"in the quietness of now..."

"oh, abide with me,
where it's breathless and it's empty;

yes, abide with me,
and we'll pass the evening gently;

stay awake with me,
and we'll listen more intently..."

Oh, Carrie.

Carrie Newcomer's  "Abide,"  is a most perfect description of the shared silence I so value in our marriage.

There are many day -- and even more nights -- where we share the space of our small home without sharing words. And yet, I have rarely felt so completely heard, understood, and known.

It is this "quietness of now" which allows each of us to serve our communities in the ways that we are most inspired to do -- moment-by-moment. I feel loved and supported in the deep silence of this space we occupy together.

To know that the person I am with, is listening into the quiet - with me - is such a comfort.  And it brings great peace.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her 1898 communion message:

"My sense of nature's rich glooms is, that loneness lacks but one charm to make it half divine — a friend, with whom to whisper, “Solitude is sweet.” Certain moods of mind find an indefinable pleasure in stillness, soft, silent as the storm's sudden hush; for nature's stillness is voiced with a hum of harmony, the gentle murmur of early morn, the evening's closing vespers, and lyre of bird and brooklet.

“O sacred solitude! divine retreat!"

I have been so blessed to have a life partner, children, dogs, and a friend, who share my love for simplicity, solitude, and silence. In these relationships, I have found the most profound kind of companionship. They are my sanctuary - my home.

I feel blessed -- pure and simple. I feel so blessed.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"we were made to thrive..."

"And though my heart is torn,
I will praise you in this storm..."

My niece, Lily Oyer, offered this beautiful solo of Casting Crown"s "Thrive" at church on Sunday. I asked her if I could share a video recording of her version of "Thrive" here. I love her -- and her beautiful voice.  It reminded me of this post from a few years ago -- I am re-sharing it here below:

It's no secret that I love the inspired music ministry of Casting Crowns. Their recently released "Thrive" CD is a favorite. Earlier this week their lead singer, Mark Hall, was given an unsettling diagnosis and faces surgery soon. The Casting Crowns family has reached out to their church and fan community for support through prayer. It is a privilege to join them in this way.

In a moving post written for the band's website by Mark's wife, Melanie asked,"When it happens to you, where do you turn?" And the band offered their beautiful song, "Praise You in the Storm" as inspiration and encouragement. Both Melanie's post and the song moved me deeply.

The first paragraph of Melanie's piece read: "The call on your cell phone from the doctor with bad news -- that's something that happens to other people, not to us. Our role, for the last 25 years in ministry, is to be there to encourage other people after the call, and to pray with them and try to bring comfort. So when it happens to you, where do you turn?"

Melanie goes on to say, "Mark and I seemed to be in a bit of a fog for several days while the news was sinking in.
Yet the whole time, the verse that kept running through my head over and over was:

"You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in You."
-Isaiah 26:3. 

Yes. This is exactly where we turn. We turn to Scripture which floods our hearts with the Word. We rest our thoughts on these promises -- like life rafts in a roiling sea of "what if…" And as Mary Baker Eddy encourages in her primary work on hope and healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, we:

"cling steadfastly to God,
and His idea, allowing nothing
but His likeness
to abide in our thought..." 

And then, we return to the Word - again, and again - for Love's timeless encouragement in stories of salvation, parables of promise, reminders of redemption and resurrection, and messages of healing.

And we are each writing new gospel stories of deep spiritual trust in our lives every day. These contemporary testaments of faith encourage others to remember that, as Mark sings, "You [God] are with us…" At times when we might feel as though we are alone in the storm, we can turn to one another for affirmation, and to the Bible for unshakeable precedent-setting cases of God's law in operation -- even in the storm.

At a particularly challenging time in my own life it was Jesus' parable of the house built on the sand that pulled me out of a death spiral of despair. I've already referred to this experience in an earlier post (linked here) titled,""I will give you perfect peace..." As well as in in another post, "A house that will not fall..." whick is linked at the end of that piece. And because of this personal storm, a parable now lives as part of me -- it is no longer "just a parable" -- it is what courses through my being as vitally as air and water.

The alarming "call" can come in countless forms -- disappointing test results, an upsetting report card, a lost job opportunity, a rejection letter, a health crisis, alarming global events, a child's cry in the night...

So, where do we turn -- we turn to Him, we turn to His Word, we turn to one another for encouragement. Our stories of hope and healing are critical to our neighbors and friends. Our testimonies of deep spiritual trust are vital to the body of Christ, in which we share fellowship in faith. And this is where we hear another call -- the call of Spirit urging us to turn to God, to look through the lens of His love. For it is here that, "He saw everything that He had made, and behold it was -- and is -- very good."

We are not alone in the storm. We are never alone. We have the still small Voice of God. We have the Word. We have the Gospel message of "the kingdom of God is within you." We have angels that hover in the stillness.  And we have each other. Our Father-Mother God is with us -- always. He will keep us in perfect peace.

2019 ps:  Mark and Melanie are thriving! 


offered with Love,

Kate

"do something you've never done..."

