"Take my life...please..."

"Take my life and let it be
consecrated Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
let them  flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of They love..."

I remember the first time I heard our Sunday School superintendent read the first line of the hymn "Take my life and let it be..." (enjoy this video by Chris Tomlin) during our opening exercises.  It was one of those moments you never forget as a kid. 

My family watched Ed Sullivan's variety show almost religiously on Sunday evenings. Mom would make homemade pizzas, dad would break out a few bottles of his garage-brewed rootbeer. We'd gather our Lesson books for marking, and sit on a a blanket of newspapers for our weekly picnic in the living room in front of the TV. The Wonderful World of Disney, Bonanza, and Ed Sullivan were the line up for the only-show-in-town. And the previous Sunday, Henny Youngman had been the featured comic on Ed's show . 

So, as I sat in Sunday School that next Sunday morning, I couldn't help but remember his now famous line "take my wife...please," and started giggling...and then my friends started giggling, and soon everyone in our class was giggling so hard, we couldn't sing.  Mrs. Garren wasn't pleased.  From that moment on, this was my first thought everytime I heard the words to that hymn (unfortunately for me a favorite of our Superintendent) being read from the desk.  All through my years in Sunday School it would happen, giggling, disappointed looks from the teacher...it happened every time.

Whether it was the break from congregational hymn singing I took in my early twenties, or just the simple fact that I became an adult, once I heard that hymn again, as a somewhat more mature listener, it felt inspiring and invigorating.  It was like a "working song" for the consecrated spiritual thinker's labor union.

And now, I love it...alot.  There are days when I feel like singing it, holding aloft a banner of solidarity, and marching around my office like a contemporary Norma Rae!

This week's Scriptural keynote from the Christian Science weekly Bible Lesson:

"Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits..."

had me hanging out in the spiritual labor union office today.  It encouraged me to think about, and appreciate, the extraordinary "benefits package" I enjoy as a fully vested employee in my Father's, spiritual law office.

Mary Baker Eddy says that,

"The Christian Scientist has enlisted..."

and I have.  I wake up every day with only one purpose...to:

"of mine own self do nothing, but see what the Father doeth..."

I am a witness, an observer, a deep listener, a focused, transfixed, refusing to be distracted sentinel with only one thing in my sights...God.  I live to behold...to "see and call attention to" the presence of God...everywhere, in everything, at all times, in everyone, throughout every day, and penetrating every moment.

I am a blue-collar law clerk in the office of God...and only God, where the senior partner is Christ.  I am a willing multi-function employee, clerk, assistant, colleague.  I love my time at the reception desk where I answer the phone, take messages, reply to emails.  I thoroughly enjoy the hours and hours I spend in the law library researching precedent setting cases in the Bible and contemporary publications that chronicle spiritual healing.  I am always honored to be asked to sit at counsel's table in the court room.  Serving the senior partner is fun, sitting next to him and looking into the eyes of the firm's client with great love and encouragement...as I have seen him do so often...is a privilege unlike any other.

But back to my benefits package, which I have promised to "forget not"

Job Security:

"Security for the claims of harmonious existence
is found only in divine Science." 
-  Mary Baker Eddy

There is no greater job security than knowing that your employer will never go out of business and that the work that you do for Him is always going to be of value to His clients.  Humanity will never stop hungering for His love, thirsting for Her wisdom, seeking the bread of salvation and the wine of inspiration He serves, longing for Her tender mercies and loving kindnesses. And my Employer values my devotion to this work...I feel secure in His care.

Health Care Package:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest
prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."
- John

My Employer, who by the way has all the power in the universe, wants me to prosper and be in health...enough said.

Vision Plan:

"Open Thou his eyes that he may see...
wondrous things out of Thy law"
- Psalms

The HR department at my firm is continually advocating for clarity of vision, a more expanded awareness of good,  greater depth of field, and a more focused line of sight that always, and only, includes His well-framed and light-filled forms of creation.

Retirement and Investment Plan:

"Three times a day, I retire to seek the divine blessing on the sick and sorrowing, with my face toward the Jerusalem of Love and Truth, in silent prayer to the Father which "seeth in secret," and with childlike confidence that He will reward "openly."  -  Mary Baker Eddy

My Employer has the best retirement plan ever...retiring three times daily to seek His blessing in prayer.   Otherwise, from this job I need never retire.  And why would I want to?  I can't imagine a day without the joy of this work.  As for a 401K or matching contribution package...don't need one.  My employer takes care of everything...day by day the manna falls in our office. 

