"I, me, mine..."

"All through the day:
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine.

All through the night:
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine.

Now they're frightened
of leaving it,
everyone's weaving it;
coming on strong all the time:
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine..."

Someone once asked me why George Harrison was my favorite Beatle. There are many reasons - most of them quite spiritual. But, I think it is his writing of,  "I, Me, Mine,"  that still catches my breath, 50 years after its first recording.

It is not a particularly lyrical song. But the message is deeply spiritual. When asked about the message behind the song, Harrison once replied:

""It is about the ego,
the eternal problem."

Wow. In the video linked above, George expands, briefly, on this eternal problem.

The ego -- a false sense of self that is defined by an encapsulating layer of skin - that is the eternal problem. We believe that everything inside of that layer of skin is "me," and everything beyond it, is "other." 

We feel an inherently spiritual impulsion to expand our understanding of what infinite being includes, but we go about it in all the wrong way.

Rather than the dissolution of those self-boundaries, and an expansion into the all-oneness of spiritual identity, we seek to possess more -- to include more.  To stuff our sense of  "self" with more.  We pursue what leads to a bloated sense of being. My house, my children, my favorite Beatle, that great idea -- well, it is mine. And on and on it goes.  Mine, mine, mine.

George sings,

"Now they're frightened of leaving it,
everyone's weaving it,
coming on strong all the time..."

And we are. We are taught from earliest childhood to accumulate. Accumulate friends, information, toys, awards. We have been told that control over this accumulated self-sense is the ultimate goal. I manage my time. I am in charge of my finances. This idea is mine - mine to claim. This particular image that I hold of myself - it is my favorite. 

When we lose control of this self-important version of who we are -- we feel small. When we think that we have less "mine" than someone else, we feel like a failure - by comparison.  It is this separateness from one another - and therefore, the Source of all Being - that defines "sin" -- a word that comes from the same root as the word, "sunder -- to separate."

But this is also the root of our greatest fears. I fear that my thinking is creating my reality. I worry that my beliefs are leading to my health issues in my body.  I am concerned that my limited sense of things is creating lack in my life -- or in my children's lives.

I remember an experience that I had more than three decades ago. I was working at my desk. I'd been struggling with a painful headache for days. I felt like a failure. Who did I think I was? How could I sit there and take calls from patients who were asking for help, when I hadn't been able to heal myself.

While I berated myself for all that I didn't understand about God's power -- for why else would I not be healed -- my office phone rang. I answered it and the person at the other end of the line was, in fact, someone asking me to pray with them. They went on to describe the physical symptoms they were facing. And yes, they were exactly the same ones that I was struggling with.

On the one hand, I was so honored that she was led to call me. I had long-felt that if a call came to my office, God had well-prepared me to take it. I agreed to pray for her, and hung up.

As I sat there listening for what was spiritually true about this dear person, it occurred to me that I believed that there were two different personalities needing healing.  There was "my challenge," - based on my beliefs, and "her challenge," - based on what she was believing.  

When in fact, there was just one all-inclusive Truth-based sense of being.  What was true, was true for both of us. In fact, all of us. It was so clear to me. The illusion of two separate skin-encapsulated beings, stuffed in their own membranes of genetic history and personal narratives, with personal minds that could believe something on their own -- was ludicrous.

"Why," I asked myself, "was I honored when a patient called me for help, but felt like a failure when facing the same symptoms "in" my own body?" It was the false perception that each of us was defined by a layer of skin, and that everything inside of my skin was me. And therefore, it was my mind that was responsible for my experience.  And she, for hers.  Silly ego.  

The lie of separation -- personal sense -- when dissolved in the solution of spiritual oneness, disappears within the truth of our common "wholeness" -- which is the root of the word "health." This oneness leaves no room for comparisons. It refutes any sense of hierarchy -- of personal privilege or specialness.

This lie -- of egoic thinking -- that suggests itself to us day and night is insidious.  It is what Mary Baker Eddy is referring to in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures when she writes:

"Mortals are egotists.
They believe themselves to be
independent workers, personal authors,
and even privileged originators..."

They also believe themselves to be owners, possessors, the parents [and children] of one another, the accumulators of personal wealth, ideas, solutions, prayers, bodies -- lives.

