Bathed in sweetness, bathed in love
A Christian Science perspective.
There is a rich autumn breeze blowing, the husky air of summer ushering in autumn. The air is kind, cool, and warm. A washing, baptizing. Moments calmed, cleaned, slipping easily into old worn-out shoes, everything sitting, fitting well. Gratitude hovers like sunlight.
There is a need to be bathed in kindness. There is a need to bathe ourselves in kindness.
There is a need to remember, know, be clear about who we are – not to let the world impose its thoughts upon us. J.B. Phillips, in his translation of Romans 12:2, said this: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould.”
Between all the storms – internal and external – market fluctuations, personal upheavals, and struggles, I’ve been noticing a lot of shellshocked looks lately; friends, neighbors, not sure what has hit them; how thought gets mired in, paralyzed in, patterns of uncertainty and fear. Ryan Bingham’s song “The Weary Kind,” featured in the movie “Crazy Heart,” seems more than fitting:
This ain’t no place for the weary kind
This ain’t no place to lose your mind
This ain’t no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try.
Pick up your crazy heart. I would say, Pick up your sweet heart; be bathed in sweetness, be bathed in love.
All the storms in the world cannot take from you one ounce of who you are. They cannot break you, make you, define you.
They can, if you let them, prompt something deeper in you to waken ... waken ... take possession of that core order, sweetness, certainty, rocklike light within. You are not made to grovel, weep, or to be broken.
waken
waken
break this
half-dazed
slumber
of intractable despair
shake loose
the shackles
slide ever so guilelessly
from this shell
emerge
emerge
into the light
so right
yes
you do stand sturdy
on your own sure feet
everything about you
unable to hold back
surety of footing
impulse to sing
air rippling
lightness of laughter
you
bathed
soaked
immersed
showered
evidencing
Love’s light
"Psalm XXIII
[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want.
[LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
[LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters.
[LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]:
[LOVE] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE’S] rod and [LOVE’S] staff they comfort me.
[LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
[LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever."
(Interpretation of the Bible's 23rd Psalm in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, p. 578)