Kitty Crenshaw's Blog, page 17

September 12

The transformation we all long for occurs in the intimate embrace of our Divine Lover, in the still, hidden places of the soul. ~Betty

Take This Cup From Me

Edgar Degas. Melancholy. The Philips Collection, Washington, DC

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done. Luke 22:42

True prayer is not so much about asking for things and desiring an outcome as it is about moving into an intimate friendship with God. If we will align our will with God’s and persevere under the cross we carry, learning to pray totally free of self, in deep intimacy with God, accepting whatever and however He comes to us,—for He is always coming to us—steadfastly refusing the complaints and doubts that so easily consume us, we will finally find joy and the peace that passes understanding. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame…” Hebrews 12:2

That night, Jesus, having been faithful to everything his Father asked of him, went to his special garden where he always went to pray. Wracked with fear to the point of sweating blood, he begged God in agony to take away the cup of horror he knew was coming, yet immediately followed with, “Not my will, but Yours.“

His Father, in anguish, answered the cries of His beloved Son with an earth-shaking, history-splitting NO. What came instead was inconceivable humiliation and torture, abandonment by his closest friends, and senseless killing by a blood-thirsty mob driven by self-righteousness.

Jesus prayed in agony from the cross. His mother prayed in agony from the foot of the cross. The only three disciples brave enough to stay, John and the two Mary’s, prayed in agony for their friend. Peter and the others prayed in agony from the shadows.

Three days later, the why of it all emerged. Everything of love emerges. It is impossible to see the stars emerge in the heavens or the flowers bloom or our hearts change. We look again, and now we see. Jesus emerged from the grave, redefined history, and gladdened the generations. The centuries have understood.

An afterword from Betty:

Beyond the mist of egoic purpose lies an alternative purpose, a divine purpose, God’s purpose for our lives. We are tasked by some mysterious draw to elevate our lives through conscious endeavor into the high places of Spirit. We are asked to perfect, within the very core of our being, a supernal consciousness that transcends, then transforms the atmosphere through which we see and take breath. It is a consciousness that affects to the highest degree the quality of each moment. We are awakened to grasp the elusiveness of holy atmosphere and to thread it through with divine purpose, to paint for others streamers of Living Light and shimmering glimpses of Transparent Love. Beyond the mist we come to understand it is in dying that we awaken to divine purpose.

I need say no more just now, dear friend, for such a love that knows another’s pain is their nourishment, hope, and encouragement, and this I long to be through our dear Lord, who turned my pain to love for you. ~Betty

August 29

Many, many people come to the altar, but few find their way to the foot of the cross. ~Betty

A Letter From Betty

Dear Ones,

Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. —Augustine of Hippo

These beautiful words, written 1,600 years ago by St. Augustine, illuminate my heart this morning. In this simple but profound statement, we see both the mystery and the movement in our journey home, back to the heart of our Creator.

How do we, as the beloved of God, in the midst of the fragmentation and restlessness of our competitive world, find our rest? How do we move from competition to compassion, from noise to silence, from constant motion to stillness, from materialism to simplicity? Discipline is the way. Discipline is simply the human effort to allow a little space in our lives for God—not to achieve anything—but rather to discover God ever-present within us, offer as much of ourselves as we can, and set spiritual boundaries within which we can receive something from God. It is discipline that makes discipleship possible.

I would remind you that the question is not how we are going to find God, but how are we going to allow ourselves to be found by God? To be found, we must allow space in our lives where God can speak to us and we can hear. I sometimes feel that we experience distractions and dryness in prayer and become weary in our waiting because we fail to remember the ultimate promise: the gift of Himself to us. It is upon this promise that we are always to base our hope. And it is in this hope that we are to be persistent and patient in our waiting. We must prevent all of our time from being filled up by the world, so we may remain open and available to the still small voice of our Shepherd, Whose heart cries out for us and longs to find us and guide us home.

Let us
prepare our hearts to receive more and more of the purity and simplicity of
Jesus, that in so preparing, our fear and fragmentation might diminish, and the
Holy Gift might come in its place. Thus, the divine plan, the transformation of
our human nature into the likeness of the One Who is given, might enable us to
live our ordinary lives with extraordinary love.

May we allow ourselves to be found by Divine Love; the Love which holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace. ~Betty

Click on this link to watch Betty talk more about clearing our hearts to make room for God.

August 15

Our spiritual journey is a love affair. It is a leaning into God, listening longingly for His heartbeat. ~Betty

The Science of the Psalms

Many thousands of years ago, every joyous, negative, fearful, and even murderous emotion of the human heart was put to music in the majestic poetry of the Psalms. Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and American writer, said, “The Psalms are more than language. They contain within themselves the silence of high mountains and the silence of heaven.” They are a refuge of honest prayer, always undergirded with hope and praise—and now with science. Today, neuroscience affirms the power of this enduring wisdom to literally restructure our minds. By honestly speaking the searing truths of our suffering while determinedly returning to gratitude, trust, and positivity, we make the choice to change our thoughts and thus, our brains. Watch as the psalmist relentlessly refocuses on hope. (We have taken the liberty of changing the word enemies to thoughts. Aren’t these really our enemies today?)