This personal sense of existence is so contrary to an understanding of true individuality -- a word that has its root in the concept of un-divided-ness. We are not the apportioned personalities -- pieces of divinity. We are not divided from the wholeness of universal good.  We are not subject to personal success or failure.

In We Knew Mary Baker Eddy - Expanded Edition, William Rathvon shares his memories of conversations he had with Mrs. Eddy. I am especially reminded of these two brief statements from late 1910:

"Depersonalize self.
To personalize thought,
limits spiritual growth."

and

"What you need 
more than self-forgetfulness,
is self-nothingness." 

It reminds me of Eddy's own self-published statement from page 282 of Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:

"Remember, it is personality,
and the sense of personality
in God or man, that limits man."

I think that George Harrison and Mary Baker Eddy might have enjoyed one another's company. I have certainly been blessed by both of them.



offered with Love,

Kate

"I have drawn thee..."

"not because of who i am,
but because of what You've done.

not because of what i've done,
but because of who You are..."

Casting Crowns'  "Who am I" found its way to the top of my mental playlist this morning.

Here's how it started. I was reading this Scripture from Jeremiah 31:3:

The Lord had appeared of old unto
saying, "Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love,
therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee..."

Now, I've long loved this particular Scripture for its use of the word "drawn."

As a child I imagined God with a box of crayons, drawing a picture of me. With a chimney-topped house and lollipop trees in the background.  A bright yellow sun overhead. God was designing me -- and my life.

Then, some years ago that image shifted. I would read the passage and think of God as turning on the tap.  Like drawing a bath. Drawing, from the infinite well of His infinite resources -- whatever He needed me to be. I was not coming into the demands of any given moment with a set of skills, gifts, or talents that are personally circumscribed - but with an open willing heart. And from the spigot of that willingness, God was drawing forth whatever was needed in service to Him -- and his creation.

About a year ago, this same passage unfolded on the page in a new way. It was as if I could feel God reaching out and drawing me into the close circle of his arms. I felt gathered in. I felt firmly held in a place, where -- instead of being overwhelmed by the pulsing uncertainty of the world -- I could only hear the beating of His heart.

But then, earlier this week, as I was reading this oh-so-familiar passage, a different image crossed my heart. It was of an archer drawing his arrow. It, quite literally, stopped me in my tracks. Now, I am not an archer. I don't have much experience with archery -- other than the fact that my husband teaches it at camp, and I read "Zen and the Art of Archery" many years ago.

But as that image came into focus, so did the spiritual implications of being the arrow that God is drawing.

An archer draws his arrow with intention. He takes aim. I actually felt that God was aiming me with a precise outcome -- or purpose -- in Mind. I could trust his aim. It moved me very deeply.

Although I had been feeling - since the girls left for college - a clear sense of my work, I had also been feeling a bit aimless when it came to any interests outside of the office. I thought of myself as the person who used to spend all of her discretionary time following her daughters' interests in soccer, school, camp, Polocrosse, Cowboy Mounted Shooting, etc.

I loved to knit, but I'd knitted items for everyone I knew and had become "that woman" who knitted, and then unraveled her knitting, just to save money on yarn -- since I couldn't think of anyone who wanted another scarf, skirt, or hat.

I loved to bake, but without the girls here to eat or share what I baked, it just sat there. I loved to write, but after 750 of these posts, I wondered if I was just speaking to myself. And anyway, I had begun to realize that if I couldn't communicate a concept in five short lines of poetry, I should probably sit with it a bit longer.

I have always known that a sustainable life is one that is Love-impelled. It is why I do the work that I do. I have no desire to ever retire. I love it so much. And this is good, because it is what I do all day, every day - it just brings me so much joy. But what else should I be doing? I kept thinking I had to find something to do with my discretionary time.

The image of an archer shifted all of that. It wasn't up to me to figure anything out. I could trust that in every moment of every day the Archer was drawing me with perfect, precise aim. I would hit my target, not because I had decided to "follow my heart," but because I was an arrow in His quiver. Drawn for a purpose. Never a randomly flung arrow. But drawn from the Archers bow.

In talking about this image with our Sunday School class one morning, another insight was shared. When an archer draws His bow back, it allows for a pause, and gives perspective to his aim. I could trust that when I was drawn back - by divine Love -- into recalling a past experience, insight, or lesson learned, it was with divine intention. It was never without a precise purpose. Again, there was no random or reckless flinging of arrows by the divine Archer.

