Sacred Work

One of the greatest pleasures and privileges in life is doing work that expresses our passion, talents and gifts. The most fortunate people on earth are those that, first of all, asked for their destiny calling to be revealed to them, and secondly, are able to work their unique calling.

This morning, I woke well before dawn in anticipation of making a spectacular breakfast for several guests who came to Adytum last night for Monday night football and then snowboarding today ~ guy’s night out, midweek. Donn and I have 5 sons/sons in law. Feeding them is so incredibly gratifying because they are so grateful. Even though several are phenomenal cooks themselves, you’d think they hadn’t eaten a decent meal in months. There are abundant compliments, lots of appreciative noises and of course no leftovers. They have proved to be part of the training for my destiny calling, teaching me to love waking early to make breakfast, and now for Adytum guests. It gives me tremendous satisfaction and pleasure to create abundant, healthy meals for others!

When my kids were growing up, we took a family vacation to the Paul Bunyan territory of Northern California. The breakfast we enjoyed, lumberjack style seated at long picnic tables, was enormous. I realized then that starting the day with seriously substantial food was something worth learning to cultivate. Now I know that healthy foods set the blood sugar regulation for the day and start the calories burning.

Even on days when we use Medical Foods Protein Shakes, or if guests request them, they are packed with extras like ground flaxseeds, brewer’s yeast, green drink powder, fiber powder and are blended with banana and frozen blueberries. We’ve been using them for 16 years now and the anti- aging effects of these lifestyle choices are remarkable; definitely worth cultivating as a lifestyle…We have insurance and we never use it. Our blood pressure is that of a 10 year old. We take no prescription medicines. Our blood sugar level is great. We enjoy great health because we purposefully pursue it in our choices.

Taking responsibility for the foods that others eat has always been a weighty responsibility for me, one that I take seriously. The goodness of the Adytum table, the healthy dishes full of freshness and purity are the foundation of meals here. Creating tantalizing combinations of flavors, textures and giving the eye a visual feast is where great meals begin.

Having been trained as a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, as a healer on natural levels, means that my food or healing therapies should first “do no harm”. I can’t imagine sacrificing the momentary pleasure of a high sugar, high fat meal just to please the uneducated palette of some, to knowing I have just inflicted harm on health. My conscience is clear that the foods guests and family are presented with are nourishing, healthful, beautiful and delicious. The food has integrity and it is cooked, as my East Indian son in law would say, with “the scent of the hands”- which is love.

In 1666, there was a monk named Brother Lawrence working the kitchens in the monastery. He became famous for one thing: practicing the presence of God while he worked among the pots and pans, chopping and preparing food. He didn’t divide his life up into worship and prayer times segmented into different scenarios. For Brother Lawrence, it was all work, all prayer, all worship and usually all at once.

In the early predawn hour when I am working in the Adytum kitchen, trying hard to be quiet so guests can sleep, I too am practicing the presence of God. I am praying over the days’ plans for those I am cooking for, asking for guidance, blessing and protection for them. I set the atmosphere in the house with softly spoken words asking for peace, love, joy, harmony and connecting at deep levels. And of course, the food is prayed over before it is set at the main table or carried up to their suites.

The fruit of all the extra steps that go into meals at Adytum is well worth every bit of effort and extra focus that it takes to create it. The results of consciously setting the atmosphere here is interesting…even the young adults who are usually set on “getting out there” to the mountain or the lake are always reluctant to leave. “It’s so relaxing; it’s hard to leave…” I hear this often. And often I watch their plans abandoned to simply following their heart’s desire to stay here for the day to relax, use the hot tub or saunas, to read, to rest…some choose to stay on another day and those who don’t always say they wish they had planned another day at Adytum.

Adytum is sacred space and I do my sacred work here. I love the expression of my destiny calling: caring for others with love, integrity and creating space for healing on deep levels that go far beyond the body’s needs. The impact of the natural beauty all around, the 75 windows making it hard to define the line of inside/outside, the soft music inside, the water and bird music filling the air outside…the fresh, clean air and territorial views…the enormous sky filled with brilliant sunshine, misty clouds or star shine…Adytum meets deep needs in the human heart, mind and spirit.

To be able to do the work I love, that gives me such a sense of living a fulfilling life, is a rare privilege. To be able to combine it with writing and working with my soulmate at our Optometry clinic, offering Nutritional Therapy to those there…well, let’s just say it’s all a dream come true and the Castle Adytum is part of the fairytale of my life that I’m so happy to share with all who come to this magical destination…exalted space.
.

 

 

 

Reveal to me my destiny, God

Reveal to me my destiny, God. It wasn’t a question. It was more like a command. I had to know. I was in my 20’s and didn’t have a career or much schooling past college at that point. I felt compelled to avoid wasting my time on earth, being driven by an urgency that didn’t take for granted an allotted life span. Somehow I knew I didn’t want to waste a moment. I had to know: Why am I here? What do I have to share with others?

Isaiah 45:11 says, “Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of the things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands COMMAND YE ME.”
Command means just that. The original Hebrew is tsuvah: to constitute, enjoin, appoint, bid, give charge, send with command, send a messenger, put in order. Okay…So God is initiating that statement? Yes. Yes. And Yes.

