret Garden"...but no.  So I bought more plants...and more...and more...I planted, watered, deadheaded, and fertilized.  Nope, still not my dream garden.

I'd about given up on having a beautiful garden, when one morning after making my tea and taking it out to the back stoop, hoping to enjoy the serenity of dawn. As I sat there, I noticed something red through the leafy green of the vegetable garden and wondered if we finally had a tomato worth harvesting.  I went over to investigate and as I stepped over the low picket fence and got down on my haunches in one of the rows, I saw a few tall weeds that needed pulling. 

Hours and hours later I was still there.  White cotton nightgown soiled with mud and sweat and tomato seeds.  Hair mussed, face streaked with dirt, trails of perspiration making primitive designs along my jawline.  I'd moved from the vegetable garden to the white garden, to the lavender, the herbs, the roses, the large barrels of pale pink geraniums and white jasmine, the beds around the front porch and finally the kitchen garden.  I'd spent hours loosening surrounding soil, then gently, but firmly, pulling weeds, thinning excess plantings, trimming stray sucker vines, and I was done.  I stood, rubbed my sore back, went to the back shed for the wheel barrow to gather my clippings and weeds for the composting pile, sorted good plants for regifting to neighbors, and once I was done, headed into the house for a long hot bath.

Bath taken, I headed out the front door, car keys in hand and an errand on my mind, out the front gate and into the car.  Errand accomplished I was back long before dusk.  Parking the car at the curb...as I'd done hundreds of times before, I climbed out of the driver's side, took my marketing out of the trunk, crossed the sidewalk, and started up the steps to our arbor gate.  As I unlatched the gate and stepped through the arbor, I gasped.  My sweet, little butter yellow house with the periwinkle front door and the soft green steps and shutters was surrounded by the most beautiful, lush, colorful, gardens.  Every flower, every tomato, every bright yellow pepper, spike of lavender, pale pink rosebud was framed in the perfect amount of green...spring green, deep green, grass green, forest green. 


I circled the house and stepped gently through the now clearly delineated rows of beans, tomatoes, peppers, sweet peas, and squash vines.  I gingerly navigated strawberries and marigolds, tiptoeing over pumpkin blossoms and tiny green beans.  I stood beneath sunflowers and hollyhocks, and watched bumble bees fly lazily from deep-throated foxglove, to rest on cabbage-headed hydrangea blossoms.

It was the same in every bed, and under every tree...along the porch lattice and beside the back door....beauty, form, outline, color.

All summer long I had been thinking that my gardens needed more plants, more, more, more.  When what it needed was less. 

And most of what I had taken out were good plants.  Yes, there were weeds, but often there were also four perfectly good plants, where there should have been only one.  They were just crowded...vying for resources and attention. There were tall showy plants in front of shorter plants that needed the sunlight.  Plants that boasted more subtle flowers had been hidden behind diva-like large-leafed varieties.  There were bushy, leggy, overgrown plants that had shrouded their own, lower hanging fruit, preventing it from ripening in the sun.  And in a tangle of overplanting and rampant growth, it was hard to tell just when it would be exactly the right moment to harvest the fruit, flowers, or vegetables, for optimum color, flavor, beauty.

There were soooo many lessons learned that day in the garden...in my nightgown.  And these garden lessons, still surface in my life, in some way, almost every day.  While this mental picture of a well-tended and carefully weeded garden, sets the model for my prayers, more often than not. 

So tonight, as I felt the warm, wet air of early spring gather on my cheeks, I couldn't help but think of the way black soil feels packed under my fingernails.  The smell of loamy earth, the overwhelming sense of mothering I feel, when I am loosening the roots of a new seedling, just before planting it.  And then there's the sweet sound of growing...yes, I do believe one can hear a plant grow, and stretch, and sigh.  Like a prayer unfolding in the deep rich sanctuary of Love.