Psalm 42   (The Passion Translation)
I long to drink of you, O God,
drinking deeply from the streams of pleasure flowing from your presence.
My longings overwhelm me for more of you!
My soul thirsts, pants, and longs for the living God.
I want to come and see the face of God.
Day and night my tears keep falling and my heart keeps crying for your help while my thoughts (enemies) mock me over and over, saying,
“Where is this God of yours? Why doesn’t he help you?”
So I speak over my heartbroken soul, “Take courage.
Remember when you used to be right out front leading the procession of praise…”So then, my soul, why would you be depressed? Why would you sink into despair? Just keep hoping and waiting on God, your Savior.
For no matter what, I will still sing with praise,
For living before his face is my saving grace!
Here I am depressed and downcast. Yet I will still remember you as I ponder the place where your glory streams down from the mighty mountaintops, lofty and majestic—the mountains of your awesome presence. My deep need calls out to the deep kindness of your love.
Your waterfall of weeping sent waves of sorrow over my soul, carrying me away, cascading over me like a thundering cataract.
Yet all day long God’s promises of love pour over me. Through the night I sing his songs, for my prayer to God has become my life.
I will say to God, “You are my mountain of strength; how could you forget me?
Why must I suffer this vile oppression of my thoughts (enemies),
these heartless tormentors who are out to kill me?”
Their wounding words pierce my heart over and over while they say,
“Where is this God of yours?”
So I say to my soul, “Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be disturbed.
For I know my God will break through for me.”
Then I’ll have plenty of reasons to praise him all over again.
Yes, living before his face is my saving grace!

And a further reflection from The Hidden Life Awakened (pg.24):

Your
brain is a living, dynamic computer that is always moving and changing,
cataloging and processing information, and it never shuts off until the day you
die. We now know that what you choose to give your attention to feeds your
brain’s cells—firing up the network; sending blood, energy, and oxygen
through pathways it has built to those particular neurons; building out more
and more structure to hold what it is fed. You can begin to build new
structure in your brain simply by choosing what you focus on. If you focus
on negative things, your brain will build more structure to hold negativity. If
you focus on positive things, your brain will build more structure to hold
that. Your first efforts at changing your thinking and habits are more
difficult but ultimately will become easy and automatic as your old neural
structures are slowly dismantled and replaced with brand new structures.

So pay attention and notice your negative or fearful thoughts. This is so important. They are so subtle, but they are so defeating. Your brain is hardwired to protect you from threats, so any negative word or thought will release dozens of stress-producing hormones. Most people spend their life imprisoned in the tiny confine of their thoughts that are nothing more than firings and wirings within their brain. You don’t have to do that. Your unhappiness is not coming from other people or your circumstances but from your mind’s conditioning. You can be set free from the tyranny of these habituated reactions into a spacious place of trust and hope. Will you begin by simply noticing and acknowledging your negative thoughts? Next, refusing any defeating self-judgment, just let them be. Now, let them go. Then, let in the good by redirecting your thoughts to gratitude. God’s ways are a mystery, but they are always good. Consistently choosing this new way of thinking will take time and it will take desire, but it will happen, creating in you a transcendent joy that is not dependent on your external happiness; making you a powerful participant in your own healing.

August 1

Conversion is an ongoing process of being born over and over again to a higher and higher level of acceptance and understanding. Finally, we come into the likeness of Christ and mirror his love to a pain-filled world. ~Betty

Becoming Nothing

Edward Hopper. Detail from Nighthawks. 1942. [oil on canvas]. Art Institute of Chicago.

When we come to this, we become everything.

In finding our way to humility, paradoxically, we find everything—we find our glorious true-self. The self-emptying of the Incarnate God is the ultimate expression of humility and the most compelling invitation to empty ourselves of all that is false in us. In our culture that applauds upward mobility, we have trouble getting in touch with this descending way of Jesus, but until we have done the difficult work of emptying ourselves of self, becoming nothing, there is no room to hold the fullness of God’s love.

Humility is the constant and disciplined effort to see the truth about ourselves; to empty ourselves of everything and allow God to fill that space. It is very, very difficult to see through the veil of our egoic ways and internal clutter, but everyone else does. How do we ever begin to clear it away, so we can allow Love, to be all in us? The first step is to desire it above all desires. Putting our entire dependance on God, we practice becoming aware of our behaviors. After every difficult exchange with another person, we go over it again in our mind. Was there any defensiveness, self-pity or denial? Was there any competing, complaining, condemning, comparing, or controlling? If so, we have more work to do. We name the behavior; we claim the behavior; then we begin to tame it, so God’s pure love can pour through and fill up the beautiful vacancies we have endeavored to clear.

