Kitty Crenshaw's Blog, page 6

November 18

Jesus is not primarily a teacher of information or morals. He is a teacher of a way that leads to transformation and a new heart. ~Betty

A Letter From Betty

Dear Ones,

I carry the picture in my heart of the sweet and intimate relationship going on all the time between Jesus and His Father. The Father so willing to pour everything into His Son and the Son, so ready to receive it and give everything back without condition.

Here we see the beautiful truth that our Christian spirituality is both incarnational and relational. God created us but also yearns for us. God is the giver of life and love. We are the receivers. When we offer back our love in humble gratitude, we become the giver, and God becomes the receiver. Paradoxical, yes, but true, for it is in giving that we receive. Thus the cycle of love is completed.

As I slowly woke up and walked with gratitude into the beauty that is God, everything changed. I began to sense the sweet possibility of this intimate sharing relationship, of seeing with new eyes, new proportions, new depths, and new light. The more I saw Love, the more I returned love, and the more I sensed the warmth of God’s presence with me, affirming me, gathering all of my joy and suffering and sorrow into His tender embrace. I was finally awake and overflowing with gratitude. Drawn by the Spirit with Jesus into God, I was caught up in the flow of love. The ultimate end of all our spiritual journeys is this intimate union with the Divine.

We, as God’s chosen, must aspire to live in this relationship of giving and receiving all the time by continually coming to prayer with a humble heart, giving thanks for whatever happens in our lives, regardless of how it looks to us. This flow of love then spirals higher and higher until our gratitude becomes the reflection of God’s mercy. It is this which makes us like Him. Imago Dei.

Remember that everything that is is a divine gift. Every breath we draw is a gift and every moment of our existence is grace. Thus, our sacrifice of thanksgiving implies not just a quick word of thanks, but rather that we give our whole lives over to be offered as broken bread to be given to others in grateful response and loving obedience.

The great mystery of this giving and receiving is that what we accept in thanksgiving multiplies when we share it with others. Five loaves and five fishes received in gratitude were enough to feed a multitude of hungry people. 1 Would this not be enough to call forth our hearts to prayer, to offer all that we have, all that we are, all that we could ever hope to be, back to Him in deepest gratitude?

Prayerfully, may you share this crumb of broken bread with others. ~Betty

November 4

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Change and growth are synonymous. ~Betty

Autumn Creates Space For Dying

A Walk Through the Woods in Autumn. Sergei Vinogradov

Autumn creates space for dying.What is left untended in the heat of summerneeds mending in the fall.For earth and flesh must keep their seasonsand their liturgy.The leaves fall, fall, dried and withered thingsas if from some far and distant land.Through their barren pathways up and down I wander,unmasking hidden gardens of my past.O, how long my road has been.Down, down, into the emptiness that solitude has cast.Where memories’ wavering echorelives the residue of suffering,and the gray fog of sorrow drifts.Where what is near seems far away,a painless vastness among the stars. Up, up, I slowly climb to heightswhere long lamenting shadows lay lonesome across the mountain stone.And in the quiet stillness a melancholy roams.Where way beyond the distant ridge I see a city white.There the radiant face of Christ appears.and it was wet with tears.Autumn creates space for dyingand a broken heart for crying.BWS

God is the Artist painting on the canvas of time the mysterious grandeur of creation. In the silence and patient waiting, the sacred picture begins to speak. The beauty in the dying is God unraveling the mystery of the supreme, inexpressible, unrepeatable act of redemption—Christ pinned to Golgotha’s tree.

Take a quiet moment to listen as Betty reads a portion of her beautiful meditation.

October 14

Jesus is always lovingly and compassionately inviting us to a different way of seeing. ~Betty

Our Mountaintop Moment With Betty

Sue Allen, heart friend and loving disciple of Betty, went up the mountain with us last Thursday to offer Betty’s ashes back to eternity. Her words joyfully capture what the seven of us felt so deeply on that holy day.

