"this is the sound of one voice..."

"This is the sound of one voice
One spirit, one voice
The sound of the One who makes the choice
This is the sound of one voice..."

We often feel that we are so alone in the thoughts we think.  That what we care about...our hopes, dreams, values, and visions...are our own.  But what if this song by the Wailing Jennys, "One Voice," is the truth of our one being, founded and grounded in one Spirit.  This one Spirit is the sweet wind that blows through us making music grand and gentle.

"...This is the sound of voices two
The sound of me singing with you
Helping each other to make it through
This is the sound of voices two..."

I've often wondered why we long for companionship.  Why the Bible promises that God, "setteth the solitary in families."  If we are already united in the oneness of Spirit, why do we hunger for this two-ness? 

For me, it boils down to consistency of being.  Whether it is in a marriage, or an enduring friendship...parenting a child or a lifetime of sharing memories as siblings...these one-on-one relationships serve as a window on the consistency of our progress as patient, kind, compassionate, nonjudgmental selflessness beings.  It is one thing to be kind to a stranger or an acquaintance in a moment of inspiration...but to be consistently kind to our husband, sister, best friend, daughter...this is something quite divine.  

"...This is the sound of voices three
Singing together in harmony
Surrendering to the mystery
This is the sound of voices three..."

Sharing our love with another is pure joy.  Staring into the eyes of our beloved, or communing with a bestest and dearest friend is sweet bliss.  But opening the arms of that precious relationship to include another...a child, a new friend, someone in need... expands our reach.  Or as the Bible says, it "enlarges the place of thy tent;...stretches forth the curtains of thine habitations: spares not, lengthens thy cords, and strengthens thy stakes..."  Our stake in humanity...our humanity...is strengthened when we selflessly share someone we love with another someone.

I saw this so clearly earlier this summer at camp.  Our twins, Emma and Clara, share everything. They love eachother so devotedly.  They live, sleep, play, learn, travel, and work together all year long. They share many good friends, but there is always a sense of their oneness...within the context of any friendship.  But this summer they opened their arms to include their cousin Tatiana.  There were so many times when I would catch sight of Emma (or Clara) with Tati, while Clara (or Emma) engaged in other activities, Or sometimes, it was both girls with Tati, and there was such a deep sense of inclusiveness that you could actually see it in their eyes, their body language..hear it in their laughter.  This opening up of their love for one another to include Tati was beautiful to see.

"...This is the sound of all of us
Singing with love and the will to trust
Leave the rest behind it will turn to dust
This is the sound of all of us..."

No matter how many are within the tent, we are not just individual tents...nomadic tribes in a searing vast desert of unrealized human hopes and broken dreams...huddling around our family fires in sympathy with one another, and for solace.  We are a village with a great Father who loves us, and is leading us all in a rising song of harmony, joy, and unity. 

Our dreams are shared dreams, and they are supported, sustained, and realized by our one hope to live together in peace and unity...fellowship and cooperation. We are not isolated, solitary, self-determined mortals who must look out for ourselves, or be left to starve in the desert.  We are one spiritual family caring for one another's needs, cherishing eachother's dreams, looking for opportunities to enlarge the place of our tent by taking another in and feeding him at our table piled high with love.

"...This is the sound of one voice
One people, one voice
A song for every one of us
This is the sound of one voice
This is the sound of one voice..."

This is the sound of one voice because that one voice...echoing through the chambers of memory and expectation...is God's.  And each of us can pick up the tone, rhythm, and melody of that divine voice and join in a song of:

"Pure humanity, friendship, home, the interchange of love, [which] bring to earth a foretaste of heaven. They unite terrestrial and celestial joys, and crown them with blessings infinite." 
- Mary Baker Eddy

Listen carefully and you will hear its soft strains...of Love...

with love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Christian Hagenlocher 2009]

"...only one way to mend a broken heart..."

"Take me to the breaking of a beautiful dawn
Take me to the place where we come from
Take me to the end so I can see the start
There's only one way to mend a broken heart..."

If you know my relationship to this place high in the Rocky Mountains, deep within the palm of Five Fingers, along the rushing headwaters of the Arkansas River...in the valley of my own "heaven on earth," you may think this song, "Beautiful Dawn," by the Wailing Jennys, is geographical for me.   It is not.

"...Take me to the place where I don't feel so small
Take me where I don't need to stand so tall
Take me to the edge so I can fall apart
There's only one way to mend a broken heart..."

This place, where I consistently "don't feel so small" is not a camp (although camp is a great place to reconnect with this self-certainty about my worth in God's eyes), nor is it a place in the midst of other like-minded spiritual thinkers (although these friends are a wonderful "place" to practice setting aside self, in service to others).  No, this place is not geographical...it is spiritual. 

"...Take me where love isn't up for sale
Take me where our hearts are not so frail
Take me where the fire still owns its spark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart..."

One of the hardest days of camp for campers each year is not they day they head out on three-day adventure trips to peak a 14,000 foot mountain, raft a raging river, or drive 900 head of cattle 12 hours a day.  The most challenging day of camp is the day they have to leave.  Each year I see scores of campers over the last few days as they seek courage in returning to their "old lives."  These young men and women long to stay connected to their "most best selves."  They long to be sure that the fire of spirituality within them really, truly "owns its spark."

"...Teach me how to see when I close my eyes
Teach me to forgive and to apologize
Show me how to love in the darkest dark
There's only one way to mend a broken heart..."

This summer I have seen so many instances when "love in the darkest dark" has led to a natural giving up of opinion and judgment.  Into that space of forgiveness, love rushes in and fills that very darkness with the light of friendship and grace.  This is the "place" where we see clearly...even when we close our eyes.

"...Take me where the angels are close at hand
Take me where the ocean meets the sky and the land
Show me to the wisdom of the evening star
There's only one way to mend a broken heart..."

In this space, the angels are always close at hand to govern, guide, and guard our innocence and wonder...our hopes and ideals.  In this space where we see with closed eyes, an evening star has the wisdom of simplicity, the song of the ocean meets a prairie dancing wildly in the wind, and the sky is as vast as our biggest dreams. 

"...Take me to the place where I feel no shame
Take me where the courage doesn't need a name
Learning how to cry is the hardest part
There's only one way to mend a broken heart..."

In this place there is no shame...only lessons learned, discoveries made, and new paths revealed.  In this place our tears are the welcome waters where baptism and reformation wipe clean our views of ourselves...and others.  In this place we learn we are not alone in our struggle to live our best selves consistently, persistently, without condition.  These past two weeks at camp opened a window on this place to all of us.  And it is a "buena vista" we don't want to lose sight of...ever.

Yesterday over one hundred campers tearfully boarded buses for Denver International Airport for flights headed to Florida, Missouri, Maine, Oregon...and dozens of other ports around the country...to be met by family and friends eager to welcome them home. For many those tears represented a hunger to know that the place they had discovered high in the Rockies was not geographical...but spiritual.  They long to know that it abides in them and cannot be displaced by miles or kilometers.  

As one counselor shared with a camper at the airport, "Now you get the opportunity to go home and bless everyone there with the spirituality you have gained at camp." 

This is sharing of our best, most loving, generous, unselfed selves...this living of love...is the "only one way to mend a broken heart."  And as Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,

"If we would open their prison doors for the sick,
we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted."

As you pray for your world today, please join with me in breathing "a silent benediction" of love and gratitude on the lives of these young men and women.  Pray they feel this space within themselves with such abiding resonance and conviction that they never wonder if this fire within them "owns its spark." This is the fire...within each of us...that will never go out.

Amen....
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Stacey Vandermast Barton]

"Bishairt...it was meant to be..."

"Fortuosity, that's me byword
Fortuosity, me twinkle in the eye word
Sometimes castles fall to the ground
But that's where four leaf clovers are found

Fortuosity, that's me own word
Fortuosity, me never feel alone word
`Round the corner, under a tree
Good fortune's waitin', just wait and see..."
- Sherman/Sherman

There is a word in Hebrew that has become quite dear to me.  It is the word, "bishairt," and it means, "it was meant to be."   It rather reminds me of that line from the song "Fortuosity" (from Disney's The Happiest Millionaire) that says, "sometimes castles fall to the ground, but that's where four-leaf clovers are found."   Bishairt is like that for me, around every corner is a God-sent moment that was "meant to be".  And because it is God-sent, it is God-like...filled with divine surprises reminding us that as Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote:

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."

The concept of "bishairt" was introduced to me by a brief encounter with a woman in a market.  My friend, Daisy and I were having an early lunch with Tai Chi instructor, Cis Hager.  We all arrived at our beautiful gourmet "general store" that morning expecting something good to reveal itself.  It was just the mindset we were all in.  And it did, but in a most unusual way.

After sampling tiny paper cups of Forest Mushroom Bisque, Crab and Sweet Corn Chowder, and Oyster Brie Stew, making our selections and taking them to the little café by the Floral section, we realized that the only table large enough to accommodate our threesome was already occupied.  I bravely asked the woman reading, if we might join her and she heartily welcomed us. 

As I apologized for disturbing her quiet, she said, "Oh no, this is wonderful.  It is just the moment of 'bishairt' I have been waiting for!!"  I love words, and this one was new to me and it was so obviously Hebrew in origin that I felt a tingle of gooseflesh crawl along my arm and up the back of my neck.

She went on to explain that "bishairt" means that something was meant to be.  A random encounter, soulmates discovering one another, a conversation that surprises and blesses everyone in unexpected ways.

We soon discovered that our new tablemate was a practicing psychologist who was in the midst of a professional transition.  She was phasing out her more traditional practice of psychothereapy, and moving towards the Judaic practice of spiritual healing, Kabbalah.

As you can imagine it was one of those 'bishairt" conversations none of us could have imagined that morning when we planned to gather for soup after Tai Chi in the snow.   

Cis shared amazing insights on stillness and movement, Daisy was a live wire of inspiration about her most recent Bible study, and even though Judy's stay was brief, her introduction of the concept of "bishairt", as well as regaling us with the story of her journey from psychotherapy to Kaballah, was priceless.  I received, in that sweet sacred hour, gifts beyond what I could have imagined...new views of divine goodness and love, or as Mary Baker Eddy describes:

"Pure humanity, friendship, home,
the interchange of love,
bring to earth a foretaste of heaven."

I am now more alert to the serendipity woven through every day.  I am noticing how many instances of "bishairt" I experience moment-by-moment when I trust God to be the great Choreographer of my day.  Then, I "just show up," on purpose, and expectant of what is meant to be...

always with Love,  
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Like a bridge over troubled waters..."

"When you're weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes,
I will dry them all;
I'm on your side. when times get rough
And friends just can't be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down..."
- Paul Simon

Saturday morning I witnessed a moment of love and courage that took my breath away...again.  Camp is full of those moments, and this summer is no different.   Moments when someone lays there own self-interest down to become a "bridge over troubled waters" for a camper, a friend...a cousin.

Saturday was Sunday for Sky Valley campers (the 3rd through 8th graders whose schedule accommodated Sunday School on Saturday this session).  Part of the Sunday tradition is an early morning 5K (or 3.1 mile) run through the South Woods.  Our daughters, Emma and Clara, along with their cousins and friends, love to participate in this opportunity to run through the woods, around the Round Up corral, down the road that bisects the high school level part of camp, and through a gaunlet of cheering high-schoolers on their way back down to Sky Valley.

I love it because it is a mid-camp opportunity to see the girls and to cheer on my nieces and my daughters' friends.  Clara came through the gaunlet with her friend, Cecily, smiling and strong.  I asked her where Emma was, and she indicated that her sister was somewhere behind her, so I stayed put waiting for her to come down the road.  When I caught a glimpse of her running along side her cousin, Tatiana, I was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

She avoided running through the bridge of raised arms...teens whooping and hollering...and ran straight towards me.  She collapsed into my arms in tears.  Tati stood next to us, rubbing her back and assuring her that she would be fine.  I walked her to the porch of my cabin and Tati followed, nursing her heart as we went.  In the midst of her tears she encouraged Tati to return to the race, telling her she would be okay. 

Then her tears really started to flow.  When her sobbing quieted a bit she told me that she wasn't crying because of the painful blisters that had screamed at her through the race, the cramps in her side that had taken her breath away in the middle of the woods, or the upset feeling in her tummy that made her want to lie down.  No, she was weeping because she was so amazed and grateful that her cousin had given up the possibility of winning the race to stay with her all along the trail.

This meant so much to Emma.  Perhaps it is because Emma loves to win races.  She is fast and she likes to compete.  The thought that her cousin would slow her pace to little more than a walk to care for her was heart-breakingly remarkable...and healing...to her. With a much-appreciated ride from a loving bunkhouse mom, Emma returned to Sky Valley already feeling much better.

While we waited for her to be picked up at my cabin, I explained to Emma that her cousin had won more than a race that day.  She had won the respect of everyone who knew what she had done.  She had won the love and admiration of her cousin, her aunt, and anyone who had discerned her sacrifice.  She had won a battle with the ego that always wants us to care more about self-interest than others.

Tati was my hero that morning.  She taught my daughter a lesson more important than how to win a foot race.  She taught her the true meaning of courage.  The root of the word "courage" is the Latin "couer" or heart.  Whenever we let our hearts speak more loudly to us than the voice of self-interest or personal accomplishment, we are at our most courageous best. 

"...When you're down and out,
When you're on the street,
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you.
I'll take your part.
When darkness comes
And pains is all around,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

Sail on silver girl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind."

Thank you Tati, I love you...
Aunt Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Lila June Jones...Tati's mommy]

"I've been painting pictures of Egypt..."

"...The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy
To discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the Promise
And the things I know

I've been painting pictures of Egypt,
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard,
And I wanna go back!
But the places that used to fit me,
Cannot hold the things I've learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned..."
- Sara Groves

Okay...so I have become a bit obsessed with Sara Groves' lyrics and music.  But she is soooo good at, as my husband said, knowing me.  When I discovered her "Painting Pictures of Egypt," it was like walking past a mirror, smiling at a stranger, and then suddenly realizing you are smiling at yourself.

I listened with rapt wonder.  She was able to put words to the feeling of knowing you had to leave the place where you'd lived in hunched sadness, and yet the scanned horizon holds no oasis or refuge.  It is a journey in which you cross the desert of pain, traverse the lonely unchartered territories in your own heart, learn to eat locust and drink dew from the crevices in stones, only to find you are still just standing at the edge of something so vastly new and incomprehensible that you begin to dream of returning to the soft comforts of the outgrown, but familiar.

I think this is what the children of Israel faced at the edge of the Red Sea.  Having left behind a tortured existence of brutality and slavery, they find themselves in a place where they are free, but free to do what, when all that stands in front of them is a roiling ocean of resistance and self-doubt.  Pharoah is pursuing them from behind and they wonder why they ever left Egypt in the first place...at least there they had the fleshpots. 

I have known this kind of questioning.  I have known the terror of "not knowing" what comes next, and the pull of what once was...at least there were those "fleshpots," the familiar rhythm of endless days of pyramid building, and the touch...however hurtful...of the slavemasters whip.

I would begin "painting pictures of Egypt" in the soft golden glow of memory.  The straw and mud pits of backbreaking labor in the fields took on "Little House on the Prairie" romanticism...I could even hear the swell of a soundtrack if I listened hard enough.

But in those moments when my children of Israel-self complains to my Moses-self at the edge of the Red Sea, "why did you bring us here, at least in Egypt I had fleshpots!" I remember that when Moses says, "Stand ye still and see the salvation of our God," God rebukes with, "Why are you telling them that, tell them to move forward!"

And what those in exile could never have even imagined - a sea splitting in two so that they could cross on dryland - happens right before their eyes.

They had outgrown the lessons of Egypt, and each step forward through the sand brought them to the place where a miracle was waiting.

Like the children of Israel at the edge of the Red Sea, I too have spent far too many days sitting in the hot shifting sands of self-doubt painting romantic pictures of Egypt in the soft glow of memory...when right before me, within just a few steps a Red Sea was waiting to part and lead me to the promised land. 

Today I have my heart focused on the sea.  I am painting seascapes full of milk and honey...bees and blueberries, lemons and lavender...I am leaving  Egypt where it belongs...in the past.  I am moving forward, one step at a time...looking for miracles in the sand and the sea.

"...I don't want to leave here
I don't want to stay
It feels like pinching to me
Either way
And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I've been
They are calling out to me
Like a long lost friend

It's not about losing faith
It's not about trust
It's all about comfortable
When you move so much
And the place I was wasn't perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn't milk or honey
But then neither is this

I've been painting pictures of Egypt,
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard,
And I wanna go back!
But the places that used to fit me,
Cannot hold the things I've learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned..."

If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
And if it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?"

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I Saw What I Saw...and I can't forget it..."

"...I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it

Something on the road,
cut me to the soul...

I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction

Something on the road, changed my world

Your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
what I am made of
and what I know of love
and what I know of God..."
- Sara Groves

I discovered Sara Groves the other night (see post below) and I haven't stopped listening to, and pondering the messages of, her music since.  Her song, "I Saw What I Saw" so accurately captures what I discovered through my work with adolescents under hospice care, that it is uncanny.  In fact, my husband said after hearing the song, "She knows you, doesn't she?"  Yes, she knows me. 

But this song must resonate with every humanitarian, spiritual caregiver, counselor, or aid worker who has every taken the admonition to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, feed the poor, visit the fatherless and widows, care for the untouchable, loose the prisoner of his bonds."  I believe that these demands on us are not about our own nobility and another's want or need, but a Father's lessons in grace. Lessons in which we, as caregivers, discover our true identity and worth...and the cared for graciously allow us to learn from them about courage and humility. 

Hospice is just one of the many classrooms I have been privileged to be welcomed into...and it has changed my world.  But I have also been changed by reading to children and counseling moms in a battered women's shelter,  by serving meals at a homeless center, serving as a chaplain in hospitals, prisons, and jails.  However, it is my time as a hospice volunteer that has taught me the most about real courage and hope.

Hospice care provides "end-of-life" support to patients and their families through palliative medicine (pain management), life transition counseling for patients, grief counseling for families, and pastoral (or spiritual) care for everyone...patients, caregivers, and loved ones.  Hospice care is provided in hospitals, private facilities, and in homes where patients can live surrounded by loved ones and what is familiar.  

This volunteering was not connected with my work as a Christian Science practitioner providing spiritual treatment or under the auspices of the hospital chaplaincy.  This was simply an opportunity for me to give at a time when I desperately needed to feel that my life made a difference.  It was about hand-holding, cool compresses, warm blankets, and listening...lots and lots of listening.

And this work did change me.  It asked me what I was so afraid of, what I was really made of...and especially what I truly knew of God...of Love.

I remember one night when a young patient watched his mother sleep fitfully by his side, slumped in exhaustion, while he used every bit of energy he had to reach out and touch her face. 

I remember the father who worked two jobs to pay for medications so that his daughter could live pain free, although his rigorous work schedule deprived him of precious time with her.

The teenager who surmounted his fear of death to sit at the bedside of a friend, or the tired nurse who must comfort yet another family who's been given unthinkable news.

I learned that questions about death are irrelevant to those who are living moment-by-moment with every fibre of their being.  Living in the moment is not a self-help ideal, it becomes an awareness of the presence of Life asserting itself. 

Our Father-Mother God loves us enough to ask us to go to the bed of pain, walk along the road of want and poverty with our brethren, lift up the broken and disparing...and be made new.

"...I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it

Something on the road,
cut me to the soul..."

and made me new...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Something changed..."

"Something changed inside me
broke wide open
and it all spilled out
Till I had no doubt
that something changed

Never would have believed it
till I felt it in my own heart
In the deepest part
the healing came

And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can't afford it
But it's mine..."
-     Sara Groves

There are times in our lives when we experience an inbreaking of the soul and discover a space deeper and more innocent than we could ever imagine.  It is pure and precious and it feels so infant and new that we are surprised by the finding.  Sometimes we can even be so shaken by the seismic shift it leaves in its wake, that we are never the same.  I am never the same. 

I have included a link to Sara Groves' song "Something Changed" which also includes a few words from Sara herself.  I hope you will treat yourself to sitting through the full four minutes.  It is worth it.

I discovered this song when a friend stopped by the other day to pick up her daughter who had been to the pool with Emma and Clara.  Quite serendipitously she mentioned that she had purchased the DVD of the film "The Ultimate Gift" and asked if I had seen it.  I hadn't...or even heard of it.  She generously handed me her new copy and told me she thought I would like it.  To say that "I did" is a very big understatement.  It touched me deeply.  If you haven't seen it you might want to rent it, and set aside an evening of sacred space to experience its message of hope and redemption.  You will not be disappointed.

I have known what it means to be in these soul-shattering times, and they always seemed to come when I felt most confident and sure --  as if I knew myself and where I was headed.  Those times when I thought I knew what success and failure looked like and how to reach my goals...especially the ones I thought were spiritually motivated and "on target."  Then God steps in, and something comes along...usually some moment of deeper self-awareness...and I am broken open, on my knees in such complete hunger for His guidance and mercy.  These next moments when I am feeling alone and confused...feeling like a failure...is when real salvation happens. Something shifts, and I suddenly know that I can never fail Him as long as I have that hunger for His love...to know it, to feel it, to be it in this world...to live to serve Him.

And when it does happen...when I feel that inbreaking of the soul and I am open and childlike in my longing for His grace...I know it.  And the light that bathes my wounded spirit is as warm and sure as a mother's tears of joy on the face of her newborn.  And it heals something in me, while at the same time awakening me to a new sense of purpose, a new awareness of what really matters...and what doesn't.

And I know I could never have created it for myself...this love for God that seems to come in a rush of overwhelming love for humanity.  And I know I could not fake it...the depth of this aching that has only one need...Him.   And I know I could never afford it...the value of it is more than I could ever imagine earning, accumulating, accruing, beg, borrowing or stealing...it is more vast than the cosmos and more precious than another day on earth.

And I know it is mine....and I am His. 

"...Something so amazing
in a heart so dark and dim
When a wall falls down
and the light comes in

And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can't afford it
But it's mine..."

I remember one Sacrament Sunday in church when I was kneeling alone in silence, so aware of my failings and longing to be made whole in Him.  Or as Mary Baker Eddy so accurately describes,

"The baptism of repentance is indeed a stricken state of human consciousness, wherein mortals gain severe views of themselves; a state of mind which rends the veil that hides mental deformity. Tears flood the eyes, agony struggles, pride rebels, and a mortal seems a monster, a dark, impenetrable cloud of error; and falling on the bended knee of prayer, humble before God, he cries, "Save, or I perish."

I ached for peace.  As a congregation we broke the silence with the Lord's Prayer and then returned to our seats.  Tears of repentance poured thorugh me until I heard these words from a loved hymn,

"The longing to be good and true
Has brought the light again..."
- M.A. Dayton

It was my longing to be good and true that was what was bringing light...not my striving to always get it right, and then succeeding nobly, or failing miserably.   In this moment of brokeness I was bathed in the light of His grace...not my own deservedness.  And I remembered what it felt like to be a child who knows she can never lose her Mother's love.

"...a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise..."
- Psalms 51

thank you Sara...your music broke me open...again,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Siyahamba Kukhaneyen' kwenhos'..."

"We are all God's children
Reflections of One Mind,
Living in the radiance,
Of Spirit all divine.
Every heart and nation
Is answering the call
To a true salvation
Knowing God is All-in-all..."
- Zulu Hymn
with addition text by Desiree Goyette

In light of yesterday's post, I wanted to show you the face...and voice...of my church today.  I am so honored and blessed to stand and sing in this universal congregation of hearts. 



I love this video...feel free to play it over and over again.  It took me over 100 listens (and as many times practicing it in the privacy of my car) to get the chorus right....but once I did, I couldn't stop singing it...and I haven't stopped yet.

"We are walking in the light of God
We are singing in the light of God
We are praying in the light of God
Siyahamba Kukhaneyen' kwenkhos'
Siyahamba Kukhaneyen' kwenkhos'..."

with love as we all walk in the light of God,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Try Jah Love...."