Suddenly a definition of "sin," -- that I'd never fully gotten behind -- made a bit more sense. I'd always felt perplexed when someone shared that "sin" was defined as "missing the mark." Perhaps it was because my own favorite etymological definition of sin was "to sunder, or to separate."

I didn't like the "missing the mark" definition because it ratified the false (for me) view of man as self-determined, self-aimed. A mortal who could "go rogue," -- who could separate himself from an all-powerful, all-knowing God and make mistakes, bad choices, and wrong decisions.

But this view of God as the Archer changed that for me. Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that:

"The belief in sin is punished,
so long as the belief lasts..." 

And elsewhere she writes:

"Silencing self,
alias rising above corporeal personality,
is what reforms the sinner and destroys sin."

I am not the archer. We are not the archers of our own lives.  We cannot miss the mark, because we were never given an arrow -- we are the arrows. We are what God is drawing into precise purpose. We are what He has given accurate focus to. We can't help but hit His mark.

And I have to remember, that when it feels as if life events are dragging me backwards, an arrow can only be shot forward by pulling it backwards. Sometimes we have the opportunity of revisiting something we've outgrown, in order to more thoroughly glean the full weight of the lessons learned. Then we are launched forward with even greater precision and aim.

I don't have to decide to be -- or do -- anything. I just need to be a ready arrow in the Archer's quiver. Divine Love will draw me with perfect accuracy. The peace that this has given me is deep and satisfying.

In her poem, "Satisfied," Eddy assures us:

"It matters not,
what be Thy lot,
so Love doth guide..."

In the hands of the Archer, I am guided each moment towards the mark for which I am intended. I am drawn for a holy purpose. And He never misses. Whether the target is college, a new hobby, job, community, or relationship, we are perfect arrows in Love's quiver.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Thy will be done..."

"I'm so confused.
I know I heard You
loud and clear.
So I followed through,
somehow I ended up here.

I don't want to think
I may never understand,
that my broken heart,
is part of Your plan.

When I try to pray,
all I get is hurt,
and these four words:

Thy will be done..."

This afternoon, I stumbled on Hillary Scott's beautiful song,  "Thy Will." And in the span of watching her video, I was transported -- sitting alone, in an almost empty flat in the middle of the city -- wondering how I got there.

Only months before, I'd been a modestly well-respected wife and mother living in a 3,000 square foot multi-level house in a suburban neighborhood. Now here I was. And I couldn't imagine how eleven months of listening humbly and importunately for God's direction -- and getting it, loud and clear -- could feel this terrifying, confusing, and lonely.

I was not -- at all -- unclear about what God had said to me. I'd felt His Love-impelled power of it in every molecule of my being. I wasn't naive, I knew it would not be easy, but I also knew that it was the most loving thing that I could do for everyone in my life. So why, if I had been obedient to Love's unexpected direction -- did it hurt so badly? And it did. It hurt in the marrow of my being.

This wasn't how being Love's bidding was supposed to feel. And I had no doubt that I had heard God's voice -- mostly because the message with so clearly not what I thought God would say. But in the instant I heard it, without cross-questioning it, I fell on my knees and wept aloud:

"Thy will be done."

I was not naive. I knew that in my circle of family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, what God was asking me to do would be questioned, judged, speculated and whispered about. I just didn't think it would be as devastating as it was.

I had truly hoped that my devotion to God would have spoken for me. That those who knew me would have at least asked me, "what the hell are you doing?" Then I would have, at least, had someone's arms to weep in. But instead, it seemed as if everyone was quite willing to assume that I'd gone off the rails and blown it. The shame was crushing.

This isn't about the what I did, or why. Because, to be completely honest -- the only why is, "God said." And exactly what God said, is still so deeply holy for me that I cannot write about it. If you were to call me, and it seemed spiritually relevant, I would tell you -- it's not a secret. But to type it here -- or anywhere -- has not been something I can do. It's just too sacred.

Sitting alone at my kitchen table in the city that day, I begged God for direction, "Dear God, how do I defend myself from all the swirling misinformation and judgment?" And God's answer was just as clear as his earlier direction:

"He opened not his mouth
in defense of himself."

I got it -- thoroughly, and quickly. If I wanted to follow Christ, I had to be willing to be questioned, scoffed at, speculated about, and misunderstood. It terrified me. Didn't God understand that I was the ultimate people pleaser. Didn't He get that my early life as a stepchild -- who was forced to ingratiate herself in order to "earn" the right to be sheltered and fed -- had made me this way.

