the world’s not falling apart…

Posted on March 10, 2010 by - Uncategorized

there are songs that speak

songs that sing the day

songs that  say the word

words that make you see…

Dar Williams has a song that says “the world is not falling apart because of me.” the first time I heard it was on a long drive, a work trip. thoughts of the world were weighing heavy on me. her lyrics pierced right through to meet my need. singing at the top of my lungs right along with her, everything lightened.

the idea that i was responsible for fixing anything, anyone, anywhere…the corresponding worry that i was not up to the task…suddenly seemed absurd. it was like i was being lifted to a different vantage point, from which i could see and feel a divine order, grace, government, love for the entire universe.

it was a sweeping assurance, confirmation that:  “the government is upon His shoulders…” and that “my yoke is easy and my burden light…” (from the books of Isaiah and Matthew)

There’s an interesting dichotomy between being responsible, giving your whole heart, being truly true to yourself and God, living with complete fidelity; and the weighty, burdensome feeling of being responsible for, being party to, and therefore needing to fix a broken world.

easing up on all of it…

casting burdens on the Lord (as the old hymn by Philip Doddridge urges us to do,)

is like gazing through a window that you didn’t know was there–

to discern that things may not be so broken after all,

our gaze, when fixed on that deep and divine Principle Love catapults us to a perspective of piercing clarity, resonant oneness, holy, unfettered being.

responsibility then is not weighty, but the tender impulse to respond to Love’s government of all being.

Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way, “Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

to “look up”

as Christ Jesus told us

especially when it seems like things are falling apart

is to begin to glimpse, to discover, to realize,

the kingdom of God ever within us,

the presence of heaven at hand:

it is to breathe the air of innocence,

to find ourselves washed new,

the whole sweet world held in Love’s fresh light.

“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.

“a shift of knowing…”

Posted on January 17, 2010 by - Uncategorized

This poem by Lucille Clifton is from her book good woman: poems and a memoir 1969-1980:

the light that came to lucille clifton

came in a shift of knowing

when even her fondest sureties

faded away. it was the summer

she understood that she had not understood

and was not mistress even

of her own off eye. then

the man escaped throwing away his tie and

the children grew legs and started walking and

she could see the peril of an

unexamined life.

she closed her eyes, afraid to look for her

authenticity

but the light insists on itself in the world;

a voice from the nondead past started talking,

she closed her ears and it spelled out in her hand

“you might as well answer the door, my child,

the truth is furiously knocking.”

Sometimes things get so turned around. Sometimes they just feel inside out. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which way is up. And sometimes, well, sometimes things feel so upended, that there’s nothing to do but pay attention.

These are the moments that matter so much. It’s in these moments that we no longer have a way of ignoring what needs to be heard.

Sometimes the answers can come like blinding light. Other times it’s a quieter impulse, a gentle leading out, one thought, then another, an inkling rooted in the bedrock of grace within us.

I remember one particularly dark time in my life, when all “my fondest sureties…” seemed beyond my reach. All I could do was stand there, offering up my heart in the wilderness. The answers came like spring air sweeping out the grief, urging me to see the presence of life, even where all seemed frozen.

And so we are, so often hurried, trying desperately to steer the course, control the details of our lives, prompted to let go,  to be carried, to recognize the providence of present grace, a certain sense of God’s presence emerging right from within.

Here, now, in this moment, even now. Truth is knocking, awakening, singing, assuring, comforting, illuming, revealing and healing–all things made new, all things restored, all things.

“It rejoices me that you are recognizing the proper course, unfurling your banner to the breeze of God, and sailing over rough seas with the helm in His hands. Steering thus, the waiting waves will weave for you their winning webs of life in looms of love that line the sacred shores. The right way wins the right of way, even the way of Truth and Love whereby all our debts are paid, mankind blessed, and God glorified.” Mary Baker Eddy