Life Insurance:

"The understanding that Life is God, Spirit,
lengthens our days by strengthening our trust
in the deathless reality of Life,
its almightiness and immortality."
- Mary Baker Eddy

This is all the insurance I need in the deathless reality of Life, and my Employer ensures this for me every moment of every day.

Child Care:

"All thy children shall be taught of the Lord;
and great shall be the peace of thy children."
- Psalms

God not only cares for my children day in and day out, but He educates them, guides their footsteps, guards their innocence, and gives them wisdom.  I can focus on my work with absolute confidence each day knowing that in His hand their names are graven.  He loves them even more than I do, and never lets them out of His sight.

Promotions Program:

"He crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies..."
- Psalms

The higher I rise in His company...the more I go down in humility, and on my knees, in service to Him.  My job becomes even more focused on expressing His loving kindness and ever more of His tender mercies.

So, I really mean it when I say, "take my life...please."  Serving Him is the greatest joy I have ever known.  It is the most satisfying and fulfilling work I have ever known.  I can't imagine a day when I don't wake up eager to head "into the office" and be the first one to arrive so that I can turn on the lights for the rest of the firm.

I will never forget His generous benefits package...there is no other employer on earth who cares for their colleagues with such tender care. 

"Take my silver and my gold,
not a mite will I withhold.
Take my every thought, to use
in the way that Thou shalt choose. 
Take my love; O Lord, I pour
at Thy feet its treasure store.
I am Thine, and I will be
every, only, all for Thee."
- Francis R. Havergal

Ever, only, all for thee....
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

If you would like to see (and hear) another version of Chris Tomlin performing this song, "Take my Life" live, here is the video.

"It feels like it might be hope..."

"You do your work the best that you can,
you put one foot in front of the other.
Life comes in waves, and makes it's demands,
you hold on as well as your able..."
- Sara Groves

A line from the trailer for the new Nicholas Sparks film, Remember Me, pierced through the white noise of our home, and reached me in my office from the family room, where the girls were watching a movie:

"Our fingerprints never disappear from the lives we touch."

It stopped my in my tracks.  Whose fingerprints were all over me.  God's of course.  But I found myself asking, whose hands had reached through the spiritual ether to touch my life in ways that were unforgettable.  I was still pondering that answer an hour later.  The list was long. 

But what everyone on that list had in common, was the way their touch had resurrected hope in me, when the days were darkest.  Sara Groves' "It Might Be Hope" describes it all so well. And makes clear the power of hope, and how it can turn ordinary people, into angels.

One such person was Helen Sloss.  Helen's daughter and I were best friends my last two and a half years of high school.  I'd arrived, awkwardly, in the middle of my sophomore year and Helen's daughter took me under her wing, within the first week. 

Where I was shy and bookish, she was outgoing and popular.  She loved shopping and parties. I could always be found re-purposing hand-me-downs and washing dishes with her mom, in the kitchen, during parties.  Helen always had fresh coffee brewing, mugs hanging from hooks under the kitchen cabinets, and spoons in a large crock next to the sugar and creamer in the middle of the kitchen table. 

I loved sitting across the table from her with a cup of coffee and a deck of cards between us.  We played Pinochle, while the rest of my friends watched TV or splashed in the pool.  I liked Helen.  She was smart, funny, and loved to tell stories from her girlhood as an only child, or asking me endless questions about growing up in a family of ten...something that absolutely fascinated her.

After graduation, following a carefree summer of tanning and working at the local deli, Helen's daughter left for her first year of college as planned.  While I stayed back to help my recently widowed mother care for my seven younger siblings, instead of going off to university...as planned.

It was a long year.  Christmas break was the worst.  While my friends came home from college to party and reconnect with high school friends, I worked day and night at one, or another, of the three jobs I held to keep a roof over our heads and the heat on.  Even the dancing that had kept my heart above floodline, had to be put aside.

Spring was characterized by long days of filing and typing, and even longer nights of waitressing or hostessing.  I was tired, bone tired.  I was depressed, filled with hopelessness and an aching void that I filled with tear-stained journal entries and reams of poetry.  It wasn't that I couldn't imagine a dream...I had so many,   In fact, it was painful to watch them wandering the corridors of my heart like specters, flitting in and out of sight. I tried to sit with them and nurture a hope or two, but day after day, it became harder, and harder, to imagine even one step in their direction.  As summer approached my mood darkened.  My friends would soon be home for the summer and already had part-time summer jobs that allowed for long afternoon naps, and weekends of swimming, sailing, and sitting on the beach.  I couldn't even imagine how I would carve an evening out from my over-scheduled work life for coffee .