I often go back to that day of weeding, and thinning, as an unsought, but highly valued, spiritual workshop in tending the garden of my thinking.  Less is more.  Order is beautiful, and there is nothing more lovely than a simple truth...well-framed in the spring-green freshness of a moment's awakening, watered by a random act of genuine kindness, and warmed in the sacred space of a child's prayer of gratitude. 

"A grateful heart a garden is,
Where there is always room
For every lovely, Godlike grace
To come to perfect bloom..."
-     E.W. Dennis

In your silent garden may you eat sun-drenched tomatoes, wiggle your toes in black dirt, and find raspberry seeds on your nightgown.

hugs,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

A friend suggested that I share this link to"I had a garden once..." a post I wrote two summers ago, which includes a poem about this very garden, and a link to Anne Murray's beautiful "I Went to the Garden to Pray" (once you are in the post, the link to the song is in the title at the end of the lyrics).

"Down to the river to pray..."

"As I went down in the river to pray,
Studying about that good old way,
And who shall wear the starry crown,
Good Lord, show me the way.

O sisters let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sisters let's go down, 
Down in the river to pray..."
- traditional gospel performed by Alison Krauss

I have loved going "Down in the River to Pray"over, and over again, this week. I've allowed myself to return to Fresh Pond, our little estuary just north of Cape Cod, and live in the space of Tuesday's post "so like still water" when I've been able to carve out moments for silent reflection.   And since past, present and future coalesce in the beauty of  an eternally infinite now, I've been listening for how I can discover from the classroom of yesterday, the lessons of today.  And how, through the simple lens of humility, I can let the ego dissolve in ashes of Love's strange, refining fires, and allow another self to evolve towards an "advancing thought", as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in one of my favorite passages from the first page of Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, and recently shared by two very dear friends:

"Humility is the stepping stone to a higher recognition of Diety. The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world. Meekness heightens immortal attributes only by removing the dust that dims them. Goodness reveals another scene and another self seemingly rolled up in shades, but brought to light by the evolutions of advancing thought, whereby we discern the power of Truth and Love to heal the sick."

[Thanks S. and J. - for your wonderful reminders about this statement...it so perfectly describes exactly how I felt revisiting the pond. ]

One of my favorite spiritual practices for listening, and learning, at the feet of divine Love, is "dictation."  Just sitting with pen in hand...poised over the pages of a journal or legal pad...heart open, listening for more love-lessons from the voice of the Great Teacher....and then writing whatever comes.

This week I have returned to Her classroom at the water's edge.  It wasn't long before I realized, while writing "...so like still water..." that the lesson, from a rainy morning two dozen years ago, may not have been finished just because I was ready to get back to the house and begin putting into practice some  of the threads and strands of practical wisdom I'd been able to glean from that morning's curriculum on stillness.

So this week,  I slipped into the back row of Her lecture hall on the shoreline, into that space of stillness, and asked the Teacher for more.  And She didn't leave me hungry.  One afternoon I listened to Her speak on the subject of "simplicity" and its critical role in my usefulness to Her.  Simplicity is something I have been striving to live, with more purpose and practicality, over the course of the last few years.  So her subject-matter was timely and meaningful.  I now have pages and pages of class notes to ponder, but one recent dictation was so arresting, that I can't help but let it sing me forward on a river of prayer, and share it here with you:

"I am here.  I have shown up in this moment, on purpose, to listen and to learn.  How important is simplicity to my purpose in serving you?

Simplicity in purpose is not just important to Me, it is essential.  Water (H2O) is a simple chemical equation.  It is made up of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule.  In this simplicity is the profound breadth of its function and usefulness to Me.  A drop of water doesn't seek out elemental change.  It doesn't try to be something it is not.  It just shows up, simply and authentically, as H2O and therein is its genius.  It is always ready for whatever I need it to be.  It doesn't decide to be refreshing water, it doesn't try to be clear water, or seek a degree in buoyancy, or get credentialed in purification.  It just is what it is...H2O.  So it shows up as water.