"if you want something
you've never had,
you must do something
you've never done..."

This post might be the beginning of a new freedom for me. For the past 14 years I have been contributing to this blog. At first it was 3 times a week -- religiously. Each post included a song that had somehow served as a healing catalyst in/on my own spiritual journey.

At about year five, I gave myself permission to post, "only when the spirit moved." That meant that in some weeks I posted three or four times, and in others not so much. But always with a song. If you have read this blog for the past 14 years, you know that I have listened to, and prayed with, a lot of songs. Some of them have re-surfaced over and over again.

A few years ago, my postings became more and more infrequent. Not because I was having fewer experiences, but I just wasn't feeling as song-driven. And the thought of posting without a song as the keynote, just didn't feel like an option. So I rarely posted.

But today, I am giving myself permission to just post without it being perfectly formatted. I don't have to have the right song, or a couple of the right quotes from my primary sources -- the Bible, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and the other writings of Mary Baker Eddy. You can be assured that those sources are always standing right behind every experience that is shared.

This blog still has, as it's primary purpose, to "speak from experience," and to assure readers that "you are not alone." That has been the purpose of this blog from day one -- June 5, 2005. It is still its reason for being.

Some days there will be songs, some days there will be quotes. Some posts will just be "just the facts" of what I thought or experienced. I will try to write more frequently.

Today's post is all about doing something I've never done:

If you know me, you know that I am someone who loves routines. I love sameness. I have long held close the definition of "still," that sings of this nevertheless-ness. I am still a girl who loves a uniform. I am still the woman who eats dark chocolate for breakfast. I still use the same moisturizer I have used for decades. I still think of myself as a Colorado girl.

Of course I inhabit the words: still and stillness, for their motionless, silent, unruffled characteristics. But I have taken great comfort in the changeless nature of my spiritual name: Stillwater. If there is a word that most characterizes my sense of my nature, it is "stillness." I am very reliable. I am most myself in the quiet, motionless, changeless place of who I am.

So, for me to do something different -- well, that's such a stretch that it feels unfathomable when invitations come.

but I have learned that, for me, it is only when Love invites me into a new space, that I am able to take even the tiniest step in that direction.

For example, when my daughter was living in south Africa, I was willing to board 19 hour flights over the ocean to spend time with her. When my church asked me to do something I had never done, I found myself launching into new waters without hesitation.  The examples are many.

Earlier this year, a dear friend and colleague asked me to consider a different kind of summer. Since I love him, and the work that we share, I was willing.  So, here I am, on an adventure that - to others - may seem quite tame. But for me, it represents all that is wild and unknown. It is asking me to suspend my need to know, my need for the familiar, my hunger for being comfortable in "my own skin," or in this case, my own clothing. And trust.

So how am I reconciling this with my sense of who I am. Still water. I am still trusting Love. I am still when the winds of change seem to be tearing the tattered, worn out garments of how I see myself away from the dry bones of a lifetime of being comfortable with my surroundings and the people I know. I am still in the knowledge that though the faces and places may be unfamiliar, the work is ever the same.

I'll keep you posted. But for now, I am feeling like my youngest niece who will have her sleep-over camp experience tonight under a starry Maine sky, with the lapping waters of Long Lake and the call of loons. We will be more alike than different even though we span 60-ish years of bookending our family.

with my love -- and Hers...

Kate

"So like still water..."

"bring the wind and bring the thunder

bring the rain till I am tried

when it's over bring me stillness

let my face reflect the sky

and all the grace and all the wonder

of a peace that I can't fake

let me always be wide open,

wide open like a lake..."

Sometimes, on a day like today -- raindrops streaming down the sides of the birdfeeder outside the kitchen window like giant tears falling from heavy gray clouds, the bare black branches of still leafless trees reaching out with dark knuckled fingers, pointing to an empty heaven...on a day like this, there is no time or space for me.  In an instant, I find myself on a tender journey back to an early spring morning over three decades ago, and I am as empty as a discarded barn swallow's nest.

It is in the sanctuary of this space that Steven Curtis Chapman's "Be Still," reminds me that, as Kahlil Gibran wrote:

"The deeper sorrow carves into our being,
the more joy we can contain."  

That spring, the son we were in the process of adopting had been taken back by his birthmother, relationships seemed shattered, my body was riddled with pain, I'd given up my career to be a full-time mother, and we lived in a remote summer community that was practically empty until June. 

As I sat on the sofa in the living room, looking out at the lake our property sloped down to, I wondered why my body still had the ability to function and move.  I moved my fingers and was surprised to see them express life.  I felt absolutely empty and lifeless within, and I wished something would hurry up and put me out of my misery. 

I'd called a friend, who was also my teacher in Christian Science, the night before and told him that I didn't know why I was still alive.  He had chuckled kindly, and suggested that I sit quietly and listen for God's desire in my life -- since, as he reminded me,  I was still living, so I might as well live with some sense of spiritual reason.  I agreed that this might be a good idea, and promised to give it my whole heart.