"...A timeless thought, a touch of close encounter
Your love embraced me and took over my life
And now I'm new your strength has made me
Change my ways from wrong to right

Please Father, please
this world we live in has faltered
Deliver us from all this evil and pain
God Bless the heart that loves unto his brother
Praising out your Name

Then he said, 'Be not Afraid
Those who believe I will save'
I wonder
When will the world
wake up and start to
Try Jah Love
People have to make up their mind to
try Jah, Jah Love
So won't you try, try, try, try, try, try Jah Love
Love,Love,Love,Love..."
- Stevie Wonder
- as performed by Third World

In the early 1980s I became a fan of roots reggae music, following a serendipitous conversation about spirituality with a small group of Rastafarian musicians one evening at an Ethiopian restaurant in West Los Angeles.  No, I was not (nor did I become) a spliff-smoking, reggae-hypnotized pot head...nor did I meet any.  In fact, I never smoked pot...contrary to broad assumptions that have been made in light of my love for reggae music.  I did, happily, dance with other fans...college students, bankers, artists, and mothers with babies..at outdoor concerts where dread-locked listeners swayed in the sunlight, and children twirled and bobbed to music that called even the most unwilling listener to rise and dance in place. I was not a Rastafarian. I was then, and still am, a spiritual thinker who loves meeting and listening to the ideas of other spiritual explorers.  And my immersion into the reggae community was filled opportunities to ponder great truths among many God-inspired thinkers.

Over the course of that brief chapter in my life, I saw many of the reggae artists who were touring at the time.  Because of my friendship with a well-loved musician from within the Rastafarian community, I was blessed to meet and break bread with many of his friends. Not only did I have a front row seat to performances and informal jamming, but to many of the after-concert breakfasts in small cafes or on the beach just before dawn.

These were fascinating times.  The people I met were some of the most socially responsible and charitable I have every known.  Many of them lived lives of quiet generosity, bringing hope to people who had suffered injustice and families facing abject poverty. They cared for widowed mothers and orphaned neighbors, they worried and fretted, and prayed...oh, how they prayed.

So it was surprising to me when some years later, while working on a recording of hymns, it was suggested that a much-loved spiritual text from my own faith tradition had been "violated" because it had been set to reggae music and included rhythms that were decidedly Jamaican.  There was grave concern that because reggae music was long associated with the Rastafarian practice of smoking marijuana, this would diminish the spiritual impact and purity of those texts.  I was confused and saddened.  It was so contrary to my experience with Rastafarians and reggae musicians to experience any sense of judgment about the spiritual practices and traditions of others.  To see their practices misjudged and misunderstood was heartbreaking.

I mentioned this to a colleague who was working on a parallel musical project and his response has stayed with me for over twenty years.

His insights were simply: that which expresses the most love will elevate everything.  If reggae music is an expression of great love and charity, it can only serve to support and highlight the beauty of that beloved text.  If the text is an expression of great wisdom and compassion, it can only serve to bring a new sense of spiritual beauty to reggae music by association.

He then mentioned a statement from Mary Baker Eddy's chapter on "Marriage" in  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,,  and in the context of this situation, it made me smile...and it continues to bring me peace each time I read it.  She says, "If one is better than the other, as must always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good company."

This brought me such sweet peace in thinking about the marriage of my love for the purity and beauty of the spiritual text in question, and the reggae music that had always brought me into such a lovely sense of community and was inspired by such profound charity. 

.  Just as Orff's "Carmina Burana" and Mozart's own "Requiem" were demonized for a generation of movie-goers by their association with films that had satanic themes, so reggae music has sometimes been taken in associative social directions which have encouraged listeners to lose sight of its deeply spiritual roots. But these musical genres each have their own spiritual truth and beauty...however obsure it may seem at any given point... and I will never forget that I discovered the powerful rhythms of reggae music through the heart of a man who loved Jah, and wanted others to know Jah love.

That was over twenty years ago, and I am so grateful to be able to say that in worship services and praise meetings, my own faith now, proudly, sings hymns with African, Appalachian, European, East Asian and gospel music themes and rhythms.

The other night as I heard reggae music pouring like warm honey from our son's itunes collection, I thought again of that ragtag group of Rastafarian musicians...of those sun-splashed days and the soft summer nights when Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Black Uhuru, Third World, Rita, Ziggy (as a little boy), the Melody Makers, and others filled the air with the undulating rhythms of Jamaica. These musical "friends" made me look at myself, my preconceptions, and my world in new ways...and I couldn't help but remember this beautiful "hymn" from Third World. 

I hope you will let this video of them singing, "Try Jah Love," live at Sunsplash in 1983 touch your heart with "the power of the Word."  I am listing the full lyrics below.  It is a message I hope we can all unite in embracing...and by the way, "Jah" is just another name for God. 

always with Love.... Jah Love, divine Love, Father-Mother Love...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"A lonely soul was I without direction
I didn't know which way that I had to go
I sought the clues to
life's unanswered questions
My mind's heart had to know

I heard you call
while wandering through the darkness
I'd walk a million miles
to find that endless voice
That speaks to me when I am in temptation
Echoing my choice

Then you said, 'Seek ye shall find
I've been with you through all time
And if you're thirsty
I will quench you
With my love

And if you're hungry
I will feed you
With my word
And all I ask of you
is that you love as I do

And if you lose your way
I'll lead you to my love
From a sinful life I'll cleanse you
In my love
For creation bears a witness of my love
You should know it's time
for the world to try Jah love

The only love that can bring peace is
Jah, Jah Love
So won't you try, try, try, try, try, try, try
Jah Love
Love,Love,Love,Love

I know that
Without it there'd be no tomorrow
Try Jah Love
Who lifts broken hearts up from sorrow
Try Jah Love

So won't you try, try, try, try, try, try Jah Love
Love,Love,Love,Love

A timeless thought a touch of close encounter
Your love embraced me and took over my life
And now I'm new your strength has made me
Change my ways from wrong to right

Please Father please this world
we live in has faltered
Deliver us from all this evil and pain
God Bless the heart that loves unto his brother
Praising out your Name

Then he said, 'Be not Afraid
Those who believe I will save'
I wonder
When will the world wake up and start to
Try Jah Love
People have to make up their mind to
try Jah, Jah Love
So won't you try, try, try, try, try, try Jah Love
Love,Love,Love,Love

I know that
Once you begin you won't regret
If you try Jah Love
The ultimate life satisfaction
Jah, Jah Love
So won't you try, try, try, try, try, try Jah Love
Love,Love,Love,Love

You know that
There's no excuse for no one not to
Try Jah Love
Right is the only reason to...try Jah Love
The key to inner satisfaction...Jah, Jah Love
So won't you try, try, try, try, try, try Jah Love
Love,Love,Love,Love

Try Jah Love
Jah,Jah Love..."

"I Can Only Imagine..."

"...Surrounded by your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus,
Or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in your presence,
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing Alelluja,
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine
I can only imagine..."
-     Mercy Me

AS much as I love this song, "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me, I don't have to imagine...I know.  I have been surrounded by Christ's glory and my heart has felt it all...awe, the desire to dance, to fall to my knees, and to sing Alelluia...all at once.  I feel it whenever I stop throughout the day and just listen. 

It happened today.  It happened only an hour ago.  I had just put the girls to bed and came downstairs to return calls, respond to emails, and transfer the last load of laundry from the washer to the dryer.  On my way from their bedroom, upstairs, to my desk I decided to stop on the landing and just listen in the silence of the house breathing. 

I sat on the landing and gave Him my heart. 

"What do you have to say to me in this moment dear Father?" I asked.  "I want to remind you that I am the source of your desire to express order and beauty.  My ideas are orderly and clear...and therefore lovely...as Love and Principle are synonymous, you can't express order and not experience beauty." 

This may seem like a pretty simple and obvious message, but for me it was merciful.  As I'd been heading down the stairs I was actually beating myself up about how much I love to make things beautiful.  I was feeling a bit ridiculous about how happy it makes me to put beautiful flowers in vases, make neat stacks of clean laundry, shelve books in patterns of color and width of spine, carefully fold antique quilts collected through the years.

It reminded me of a moment four years ago when a friend brought her sister  by for a visit.  When we'd moved into our home I'd had a stunning wall of custom bookcases built in our great room.  It housed over a hundred books I'd collected as a voracious reader.  Each book was like a good friend.  As I'd finish reading a particular volume, I would write a note to my daughters inside.  The notes would tell them where I was in my life when I'd read the book, the feelings it had elicited, the insights gained, and any conclusions reached.  The books were my way of cataloging my feelings and thoughts so that my daughters might someday know me as I was.  The bookshelf was my way of putting my life in order.  Turning it into something beautiful. 

My friend's sister saw this the minute she walked in the door.  She looked at the wall of books...some of them shelved with spines vertical, some stacked horizontally...and exclaimed, "Your bookshelf is a quilt to you isn't it?  The colors and graphics, widths, depths, and heights of each spine has been placed carefully, hasn't it?  This is your quilt of ideas." 

I wanted to cry.  I felt known. 

So when I stopped on the stairs tonight and God spoke to me of Himself as the source of my love for beauty and order, it reminded me of that moment of being known, and a wave of peace and joy washed over me...refreshing and encouraging me...to be me...to love the me I am.

I don't have to imagine how it will feel to be standing in His presence, enveloped in His love, seen through His eyes and known...and I am singing Alleluiah...when I can speak at all.

I love the way that Mary Baker Eddy describes it:

"When will mankind awake to know their present ownership of all good, and praise and love the spot where God dwells most conspicuously in His reflection of love and leadership?  When will the world waken to the privilege of knowing God, the liberty and glory of His presence..."

You don't have to imagine...just stop and let Him speak to you.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Yesterday..."

"...Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday..."
-     Paul McCartney

This was my first song.  Or at least the first song that reached deep down inside of me and found the ignition to my soul.  This was the first song to bring healing to my life.  No, it's not a hymn...it is not a gospel song, or a church solo...it is a pop song and it healed me.

Someone asked me recently how I described healing.  I thought this was a great question.  And since I think questions are the space God carves out in our lives for filling with His allness, I hunger for them.  And this one satisfied my longing.

Healing, for me, happens constantly.  The word "health"...along with the words "wealth" and "wellness"...spring from the Welsh word for wholeness, "whoelth".  So, for me, healing happens each time I discover more of God's All-in-allness, the completeness or wholeness in my consciousness of anything...an experience, the way I look at things, the way I perceive the lives (or bodies) of those who call for spiritual support through prayer, and in the way I accept what is true about the state of the world.   Any time I am more aware of how spiritually complete everything is...there is healing.

Which explains why this song was my first healing song. 

It was 1965 and I was an 11 year old girl with how to spend my summer vacation on my mind.  As a family, we had only just begun studying Christian Science. We were new at attending Sunday School, church, and Wednesday testimony meetings.   Sunday School was teaching me to think differently about myself and others.  My teacher, Mrs. Garren, was introducing me to truths that would change my life forever.  She was asking me to consider a reality in which my thinking...my prayers...could benefit my family, my neighbors, and the world around me. 

I wanted to believe this was true, and I would read the Bible lessons each week, but for the most part I was still just an eleven year old girl trying to be happy and not afraid.   My problems -- my relationship with my sisters, a new school each year, having what I needed when my parents had 5 other children to care for -- were all just part of my reality...my little world.  I felt pretty helpless about being able to alter the course of my own experiences, much less the world...heck, I was only eleven.

But one summer day in 1965 that changed.  My sister and I had spent weeks building a fort in our backyard.  We were the two oldest in our family of six children and the thought of spending all day with four younger siblings in a small suburban ranch was humiliating.  Sharing our already crowded bedroom (our only hope of privacy) with an eight year old and a two year old was an abomination (I remember this being one of my favorite words that summer).  How would we ever have friends over, if we had nowhere to take them?  Didn't our parents realize that we were almost teenagers? 

Our indignity was the mother of our inventiveness.  It came in a flash.  We had a big backyard and there was scrap lumber from a nearby construction project in the vacant lot nearby, we would build our own house.  So we did.  We spend endless summer days dragging two-by-fours and rolling wooden phone cable spools through the neighborhood.  By the end of the second week we were hammer-bruised, splinter-pierced, and exhaustion-filled, but we had our very own place.  Carpet scraps formed a colorful  jigsaw floor,  while pieces of pale blue corrugated fiberglass used for roofing, cast a soft light on us as we read Nancy Drew books and listened to our transistor radio.

We were in our own little heaven.  It was hot, it was dusty, but it was ours. 

One afternoon I was lying on my side stretched out with Nancy, George and Bess leading me on one more chase through the backroads of River Heights in Nancy's yellow convertible roadster when the disc jockey announced he would be spinning the latest ballad by The Beatles, "Yesterday."  I loved the Beatles.  I set my mystery aside and lay back with my arms behind my head and everything fell away but the music. 

Paul's voice was rich with pathos and the words penetrated beyond my age of 11 years and 22 days, to the place where I was eternally conscious of what it meant to be human.  I found myself weeping.  Tears poured quietly from my eyes, down my temples and streamed through my hair to where they pooled in my ears.   I could feel something breaking apart in me.  I didn't just hear the words, I felt them, and the feeling made me ache with sadness...and a desire to do something that might help mitigate that kind of sadness.

I had discovered my humanity, and as new as it felt, I somehow sensed that it had been there all along buried beneath the rubble of birth, and infancy, and kindergarten, and "she's just a kid" lies about me that tried to convince me that I was not an eternally mature and wholly conscious being.  I knew that I was waking up from a deep sleep in which I had dreamed it was okay to be unaware of the feelings of others, caring only about my own happiness, disappointments, needs, and wants.   Mrs. Garren's Sunday School lessons had poured onto the dry and dusty places in my heart, and watered the dormant seeds of compassion. With the help of this song, I had been healed of thinking I was just a kid.

I have never been the same.

"...Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday..."

thank you Paul...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Let My love open the door...to your heart..."

"...Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart..."
- Peter Townsend

It echoed through the silence.  "Let my love open the door, let my love open the door, let my love open the door...to your heart..."  Enter power chords. 

Silence is like that for me these days.  Filled with messages.  I have to trust that they are messages from God, Mind...or I am going bonkers.  Either way it's compelling and comforting.  Like I said...either God or bonkers.

I choose God.

Yesterday was all about choosing....and not choosing.  Mostly about choosing to not choose. 

I was sitting on the patio of Leonard Gallery in the 90 degree heat of an early summer day, high on the bluffs above the lazy waters of the wide Mississippi River.  I had my toes in the wall fountain and I was just listening for my Father's voice.

The thoughts that came were clear and pointed...arresting and arousing the lethargy of a hot summer's day.  

It started with a question.  It always does. I think this is why the beatitude says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst..."  It's the questioning that most assures me of God's presence, as love, in my heart.  It tells me in no uncertain terms that He wants me to leap out of complacency into the life-quenching cup of cold water that is His refreshing and invigorating Truth.

So, His question in my heart was, "How do I live on purpose without everything becoming all about outcomes...successes and failures that are really ego-driven mortal measurements.  If life is all about the journey of discovery, what then does it mean to live on purpose?  How, and more importantly - why, should I show up in my life with a clear sense of purpose...if my purpose is to live free of outcomes and in discovery?"  Hmmm...

The answer started as a question.  "What is My purpose?"  Don't you just love this God of ours!

And the answer to that question popped into my heart so quickly it shook the ground beneath my feet.  "I AM that I AM...is my purpose." 

I sat with that simple statement of divine purpose for only moments before God began explaining Herself.  "I am what I am.  That is enough for me...and it should be enough for you. I am Love, what more could you ever want me to be?  I have no choice in this matter.  I cannot choose to be the absence of myself.  I cannot choose to be less loving...merciful, unconditional, impartial...than being the All-loving requires by its very nature and character.  If I could choose to be less than myself, why would you long for me, seek my face, ache for my presence in your life."

God went through every one of Her names...Mind, Life, Truth, Principle, Soul, Spirit..in just this way.  Less than all Truth...just a measure of Mind....a dash of Principle??? 

Then as I sat there, everything around me continued the lesson, I watched the water flowing down from the top of the fountain, running through my toes and pooling in the base of the fountain waiting to be recycled over and over again.

That water doesn't choose to be refreshing...or nourishing, thirst-quenching, cleansing, purifying, oxidizing, power-generating, sanctifying, or beautiful.  It only shows up as a water molecule that unites with other water molecules and gains weight and form, interacts with the laws of gravity, unites in purpose with the surface it rests upon, comes in contact with my toes...and voila, refreshing, cooling, beautiful dancing-in-the-sunlight water.

It has no sense of good or bad outcomes.  It trusts the one who sent it along its way...on a journey of self-discovery...to plan the next adventure.  Had it been sent through a hose it might have discovered something very different about itself as force (under pressure), nourishment (to the grass), beauty (as dancers rushing and twirling through the air).

But the water molecule never had a choice...why would she want one.  Wasn't being H2O just the most perfect thing for a water molecule to be!!

The world is constantly telling us that we can make choices that result in mistakes and missteps that lead to misunderstandings and missed opportunities.  But that's only if we think we have a mind separate from God, and that our purpose is to control this errant mind.

I'm just not buying it.

I think I am going to practice living like the water...and trust the one who made me to hold me in His hand and spill me onto a sun-scorched earth, sprinkle me on a baby's forehead, quench the thirst of a parched traveler, or pool me, in fellowship with others, within a carved-out stone...petros.. for the weary wanderer to wash his feet in. 

Time for more silence...I think I will let Your love open the door to my heart...no one sings this song like Pete Townsend...enjoy,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I'm fifteen for a moment..."

"...Halftime goes by
Suddenly you're wise
Another blink of an eye
67 is gone
the sun is getting high
We're moving on...

15 there's still time for you
Time to love and time to lose
Oh 15, there's never a wish better than this,
When you've only got a hundred years to live..."
- Five for Fighting

This song, "100 Years" by Five for Fighting, grabs me and doesn't let go.  Whenever I hear it on the radio, or recently on my friend, Liesl's Facebook page, I remember being 15, and it was magical...for a moment.  Then the next moment,  I was 15 and 20 seconds, then 15 years and 3 days, 17 minutes, and 45 seconds...you get the picture. Today I am 55...for a moment. And I really feel no different today, than I did at 15. I feel love deeply, I long to make a difference in the world, and I want to know the presence of God in my life. 15, 55...they are just numbers that come and go.  Each one of these numbers is as full of value in marking life milestones as those same numbers are in helping us count apples in a bowl, measure a room for wallpaper, or reconcile a check book.

15 was a space that marked an important time in my life.  It was sweet and full of learning...and I loved it.  I have enjoyed the bookmarks that were 23, and 35, and 48...placeholders that make it easy to reference those chapters when recalling a shared experience of joy, sorrow, triumph, or transitions with others.  I can say to my daughter, "when you were 11 and we lived in Colorado..." and we both know where to land as we remember events on our shared timeline. The number doesn't define her, it only serves as a valuable reference point in cataloguing our experiences together.

As I bookmarked tonight's milestone I couldn't help but write my own verse to 100 years:

"I'm 55 for a moment
No longer waiting for a reason to love
And I'm just grateful
Counting the blessings I have known..."

I will only be 55 for one moment.  But that moment will be rich with spiritual substance.  It will be teeming with the opportunity to be generous, kind, patient, good.  And although Life blesses me with an infinite number of moments, each one...including this 55th year, 8th hour, 33rd minute, and 27th second of this chapter in my eternal life book...is precious, treasured, and worthy of celebration. 

I will try to count every one of my moments as dear...sacred as that first moment I looked into my daughters' eyes, heard my mother's voice, tasted my first bite of pear, or felt the sweetness of true love.

In the last year I faced a health crisis that made me even more aware of how very precious each moment of life is.  Every moment.  Not one is disposable. Each is a gift.  A moment of life can be filled with beauty, movement, joy, affection, wonder.  Isn't it amazing!

When I think of the gift of life, I think of my mom.  No matter how many times she has faced seemingly insurmountable odds, she lives her life vigorously, and with a clear purpose.  She lives to bless, and every day she blesses the lives of the children she nannies.  She lives her life with such exuberance and hope...she always has. Her childlike joy and eager generosity have taught me that youthfulness is experienced in each and every moment that we choose to fill our hearts and minds with love.  My mom has always made me feel as though her life is more wonderfully rich because we, her children, are in it with her.  I hope she knows that we feel the same.  

"I'm 99 for a moment
I'm praying for just another moment
And I'm just dreaming
Counting the ways to where you are..."

15 there's still time for you
Time to love and time to choose
Oh 15, there's never a wish, better than this
When you've only got a hundred years to live..."

I hope your very next moment is a precious to you as the sound of a loved one's voice...and that it is filled with gentle friends, exhuberant joy, and a profoundly God-sent sense of purpose...and always with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Don't miss this precious "Peter Pan" moment from when I was six years old...it broadcast on television each year...what joy it brought to us all...i liked being six...I still do!!  Watching this today I am six again...for a moment!!

love, Kate

"Come Saturday morning...."

"...Come Saturday morning
I'm goin' away with my friend
We'll Saturday-laugh
more than half of the day
Just I and my friend
Dressed up in our rings
and our Saturday things
And then we'll move on
But we will remember
long after Saturday's gone
Come Saturday morning..."
- Dory Previn

It hasn't always been on a Saturday, but we have always 'dressed up in our rings and Saturday things," when we've "Saturday-spent till the end of the day."  I don't even know how it began, but now I can't imagine a summer without "going away with my friend."

My friend and I have traveled for miles together in tear and triumph...in storm and in shine.  She is the golden thread that runs through the rich tapestry of my life.  She is my constant.  She is the friend who knows my heart's deepest pain...and its greatest joy.  She shares my secrets and she knows my truth.  She knows the song that will play when I am scattered over a high meadow and  join the wind singing through the aspen.  She has felt my heartbreak as if it were her own, and she has shared her joy with me as if she were breaking bread.

There have been many winters when looking forward to "just goin' away with my friend," was enough of a reason to put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other through the gray days of January and February. Even my daughters would get excited about summer finally arriving, and we'd be back in "the valley," where mom would finally get to laugh hard with her friend under a clear Colorado sky.  They knew that our daylong conversation on a shared day-off would be like cool water to a parched traveler.

This one day retreat has been going on for over twenty years.  And although in the early days of our friendship, we made great plans for how we would spend that treasured one day off together, each year more and more of the "plan" fell away, until all that is now left is what is essential...the conversation.  It no longer matters if we drive over the Continental Divide to Aspen, or stay in town and hunker down at a table in the garden at Mothers' Bistro...as long as we talk and laugh and talk and cry....and talk.

We have walked "through the valley of the shadow of death" together, I've danced at her daughter's wedding...a daughter I couldn't love more if she were my own, and we've held eachother's toes to the fire at times when a lesser friendship might have capitulated to the ease of sympathy.

I don't remember how we found eachother, or when we started making our pilgrimage each summer.  I can't recall why we became friends, or who introduced us.   I only know that she is the person whose heart holds my secrets safe, and whose dreams I cherish as much as my own.

Mary Baker Eddy says in her own autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection:

"There are no greater miracles known to earth
than perfection and an unbroken friendship."

When I think of all the things she could have cited...healing, resurrection, motherhood, courage, success...I am humbled to have even one unbroken friendship. 

My dear, sweet, wonderful friend is one of God's most precious gifts ...her friendship is a miracle.  Spending time with her for one special day each year is a gift carved out of time and space, together we fill it with words and tears and laughter. 

"Come Saturday morning
I'm goin' away with my friend
We'll Saturday-spend
till the end of the day

Just I and my friend
We'll travel for miles
in our Saturday smiles
And then we'll move on
But we will remember
long after Saturday's gone
Come Saturday morning
Come Saturday morning..."
"Come Saturday Morning"
-performed by The Sandpipers

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...I know that it's time for a cool change.."

"If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
There's lots of those friendly people
Showin' me ways to go
And I never want to lose their inspiration

But, it's time for
a cool change...
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life
is so pre-arranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change..."
"Cool Change"
- The Bellamy Brothers
(click on the title above to hear the song)

Changes are in the air...and they are cool...and wonderful.  Graduations, weddings, new jobs, promotions, babies, travel.  Cool changes. 

Someone recently asked me, "If you could give only one gift, the same one to each person making a life transition this month, what would it be?"

It was easy.  The space to be alone, to be still, and to listen in that silence for the voice of the Divine, God, Allah, Jah, Supreme Being...or whatever you call Her.

