"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

"I need...."

"We used to laugh, we used to cry,
we used to bow our heads then, wonder why.
And now you're gone, I guess I'll carry on,
And make the best of what you've left to me,
Left to me, left to me.

I need you like the flower needs the rain,
You know I need you, guess I'll start it all again.
You know I need you like the winter needs the spring
You know I need you, I need you..."

My senior year of high school I suddenly discovered that I would need to live away from my parents for the last semester.  I ended up staying with a family I'd never met before, and didn't think I had much in common with.  They were lovely people with a wonderful home, but they were not my family, and it was not my home. 

This probably wouldn't unseat most people, but for me it was as seismic a shift as anything I'd ever experienced.  From the time of my birth I had never, ever, been away from my mother.  And other than a very infrequent overnight with a friend from Sunday School, I'd always been surrounded by my entire, very large family.   We moved a lot, so I'd never been able to maintain many close friendships. This made my family uber-important to me. They were my everything. 

To be away from both my mother and my sister was catastrophic.  There were nights when I thought I would collapse with grief.  I'd never missed anyone or anything in quite the same way...before or since. 

One of the ways I would get through those days and nights of heartache was to go down to my host's family room in the middle of the night, put on a big pair of headphones, and listen to one of three albums I owned while lying on the carpet in the dark.  America's self-titled album was one of them...and "I Need You," was one of my favorite songs for reaching a cathartic emotional release.  I would listen to it first for a good soul-spilling cry.  I cried hard...the kind of tears that spill down your temples and soak your hair.  I cried for so much.  I felt that I needed my mother and my siblings...I felt that I needed all that was familiar...all that was "home" to me.

But then I would listen to it again, and this time, I would think about what I really needed.  I would question all of the things that I had always thought I couldn't live without:  my family, my home, to be surrounded by my favorite things, a ride to school, books I loved...and on and on the list would go.   And something would shift.

I realized that I really didn't need need most of those things...obviously.  There I was, living in a stranger's house with none of those things I loved, and I was still me.  I was still thinking my own thoughts, making my own choices, breathing, loving, wanting to be loved, longing for opportunities to be creative, to make a difference, to learn. 

I was learning the difference between wants and needs.  And I was discovering that what I most needed was the space to think and question....to realize that I was conscious and that ideas were constantly coming to me for how I could navigate a challenging situation, find solutions to almost insurmountable problems, and find my way in the world.

Looking back on this time...almost 40 years ago now...I can see that it was one of the most important times in my life.  I learned the most valuable skill I would ever need.  To think...to question...and most critically, to listen to that inner voice, that still, small voice within...for what to question, where to find answers, and how to be at peace with a home that is defined by "the kingdom of heaven within."

I discovered that I needed very little.  I loved a lot.  But I needed very little.  What I loved and what I needed were different.    It's never too late to remember it again, and again, and again.

shared with Love,
Kate

Kate Robertson, CS

"All of You is more than enough..."

"All of You is more than enough for all of me... For every thirst and every need You satisfy me with Your love. And all I have in You is more than enough..." - Chris Tomlin & Louis Giglio

I hope you enjoy this video of Chris Tomlin's beautiful song, "Enough."  I think you will see how it relates to this story: It happened just last night.  We were sitting in church.  In preparation for conducting the service, I'd pulled together the readings, straight from questions that were pressing on my heart:  "What do I really need?"  "When will I know that I have enough?"  Using those questions as my starting point, I'd felt divinely led - as if on a journey through the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I was searching for the message God intended for our worship service - and for me.  I'd felt inspired but Scripture and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, but the questions still loomed large.  Once I'd finished readings the selections, and we'd joined in silent prayer, I led the congregation in praying aloud the Lord's Prayer.  And it was this line, "Give us this day, our daily bread" that I found myself focusing on with genuine hunger.   After singing the second hymn, and reading the announcements, I opened the meeting for the sharing of gratitude, inspiration and testimonies of healing. And that was when my friend, Andrew - sitting on the sofa in the half-light of a late summer evening - shared a stunning idea. It was one that answered my question, so perfectly, that it was as if I'd posed my query directly to him,  he'd taken it to God, and come back with the perfect response. Andrew started his remarks, by sharing gratitude for what he was learning from the inmates he visited during his volunteer work at a local jail.  And then, he referred back to one of the statements that I'd read - twice actually - from Science and Health. He referred to it as the definition to the word, "enough."