And I did.  I sat in the same place, practically in the same position, all night long with my eyes closed just listening and praying.  I heard nothing.  Nothing.  It was an inspiration-free zone.  My thoughts felt as empty as my body and my life. Deteriorating health, all alone, no job, no purpose -- and most devastating, no baby.

Dawn came, and with it the realization that I hadn't heard anything and I was just as empty and in pain as I had been the day before.  I felt exhausted and hopeless.  That was when Winnie, our sweet puppy "daughter," sidled over and nudged my elbow with her nose -- over, and over, and over again.  No matter how many times I suggested she "just go lie down,"  she kept returning.  So, I gave in and pulled on a pair of jeans under my flannel nightgown, a pair of boots over my wool socks, and opened the breezeway door leading out into forest just beyond the brick-paved walkway. 

Winnie was a hunting dog, so her normal path from "here to there" was to weave her way through the brush and bramble -- stopping every few moments to point a squirrel or flush out a bunny.  But this morning she made a b-line for the lake's shoreline.  And once she arrived, her nose was down and her entire attention was focused on whatever was at the water's edge.  And no matter how many times I called to her, she ignored me and kept her complete focus on whatever she saw in the shallow water at the edge of the lake.

I made my way down the hill, reached her side, and got down on my haunches to see what had her attention.  But all I could see was my own face clearly reflected in the still surface of the lake at dawn -- and everything that was just below the surface -- tiny minnows, pebbles, and bits of grass. 

That was when a divine message finally came through, and it came through with such striking clarity that I was knocked back onto my bottom.  "This is what I want you to be -- as still as this water -- just "like a lake*" -- this lake.  In this stillness you will be able to see what is true within yourself, and anyone who is in your presence will be able to see the truth of who they are in the stillness of your being -- a stillness that only reflects truth and never attracts attention to your ego -- or their's."   

And then, on the heels of that message,  in that very moment, a strong wind picked up and within seconds the entire lake was choppy and disturbed.  And at the water's edge, all was foamy and what lay within, obscured.  I couldn't see my own reflection on the surface, or anything below the surface, for that matter. 

The message continued, "And this is what happens when you allow yourself to be stirred up by emotion, anger, and drama."  The message was as clear and pointed as it could have been.  As Winnie wandered off into the nearby bramble to search for bunnies, I stayed at the water's edge transfixed on the moment, begging for direction.

"But just tell me what you want me to be, and I will be the best "it" there has every been.  If you want me to be a mom send me a child.  If you want me to be a wife, bring my husband home.  If you want me to be a career woman, tell me what job to focus on.  If you want me to be a healer, a poet, a lawyer, a writer, an artist, a publisher, a teacher...just tell me, and I will be it, and I will give it my everything.  Just tell me!"

But God said, "You aren't supposed to be just one thing forever.  You are my All-in-all.  You have all that it takes to be whatever I need you to be at any given moment.  You can be all that you have asked, and more that you can ever even imagine.  Just like the water in the lake -- just as every single drop of water is made up of H2O.  Two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule, you, as my reflection, as my child -- my direct heir -- are all that I am.  You have the same elemental balance that I have -- I am Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love to the infinite degree and measure, so are you.  You are not a portion of my being, but the allness of all that I am."

I was suddenly reminded of a statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy which assures each of us that:

 

"As a drop of water is one with the ocean,
a ray of light one with the sun,
so God and man, divine Principle and idea,
are one in being."

I got it.  I could be anything God wanted me to be in any moment.  Just as a drop of water could be refreshing, nourishing, cleansing, purifying, buoying, serve as ballast, revive a man thirsting in the desert -- depending on the demands of the moment -- I had all the qualities and attributes as part and parcel of my being in infinite measure, just waiting to be drawn upon.  In a fishbowl a drop of water is the breath of life to a little goldfish. On the tip of your tongue the same drop of water is refreshing, on a child's dirty face it is cleansing, It's individuality and identity are defined by the demands of a moment and the context it finds itself in.  The water doesn't decide to be refreshing, it doesn't get a degree in being cleansing and then is only capable of serving in that capacity.  Any drop of water is able to do any water-like function.

God was telling me that this was true of my identity -- and not only mine, but it was the truth about each of us -- impartially and universally.  We are all identical with God's character and nature.  We don't bring a measured portion of God's allness to each moment as our unique identitiy,  talent base, or skill set.  The moments and opportunites themselves, draw from our infinite individuality what is needed or required of us in any given moment or situation.   And sometimes it is what we least feel we have to give, that we most need to learn about ourselves -- humility, grace, patience, meekness, kindness, non-judgment -- which we find being  called forth.

All I needed to be was still -- not just peaceful, quiet, and motionless, but constant, changeless, and nevertheless. Nevertheless than the allness of God's being in each and every moment.  This never-the-less-ness was the being -- the selfhood and identity -- I would realize as my only purpose and calling.  That was over three decades ago, and I think that I am just starting to "get it".