And since you've asked, an even simpler element is Oxygen.  One oxygen molecule is critical to life, but only in its pure simplicity.  It is silent, invisible, vital...there is not a breath taken, not a sound made, not a leaf moves without its presence.  Hmmm...that sounds like Me, Spirit, doesn't it? 

You are my daughter.  You are enough. You don't need to be something more, have something more, get something more, want something more.  The more purely and simply you just show up as you...in your truth, the more useful you are to me in serving my creation in an infinite number of ways.  The more you try to be something, inhabit a role, take on an office, or make a name, the less ready you are for whatever I need you to be at a moment's notice.

You are most useful to me in your simplest "form"...that effortless consciousness of your worth as the reflection of  Me, the one and only I AM that is...in all my Allness...in all.   The less you drag around with you...names, histories, resumes, degrees, expertise, credentials...the less roles you try to occupy, the more vital, valuable, and useful you are to me.  If you will just show up each moment ready to be anything I need you to be, based on the elemental balance of PMSSLTL (Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love) to the infinite degree or measure - your one real truth,  the more ways I can give you as a covenant...a promise of my Love..."

So, I am just showing up in the river to pray, studying about that good old way, not caring about "who shall wear the starry crown," but each moment asking, "O Lord, show me the way...."

your student...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...to be simple..."

'"Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right."
- Elder Joseph

"Simple Gifts" happens to be one of my favorite songs…of all times.  In the last few years I have been learning the true beauty of its message.  But as with all things spiritual, the depths to which we can plumb an idea is unfathomable in its inspiration, practicality, and application.  

This past week "simplicity" has been a powerful theme in my prayers…and in my approach to choices and decisions.  What is the simplest route to a destination?  How can I simplify a concept shared, directions for a recipe, the steps in accomplishing a task.  What are the simple joys of family?  How can I bring greater simplicity to my spiritual practices.   Little things like packing for an overnight, choosing a gift, praying with a friend, were more joy-filled and fitting, as I let simplicity be my criteria for human actions.

In the third volume of his biographical trilogy on the life of thought-leader Mary Baker Eddy, Years of Authority, Robert Peel shares Eddy's criteria for the workers in her household.  Eighteen years ago, after reading this biography, I adopted them as the standards by which I "run" my own inner household.  They are:

close attention to detail
strict neatness and order
a simplified and systematic way of life
and
a breath-taking genius for improvisation

It was once shared with me, by another of her biographers, that Eddy believed the fourth, that "breath-taking genius for improvisation," could only be accomplished after mastering the first three.

So "simplicity" and I go way back.  I love harvesting my life's baggage.  Clothes not worn are recycled, cooking is done is small enough portions so that we don't have left-overs, and I try to never touch a piece of paperwork twice…processing it the first time in comes through my hands as often as I can.  One of the ways that I have been recently inspired and blessed by the demands of simplifying my life has been in my listening to God when praying and giving treatment.  Simplicity has been a gift that keeps on giving.   

But this past week, right in the midst of this movement towards greater simplicity, I found myself wrestling with a decision that seemed so complex in scope that I tossed and turned for hours and hours in the dark trying to find direction and peace.

I lined up pros and cons, I measured and re-measured the impact of each possible outcome, I wrestled with cost analyses and the consequences…of taking the left or right turn…on everyone involved.   One moment the left-hand choice seemed so obviously right.  And in the very next moment, the right hand was even more right than the left.  I was so far right at one point that I had circled back to left because I couldn't remember where I was.  As you can see…confusion ensued and I was dizzy from the journey.

It was at this point, when it all felt like a blur of human choices between two rights and no real wrongs,  that a conversation with my husband brought the light I desperately needed.  I was in the dark trying to find my way out of the complex labyrinth I had wandered into - with all my human reasoning, pros and cons, weighing of cost, value, consequences and impact studies - when he called.  He had been harvesting some files and came across a note to himself with this statement (if anyone recognizes it and can share its source please do):

The simplicity of the Christ,
untangles the complexity of human affairs.