One night Helen called and asked me if I had time to drop by for coffee.  I was so happy to hear her voice.  It reminded me of the carefree days of high school...before dad's passing, when my dreams seemed so within reach and I was just a hard-working bookworm who worried about grades and boys.  A time that seemed idyllic just a year later.

Within minutes of sitting down at her kitchen table, Helen had a cup of coffee, a donut, and a plan laid out in front of me.  She was offering me a summer job with the Parks Department office she managed at our local reservoir.  It was the place to work if you were in college.  A large freshwater boating lake with a marina and public beaches, it was the hang-out place for all of my friends.  And Helen thought it would give me the perfect opportunity to be nearby so that I could see everyone, and get in some tanning time on my breaks and lunch hour.

I was stunned.  First that she hadn't offered the job to someone else, and second that my summer might not be as depressingly sad as had loomed only moments before.

"Hope has a way of turning it's face to you,
just when you least expect it.
You walk in a room,
you look out a window,
and something there leaves you breathless.
You say to yourself,
it's been a while since I felt this,
but it feels like it might be hope..."

No one had ever done anything like that for me before.  And she wasn't even a relative...aunt, uncle, grandparent...she was a friend's mother and she'd been thinking about me...me. Wow...  I was stunned.  Here was someone who was absolutely bursting with joy because she had figured out a way to give me a better summer.  Did I say I was stunned?

In the breadth of a heartbeat I went from being a hopeless, exhausted, bent-with-tired-labor drone, to being a girl again.  I needed a bikini and a beach towel I could keep at the office.  Helen was ready to take me to a department store that night. I well remember the day, later that spring, when she handed me the Horn's bag containing a pale blue bikini and matching striped towel as a surprise.  She explained that she just couldn't resist, "because it will look great with a tan and perfectly matches your eyes." Well, at that moment it did match my eyes, which always seemed to look like robins' eggs when they were filled with tears.

"...It's hard to recall what blew out the flame.
It's been dark since you can remember.
You talk it all through, to find it a name,
as days go on by without number..."

Helen's intervention in my darkness was a critical, pivotal moment in my life.  She re-ignited the flame of hope and gave me back something I hadn't had the time to even realize I'd lost in the midst of numberless days.  Days when the mind-numbing demands of being too young for the circumstances at hand left me wandering in the darkness of my own fears without hope of ever finding the exit door. 

"Hope has a way of turning it's face to you,
just when you least expect it.
You walk in a room,
you look out a window,
and something there leaves you breathless.
You say to yourself,
it's been a while since I felt this,
but it feels like it might be hope..."

In the shelter of Helen's exuberant love for me, and her relentlessness in pulling me towards the light within myself...my promise, my dreams, my faith...a faith she had watched me live in high school...I started to remember what hope felt like. 

I had the best summer working with Helen.  My friends would come by on their way to the beach and let me know where they planned to set up their towels so I didn't have to spend time looking for them on my lunch hour.  Helen made sure I had a lunch every day and when I had to be at the country club to waitress later in the evening, she would let me change into my uniform and leave a few minutes early so I wasn't late for my shift.

I wore my little robins' egg blue bikini almost every day and had a bottle of iodine-laced baby oil with my name on it in the Lifeguard station for easy retrieval on my way through the concession hub, and down on to the tin where my friends were waiting.  I worked hard that summer, met all my responsibilities, and I was a girl.  For that summer, I was just a girl.

I was grateful beyond words...I still am.  If Helen had never shown me another kindness or helped me make a life-course correction, her fingerprints would still have been all over my heart.  But at the end of the summer, when everyone else headed back to college and my life of working three entry level jobs loomed largely and menacingly just beyond September, Helen had a plan...a plan she'd been brooding over all summer long like a mother robin on her pale blue eggs...

Perhaps I will write about that on Tuesday....till then...

Have a great weekend...and perhaps, you will leave your fingerprints on someone's life in ways they will be remembering almost forty years later...

thanks Helen,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Work like you don't need the money..."