A friend recently gave me this poem by poet, William Butler Yates, as a blessing...and as a gift:

"We can make our minds
so like still water
that  beings gather about us
that they may see,
it may be,
their own images,
and so live for a moment
with a clearer,
perhaps even with a fiercer life
because of our quiet."

Thank you dear friend...

In stillness, 
Kate


*And here are the lyrics to Sara Groves' "Like a Lake" (linked above):

"so much hurt and preservation
like a tendril round my soul
so much painful information
no clear way on how to hold it

when everything in me is tightening
curling in around this ache
I will lay my heart wide open
like the surface of a lake
wide open like a lake

standing at this waters edge
looking in at God's own heart
I've no idea where to begin
to swallow up the way things are

everything in me is drawing in
closing in around this pain
I will lay my heart wide open
like the surface of a lake
wide open like a lake

bring the wind and bring the thunder
bring the rain till I am tried
when it's over bring me stillness
let my face reflect the sky
and all the grace and all the wonder
of a peace that I can't fake
wide open like a lake

everything in me is tightening
curling in around this ache
I am fighting to stay open
I am fighting to stay open
open open oh wide open
open like a lake "

[photo credit: Gabe Korinek 2010 all rights reserved]

"the space between..."

"I have no words,
no words
that can heal..."

Oh my...

Dodie's simple  "No Words" is just the musical and poetic keynote for this morning's message. And it isn't really about the lyrics -- the words -- it is the feeling of this song, that settled my heart.

I woke up this morning with a story in my heart. It is one that Mary Baker Eddy relates in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn,
who had been confined to his bed six months
with hip-disease, caused by a fall upon
a wooden spike when quite a boy.

"On entering the house I met his physician,
who said that the patient was dying.

"Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and sightless.
The dew of death was on his brow.

I went to his bedside.

In a few moments his face changed;
its death-pallor gave place to a natural hue.
The eyelids closed gently and the breathing
became natural; he was asleep.

In about ten minutes he opened his eyes
and said: “I feel like a new man.
My suffering is all gone.”

It was between three and four o’clock
in the afternoon when this took place..."

For me, this is one of the most instructive and important moments in Eddy's textbook on healing. And it's profound message lies is in the space between these two sentences:

"I went to his bedside.

In a few moments his face changed."

For me, this space gives form to Spirit.  It's substance lies between the period at the end of the first sentence, and the word "In.." - that begins the second.  In this space, Eddy tells us everything. For here, rests the ultimate stillness.

It is in this "space between," that the human mind gives up. It is in this moment of silent surrender that Truth is revealed. It is the abandonment of words -- giving space to "the Word." And this Word cannot be heard with the ears, it cannot be read on the page, it is not interpreted by Braille-fluent fingers -- it is felt in the heart.

I remember calling someone who was my mentor in the practice of spiritual law just after becoming an advertiser in the Christian Science Journal -- a publication that lists the names of Christian Science practitioners who have made themselves fully - and exclusively - available to those who are seeking healing through Christian Science treatment.

He wasn't someone who doled out advice. He trusted that each person had a direct relationship with God -- a relationship that provided all the guidance and correction they would need. But this day, he had a few simple thoughts to share. One of them was deeply sobering -- especially when I had called expecting a jubilant celebration of having taken this step in my life.

This is my best sense of what he said to me over 30 years ago:

"They will want your words, and you will be tempted to give them what they want. And that is understandable. Meet them where they are. But never forget that it is "the Word" of God -- speaking directly to their hearts -- that heals. It is this Word that will leave them feeling that they have known and felt the presence of God in their lives. It is this Word -- within them -- that will transform their sense of being."

I have never forgotten. Every word the human mind thinks, speaks, writes is only a compromise -- a "suffer it to be so now."  It is an attempt to describe an experience that can only be -- experienced. The more words we throw into "the space between," the less we surrender to the law of God's omnipresence -- in every human heart. The kingdom of God within -- is within each of us.  I trust this.  And it is this "gospel of the kingdom," that confirms the covenant God made with "His people," in Jeremiah - Chapter 31, and that Paul reiterates in Hebrews, Chapter 8:

"This shall be the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel:

"I will put my law in their inward parts,
and write it in their hearts; and will
be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall teach no more every man
his neighbour, and every man his brother,
saying, Know the Lord:

for they shall all know me,
from the least of them unto
the greatest of them, saith the Lord."

This is the ultimate trust. This covenant - or promise - does not require our consent to be ratified. God is not waiting for us to give our buy-in. This covenant is divine law in operation. We need only be still and know that God is what He declares Himself to be -- impartial and universal Love, omnipotent Truth, infinite Principle, immortal Life, ever-present Mind, perceptible Soul, irresistible Spirit -- infinite, omniscient, irrefutable.  This knowing of God -- vs. thinking about God -- is what happens in "the space between."  And Love -- yes, so much love happens between "us."

To trust this promise as ever-operative -- is everything -- and there are no words.


offered with Love,

Kate

"deeper, and deeper - still..."