This is the most valuable part of any day for me.  It is the "one thing" I cannot live without.  I can do without food, water (for a time), conversation, friends, books (this one is hard...but not impossible), the company of my loved ones (even harder)...but I cannot live without the space to commune with God.

It is a change of direction that I seek throughout my days when everything points towards tasks, deadlines, timetables, and schedules...outcomes and accomplishments, to stop and turn away from that momentum and be still.

It is a cool change.  It is refreshing, invigorating, soothing, and inspiring.  It feeds me and cleanses my palate all at the same time.  It is wonderfully simple and deeply complex.  It is richly sumptuous and pure light coincidentally.  It is what gives me the kind of joy that none can take away.

Whether it is your wedding day or your first day of work at the most wonderful new job you could imagine...the birth of your first child or the launching of your catamaran out to sea after retiring from a long illustrous career...it will never be more glorious than hearing the voice of God in the silence of your own heart...inspiring you, giving you encouragement, direction, guidance, solace.

It has taken me many years to more fully develop a practice of silence and deep listening that sustains me.  And the more I practice it, the more I hunger for it.  And that silence doesn't require a closet, a church, or a sanctuary...boat alone on the sea, or a chapel in the woods.  It can be practiced in the midst of a concentration camp (as proven in the lives of thought luminaries like Corrie TanBoom and "Jeremy"), a prison cell (think of Paul, Ghandi, Mandela), a war-torn desert, a large family, a high school cafeteria, a wedding reception, or even a rock concert.  As the word practice implies, it takes practice...but that's the fun of it. 

Start out with silent places (church, your bedroom, a garden) and work up to carving out silence spaces...within yourself...in the midst of more stimulating places -- it .  

I wish I could give each of you one hour a day alone within the sanctuary of your own consciousness...the province governed by the divine.  But this is not a gift anyone can give you...it is a gift you must give yourself.  But it is not a selfish gift.  It is a gift that, when practiced, can't help but bless others in ever-widening circles of love and inner peace.

When you walk away from a confrontation, an event...even a joyous one, the demands of a busy schedule, and re-calibrate yourself in alignment with the Source of your divine nature and purpose, everyone is blessed and benefited.

Imagine you are in the middle of your wedding reception and you step away for a moment or two...into the garden, in the stairwell, behind the curtain...to center your heart on God's hand in your life, your new marriage, your purpose, to give thanks, to ask, "How can I most serve You in this moment?" and then listen for the answer.  Imagine the look of peace that you will radiate from your entire being when you return to the festivities.  Imagine the tone you will set...much like a tuning fork sets the perfect pitch in tuning a piano.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege and joy of attending a James Taylor concert in a small concert hall with a generous friend.  Time and again during the concert (an event I had waited since 1970 to experience...JT up close and personal...oh my goodness!!!) I was called away by my phone for a conversation and then to pray...or to pray during the conversation.  It was my favorite part of the night...to realize that as much as I loved JT's voice, his songs, his lyrics...I loved the voice of God even more!!  I never once felt "interrupted" by a call, but it felt as if the calls were making the concert more wonderful, more rich, more sacred.  Each call was a reminder that God's voice was my favorite voice. 

So, as we all enter this season of cool changes, I pray that we each love ourselves enough to give the bride...the new mom, the recent graduate, the concert-goer, the healer...within ourselves, the gift of silent spaces with God. 

"...If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time that I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon like a lover

Time for
a cool change...
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life is so prearranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change..."

dearest love...hopes, and dreams fulfilled...to each of you,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"So let the wonder take you into space..."

"...So let the wonder
take you into space
And lay you under
its loving embrace
Just feel the thunder
as it warms your face
You can't hold back...

Just let your love flow
like a mountain stream
And let your love grow
With the smallest of dreams
and let your love show
And you'll know what I mean,
it's the season
Let your love fly
like a bird on the wing
And let your love bind
you to all living things
And let your love shine
And you'll know what I mean,
that's the reason..."
- Bellamy Brothers
"Let Your Love Flow"

Have you ever thought about "wonder" taking you into a space where love embraces you?  I hadn't, but when I heard the Bellamy Brothers' song, "Let Your Love Flow" recently, it was that verse that really resonated with me.  I have been living in a space of wonder lately. 

The definition of "wonder" I love is: "a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable." And this is where I am trying to live, to exist, to abide.  In a space of divine wonder.  To be surprised by God and His love for creation.  Tonight's surprise came when four year old Travis, joined us in saying the Lord's Prayer during church and his sweet, passionate, "forever" at the end took my breath away.  "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory...forever." 

I wish you could have heard the pure trust and innocent confidence in his voice.  If I could have just sat silently letting its sound echo through the room and through to the core of my being for the rest of the hour it would have been heavenly.  Something about it reached like a tuning fork into my heart and set it right again.

Wonder is a space of openness, hunger, and expectancy.  It trusts that around every corner it a divine surprise.

Years ago I had a friend who was, for me, a genuine spiritual mentor.  Whenever I would call him because I was in crisis or facing a personal challenge, he would start by saying, "Wonderful!!"  Because I knew that his heart was filled with an unflappable certainty that I was the loved and blessed child of God, I reveled in this response.  In fact, it made me happy and peaceful. I knew it reflected his own wonder.  A wonder that filled him with childlike joy and expectation, and he wished that same wonder for me.

Each time I heard his, "Wonderful!!" my entire being relaxed into a space of hope and faith, trust and certainty in God's hand in my life and the universe.

Tonight, wherever you are, whatever you are facing, I send a prayer that your life is filled with wonder.  I pray that childlike wonder carves its space in your heart and that you are surprised by how God fills it with extraordinary goodness.
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Limitless undying love which shines around me..."

"...Sounds of laughter, shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me

Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on
across the universe..."
- The Beatles
"Across the Universe"

At the time, I wasn't really sure why this song spoke to me tonight but it did.  I was outside in the yard with Mollie when suddenly the sky grew dark, the wind began to blow, and the tiny white blossoms from the towering black locust trees rained down on me...and around us...like a benediction.  

I suddenly felt so at one with everything around me.  My skin did not define where I stopped and the rest of the world began...it was just a frame for one of the images I included in consciousness, but was not the sum total of my being.  I was as much the locust blossoms as I was my hand...no more...no less.  I was one with every single molecule of each idea, concept, and image I was experiencing.

I threw my arms wide and spun around while the blossoms swirled around me and caught in my hair, the wind ruffled the hem of my skirt, and the grass kissed the arches of my feet.  Every movement of my body was a molecular dance of intention shifting space within and around me.  Choreographed by a divinely intelligent Creator, painting the space I shared with trees and blossoms and grass and air in broad strokes of color, movement, texture, and form. 

I could see with such clarity that each and every molecule in the universe existed at the behest of God.  Each expressed conscious alignment within Mind's direction.  Each enjoyed the peace of knowing it was being divinely guided every moment, and could enjoy the dance that the winds of Spirit (Pneuma) carried them on as they fulfilled their purposes as the manifestation of Love.  A collaborative effort of molecules that coalesced as a body for helping a stranger, a plate of food for feeding the hungry, a tree for giving shade to the weary, pages of a book for inspiring the reader searching for insights. 

Each molecule a divine idea...the expression of the All-in-allness of God's being.  Each molecule fully capable of being whatever Love needed it to be at any given moment, so that in uniting with other divinely purposed molecules a world of wonder, delight, joy, affection, beauty, peace...could be painted on the canvas of being.

As I raised my face to the sky...catching petals from locust blossoms on my tongue...I felt as though I was taking communion from a divine hand.  And when the rain started...drop by drop falling on my face, streaming down my temples, washing thorugh my hair...that water turned into the wine of baptism, brotherhood, benediction.  I felt oneness with, and "across the universe".  

I couldn't help but remember something Mary Baker Eddy writes in Pulpit and Press:

"Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically number one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine source, and daily demonstrate this. Then you will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillion in being and doing right, and thus demonstrating deific Principle. A dewdrop reflects the sun.  Each of Christ' little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore is the seer's declaration true, that 'one on God's side is a majority.' A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or crown the tree with blossoms.  Who lives in good, lives also in God, — lives in all Life, through all space."

or as Kenny Loggins sings in Conviction of the Heart, "one with the earth, with the sky, one with everything in life...."

Enjoy both songs tonight...and feel the breath of God whispered against your cheek with each soft breeze...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Goodnight you moonlight ladies..."

"Goodnight you moonlight ladies
Rock-a-bye, sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rock-a-bye my sweet baby James..."
-James Taylor
"Sweet Baby James"

It occurred to me as I was driving home from Tulsa, well before dawn on Tuesday, that although lullabies are most generally associated with mommies, it is the voice of a father...a man, that I hear when I listen to the inner songsmith singing me to sleep in the dark. 

This surprised me greatly.  Every single night of my childhood, my own mommy sang us to sleep with a series of lullabies and hymns.  The same songs in the same order...night after night.  I repeat this tradition every night with my own daughters. And yet, when I thought about listening to the comforter within, his voice was, to me, clearly...well..."his."

Because of an earlier commitment I had made to myself, I was listening to no radio/CDs while alone in the car so that I could enjoy more silence each day.  I knew this would give me over 7 hours of quiet listening to examine the character and nature of the voice that speaks to me as consciousness...its tone and timbre, its strength and intonation.  And as I listened, I discovered that it was actually quite genderless.  It was strong, yet gentle.  It was musical, but not sing-songy.  It was soothing, but not hypnotic...in fact, it was rather invigorating while still bringing great comfort.  It was a glorious 7 hours that stretched into 13, as I stopped in rest areas over and over again to climb into the back seat and just close my eyes and listen with more focused attention.

I love the "voice" of God.  It is why, from the time I was a small child even till today, I have often thought that I could be perfectly happy living in a small darkened, silent space (like the cell lived in by Audrey Hepburn in "A Nun's Story") alone with my thoughts.  My family well knows that the opportunity to lie perfectly still for a moment (or hour) of non-sentience is a mini-retreat for me.  The perfect kind of spa. 

It is in these moments of total self-surrender to "the Voice" that the most remarkable insights and ideas occur.  And they don't just come and go,  leaving me with a return to silence.   They come and unite in community,  building on one another...angel upon angel...bringing new gifts to build on the one that has already been shared...morphing into even fresher, every evolving viewpoints, perspective, answers...and even more wonderfully...they result in more questions.   It is almost as if I am watching a team of angel gardeners planting, tending and harvesting a mental time-lapse garden in the space of a divine moment...or two.

My drive home was filled with "the Voice" waking me to "new and glorified views" of Her place in my heart, His presence in the desires of those I love, Their Father-Mother parenting in the lives of children of all ages...everywhere.  

Enjoy JT's video of "Sweet Baby James" a lullaby he sings and tells the story of writing one night as he drove from New England to North Carolina to meet his namesake nephew.  I think he must have been surrounded by a host of angels that night, don't you?  And thankfully, we've all enjoyed the blessing of the garden-song he harvested for over 40 years now.  I'm not thinking he was just driving along, chilling, and listening to the radio that night...he gave space to "the Voice" and what he heard was divine.

with Love,
Kate

"Shower the people you love with love..."

"Just shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will..."
- James Taylor

I heard this song LIVE last night...really!!!  But I am getting ahead of myself. 

Earlier this winter I received an email from a fellow blogger/reader.  Emily wrote, "If you will drive to Tulsa, I have a ticket to the James Taylor concert for you."  Now, I could imagine this from my mother, my husband, a few of my sisters, or even my best friend, but although Emily and I had been regular readers of eachother's blogs (hence her awareness that I am THE biggest JT fan), had emailed one another about bees, folk music, spirituality, had talked on the phone a few times, and had met once at Ted Drewes in St. Louis for awesome frozen custard (because having Ted Drewes with me was one of the things on Emily's bucket list of 100 things to do), I never would have imagined she would have offered such an amazing gift to me.

I was shocked...very pleasantly...but shocked nonetheless.  I had only that afternoon gone online to price tickets to James Taylor's upcoming performance in St. Louis this spring and they were WAY beyond my budget...even if I stopped eating for a month or two.

But Emily assured me that this was what she really wanted to do.  She said that she knew how much I loved JT and thought it would be fun to see him with someone who loved his music so much.

Now, you may be thinking, Oklahoma, Tulsa...oil, cattle barons...ahhh, Emily is an oil baron's wife and lives on a massive cattle ranch.  Nope.  Emily is one of the most modest young women I have ever met.  Modest, socially responsible, and funny.  She and her husband Ron live in a little (Ron assured me it was less than 1,000 squre feet of living space) house in the "working class neighborhood" (Emily's words and she says she wouldn't think of living anywhere else...a gated neighborhood wouldn't let you have chickens and bees) in west Tulsa. 

They have a small, lush backyard that hosts two coops of beautiful chickens, an impressive vegetable garden, and three beehives.  They share their home with three lovely rescue pups, a finch, and a hamster that was displaced when Emily (and her department) were laid off last year.  They drive small fuel efficient cars and care about the environment, their neighbors, social responsibility, music, and Route 66. 

On the surface, Ron and Emily live simply and modestly. But deep beneath the well-worn carpet, gently-used clothing, and humble furnishings dwell hearts that are flagrantly generous. 

I felt like a queen in their presence.  I was showered with kindness and puppy kisses.  I was treated to a princess' tour of the city.  I was escorted through puddles (wish I hadn't changed into my "concert dress" jeans and boots so early...so I could have enjoyed it more thoroughy) and freshly mown grass to the garden full of new plantings...tomatoes, squash, peppers, herbs.

In my life, I have been blessed by the generosity of family, friends, and strangers...last night as I sat just yards from my most favorite singer-songwriter as he crooned, "Shower the people you love, with love..." I was deeply touched and humbled by the over-arching quality of modesty that characterizes this kind of generosity.  From my own mom who has never based her giving on what she had in her bank account, but by the fullness of the love in her heart, to the dear friend who has always shared her "widow's mite" and never seems to reach the limits of her giving, Emily's gift was a graphic reminder of how blessed I have been by the kindness of those who share what they have without fear.  And please don't get me wrong, modesty has nothing to do with the size of your bank account, your house, or the kind of car you drive. Modesty is a quality of thinking and acting characterized by humility, grace, and restraint. It is practiced by those from every walk of life, every neighborhood, every economic bracket. Modesty is not defined by lower numbers, but by higher aims and expectations for one's self in the "how" of living.

As I drove 7 hours back across eastern Oklahoma and the breadth of Missouri, I couldn't help but consider the spiritual connection between modesty and generosity.  There are countless incidences of Biblical precedence for this kind of giving.  From the remarkable loaning of a precious, much-valued axehead to one of the sons of the prophets, to the sharing of their modest victuals by the disciples with five thousand strangers...time after time the miracles that followed blessed a waiting world.  I can't help but wonder, however, whether the real miracles were the floating of an axehead and the multiplication of loaves/fishes, or the generosity of those whose own resources were modest...bold, courageous giving in the face of lack and hunger.

So, tonight as I harvest the spiritual lessons from my 800 mile in 24 hours trip to Tulsa, I am thinking about how I can more generously "shower the people I love (and as a global citizen, this is a BIG group) with love and show them the way that I care" while still honoring our family's commitment to modesty, simplicity, and moderation. 

My adventure to Tulsa, yesterday, felt like a Soul-carved out space (out of my very full family/professional/community life schedule) of fourteen hours for silence, reflection, prayer, and fasting along old Route 66.  It was only fitting that my journey would take me past once-vibrant neon signs and sparkling diners, in honor of Ron and Emily's devotion to a simple man's road where family road trips, honest work-ethics, and a sense of community united small towns and cities along a thread of modest lives and generous hearts.

Enjoy this video performance of JT's "Shower the People" and although it is much like his performance last night, it will never, ever even come close to the experience of sitting next to my friend Emily in a small theatre in the dark hearing him singing it just to us...and about 500 of Ron and Emily's Tulsa neighbors and friends.

I pray you are blessed with showers of love today...you certainly have mine... 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

*Don't miss Emily's post about this same experience  for May 4, 2009 on her blog "Red Fork State of Mind"...priceless!!

"I know, David, I know..."

"Cold, Cold water
Surrounds me now
And all Ive got is your hand
Lord, can you hear me now?
Or, am I lost?..."
- Damien Rice

I wrote about this film and how it spoke to me about the impact of kindness, in a post titled, "Lord can you hear me know...or am I lost?" from last summer, and at the time this video clip from the film was not available...but now it is. In watching it today, and listening to Damien Rice's hauntingly beautiful song, I felt myself virtually collapsing into the arms of God, my Mother, Love.

That feeling of being completely lost seems so aggressive today.  I know it. I have expereinced it myself.  But the feeling of wandering aimlessly through your days just trying to survive without hope of really belonging anywhere...or to anyone...is not true -- for you, or for me, or for anyone.  As pervasive as this feeling may seem to be, each moment when we get up, and take the next step forward...even if it seems to only be with a blind trust that there must be something greater than ourselves drawing us out of darkness and loneliness...we are taking a step towards our divine Mother's arms.

I hope this clip makes you weep with relief.  I hope you take a moment to allow yourself to be known for who you are in Her arms.  To be recognized by a Mother who never lost sight of you.  Who will always open Her arms for you, gather you close and say, Yes, I know...I know...

with all my love and hope today,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"after all...you're still you..."

"...Time changes everything
One truth always stays the same
You're still you
After all
You're still you..."
Josh Groban
"You're Still You"

I was talking to a friend the other day about a butterfly's journey from caterpillar to winged beauty.  I shared with her that the caterpillar sheds her entire skin four times before she finally enters the chrysalis. Four complete surrenderings of all she knows of herself and still the real transformation hasn't even begun to happen.  I have been thinking about this...alot.  Each time she loses every inch of her outward being, the caterpillar must think, "Whew, this was BIG!!  I am brand new...I am in a completely new skin."  But what she doesn't realize is that this shedding of her entire outer later is nothing compared to what will happen once she enters the chrysalis of her own making....the real deal...the dissolution of her entire being into a soupy liquid from which will emerge a butterfly. 

No known frame of reference.  She doesn't just go from being a fuzzy caterpillar to a skinnier, sleeker caterpillar that sprouts beautiful diaphanous wings. She completely dissolves. 

I had shared with this friend, that, of late, I had become a bit obsessed with the spiritual implications of this necessary "soup" stage in the butterfly's metamorphosis.  I couldn't stop thinking: What was still present as the original?  What did that original being know or think during this time of "soup"?  Was it aware that there was nothing left of its old form...or was she oblivious of the changes in light of the sanctuary space she was occupying? Questions, questions, questions...thank goodness I am most at home in the spage of the question, eh!  Since that earlier conversation, my friend had also begun pondering these concepts and she said that Josh Groban's song "You're Still You" (click on the song title below the lyrics above to see the video) had come to mind as inspiration.   Wow! 

It was a perfectly wonderful answer for me, too. No matter what transformational shifts we seem to go through in our lives we are never less that who we are, always have been, and ever will be.  Our spiritual essence -- the radiant Soul "soup" of our identity as the reflection of the Great I AM, a child of God, the All-in-allness of God expressed as individual humanity...are the fundamental substance of our being that never changes. Wow...this stuff leaves me speechless with wonder and in awe of His majesty.

These are concepts I have been thinking about for a very long time...and I don't think I am anywhere near the end of mining the butterfly's metamorphosis for spiritual lessons.  But just the title of Groban's "You're Still You" brings me great peace, and causes an even deeper stirring within.  I wonder if it doesn't give us a glimpse into what is, perhaps, a deeper spiritual centering, an indwelling core of identity that is untouched by changes in form, surroundings, or self-referencing points that make us feel safe and securely hooked into a familiar reality.

The following is a poem I have been writing with my heart for some time, but finally put on paper (with some new insights) during a recent workshop I participated in with some extraordinary spiritual thinkers...it continues to morph and evolve as insights unfold.   I offer it with a profound love for the butterfly and her willingness to enter the chrysalis of faith and yield to the hand of her Maker...an Artist who paints diaphanous wings of beauty from soup...you've gotta love this God of ours!!

"You're still you...after all...You're still you"

Does it hurt...
     this becoming?

four times
she sheds a past she'd come to own
    
does she wonder
     "will it ever end?"

if she knew of the
dissolving that would follow...
the melting of the only
          "ego" she had ever known

would she plead
"take this cup"
and then surrender all to...
               "Thy will be done..."
         
do butterflies
     weep
when wings burst  from soup
       that was once
          tight skin she thought defined her

Does the call
     to fly
terrify one
     who, until the moment of her release
          had only crawled with
     all feet firmly planted on
          what...to her...was solid ground
         
hanging in
     the dark chrysalis
          does she realize
     that her
          becoming
     shakes leaves and branch and stem
    
the entire world of ants living on the edge
     busy with their scurried gathering

I asked her once
     she said,
          "I can't remember
               when I was not a butterfly..."

Mary Baker Eddy must have lived in the space of the butterfly, for her to uderstand the faith it takes to be able to yield to the dissolution of the ego...for the promise of wings...when she wrote:

"Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood."

The Truth of who we are is ever-present.  The butterfly must have such great faith in this promise of eternal self-awareness that she can surrender all outward evidence of her identity to the spiritual evidence of conscious being.  There is much to learn from her.  I sit at the butterfly's feet waiting for the next lesson...
Kate

Addendum:

A frequent reader and long-time follower of this blog reminded me that I had posted a butterfly poem three years ago...here is the link to it: "Chrysalis Surrender"... I had forgotten how long this fascination with butteryfly consciousness had been inhabiting my heart....I hope you find it helpful...with Love,
Kate

postscript:

two of my dear friends have posts on their blogs that are directly related to this discussion...Travis Thomas and Duncan Wilder...click on their names to go to these posts...with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...just around the river bend..."

"What I love most about rivers is
you can't step in the same river twice.
The water's always changing,
always flowing
But people I guess can't live like that
They all must pay a price
To be safe we lose our chance
of ever knowing

What's around the river bend
Waiting just around the river bend
I look once more just around the river bend
Beyond the shore where the gulls fly free
Don't know what for
What I dream the day might send
just around the river bend
For me, coming for me...."
-     Alan Menken
"Just Around the River Bend"
(click on the title above for a link to the video)

She was 6 years old and fully aware of her own "promise" as she stood there that bright, hot summer afternoon in 1994.  It was the end-of-season performance for her summer arts camp, and she was Pocahontas. Together we had created her costume out of chamois (soft, pliable natural leather sold for polishing cars) we bought in ragged pieces at the local auto supply store.  She and I had worked tirelessly cutting fringe and sewing on small, colorful glass beads.  Her long hair was braided, tied with thin strips of the same chamois, and woven with flowers.  She looked every bit the strong, self-assured Indian princess.

As she threw her arms out for those final words..."Just around the river bend..." my heart caught in my throat and the moment was captured forever in memory as a moment I didn't want to ever forget. 

This is still one of my favorite mental pictures of our strong, beautiful daughter who has just finished her matric exams in South Africa.  And yes, I do believe that the Dream-giver still waits for her...and for all of us.

Recently my husband accepted an assignment in another city - work that is "on purpose" with his sense of mission and honors our vision and values as a family.  As soon as we knew that this was the right thing for him, the organization he is working with, and our family, I wanted to know "What does this mean for us...down the road? What's next?"

My husband gave me a great gift.  He said, "you don't have to know that right now."  He went on to explain that today we know everything we need to know.  We knew that our youngest children are happy in their school.  We knew that his housing was being taken care of where he was going.  We knew that if there was a need he could be home on a flight in a matter of hours.  We knew that I love what I do, and that I love where I am privileged to be working.  We knew that our older children were happy and at peace in the cities they lived in, the friends they were surrounded by, the schools they attended, and the jobs they held.  We...I really didn't need to know anything more at that moment.  I was at peace.

As I look back at the ensuing months, I realize that -- for the most part -- I have held that peace.  There have been very few moments where I have felt panicky about "not knowing." But when people have asked me "what's next," I have been completely confident in saying, "we don't know anything more than that we are all in our right place, doing what we love, and happy...today."

I know that when we need to know more...we will.  I know that whether this "chapter" is brief, or whether it lasts for years, we are fine.  We love eachother.  We are doing work we love and having opportunities to bless that we would not have otherwise. 

For the most part, I am at peace "not knowing" what's around the river bend.  Perhaps I've learned something from that little Pocahontas of mine.  Perhaps she has taught me that I too have promise and that I can trust that the God who blessed me with promise, will bring it to pass.

