"I went to the mountain..."

"...I went to the doctor,
I went to the mountains
I looked to the children,
I drank from the fountains
We go to the Bible,
We go through the workout
We read up on revival
We stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek a source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine..."
- Emily Saliers

One summer morning, just after dawn, I heard a knock on my cabin door.  Grabbing my sweatshirt and pulling it on over my nightgown I opened the door to find a tear-streaked teen standing on my porch in sleep-mussed braids, wrinkled jeans and obvious distress.  Her pain was palpable.

She had been up all night searching for some reason to believe... deeply within her own heart...that God was real and that she could know Him for herself.  She was tired of being told about a God who is Love.  She was ready to know God for herself.  She was at the point where she needed to experience His presence…to really feel Her power and influence in her life. She was confused by her own questioning. She had been coming to camp since she was eight. I had watched her grow from a tiny little girl on a great big horse to a fearless rodeo competitor. She was usually the first camper offering to help others on a hike, and to see her so distraught was heartbreaking. I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around her quaking shoulders and make it all better.

Listening as her questions tumbled out, it didn't take long for me to realize that I would never have the kind of answers she was really looking for.  God would have to "be with my mouth"…even if that meant I should just keep it closed and continue to listen.   She was full of questions for which I knew I would only have less than soul-satisfying answers for…questions about the nature of love, the reliability of truth, the seeming absence of peace and kindness in the world.  I could share with her the milestones of my own search for God and the meaning of the universe, but I couldn't be the end of her search…the seat of her answers.

Then it dawned on me.  I didn't need to answer her questions, I only needed to celebrate the deep hungering for something spiritually substantive which her tears represented. 

Her quest for something reliable, her search for a firm foundation on which to lay the beams of her faith, was a clear and powerful indication of the presence of God in her life…right in the midst of her questioning.   It was pointing to a deep longing for something more, a profound stirring within that rejected complacency, and an inner struggle for Truth. 

In what are referred to as "The Beatitudes", Jesus says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness…"  The blessing is in the hungering and thirsting…the "for they shall be filled" is such a given that it almost appears as an afterthought.  My dictionary defines "blessed" as "the presence of divine favor or endowment".  I could rest my own prayers for her heart's peace in knowing that her hunger was the very indication of actually experiencing the "divine" she was searching for. 

Her search was her own.  Yes, it was spurred on by a childhood of being spiritually nurtured through years of singing much-loved hymns, her parents prayers, and dynamic Sunday school classes within a cherished faith. But whether this same faith would continue to define the path she would follow in seeking satisfying answers wasn't clear to her that early summer morning.  What was clear...at least to me...was that God would always be with her.  That her hunger and thirst to know Him was a very real and tangible indication that He was already there, that He already had His hand in hers and would always lead her to look in the direction that would show her His face in the clouds and His love in her own unselfish and generous heart.

Today, years later, this experience continues to bring me great comfort, especially when my own hunger for more satisfying spiritual answers feels like a yawning emptiness. I am grateful to realize, again and again, that I too am just "still searching".  Yes, this endless questioning continues to keep me awake at night and on my knees longing for answers.  But now I know, that if there is a hunger in my heart, He is already there with me.  For many years I thought that God was in the answers, that to know Him was to know something…I am discovering that to know God is to always be hungry, to always be asking, to always be searching for His face in the clouds and His hand on my heart.
Kate

"Home to stay..."

"…When every town looks just the same
When every choice gets hard to make
When every map is put away
Then I'll be bringing you back
Home to stay…"
-     Josh Groban

Coming across South Park…on my way to camp three weeks ago…I was reminded of a similar day in 1997 when I brought Hannah "home" to camp.  We had moved the year before, traveling by Jeep and Ryder moving truck 2,000 miles East.  This was not an easy move…is there such a thing?  And the promise of flying back to Colorado for camp was what gave our hearts hope.

We landed at Denver International Airport late that June morning and within an hour we were in our rental car…just the two of us…heading southwest down Hwy 285 towards the Arkansas Valley.  It was a perfect Colorado day.  Bright blue skies overhead…dark black clouds to the west promising crisp evenings and cool nights for sleeping.

Camp has always been my heart's home.  I think of it as the place where even though I "work" 24/7 while I am there, it is also the geographical location that best articulates where, as Hymn 297 from the Christian Science Hymnal says, 

"…the dove may close her faltering wings…"

and not just my wings, but for every heart that seems to beat its wings madly searching for a place to rest…it is a place to call home….to just be.

And we were on our way there.  As we drove through the glade-like forest just west of Shawnee and past the toe-dipping waters of the rushing north fork of the South Platte River, I realized that I was already there…and had been all year long.

Camp was a place that existed in my heart.  I could recall every nook and cranny of Valerie Lodge, mentally run my fingers across the rough bark of the large evergreen just off my porch, sense the shifting sky as a storm approaches from the South…from right from behind the wheel of our rental car.