We walked in silence, spaced out as Betty suggested, “to get out of the vibes of each other”. I was second in line after one who had walked this way many a time, but our pace was significantly slowed by the chatter of a large group ahead of us. Waiting on the gabbing gaggle, we would stop often. Lifting our eyes to look more closely, we breathed in the sacredness. The golden light filtering through the changing fall leaves was absolutely astounding.

At one point I broke the silence, whispering to the woman in front of me, “Maybe they are the communion of saints welcoming Betty?”

The first in line chuckled back, “I think Betty planted them to slow us down since she knew my tendency to race up the mountain. In all of my years hiking here, I have never met a large group on this trail.” Ascending to a high rock face we finally passed the resting hikers, a friendly group of locals numbering about thirty.

With cautious steps, we trekked down the trail to Julian’s Rock through the squishy ground and uneven terrain. Ultimately arriving, we broke out bite-sized chocolate bars and passed around a zipper bag full of pistachios. Each of us had carried up symbols representing our love for Betty to bury in a hole by the base of her special tree. From Atlanta, I brought with me a heart rock and a feather I had found at the horse farm where I often walk and talk, two symbols representing all of the spiritual friends who have blossomed from my enduring friendship with Betty.

When the moment was right, we started the ceremony mapped out by Betty over her final years. We each took time burying our sacred items, one by one, whispering aloud thanks to Betty for all of the loving gifts given. When it was my turn, I surprisingly became a wordsmith with no words. I bowed my head for a reverent time of silence, privately lifting grateful thoughts for all Betty means to me.

Next, one friend read from Betty’s well-worn copy of Revelations of Divine Love written by Julian, which is the earliest surviving book in English known to be written by a woman. Then, sitting in a semi-circle, we passed around a book Betty had written, each reading a meditation she had selected from the book she wrote, Circle of Love. There were seven designated readings and seven of us bridesmaids. How could Betty have orchestrated this perfection?

In the presence of God, Julian, and Betty, we circled up and held hands to speak one final blessing. Again I was mysteriously mute, but this time gut-wrenching tears of thanks streamed down my face. Through Betty’s companionship in my own deep valley, God had awakened my true self. What feeble words could sum up such great gratitude?

In unison, we sweetly sang the chorus of “Surely the Presence of the Lord Is In This Place” before moving to the edge of the sturdy rock overlooking the mountains. Each with a palm-full of Betty’s ashes, we sang the Gator fight song and released her ashes into the cool crisp fall air.

In each ordinary life, there are mysterious moments of heightened perception, this is a truth Betty often taught us. On September 30th, 2021, together we experienced shared moments of heightened perception. Our sacred ceremony on Julian’s Rock offered us such sweet communion, on earth as it is in heaven. Having descended the mountain with joy, I trust more deeply that God, Betty, and our own beloved bridesmaids will help awaken us each to wholeness, forever and ever. Amen.

*Sue is Director of Women’s Ministry at Northside Church in Atlanta, a therapist, and a certified spiritual director. She rises in the middle of the night—every night—to write her inspiring daily blog, Sue2You.com

Prayer Is A Love Affair

Georgia O’Keefe. An Orchid. Museum of Modern Art

Prayer is much more than words; it is being with God and the sum of our relationship with Him. Prayer is the realization of our soul’s deepest desire. The surprise is that we didn’t initiate this desire, but Love Who is waiting for love.

God created us in love with an infinite capacity for God. As we demonstrate our willingness to open our hearts to Him, increasingly He shows His love back to us. The more we come to prayer to receive the love, the more our hearts expand in their capacity to hold the love, and the more love God pours into us. In other words, the more the soul sees of God, the more it desires God, and the more God can give of Himself to the soul. It is reciprocal, and it is so sweet.