"Every valley

made me lift my eyes up, 

Every burden 

only made me stronger,

Every sorrow

only made your joy 

go deeper and deeper,

deeper and deeper..." 

Today in Sunday School I was blessed to have six visitors from Adventure Unlimited's Compass program.  Their mid-year retreat was being held at the ranches and they came into town for church.  I was so happy - since my normally bursting class of Link School students were in Peru this month for their expedition. 

Since we are a class of high school juniors and seniors, it didn't surprise me that our spiritual discussion circled back to college.  Since one of our class charters is: "what happens in Sunday School, stays in Sunday School" -- we never share what anyone else has said during class.  This provides a safe space for speaking our hearts.  So, I will not share anyone else's comments here -- only my own.  

When I got home - after Sunday School - I wondered if I'd ever written a post about an experience I'd had in high school -- and one that I shared with the class today.  I searched and found I hadn't.  And because every experience has to have a song - here is Meredith Andrews' "Deeper" to kick things off.  It reminds me to use the noise, in order to find the silence.  

During my junior and senior years of high school I was obsessed with getting good grades so that I could get away from the smallness of my life.  Our family of ten lived in a tiny house before tiny houses were even a "thing." It was a 1,000 square foot carriage house on a beautiful estate.  But it was tiny.  The first floor was 20' by 25' and the second floor was the same size, but under the eaves -- and right in the middle was a wide staircase that took up even more floor space on both levels.  I shared a long narrow bedroom with my four younger sisters.  

With two adults, two in high school, two in middle school, two in elementary school, and infant twins, it was less than 100 square feet (10 feet by 10 feet) for each person.  Thanks to my parents' compulsion for tidiness and their mutual disdain for clutter -- it was actually quite charming and livable.  But there were times when the noise was unbearable for me.  I loved stillness, quiet, solitude -- I still do.  

Because we lived in a rural community and I didn't drive, going to the library or a coffeehouse was not an option.  In the winter months I couldn't even escape outside.  I was stuck in the house with giggling girls, crying babies, and arguing middle schoolers.  

My junior and senior years were all about grades.  Grades and SAT scores.  I spent every lunch hour in the library and stayed after school whenever I didn't have to work or babysit my siblings.  But there were still many nights when I finished doing dishes and had piles of homework to tackle or studying to do - before I went to bed.  

So, after the kitchen table was cleared, I would stack up my books, lay out my papers, and get to work.  I loved studying.  Some things never change!  But most nights, the chatter and pre-bedtime noise in our house was cacophonous.

One night I couldn't take it anymore.  I went to my mom and told her that I had a very big exam the next day, and still had to prepare for a college placement test that had me a bit rattled.  I told her that she needed to make everyone be quiet so that I could study.  

She looked at me like I were a tad insane.  She said, "this is your life and you need to figure out how to do this."  I knew she meant that nothing was going to change -- I needed to change my expectations and my approach to the problem.  

I went back to the kitchen table and put my head in my hands and closed my eyes.  The noise seemed louder than ever.  There were two thoughts that came to me.  

One was that I had everything I needed because the kingdom of God was within me and so everything God was, I included.  There was an infinite well of intelligence, wisdom, grace, patience within me.  I just needed to go deep and draw upon it.  

And the second was more of a feeling.  As I sat there in the cacophony of my family's living, I let myself hear the noise and then I let that noise boomerang me back - like a rubber band - deeper within myself.  The edge of the noise became a bubble of stillness for me to retreat into.  The louder the noise, the deeper I would go within -- to find my core stillness.  

That became my "space" of focus and clarity.  To this day, when I need to find a place of transfixed focus, I will go to a coffeehouse or a bustling cafe and let the chatter and ambient "noise" drive me deeper, and deeper, and deeper still.  

In that place I feel completely at one with all the intelligence of the universe.  In that place I am able to draw upon all wisdom of the ages.  In that place I feel as wise as Solomon because I was drawing on the same infinite well of divine intelligence. 

I did well in high school.  

When my dad was killed - not long after I graduated - it was my choice to respond in a way that felt wise and responsible to me.  I never doubted my access to the infinite well of intelligence, just because my educational path took a unexpected turn.  I always knew where to go to access an infinite source wisdom -- and I knew how to get there.

We are told that our path in life is defined by our circumstances.  By chance and choice -- often the choices of others.  I felt that way - many times - as a child.  As if my parents' decision to have ten children pre-determined my path in life.  As if my dad's decision to leave for work 5 minutes early put him in harms way on a rural road and changed the course of my life.  But that thinking,  gets us absolutely nowhere fast.  

It casts us as victims of circumstance -- borne blindly by chance, or the choice of others.  We are not. We are divinely sent into every moment of our lives for a holy purpose -- and that purpose is to know God more deeply and trust Him more humbly. 

The noise I grew up with as a child, made me reach deep within -- for the stillness of a quiet heart.  The detours I took - as I pursued my desire for learning - made me an insatiable lifelong student, rather than a college coed on a traditional four-year plan. 