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

It actually took my breath away.  It was as if little prickles of energy - and a million fireflies - were lighting up my insides.  I actually think I may have gasped.  This was the answer - the simple and direct answer - I had been looking for.  As I'd prepared for the service, there were two words that had kept poking at me:  "need" and "enough."  I knew what I most needed. Again from Mary Baker Eddy:

"What we most need is the fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds."

And this had long become my answer. When suggestions came from within, "I need to know what is next." or "I need to feel thus, and so - peace, comfort, love - you name it."   When those false "needs" would project themselves as conditional to my peace, with Eddy's direction, it had become my practice to claim, "No, what I really need is the burning desire for growth in grace - expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. But the answer to the questions, "What is enough?"  "When will I have enough?"  "What would enough look like?"  For those questions, I didn't seem to have an answer that satisfied my hunger for something simple, clear, comprehensive, practical - and most importantly - spiritual. But Andrew's answer met all of those criteria - perfectly. And I claimed it, immediately, for myself as one of my five smooth stones for taking down the Goliath suggestion of: "never enough."  I have since discovered that it is truly one of the most wonderful spiritual tools to have at the ready.  When the inner critic tries to say I don't have enough, I never will have enough, or that I wouldn't know enough if it bit me on the backside, I can confidently go back to:

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

Do I need more money, more information, more praise, more entertainment, more comfort -- more, more, more? No, what I need - what I really, and truly, and practically need more of is growth in grace -- patience, meekness, love and good deeds.  And the depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love filling all space is exactly what will meet that need.  In fact, it is the only thing that can, or will, eversatisfy that which I "most need." That is my "enough."  It will always be enough.  Love filling all space.  Love filling every heart.  Love filling every moment with opportunity for self-realization.  Love satisfying every need to trust more, and worry less.  Love filling every "wrathful and afflictive" experience as the opportunity to entertain angels heretorfore unawares. Love filling the earth with the gladness of growth, the affluence of freshness, the height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite beauty and grace.  Yes, it is enough. It is always enough.    with Love, Kate [photo credit:  Nathaniel Wilder 2010]

"I need You..."

"I need You,
like the flower needs the rain.
You know I need You...
Guess I'll start it all again,
You know I need You,
like the winter needs the spring.
You know I need You,
I need You..."

It was the winter of 1971, and the boy I'd had a crush on for two years,  finally liked me too.   But the sad part was that he lived about an hour from our home, and because of that distance, we only saw each other on rare occasions.  Because of this, "I Need You,"  by America, became the soundtrack for my melancholy.  In our small house, we had only one telephone, and it was in the kitchen...and it was attached to the wall.  It's not-long-enough spiral cord kept me tethered to our family's epicenter,  the most constantly occupied room in our house, which was already overflowing with kids, and babies, and parents.  My love-life seemed doomed to isolated light-hearted conversations about the teen church activities we shared an interest in.   In those days, what I thought I needed most was privacy.

I remember thinking that this song was all about our budding, but seriously repressed, romance.  I've always thought about it that way.   So I was surprised this morning when, in the middle of praying with this statement from Mary Baker Eddy's 1895 Adress in The Mother Church, "more love is the great need of mankind," the song's chorus flooded my thoughts, and pooled in my heart.

I had been asking God, "what do I need?"  And, "more love" was the answer that came,  set to the background strains of  "I need you, like the flower needs the rain..." 

The reciprocity implied in that line broke over me like a ray of sunshine through the clouds.  And it wasn't about an old boyfriend.  It was about me...and more importantly, it was about me and God. 

I need God, and God needs me.  We are a team.  We are essential to one another's purpose.  I cannot be all that I hope to be...do all the good that I hope to accomplish...with out Him at the center, the core of my being.  I cannot make a difference...in all the ways that I yearn to make a difference in the world...if I don't have the Source of all good at the headwaters of my being, flowing affluently and abundantly, moment-by-moment-by-moment.

Just like the ray of light needs the sun to feed it with light, warmth, projection, and intensity, I need God to feed me with ideas, affection, desire.

And God needs me.  He needs me to be "the space"...of humility, grace, hunger, desire, and hope...that I am, so that he can fill the world with all that He is.   So as I pondered what "I need," it was natural for me to turn to what inspired my hope or clarity and direction...The Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy.  And in them, I found these two statements, which stood out immediately:

"More love is the great need of mankind..."

and

"What we most need is the prayer
of fervent desire for growth in grace,
expressed in patience, meekness, love,
and good deeds."