Mary Baker Eddy says that,

"Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being
is found only in divine science." 

This is a statement worth resting my hopes, dreams...and yes, promise...on.  In this divine Science where God, good is All-in-all,  Love is the only law-giver, and I am secure and safe. In this kingdom, the province of the heart,  there is but one supreme, beneficent Sovereign who loves me, and mine, and all.  Anything that dwells there...dreams, hopes, vision..are under His divine control and I can trust His wise oversight to know where, when, and how to bring it all to pass. 

I can always feel the presence of the great Dream-giver assuring me of His presence, and I can trust...just trust...

Perhaps you, too, can feel it....  

"...I feel it there beyond those trees
Or right behind these waterfalls
Can I ignore that sound
of distant drumming?

Should I choose the smoothest course
steady as the beating drum...
...Is all my dreaming at an end?
Or do you still wait for me, Dream-giver,
just around the river bend...?

with Love...
River Song
Kate Robertson, CS

"But it's your kindness that I love best..."

"...I love your vision of the future
Your hope that never dies
But it's your kindness
That clears my skies..."
David Wilcox
"Kindness"
(click on the title just above to see a video of this song)

My sister Fawn sent me this little story recently:

"One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said: 'My son, the battle is between 'two wolves' inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

The grandson thought about it for a minute, and then asked his grandfather: 'Which wolf wins?'

The old Cherokee simply replied: 'The one you feed.'"

What I love about this story is the separation the grandfather makes between the individual...and the wolves.  It's not a new concept...how many times in old Tom & Jerry cartoons do we see the big tomcat with a horned demon on one shoulder, and an angel on the other, each trying to convince him of their point of view or position...torment little Jerry, or let him go?

I have been thinking about this today in light of a recent conversation with a friend about social responsibility. 

When I am presented with options...pay my taxes or not, support legislation that would ban same-sex marriage - or not, protest the freedom to bear arms - or not, give the man on the corner money for a sandwich - or not, go the speed limit at 4 AM on an empty stretch of highway - or not, get myself out the door to serve at a homeless shelter, or stay home in my jammies and read the NYTimes (hmmm...) ...I am trying to ask myself "what am I feeding" with my choices.   Will I be contributing to a climate of greed or generosity, fear or love, manipulative control or trust, cultural disparity or unity, humanity or insanity, compassion or disdain, equality or superiority, universal freedom or the enslavement of other for the profiting of the privileged, war or peace, service or indulgence, divisiveness or cooperation...in myself, or in the world?

In asking myself these questions, I keep coming back to the internal battle between the two "wolves" (or sheep and goats) that Jesus describes, and Matthew records, in the New Testament:

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.  And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.  And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat.  I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink.  I was a stranger, and ye took me in.  Naked, and ye clothed me.  I was sick, and ye visited me.  I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee?  Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?  When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in?   Or naked, and clothed thee?  Or when saw we thee sick?  Or in prison, and came unto thee?"

And the King shall answer and say unto them, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat.  I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink.  I was a stranger, and ye took me not in.  Naked, and ye clothed me not.  Sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not."

Then shall they also answer him, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?"

Then shall he answer them, saying, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

So I have to ask myself, "Who are "the least of these" that I must care for?  What would make me feel that I am responsible for the cares, woes, education, and shelter of MY daughters, but not the child and her battered mother - sleeping in a Detroit homeless shelter, or the man begging on the streets of Calcutta?"

What concepts about myself, and my relationship to the world around me, am I feeding?  One of universal and impartial goodness - abundant resources that we are entrusted with for the care and feeding of humanity, or one of privilege and partiality based on opportunity, race, education, religion, geography, cultural history?  What language do I think God's angels use to guide my actions -- generosity, abundance, charity, freedom, compassion, hope...or greed, fear, blindness, pride, resentment, arrogance?

I don't think these questions are about politics, nationalism, haves and/or have nots.  Politics and rhetoric would distract us from the real choices.  And it is not about choosing a party, a leader, a position, a side, or a dogma.  The real choice lies in which wolf...which voice...we are going to feed within ourselves.  And we must not judge one another.  Only the listener knows whether his (or her) speech and actions are the result of feeding one wolf, or the other, moment-by-moment.  And I don't know about you, but I have too much that I need to be alert to in my own heart, to try and police the thoughts, motives, or actions of another.  So,  I choose to trust that each of my brothers and sisters is feeding the wolf that they want to see grow stronger in themselves, and in the world.

"...I love your wisdom
Your knowledge of the past
Your willingness to listen
Your taste for what will last

I love your compassion for the suffering
And your solid happiness
But it's your kindness
That I love the best..."

Thank you David (and Fawn)...you have both reminded me, once again, of what is truly beautiful in this world...and I am grateful,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"What if God was one of us..."

"If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him in all his glory
what would you ask if you had just one question?

Yeah, Yeah, God is great
Yeah, Yeah, God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?_
Just a slave like one of us?_
Just a stranger on the bus_
Tryin' to make His way home..."
Joan Osbourne
"What if God was One of Us"
(click on the above song title as a link to the video)

I've been living in this "space of the question" for a long time now...the question. 

Some think that this questioning is prayer...I am one of them.  For me, it is the clearest, and most concrete, sign of God's presence in my life.  I do believe that it...this questioning... is the blessedness Jesus refers to in the beatitude "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness..."  I am in no hurry to rush into the space of "...and they shall be filled."

Today I am sitting here loving the questions within my heart...questions that prove I am seeking God's face in all things.  I am at peace with this me.   My questions all lead to one primary question...a question so primal there are no words adequate in describing it.

This video of Susan Boyle's performance contributed to the most lovely "aha" moment of further questioning. Note the change of perception in the judges and audience...heart-breakingly moving. I wonder what questions they are asking themselves, and their God, about their own hopes and dreams in those moments.

Mary Baker Eddy says that, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."  This understanding of Him is a constant question...rather than an answer...for me.   

Einstein said, "I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details."   And this wanting to know was an endless journey for him....and it is for me.

Last night as I sat in the stillness of a darkened room, it was the questions that brought me into serenity and provided a resting place for my hopes. 

Questions like, "How can I best serve you?" and "Is it possible for anyone to reach the summit of his/her potential?" made me realize that I care...about service and the hopes and dreams of others.  The first question is a constant for me...it is answered in a hundred different ways each day...the second was answered, in part, by the above video. 

Enjoy the questions in your own heart today, stay open to the endless ways that they are answered moment-by-moment, and celebrate the new questions they bless you with.

always with Love....and a questioning heart,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS


photo credit:  Sarah "Sunny" Winterroth [2009]

"I will send a prayer with you..."

Have no fear in your heart
Though you feel you've been broken and lost
There's a world where we will meet up again
There's a place that mends your hurt and takes you in
There are times faced alone
When you find all the holes in yourself
You don't have to walk the night on your own
I will send a prayer with you to lead you on
I will say a prayer for you when you have gone..."
- Bird York "Have No Fear*"

My mom was visiting this past weekend...glorious!!!  Saturday night, while the girls were at the first game of the newly formed St. Louis Athletica Women's professional soccer team, mom and I watched "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith..well, not actually with Will Smith, but starring Will Smith.

Mom thought it was very dark at first. I was perplexed and fascinated.  Neither of us could figure out where it was going for the longest time...just my kind of movie.  I loved it.  The story does seem dark on the surface.  Dark and extreme.  And for me, full of redemption, light, and hopefully, self-forgiveness.

And mom was right, the story was extreme in many ways.  Everything about this man's response to "his story" was over-the-top, beyond reason, off-the-charts.  But aren't many of the stories, or spiritual myths that we have passed down through the ages been extreme.  They are larger-than-life symbols of something we long to find and know in ourselves. 

Joseph Campbell, in his 1972 bestseller, Myths to Live By, suggests:

"...the first and most important effect of a living mythological symbol is to waken and give guidance to the energies of life.  It is an energy-releasing-and-directing sign, which not only "turns you on," but turns you on in a certain direction...making you function in a certain way...one which will be conducive to your participation in the life and purposes of a functioning social group."

In "Seven Pounds" Will Smith's character seeks redemption.  Seven lives have been tragically lost because of his carelessness.  His path towards redemption includes sacrificing...quite literally...his body, piece-by-piece through organ donation.

At first my mom was appalled by the premise.  And perhaps she never quite got past the drama of it all.  But for me it was just a larger-than-life myth.  It represents the hunger for forgiveness and, I think in more profound ways, an even deeper longing to bring one's view of oneself back into alignment with innocence, purity, and grace...to feel worthy of a relationship with our own divinity.

The funny thing is, the part of this story that was so untenable for my mom...the sacrifice of one's life, piece-by-piece, in order to afford others the opportunity to live fully realized and purpose-filled lives...is the very thing that she has done everyday of my life.

My mom has sacrificed her own dreams, career opportunities, fiscal security, relationships, and her right to "put down roots," to forward the hopes and dreams of each of her eight children...and a bakers' dozen of her grandchildren. 

As each of us has grown stronger, tested our wings, and then "preened them for a skyward flight," she has lived a prayer of surrender, encouragement, support, and celebration.  She has lived, in a less graphically illustrated way, the very myth she was shocked by. 

But then, I wonder, does this dovetail with what Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health,

"The artist is not in his painting." 

Could it be that when we are living lives of spiritual stewardship and service, we are so focused on "the painting" that we can't, and don't, see ourselves as artists...we are just so thrilled with the beauty of the work before us.

I liked "Seven Pounds"...it wasn't a film I would recommend for children...but I loved its mythic symbols of sacrifice, humanity, and redemption.  I loved that I could see it with my mom...the woman who most objectifies those mythic lessons in my life. 

It was so wonderful to have her here, to share her with my children and our friends, to see her laugh, and hear her even begin to consider her own hopes and dreams.  In doing so, I believe she rewrites the ending of this myth.  In her version, we all have the opportunity to live full and satisfying lives, love without reason or limit, and glorify God with the fruits of our sacrifices...through the lives of those we live to bless.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
- Joseph Campbell

thank you momma...you live love in mythic ways...

Kate
Kate Robertson, C.S.

[photo credit:  Lila June Jones  2009]

*please don't miss Bird York's beautiful video performance of the above song...click on the song title next to her name below the lyrics.

"On your wedding day..."

"For my wedding, I don't want violins
Or sentimental songs about thick and thin
I want a moment of silence and a moment of prayer
For the love we'll need to make it in the world out there

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day..."

Don Henley
"For My Wedding"

On Saturday, my dear friend Todd will marry.   Anyone who knows Todd, knows the face of love.  Anyone who knows Todd, knows what the "office of husband" looks like....what the office of husband lives, speaks, walks, and laughs like.  Todd was married for decades to his sweetheart, Debbie, the mother of their remarkable daughters, and his best friend.  When Todd was widowed three years ago, I never sensed any interruption to his husbandhood. He has been a gentle friend, a compassionate neighbor, a devoted father.   He has remained faithful, kind, tender, honest, pure, good, funny, loving...he listens with his heart.

To think that God has blessed Todd with another great love in his life is to know that "God is Love" and that He wants great good for each of us. 

Joseph Campbell once said,

"Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal,
and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship
in which two have become one." 

Knowing Todd, I am not surprised that he would embrace any opportunity he could to sacrifice his ego to a relationship where selflessness and generosity are the demands of each day. 

I wrote the following post three years ago when another loved friend married.  I went back to it today as I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving and celebration for my friend Todd and his bride.  It still rings true for me.  I send it out across the plains, the prairie, the desert...I send it out on the winds of love and friendship...I send it out to Todd and Pam...and their children.  May the Lord bless you and keep you.  Always,

Kate

"May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar
to turn the water into wine and to give to
human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual
and eternal existence may be discerned.
- Mary Baker Eddy

Someone I care for dearly is being married this weekend.  This has inspired me to revisit the above statement from the Chapter "Marriage" in Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and ponder its message, not only in reference to their marriage, but to all marriages...including my own.

At a time when reality television offers us a peek into the best and the worst of weddings through programming as sweet as TLC's A Wedding Story, to the most uncharitable kind of voyeurism through the lens of Lifetime's Bridezilla, this statement provides a spiritual grounding that brings me peace as I ponder this step for any couple.

Eddy's prayer (and I like to think of this statement as a prayer) asks that Christ be present at every bridal altar...from simple vows taken and given in a silent chapel to the elaborate drama of a hollywood gala with helicopters circling...from one performed in the dust of an African village to one officiated in a Scottish castle...from a first marriage with bride and groom having dated only eachother since middle school to the fourth marriage of an octogenarian who met her beloved while in a wheelchair aerobics class....each and every bridal altar deserves the benediction of Christ, Truth's presence turning the water into wine.  Turning that which refreshes hope and celebrates the good in all that has gone before, inspiring and givng each one deep and profound opportunities today for "growth in grace....patience, meekness, love and good deeds"...for being ripened and matured through love's great desire to live "with another" in communion and cooperation as husband and wife.  

This statement has caused me, this week, to think about what makes every bridal altar so deserving of this prayer....and my prayer has led me to one word....hope.   It takes remarkable hope to approach the bridal altar...hope that self can be subdued by love, hope that grace will reign in our hearts and  homes, hope that our lives will be an inspiration of hope to others who may feel gun-shy or weary....who may have given up dreams or are protecting tender hearts from possible hurt. 

So today I am celebrating hope with dear ones....the children who hope their parents have found another "one true love", parents who pray their daughters and sons will be cherished and supported in their dreams and desires, friends and families who hope their loved ones will be in love "forever and ever, amen" as Randy Travis sings.

One of my favorite lyricists, Don Henley, sings his prayer in the wedding song, "For my Wedding" that was written for his own marriage.  This song speaks to the hope that I pray we all bring to the altar...it has been my prayer each day since the first time I heard it on the radio a few years ago:

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day

For my wedding, I don't want violins
Or sentimental songs about thick and thin
I want a moment of silence and a moment of prayer
For the love we'll need to make it in the world out there

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day

I dream, and my dreams are all glory and light
That's what I've wanted for my life
And if it hasn't always been that way
Well, I can dream and I can pray
On my wedding day

So what makes us any different from all the others
Who have tried and failed before us
Maybe nothing, maybe nothing at all
But I pray we're the lucky ones; I pray we never fall

To want what we have
To take what we're given with grace
For these things I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day

Dearest ones, on your wedding day, when you are making a "sanctuary of your heart"  I pray you are blessed with many things...great love, profound kindness, deep faith, persistent patience, abiding tenderness...but most of all...hope...for this I pray...on your wedding day.

with all my love,

K

"Can you paint with all the colors of the Wind..."

"...You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind..."
Stephen Schwartz
"Colors of the Wind*"

Our twins had lived in the suburbs for most of their childhood.  Everyone in their neighborhood had gone to the same school, shared similar values, shopped at the same stores, and spoke the same language....and my children had known almost everyone they knew...as long as they could remember.

When we moved to a wonderful urban neighborhood near the largest university in our city a few years ago, they were uncomfortable with their surroundings. The children who lived on our street were fearless, outgoing, gregarious...and different.  They came from many different countries and faiths, spoke a dozen or more different languages, ate unusual foods, and weren't afraid of strangers. 

As much as we encouraged them to engage in neighborhood games, it took almost two years before they felt comfortable walking across the street and joining the other children who were taking turns on a wonderful rope swing that hung from an ancient sycamore tree in front of the University coop. As their parents, we longed to have them feel at home in a neighborhood we loved dearly.  We loved walking in the public gardens that quilted the large urban park near our home.  We felt blessed to be surrounded by museums, galleries, a world-class zoo, and libraries.  We hoped they would grow to enjoy it too.  And they did, but it took dissolving false perceptions about what it meant to be "different."

I remember the first breakthrough.  It happened one afternoon as we drove home from their private school in the suburbs that first fall after school was back in session.  As we turned on to our wide street canopied by enormous oak and sycamore trees, the girls commented on "those poor children" who were playing hopscotch, dodge ball, and foursquare...or sitting in small groups...on their asphalt play yard behind the large church/school surrounded by chain link fencing on the corner.

I drove slowly by the school and the girls bemoaned the plight of "those poor children."  Their well-equipped playground out "in the county" was filled with state-of-the-art equipment, landscaping, environmentally friendly wood chips, and even a new Gaga pit.  They couldn't understand how "those poor children" could stand it.

After we pulled into the parking space in front of our house, unloaded backpacks and lunch boxes from the car, and changed out of school clothes, I suggested to the girls that we take a walk to the coffeehouse on the corner for an after school treat.  They loved the coffeehouse on the corner where their big brother was a part-time barista and were happy to walk hand-in-hand with me past the school across the street, on the corner. 

As we approached that end of the block, skipping along cracked sidewalks, uneven from the growth of large tree roots that had lifted them like seismic plates long ago, a bell rang and children poured onto the playground from doors on two sides of the school building.   It was for me easy to slow down our pace.  My girls were fascinated by children who quickly divided themselves into teams for kickball,  and congregated in small groups to play foursquare or hopscotch in hand-chalked squares all over the pavement. 

I asked the girls to close their eyes and tell me what they heard.  They were still young enough to like this kind of game.  They said they heard, laughter, giggling, cheering, balls bouncing, girls whispering, boys yelling.  I asked them to open their eyes and tell me what they were seeing.  The identified happy preschoolers, fast boys, girls who danced around making up cheerleading routines, or threw markers for hopscotch. 

I asked them if they could point out one of "those poor children" they felt so sorry for only minutes earlier...disadvantaged children they had been sure "just couldn't be happy" without the same kind of well-equipped playground they enjoyed at their school "in the county".

They couldn't find one.  These were happy children, they were wearing clean, brightly-colored uniforms, they were with their friends, they were laughing, cheering, teasing, competing, being disciplined by teachers that obviously cared about their safety and happiness...they were just like them.  

This was a lovely opportunity for each of us to practice "spiritual translation."  What from a limited perspective appeared as a diminished sense of bounty...no swings, grass, or equipment, fewer teachers, "less" screaming from every direction,  to spiritual sense -- " the constant conscious capacity to understand God" (and that He is always present) -- there was an abundance of creativity, joy, innovation, community, generosity, patience, sharing.  We started to see that through the lens of spiritual sense the girls had more in common with these children...than what at first glance appeared different.

This was the first, of many breakthroughs.   We enjoyed two dozen months of happiness in our city home.  The girls grew to know their neighbors, to feel protective of the "wild-haired professor"  and his black kitty who greeted us each afternoon when we returned from school, to anticipate the return of grad students at the end of Spring Break, to wave to the little girls who visited their grandma each weekend, and to look forward to the first signs of spring and the ducks in the park.

The day we reluctantly filled the moving van and left our wonderfully diverse urban neighborhood, we had to call the girls away from where they were playing with a group of neighborhood children across the street...they had become part of the beautifully rich and diverse threads that made up our neighborhood.  A tapestry more lovely because of the many colors and textures found woven through its fabric. 

Last weekend we joined friends for a Spring Break visit to our beloved Forest Park in the old neighborhood.  The girls pointed out favorite gardens, trails we had walked hundreds of times when they were just a day-to-day part of our neighborhood, recognized saplings that had been planted after a devastating Spring storm...flowering trees that had grown "at least a foot", and wondered if the ducks in the pond were decedents of "our duck family"...the ones we fed and talked to on our family walks in the park after dinner on summer evenings.

We now live halfway between "the city" and "the county."  We are learning new things here too.  When we drive through our old city neighborhood the girls tell us how much they loved "our old house" and the neighborhood where "the sidewalks were crooked and there was a big rope swing where all our neighborhood friends played in front of the student coop across the street."  Yes, we smile too.  "Those poor children" had become their neighbors...and friends.

"You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know
And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains
We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind*..."

*WIND. That which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements of God's spiritual government, encompassing all things."  - Mary Baker Eddy

with Love and hope...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Look inside you and be strong..."

"There's a hero if you look inside your heart
You don't have to be afraid of what you are.
There's an answer if you reach into your soul
and the sorrow that you know will melt away

And then a hero comes along
with the strength to carry on
and you cast your fears aside
and you know you can survive.

So, when you feel like hope is gone
look inside you and be strong
and you'll finally see the truth
that a hero lies in you..."
- Mariah Carey
"A Hero Lies in You"

His given name, Rolihlahla, meant "troublemaker", but who would have guessed that this boy whose father died when young Rolihlahla was nine years old, would go on to become a hero, not only to his tribesmen, but to  millions of fellow Africans, world leaders, the poor, oppressed and imprisoned...and to one young mother 10,000 miles away...among countless others.

Rolihlahla, re-named Nelson as a child by his teacher, would later quote, in his Inaugural address this passage from Marianne Williamson's "A Return to Love":

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

This could be a long story about my journey to South Africa, finding my way through the labyrinth of apartheid-based sanctions, bureaucracy, and red-tape...while adopting our daughter...and finally emerging, having somehow fallen in love with a country gripped in sadness, civil war, and fear...but I will leave that for previous and future posts.

This is a tribute to a man who was once a boy called "troublemaker." A man whose dignity in the face of humiliation, courage in the midst of danger, and love in spite of hatred, changed the world we live in and gave us another hero to refer our children to when encouraging them to "play big".  I often wonder who inspired those have continued, through their humble persistent humanity, to inspire millions.

The following "backstory," by journalist Faye Bowers,  appeared in last week's Christian Science Monitor:

Running Into Mandela at the Monitor: On June 24, 1990, I emerged from the underground parking garage at the Christian Science Center in Boston to find three tall black men circling the reflecting pool. I stood completely still. As he saw me recognize him, Nelson Mandela broke into the most gracious smile and waved at me. He was on his first, historic trip to America. The day before, hundreds of thousands of people had turned out to see him on the Esplanade, along the Charles River, to celebrate his recent release from a South African prison. Now he said he wanted to see the place where that famous lady (Mary Baker Eddy) started her own religion as well as newspaper.

"Wait right here," I said, too loudly. "I'm going to get the editor of the Monitor. He needs to meet you." I sprinted to the newsroom and told Dick Cattani to come downstairs, come meet Mandela. He insisted on putting on a jacket. It was Sunday, and he was dressed casually. I pulled him by the arm as he slipped into his blue and white pinstriped seersucker jacket. He gave Mandela a tour of The Mother Church, as well as a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (by Eddy), which Mandela insisted he sign. He mentioned during the visit that the Monitor was the only international paper he had been allowed to read in prison, although major parts were redacted. He marveled that a woman not only started this paper but this religion, noting it could only happen in the US.
-     Faye Bowers

  I remember hearing this story related by Dick Cattani,  just after it happened.  I rejoiced in the role Mary Baker Eddy's vision for international journalism that "injures no man, but blesses all mankind" would play in the life of my hero.  I was moved that he would seek out her "homeland".

In actuality, it was her paper that led me to South Africa 21 years ago...it is her paper that continues to remind me that we are not alone in lighting our one candle and cursing the darkness.

In referring to Mandela's extraordinary courage, my friend Susan Dane writes in her compelling, "When All Systems Fail":

"A man is imprisoned in South Africa for the color of his skin and for his attempts to bring racial equality to his country.  His is seen as a threat by one side of the political debate, and as a liberator by the other side.  While the two sides come to blows, burning and killing each other in mutual hatred, the man dedicates twenty-seven years of his life to not being what everything in him and outside him are encouraging him to be.  He chooses instead to undertake the journey of unreasonable freedom.  He dedicates all his time and energy to getting rid of (in his own words) 'the poison of hatred in my own bloodstream.'

This is a big task since he lives with and within the narrow concrete walls that hatred itself has constructed for him.  Everywhere he turns he is reminded of the power of oppression, and the power of evil to triumph over good.

Did he make the hatred?  Did he deserve it?  Did his bad Karma destine him to a life of suffering, to spend what could have been a full and happy life hopelessly condemned instead?

This man was smart.  He chose to focus on different concerns:

He worked to see that he was not his circumstances, and he worked to not react to them.

He fought to not become entangled by questions like "why" and "why me?"

He fought instead to make sure that no matter what happened around him, it could not happen to him.

And he refused to buy into the propaganda that he could change,
if only something else or someone else would change first."

As we strive to live heroic lives in small ways, what can we learn from this man's decision about where he chose to align his focus.  How can we make choices that will inspire others to dream big and live lives of courage and grace.