Disappointing people was my greatest fear, making them happy was my drug. And here I was disappointing everyone I loved and knew. Again, I turned to the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. I opened her primary text, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to page one and read:

"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."

And yes, in my copy of the book, the word "self-immolation" was bolded -- or at least it was that day. I knew what it meant. I'd been studying Eddy's work for decades. I knew that she recommended this practice of "suicide by fire," six times in her writings. And no, I didn't think she was encouraging me to grab a can of kerosene and a match -- she was urging the self-inflicted destruction of the ego.

In that moment, I understood. It wasn't going to be good enough for me to have my ego slayed by childhood circumstances, other people's choices, or chance. It was imperative that I took ownership of this humbling walk into the fire.

So I did. The ego wanted to run, to find a small rural community in Kansas to disappear into. To take my daughters (something I would never do) and change all of our names. Buy a farm and raise chickens.  But I knew better.  I'd lived that nightmare as a child.  Love demanded that I stay, walk with grace, live with courage, love with compassion, serve without hesitation, parent with dignity, and own my spiritual journey -- however scary that was.

It was not easy. In fact, there were many, many nights when I cried myself to sleep begging God to give me courage and strength to face the next day of averted glances, dismissal, and scorn. And He always did. My relationship to Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy was more strengthened by this time -- than any other experience in my life. I turned to their words and examples of grace -- continually -- for clues on how to navigate my own life.

Over and over again, I came back to:

"Thy will be done.
Thy will be done.
Thy will be done."

Long before this time -- when going through a physical challenge that had driven me to my knees -- I called someone who had been such a wonderful spiritual mentor. I needed encouragement, I needed for him to promise me that what I was going through was not spiritually right -- and to tell me that I could expect to be free of it. He didn't say those things. What he said was that "someday you are going to look back, and miss these days of being so hungry for God's touch in your life."

I thought he was mad-as-a-hatter at the time and told him so. But you know, he was right. The hard times -- those days when we are on our knees longing for answers, praying to feel the presence of grace -- they are the very best days.

Someone asked me recently why I do what I do -- take calls from people who are in pain, fearful, sad, confused. They couldn't understand why I would be so happy to get up in the morning, if I was just going to spend the day on the phone, Skyping, reading texts and emails from people who were struggling.

This is why. These challenges are not personal. When I am willing to sit with someone who is needing a "friend" to witness what they are facing, and willing to discern what is true -- I get to hear the angels with them. I discover how ripe with divine blessing our lives are when the fruit is most heavy. I get to watch the ego being slayed by the presence of divine Love.

God's will for us is to know Him in every moment of our lives. In I Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 18, we are encouraged:

"In everything give thanks,
for this is the will of God..."

When we are willing to let go of a mortal, ego-centric sense of pride, accomplishment, acceptance, approval -- we find that everything -- and I mean everything -- is simply an opportunity to drawn nigh unto God and feel His nearness.

To those family members and friends who held me, let me weep, comforted me, trusted and encouraged me during those years -- I will never, ever, be able to say thank you with enough depth. My gratitude is unfathomable.


offered with Love,

Kate

"Oh happy day..."

"Oh happy day,
Oh happy day,
When Jesus washed,
When Jesus washed,
He washed my sins away..."

Don't you just love this performance of "Oh Happy Day," from the film, Sister Act.  It gives me chills.  It has the same effect on me as almost any performance of "Amazing Grace."

To have my "sins" washed away by Jesus' message of Love-inspired salvation, always takes my breath away.  But lately, as I have considered what this really means to me, I started to see that I was cherishing a mental image of a traditional baptism, as "how" Jesus washed away sins.  But, Jesus, himself, never baptized anyone in a large body of water or by sprinkling water on their heads or foreheads...that we know of anyway.   But, what he did do though, was wash feet. 

His example was not one of a spiritual leader who, from the lofty summit of greater spiritual insight and demonstration, magnanimously absolves man from his sin (any belief in a separation from God, good, and His creation...and the reaction to that belief) through a ceremonial immersion in water.* 

No, his model was that of a servant, naked before those he ministered to -- humbly washing the most dirt-ravaged parts of their bodies...feet that had walked miles on dusty roads in open sandals...with the tenderness of a parent washing a child's wounds.   Teaching each of them "how" to do it, and then offering this gentle instruction:

"...ye should do as I have done to you."