Every day, we are given countless opportunities to either feel like victims of our circumstances, or hungry children seeking a deeper stillness, a holier trust, a higher goal -- to know how to reach the kingdom of God within us.  It is only there -- in this quiet kingdom -- that everything makes sense.  

offered with Love, 

Kate

  

"a need for solitude..."

"I have a need for solitude
I never feel peace
in crowded rooms.
I like the sound
of silence coming on..."

The following, remarkable photo taken by my friend, Todd Herzer, was the perfect reminder to revisit the following post from 2010 - about my once, insatiable need for solitude.

  
Sometimes re-visiting the depths of my own spiritual journey starts with a photograph or a song. Mary Chapin Carpenter has sung me down many a dusty road.  With my hands on the wheel, sobbing, driving hard and fast just to get away from the sadness, her songs have been the answer to my  prayers for a song that will make me feel less alone.

Her CD "The Age of Miracles," was borne on the wings of her own "miraculous" adventure through a life-threatening health-related crisis.  A wilderness experience that led her into a period of what she characterized as" painful depression, fear, and anxiety." 

The lyrical content of this CD is masterful, sobering, intuitive, and deeply moving. What it takes me hundreds of words to hint at, she hammers home with three verses.  When married to her musical vision, it is a CD that makes my heart weep, sing, and soar.  Her songs have always reminded me that I am not alone on this wilderness path.

There are cuts on this CD that I can't help but listen to with my eyes closed.  It is almost as if I am remembering how it felt to have lived through the moments that gave the song birth.  She is singing from her own experience, but like a tuning fork, it is resonating with my own.

There is one song that, when I read its title, "I Have a Need for Solitude," I couldn't help but wonder if we weren't actually "twin daughters of different mothers."

For me, solitude is not just a refreshing interruption from the otherwise social norms of people and events. Solitude is my natural habitat -- like salt water to a sea anemone. I need it. 

It is the oxygen I begin to gasp for, after a long day of truly wonderful conversations, and deeply inspiring interactions with people who I truly love. And it has only been by the grace of God, that I have learned to accept and appreciate the importance of these shifting levels of aloneness in my life.  But that was not always the case.

There was a time when I seemed to need solitude in a way that was almost crippling. My need to be alone felt insistent.

There were days when taking our daughters to school, or having people come into our home, was terrifying. It was as if the sound of other people's voices, their shapes slicing through the changing light, the movement of air, the rustling of atmospheric ions as they stole from room-to-room, felt like someone was sucking all of the carefully negotiated alone-ness out of my perfect solitude -- and I couldn't breathe.

Unfortunately, my profession as a spiritual healer seemed to give me an endless supply of "get out of jail" cards --justifications for why I needed to leave a party, a gathering, a dinner.  My work gave me one great excuse after another for demanding my solitude. 

I would seek it out from daybreak to well-past midnight.  Often staying up through the night, because it was only after my family went to bed, that I could most easily find it.   

There was a point in this chapter, when my favorite place in the world was a three foot by five foot windowless, cedar-lined closet under the eaves of our house where I had a little chair, table, lamp and fan. I would take my phone, and go there for hours on end, just to take be alone in the dark, take calls and pray. For me,  it was a slice of heaven. It became a self-imposed tomb that I never wanted to leave.

Yes, I did learn to cope with the need to be out-and-about as a mother, wife, professional, and member of my community.  But it was a coping - not the peaceful shift from alone to "in company" that I knew was balanced and right.  The ache for solitude was never far from reach. I took it with me wherever I went. And when society became too much, I would retreat. I would leave. I would excuse myself and find a place to hide - a bathroom, a closet, the backseat of my car, under a quilt, in my head -- all alone. 

Social gatherings felt cloying, dense, and paralyzing. Solitude was like walking into a fresh, sweet, light-filled clearing -- a high mountain meadow, fragrant with the scent of chamomile and pine. 

But as much as I loved it, and as happy as it made me,  it was not freeing or liberating.  I truly thought that I couldn't be "me" anywhere else. My need for solitude had become a prison, instead of the open space I thought it was.  I was trapped in the self-certainty that without solitude I could not be inspired or creative. It felt like madness, and I didn't know how I would find my way out of the labyrinth of my own creating -- or if I even wanted to.

And then something quite beautiful happened. 

On a very ordinary day - while I was sitting all alone in my perfectly silent kitchen - I realized, that in all spiritual actuality, solitude was impossible. 

And in that moment, I started to feel the grip of my need to be alone, relax.   Solitude was no longer the holy grail in my life. Just like that.

As I sat there surrounded by blue and white gingham and bathed in golden light, I found myself asking, "Why would I  want something that was never going to be true in God's eyes."

It was as clear as day to me that I couldn't be me - truly me - all alone, without you. And not just the "you" of my immediate friends and family -- my husband, my children, my friends.  But all who I am blessed to have waft through my life -- like the perfume of hyacinth blossoms on a warm spring day.