So today, it is these statements that are driving my life forward.  If mankind needs more love, and I need the fervent...the burning...desire for growth in grace (expressed as patience, meekness, love and good deeds), then my need for expressing more love,  is going to only be supplied by mankind's need for experiencing more love.  And this "more love" that is most needed, only has its source in God, the one and only limitless source of Love.

It takes great love to be patient...in the face of impatience.  It takes more, and more, and more love to be meek (not inclined to anger or frustration)...to love generously when we are facing circumstances that invite us to feel self-justified in our anger or resentment.  And even more love to push one's self out of the zone of self-indulgent comfort, and into the space of doing "good deeds," in service to others.  I need God...Love...limitless, infinite, and abundant, if I am going to realize those needs.

Elsewhere Eddy remarks in reference to "need," that:

"The human affections need to be changed from self to benevolence and love for God and man; changed to having but one God and loving Him supremely, and helping our brother man.  This change of heart is essential to Christianity, and will have its effect physically as well as spiritually, healing disease."

and

"We need much humility, wisdom, and love to perform the functions of foreshadowing and foretasting heaven within us."

Yes, I am realizing...more and more each day that, as Eddy says:

"More love is the great need of mankind. A pure affection, concentric, forgetting self, forgiving wrongs and forestalling them, should swell the lyre of human love."  [emphasis added]

Not the nouns...the wants, or "what ifs" of humanly circumscribed outcomes, but a change of heart, and a recalibration of our desires from our wants, to what we really need...the birth of new unselfish sentiments and  behaviors.

Eddy doesn't say that what we most need is better jobs, more money, bigger homes (or more homes), greater financial security, better bodies, admittance into the "right schools," or admirable lifestyles...but growth in grace expressed in....better behaviors...patience, meekness, love, good deeds...actually, more love!

I love this line from an early poem of Eddy's titled, "Signs of the Heart,":

"O Love divine,
This heart of Thine
Is all I need to comfort mine."

To have the heart of God...generous, giving, abundant, selfless...this is all the comfort I need...like the flower needs the rain.   And I do need it.   As my grandmother used to say, "you never go searching for the Comforter when you are comfortable..."   Hmmm...

Thanks DeeDee...

always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...is satisfied..."

"...When I'm drivin' in my car
And that man comes on the radio
He's tellin' me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no
Satisfaction
No satisfaction..."
Jagger/Richards

I never really liked the Rolling Stones' version of this song. However, when Jeff came home from a FolkAlliance conference two years ago with John Batdorf and James Lee Stanley's new CD, All Wood and Stones, a compilation of their acoustic/folk versions of Rolling Stones standards, including a studio performance of "Satisfaction," I had a whole new perspective on this song.  

It is a mournful dirge.  A sorrowful anthem for a consumer society, and the insidious marketing voice that eggs us on in our search for that "just right, special something" that will satisfy our hunger for what it is actually impossible to fill from the coffers of consumerism, materialism, romanticism, or narcissisism.  Our hunger for completeness.  Our hunger to really, really know the answer to questions like: "Who am I?  What is my purpose? What defines me?  How should I live?  Where is my peace? Will I ever know love...to love and be loved?"

What does this hunger really boil down to?  I think, for me, it's all about the desire to know that our lives have meaning, that we can understand what that meaning is, and know that we are living on purpose.  These are such great questions.  But, it is the way we try to answer those questions that gives me pause.

Somewhere along the way, I think we decided that there could be human ways of determining whether we, or others, are really meeting spiritual goals, and/or achieving spiritual success.  We concluded that there is a material baseline for judging spiritual progress.

Recently our family made a new car purchase.  We were not looking for a luxury "brand," nor were we hoping to encourage others to think of us in a certain way, based on the make and model we were driving.  We were just looking for qualities of reliability, size, and functionality. However, the car that, quite literally, found us just happened to come in a more luxurious package than I had ever expected.  Although we gratefully accepted the divine gift this car (at its very reasonable, well below blue-book purchase price) represented, I knew from the get-go that it would provide important lessons in humility and grace. I was a tried and true Jeep driver.

I prided myself on my love for it's simple blue-collar lines, and truck-like "ride." It was my little slice of Colorado in Town & Country. This new car was not going to be as easy to pass off as a "Rancher goes to St. Louis" pickup truck-in-disguise, as my Grand Cherokee had been. I almost felt like I shouldn't be wearing my cowboy boots while driving it...I said almost, didn't I? As you can see I was already as intimidated by driving it, as I was appreciative of its qualities of solidity, soundness, and reliability. The lessons in grace would come sooner than I thought. Not long after picking it up from the lot, I drove to a shopping area we frequent, and someone called out "Hey, new car? [Your business] must be doing great!  Good for you!" 