Could being a hero in one's own life...and the lives of those we love...be as simple as the next choice?

Dane goes on to say:

"Here was a man who was not allowed to read a newspaper for sixteen years, who was not allowed to have a family member visit, and who did hard labor during that time. And yet in spite of this oppressive environment, he dedicated himself to being king in the one place where he could still be king, the one place no oppression could reach him...in the desires of his heart and the intention of his will.  And to do this he had to not be what everything in him and around him argued he must be - a victim...

The result was that this man could not be hurt.  Could not be bent.  Could not be pushed or broken.  Not in any real sense.  Because the Chooser in him was inviolable.  The Chooser in him, the king and kingdom of his self, was Truth [God or Spirit] having its way...His circumstances could not define him, because he had decided to define himself instead.  An entire oppressive government could not bend him to its will.  In fact, the oppressive government succumbed to him."

This is just one very powerful example of how our seemingly small, moment-by-moment choices can become the substance of heroism and nobility, and leadership.

"It's a long road when you face the world alone;
No one reaches out a hand for you to hold.
You can find love if you search within your self
and the emptiness you felt will disappear.

And then a hero comes along
with the strength to carry on
and you cast your fears aside
and you know you can survive.

So, when you feel like hope is gone
look inside you and be strong
and you'll finally see the truth
that a hero lies in you
that a hero lies in ... you
that a hero lies in.....you."

It all starts with small choices...or as Mother Teresa would one day say:

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

There is greatness in each small thing...each small choice...made with great love.  What choices will you make today...and in doing so, what will you discover about your own potential for greatness?   A hero lies in each of us...a hero lies in...you.

With Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Oh, I've been travelin' down this road too long..."

"...That part of me left yesterday
the heart of me is strong today
No regrets im blessed to say
the old me dead and gone away.

Ohhh, I've been travelin' on this road too long
Just trying to find my way back home
The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..."

If you are familiar with this song and have issues with certain words used in the rap portion of this song, I apologize in advance.  But this song, quite literally, insinuated itself on the landscape of my heart today and begged to have its sobering, and yet encouraging message of reformation and redemption pondered more deeply. 

I am including the link to Justin Timerlake and T.I.'s Youtube video of "Dead and Gone" for your thoughtful consideration.   It's provocative backstory is the context by which some of its questionable language begins to make sense.  It sets a scene...one in which the miracle of hope rises from cracked asphalt like a Phoenix leaving behind the ashes of hatred and discouragement. 

Walking by an urban convenience store/gas station this morning, waiting in line behind a young man...ipod blaring loudly enough for me to hear the music from his earbuds, and then again overhearing it drifting from a young couple's radio in the park...I couldn't help but smile each time the chorus resurfaced through the briskly delivered rap narrative.

I didn't need to know the rest of the song...this line, "The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..." brought quick tears to my eyes.  Is it really possible to find that kind of freedom from the past?  Or more importantly, is it possible to walk away from a past view of ourselves, and the roles we think we have been handed in life?  You know the ones, those graphic character descriptions in the front of a tattered, dog-eared old "ego" script we've been carrying around with us for way too long, handing it out to everyone we meet and asking them to read lines with us.  Can we really drop the script and confidently tell that slimy "director" we aren't interested in being cast in that ridiculous role..."thanks, but no thanks, for that script to nowhere!"

There was a time when I may have only had the courage to whisper "yes" to others...patients, friends, loved ones. But today I say "yes" resoundingly, I laugh "yes", I sing "yes" at the top of my lungs while I dance my "yes" in the streets, with tears of joy streaming down my cheeks and a smile as wide as the Mississippi spread across my face.

It is never too late to find real freedom from a false view of ourselves, and the way that this false "ego" acts out its hideous, gargoyle-like part.  This false ego has never assimilated itself into the fabric of our real being.  It has never become one with the man, woman, or child "us" God knows, loves, preserves, and defends as our one and only true "I am," the consciousness of His presence in, and as, our only Life...our only Reality.  

There is a way.  There is a way of being in this world that is free of all the old stories we tell ourselves about victimization, broken dreams, self-promotion, and crippled potential.  We are NOT those stories...no matter how long we have been repeating them to ourselves as our truth...or our parents' truth or some badge of courage based on overcoming a "real" enemy...those perpetrators called mistakes, chance, misfortunate, or heredity.

There is a path towards lasting freedom, waymarks along the way, as well as wise and loving guides to help you stay the couse.  More on this in the future.  But for now, I think I'm going to go have a cup of tea, a piece of dark chocolate, and sit in the sunshine celebrating "new views of divine goodness and love"*...it's a pretty great day to be alive to my child self...no ego, no past, no ambition...just happy to be sharing the planet with each of you...

"...I turn my head to the east
I dont see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the west
still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the north,
swallow that pill that they call pride
The old me is dead and gone,
the new me will be alright

Ohhh, I've been travelin' on this road to long
Just trying to find my way back home
The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone..."

I am so grateful...for "all things new"...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

*Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love." - Mary Baker Eddy

[Photo credit:  Meghan Laningham]

"God must have spent a little more time..."

"Your love is like a river
Peaceful and deep
Your soul is like a secret
That I never could keep
When I look into your eyes
I know that it's true
God must have spent...
A little more time
On you..."

I've always liked this song, "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You," from n Sync.  It reminds me of taking Hannah to dance competitions and rehearsals all over Colorado, but it also reminds me of the way that I felt about myself when I looked in the mirror this morning.  I have been spending all of my time patiently letting God bathe me in His love...His enduring view of me...and it's made such a difference in the way I see myself and others.

Over twenty years ago I was facing a life-threatening...and very painful...illness, a disappointed adoption, the collapse of my marriage, and the loss of my career.  Not a good day at the office...so they say. 

In the midst of all this I called someone who had been my spiritual mentor and teacher and I will never forget something he said to me, "There will come a day when you will miss this time, and long for this experience."  I couldn't believe he was saying this to me.  I was in pain, my heart was broken and I felt like I had no purpose or reason to live, and he thought I would miss feeling this way???

But I did.  Long after the pain had dissolved, the marriage was on stronger footing, I had returned to work, and we'd adopted our daughter, I remembered his words and had to admit that I did miss the urgency I'd felt every moment when I woke longing for God's tangible presence in my life and in my heart.  I missed the days when every minute was spent on my knees in prayer, at Christ's table hungering and thirsting for the inspired Word, and watching each thought with the alertness of a sentry.

There was a sadness that I had not trusted his counsel.  I was too worried that the pain would never end, that I would be left forever alone and homeless, and that I would never know motherhood...to savor those days of hungry prayer.

There have been other opportunities over the years, but in the moment I would usually forget his counsel...again...to fully "love the journey."  I would have moments where I could see the beauty of holiness, enjoy the landscape, and rest upon the lessons I was learning, but for the most part, I wanted whatever challenge I was facing to be over as soon as possible. 

But not this time.  When I suffered a disabling injury four weeks ago, as I described  in "...and He walks with me..." from February 26, 2009 (or you can scroll down 4 posts to read), I realized that I had been given a gift.  In those moments, in bed with the Bible Lesson and the story of Joseph, I saw that this was not a challenge to be overcome...no matter how aggressively the pain screamed...but an opportunity to savor a journey.  I can honestly say that I have not been anxious since that moment when "And the Lord was with Joseph..." reminded me that I was not a broken mortal in bed writhing in pain, but the child of God blessed with space to cherish time with her divine Parent.  From that first moment of happiness, in just being "with Him," I have felt completely at peace.

Whether in bed, on crutches, hobbling to the kitchen or crawling up the stairs to wake the girls for school, I have been happy and patient...grateful for each quieter, slower moment to savor my relationship with Him.

So, this is my moment of grace.  I have loved every second of this journey with Him.  My friend was right.  And I am so grateful for the opportunity to remember his wisdom and to be aware of the gift when it came again.

I think this may be what Mary Baker Eddy was referring to when she said, "The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: "Come hither!" We are all called into closer union with Him...given opportunities for quiet time alone with Love...for nestling more deeply into Her arms. It is only our suffering SENSE of things that would identify those experiences as wrathful and afflictive. Or, at least, this is what I believe I am glimpsing...and experiencing...with more clarity of late. But isn't this what is "oh, so lovely" about spirituality...it is so uniquely experiential...so completely individual.

My experience has been sweet...for me. The crutches are almost ready to be returned to the nursing facility.  I will soon be more fully engaged in the day-to-day logistics of work and family, and I will enjoy the freedom of renewed flexibility and strength.  But this time I will not be left with a feeling of regret for my impatience and anxiety.  I have felt none.  I have been happy.  I have cherished every single moment of this journey.  I have savored every drop of the Word, treasured every moment alone with Him, and am now ready to go forward refreshed and happy...still happy.

Thank you Father, for spending so much time with me...I am grateful...and happy to be your loved daughter, When I look in the mirror, I know that it's true...I have spent a little more time with You.

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Fifty ways....or just one: "Get thee behind me..."

"The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover

She said it's really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued
But Ill repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover

Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free..."
- Paul Simon

Okay, so this is a bit of a stretch, but "50 Ways to Leave your Lover" (I found myself replacing the word "lover" with "tempter") really was the first thing that came to thought when I read this email from a dearly loved friend (shared with permission, in hopes that, "if it helps even one person from feeling that way then it is totally worth it")  :

Kate,
My spouse has some prescription pills. Sometimes I open the container and think about taking them. I checked on the internet and the amount that is there is enough to apparently be lethal. There is one part of me that thinks I should take them and it promises me peace and happiness. Meanwhile there is another part that argues that I should not because ---- As I thought about it again today my students' faces flashed through my head. I can only imagine how they would feel, it would be awful. The unknown of what is beyond this place scares me, but staying here is also a bit overwhelming at times. I am only telling you all of this because I just don't think I should be contemplating death, my death. I just feel so unsatisfied.  Sometimes
I just want to wander away into the wilderness and never come back.

My friend's hope that in sharing her email, through this post, it "helps even one person from feeling that way" is what has encouraged me to...just this once...share someone else's cry for fellowship in Christ.

That said, this email reminded me of my own struggle with depression some years ago and those hideous, relentless suggestions that suicide could be the answer to all of my problems.   I remember feeling battered from within by a voice that sounded like my own (in my head) and used words to poke and prod, kick and hammer at my peace. 
 
My own freedom came with a persistent effort to follow Jesus' leadings in dealing with these kinds of thoughts.  But I am getting ahead of his story...and mine.

I was feeling so sad and helpless.  How could I be living on my knees in constant prayer...for myself, my family, friends, our community, the world... and still be facing the demons of hopelessness and self-destruction.

But somehow each morning I woke with hope that "today would be different...perhaps today my prayers would help me find my way out of the darkness.  One afternoon, while studying scripture, I found myself walking with Jesus toward John the Baptist by the river Jordan.  He is just about to experience the greatest moment in a young spiritual thinker's life...right?  John baptizes him, he comes up out of the water, the Spirit descends on him like a dove and a voice comes out of heaven saying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

Does it get any better than this for a young man starting out on a healing ministry? 

Since this is where I'd always assumed this particular story ends, with the end of the third chapter of Matthew, I had never really connected it to the very next sentence.  But this time I was in the process of reading the Bible like a book so I just kept reading, and that next sentence stopped me in my tracks.  "Then was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil...."  "Then", a word that means "following, right after, the very next thing".  Wow!

Now, I've written about this story before in the post, "Jesus the Carpenter", but not from this perspective of how it helped me find freedom and dominion.  You see, I had always thought that my struggle with depression and self-destructive behavior was an indication of my failure as a spiritual thinker.  But for the first time, while reading this story in the Bible,  I realized that it was "the Spirit", God, who led Jesus into the wilderness right on the heels of his anointing.  His wrestling with the temptations in the wilderness did not point towards his failure, but was the opportunity for him to exercise his newly realized authority as God's beloved son...a prince...a sovereign.

And in his forty day evolution as a spiritual commander-in-chief, the Prince of Peace, Governor, Counselor, he begins by reasoning with the voices...arguing his case, invoking divine law. Until finally he sees that the only reasonable response, in light of his divine commission is, "Get thee behind me, Satan."  The voice was body-less, it had no way to carry out its own plan.  It had no hands...it couldn't push Jesus off the pinnacle, it couldn't pull him off, it couldn't shake the pinnacle and send him flying off into the void.  All it could do was try to convince him to throw himself off.  

Now I don't know anyone who has ever read this story and thought that there was another "entity" out there in the desert with him.  The temptations...the suggestions...were from within.  Jesus' first step towards dominion was to see that the demon voice suggesting he destroy himself was not his own thinking.  Once he does this, he can speak to the voice with the dominion that came along with knowing that he was God's son...his beloved son.

At this point he no longer entertains the voice.  He no longer worries that this disembodied voice could in anyway speak with authority, or prove a threat to his life, identity, or mission, and he speaks to it with confidence and courage..."get thee behind me, Satan"

This story was the beginning of my dominion too.  I stopped thinking I was a failure because these suggestions/temptations were insinuating themselves as my thinking.  I started feeling the trust of my Father.  He was sending me into the wilderness...not as a punishment...but because He knew that I loved exercising my right to invoke His divine law of Love..to speak with authority. 

Today, it doesn't matter to me whether the voice once came as a screaming demon in my own thinking trying to convince me that I was a failure, in pain, confused, or sinful...or if the voice seems to pour out in the tears of a friend calling on the phone (or writing an email) asking for support in facing their own demons.  Just the mere fact that we have enough hope to pick up the phone and call for help, or reach out to a friend in an email is an indication that God is with us. That we sense that there is a different path towards freedom. And because of Jesus' example, I know that as God's beloved children, we are all endowed with the right to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan"...or insist:

"...Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free..."

Whatever you decide to say, remember you are His child.  You speak with the authority of a prince or a princess.  And, as it says in Proverbs:

"The King's daughter is all glorious within..."

This is all that lives and speaks within me, within my friend, within all of us...glorious things...only glorious things...with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"And I still love you..."

"Well the sun is surely sinking down
But the moon is slowly rising
So this old world must still be spinning round
And I still love you

So close your eyes
You can close your eyes, its all right
I dont know no love songs
And I cant sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song
When Im gone

It wont be long before another day
We gonna have a good time
And no one's gonna take this time away
You can stay as long as you like..."

If you are thinking that these lyrics seem familiar, you are right. I wrote Tuesday's post with this song as the keynote, but felt compelled to revisit it today. Deep beneath the surface of my experience with this song as a James Taylor/Carly Simon fan and folk song/lullaby-singing mother, lies a time when this song became my own anthem of comfort and surrender.

It wasn't an easy time, but it was probably one of the most profoundly spiritual periods of my life...and one I rarely talk, or write, about.

It was a long season of confusion, hope, fear, prayer, and anguish. I lived each day in a space of ceaseless prayer, seeking wisdom and guidance for just one more step forward...without falling.  The angel messages from God were clear, but terrifying.  I was being asked to take steps I couldn't even imagine without breaking into a cold sweat.  Hope kept me on my knees praying for "another answer" until my knees were sore and bruised.  My only relief from the relentless "oh, please not this" moments came in the middle of the night when my family was asleep. In the dark hours between midnight and dawn, I could steal away for long self-numbing, exhausting runs, and work with a hospice organization in our city.  This agency coordinated volunteer relief for families with children and teens who were facing terminal illnesses and under palliative...or "end-of-life"...care and services.  Volunteers were assigned to patients who were in hospitals, hospice centers, or were receiving palliative care in their own homes.

Attending to the basic needs -- hand holding, placing a cool cloth on a fevered brow, reading, singing, talking, listening, cherishing -- of patients so that parents and family members could rest...or even just feel like they could leave the room for a moment...was a release for me.  For a few brief hours between midnight and dawn, I was free from the terror of my own journey through the valley, the wilderness, the desert of human hopes.  It was not that the work was physically demanding, but that it required complete and utter focus, and I welcomed it.  Focusing on the needs of others, was like a deeply needed rest from myself.  It was a divine gift allowing me to be free of retracing my past and agonizing over my future.

There was something so liberating about being able to be present in the moment and just...well, be.  I was not there as a healthcare professional, I was not there as a Christian Science practitioner, pastoral counselor, or hospital chaplain .  I was serving as a non-denominational lay volunteer.  My only role was to support patients and their families.  It was as much about...as I would eventually learn... beginning the healing of my own grief.

This didn't mean that I wasn't praying, I was. I was always listening for God's life-affirming message concerning what was true about His child, listening for direction about how I could be of help, and listening for His constant reminders that He was present...right there in rooms where things often seemed terribly bleak and void of hope.   There were times when all I could do was silently bear witness to the evidence of His presence.  The face of God in the kindness of a nurse, the tenderness of a mother, the strength and courage of a child facing a journey that no one could provide a map for. But I was not there to give Christian Science treatment. I was not there to give advice or my opinion. I was there to simply give of my heart, my time, my silent certainty of God's presence. And I could give the gift of songs, songs I'd sing just because I loved them and I knew they brought comfort, joy, inspiration, and peace...to me, if nothing else.

"You Can Close Your Eyes" was just one of the songs that I sang to myself, and for those patients and their loved ones...devoted family members sleeping in hard plastic chairs, on floors, or in the bed next to a comatose child...night after night. 

I would start with the lullabies I had sung to my daughters earlier in the evening and then move on to hymns, folksongs, songs I had taught children in school,  love songs, gospels...and always to this song of comfort and love.

One night, it was a young man and his sleeping mother (click on this link to read a poem, "Hospice - You are Not Alone" I wrote at the time, and posted a few years ago on this blog) that I poured my songs out for. And this song was a gift...a promise of rest and peace.  I thought I was singing it for that mother and her son...as well as those who were asleep in hospital beds throughout the city...but after about the tenth time through I realized that I was singing it to myself as well. 

We could all close our eyes.  We could rest, not from the dripping of medication, the pain of loss, the sorrow of grief...but on the arm of our Father-Mother God.  We could rest in His presence, we could rest upon Her wise and generous preparation of our hearts and lives for the journey each one of us was facing.  And we could rest under Her wings of comfort and protection from the gathering storm of emotions that seemed to toss us to and fro, the glaring heat of self-doubt and regret that came in waves of "could I have done more?" and "what if I'd only..."

I have long loved this song as a child's lullaby, a prelude to sweet slumber.  But as I re-read Tuesday's post, I realized that I couldn't let Tuesday's message stand as the only testament to this song's spiritual impact on my life.  During those nights, this beautiful song was also a sweet, strong, tender companion to me, and a blessing offered to those I sang it for. I was singing for those who slept in darkened rooms where monitors beeped, nurses tiptoed in, mother's wept silent tears of heartache and surrender...and yes, I sang to myself, where in this sacred space and time I was learning the value of just being present, aware, gentle, and humane. I was learning that sometimes it is enough to simply sing a song and rest with another in, on, upon, and under a divine Parent's loving care. An ever-wakeful Parent who is always whispering, "and I still love you..."

"...So close your eyes
You can close your eyes, its all right
I dont know no love songs
And I cant sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song
When I'm gone..."

I will never forget those families who taught me so much...i still love you...
Kate

"You can close your eyes...it's alright..."

"...Well, the sun is surely sinking down
And the moon is slowly rising
So, this old world must
still be spinnin' 'round
And I still love you..."
-James Taylor
"Close Your Eyes (video - JT and Carly Simon)

I was looking through my journal from last summer and found this entry:

"These have been long nights...they usually are at camp...but tonight, long after the last camper has found her way back to her bunkhouse and the only sounds outside are the little brook just beyond my window and the occasional howl of a lone coyote, I am sitting under the quilts on my bed - knees drawn to my chest - singing lullabies to a daughter half a world away.

Where she is, the sun...though shuttered by low hanging clouds...has been up for hours, and the breakfast dishes are long-since cleared from the table.  She has showered, dressed and is wrapped in a sweater to mitigate the damp chill of a winter's day in southern Africa.

If you were to look inside my heart though, you would see her sleeping in her bunk 500 yards away from me in South Pines East...the older girls' cabin...where, in the soft recesses of my dreaming, she and her bestfriend,  Casey, have dozed off in mid-sentence under a cloudless midnight blue Colorado nightsky.  I think of her there, because I must.  It is my way of remembering that there is no space between hearts.  It is my way of reminding myself that what we hold in consciousness is nearer to us than the air that we breathe deeply...closer than the warm summer breeze that brushes against my cheek, lifts my hair, and dries my tears.

When I close my eyes, all evidence that she is not with me completely disappears.  When I sing to her the lullabies of her childhood, here under a midsummer canopy of stars (while all other evidence screams that that she is really walking along the Indian Ocean 12,000 miles away) I am not alone in my cabin missing her. I am actually, in consciousness, holding her in my arms and can feel the rise and fall of her breathing against my chest...hear the soft mewing of her sleepy sighs as she dreams. 

These are not just a mother's memories cultivated by repeatedly watching videos of her sleeping, or shuffling through photographs of her as a toddler at play.  These images are what REALLY make up the body of my being...they are as much a part of my spiritual DNA, my mental molecular-mapping...as is joy or peace...patience or faith.  They are gifts from a Father-Mother God who loves our loving.   They are treasures preserved  accurately, and are alive in the realm of infinite Mind. They exist for His, God's, own rich pleasure.   I am but the abiding place...the photo album, the mental page on which God is storing these beautiful images of tenderness, serenity, and gratitude.

As I softly stroke her pale temples and smooth flaxen curls with fingers that stay folded in my lap 12,000 miles from where she is eating, studying, playing...fingers that do not need to touch to feel the silky threads of hair that curl around her small shell-shaped ears...I know what it means to be spiritual.  To live, and move, and have my being in the realm of consciousness, the kingdom of heavenly gifts where His beautiful images are given with generosity and mercy.

"So close your eyes, you can close your eyes...it's alright..." my Mother Love is telling me...Her own daughter.  "I will keep you both safely tucked in Mind's locket...your faces will not fade for one another, your voices will sing...like the wind in the aspens outside your cabin door...through eachother's hearts.

Yes, you can close your eyes, it's alright.  She will be here...in My safe arms and in your open, waiting heart... always.  She lives here...just as you live in her heart wherever she is."  

"A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her child,
because the mother-love includes purity and constancy,
both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal affection
lives on under whatever difficulties."
- Mary Baker Eddy

I trust this truth.  I rest the heaviness in my heart on its promise.  I try to find my way towards that space where we both dwell...in His kingdom...in Her arms.  And from the sanctuary of this "space" I sing to her the lullabies of her childhood under the canopy of a shared sky....in the kingdom of a shared God.

"So, close your eyes
You can close your eyes, it's alright
I don't know no love songs
And I can't sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song
When I'm gone..."*

I love you my girl...
Kate

*if you didn't catch the link to the video of James Taylor and Carly Simon singing "You can Close Your Eyes" above, here it is again.

"And He walks with me..."

"...He speaks and the sound of his voice
is so sweet the birds hush their singing_
And the melody that he gave to me
within my heart is ringing...
_
And he walks with me,
and He talks with me,
And He tells me that I am His own
And the joy we share
as we tarry there
None other has ever known..."
-     Traditional gospel

A friend reminded me of this much loved gospel song today and I haven't been able to let it go.  My favorite version of this song was recorded by Christian lay-pastor, missionary, and pianist, John Wells.  The depth of love he felt for his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, poured through the microphone and onto tape one rainy November day over 25 years ago. I felt as if I were in the presence a disciple as I sat on the stairs listening to him singing from behind the large glass window that separated the control room and the recording studio.

Since I don't have a post-able version of John's recording, here is a link to Alan Jackson's performance of "In the Garden." It come's as close as anything I've seen in communicating domething of John's quiet passion for these verses.

I've had a number of "in the garden" moments with Christ recently.  The latest was so moving I thought I'd share it. 

One evening I severely injured my ankle in a fall and instead of the pain and swelling subsiding after a long night of prayer, by dawn I found myself unable to even shift the position of my leg in bed without coming close to passing out. 

My husband was working in a distant city, I had school age children to care for, and a puppy who needed to be taken out on leash a number of times each day.  I was terrified by how alone and helpless I felt. Our children were cooperative, but neither was old enough to drive themselves to school, and to be honest,  I wasn't sure how I would cope with the searing pain one more second. 