Something in me clicked.  All my wrangling and wrestling had been based on nouns.  Persons, places, and things.  But for me, the Christ is a verb…and is all about verbs.  Motives, intents, actions.  What were my motives, what was the intent, what did I need to be doing?  The nouns, the whos and wheres would fall into place, clearly, when I was sure of the verbs.  So then I thought about what would accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number…not me or him, or her, or them...but all. 

Which option was Christ-like…kind, non-judgmental, honest, selfless, pure, compassionate, humble, good, meek, caring?

It was clear…there was no decision to be made, no choice to consider…just a simple direction to begin walking in. I have no idea where it will lead. I only know that by keeping my focus on the simple verbs of Christianity, those verbs will give birth to whatever nouns are needed to carry out their mission and purpose. The same way that light in the first chapter of Genesis, gives birth to the sun. The verb, light (isn't this what the sun does...light our path, lighten the universe), came first...the sun naturally followed.

I'm looking forward to this journey.  I'll be embarking on a path I've never taken before…someone once said to me (and again if you know the source of this statement, please share it with me so that I can give proper attribution):

If you want something you've never had
You have to do something you've never done.

This level of simplicity is something I've "never done"….perhaps I'll get to that "breath-taking genius of improvisation" someday, but for today, tis' enough of a gift…to be simple.

Simply with Love,
Kate


If you love Alison Krauss and Yo-yo Ma's version of "Simple Gifts"as much as I do, here is the link to that recording as well.

Something Simple

"Something simple's all I ask for
Something simple's all I need
And when I find it I will surely know
Something simple shouldn't be
this hard to fall on me
Something simple's all I ask for
all I need…"
- Mary Huckins

Sometimes a song will come into my life so serendipitously that I am certain I have felt the breath of God on the back of my neck and I smile in recognition of His touch.   So it is with Mary Huckins' "Something Simple."  Recorded with her band Dakota Blonde on the 2000 release of their first CD of the same title, I hear it calling me home to a place of uncluttered stillness, a purpose defined by silence,  and an unshakeable inner peace.

The "ac" words that once defined success for me…accomplishment, accreditation, accretion, accrual, acclaim, acculturation, accumulation, acquisition, acceptance…are no longer able to push and prod me into disingenuous behavior.   There was a time, not too long ago, when "acceptance" alone…at the expense of all else… seemed more vital than living with emotional integrity and courage.   But these "howling of the hounds" words that once snapped at my heels while I ran towards a goal I never took the time to examine, are now nothing more than the impotent yipping of toothless suggestions which would have kept me running forever.   When I stopped and turned to face them head-on, they cowered in the light of what my heart really longed for….something simple.

I realized that an hour in the sun with my own thoughts was much more satisfying than a movie or even a great book.  That holding my daughters through the night while they slept…hearing them breathe and watching their eyelids flutter and fall silent as dreams washed across their slumber…was more joy than I could ever have imagined when the applause and admiration of others seemed to be a goal worth achieving.

The other night my daughter  called at 1am from South Africa (8am her time) just to say "Happy Mother's Day" at the beginning of her day.  How could she know that those few minutes of hearing her voice, still heavy with sleep, would be more precious than platinum or diamonds or gold.  Just a moment spent with  the sweet sound of her yawning, from 12,000-mile-away, was a gift from God.

"…Well I think it would be fine
just to sit awhile with you
and let the timeless hours slip right by
I don't often let them go
without trying to hang on
But something simple here
is what I long for…"

I'm learning that a walk in the park with our children on a Sunday afternoon…watching them swing as high as the clouds or kick a stone from the History Museum to the stoplight, hearing our son laugh when his sisters put an ice cube down his back or getting a call from our oldest daughter... placed in the middle of her grown-up San Francisco Sunday…would be more sweet than chocolate and add more fragrance to my life than roses.