"Work like you don't need the money,
love like you've never been hurt,
dance like noone is watching
live like it's heaven on earth."
-     Clark/Leigh

Last week my Bible study took me on a wonderful journey….it meandered through childhood premises held too long, up and over mountains of self-doubt and weariness, and shed new light on vistas reached in the darkness of wandering along by feel…not by sight.

I remember hearing grown-ups talking about how they would work hard, make money, spend wisely, save lots, and retire…and then they would be happy, having fun, living the dream.  Everything was geared towards that goal.  Hard work (i.e. a salary) was the path to nirvana…retirement.

I started my adult life with this goal.  Graduate from high school with honors, get a scholarship to the best university, go on to graduate school, post graduate studies in a field I loved, get a teaching job, save lots of money, retire and write….in between these steps I would have romances, get married, travel, dance, have children, be a super-mom (translate: teach college, campaign for public office, bake cookies, dance and write poetry…all while tan, trim and wearing tastefully attractive lingerie to keep my husband's interest in me alive...I did say this WAS my fantasy superwoman life...didn't I? One that girls and women have been sold for decades...but that's "a whole 'nuther" story girlfriend..snap, snap, snap, wave...). Back to today's train of thought... 

Well…my plan got hi-jacked early on.  I graduated from high school with honors and got that full-ride scholarship to my choice of universities but when dad passed on that same year I skipped a few steps and went straight into a combination of work hard, be a full-time surrogate mom (with my mom…I had seven younger brothers and sisters), go to school part-time, and earn money…but in this plan there was nothing left over for savings…retirement was out of the question.  So we worked.

I worked to have money so that we, as a family, could have what we needed to live….I worked so that we could live…in a home, not hungry, clothed, with lights and water.  Eventually we all worked so that we all could live, go to school, reach our potential, succeed.  Thanks to our socialist upbringing, I now believe we were hard-wired to accept the philosophy that "nobody wins until (and unless) everybody wins."  I actually think it is part of our DNA…a little motto inscribed on some xy chromosone that forms and defines the cellular memory of each molecule in our hearts. 

But I digress…(that was for you Clifford!) last week's Bible study led me to question the formula for success that defines life as:

Work = salary (money)
Money = having what you need + some for savings
Savings money = retirement
Retirement = no work
No work = success in life

Well, I conceded early on that it was unlikely I would ever be on this success track.  With a mom, seven brothers/sisters to partner with, and as a career educator my earning would, quite probably, never reach the point where all the family's needs were all met and I had some left over.  I was grateful to be in a profession that if I worked hard as a teacher and eventually as a professor, and published as an academic, retirement might never be required.   This became my goal. But even this left me still feeling like somewhat of a failure because I didn't know how I would ever get "there"...wherever "there" was. I had accepted my path, but it didn't feel like success. 

Then in walked God, in a real and life-defining way, and my plans were scattered like dust in a whirlwind.  Without as much as a side-long glance, I left my career as an educator and started serving Him.  I began working for my church in whatever way it needed me, while making myself publicly available 24/7 as a spiritual healer.   That was over 20 years ago and I've never looked back...although I have to admit that there have been times (especially in the beginning) when fear of poverty, an old car on its last legs, another night of rice and peas, and a stack of bills made me long for the security of a salaried job and a regular paycheck. 

Last week I realized that what I had done, without ever even realizing it until last week, was accept a new paradigm.  One that is defined in II Corinthians:

"…ye, having all sufficiency in all things
may abound to every good work."

I had given up the:

Work in order to have,
Have in order to retire,
Retire in order to not work

equation for success.

And accepted a new one:

I have all sufficiency from God
So that I can work..forever!

Work is my goal, my love, my success…I love my work!

I am no longer working so that I can eventually have something, save for retirement, and stop working.   I have all that I need each moment...from God (sometimes in the most surprising, charitable, and remarkable ways)...so that I will never have to stop working. God had, by sending me on this rather circuitous...and rugged...journey, wrested from my vise-like grip a singular strategy for reaching what I thought was the only acceptable model of success. 

Yea!!  I've discovered that it really is true, as Eddy says in Science and Health:

"The very circumstance, which your suffering sense
deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares."

God's love for me...expressed as an abiding sense of love for, and responsibility to my family, and eventually my unwavering love for God...led me on a journey of discovery more wonderful and enduring than any other success plan I might have come up with. God leads each of us on a path that reveals more and more of His omnipotent love...for some that may very well look like the work, have, save for eventual retirement model...so that they can pursue "work" that they love, or whatever they desire.  I am just so grateful that He has given me work that I love today, since I plan to do it now...and forever...

with Love,
Kate

"Your grace provides for me..."