I realized that I could express love, without "you."  I could not discover myself as generous, kind, compassionate, honest, forgiving -- without you. Each of the you-s in my life, allow me to more fully be who I am. God's beloved and be-loving child. 

Although it's been a struggle at times to remember that I really do want to be this "best me," -- and not someone who seeks out closets and solitude like a drug -- I now find, that even in those lovely moments when the gift of solitude does descend like a divine surprise upon my day, I am no longer more at peace than in a crowded room or a noisy kitchen. I've stopped seeking something spiritually unattainable -- since, in Truth, we can never really be alone anyways. We live together as "one universal family, held in the gospel [the good news] of Love."

We are not, as Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "isolated, solitary ideas." We are each, and all, members of the body of Christ, the spiritual collective called "man." In Truth, we are but individual saplings - the branchings of a vast root system.  We are the offshoots of one spiritual organism -- one that is even larger than "the aspen grove," which stretches its arms across the Continental Divide. We are one with "the earth and the sky, one with everything in life," -- and I am as much you, as I am myself. We are His.

Yes, to answer the unasked question, I still love my solitude.  I love my alone time when the house is clean, the silence is golden, scent trails of lavender swirl with the shifting breeze. In that space figurative notation paper hangs in the air -- just waiting for poetry and music to find their positions, like birds on a wire, and become a song or a prayer. 

 But I no longer like my life better without people in it. I no longer think that I need soliude to be myself -- to breathe, to feel peaceful, or to hear God's voice. 

And yet, as Mary Chapin Carpenter sings, I will always love, and welcome, "the sound of silence coming on." 

Thank you MCC -- so grateful you are in our world.  I have missed your voice.  Thank you for your words, your music, your heart that sings to us of miracles. Thank you for bringing this statement to life for me:

"My sense of nature's rich gloom,
is that loneness lacks but one charm
to make it half divine — a friend,
with whom to whisper, 
"Solitude is sweet."

- Mary Baker Eddy  

I smile when I think of this verse today. In it, I am sitting in the forest with my back to the trunk of a sturdy tree -- but not all alone, just all quiet.  Around me are countless other solitude lovers -- basking in the pine-filtered light, the wind-hushed quiet, in our aloneness -- together.


offered with gratitude -- and with Love,

Kate

"I shall not want…"

"From a need to be understood,
from a need to be accepted,
from a fear of being lonely,
deliver me, O God..."

It was long before dawn, when I woke with this one truth, "I shall not want…"

It came before sentience. It came in the space of a silence deeper than "no sound." It came as conscious existence. It was not thought, but known. And it brought with it a feeling of being deeply satisfied.

I let my heart steep in it for a very long time. It felt like the purest truth I had ever known.

When I finally rose to greet the day it refused to be put aside for other thoughts and concerns.

After a few hours, I opened my computer and launched my browser. Going to Youtube, I typed in "I shall not want," and this beautiful song by Audrey Assad, "I Shall Not Want," brought me to tears. It spoke to every feeling I'd experienced in the stillness of that early morning.

As I stood on the back deck watching the first migrating birds arrive on our lake, I was reminded of Jesus' encouragement to:

"Behold the fowls of the air,
for they sow not,
neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them." 

What tender care for the human heart. That morning, I didn't need food, or clothing, or shelter. I needed ideas that would inspire, spiritual facts that transcend the evidence of the senses. I needed the gifts of grace, the compassion that heals, and the mercy of a loving Parent.

On the heels of that sweet avian reminder, I heard this promise from Romans:

"O the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable
are his judgments,
and his ways
past finding out!"
 

I didn't need to "want" a knowledge of Him, or His wisdom.  It was not something to be searched for - and found. It was not something I lacked, and needed to go hunting for.  It was mine by simple reflection -- in stillness.

And so I did just what Jesus suggested. I watched the fowls of the air. They circled the lake, and then flew directly into the stillness of the water.  All that they needed lay just beneath the clear surface -- and it was immediately evident and available to each of them from that vantage point. They weren't landing thoughtlessly and then digging around -- stirring up surface and muddying the waters.

It occurred to me how often my frantic "searching" had muddied my own spiritual clear-sightedness.

But when I stand still -- nevertheless -- in the simplicity of one simple spiritual fact, such as: "God is All-in-all," and I allow that Truth to inform every other question or concern -- there is no want.

My freedom from want comes, not from what I think I know about my circumstances and resources, but from what I know to be true about God -- our divine Source. There is no want, because there is no lack in the Allness of All. Where there is no absence of God, there is no absence of good.  Realizing this one fact, I am consciously holding good in my experience - immediately.

In the All-in-allness of Mind, there is no lack of wisdom -- in anyone. In the All-in-allness of Love, there is no lack of acceptance. In the All-in-allness of Life, there is no loneliness or loss. In the All-in-allness of Truth, there is no dishonesty or misunderstanding. 

 In the All-in-allness of Soul, there is only beauty, peace, and the discernment of truth. In the All-in-allness of Principle, we can only experience the ever-presence of balance, order, and fairness. And in the All-in-allness of Spirit, we trustingly yield to the one divine Source of all motivation, intention and action.