"…In the middle of my silence
well I know there's something more
than those around me cannot lend my way
For they too are in this searching
in the silence, in the noise
In the middle of my search
for something more…" 

A beam of sunlight across our bed in the morning through the stained glass transoms, or a three-word prayer shared by a fellow healer who has answered the phone when my heart needs comfort…are more wealth than I could have ever imagined…

Sometimes when we are stripped of all the sparkly garments of accomplishment and praise...garments we once thought made us worthy of good...and we find ourselves standing naked with our true desires, we can feel the sweet breath of God on the back of our necks and we realize that it really is something simple we always wanted.

"…Something simple's all I ask for
Something simple's all I need
And when I find it I will surely know
Something simple shouldn't be
this hard to fall on me
Something simple's all I ask for
all I need..

…Breathe into me
Breath into me…please."
- Mary Huckins

with Love,
Kate

"Sometimes a light surprises...."

"Sometimes a light surprises... The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises...With healing in His wings.
When comfort seems declining...There comes to us again
A season of clear shining, To cheer us after rain."
- CS Hymnal 313

Alison Krauss and I go way back…not as far back as JT and I, but pretty darn far.  One afternoon as the Colorado sun was cresting the trees just outside the windows of the small coffeehouse we owned across the street from the University’s School of Music, "When God Dips His Pen of Love in My Heart""came on the CD player, and stopped me in my tracks. 

"When God dips His pen of love in my heart
And He writes my soul a message He wants me to know
His spirit all divine fills a sinful soul of mine
When God dips His love in my heart..."

My life seemed to have come full circle.  I had left behind my days of “wine and roses,” the emptiness of climbing ladders and shattering glass ceilings for a life devoted to knowing Him.  I woke up each morning with a burning in my heart to wring out of the day every moment I could with a Father who saw me as His innocent and beloved child. I wanted to know His face and feel His arms around me.  I wanted to breathe in the air of His mercy and never leave the light of His love.   But I also wanted to leave everything that felt unlovely about my past in the dust.  I had made a pact with myself that I wasn’t going to rehash the chapters that had seemed to have left bruises on my heart and scarred my innocence. 

"Well I said I wouldn't tell it to a livin' soul
How He brought salvation and He made me whole
But I found I couldn't hide such a love as Jesus did impart
Well He made me laugh and He made me cry, set my sinful soul on fire
When God dips His love in my heart"

I stood at the counter with Alison’s voice floating around and in and out of my heart…weaving her words through my thoughts like a mother robin bringing bright bits of tinsel found in the snow to lace through the building of her early spring nest.  God’s love had made me laugh…and it had made me cry….and more than anything it had set my soul on fire…to serve, to love, to heal.  How could I ever hide such love?  As I stared past the stained glass panels above the front windows and through the branches of the tall pines across the street and into the fathomless blue of a Colorado sky, I saw my child self...innocent and pure...skipping along holding the hand of the broken teenage me, the tired overachieving young adult me, the weeping betrayed girlfriend me, the frustrated "eldest of eight" sibling me, the burdened daughter of a widow me….and we all had a gift in our hand.  I realized that we all had at least one story to tell of how God had dipped His love in our heart and helped us see our wholeness…our completeness…our integrity, innocence, joy.  These stories were our gifts to share like breadcrumbs on a path of spiritual discovery. 

"...Well sometimes though the way is dreary, dark and cold
And some unburdened sorrow keeps me from the goal
I go to God in prayer, I can always find Him there
To whisper sweet peace to my soul. .."

As I stood there waiting for the scones I had put in the oven to finish baking, the fragrance of God’s message of redeeming peace filled my heart the way the scent of blueberries and lemon filled the coffeehouse.  I had a purpose…

"...Well I said I wouldn't tell it to a livin' soul
How He brought salvation and He made me whole
But I found I couldn't hide such a love as Jesus did impart
Well He made me laugh and He made me cry, set my sinful soul on fire
When God dips His love in my heart..."

“Write these things”…so we write…the teenager, the child, the mother, the career woman, the school principal, the friend, the wife….these are our gifts…to Him..

and to you…

"In holy contemplation
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God's salvation
And find it ever new.
To God, in light abiding
True praise shall tune my voice
For while in Him confiding
I cannot but rejoice."

Kate