“how can i keep from singing?”

Posted on February 24, 2010 by - Uncategorized

“Another year another day at the mines. Digging away just digging. Always turning up gems but just digging still.”

Words from my brother.

I’ve been thinking about the seasoning that happens in our lives, when rough winds come and the earth shakes around us.

There’s a passage in Hebrews that speaks to this: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace…”

The shaking…not to upend our lives, but to remove only that which doesn’t belong.

Madeleine L’Engle talks about this idea in her book A Circle of Quiet: “I think that the part of us that has to be burned away is something like the deadwood on  the bush; it has to go, to be burned in the terrible fire of reality, until there is nothing left but our ontological selves; what we are meant to be.”

Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way: “The mounting sense gathers fresh forms and strange fire from the ashes of dissolving self, and drops the world. Meekness heightens immortal attributes only by removing the dust that dims them. Goodness reveals another scene and another self seemingly rolled up in shades, but brought to light by the evolutions of advancing thought…”

the mounting sense…

gathers fresh forms and strange fire…

from the ashes of dissolving self…

drops the world…

o to drop the world…

to find that self seemingly rolled up in shades

revealed by goodness and the evolutions of advancing thought…

seasoning, rebirth, renewal, turning into our real selves, emerging, emerging into who we were always meant to be.

what grace, to watch each other move through storms, seasoned ever with more tenderness, humility, strength, beauty and peace, emerging childlike and pure from the fires of life, unscarred, unscathed, innocent and free.

here’s to the journeys we take together, lessons gleaned, the room we give one another to grow, and the palms of heaven that hold us in their hands.

This hymn by Robert Lowry, adpated by Enya and Nicky Ryan, so says it well:

My life goes on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear it’s music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness ’round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble in their fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?


solitude is sweet…

Posted on February 19, 2010 by - Uncategorized

i was on an evening flight the other night, a pretty full flight, but generous in that most of the center seats were empty. there was a cradled hush about the space, a quiet unhurried feeling that i don’t usually associate with travel.

there’s something about flights, soaring imperceptibly across vast spaces that prompts deep stillness–and i felt that we were all embraced, held so presently, peacefully in a nowness of grace.

i had thought i’d watch a movie, but instead found myself flooded with insights, questions that prompted more insights, a soaring, hovering, deep submergence in, and influx of ideas. pure heaven.

often i’ve struggled with contained spaces, but i’m always struck by how expansion of thought, inspiration has the capacity to dispell the seeming confines of space and time.

the woman sitting in the window seat didn’t say much, but it was as if there was an understanding between us, a sweet solitude of appreciation, prayer, kindness, love. it was unspoken but poignant, tangible.

it is in stillness that we measure peace–its vast stores have a way of filling canyons of emptiness, sweeping life into dormant hearts. and it is in stillness that we begin to glean the great and all-permeating presence of God.

Dixie Chicks’ song “Easy Silence” captures this spirit: 

I come to find a refuge in the
Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay

i’m profoundly grateful that all the world’s clamor and chatter cannot quench or quell the grace and presence of spiritual truth, light: the present impetus of God’s infinite all, holding us clear, pure, unstained, loved and safe.

Psalm 46 says “He uttered His voice, the earth melted…Be still and know that I am God.”

Mary Baker Eddy writes: “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.”

Here’s to seen and unseen friends who nourish us in stillness–the heaven and holiness of the Holy Spirit, illuming and lightening even the darkest of places.

dwelling in a secret place

Posted on February 14, 2010 by - Uncategorized

i’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to feel safe. to be safe. to feel the deep peace that is equivalent to relief, release, and grace all at once. time drops away. and there is no place but here, pure, lucid, sweet, complete.

there’s nothing like peace that comes after a storm, when all that you’ve held dear has been swept clean. nothing remains but what must, what can’t be lost, life’s essence distilled, seen through deeper, inner sight.

storms that prompt fervent turning to the arms of divine Love…in the midst of terror, faith instinctively finds a foothold, a path unseen, steady ground beneath. alone turns into all one, and where uncertainty loomed…a presence of grace dawns.

i love this passage from Deuteronomy: “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders.”

Mary Baker Eddy writes that “the heaving surf of life’s troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm. And how “in metaphysics we learn that the strength of peace and of suffering is sublime, a true, tried mental conviction that is neither tremulous nor relapsing. This strength is like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger. This peace is spiritual; never selfish, stony, nor stormy, but generous, reliable, helpful, and always at hand.”

i’m grateful that wherever our journeys lead us, there is no moment when divine Love does not hover near us, ever holding, ever caring, ever ready to shower it’s conscious, loving recognition upon us; no moment when we are not one with this Love; no moment when we are not equal to discovering the generous, powerful, resurrecting ever-presence of assurance: Love’s kingdom within us  illumined.

“beauty is a thing of life”

Posted on February 3, 2010 by - Uncategorized

We woke up to a light dusting of snow this morning, just enough to cover the world in its soft whiteness–without requiring a lot of shoveling! I love winter like this–hardly any snow…stark beauty all around us. Down by the river slabs of ice line its edges–after a freeze, then a thaw, and a rushing river that hurled its offering to the banks. Lake Ontario steams as its almost ice waters heave slowly towards shore; ice crystals crackle as they shift, collide, crumble. It’s a marvel to see.

Then there was the wolf moon–extraordinary, its orange, then white light emerging over the horizon. Truly breathtaking. The Christian Science Monitor had a gorgeous series of photos of the brightest and biggest full moon of the year.

Mary Baker Eddy writes that “Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.”

Beauty, true beauty, fierce, pure, searing, unpretentious: the color and essence of Love. The most beautiful people I’ve known haven’t necessarily been conventionally beautiful. And yet their beauty shines so brightly, generously, gloriously, tenderly, unselfishly from within, that it has the effect of making everyone in the radius of its presence and light feel beautiful, valued, uniquely complete.

I love the power of true beauty. It’s not a possession or physique; it’s not the clothes we put on. It’s the ideas, the qualities we exemplify, bathe ourselves in, share, reflect, celebrate, love. This is the beauty that grows newer, fresher, sweeter by the hour, as it radiates out from the fount of infinite grace, the essence and substance of Soul.

Beauty, true beauty is as present and impartial as sunlight. It shines on and through all of us. It is a silent music of joy. It is the orchestration and creation of infinite, all-encompassing, all-embracing, all-anointing, all-adoring Love.

the words are alive

Posted on February 1, 2010 by - Uncategorized

There’s something about a good poem…that captures the very life of things; holds it like an offering in mid air, mid breath; and at the same time releases it, wings beating, rising, soaring…

It’s like meeting an old friend. No need for explanations. The words find their meanings without being held there. And yet in some way, they hold you, but never bind.

Words are alive if we allow them to be. They have a way of ushering us towards the deeper meanings, the impetus for truth. On the first page of her book Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of time honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity.”

The book of John speaks of the living word:. “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The word, the living word, urging upon us its searing beauty, meaning, essence and worth. Taking us further into the frontiers of our own lives. True words always have a way of pointing us in the right direction, they cut to the heart of it, speak our name, sing out a welcome, they say here you are, all along, here, you are here.

Here’s to living poems, living words, everything about us coursing to the light.