I was kind of shocked.  And to be honest, I didn't know what to say or how to respond. I'd never thought my car would suddenly give someone the impression that the growth or success of my spiritual healing practice could, in any way, be measured by the car I drove. I didn't want to be seen in those terms. I liked being the fish-out-of-water cowgirl, in the land of Lily Pulitzer and tennis togs. Before that moment, I didn't think I cared one bit what my car said about me, its simple, modest, I-don't care-what-year it-is-as long-as-I-can-drive-thorugh-a-boulder-filled-pasture statement suited me just fine. This new car was sending a message I wasn't so sure fit my sense of...well, me. I wasn't a nice car kind of girl, I was an old, but clean, classic no frills Jeep driver. I was a bit shaken by the fact that I was even thinking about this stuff.

But then I remembered an experience I'd had a year earlier.  Because of the Missouri Dept. of Transportation's two-year closing of the major (and only) highway between our home in the city, and the school our girls attend in "the county", we needed to move so as to reduce the drive time by 30 minutes each way, our fuel consumption, and our carbon footprint.  The only house I was even willing to look at, and which, to my surprise...and chagrin, seemed like the perfect, centralized location for us, was in a pretty upscale zip code nearer their school.  Although our home is one of a small number of sweet little cottages situated right in the middle of baronial manses, you wouldn't know it by looking at our address.  Soon after our move, an acquaintance called because she'd noticed my new address in a community directory.  She called to say how happy she was to know that we were able to move to what she felt would be a better neighborhood for the girls to grow up in...closer to activities they were already involved in, friends, and a village where they could safely walk to the shops and stores.  She continued, "What a wonderful demonstration of home you have made."  What???

Our former home in the city was one of the most wonderful places I had ever lived.  Finding it had been such a sweet, sacred instance of divine guidance and care for the girls and I.   Moving away was heartbreaking.  I'd not wanted to leave our lovely flat in the trees (we had the top two floors of an old three story home near an urban park and a major university) I didn't want to go back to taking care of a lawn, raking the millions of leaves I now face each fall outside our windows, or revisit the demands of gutters that needed cleaning or an icy driveway.  I thought I'd "demonstrated" freedom.  But my friend thought I'd finally been liberated from living "without"...without a single-family dwelling "all my own" and no downstairs neighbors to share a basement with.  I'd felt free of a mortgage, while she thought I'd been doomed to landlords.  I'd felt blessed by an incredible urban park and museums.  She thought we'd been deprived of a yard for the children to play in. 

I realized that our ways of looking at "success" in demonstrating good, were very different.   As I continued over the next few months to "think on these things," I recognized that my criteria for what meeting spiritual goals like humility, modesty, generosity, and charity, should look like, were also rather mortal, measurable, and out-comes based. Did I really think that one kind of social program or political agenda better defined charitableness and peace, than another? Was the economic plan on one side of the aisle more spiritually evolved than the one on the opposite side? If you know me, you know that these are REALLY hard questions for me. It was clear that I needed to realign myself more directly with a deeper spiritually-based sense of living on purpose.  But first I needed to understand where my friend was coming from. 

Later that summer, I asked her out for tea and we talked about some of those perceptions, because by then what had become really important was for me to understand her perspective...and, hopely, I could help her understand mine.  Together over the course of a series of lovely (and love-filled) conversations, we arrived at what was, I think, a revelation to both of us.  Somehow, to her, my "demonstration" of more simplicity and less personal ownership by living in our flat in the city, had seemed to her like something that could be prayed about in hopes of a higher "more spiritually evolved sense of home."   Whereas, for me, it was my prayer carved out in brick and stone. It represented a freedom to live more communally, to expose my children to different cultures,  museums, be a part of a university neighborhood filled with thinkers from many disciplines and perspectives. 

Neither of us was "wrong" in following our own hearts' desires  -  hers towards a warm, expansive home in the suburbs nearer her husband's work and her children's activities so that they could spend more time together in the evenings and less time in the car on weekends, and mine in the direction of an urban flat in a socio-economically diverse University neighborhood filled with culturally -rich opportunities, but requiring lots of driving every day. The real hiccup, for both of us, came when we realized that we had started to use matter-based outcomes for measuring anyone's inner journey. 