So, I have to ask myself: "am I...?"

  Mary Baker Eddy's counsel, in part, through these passages, has provided insight and guidance.  She writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"To...follow his [our Master's] example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done."

and

"We all must learn that Life is God. Ask yourself:  Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good?  Am I demonstrating the healing power of Truth and Love? If so, then the way will grow brighter "unto the perfect day."


A brighter day, a perfect day...oh happy day...
Kate

*I am so grateful that  Mary Baker Eddy defines "baptism" as:  "Purification by Spirit; submergence in Spirit."  What a wonderful way of thinking about this term.

"...Oh, hold them up, hold them..."

"…Oh, hold them up, hold them up
Never to let them fall
Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin
That names us and claims us and shames us all…"
- James Taylor "Never Die Young"

I've asked people for many years what it is they love about their faith communities...faith communites from many different religious traditions.  I hear stories of hymns that have brought comfort, Sunday School classes where questions are listened to....and answered, families that pray together, church members who have shown kindness, healings experienced, and congregations that serve the poor. But I have also learned that when you ask someone about the things they love, they will often place it in the context of the things that they don't love. And the thing I hear most often that people, especially teens, don't "love" about their faith communities is "the way people treat one another".  Gossiping in the back of the fellowship hall,  people talking behind one another's back,  arguing about the color of the carpet in the entryway, discussing a fellow member's failures or indiscretions at the dinner table, a son-in-law's lack of ambition...these are the things that sadden and disillusion them.

So often we feel justified in looking at another's behavior, or choices, and responding in a way that "sends a message"....but once again I am getting ahead of myself...

In her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "It is not the purpose of Christian Science to "educate the idea of God, or treat it for disease, "…and elsewhere avers, "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin…"   She doesn't say the correction or punishment of a sinner, but the healing of sin. 

Early in my study and practice of the science of Christianity, I searched for an  understanding of the word "sin" I could really get my arms around…if, in fact,  this was to be the most emphatic part of my work.  The big fat dictionary at the University library gave me a wonderful array of ways to look at this word.  But it was the etymological root of this word that I liked the most.  The word "sin" has at it's root the same base as the word "sunder" or "to separate".   In fact even my old worn Webster's includes this definition:  "a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God".  

Ah, this resonated with me.  Sin wasn't a list of aberrant behaviors based on a variety of cultural norms and values.  Sin wasn't just about a human "missing of the mark" as if God were asleep and we had the free will to take aim in the wrong direction.  Sin was merely the belief that there could be any separation from an omnipotent and omnipresent Creator who never leaves His post in maintaining the integrity of His creation.   And because this could never be true and could only exist in the realm of belief, it didn't matter who was believing it to be true…the one reacting to the belief by "sinning" or the one who felt he/she was witnessing the sinning.  

I began to see that it was only a sense, a perception, an awareness of sin which needed to be given up or rebuked.    But this wasn't what I was observing, or even  experiencing, in faith communities.   In fact I was seeing quite the opposite approach to "sin".    Instead of dis-embodying sinful behavior from a person, the response seemed to be to hammer it home to the "sinners" that those behaviors or choices were clearly "theirs"…attached to them, springing from them, forever linked to their human history.  As faith communities we did everything we could to separate ourselves from this deformed perpetrator under the mantle of giving them space to "work it out" or come to their senses.  But what it felt like to the person being shunned or rejected was a further confirmation of the absence of good in their experience, in themselves…that they were indeed a sinner.

When someone does something we deem sinful we tend to want to send a message of disapproval.  We want them to remember that there is a God…and that He is not happy with them.   We think we are rebuking sin by withdrawing affection, kindness, compassion…by rejecting, or dismissing the person.  But if sin is only the belief that there is, or can be any separation from God, or good.  When we withdraw affection, love, goodness, we are only enflaming the belief in God's absence.  What rebukes sin is not the absence of love, but the presence of it in our lives.  As Christians, we are not in the business of rebuking sinners, but destroying the belief, ours or anyone else's,  in sin.  To see sin…to see someone as separated from God, is just as much a headlong capitulation into the belief in sin, as is behaving in a way that is deemed sinful.  To react to that belief  in the absense of God…by being dismissive, withdrawing, reproaching another… is to perpetuate that very belief and act contrary to the very thing we hope to identify ourselves with…our Christianity…our kindness, compassion, grace.