"If I could have the world and all it owns
A thousand kingdoms, a thousand thrones
If all the earth were mine to hold
With wealth my only goal

I'd spend my gold on selfish things
Without the love that Your life brings
Just a little bit more is all I'd need
'Til life was torn from me

I'd rather be in the palm of Your hand
Though rich or poor I may be
Faith can see right through the circumstance
Sees the forest in spite of the trees
Your grace provides for me..."
-Alison Krauss

I've been thinking about this song quite a bit since last week.  In my Bible study was the story of Jesus' breakfast meeting with his disciples on the shore of the Gallilean Sea.  These men had experienced their master's crucifixion and had witnessed proof of his resurrection.  But let's face it, he was gone.  They no longer had a Leader whose vision would set their course.  Who would choose which dusty roads to take from village to village?  How could they continue a ministry of healing when there was no longer a great healer with them, someone who could perform the miracles.    They were more than happy to talk about the gospel message of a kingdom of heaven within, but let's face it, people were looking for those miracles.  Without his vision and leadership they might as well go back to fishing, collecting taxes, building boats.  They had to do something…right?  How else would they provide for themselves and their families?

So there they are back out on the sea toiling all night.  Casting their nets, pulling them in empty and then recasting.  Over and over again.  It's in the midst of this task...a task they know so well they can do it in their sleep...that some guy comes along and shouts at them from the shore.  He tells them they should cast their nets on the right side and then they would find.  So they do.  And they are barely able to draw the nets in for the multitude of fishes.

Now, according to the story, they still don't know that it's Jesus who made this suggestion.  But once they pull their little boat onto the shore and notice that this same guy has a fire going and fish and bread prepared for their breakfast, and is beckoning them with a "Come and dine", they know it is him. 

Okay, so I know this story pretty well.  I have read it over and over again.  But for some reason this last week it held a profound new message for me.  Perhaps it is because I know so many people who are looking for jobs, are in jobs they don't love, or feel stuck in careers that feel mechanical because they can't imagine changing course without taking a considerable cut in income – something they can not afford to do in today's climate of economic instability.  And then there are those who just have dreams that they can't even think about without feeling such deep sadness because they see no way to explore them and still provide for themselves and their families.
This is where this story reached me this last week. 

And it spoke to me in a new way.  For the first time I saw that Jesus doesn't wait for them to bring the fish they have caught to shore so that he can feed them.  Their "provision" was not dependent on their fishing.  It was as if Jesus were saying, "if you're going to return to fishing, cast your net on the right side...do it for the right reason.  Do it because you love it.  But not because you won't eat if you don't.  Here I'm going to feed you anyway.  And not only with fish, but with bread."

It was as if he was saying to them, "If you are fishing for the right reason…because you love it, because you feel a calling for that work,…you will be successful.  But if it's only because you're afraid you will starve if you don't, here let me show you that you are going to be fed no matter what.  God is going to take care of you anyway.  And since this is true…see, I am feeding you now…what is it that God, Spirit is impelling you to do in order to be about your Father's business?"

Jesus makes such a distinction in this act between the work they are doing, and their right to be fed...to be provided for.   Perhaps he feeds them not because they caught fish, but to show them that there is no connection between catching fish and being fed.  He was going to feed them anyway.  The coals were already burning, the bread was already baking, the fish were already prepared and waiting.

This story has really meant a lot to me this past week. 

Last night we were sitting with friends, after church, talking about the music industry.  Often the theme returned to how to make a living while pursuing a career in the arts.  The whole "starving artist" paradigm says that if you aren't "big"…a star, someone with a recording contract with a major label, or someone whose name attracts hordes of screaming fans…you won't make a decent living in this business, but will have to do jobs you don't love just to pay the rent.   

But that paradigm feeds off the attending belief that what you do is directly connected to how well you are able to provide for yourself and your loved ones.  What if we discovered that they are not connected?  What if God really would take care of us, provide for our needs…in ways that we can't even imagine…just because He loves us.  What if it isn't a job we should be looking for, but a new way of thinking and living?  What if what we do (as a "career") should only be determined by what we love and are divinely inspired (by Love) to do?

I had a paperweight once that said, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

Just thought I'd share some questions I've been considering this week…with Love,
Kate