The Holy Spirit stirs up prayers in us that delight God to grant, calling us to pray for what is He is already doing! He wants us to be partners in His good work, so what could please Him more than our intense and reverent prayer? Prayer has this beginning, but it will have no end. God receives our prayer with joy. He sets it among His treasures where it will never perish.1 It will accompany us into eternity, where we will join the glorious company of heaven in love, adoration, and joy. In the book of Revelation, St. John the beloved receives the vision that our prayers are so precious to Jesus that “He will break open the seventh seal, and heaven will fall silent for half an hour. Then the eighth angel with a golden incense burner will be given a great quantity of incense to offer up, consisting of the prayers of God’s holy people. The smoke of the incense with the prayers of the holy ones will billow up before God from the hand of the angel.”2

Nevertheless, we experience periods of dryness when we feel like nothing is happening and God is hidden. We become discouraged and anxious because we have put created things and our longing for the thrill of an encounter with God ahead of the day-to-day discipline of coming to prayer to listen, discern, and obey. We have little rest because we still seek it in things that have no rest in them. We begin to think we aren’t good enough because God hasn’t revealed more to us in our prayer efforts. The ego then gets into a conversation with itself about why we aren’t good enough, why we are so anxious, why God didn’t answer our prayer, or why we haven’t had the experience another has had. That struggle uses negative energy that activates the ego, moving us far from communion with God. God is not in negativity. Dwelling in the why of our painful circumstances has crowded God out of our hearts.

It is essential to understand that our desire must be to love God rather than to amass knowledge and experiences of Him. God is not known by the mind and spiritual highs but by love. As we show Him our love, He shows His love back to us. The only necessary technique in prayer is one that turns our heart and will towards our Creator. Quietly we behold Him, always asking for a more intense desire for Him. We aren’t aware as we go along, but things happen when we persevere in this way. He alone can bring the deeper levels of our lives that we can neither see nor reach, into perfect harmony. The Great Magnet draws us into the center of the Trinity, the giving and receiving of love going on all the time between our Maker—God, our Keeper—the Holy Spirit, and our everlasting Lover—Jesus. God, Who created us in love, has recreated us in mercy. We look back and see that we have changed more deeply into Christlikeness. Now when we are with another person, it becomes in a sense a time of prayer because such a holy presence surrounds us. How could this happen any other way than with God in the depths of such a love affair? 

So, simplify your prayer. Surrender to your longing for God and His for you. Learn to be at home in the darkness of not knowing. Put yourself in front of Jesus with no requests, just a quiet and living hope in His mercy and grace. Remain motionless in noble silence, not trying to reach Him with your understanding but simply turning your heart towards Him as a flower to the sun. It is all about desire and adoration, engaging with God in friendship and conversation, lost in thought, lost in mystery, lost in love and praise. This depth of relationship is not possible without prayer because it is in prayer that we begin to know God. Jesus was constantly slipping away to pray. Why? Because he knew the Father and wanted to be with Him and obey Him.

Our longing for God will never cease as long as we are in this mortal body. One day though, we will see our Divine Lover face to face in the fullness of joy and familiarity. Until that day comes, the Holy Spirit will sustain us with tender moments of heightened perception that make our hearts gasp at the wonders of the universe and the swelling of music in our souls.

So, be full of gratitude. Wing up your prayers of praise to Heaven. Take all that happens as My planning. All is well. I have all prepared in My Love. Let your heart sing.3

Now, in the twilight of my years, I feel very pressed to encourage people who are on their spiritual journey to persevere, to trust God, and not stop short of the goal—the gift of the Giver Himself, divine union. The gates of heaven are everywhere. Our part is to simply embrace and open to the new seasons of our inner and outer journey as preparation to receive this gift of Love. Divine union is for everyone, and the experiential knowledge of this Love and freedom is everything. At last, we are grasped by the hand of the Spirit and led into a wilderness free of distractions and temptations: a wilderness of trackless mystery, beauty, and sound. This is the ultimate food in the feast of our redemption—a foretaste of heaven.

Betty Walthour Skinner. The Hidden Life Awakened pp205-206

September 9

As you give yourself more and more to God, more and more He gives Himself to you. It is reciprocal, and it is so sweet.~Betty

The Mystic’s Gift

Alex Venezia. Haunting.