As a western culture, when had we begun to equate a luxury vehicle with the demonstration of professional growth as a spiritual thinker, to measure the spiritual laws of abundance, wellness, or the demonstration of an understanding of divine goodness with zip codes, bank account balances, domicile square footage, acreage, the kind of kitchen countertops you have, or the labels in the clothes you wear.  To determine the expression of beauty by the size of someone's clothes, the color of your hair, and the smoothness of your skin, or health by the speed at which you can run the mile, the range of motion in a joint, or how deeply one draws a breath of new mown air seems to put spirit in the grasp of matter.  Intelligence cannot be defined, nor is it "demonstrated" by a higher SAT score, a terminal degree, or a teacher's praise.  Charity is not measured by more or less, and humility can never be scrutinized or charted on a behavioral bar graph. The integrity of an honest man is not in a measured accounting of the deeds we witness, nor can the understanding of eternal life be ratified by more years.

True satisfaction, intelligence, peace, wealth, beauty, abundance, wellness, immortality can only be found in the heart...the province of Spirit, where divine Love reigns and governs man.  It comes from a deep and abiding conviction that God...Love, Truth, Principle, Soul, Mind, Spirit, Life...actually is what He promises to be, ever-present, all-powerful, immutable, unconditional (even beyond the conditions of our thought, our prayers, our good deeds, or our mistakes), eternal good.  

So if this is the case, what is ours to do?  What do we "demonstrate?"

Mary Baker Eddy so lovingly tells us in no uncertain terms,

"You have simply to preserve a scientific,
positive sense of unity with your divine source,
and daily demonstrate this."

Anything else is, as Stephen Gottschalk counsels in his article, written for the American Encyclopedia of Religions, "Christian Science vs Harmonialism" the desire to use Spirit to get, or "demonstrate" better matter, and is the opposite of Christian Science.  And of this Science,  its Discoverer and  Founder, Eddy states:

"The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin..."

In thinking about this purpose of Christian Science, the definition of "sin" that most resonates with what I understand to be Eddy's sense of the word, is found in its shared etymologic root with the word "sunder" or "to separate".  To me, "sin" means, simply, the belief that anyone or anything is, or ever could be, separated from God, the only Cause and Creator.

Any way of thinking that starts from the false assertion that there is a Cause or Creator other than God, a lapse of His government, or a falling away from His presence...is the only sin there is...the belief of sin, or separation.  This belief, or fear that we are separated from God is at the root of all the ways we might behave "sinfully"...behaviors that are only a fear-based reactions to that one and only false starting point  -  separation, behaviors which we ignorantly call sin.  Greed, theft, infidelity, envy, etc. are reactions to sin, not sin itself.  As long as we are trying to heal sin by going after behaviors, rather than the addressing the root belief, we are missing the mark.   Stealing is just a reaction to the base belief that God is not impartially and universally present as abundant good.  Anger, hatred, violence are just reactions to the false premise that God is in fact, not an unconditionally loving Father-Mother, but a partial God who meets out love, justice, and mercy to some, and not to others.

True satisfaction comes from, an abiding conviction that we are spiritual...that we are one with God....one with goodness, intelligence, love.  This spiritual unity is invulnerable and without abrogation.  There is nothing we can do to weaken or breach this inviolate, indissoluable spiritual link.  Because it is whole and holy...never humanly circumscribed or portioned...it can't be measured by human out-comes, nor can it be achieved or accumulated...it can only be accepted.

Mary Baker Eddy reclaims the keynote to real satisfaction, when wrote what I believe is redeeming anthem for the deeply contented, "satisfied" spiritual thinker. One for whom there is always pure peace..."whate'er be tide".  She begins this poem, "It matters not what be thy lot, so love doth guide..."  I wonder if it even matters one little bit to the spiritual thinker whether he has a lot to build his house on, or alot to put in it.  Perhaps he (or she) is just satisfied if he can love alot.  And just think about it,  what could possibly ever stop any of us from the joy of abundant loving.  As Paul says in Romans:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Or, as Eddy writes in this remarkable poem, "Satisfied":

"It matters not what be thy lot,
So Love doth guide;
For storm or shine, pure peace is thine,
Whate'er betide.

And of these stones, or tyrants' thrones,
God able is
To raise up seed - in thought and deed -
To faithful His.

Aye, darkling sense, arise, go hence!
Our God is good.
False fears are foes - truth tatters those,
When understood.

Love looseth thee, and lifteth me,
Ayont hate's thrall:
There Life is light, and wisdom might,
And God is All.

The centuries break, the earth-bound wake,
God's glorified!
Who doth His will - His likeness still -
Is satisfied."

