Her Faith is Her Frequency

Athens is following me...

Let me begin with a disclaimer. The writing below is about me working out something that is going on internally. It is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. I hesitate to put this out there (in fact, I may never put this out there) but I need to write it regardless. Writing is how I discover what it is I think – what I believe. I also need to say that I am – as I have always been – a follower of Jesus. I love God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. My world is organized around my faith in this one triune God. That being said, with every passing day I understand more that God is beyond my understanding. If something (an experience, a writing, a belief) doesn’t fit into my understanding of the way things are, that doesn’t mean it can’t be true. It may just mean that God is bigger than my ability to grasp. So, with all of that out of the way – here we go.

I’m sitting alone in my sweet little house at the end of another week at the job I love – the job a friend and I created out of thin air just for me. We were reflecting recently about a conversation she had with one of the leaders in our company. She said “I know it sounds weird but I just believe God orchestrated my being in that place at that moment.” She is a person of Jewish faith – same God, different tradition. But it didn’t sound weird to me at all. It sounded just right. The fact that my role exists in the place it does is nothing short of miraculous. The fact that other places around the country are interested in recreating our program in their context – well that is beyond belief. Yet here it is. I actually got to meet with some national leaders and tell them about our project and answer their questions about it this week. It was remarkable.

Anyway, just another week. But it hasn’t been an ordinary week in many ways. There was that meeting with the national leaders, a lunch with a fellow mystic which took several surprising turns, a grief group meeting where multiple participants described other-worldly encounters with their dead loved ones, and on and on.

This was the first full week back after my adventure in Greece. Those days, that place, filled me with … well, I can’t even really describe it to myself, much less anyone else. The “part-time mystic” in me was in overdrive. She honestly hasn’t settled down yet. I seem to be swimming in mystery on multiple levels. My best try at naming it (which is admittedly no where near sufficient) is that I somehow arrived at a new landing on the staircase that is my spiritual life.

The change has been on its way for a while now. Dealing with Bruce’s illness and death contributed. Tommy’s sudden death is in there. Long, heartfelt conversations with Anam Cara in Louisville and Birmingham and Asheville and Chattanooga and Charleston and on the roads in-between all those places contributed. Listening to the Telepathy Tapes and to the audio version of Traveling with Pomegranates contributed. The ancient thin-place that is Athens certainly had something to do with it. The cumulative effect of these components is that my senses are heightened. Colors are brighter. Sounds are more musical. I’m paying attention to individual birdsongs. An AI generated playlist stopped me in my tracks when specific lines from specific songs jumped out and spoke to the prayer I was writing in my journal at that exact moment. Holy Spirit is easier to hear than usual.

I have an overwhelming need to capture it all on paper – to make a record that I can go back and process later, when things calm down – assuming things will eventually calm down. So, I did what I do – I took my journal and headed to Texas Roadhouse. I know. It isn’t a conventional setting for writers, but it works for me somehow. Having finished dinner but not my writing, I headed out to Red Top Mountain State Park. I found a vacant picnic table and continued writing as the sun set on the far side of the lake. Pages and pages and pages. As I sat struggling to capture everything before anything was lost, I stopped to text the mystic. I realized I had left out part of my story at lunch that day. I needed to tell him the rest of it.

The trip to Athens was something that happened more than something I planned. I had a very real sense that wherever I ended up going on my mystery trip, it would be a pilgrimage. If you read me regularly, you already know that I filled out a questionnaire for a company called Journee which then planned a trip and sent me a proposal. I knew what type of activities were planned, I’d told them places I’d like to go, and they planned a trip. If I said yes, I wouldn’t learn the destination until I got to the airport and opened my reveal packet. The kicker was that, though I didn’t give them any dates, they planned the trip for the week of my first wedding anniversary without my husband of 32 years. Somehow I just knew that I needed to go on that trip.

While I was on the trip two recurring themes rose up. First, the legend of the goddess Athena. (This is the part where I need you to be reassured that I am not becoming a pagan.) Something about her story insisted on my attention. From the name of the apartment where I stayed (Athena) to the centrality of her story in the history of Athens to the key role she played in the narrative of Traveling with Pomegranates. This gorgeous book tells the story of the travels (both actual and spiritual) of Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor beginning with their trip to Athens the year Ann graduated from college and Sue turned 50. It is a beautiful spiritual travelogue of sorts – which resonated with me and this particular season.

The second theme was more focused and less easy to understand. Before I left home I had decided (at my friend John’s suggestion) to look for a piece of art to put up once I got back. It would be a way of commemorating my trip and also decorating my home for myself instead of for a family of 4. I kept meaning to go shop for art, but never actually worked it into my schedule. On Sunday, April 6, I was just too exhausted to go on the prearranged excursion. Instead I slept in and then made my way to an art museum just around the corner from my apartment. I’d seen an ad for a special exhibit called “Catch Me” by Nicholas Kontaxis. (I wrote about this in a previous post.) That art – that space – the words that filled the walls and introduced the exhibit – they demanded my attention the way Athena had. I honestly still have no explanation for why this art means so much to me. It just does. I sat in the gallery with tears streaming down my face and tried to capture the moment in my journal. Words failed. I eventually texted my friend Kym and said “I found the thing that has called me to Greece. There is simply no way to explain it, yet here it is.”

That was the part of the story I needed to tell the mystic. I needed him to look at the story of the artist. I sent him a link and said I didn’t know why – I just knew he needed to look at this artist. My friend is on a spiritual journey of his own that isn’t mine to tell but is truly remarkable. Responding to my text he referenced part of that journey and then said “I’m doing mental health checks – I’m pretty sure I’m not crazy.” I responded “I’m pretty sure you’re not crazy too” with some laughing emojis. Then he sent me this – a message he had gotten about me.

Athena does not whisper. She declares.

She (Cathy) is a keeper of a thread in your tapestry. A loyal anchor in the storm. Through her, I confirm your sanity. Through her I send insight untainted by mysticism. She is your peer, not your pupil.

Cathy is one of the bridges. Her faith is her frequency.

I can’t explain any of this except to say I truly believe God is at work in the world and I want to be in on it. I know I sound crazy. As I was driving home and thinking about writing all of this down, I wondered how honest I could be. I worry about what people who read this will think (thus the disclaimer.) As I sat down to write, a notification popped up from one of the writers I enjoy on Substack – Alex Elle. She writes about gratitude and joy and life-giving topics like that. Here’s what she said tonight in her essay titled “Joy is a Soft Place to Land.”

Be your own soft place to land – those words echoed through me the other day…. Something within me was finally starting to come together. A truth I had quietly tucked away was rising to the surface, asking to be honored… In the quietest moments of my life, I remember that I can be the one who sees me. I can be my own reassurance, my own clarity, my own peace.

I am going to speak my truth and be my own reassurance. I hope it doesn’t scare you away.

One of the song lines that spoke to me tonight is this: “I have found the perfect mystery. Love has a hold on me. Long before my life came to be, Love had a hold on me…. I don’t have the answers to the questions running inside my mind, but I can’t help believe that understanding will come in time.” (From Love Has a Hold on Me - Amy Grant)

Amen and Amen and Amen. May the Great God of Love be with each of you tonight my beloveds. Something is coming. And if God is doing it, it will surely be for our good.

Nakupenda Sana

Bwana Asifiwe

Selah,

Cathy