If you’re curious as I was, consulting the Strong’s dictionary, the “ask” portion of the reading means: demand, counsel on, lay to charge, inquire, consult. He wants relationship, and a close one, that much is sure…

I think we attained this privileged stance because of Jesus blessing in saying: " I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father (John 15:15) We are a part of the great and wonderful family of God, if we know Him…not just know of Him, but intimately know Him as friend and Love.

When we’re friends with someone we know they’re there for us, we can ask them anything and they’ll do everything in their power to do it because they love us. Some have disputed this passage and made it into things that it isn’t. They don’t know their position. I think this passage is God’s love declaration. We will do anything possible for those we love, won’t we? He is saying, just ask…even command, my love…

We know that God is supreme and is above all the other gods men invent. When we attain to that knowledge, surrender to Him, and join with Him as One (“That they may be one even as we are one.” John 17:21) He says, in my opinion, “I am channeling my desires through your spirit. Note them, desire them and ask me, even command me to bring them to pass. Then watch it happen loved one…”

In my own life, God wanted me to discover the purpose early on and begin to prepare. I had written love letters and poems to Him since I was 14. True, I wandered a few years off my path, but always ultimately returned to His side. I knew Him like a true friend, a loved member of family…

When I demanded the revelation of my destiny calling, the main reason I was born onto this earth against all odds (and that is a whole other story in itself) He was excited, anxious to show it to me. But He waited. And waited. And waited. He is God, remember? He has that privilege. And often because He has a bigger plan that we just can’t comprehend at the time.

Meantime, while I felt like a fish out of water on the earth casting about from one thing to another to bring fulfillment, He cultivated passions in my heart, life, spirit…As I look back the passions were each stepping stones or puzzle pieces that would fill in perfectly to complete the whole. This is so incredibly important. What I am saying is that nothing in my life was wasted. And as I look at other’s lives who know Him, it is the same exquisite use of days, times, talents, passions and interests. He is a master artist of the palette of the human spirit and it is sheer fascination to see the finished work as a whole.

In fact, it’s become an interesting pursuit for me to examine the lives of the elderly saints (and we are all saints who are called by His name aren’t we?) and see the intricate patterning laid down in childhood and carried out through the years into the place of ultimate fulfillment or destiny attainment.

I once asked a dear friend in her late 50’s if she’d ever asked that question: What is my destiny? What am I here for? Why was I created? What can I offer on this earth to my fellow man?
Sadly, she never asked the vital question. She had married into wealth and has a very handsome, successful husband. She had a family, land and large position in the market. Yet, there was an undeniable shallowness and insecurity; a fear of losing her looks and thus, her husband who seemed as shallow as she.

Her hovering over her grown children threatened the loss of them as well. They were older, and unmarried and childless which vexed her. She sought after yoga, Buddhism and social achievements. In the world’s eyes, she had it made. She was a multimillionaire. But I saw into the deficiencies of spirit, the unsettled emotional life, and it brought it all home.

Do you know how I saw this in her originally before the deep focus? It was in the casting about from job to job to find meaning…Nietzsche said, 'He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.'" There was no underlying “why” being demonstrated. In this life and in so many others, this important demand/command was never contemplated much less asked. And so there is a vacantness, a shallowness; ultimately a delusion as the individual falls for the worldly view of fulfillment that is an empty shell in reality.

Rumi, ancient Persian mystic and Sufi poet said, “Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.”

When I commanded God to reveal my destiny I was already doing it and loving doing it, but it was unpaid for and unnoticed at that time. I was ignorant and oblivious how our Creator works. Years passed and I added and added to my path- my life’s work- unaware all the time that it was indeed my path. How can we be one with God and unaware? Perhaps a bit of worldliness remained, youth or lack of vision. Perhaps the path was so different from that of others that it was by all intents, unrecognizable.

When I approached the 50th year of my life, I asked God as I am accustomed to doing, “What are you going to give me for my birthday this year?” Each year has manifested gifts much like reading the list of spiritual gifts in the New Testament. But this year it is clearly different.
This year it is the fulfillment of the command of my twenties. I have waited twenty five long years…maybe more since that statement was posed, not as a question, but as a command, “Show me my destiny calling God…”

And now, on the cusp on my 50th birthday He says, “Katherine…I am giving you fulfillment of the command of your 20’s. I am giving to you, my love, fulfillment of your destiny calling.”

What I viewed as non response was in truth God responding to my command day by day. I feel so blessed to have commanded early on, and not in my late 50’s. By virtue of a deep loving oneness with God, my command was set into motion. My life- at the cusp of turning 50, will be one of fulfillment being fully involved in my destiny calling. All the little steps along the way- sheer genius and pure love on His part. Seriously, nothing was wasted. And so this is my gift this year.

His creativity lives on in each and every life that dares to make the command: show me my destiny God. Why am I here? And as a result, I am satisfied and completely fulfilled because of it…. So be in Oneness with Him and then ask. Command. You’re His friend. You’d do the same for Him and you know it… And you will be filled with wonder at the fruit of the years as I am.