It was a remarkable realization.  To know that although I was in the process of driving to camp, there was a big part of my camp experience that I was taking to camp with me, packed in my heart…like the luggage in the trunk…to share with those I would be serving while I was there. 

Hannah and I each had gifts that we would be bringing with us, like care packages, to share with our friends…old and new.

We had memories of challenges overcome, healings experienced, friendships formed, resumed, and resurrected, of laughter shared and tears shed.  We were bringing our appreciation of this place to it, not waiting to be there to feel our appreciation for it.

I had this overwhelming sense that even if we were to turn the car around right there and then, never again crossing the cattle-guard onto camp property, nothing could take camp away from us as our hearts' home.  Camp lived in us.  Camp was never further away from us than our own hopes, our own desires, our own dreams.  

And these "memories" weren't just about a long-gone past…these were abiding, living, breathing present thoughts.  And more importantly, these very alive thoughts were constantly making a difference in my life.  They were, moment-by-moment, demanding new approaches to problem solving, requiring new ways of thinking about myself and others, providing new views of my relationship to the environment, my work, our world.  Camp and my thoughts, "memories", and experiences centered around camp and those glorious weeks in the mountains each summer are alive with purpose and potential every day throughout the year.

I have been thinking alot about that drive and my realization about the living presence of camp in my life…whether I am here in the Rockies or in my office near the Mississippi River…especially now that my daughter, and her friends,  have graduated from the days when camp was a "given" in their summer planning.   It gives me great comfort to know that if camp lives in her heart as a present place of joy…that I am there too.  We share this space within each of us called "camp"….it is a place we can return to whenever we want to mentally sit on the porch, look out over the lower 280, breathe in the vastness of God's beauty, hear the song of angels and hummingbirds…and open our hearts to the touch of His hand in our lives. Whether we are actually "on property" or somewhere else this summer by choice, circumstance, or "just because", camp lives in us. There is no "camp" without our love and appreciation for what it means to us, what it has done in our lives (and the lives of our children, friends and loved ones), and how it lives in our hearts.

From camp,
Kate

"You fill up my senses..."

"…You fill up my senses
Like a night in the forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again.

Come let me love You
Let me give my life to You…"

I woke up this morning to the song of hummingbirds drinking from the nasturtium and lobelia that cascade from hanging baskets on my front porch, a soft breeze blowing through the open windows in my cabin, and the smell of pancakes wafting up from the kitchen in Valerie Lodge. From my bed, I was surrounded by sounds and scents…and yes, even the  tastes…of camp.  Without a moment's "thought-taking" the words to John Denver's "Annie's Song" began floating through my prayers.   I don't think I've heard, or even thought, of this song in over a decade, but every word was as crystal clear as a bell…and it rang true.  But it was not, in that moment,  about my relationship with another person….it was about my relationship with God.

I wonder if perhaps my heart was primed by a 53 year-old camp tradition we had celebrated the night before.  "Alone with Your Thoughts" is as much a part of A/U (Adventure Unlimited) for me as campfires and flag-raising.  In many ways, it more accurately depicts the spirit of "camp" for me than s'mores, and sleeping bags, rodeos and rafting.

"Alone with You Thoughts" had its birth in A/U co-founder, Cap Andrews' years on a WWII submarine.   Assigned to four hour night watches at sea, young Cap committed himself to practicing increasingly longer periods of thought watching.   Being silent, observing and disciplining one's thoughts, companioning with the good - or God-based inspirations, and letting those that were unproductive or base fall away like the wake behind the submarine, became his personal war. 

After returning to the States and with his beloved Marianne at his side, they "built" Sky Valley Ranch for Boys and eventually Round Up Ranch for Girls (both camps sit on the same property and are now coed camps for 3rd - 8th graders and high school age young Christian Scientists) and Cap continued these "watches" with campers and counselors each summer.

Today, we celebrate "Alone with Your Thoughts" at camp one evening around dusk each session.  After an introductory talk by Ranch Director, Alison Peticolas, campers, counselors, and staff quietly find a place alone…under a tree, beside the lake, beneath a wide pastel sky…to think and pray.

Camp is quiet except for the rustle of aspen leaves at the hand of an invisible mountain breeze.  Barn swallows dip and soar, skater bugs skim across the still surface of the lake like tiny Olympians gliding over the changing reflections of a salmon and lavender night sky cradled in the arms of the Sleeping Indian Range and Mts. Princeton, Harvard and Columbia.

There are no iPods, cellphones, books, or Gameboys.  One may bring a journal and pen to record their inspirations, but as Alison reminds us, "this is about alone with your thoughts" not the thoughts of another writer or thinker….no matter how inspired.  This is time alone with God and as she goes on to remind us, "we crave it…we need it".  And we do.

This is my favorite part of camp.  It is holy.  It is a sacrament unlike any other.  It is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace" (my favorite definition of sacrament) that leaves me filled with an awareness of God's living, breathing, palpating presence - not only within my own consciousness, but in everything around me - unparalleled by any other spiritual practice.