I called a dear friend who, without question, came and picked up our puppy to care for at her home.  She also offered to get the girls to school and I accepted.  Once the girls were off to school, and I knew the pup was being cared for, I collapsed.  I had contacted another friend to pray with me, but I was not feeling any genuine peace of mind myself.  I was so tired and sleep had eluded me through a long night of crawling to the bathroom on my hands and knees, and up the stairs to wake the girls for school in the morning.

I felt as if I had been praying continuously, but the screaming voice of "what if" had me terrified.  I couldn't stop wondering how I would care for my children.  The friend who I knew was praying with me stopped by later that morning and I felt safe enough to let down my false pride and fall apart. Her kindness helped immensely, but after she left I was back to square one.  I was frightened, in pain, and alone. 

I opened the Full-text Edition of the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson lying next to me in bed. I was prepared to guzzle "living waters"...inspirational statements and stories, from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures...like a thirsty man crossing a parched desert.  The first statement my eyes fell upon were right at the top of the page:

"And the Lord was with Joseph..."

Something about those words poured over, and through, me like warm honey.  I realized in that very moment that this statement was true for me too...right then and there.  "And the Lord was with Kate..."  This was all that mattered.  It didn't matter how long I was in that bed, or that I was tense with pain and fear..."The Lord was with me..."

Suddenly I was happy.  Really, genuinely, truly happy.  Happy in a way that I don't think I have ever felt before.  A happiness unlike any I'd ever known. 

Knowing that "..the Lord was with..." me, my children, my family, my husband, my friends, my neighbors, all the "little children of the world, little boys and little girls..." made me happy.  It filled me up, it radiated from a core of light deep inside of me, it permeated every molecule of my being.  It was enough. I didn't need anyone to pray for me...I really didn't even need to pray for myself.  I knew the truth that I had God right there with me in a very visceral way.  I  could feel it.  It was so clear to me.  All that was left to do or think was, "Thank you Lord..."

I was no longer afraid...at all.  I was at peace with where God had placed me that day.  I was happy in bed, because obviously that was where God wanted me to be.  If it wasn't where He wanted me, I knew...without a shadow of a doubt...that I would be somewhere else.

It sounds so simplistic, but well, it was.  That happiness was bigger than the pain.  It was more overwhelming than the fear.  It was greater than all the "what if"s that tried to scream their way into my being...to penetrate my peace...but just couldn't get past the radiating light and happiness that seemed to, quite literally, eradicate the darkness when it even tried to approach.

Did the pain stop right away and was I walking later that day?  No.  But I stopped caring about "when" or "how".  I had crutches. I could get to the bathroom and, more importantly, I had "the Lord with me." I had wonderful friends who would love my children, puppy...and me.  I had a husband who would keep me laughing at myself, and who loved me just the way I was. I was fine.  Better than fine.  "The Lord was with me...Kate." I started loving this very sweet and intimate journey with Him. I was happy.  I still am.

so grateful...
Kate

"We are family...."

"...All of the people around us to say
Can we be that close
Just let me state for the record
We're giving love in a family dose,

We are family
I got all my sisters with me
We are family
Get up everybody and sing..."
- Sister Sledge

We were in Colorado for my mom's birthday.  Each of us had traveled from our homes...whether from near-by, or far-flung...to surround her with our love, and to sing her praises.  To her!!

Once we had all arrived, mom's shocked surprise had abated...somewhat, and we were standing around the counter in my sister Lila's kitchen, mom let out a big sigh and said, "You know, If you wait long enough you get a perfect family!"

We all burst out laughing at the same time.  There we were, six of her eight children...with our spouses and our children. We were a motley crew patched together from the scrappiness of well-lived and well-loved lives full of passion and pathos. We were single parents, blended families...in love, adopted, reconciled, and redeemed. We were a messy lot, but we were there...and we were hers.  We looked around at one another, shook our heads in awe, and then continued to smile at the beauty of that statement.  "If you wait long enough you get a perfect family!" 

But she was right.  We had waited on eachother in hard times, and waited with eachother through long nights...we had waited...and would continue to wait...generation after generation...for the best...the perfect...in one another. The word "perfect" is not just an adjective describing a noun.  It is also a verb.  To perfect means "to better, to improve."  It is an active, "doing word" as my second-graders used to call verbs.

We were good at waiting for one another to become better, to improve without giving up on eachother. 

Our mother is a genius at this verb.  She never stops expecting the best...the most...from each of her children and grandchildren -- our careers, our relationships, our Christianity.  She waits on us...she serves us every day by seeing the best in us and speaking to that better self on every phone call she has with one of us, writing to it in every letter or email we receive from her. 

Like she says, "If you wait long (and faithfully) enough you will get a perfect family." 

We are her proof. 

As I looked around the kitchen that night I couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, smile or just stand there in jaw-dropping awe of how wonderful we were.  We were standing there as a family.  We loved eachother.  We had forgiven one another many things over the years.  We had supported and defended eachother. We'd stood by one another, and been his/her "safe place to fall".

We weren't just celebrating mom's life, we were celebrating the constancy of her love, the love she has taught us to live our lives by.

Isn't this what family is all about?  I've heard home and family described as "the place where when you return, they will always take you in," but I think it's also the place where God places -- or sends -- us so that we can humbly wait on - serve -- one another long enough and persistently enough to discover our perfect selves and the perfection of those around us....through the gift of family.

Mary Baker Eddy offers this encouragement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear
from the nature of its inexhaustible source."

Since God has already made all and called it "very good", could it be that all that is, ever has been, or ever will be, exists throughout time and eternity.  So perhaps this creation is really only the gentle moment-by-moment unfolding to consciousness...and in experience... of the perfection of all things.   The appearing of children (and grandchildren), family strife faced and healed, relationships evolving and adjusting...these are all part of the perfecting of ur concept of family.  As mom said, "If you wait long enough you will get a perfect family.

"If on our daily course, our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see;
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Shall dawn on every cross and care.

New mercies, each returning day,
Around us hover while we pray;
Old fears are past, old sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God reveal our heaven."
Robert Hudson
The Christian Science Hymnal

Thanks mom...we love you so much for all you have taught us about love, persistence, and grace. 
Kate

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy..."

<

"...Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

Out on the ocean sailing away,
I can hardly wait,
To see you come of age,
But I guess we'll both,
Just have to be patient,
Yes it's a long way to go,
But in the meantime,

Before you cross the street,
Take my hand,
Life is just what happens to you,
While your busy making other plans,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,
Darling,
Darling,
Darling Shawn..."
- John Lennon

He is my baby brother and I love him...we all do. As John Lennons sings in this video about his own son, Shawn is our "Beautiful Boy."

  Shawn, and his wife Amy, have just sold their cars, put their possessions in storage, popped everything else in four duffel bags, and flown to St. Martins where they will join a family they will serve...as Captain and a crew of one (God bless you Amy)...for the next year sailing on a high seas voyage around-the-world. 

Shawn has always been a sailor.  Amy is learning to love his world. Together they will chart new courses, explore new landscapes, and plumb new depths of inner courage, strength, patience, and grace.  We love them. 

Did I say we love our little brother? 

Last weekend five of my seven siblings and I gathered in Colorado for our mom's 75th birthday.  Shawn and Amy flew in from Maine.  We were there for mom, but it was never far from thought that within two weeks our little brother, and his wife, would sail away from the safety of our reach and off beyond the horizon.

As I said, I have seven brothers and sisters...I have learned more about myself, and life in general,  from them than from any other seven people in the world...besides my mother and children.  Each one is a gift.  I can't imagine my life without any one of them. 

But tonight I am thinking about this youngest...biggest...brother. 

Shawn is one of a set of twins born my last year of high school.  When dad passed on before they were three, they were not just siblings, they were my children too.  That means, among many things, that I would drop anything to spend time with them.

This was the case about ten years ago when I was on a business trip to Boston.  I was there for a large meeting and after landing at Logan airoport, I hailed a taxi, lifted my carryon into the backseat and leaned back for an uneventful ride through the city and along the Charles River.  As we came up out of the tunnel my cell phone rang.  It was Shawn.  He and I checked in with one another often, so it was no surprise that he was calling.  "Hey, where are you?" he asked.  I told him I had just landed in Boston, and was on my way to my hotel.   He told me that he had just sailed into Boston harbor after 14 days on the sea with a group of high school students on an Outward Bound trip he was leading.  We decided to meet for dinner near my office in the next hour.

As I waited for him in the lobby of the busy restaurant, I noticed a large homeless man in dirty coveralls and long dread-locked hair coming through the door.  "Hmm," I thought, "I wonder if the restaurant will seat him?"  As he got closer, I realized that it was my brother.  Just off the boat meant...just off the boat.  He looked like he smelled...seaworthy.  Seaworthy is a good thing if you are a boat.  As a dinner companion...well, if it's your baby brother you don't care. 

I hugged him hard, stared into his ocean blue-green eyes and asked the hostess how long we would have to wait for our table.  When she said we had at least 45 minutes, I asked him if he would like to walk across the street to see my office.  As we came through the revolving doors of our high-rise building we ran into a group of my colleagues who were heading off to dinner themselves.  My first thought was, "Oh this is perfect, I would love for my brother to meet them."  But I could see by their faces that they assumed that Kate was just dragging another homeless person into the building to talk about spirituality in the lobby out of the wind. 

I have to admit I was a bit heartbroken.  My brother was looking for someone to mentor his spiritual journey and I was just so sure that if he could only meet one of these inspired thinkers, he might make that connection.  But it was obvious that my friends were not interested in stopping to be introduced  and chat it up with my dread-locked companion...whoever he was.

Shawn and I continued up the elevators to my office.  I showed him around our floor and then we took the elevator back to the lobby so that we wouldn't miss getting our table for dinner. 

As we came out of the elevators and crossed the lobby towards the revolving doors, in blew (literally...it was a very, very windy evening) another friend who had his office in our building.  I hesitated for just a moment, and before I could say a thing he crossed the lobby extended his hand to my brother and introduced himself.  I was speechless.  This was one very inspired (and admired) spiritual thought leader.  I was sometimes a bit intimidated by his reputation, but never his humor and affection.  His laughter and embrace were as large as his heart. 

I introduced Shawn as my brother and we invited him to join us for dinner.  He had a meeting he was rushing for...the same one the others had been on their way to...but he made it clear that he would have loved to share a meal with my sea-scented brother and I.

This man, in one handshake and genuine moment of affection, gave my brother all the information he needed to apply for mentorship.  They shared two amazing weeks of pedagogy later that year.   It is a relationship that will span a lifetime.

My friend gave my brother (and I) a perspective on spiritual leadership that was based on a genuine interest in the lives of others and a commitment to living a life of love in action.

My brother learned well from his mentor...I like to think they learned much from eachother during those two weeks.  My brother is supremely kind.  My brother is one of the least judgmental people I know.  My brother is heroic in his practice of charity.  My brother is a man who lives his days poised in grace. 

I am proud to be his sister. 

I will miss talking to him every few days...but I think the men, women, and children of Panama, Tahiti....and all the places around the world his heart will touch with kindness...are going to be blessed by his visits.

Go with God beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy...
Kate

"May the Lord...."

"May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield you from shame.
May you come to be
In Israel a shining name.

May you be like Ruth and like Esther.
May you be deserving of praise.
Strengthen them, Oh Lord,
And keep them from the strangers' ways...".
- "Sabbath Prayer
from "Fiddler on the Roof"

So, here it is, Dayenu Part Two (if you haven't read the previous post - scroll down to the next article below this one - it might help to understand what I am talking about)...it was like God said, "Okay, you think this is so easy...time to head into the lab and do some real scientific application of this law of Dayenu. 

I failed.  Miserably.

Monday morning I wrote the earlier post below, "Dayenu....it would have been enough" and Tuesday morning all hell broke loose.  Or so it felt.  The battery on my alarm clock must have run out of enough juice to keep accurate time somewhere in the middle of the night, but a phone call came in only 5 minutes after what I had set the alarm for and I was fully awake in seconds...Dayenu...even if God had only intervened and woken me up on time...it would have been enough!

The girls started in on eachother at the breakfast table, but at least they were dressed and ready to head out the door...Dayenu - it would have been enough!

I won't drag this out...

We finally got backpacks, lunches, band instruments, and clothed, shod, fed, and brushed daughters (not horses) out the door and into the car....Dayenu.

As we backed out of the driveway and headed down our little lane towards the main road to school I remembered that I didn't have my cellphone - so grateful for the divine reminder...Dayenu.

As we backed up, quickly returning to our driveway, Emma noticed a stream of water pouring out from under our car. She pointed it out to me.  I was so grateful. We were close to home, able to pull back into our driveway - at this point you should read, "oh my gosh, I am so glad we were not broken down on Clayton Road, with me in my nightgown and just a parka over top. Oh, and sweatpants pulled on hastily....Dayenu...BIG Dayenu.

We walked back in the house and I immediately picked up the phone to call the girls' dad. He assured me that he could come pick them up so they wouldn't be late for school - he was on our doorstep in less than 15 minutes...Dayenu.

I called my husband who is on assignment in another city, he picked up his cell phone immediately and within minutes he called me back having arranged for AAA to come tow the car, and for the repair shop to accept it into their queque, bumping it up in their list of urgent need cases....Dayenu.

But that's about where my Dayenu resevoir started to sputter....I lost it when I couldn't find the extra set of keys to send with the AAA driver.

You would think all those Dayenus would have me singing "El Shaddai" in the shower, but no.  It had me bawling my eyes out while my husband sat speechless on the other end of the phone in Boston.

I couldn't see beyond the empty hook where my keys should have been. 

Something in me forgot that God was with me and that He, God, always had the best interests of His children at heart.   I forgot all the cases of precedence set by Hebrew families escaping the tyranny of Pharoah's Egypt, the bravery of a boy with five smooth stones facing Goliath of Gath, a pregnant young girl with only an angel's message to strengthen her resolve, and a boy with a mission to heal and save.  I forgot.  And because I forgot, I felt alone and frightened.

As each seemingly insurmountable - at least to me in my state of terror - challenge presented itself over the ensuing 24 hours, I battled...and held at bay...those fears, but without the natural joy and confidence that comes from looking back at how good God had already been to me, and mine, and all the children of the Most High he had cared for through the centuries.

And it was getting worse....

I had lost my focus on Dayenu, and was looking around every corner anticipating the next "surprise," trying to anticipate how I would collect the chiilden from school, get to church, visit patients, buy groceries. Thank goodness for the kindness of a dear friend....again, and again, and again.

But finally I had a sweet breakthrough...or should I say God broke through my myopia. 

I was walking to the Starbucks near our home for an "office" appointment, and as I reached the curb - pushing the button that would briefly stop busy traffic so that I could cross safely - I felt this overwhelming surge of "Dayenu...it would have been enough!" gratitude for that crosswalk signal.  It was an extremely cold day, I was not as well prepared for how the wind would affect my perception of temperatures as I should have been...and it was bitterly cold.  I was so grateful that, "Even if all this day held for me was a very quickly responding crosswalk signal, Dayenu....it would have to be...but no, that's not what the word means...Dayenu means "it would have BEEN enough".   The word Dayenu stands at the other side of the Red Sea and says..."Wow, even if we had only made it here...but we didn't, we made it all the way across on dry land because the sea split....but even if it hadn't, it would have been enough."

I needed to trust that verb tense...I needed to see myself on the other side of the Red Sea looking back at two walls of water on either side of a dry path through the sea's sandy, shell-strewn floor collapsing and returning to a living, life-suppporting, healthy sea full of whale, porpoise, crab, kelp, and sea anemones. 

So I started over...."Dayenu, even if all God did was save me from finding myself on the side of the road in my nightie and parka...it would have been enough!" But that wasn't all...it never is!

No matter where you find yourself in any given moment, remember how far God has already taken you, see yourself on the other side...whether the other side is a bright morning after a long, dark night of pain and sorrow, the unforseeable resolution to a seemingly endless series of financial woes, the peace that follows a tsunami of fear and worry...see yourself there, looking back at the Red Sea He has parted, and will always, part for you. 

Dayenu is a Sabbath prayer....the sabbath worshippers were celebrating the Passover...the Shabbat meal.  The celebration of "And the Lord saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good.  Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."  How could I have missed that.  Dayenu was a benediction....not a prayer of petition.

Dayenu...it would have been enough...again.

with love,
Kate

"Dayenu....it would have been enough..."

"Even if all He did was bring us out of Egypt.
Dayenu - it would have been enough!
Even if He had only  split the sea for us.
Dayenu - it would have been enough!
If He had only led us through on the dry land.
Dayenu - it would have been enough!
Even if He had only provided for our needs
in the wilderness for 40 years.
Dayenu - it would have been enough!
Even if He had only fed us the manna.
Dayenu - it would have been enough!"

I was running, more than a bit, late for church on Sunday morning...not a good idea when you are supposed to be co-conducting the service...and once I finally got in the car, I turned the radio on, only to catch the very tail end of NPR's "Faith Matters."  Since they haven't put the February 1st program online yet, I don't have precise details about the name of the guest, or even why she was the guest...so please forgive me. ...but, what matters most for this post is what she said in those last few moments. A word that has stayed with me ever since. 

She was funny. And her comments were compelling. I believe that she said her childhood faith was Judaism...I think she even may have suggested, at one point, that she was an agnostic, but followed it, chuckling, that if she were to believe in a God at all, it would be the Jewish God...but this wasn't the important part.  It was what she shared next, that stuck with me. It was the word, "Dayenu" [phonetically: di ay nu]

Wikipedia defines Dayenu as a Hebrew word, or concept, that means, approximately, "it would have been enough for us" or "it would have sufficed."  It is also the title of a Passover celebration song, an adaptation of the traditional lyrics are listed above. It is a song that is over one thousand years old.  According to Wiki, and the "Faith Matters" guest, "Rachel" this song is about being grateful to God for all the gifts that he gave the Jewish people, such as taking them out of slavery, giving them the Torah (the law) and Shabbat (the sabbath rest). It is a recognition that even if God had only given one of His gifts, it would still would have been enough. 

I don't know how much of the program was left at that point, because I was deep in reverie.  I was writing my own Dayenu song.  Even if God had only given me the promise of motherhood, showing me that He had faith in my capacity to love by letting me become a teacher, it would have been enough.  Even if He had only given me the gift of adopting our first daughter, it would have been enough.  Even if God had only given me one moment of being loved the way my husband loves me, it would have been enough.  Even if God had only given me one sister/girlfriend who understood my heart, it would have been enough.   But....and the list of all the heaped on blessings from my uber-generous Father-Mother God goes on and on and on. 

I was lost in gratitude for how much I had been shown of His face, Her love in my life.  Gone was the stress of rushing out the door, worrying about whether I would have the "welcome to our service" sign on the sidewalk in time, the hymn numbers written on the whiteboard, the order of services in order.   I was in the space of Dayenu.

As soon as the program finished...so that would have been about 10AM...I realized that my gas tank was beyond empty.  The warning light had gone on three days earlier on my way home from office hours at the college, and although I hadn't driven far, my Jeep is a very thirsty girl.   I started looking for a gas station immediately and was grateful to be able to pull over within a few minutes to refuel...Dayenu.   But once I got out of the car to use the pump, the credit card reader wouldn't work...but there was a nice young man willing to help me...Dayenu.  Then the pump itself wouldn't work...again another helpful attendant...Dayenu.  By the time I reached church I had had a string of small Dayenu moments so long that I had forgotten about the time.

I was surprised when I walked into church and discovered that somehow I had made the trip (which normally takes 25-30 minutes) in 12 minutes. And no, I did not speed.  Speeding is impossible with 21 stoplights between here and there (and yes, I did count them on my way home).  My partner in conducting the services had had a very similar experience on her way to church.  An important call for help from a beloved daughter overseas, no time to spare, too much time to make up, and yet she too arrived at church much before she expected.  As we sat there looking at the circle of participants gathering for the service, waiting for the clock to move towards our start time...it was clear that we had both experienced the gift of time expanding to meet our needs.  Later we did discover that the church clock was a bit slow...but nowhere near the almost 15 minutes that were given to us that morning....Dayenu.

I am learning that Dayenu is not just a benediction of gratitude on divine gifts received from a generous God, but a posture for walking in this world. 

It is not enough to say, "well gosh God, thanks for the exodus from Egypt, but what the heck are we supposed to do here in the middle of the desert without food or water?"

Dayenu is a space of "dear God, if all you would have done were to deliver us from Pharoah, it would have been enough...but to show us your love in enabling us to make that trip in fellowship and to have arrived here at the edge of the sea where we can bathe our dusty feet....Dayenu.   And the sea parted.

There are thousands of moments in each day, moments when our lives may seem to look like we are sitting in the sand with Pharoah and his men bearing down on us with a vengence. Days when we feel as if we are trapped between the desert of disappointed human hopes, and a sea of fear so vast we feel paralyzed and immobile...but that is a moment for a song...a song of Dayenu.

Try staying in the temple of Dayenu today...it's a lovely place to dwell. And in this space, you don't have to choose a Jewish God, or a Christian God, or a Muslim, God or a Buddhist God....you can have them all...in One.   The One whose name is I AM, El Shaddhai, Jehovah, and Love....mostly, for me, Love.

And since I couldn't find a good version of the song "Dayenu" on Youtube, I will leave you with this song of praise from Amy Grant, "El Shaddai".  It is one of my favorties ever.  It is a prayer.  I will list the lyrics below.



And if you need help thinking through how your day is filled with moments of Dayenu: "Even if God only ______, it would have been enough" just give me a call.  Together we can have our own moment of "El Shaddai." There's nothing I'd rather share with a friend.

"El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonia,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El shaddai.

Through your love and through the ram,
You saved the son of abraham;
Through the power of your hand,
Turned the sea into dry land.
To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees,
And by your might,
You set your children free.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonia,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El shaddai.

Through the years youve made it clear,
That the time of christ was near,
Though the people couldnt see
What messiah ought to be.
Though your word contained the plan,
They just could not understand
Your most awesome work was done
Through the frailty of your son.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonai,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
I will praise yo till I die,
El shaddai.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonai,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
I will praise you till I die.
El shaddai."

with Love,

Kate

"...while Christ is rich, can I be poor..."

"...He that has made my heaven secure,
Will here all good provide;
While Christ is rich, can I be poor?
What can I want beside?
O God, I cast my care on Thee;
I triumph and adore;
Henceforth my great concern shall be
To love and praise Thee more..."
-     John Ryland

Over the last few months, these words from a much-loved hymn, have come to me often while praying for spiritual solutions in the wake of this economic crisis. And not only this hymn. I have found many of the inspirational songs in the Christian Science Hymnal to be trustworthy spiritual companions as I pray. 

This is far from new. Over the years, I have often heard the words to a hymn when listening for God-based answers. But lately this very clear focus on hymns has been startling and pointed.  A line, a verse or an entire hymn -  one after another - has sung it's way into my prayers. 

Case in point, while praying in support of a non-profit organization facing budget-related concerns, the above hymn floated through the air so softly that it was as if my Father-Mother God was singing a lullaby near my ear.

Why so many hymns, I wondered...why hymns almost exclusively?  I picked up my  old, soft, leather-bound copy of the hymnal and started turning the well-worn pages.   And there it was...copyright 1932. It was suddenly so clear to me that there was a direction relationship between the relevance of these messages of hope and encouragement to our times, and the historic context of their roots.  

This most recent publication of the Christian Science Hymnal had been completely revised, and republished, in 1932.  Old favorites had been adapted, words had been revised, lyrics had been set to more modern tunes, completely new hymns had been written - and collaborated on - by spiritual thinkers who were poets, musicians...and healers.  Contributions that were born of their experiences. Their choices of what to include - from the works of earlier songwriters and composers - in this 1932 revision, was also the result of humble prayer. Editors prayed for guidance in choosing texts and music that would inspire, comfort, and heal.   These were the songs (and song selections) of depression-era psalmists.  Men and women who had lived and prayed through a stock market crash, black Tuesday, the great depression, the dust bowl, food lines, and "Brother can you spare a dime..."