Living in the space of this deeply satisfying spiritual certainty, our peace is unshakably fixed, immovable and beyond anything that can be bought, borrowed, wished for, marketed or measured.  In this space we really "can't get no satisfaction" because it is already, and always, ours.

with "pure peace"...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Caitlin Moss 2009]

Thanksgiving...when "loss is gain"

"O make me glad for every scalding tear,
   For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill,--since God is good, and loss is gain."

- Mary Baker Eddy

It was Thanksgiving Day 1988, and we were sitting around a kitchen table extended by folding card tables and collapsible chairs. A maze of legs...chairs, tables, and people...that made it almost impossible to get the turkey out of the oven since space was of a premium in that modest New England kitchen.

But it really didn't matter. In my heart, I was somewhere else. I was in a new "space" - a space of gratitude. And that year, it was not for all that I had, but for all that I had lost.

It had been a hard year. The adoption of our first child had collapsed when his birth mother decided that she couldn't go through with her plan to surrender...a decision that was absolutely God-inspired.

But the deep grief that I felt from that experience had left our marriage shaky, and I had become gravely ill. In anticipation of our child's birth, I had given up a job that I loved to become a full-time mother, and there were days that I thought I would go out of my mind.

By Thanksgiving, however, my heart was strong, my health was much improved, and my marriage was finding more solid ground for moving forward. I'd been re-hired for the position I loved, and I was grateful for its demand upon my skills, talents, and receptivity to divine direction. God had restored so much to my life since the damp, cold day, earlier that year, when all my hopes for motherhood had vanished.

However, it was not for the things I had gained, but for the things that I had surrendered..and lost...that I gave humble, silent thanks that day. Most notable was the loss of envy. Freedom from the chains of "want" had been a liberty I'd never even known to hope for.

From the time I was a little girl, my heart was filled with want. I wanted to know I was loved by my mother and stepfather; I wanted to have more than one pair of shoes; I wanted to be an only child instead of the "oldest of eight." As a young woman, I wanted an education, I wanted to be loved exclusively by a husband; I wanted a career that was satisfying and creative.

Most of all, I wanted a child. I wanted a baby to hold, to love. I had wanted it for so long that having come so close had left me in pieces. So why was I grateful?

Earlier that summer I had realized that what I really wanted was to mother rather than to have a baby. I had discovered that "mother" is a verb. This realization had taken me by surprise. But once I saw it, I couldn't be stopped. I started mothering everything in sight. Projects at work, vacationing neighbors' gardens, a friend's broken heart, a country in turmoil. Mothering was a verb that didn't require ownership or possession. It was simply the heart's response to a childlike need for care. The more I mothered, the less I ached for a baby. 

One day, just before Thanksgiving, my younger sister called to chat, and when I asked her about her blossoming pregnancy, I could hear the hesitation with which she opened up to me. I realized in a flash, that in the past I had always been so envious of anyone else's pregnancy that I became maudlin, cold, and distant. Full of melancholy and hurt.

But that wasn't how I felt this time. I realized that I was truly happy for her; I was no longer longing for something I didn't have. I was mothering. I was overjoyed that this sister, whom I loved, would soon have an opportunity to discover the joys of mothering, too.

When my nephew was born later that year, I was thrilled to celebrate his birth, to hold him, and for the first time, to be truly happy for another new mom.

I had not lost a baby; I had lost envy, sorrow, ache, emptiness. I was blessed by the fullness of opportunities I was discovering...to mother. To express those mothering qualities of nurturing, comfort, strength, patience, joy, humility, energy. Day after day, I was pregnant with motherhood - not a baby. And this was a pregnancy that would never end.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful for the loss of pride, the surrender of pretense, the absence of opinion, the famine of sense (letting go of the sensationalism I see in the news, hear of through gossip, or feel as the judgment of others). I am deeply thankful for the feast of Soul (the fullness of stillness, honesty, humility, kindness, and grace) growing in me. I will continue to be pregnant with gratitude all year.

"Like as a mother, God comforteth His children;
   Comfort is calm, that bids all tumult cease;
Comfort is hope and courage for endeavor,
   Comfort is love, whose home abides in peace.

Love is true solace and giveth joy for sorrow,--
   O, in that light, all earthly loss is gain;
Joy must endure, Love's giving is forever;
   Life is of God, whose radiance cannot wane.

O holy presence, that stills all our demanding,
   O love of God, that needs but to be known!
Heaven is at hand, when thy pure touch persuades us,
   Comfort of God, that seeks and finds His own."

- Mary Louise Baum

Kate