"How deep is your love..."

“How deep is your love,
how deep is your love?
I really need to know...”

I've always loved the BeeGees...still do. So I wasn't surprised when I woke up with their song "How Deep is your Love" dancing through my heart, inviting me to consider asking myself the question:

"How deep is your love?"

I've often asked myself, how deep is my faith, or my trust...but the depth of my love isn't something I've pondered lately. I think of Love as omnipresent, infinite, supreme...but deep? I had to ask, "What is the value of understanding the depth of Love, when Love is omnipresent...everywhere?"

And since my commitment to exacting the actual practice, of absolute spiritual facts, is critical to my sense of purpose, and since I also trust that God sends me clues as to what I need to be thinking about when I need to be thinking about them them...even through old BeeGees songs...I figured probing this question was the call of the day.

I liked thinking about depth. When I was a girl, we lived near a quarry that I'd been told was fathomless. We were warned that no one had ever been able to swim to the bottom, and return. The quarry was an abandoned, open mine that had filled with water from a natural well deep below the surface. It was surrounded by granite walls and the water was so deep, such a dark bottle green, that it almost looked black. We'd jump from the ledge of the tall rock face, fearlessly trusting that we'd never hit bottom. I loved to float in that still, dark water, and let all the air out of my lungs. Then I'd begin to drift downward. I felt one with. It was always surprising to see how much deeper I could sink into the darkness. It was so peaceful and quiet there. Perhaps a deeper sense of Love, would lead to more peace in my heart, a quieting of my days...

So, I decided to give it a listen. By that, I mean that I decided to take this question with me everywhere I went, into every situation, and probe it through the lens of each thought and experience I encountered.

The first thing that occurred was, I went upstairs to wake the girls for school. Now, this has never been my favorite part of any day. Repeated forays into their sleepy cocoons to cajole, shake, urge...and finally threaten "get up, or else..." leave me tired before the day even gets off the ground. There have been many days when I just want to beg their school to let them have a late start everyday.

[And yet, when it comes to getting up before daybreak at camp, to be in the corral, they're rockstars!! Hmmm...perhaps I should have been whinnying instead.]

But I digress. By the time we get into the car, I feel like I've climbed Everest or mastered some ancient yogi's walk across hot coals.

But that morning, as I climbed the stairs, I asked myself, "How deep is your love?" And I realized that...based on my history of mornings that devolve into the role of "the wake-up witch"...not so deep. Could I deepen my love? Sure. So, as I faced yet another round of moaning and groaning, that comes from deep beneath piles of quilts and pillows, I let patience...certainly a quality of love...sink deeper into my bones.

And you know, it worked. My love was much deeper than I'd thought possible. I kept a lighter heart, I mentioned that I would be ready to leave for school when they were ready...but that if they wanted to be on time it should probably be in the next 30 minutes...then I went downstairs to make breakfast.

I wasn't upset, stressed, or worried. If they were late, they would face the consequences. My love was deeper than I'd thought only an hour before.

The same thing happened at the first stoplight. The tension I felt in my shoulders after being cut off by a car full of teenagers in an Escalade trying to make a last minute illegal turn across my lane to get into the Starbucks parking lot before school , literally dissipated when I asked myself, "Kate, how deep is your love?"

"Deeper than this..." I replied to said self. Then I prayed, affirming God's irrepressible love for those teens, His undeniable control in their lives, the irresistible pull of Divine choreography...in traffic, in my movements, and in my heart.

This has become a question I've really enjoyed plumbing the depths of lately. It's brought me up short many times, and given me an awareness of how deeper I can go before I find the fathomless reach of God's Love, reflected in my thoughts and actions.

And I am realizing that no matter how deep I go, I can never become self-satisfied that it has been "deep enough." Mary Baker Eddy tells us, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:

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

Hmmm...so, I guess that until I've reached the depths of infinite Love, the question is still relevant. How deep is my love? Never as deep as it could be.... but I'm always willing to go deeper...and dive in...

and always with Love,

Kate