The 1932 Christian Science Hymnal came alive for me in new ways. As a practitioner of spiritual law, these hymns were a welcome addition to my law library--a much loved and poured over collection of testimonies that includes the Bible with its accounts of spiritual law exercised and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and its chapter "Fruitage" filled with personal letters testifying to the healing power of prayer--precendent setting cases to stand on in confidently trusting God's care during a crisis of any kind...depression, recession, inflation. Each hymn was proof that someone had faced fear, despair, uncertainty, want, or woe, and had not only surmounted their troubles, but had been inspired to leave a trail of hope for generations yet unborn.

My husband, our friends...Susan, Sue, and Carey (The Solo Committee), my children's dad, and other poets/musicians we are blessed to know, are writing new hymns and inspirational songs through these trying times.  Their psalms of hope and praise are comforting and inspiring us today and will become a legacy of faith for our children...and our children's children.  A supplement to the 1932 has been published and is making some of these new songs available to us as we pray for fresh spiritual solutions. 

Knowing the historic context of these hymns, songs that had been coming to my heart in prayer over the last few months...with such divine imperative...has been a gift of grace.

As you pray for yourself, your family, your neighbors, your community's employers and employees, those with jobs...and those who are looking for work to support their families...perhaps these hymns...or the hymns from your own church's hymnal, will give you comfort and inspiration...a gift of promise from a generation of spiritual thinkers who have blazed a trail for each of us leaving waymarks of encouragement along the way.

This hymn, #224, has always been very special to me...I hope it brings you peace tonight...

O Lord, I would delight in Thee,
And on Thy care depend;
To Thee in every trouble flee,
My best, my ever Friend
When all material streams are dried,
Thy fullness is the same;
May I with this be satisfied,
And glory in Thy name.

All good, where'er it may be found,
Its source doth find in Thee;
I must have all things and abound,
While God is God to me.
O that I had a stronger faith,
To look within the veil,
To credit what my Saviour saith,
Whose word can never fail.

He that has made my heaven secure,
Will here all good provide;
While Christ is rich, can I be poor?
What can I want beside?
O God, I cast my care on Thee;
I triumph and adore;
Henceforth my great concern shall be
To love and praise Thee more...

with Love...
Kate

"...so that all our children could fly..."

"Rosa sat,
so Martin could could walk
Martin walked, so Barack could run
Barack ran
he ran and he won,
so that all our children could fly..."
- Amy Dixon-Kolar

This is so pure and sweet...and holy, that I couldn't stop singing it all weekend.  As I said in my comment - when posting it on Facebook - it reached down into my soul and pulled my inner gospel singer out from where I must have buried her long ago.



It's a lovely song.  But I am especially moved by this verse:

"...Mother and daughter
listenin' to the news
Momma breaks down cryin',
little girl is confused
Honey we worked so hard
to get to this place
Daughter puts a loving hand
on momma's face..."

This must have been happening in living rooms all over the world.  It certainly happened in mine.  We had planned an election night party with our girls, their friends, and their friends' parents (our friends)...families we had gone canvassing door-to-door with earlier in the campaign.  Since it was a school night we had put a cap on our celebration, soon after our friends had left for home and any unfinished homework, we were surprised to hear Obama's victory called so early in the night.  I sat on the sofa in front of the television stunned.  It was done. Our country had elected a candidate we'd worked tirelessly for.  For me, it felt like the culmination of 40 years of campaigning for candidates who I believed in...some with policies and plans I supported more than others....but I'd never lost my love for the process, and it had finally proved to be a process that reflected the hopes and dreams I cherished for the future of our children.

I didn't burst into wracking sobs.  I just sat there with tears running down my face in rivers of relief.   I thought my heart would burst.  It had felt so touch-and-go in those last weeks, and I had great hopes for what this election could mean to this country, our young voters, my urban neighbors, the underprivileged, the disadvantaged, and generations of African Americans whose dreams of representative leadership were hanging in the balance.

Without a sound one of my 11 year old daughters slid onto the sofa next to me and put her hand on my cheek, puling my face away from the television screen and towards her.  She then stared silently into my eyes and kissed my other cheek. 

She understood. 

I think it is a gesture that is built into the spiritual DNA of the molecules hanging in the "space" (but in truth there really is no space) between mothers and daughters.  This gesture of reaching out and touching the other's face...as if to say, I am here...I am here...I am here.

My daughters have done this since they were babies.  I wrote about the first time Clara comforted me by reaching out and touching my cheek, last May, titled, "...in this life I was loved by you".  Since then I have heard from other moms and daughters whose most tender memories are of reaching out and wiping a tear, or the soft papery feel of a grandmother's cheek, a toddler's temples, smoothing the frown line between a teen daughters eyes...or in my case gently touching the soft skin of my mother's eyelids.

Sunday, my baby sister sent me a link to this Youtube post of "Rosa Sat" and as soon as I heard this verse, I rather fell apart.  I think it was because I felt such a sisterhood with women...with mothers and daughters...around the world who not only united in celebration of this historic day for us as voters and world citizens, but for what we would forever remember of this day by sharing it with our daughters. 

And it's not just mothers and daughters who share this gesture...my friends Carol, Deac, and I have always touched one another's cheek - ever so tenderly - when we greet eachother.  It started with one of us remarking at how softly silken the other's cheek was and so of course the other other had to see for herself...and then, well I just couldn't see one of them without touching her cheek. 

I know this is a rather random post...but I am in awe of Amy Dixon-Kolar's ability to marry in one song the enormous global and historic implications of what we had all just experienced as modern humanity, with the most tender and intimate of mother/daughter gestures.

It takes my breath away.

And the song...I think it speaks for itself. 

I found myself using it to make all kinds of historic threads...like:

Mary surrendered
So Jesus could accept
Jesus accepted
So John could see
John saw so
Mary could heal
And now all our children are whole...

Have fun seeing how God's gracious hand has woven a silver thread of promise through your history...to create a tapestry of wholeness, healing, and hope for your children, neighbors and the world.   And take time to touch the cheek of someone you love...

with love,
Kate

photo credit: Stacey V. Barton 1991

"I'm Yours..."

"...Well open up your mind
and see like me
Open up your plans
and damn you're free
Look into your heart
and you'll find love
...love, love, love...

Listen to the music of the moment 
people dance and sing
We're just one big family
And it's our God-forsaken right to be loved
...loved, loved, loved, loved..."
- Jason Mraz

My friend Kim posted the video of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" on her blogsite, Ad Infinitum earlier this month, and it made me so happy I couldn't get it out of my bee-bopping heart for days.   I thought, this is a very happy song.  I like it.  It makes me feel really happy and hopeful.  So I was so surprised when I saw the above photo by Abu Sall on another friend's Facebook newsfeed, and thought of this happy song. 

I've been thinking about "why" all afternoon.  Why would I look at this heart-wrenching photo of a young Palestinian girl standing in the midst of a bombing site in the Gaza, and think of this song.   I wondered if there was something wrong with me.  Had my heart become hardened to the horrors of war?  Had I lost my humanity?  Was I suffering from some version of emotional disengagement that felt more like Gallow's Humor, than the compassion I longed to have characterize my response to the pain felt by victims of terrorism and violence.

And then I realized that the song was not outside of me...it was not a pop tune stuck in my head, it was a divine imperative...a persistent prayer...an affirmation of this child's spiritual right to be free.

Because she is His. 

She is not a Palestinian victim...she is a spiritual, blessed child of God.  She is "cared for, watched over, beloved, and protected" by an all-powerful Father who cherishes and adores her. She is not an orphan of war. She is not a tragic statistic. She is not a survivor. She a princess of the kingdom of heaven, governed by her Father, a loving and benevolent sovereign..and she is His.   I've loved praying with this song today...as it played over and over again in my heart. I was joined by a chorus of all the world's children -- children of every age, race, culture, religion, gender, and socio-economic definition. 

But here's the funny thing, everytime I'd heard this song by Jason Mraz, prior to today, I had heard it in Jason's voice.   But this evening, I realized that today, I had been hearing the song all day in a girl's voice.    I was clearly hearing a girl singing, "But I won't hesitate no more, no more, it cannot wait I'm yours..."   It was a voice so sweet and lovely.

Then tonight I was visiting another friend's Facebook page and noticed that she had posted a video of her daughter, Kendra,  covering this song.  It was uncanny.  I clicked on the play arrow and there was the voice I had been hearing all afternoon. 

Seeing Kendra singing, "I'm Yours" with this photo of a Palestiniam school girl on my desktop reminded me that prayer, as Mary Baker Eddy says, really is "God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind"....all mankind.  God had sent me a prayer through my friend Kim's blog, showed me where He was establishing His kingdom...not an Israeli kingdom or a Palestinian kingdom...but God's kingdom, and gave it a fresh, new "voice" so that I would recognize His hand in it all.

Oh, dear Father, I too am "Yours"....
Kate

"...Feed them on your dreams..."

"...You, who are on the road,
Must have a code
That you can live by
And so, become yourselves,
Because the past
Is just a goodbye...

...Teach your children well
Their father's hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The ones they fix
The ones you're known by.

Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you
And know they love you...."
- Graham Nash

There are three very special non-celebrity heroes I would like to pay tribute to on this dawn of a new day...

One is my high school civics teacher, Gary Dehmcke.   Gary was cool.  I say Gary, because he was the first teacher I ever remember asking us to call him by his first name...Mr. Dehmcke was his dad.  Besides being cool, Gary loved democracy.  He loved elections and politics and "one man, one vote".  And most of all, he loved us.

Gary loved us enough to share with us, his passionate love for this country and her "most excellent" system of peaceful transition of power.  He loved debates...and did I already say he loved voting.  Every junior in our high school took his civics class.  But Gary also taught a current events class for seniors and since we all got to know Gary our junior year, you were a crazy if you didn't try to get into his current events class your senior year.  We all wanted more of his insights, more of his music (Gary's classroom sounded like the soundtrack for "Good Morning Viet Nam" everyday...if you haven't seen it, or heard the soundtrack...you must!), and we wanted to bask in his passion for news and its relevance in our lives.

Best of all, Gary took an interest in your interests.  If you loved the arts, Gary made voting all about the power to impact funding for the arts that your one vote would make.  If you cared about China, or your boyfriend had been drafted and was stationed in the jungles of Vietnam, Gary made voting all about foreign policy and war theory.  If domestic economy was your concern, Gary would talk budgets and taxes with you until you felt the impact not voting would have on your children's children's social security benefits one day.

Gary found the ember of your own unfanned passions and blew upon them with the breath of his own deep longing for social responsibility. The day I turned eighteen, it was Gary who drove me, and three other students whose eighteenth birthday fell that week, to the County courthouse to register to vote -- Gary did it for every senior who wanted to participate in what he thought was the greatest free speech and protest activity on earth. Gary didn't want us to miss any of it. If we had a vote, we had a voice, and he made us realize that it would be a shame not to use it.

Thank you Gary.

The next is my dear friend B.  B. walked into my life at a time when I was ready to bask in the warmth of finally not having to work three jobs and never sleep.  I was newly married and both my husband and I had salaried jobs and a mortage we could actually afford to pay without a struggle.  B. accepted a position with another department in our organization, and all alone,  moved herself and her very young sons across the country to a new city.  

By then I had almost forgotten (by choice) the hardships my own widowed mother of eight children had faced as a single mom...in countless new cities...when B.'s plight woke me out of a self-deluded comfort zone with a cold splash of reality.  A single African-American mommy with grade-school age boys, she let me experience her pain vicariously and in doing so saved my soul.

Unable to find affordable housing anywhere near our workplace, B. ended up renting an apartment far outside the gentrified neighborhoods near our office in a more "urban" part of the city.   The terrors she faced and the dark nights she stayed awake in order to protect her sons from unimaginable hardships is too unsettling to describe...but she did it.  When the schools in her district proved to be unacceptable, she made a commitment she knew would put them in traffic for hours each day and drove her sons untold distances to get them to schools where they would have some hope for educational  opportunity...and with her love and devotion...they would thrive.

B. faced almost unbeatable odds as a single African-American mother whose career path was narrowed by the limited "extra hours" she could put in when choosing to pick up her sons from school and "be there" for them while they did homework. Her tenacity as a mother would teach them (and me) so much about human dignity and spiritual grace by example.  B., and her precious sons (whose school photos graced my desk as "sons" long before I had my own children's photos to display) resurrected my waning 1960's social indignation and breathed new life into an unfed hunger for making a difference in the lives of those who faced almost insurmountable barriers to realistic pursuit of their dreams because of  socio-economic circumstances, race, educational opportunity, or gender.

Thank you B. for keeping my soul vigorously alive...

The last is my daughter Hannah.  When Hannah was a child, one of her dearest friends was a sweet girl whose family had moved to the states from another country.  Her friend spoke English, but only as a second language.  Because of her friend's sometimes halting English, others often made that friend the central character in their attempts at sitcom-inspired humor. 

Hannah never wavered.  She never allowed an ugly joke...told at the expense of her friend's dignity...to survive in the bright light of her love for another human being,  friend or foe.   She was unwilling to sit still for anyone's cruelty.   Because of this, Hannah suffered the dismissiveness of adults who wanted to be thought "funny," and were insulted by her obvious discomfort.  She survived the lumping of her own "simple" kindnesses towards those less sophisticated, into the swill and swirl of racial prejudices.   And she refused to bow to the lowered expectations for her own potential...based on "the company she kept"...by those whose hearts were hardened to diversity of success models.  She often shook with grief, but she never wavered from the high ground of justice and love.

My daughter taught me that we are never too young to become teachers, and never too old to learn from our children.

Thank you Hannah for letting me walk this journey with you...your footsteps continue to lead me towards my better self.

As I heard "Fanfare for the Common Man" during an Inaugural event this weekend, I couldn't help but think of these three heroes...a man, a woman and a child who have given me countless reasons to hope that a common man could become a president...a world leader...for the common man.

I am so grateful for all the heroes in my life...there have been so many (and without knowing it, you are probably one of them), but these are the ones I couldn't help but think of  on this most wonderful of days. Each of them is a living witness to this line from Kate Colby's timeless hymn, "True to our God whose name is Love, we shall fulfill our Father's plan..."

By being true to the love in their hearts, they have not only fulfilled God's plan for themselves, but for me and countless others who have been touched by their examples of fidelity and courage.

I am honored to know each of you and to have cast my vote with your life stories echoing in my heart...with Love.. 
Kate

"In His Eyes..."

"..In His eyes, you're a fire
that never goes out
A light on the top of a hill
In His eyes you're a poet,
a painter, a prophet
With a mission of love to fulfill
Outside there's a world
so enchantingly strange
A maze of illusion and lies
But there's never a story
that ever could change
The glory of you in His eyes

In His eyes you're a radiant
vision of beauty
A gemstone cut one of a kind
You're fine as a diamond,
deep as a ruby
Rare as a jade in His mind
No need to believe
all you may have been told
No need to live in disguise
You're brighter than silver,
purer than gold
A pearl beyond price in His eyes

You're an innocent child
in the sight of His face
No cause for blame
For fear or disgrace
He sees only goodness,
His vision is true
And nothing can change
the perfection of you
in His eyes

In His eyes, you're a fire
that never goes out
A light on the top of a hill
You're a rose in the forest,
a prelude from Bach
A triumph of heavenly skill
Outside there's a world
that keeps breaking your heart
And tearing your dreams down to size
But guiding you homeward,
piercing the dark
Is the lovelight that shines
in His eyes

Now and forever,
that light never dies
You're dearly beloved
in His eyes..."

- Mindy Jostyn/Jacob Brackman
"In His Eyes"
(this is just an audio sample...you will want to own this..trust me)

Sometimes there isn't a need to write something new.  It's especially true when what's already been written so perfectly articulates a feeling or a hope,  that to expound on it would be like painting a rose,  embellishing a diamond, photo-shopping the colors in a South African sunset, or trying to enhance the serenity on a newborn's sleeping face...or explain the love of a sister's embrace.

So I will let Mindy's lyrics above -- by far one of the greatest spiritual songs ever written, and this exegesis on I Corinthians 13 and I John 4  -- sent to me by my friend, Leslie...speak what is in my heart today. 

Love
by Sanders

When I am loved, I can make mistakes. I can lose my temper. I can be late, I can cry, I can grow at my own pace because LOVE IS PATIENT.

When I am loved, I know that encouragement and reproof will be given gently, and that things that are important to me will be important to the one who loves me because LOVE IS KIND.

When I am loved, I know that I can have talents and strengths and successes that may be even greater in some areas than the one who loves me, and that those talents and strengths and successes will be encouraged and supported, because LOVE DOES NOT ENVY.

And I know that I will not be in competition with the one who loves me because LOVE ISN'T PROUD.

Whatever either of us can learn to be - simply makes us a stronger unit of love. When I am loved, I can know that my interests and feelings and tears and laughter count. I can trust my deepest needs and greatest fears to the one who loves and know that I will be listened to and protected and cradled because LOVE IS NOT RUDE OR SELF-SEEKING.

When I am loved, I know that my bad moods or hard days or selfish times won't be met with intolerance or standards of performance that I can't measure up to. I know that it's alright to be imperfect. I know that I have some freedom to say things that I might not really mean or react immaturely or to release a little frustration because LOVE IS NOT EASILY ANGERED.

I have more than one chance, I have a lifetime of chances. When I am loved I can make a mistake today and not have to apologize for it for the next three years because LOVE MAKES NO RECORD OF WRONGS.

When I am loved the very nature of God becomes real to me because LOVE REJOICES WITH THE TRUTH.

When I am loved, I come to know God. When I am loved, I have a place to run and hide from the attacks of Satan where I am safe. I have a refuge. I have a place where I know I am always welcome because LOVE PROTECTS.

When I am loved, I am allowed to know the hidden thoughts of the one who loves because LOVE TRUSTS.

When I am loved, I have the joy of becoming everything that God intends for me to become, everything that He promises I can be, because LOVE HOPES, and hope is built on what we know is going to happen.

And, finally, when I am loved I don't have to be afraid that it will go away today or tomorrow or forever, because LOVE PERSEVERES.

Thank you to God for the unspeakable gifts of His love, your friendship, the experiences - tears and triumphs - we've shared, and the words that flow between us like sap among the trees and saplings of the Aspen Grove...that is really just one tree.

always,
Kate

Mindy's CD "In His Eyes can be purchased through her website: www.mindyjostyn.com.

photo credit*: my daughters, Emma and Clara (taken by their dad, Dwight Oyer 2002)
*from our private collection, please do not use or copy

"There's a hole in the world tonight..."

"There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

They say that anger is just love disappointed.
They say that love is just a state of mind,
but all this fighting over who will be anointed.
Oh how can people be so blind
.
Oh they tell me there's a place over yonder,
cool water running through the burning sand,
until we we learn to love one
another we never reach the promise land.

There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow."
-     Don Henley

Watching news clips about renewed fighting in the Gaza, listening to stories on NPR about rioting in Oakland over the shooting of a young father by BART (Bay Area public transit)officers on New Years Day or heated exchanges between Indian and Pakistani leaders about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai this winter drove me to my knees in prayer.

But this song is what came as an angel...a message of hope...and a call to action.   Don Henley wrote it with his fellow Eagles bandmates in the wake of September 11, 2001, but its message, from the first time I heard it, was hauntingly familiar.

I couldn't help but recall inflamed moments of anger that have led to words that were ugly and harsh.  But in remembering my own past angers, I could easily see that in almost every case my anger was just "love disappointed."  I was disappointed that someone I loved didn't love me back in the way that I hope they would, didn't understand my point of view, didn't seem to care about the things that mattered to me...didn't think I had the right to think or act in the way that I felt was right at the moment.

And the anger that we feel by committee, or community, seems to follow this track towards a fiery collision as well.  A community is disappointed that an appointed, or elected, leader or social agency doesn't really understand its needs.  A culture is disappointed that its neighbors aren't more understanding of its unique contribution to society or doesn't comply with a values system it feels is essential to humanity's success.  A religion is disappointed that others don't love the way they love, ascribe to a philosophy they feel is critical to salvation...or don't love the words or works of a leader in whose footsteps they strive to follow.

I remember one heated exchange I had with my younger sister when we were in high school.  She had an event that she wanted to attend, and I had a few hours before I needed to be at work.  She asked if I would wash the dishes after dinner (her chore) and she would dry (my chore) since her event was early and my departure for work was later.  I agreed, telling her that she really really really needed to be home before I had to leave for work. We both knew dad's rule that our kitchen chores be done before our evening commitments so that mom could take care of other family needs, like feeding infant twins, without negotiating the piles of dirty dishes, pots and pans created each meal by a family of ten.  She agreed.

But her activity went late and by the time she returned home I had dried the dishes myself and left for work.  I stewed and steamed all through my shift until I was ready to explode.  How could she be my sister and not love me enough to be home on time?  How could she do that to me when I had scrubbed all those greasy pans and potato-caked pots...instead of just drying already clean dishes...so that she could do what she wanted?  And on and on it went.  By the time I reached our darkened bedroom after work I had A LOT to say to her.  Thankfully my mom, on her way from the warmth of her bed to the kitchen to get bottles for one of the twins, intercepted me and could read the fury on my face.

I remember her inviting me to join her in the kitchen for a cup of tea and her invitation didn't leave any room for an obedient daughter who loved her mother to dismiss.  As we sat at the kitchen table my tale of anger and frustration spilled out like dark, sticky molasses all over the place.  How could she....and on and on.  When my sharp words finally started to sputter, mom stepped in.  I will never forget her saying, "Honey, you're not angry with your sister, your just disappointed that she didn't love you enough to keep her promise to you." 

She was right.

The next day she facilitated a conversation between my sister and I.  She learned how much I counted on her love for me as the reason I thought she would want to keep her promises to me,  and that I loved and trusted her enough to want her to have a nice evening out at the expense of my job security.  I learned that she had tried to get a ride home from a friend before the event was over, but couldn't find anyone willing to leave and didn't have a dime to make a phone call.  Our conflict was over and neither of us felt disappointed by the others actions.

I know this seems like a small instance in light of the enormity of nuclear proliferation, rioting, torture, or terrorism, but I am convinced that anger is just love disappointed.   The disappointment may go WAY back...but it's there and sometimes the rest of us are just acting out from a handed down disappointment where we have lost sight of what was at its root.

So...what can we do today?  I am learning that I can be so alert to anger, whenever and wherever it flares, and be ready to pour in the love that God has appointed me to live right where I am.  I can seek to understand what someone -- or some culture or religion or community -- loves and why.  I can strive to judge no one, but when judgment rears its ugly head -- in me or in someone else -- I can try to bring information, compassion, understanding to bear on the situation or issues in question.

Mary Baker Eddy gives me a great place to start in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures when she says:

"One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, - whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed."

Imagine where we'd be if we trusted that good was the name and nature of everyone's God,  and that this God of goodness was infinite.    What if we didn't question one another but trusted that each was appointed to his place and posture of spiritual fidelity, cultural worship, and social mores by one infinite God who was good? What if we loved them for their willingness to just be true to their God whose name is Love...or good...or Allah...or Jehovah?

Perhaps then we wouldn't be fighting over the promised land...because every land, nation, culture, tribe would have promise, and would keep its promises because it feels loved...even if its just by you and me.

So what do we do about this world that seems so full of holes?  I want to fill them all with love. Thank goodness God has another way of looking at it...they are just the spaces He has hollowed (or hallowed) out for receiving our seeds of kindness, compassion, patience, meekness, grace, and love.  Time for planting...the fields are prepared, the seeds are in your hand...

with Love,
Kate

"...digging the dancing queen..."

"...I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder - 
of a fairy tale
You can take the future - 
even if you fail
I believe in angels -
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream
I have a dream..."
-Abba "I Have a Dream"

Okay, I admit it...I have watched "Mamma Mia" more times than I can bring myself to type in numbers, but something about this movie makes me want to take all 54 years in this chapter of my eternity book and shred them into celebratory confetti.

I do have a dream...many of them.  But the fabulous thing is...the dreams I once had (at least the ones that didn't include "stuff") have all mostly come true in ways that are clearly Love-inspired and God-bestowed.  And new dreams are born in my heart each day.  Dreams of renewable energy, stronger alliances with our global neighbors and partners, integrity in government and business, and more grace...always more grace.   Dreams of seeing things in new ways,  refreshed friendships, freedom from past regrets, a false sense of achievement, or failure....anything that would keep me from dreaming new dreams with all my heart.