Filled with an abiding conviction that our divine Parent loves and cares for us, we are playful. The "future," is not something to worry about, but is a divine surprise unfolding right before our eyes from an unfathomable well of goodness. And we are free from the finite wants, which will always fall short of His more abundant, infinite plan for us.

I think of the young King David, the Psalmist, who wrote those words, "I shall not want." His own path from ambitious self-volition to childlike trust was lovingly chronicled for us in Scripture. I am humbled beyond measure by his courage and honesty. What a journey of grace.

And since all fear has it's basis in the supposition: "what if God is absent," to be free of lack-based want is to be delivered from fear. To be free of want is to dwell in the spaciousness of God's immanence. To be free of want, is to rest our hopes in His eternal kingdom. A kingdom of still waters, tender mercies, and amazing grace.


offered with Love,

Kate

"Nothing new…"

"Old Mr. Webster
could never define
what's being said
between Your heart
and mine..."

Alison Krauss' "When You Say Nothing at All," has been one of my all-time favorite songs for almost thirty years. But it speaks to a different place in me today, than it did the first time I heard it.

In those days, it was all about "Him." Today, it is all about Him. This song reminds me that my relationship with God is not in words, but in the Word. It is not found in a particular scripture or a string of quotes -- however much I love them. It is in, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:

"sweet and certain sense
that God is Love." 

It is a feeling -- not a sentence. It is an indwelling sense of trust in the unseen.  It is that which is insensible to the senses. It is a silent, abiding confidence in His promise:

"Lo, I am with you alway…"
 

There are days when my heart is too full to speak -- or write. Days, when the best I can do, for everyone in my life, is to simply deepen into that sweet and certain place of abiding trust that God is Love. This is the place where my heart finds its ground in free fall. This is where I land when I completely let go of self-determinism and human thought-taking. This is my home in yielding to the divine.

Recently I woke with a heavy heart. The voices of "human reason" were relentless -- and, they made sense. Everything they suggested -- when weighed in the scale of "should haves" - left me feeling negligent, stupid, "Kate, you've-got-your-head-in-the-clouds" naive. I couldn't seem to drown them out with words, sentences, or inspired "thinking."

I lay there with a weight on my chest and a tightness in my throat that was almost unbearable. Words, words, words, -- tumbled around in me like an aggregate of stone and sand in a churning cement mixer. That is, until I remembered to feel. To just feel the power of the Word. I slowed my breathing. I closed my eyes. I moved my focus from my head to my heart and became very quiet -- silent actually. Not just silent in a "no noise" way -- but silent in a "no words" way.

And there it was -- that sweet and certain sense that God is Love. That feeling of "God with us." A feeling that -- no matter what was swirling around me or in my "head" -- God was with me, just because I loved.  Because I felt love. Period.  I let myself feel the love I have for my daughters, my love for camp, my love for my work. I didn't think about my work, I felt my love for my work -- without reason.

It was enough.

I was free. And with this freedom, came the joy of just being -- well, me. The me of God's creating. The me that He inspires, sustains, and calls according to His purpose. Moment-by-moment.

There are many statements from Mary Baker Eddy's writings that have fed and sustained this quiet sense of spiritual self-assurance in my heart.  I'd love to share just a couple of them here, with gratitude and love for her ongoing spiritual guidance.

:

"The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure
has come to this age through a “still, small voice,”
through silent utterances and divine anointing
which quicken and increase the beneficial effects
of Christianity.

I long to see the consummation of my hope,
namely, the student’s higher attainments
in this line of light."

and

"In order to pray aright,
we must enter into the closet
and shut the door.
We must close the lips
and silence the material senses.
In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings,
we must deny sin and plead God’s allness."
 

I am learning that there is a quiet that is deeper than "no sound." There is a quietness of the heart. A quietness that is the felt presence of God.  It is a stillness.  Rather than a straining and a striving for the right words in "thinking about" God -- it is the actually feeling of God's presence.  It is a spiritual sense of Love that fills the breast. And there are no words -- at least none that I know of -- that can describe its meaning or weight.

In a piece that Eddy chose to include in her last collected writings, The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, she begins with this brief statement:

"I have nothing new to communicate,
all is in your textbooks." 

This sentence was a sobering discovery some years ago. Now it is a beautiful gift. If she had nothing new to communicate, why did I think I needed to find something new to say, or a new way to say it. It is all in my textbooks -- the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures -- and this realization has given me a more laser-like focus on the richness of those source materials.

It has given me permission to be quiet - to simply share my experiences -- when it seems right. And to be so quietly transfixed on those primary texts, that perhaps anyone who walks into the room wonders, "what is she gazing at -- so lovingly." 

And the funny thing is, that these texts only send me back -- even more deeply -- in search of that feeling of "Immanuel, God with us" -- the sovereign ever-presence [that] delivers the children of men from every ill…"  

For me, this is the healing place, the transforming and redeeming place.  The place where God and men do meet.

offered with Love,

Kate