In practicing this, we are never to be hard on ourselves or talk ourselves out of our own goodness. We do this sacred work with gentle self-compassion, embracing all that we are and all that we have been, knowing that nothing is wasted and that God created us perfectly and will send all the forces of heaven to strengthen and sustain us in this work of love.

The path to humility can only go through humiliation. Being brought low, stripped of all pretenses and defenses, brings us down to solid ground. To know ourselves as persons of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light, and to embrace every bit of it is to become whole—is to become real. All illusion and deception is finally left behind. Now, with a pure heart, claiming nothing for ourselves, we begin to see God and more deeply accept and love others in their brokenness and pain. This divinely indwelling humility is our first duty and highest virtue; the ground on which all the other virtues rest.

A further reflection from The Hidden Life Awakened (xv)

It is difficult for us to grasp the truth that Jesus came not to astonish us with the great power and high visibility of God, but rather to show us the way of hiddenness and humility. In contrast to our culture that applauds upward mobility, the inner life affirms that God’s path is the descending way. Humility is the way of Love. The descending way of humility is the movement toward the true self’s realization. It leads us to a deeper understanding that, in His eyes, the most significant is often the most hidden.

This contemplative life of humility flows from a pure heart that has persevered through much suffering and found its way to the Source. When we finally come to see that our desire for God is an echo of God’s far more encompassing and passionate desire for us, we can offer others a glimpse of light in the midst of their confusion, darkness, and pain. It is the love, hope, and encouragement of the One in Whom all is lost, yet all is found. In God’s goodness and time, a tremendous paradox will be revealed to us—that what we now perceive as suffering and death is in Reality a hidden time of awakening and rebirth.

The post Becoming Nothing appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.

July 18

Becoming real is an unlearning. As we do the painful work of emptying ourselves of our ego and illusions, Love gently comes in, enlarging our soul and filling the emptied space with the Spirit of God, the fullness of Christ.

The post July 18 appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.

My Hidden Life Awakened

All right, Lord, I’ve been reading about what a good Christian should do and how I should live my life, but I want to say to You that it’s not working for me. You promised me joy, You promised me peace, You promised me wholeness, and I’m not experiencing any of this. My life is a total disaster. There’s got to be another way. I do not doubt Your promises, but I don’t understand how to find them. 
 
From the depths of our common humanity, this cry of the heart emanates and resonates. Whatever our given lot or chosen path, we have a deep sense that there must be more to life than we are experiencing. And there is so much more. There is treasure hidden within our soul; it is our true self – the person God perfectly and wonderfully created in His image to love and to do His work in the world.

The Hidden Life Awakened (pg3)

Betty W. Skinner, wrote those words in 1968. Unbeknownst to
Betty, a spiritual revolution was brewing within. She was forty-two years old, a
mother of four, wife of a very successful businessman and community leader,
suburban socialite, Sunday school teacher, civic volunteer – and crippled by
debilitating depression.

In 2007, I was forty-four years old, a mother of four, wife of a beloved chaplain and community leader, Discipleship Coordinator for the Children’s Ministry at church, a daily journal-keeper, a budding writer, a weekly Bible study teacher – and I, too, was crippled by debilitating depression.

With my beloved dream life having recently eroded, I smiled on
the outside, but felt deep pain within. I shuffled through the motions, a wife,
a mom, a believer, but inside my heart felt lonely, intensely heavy and
strangely hollow. Few words shed light in my inner darkness, until I met
Betty’s voice on the first page of The Hidden Life Awakened. Captivated
by her deep spiritual journey, a special friendship started blossoming between
Betty and me. As I read about Betty’s suffering, unbeknownst to me, a similar
revolution was brewing beneath my skin.

In a season of deep darkness, I felt known, accepted, and supported in the midst of my silent suffering. Though I am an undiagnosed dyslexic, just like Betty Skinner, I devoured this holy book, hour after hour, page after page, as new life and my true self quietly awakened into the endless Love of God.

This beautiful poem she wrote in her later years is a gift of sweet hope to us all.

Beloved
It’s different now from then
When fear and darkness reigned
And I was framed in pain
My soul starved
All spokes turned inward
The hub was gone.
 
Beloved
You looked with love upon me
A gaze which blazed its way into my heart
Imparted grace
A thread of hope illuminated my darkness
Such mercy slowly set me free.
BWS

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. (Col. 3:3, MSG)

May this profound Mystery awaken each one of us…. Sue

Sue Allen is a daily blogger (SueToYou.com), a trained spiritual director, a team member for our Awake To Wholeness Women’s Retreats, and a board member of BWS Ministries, a non-profit charity formed to carry on Betty Walthour Skinner’s lasting legacy.

Have you also felt known, accepted, and supported by Betty’s wisdom in the midst of your own season of silent suffering? If you feel drawn to share your own story of spiritual revolution, please feel free to correspond with Sue personally and privately at sue@suetoyou.com.

Betty and Sue in 2019



Click here to order The Hidden Life Awakened

The post My Hidden Life Awakened appeared first on The Hidden Life Awakened.