There is something about watching my favorite dramatic actress of all time, Meryl Streep, dancing and singing through the village streets of a Greek island, jumping on her bed, and getting "twitterpated" at the sight of a long-lost beau, that makes me want to join her in cavorting through olive groves with dozen of other liberated Greek housewives and grandmas.   I want to play air guitar on a pier and throw my friends into the harbor!!

I remember a Sunday School student once remarking, with exasperation that he was worried about his mother.  He was concerned that she had begun to lose her mind.  She was singing at the breakfast table, thinking about changing careers, and wearing her hair differently.  Didn't she know that she was a mother with grown children?  And wasn't he the kid, the one who was supposed to be exploring life and considering his options...not her? 

I remember suggesting to him, that if he wanted her to trust him as he tried new things, struck out on new paths, and discovered the world around him, he would have to trust her to do the same.  I tried to help him see that our hearts - the province where dreams reside and where God, Love, reigns supreme - never grow old.  The heart that dreams never ages. It never atrophies.  It never matures, loses its vitality, and becomes intractable. It never ceases to dream, to hope...to imagine the presence of goodness, the promise of Love, the fullness of Life.

In all my spiritual reading, scriptural research, and study, I have never found a single reference to "the adult of God."  It's always the "child of God," the "children of Israel."  Even Jesus, the most mature spiritual thinker I know of, referred to God as "Abba"...a term that is translated "daddy" or "papa."

We never become any more mature than we have always been...completely child-like, innocent, pure, willing, open, joyful, ready, eager.  This is our maturity, our fullness of being.  In her definition of "Children" from the glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says, "...God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity..."

We exist from all eternity in this state of maturity...fullness, completeness, wholeness...we are never less, or more than the All-in-allness of the divine being.  We live, and move, and have our being in the same state of child-like wonder, trust, and joy...forever and ever and ever....throughout time, space and eternity.

"I have a dream
A song to sing...."

Celebrate your dreams...sing in the streets, jump on your bed, throw a bundle of sticks, say "oh Yea!!!" (by the way, this is the part in the movie that Hannah made me watch in bed with her...over and over and over and over and over again)...and have the time of your life as a dancing queen with your girlfriends...or husband, or children, or neighbors...or a a few random Greek housewives on an island in the Aegean...

enjoy this clip...but if you want to see the real movie...with the scene of the granny with the stick...rent the movie...this clip is just a taste...

"oh yea!!!'
you can dance
you can jive
having the time of your life
see that girl
watch that scene
digging the dancing queen..."
- from "Dancing Queen"
(also by Abba)

in childlike wonder...believing in angels and fairytales...and in you...always with love,

Kate

"A Whole New World..."

"A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming

A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world...
with You..."
from Disney's "Aladdin"

When all else fails...go back to Disney.  Or at least that's where my heart seems to go.  I was raised on Disney films...Mary Poppins taught me how to approach overwhelming tasks with "A Spoonful of Sugar", and Mama Jumbo gave me the song I would sing to myself as I fell asleep (after my mom was finished singing lullabies) with "Baby Mine".  So it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that New Year's Day would find me singing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin.

Hannah received her loved "Jasmine" Barbie for that year's birthday, and within weeks of seeing Disney's Aladdin (for the first...of many times) we had all the songs memorized for singing in the car, and she and her best friend, Heather, had decided that they would be Arabian princesses that Halloween...and they were.  But not before Miss Mitzi, their tap teacher, had them tapping their hearts out on stage to "Prince Ali...fabulous he...Ali Ababwa..."  I can still see bolts of purple polyester chiffon studded with silver sequins and glitter whenever I hear that song.

So...it's only appropriate that it would be Hannah who would take me on the magic carpet ride that would reveal a "whole new world" to me when I needed it most.

I needed a new view of myself and how I fit in my world.  I had lost my way and nothing I did seemed to be able to pull me out of a tailspin of self-doubt, regret, and confusion about who I was beyond the boundaries of memory. 

I had arrived in South Africa with a broken toe, and a broken sense of myself.  I had become accustomed to silently apologizing for my very existence. Whenever anyone was genuinely kind, extending a helping hand or a moment of fellowship, I would find myself on the verge of tears .   An authentic smile made my knees buckle.  A thoughtful gesture made me want to throw my arms around the neck of the person responsible and weep alligator tears of appreciation for the mercy their kindness represented.  I could be kind to others, I could be compassionate and loving...but did I deserve it myself. Did I deserve the healing that I knew with all my heart (and had seen) as a spiritual fact, an inalienable right, in the lives of others?

I was praying each day for freedom from self-doubt, but I sensed I wasn't making real progress.  I was stuck in stage two of the three stage process towards "absolute cure" in Christian Science that Mary Baker Eddy lays out in her article "The Way" from Miscellaneous Writings: "self-knowledge, humility, and love."   And I knew it. I had somewhat mastered self-knowledge in this case, and that self-knowledge had driven me to my knees in humility...but I hadn't gotten up...I was still down there weeping each time someone was kind...to me a sinner.  I'd get clear glimpses of freedom, rise to take a few steps only to run into a carnival fun-house full of distorting mirrors in every direction which sent my gaze echoing too far back and forth between memory and regret to keep from getting dizzy and stumbling...and before I knew it, I was back on my knees again.

But arriving in South Africa with a broken toe stopped me in my tracks. Sitting in the African sun one morning...in a place where no one but my daughter knew anything about me, my past, my achievements, my dreams, my mistakes, my choices...and it came to me clearly that if my feelings of self-doubt and punishment were well-deserved because I had truly offended God, it would have to be true wherever I went.  God's laws were universal and impartial.  If I deserved to be doubted...by myself or anyone...then it would be true all the way around the world.  God would cause me, and others, to doubt my right to be good, to be an effective healer, to be worthy of kindness, friendship, genuine joy...right there.    But if that punitive doubt and unworthiness were not His, God's ongoing means of correcting my heart and my life...and were therefore unwarranted, then I could be free of them immediately.

As I opened my heart and my life to God, I prayed with such hope.  And I stayed on that deck looking out at the broad and endless waters of the Indian ocean stretching all the way to where the sky and sea became one most of the next two days.  I prayed for a spiritual sense of self-knowledge, humility, and most importantly...love. I longed for a knowledge of myself that was consistent with what God knew about me, for humility that was based in a surrender to His greatness...not just self-doubt, regret, and failure, and to live a life of love not just because it was the "right" thing to do, but because it was my right to live consistent with the love He had put in my heart.   At one point I rose to refresh the cup of roiboos tea I had been nursing and while in the kitchen ran into the housekeeper who was laboring under a mountain of dishes, pots and pans.  As one of five sisters, and the oldest of eight...in a family of ten...I had often found myself on any given evening laboring under a mountain of dishes.  But if mom or one of my sisters or brothers stood at the sink with me and we talked and laughed and they helped me with rinsing or drying, it went faster and we had fun.  So it was natural for me to pick up a dish towel and start drying while I got to know her, and learned some fascinating things about the Xhosa culture.  We didn't talk about me, my life, my work...I was not really interested in me and I was the one driving the questions...we talked about her. 

When the dishes were done I hung the dishtowel on the rack, refreshed my now cool tea with more hot water and returned to the deck for another hour or two of thinking, praying, reading, knitting, and absorbing the view. 

But within a few moments she came out to where I was sitting on the deck and said that she thought I "must know Jesus," and if she came to work a bit earlier the next day, could we talk about Jesus.  From that morning on I had an sweet moment-by-moment spiritual practice halfway around the world in a town I had never been to, with people who didn't know anything about what books I studied or what church I attended.  They barely spoke my language...or I theirs...and knew nothing of my past.  To them I was as good as my last good deed...my last kindness. And I knew that if I was unkind or dismissive that would be my "history" with them.

I learned that God is truly, and only, the GREAT I AM.  That He alone defines us by the love He puts in our hearts and the desires we have to act on that love...moment by moment...in practical ways that make a difference in the lives of other - and in our own lives. I don't know when my toes ceased to be broken...I can only remember not favoring it one bit during the hikes and long walks on endless beaches that filled our days.

I had to go halfway around the world to learn that we are not defined by our own or another's mistakes, choices, memories or opinions about us...we are defined by our last good deed.  And in this way we have the opportunity to be free of imprisoning self-doubt, regret, painful memories, or sorrow over wrong-doing...we have the opportunity to be made new every moment of every day with every good deed done, every kind seed sown. 

Or as Paul promises in Romans:

"There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus..."

Enjoy being a whole new you every moment you that extend yourself in an act of simple kindness, live generously, care for another, feed the hungry, heal the heart...there is a "Whole New World" waiting every day. I've included this clip from Aladdin (and the full lyrics below) for all my fellow Disney film lovers.



A Whole New World
"I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You last let your heart decide?

I can open your eyes
Take you wonder by wonder
Over, sideways and under
On a magic carpet ride

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us no
Or where to go
Or say we're only dreaming

A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world with you
Now I'm in a whole new world with you

Unbelievable sights
Indescribable feeling
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
Through an endless diamond sky

A whole new world
Don't you dare close your eyes
A hundred thousand things to see
Hold your breath - it gets better
I'm like a shooting star
I've come so far
I can't go back to where I used to be

A whole new world
Every turn a surprise
With new horizons to pursue
Every moment red-letter
I'll chase them anywhere
There's time to spare
Let me share this whole new world with you

A whole new world
That's where we'll be
A thrilling chase
A wondrous place
For you and me"
A whole new world...for you and me,
Kate

"Trouble me..."

"Trouble me, disturb me
with all your cares and your worries.
Trouble me on the days when you feel spent.
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy and strong?
Trouble me..."
- Natalie Merchant

I'll post the rest of the lyrics to 10,000 Maniac's "Trouble Me" below with the Youtube video, but when my dear friend Nancy sent it along this morning with a note: "...it's why we do what we do...eh?" all plans for writing today's post with another song as the springboard, were springboarded right out the window.  This was the song.

Yes, this is why we do what we do isn't it my sweet friend?  Nancy is a Christian Science nurse, in fact she is the nurse I wrote about a couple of years ago in  "Nursing...and the law of kindness". 

I am always surprised when someone apologizes after calling for help...especially on Christmas Day -- or in the middle of the night.  Helping others is what Christmas day...and every day...is all about for those of us who have devoted our full-time to serving as spiritual healers and caregivers. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than get a call from someone who needs to feel fellowship in God's love.  It is such a privilege and joy to be invited to pray with them...bearing witness to God's presence in their lives as living, breathing, palpating Love...any moment of any day.  Just ask my husband and children.  And I somehow feel that each of my fellow practitioner, nurse, and military chaplain colleagues must feel the same way.  This is why we do what we do.

As Mary Baker Eddy says in her article, "Love" from Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:

"Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf.  I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results.  Unless these appear, I cast aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal.  Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power. 

As a human quality, the glorious significance of affection is more than words:  it is the tender unselfish deed done in secret; the silent, ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy, out of a side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk; the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward want and woe, sickness and sorrow, and thus lighting the dark places of the earth."

This healing work of love is not heavy labor, it is a gift, a never-ending, perpetually inspiring, always smile-producing gift. It "happifies existence." It keeps Christmas in our hearts each and every day. It is the "unto us a child is born" that moves within us. It is the real "rapture" and it never ceases to take my breath away.

Through the years I have had the privilege of working with many nurses, chaplains, and practitioners whose care and affection for humanity is just as tireless and true, joy-filled and selfless as this article suggests...and I have been deeply blessed by their example of charity and compassion.   Nancy is one of them. 

Here is a link to the song Nancy sent along with her note... please enjoy "Trouble Me" by Natalie Merchant.

Trouble Me
lyrics by Natalie Merchant

Trouble me, disturb me
with all your cares and you worries.
Trouble me on the days when you feel spent.
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy and strong?
Trouble me.

Speak to me, dont mislead me,
the calm I feel means a storm is swelling;
Theres no telling where it starts or how it ends.
Speak to me, why are you building this thick brick wall
to defend me when your silence is my greatest fear?
Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden
when my back is sturdy and strong?

Speak to me.
Let me have a look inside these eyes
while Im learning.
Please dont hide them just because of tears.
Let me send you off to sleep with a there, there,
now stop your turning and tossing.
Let me know where the hurt is and how to heal.

Spare me? dont spare me anything troubling.
Trouble me, disturb me with all your cares and you worries.
Speak to me and let our words build a shelter from the storm.
Lastly, let me know what I can mend.
Theres more, honestly, than my sweet friend, you can see.
Trust is what Im offering if you trouble me.

Thank you to everyone who has ever let me sit with you in the middle of the night, on Christmas day, or any moment of any day of any year...you have blessed my life with your call. And dear Nancy, thank you for this reminder of "why we do what we do...all my love,
Kate

"Mary, did you know..."

"...Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Mary, did you know
That your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered
Will soon deliver you..."
-Greene/Lowry

I have thought about this verse from "Mary, Did You Know?" (enjoy this Kathy Matthea version...my favorite) a good deal over the past few weeks.  Both in light of my visit to South Africa where I spent just more than two weeks with my daughter, Hannah,  and most recently after reading Laura's fascinating and thought-provoking post last week, "Book Review: Do you Know Who Your Children Are?"   I am convinced that our children...who we think are put into our lives as helpless wee ones for us to care for...are really what will save us from ourselves.

As I sat with Hannah on the beach each day...or lay next to her at night before we fell asleep...it became so obvious that this daughter had been critical in giving birth to the best parts of the woman I have become.  My love for her has demanded more honesty, integrity, courage, and true love...than any other person, place, activity, purpose, or thing in my entire life.  

This child that I thought I would play a critical role in "raising"...has raised my expectations of myself.  She has made me want to live in accord with higher standards of womanhood than I could ever even have imagined before she came along.  She, and her sisters,  are the reason I have persisted in my quest for a better understanding of grace.  They are the impetus behind my struggle for a better sense of moral courage rather than a blanket acceptance of cultural paradigms that, in some ways, are as beloved...and defended... as hallowed sacraments.

My baby girl...who I love with every fiber of my being...came not just so that I would have someone to love and care for - and that she would have someone to love and care for her - but to make me new.  She came to make me want to be new and fresh and wise and innocent and good...especially good...every day since her birth.  She came to deliver me from any self-indulgent complacency with my own idiosyncrasies and peculiar way of doing things.  She came to arrest my devolution into self-righteousness and pride.  She came to remind me that I want to be better because I want to give her a better example of loving authentically and living with integrity. 

My baby girl has walked on the unstable water of my mortal insecurities, frailties, and the wishy-washiness of opinions and demanded that I know my God and stand on Truth with absolute trust in His nature as Love...because I want it for her. 

Whenever I have sought a true centering, an unwavering conviction that there is a God, it is my love for my daughters that I rest upon.  This love is so overpowering that I have no response but to yield to its demand on me to be my most God-like.  It has owned me from the day I knew that to "mother" was what I wanted more than anything else in the universe.  This love has borne me, carried me into places I would never have gone unbidden from the moment I knew I was being asked to parent my first child.  This love has strengthened my resolve when I felt like collapsing, released my rigid grasp when terror kept me holding on to something other than God, and caused me to surrender everything in fidelity to its call.  This love is the one thing I am absolutely certain I had nothing to do with creating...and can do nothing to destroy.  It is the thing that leaves me praying every moment of every day:

"Behold, the handmaid of the Lord,
be it unto me according to Thy will."

Dear Father-Mother God...thank you for these daughters, Your unspeakable gifts,
Kate

"War is over...if you want it"

"...And so this is Christmas
War is over
And what have we done
If you want it
Another year over
War is over
And a new one just begun
If you want it
And so this is Christmas
War is over
For black and for white
If you want it
For yellow and red ones
War is over
Let's stop all the fight
If you want it
A very merry Christmas
War is over
And a happy New year
If you want it
Let's hope it's a good one
War is over
Without any fear
Now..."
- John Lennon & Yoko Ono

December, 1971...I was standing at the counter of the Spinning Wheel Diner watching snow gently falling outside the large plate glass windows beyond the red vinyl booths and small juke boxes at the end of each table.  The counter was empty, the coffee was fresh and I was lost in thought.  John Lennon's "Happy Christmas...War is Over" was playing for the umpteenth time on the speakers from each jukebox, as a pale blue convertible VW bug slid into one of the parking spaces closest to the stairs leading to the front entry. 

The sleigh bells hanging from the front door handle jangled, announcing the arrival of a new customer and I straightened my pink polyester apron neatly over my crisp white uniform and readied a smile.  It would be good to have someone to wait on during the storm.  He walked through the door and I would have noticed his limp even without the richly burnished, hand-carved cane at his side.  He wore an olive green army jacket, worn blue jeans, a black turtleneck sweater.  His limp made the sound of his heavy boots on the black and white linoleum floor sound like steel brushes on a snare drum.  But is was the sadness in his eyes that I noticed first. 

He looked like a broken G.I. Joe doll...handsome, cold, and somehow disjointed and out of place in his own skin.  He took a seat on one of the red vinyl and chrome stools at the far end of the counter and when I asked him if I could bring him a cup of coffee he nodded without saying more than a perfunctory "thank you, yes." 

He seemed lost in his own thoughts and I left him staring into the quilted chrome behind the counter and went about my busy work of filling salt and pepper shakers at each booth while the storm picked up its intensity outside. 

After his eighth cup of coffee and a piece of cherry pie, I asked him if he lived nearby, or was he just passing through.  The diner was on a busy highway and we had a lot of travelers at that time of year who stopped in for coffee to stay awake during long drives.  He told me that he had just been discharged from the army after a stay at Walter Reed army hospital following a severe injury that had gotten him airlifted out of a Vietnamese jungle in the middle of the night.  It had left him "shaken and crippled...maimed for life."  He explained that he had grown up and gone to high school in the area, but that while he was in Viet Nam his parents had moved to Florida.  He didn't know anyone in Florida, so he came "home" to the last place he knew before the war.  But all of his friends had moved on and he wasn't sure where he belonged.

We talked until well after my shift ended at midnight and then he offered to drive me home.  I explained that my dad would be coming to pick me up as soon as I called him, but, "thank you anyway."  He got up from the stool and made his way slowly out to the now completely snow-encrusted little car, backing out of the parking space before inching his way onto the highway.  I watched until his taillights disappeared in the heavily falling snow and wondered what he had seen during those months-turned-into-years in Viet Nam that had made his eyes seem ancient and sad.

I would learn over the next few weeks all about the horrors of war as his visits to the diner became nightly, and his visits to our already crowded home coincided with my nights off.  My mother plied him with questions and meatloaf and my dad grew to enjoy his quiet company...or at least I think he did...he never kicked him out, and smiled when he played Fur Elise and Clair de Lune on our old piano by the front door...that said alot.

One Sunday afternoon he asked if I would like to drive into "the City" and see the Christmas decorations and windows on Park Avenue.  Since I had voluntarily missed my school's Christmas dance that weekend so that my younger sister could go and wear the one and only dressy dress we owned between us, my parents said that I could if we took the train instead of driving and he agreed.  Walking through Times Square, Central Park, and down Fifth Avenue was magical until we came across a billboard that said, "War is over...if you want it - Happy Christmas from John & Yoko."  My friend gripped my arm and we stood perfectly still in the middle of the sidewalk.  An electric surge of hope pulsed through us both.  And for a moment I thought I saw the sadness and pain leave his eyes. 



This is the moment I relive each time I hear this song.  My friend and I remained close until one day he decided...quite out of the blue and without discussion or emotional justification...that I should marry him, move to the Maine woods, build a cabin, carve wooden animals and make toys in order to escape the material trappings of American capitalism.  I was still young, eager to make a difference through the promise of politics and "one man, one vote," had an education to pursue and dreams to fulfill. 

He would marry someone else a few months later and move to Maine. 

I wonder how he feels 27 years later about Christmas, war, politics and America. I wonder what he thinks of each time he hears this song.  

I still think about a boy with ancient, sad eyes and a burnished cane who came out of the snow one winter's evening and changed the way I looked at the world...and the way I listened to a song.

"And so this is Christmas
And what have you done..."

This year...I think we've done something...and we may just see the promised "War is over...if you want it" fulfilled...I think we've made it clear that we "want it....now".

with hope for "peace on earth, goodwill to men,"
Kate

Dance....I hope you dance...

"...I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes,
I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith
a fighting chance

And when you get the choice
to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance..."
-     Lee Ann Wommack

My friend, Brooke, posted this Youtube video on her facebook profile with the message: "This is what I want to do with my life now!"



After watching it I can understand why. 

I got a little taste of the spirit of this video during my trip to South Africa over the last few weeks.  Being thousands of miles from anything familiar...except my daughters face...it was easy to see that there are some things that all people have in common.  We all want the same things...we want to feel like we have a reason for dancing...at a beloved child's happy wedding, the success of a friend's new business, our own heart's racing with  the joy and passion of true love, the smile on a neighbor's face when we show up with cookies on Christmas Eve...the triumph of good over evil, honesty over dishonesty, grace over arrogance, and love over hate.

The last leg of my travel took me into, and through, a long night on a crowded (not an empty seat to be found) jet...or should I say a bus on wings!  By the time we reached Washington/Dulles International airport in D.C. we were tired from trying to sleep in narrow seats, an hour late, all rushing to get through customs, collect checked baggage, re-clear it through ATS, and jump on shuttles that would taxi us to new gates for connecting flights.  Forty-five frantic minutes after our plane touched down I was standing at the gate for my flight to St. Louis only to discover that it would be delayed another four and a half hours. 

I decided to wait with as much grace and joy as I could muster after 36 hours without sleep and vowed to actually celebrate Christmas in Terminal A.  Once I made my pact to do it, and do it with love, I looked around and saw that it wasn't such a bad place to be stuck for the morning.  The shops along the terminal were festooned with pine boughs, glittering strings of tiny white lights, and red velvet bows.  The scent of baked muffins, scones, and bagels from the coffeehop/bakery next to my gate was lovely, and people were smiling.  I decided to smile too.

I wandered the terminal collecting a hot chocolate from the recently naturalized US citizen with three small children who lived 15 miles from the airport and only made minimum wage, but loved making travelers feel welcome in "the capital of our United States of America", and a bagel from the young woman whose ID holder held her official badge on one side and a picture of her at her high school graduation in cap and gown holding her 13 month old daughter who was getting a singing teddy bear for Christmas.  I then settled into a seat at the gate with my knitting and my breakfast to commune with the stranded strangers, and spread my traveling office out on the seat next to me.

Within minutes I saw a familiar face.  It was the jolly man from the first row in economy on my long transatlantic flight, who had greeted me with a smile each time I exited the business class loo (I was such a rebel...I think he felt we were in cahoots in defying the "this loo is for first class passengers only" message from the cabin crew) and made me feel like we were part of a "community" way back there in the cheaper seats.

He, his mom, and sister were now waiting for their connecting flight at the gate next to mine and we easily struck up a conversation.  They lived in Capetown and had traveled to the states for the holidays to visit a son/brother in Atlanta.  Before long we were sharing andecdotes and laughter.  At one point the sister...who now felt like an old friend...said, "I don't know how other women balance work and motherhood..."  A trailing sentence that left me with a sense of sisterhood after only 30 minutes of conversation and 10,000 miles of shared misery on an Airbus 349. 

I suddenly realized that we were not from different cultures or places, we were from the same place.  The place that all mothers share as a homeland...the place where we want to be good mothers and yet also give our children an example of living lives of contribution and vision, purpose and passion.  We were sisters of the same Mother who had vested us with a desire to "do it right"...whatever "right" was....

This realization was like waking to a larger sense of family.  It was reminiscent of an experience I had as a child when looking up at the windows of an apartment building late one night while driving through a random Midwest city on a family vacation I caught a glimpse of a couple talking in their kitchen.  For the first time I realized that the universe did not revolve around me.  These people did not even know I existed and yet they had full lives with cares and interests I didn't even know about.  It was paradigm shifting for me then...and it was paradigm re-aligning for me last week.

As I go about my days preparing for the holidays...I pray that I can remember that people everywhere are looking for an opportunity to dance.  I hope my smile, some small kindness shown or good deed done can give them reason to kick up their heels and celebrate the life we share as children of the same joy-inspiring homeland.

Thanks Brooke...for reminding me of how I want to live my life, II Samuel says it best..."And David danced before the Lord with all his might"....I'm with David on this one!
Kate