In every generation, great preachers, writers, and theologians have taught us about the eternal things of God as they have understood them. In every generation, too, there have been a few very ordinary people who have been awakened and transformed to an extraordinary degree by a direct and profoundly personal encounter with the Beloved. Theirs is a special love affair with the Divine, the goal and heart of all religion. They have been gifted with a heightened experience of the glorious perfection of the heavenly realm and offer their gift to us as a visible display of the infinite riches of grace and kindness showered on us in Jesus Christ.1. We call them the mystics.

Silence and solitude have most often been the fertile ground of a mystic’s life in God, so we rarely meet them. More like poets and artists, theirs is a knowledge of God in fullness rather than in a more conventionally linear intellectual understanding. However, they also have a broad base of rational knowledge from deep immersion in sacred scripture and the writings of the saints. Motivated by the fire of Love, they emerge from their solitude to share life’s most hallowed gift with us—the possibility of a passionate and profound relationship with God, who is Love. Always their messages are variations of His all-encompassing love and dramatic desire for us, often written with encouragement and hope from their own stories of enormous personal struggles fought and won. Their courage, constancy, and creativity remind us of the Holy Image in which we are all framed, and in Whose great Love we are all loved as one.2

Betty Walthour Skinner, our dear friend whose story we have chronicled in The Hidden Life Awakened, was a 21st Christian century mystic. She moved easily in the heavenly realms, and, as mystics who have had this intimate experience do, she spent her life sharing the great Love she found there. Saint Julian of Norwich, her dear friend, and 14th-century mystic who lived during the Black Plague in Europe, taught her about God’s love through her great spiritual classic, Revelations of Divine Love. It is the earliest surviving book in the English language written by a woman. Every summer, Betty would take her little weather-beaten and well-loved book up her favorite mountain in North Carolina to learn from her friend in the place that became so sacred to her she named it Julian’s Rock.

Summer after summer, day after day, I returned to Julian’s Rock and read everything I could about her. I was deeply impressed by her simplicity and her tender and intimate relationship with the Beloved. With sweet humility, she would always preface the things she wrote about God with ‘As I understand it,’ and she would refer to Him as ‘our courteous Lord.’ While pondering a tiny hazelnut in her hand, Julian experienced a profound yet simple awareness: God created this, God loved this, and God will care for it. With a knowing beyond knowing, she grasped that He would do no less for her: He created her, He loved her, and He would care for her. From Julian, I learned that every circumstance in my life would work together for good whether it felt good or not. God said to her, ‘I may make all things well, I can make all things well, I will make all things well, and I shall make all things well. And you yourself shall see that all manner of things shall be well.’

Julian’s descriptions of Christ as He was dying on the cross were intensely vivid. In one of the showings, she heard Jesus tenderly saying to her, ‘Julian, have I died enough for you? If I could suffer more for you, I would.’ Her revelations taught me to see that everything is the voice of Love, even unspeakable pain. Pain got my attention, brought me to the end of myself, and led me home to God. Without the pain, I would never have been pressed to engage in this spiritual journey that finally led to such joy and gratitude. Our Father tenderly loves me. He is in control of my reality, so my reality, however it may look to me, is always good. Whatever is, is good. There is a huge freedom in understanding that. As Julian so sweetly summed it up, ‘Then we can do no more than look at Him rejoicing, with a noble, powerful desire to be entirely made one with Him—to be centered in His dwelling, rejoicing in His loving and delighting in His goodness.’ Julian taught me that. She was very real to me. She was my mentor. She still is.

The Hidden Life Awakened pp 193-194

Imagine the joyous reunion of these deeply blessed women—face to face at last.

You might like to hear Betty talk about her friend in this video.

The Mystic’s Gift

August 26

Take His hand now, even as I am offering you mine, and in the warmth of such an all-compelling love, let us follow Him together. ~Betty