These "sinful" behaviors we tend to focus on and be impressed by, are nothing more than a reaction.  A reaction to the feeling that God is absent from our experience.  Stealing is just a reaction to the belief that God is absent as a caring Father who provides for our every need.  Lying is no more than a reaction to the belief that God is not present in our lives bestowing an experience that we are content with, proud of, or at peace about.  Cheating is merely a reaction to the false belief that God is not present as Mind, an infinite flow of intelligence and wisdom.  Judging others is just a reaction to the belief that God is not present as Principle upholding the integrity of His creation.

Promoting this false belief about God's absence in someone's life by withdrawing any good…kindness, forgiveness, charity, understanding…love, only further confirms in our own lives the belief in sin - God's absence. Punishing the "sinner" by retracting our humanity and benevolence does nothing to rebuke the basic false premise that our omnipresent God could ever possibly be absent, and therefore in this abyss of God's being there could crop up an aberration called a sinner.  The real rebuke to sin comes in pouring in more of our certainty in God's all-present love.

When Mrs. Eddy heard that President's Garfield's assassin was being held in prison she didn't reject or dismiss him.  She didn't withdraw her company, or kindness, from him.  She took her dear love into his prison cell.  She says that her "few words touched him…"  It was this dear affection that rebuked sin…not the sinner…and moral idiocy.   It is this Love that destroys hate, it is this Life that consumes death, and it is this kindness that refuses to see a sinner and therein deprives sin of an identity or life…in ourselves…or others.

But, we may ask, doesn't loving them send the message that what they have done or chosen is "okay"?  Jesus didn't send the message to the woman who washed his feet that her behavior was "okay" by loving, forgiving and exalting her actions…at that moment…above those of his esteemed host.  He didn't send the message to Zaccheus that his behavior had been "okay" even though he went and had dinner with him…as those around him worried it would.  What he did in each case was give them a reason to want to make better choices, to live more noble lives.  To continue to see themselves as he saw them…one with God, His child, their dignity, identity, and integrity forever held intact by an ever-conscious, ever-present Father who is Love and never leaves us on our own, alone and struggling, subject to errors or mistakes.   It is this false concept of our God as negligent that is the real offense.   But to see one another as a brother or sister in Christ with one omnipotent loving Father-Mother honors the entire family of God…held in the gospel of Love.

At a time when I had made choices that were being questioned by others, I experienced this kind of withdrawing of affection and "society".  I often found myself standing in a crowd within a bubble of distance and reproach.  If I tried to make contact eyes were averted and when they weren't, looks of disapproval and disdain were shot glaringly in my direction.  I had never felt more lonely or misunderstood in my life. 

One afternoon I was standing on the playground of our young daughters' school again wrapped in this bubble of reproach, when one parent, someone who I had once thought of as almost too attentive…in those years prior to my fall from grace when I enjoyed general kindness and approval…approached me. Her greeting was extended with the same generous love as always, but in the absence of any other friendship or affection I suddenly saw the rarity of her gift.  Her simple greeting and interest in my welfare made my knees buckle with gratitude.  She had penetrated that bubble of disdain and suddenly I was, even in my own eyes (because even though I knew my heart, I had begun to accept that if so many people could believe this about me, maybe it must be true) "No longer regarded as a miserable sinner, but as the blest child of God." (Eddy). 

This friend's consistent, genuine kindness thrown around me like a blanket of light, separated me (and her) from the darkness of sin - believing that anyone could be separated from God - and began the healing in my heart…and my life.  She didn't separate me from good by seeing me as a sinner, but separated both of us from sin by including me in the light of her love…her genuine Christianity.

Mary Baker Eddy goes on to describe this Christ-like viewpoint when she writes, "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."  She doesn't say that the kingdom of God will be restored, or that man will be holy, but that it is and he is…right now.  No process of healing, or restoration,  or recovery.    No sin.  No need for rejection, disdain, dismissal, or shunning.   No need to send a message of disapproval or disappointment.  It is the belief in sin that is banished…not a sinner.

There are no sinners...but each, and all, the blest children of God..let us then "hold them up, hold them up...never to let them fall..".
with Love,
Kate