Campers, counselors, and staff have often shared that they have come away from their one hour "Alone with Your Thoughts" sober, refreshed, less empty, awake, certain of God's "realness", happy, hopeful, with a new sense of purpose…healed of hate, resentment, fear, listlessness, injury, exhaustion, illness, doubt…committed to be better sons and daughters, neighbors, friends, global citizens. 

No other one thing seems to have a greater impact on us than committing to, and spending, one hour alone with our thoughts…alone with Mind in a temple of trees, under a dome of sky and stars, listening to a choir or leaves.   In this holy sacred space of sixty minutes I am aware of what is always true…

"…You fill up my senses
Like a night in the forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again.

Come let me love You
Let me give my life to You…"

In giving my life to Him, in letting myself love Him by seeing Him in all things…all day…I am filled over and over again…filled to overflowing with love for God and His creation…all of His creation…including you.

Try taking an hour "Alone with Your Thoughts" wherever you are…with Love,
Kate

"Lord, can you hear me now...or am I lost?"

"Cold, cold water surrounds me now
And all I've got is your hand
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Or am I lost?"
-     Damien Rice (from the film "I am David")

I recently had the rare privilege of watching a remarkable film about the power of love, kindness, and hope in the human heart.

"I am David" is memorable, not only for the indomitable spirit of this young boy on an impossible journey out of the horrors of a post-WWII prison camp, but for the instances of kindness that propel him forward.  Small moments of humanity which, like the soft fingers of flagella, move him through the cold dark waters of fear and doubt, towards the light of love.

Without giving too much away and ruining it for you, there is a scene where young David tries to fit into the landscape of human normalcy in order to avoid being returned to interment.  The voice of his mentor reminds him to assimilate. When a well-meaning baker is suspicious of his presence in the village because the boy doesn't smile, David realizes that smiling is something he needs to learn to do.  His early attempts to create a smile result in a distorted grimace, a forced expression which, when tried out on another unsuspecting merchant, undermines his desire to fit in to the social landscape and go unnoticed. 

Although he generally tries to stay hidden from others while making his pilgrimage, his inherent humanity surfaces and he finds himself rushing to the aid of a young girl in need.

Later, in the presence of her gratitude and sympathy for injuries he sustained during her his heroic rescue, David discovers how natural a smile is.  Her kindness has the irresistible effect on his face of creating what all of his desperate trying could not form....a simple, sweet smile.

It wasn't a manipulation of physiology, psychotropic medications, excited hormones, the production of pheromones, calming serotonin, plastic surgery or psychotherapy that produced a smile.  It was the presence of kindness…the flow of gratitude.

A smile - the expression of beauty, the outward manifestation of joy - is irrepressible, undeniable, imperative.  It springs from a place so primitively spiritual and eternal that we mistake it for physiological reaction.  But it is not a reaction, but the very action of divinity in humanity, the outpouring radiance of Soul in the presence of Love…operating in, and on, the human heart.  This radiance can't help but shine in all its beatific loveliness from the face of any child of God.  

David discovers his smile. He doesn't have to create it or learn how to do it. It just is. From under the debris of hatred and the rubble of cruelty his beautiful smile springs forth at the first warm touch of Love's radiant love.

How many smiles will spring forth at the warm touch of your kindness, gratitude and love today?
Kate

"Kickin' this stone..."

"Kickin' this Stone
kickin' this Stone…
kickin' these blues out into the open light
where moss can't grow…

…Kickin' this stone
Down this long highway
All across the countless miles
From the cradle to the grave
Past all my mistakes
With all their guilt and shame
Through the gentle rain of tears
Sweet forgiveness came…"
-     Johnsmith

I love church…especially the Wednesday evening tradition of my own faith.  I am never too inspired, too peaceful, too sure of my own spiritual ground to not have it bless me in unexpected ways. 

I have learned that if I leave all my costumes, roles and titles out on the sidewalk, and just enter the door with a hungry heart…I leave fed.

Last night was no exception…and the blessing was so surprisingly BIG.  The inspirational readings were on "opinion."  Our little group meets in a storefront on a wonderful walking neighborhood street full of shops and restaurants and coffeehouses. So we place a sandwich board out on the sidewalk.  It lists the theme of our meeting and invites everyone to feel welcome.  When my husband saw the sign last night, he initially thought it said that the meeting was going to be about "onions"…thank goodness he was wrong.

The readings were strong and compassionate.  The impotence of opinions rang through every citation.  I could easily nod my head in agreement.  Mary Baker Eddy says, "…mere opinion is valueless." I concur.  But as much as I agreed with where the readings and hymns took us, I felt like crying…church often does this to me. 

It was so easy for me to see that this spiritual premise about the valueless-ness of opinion is true.  I can readily accept that any mere opinion about someone or something is absolutely valueless to me as a spiritual thinker.  So why was this message stirring up so much sadness in me? 

As I probed around in the darkness while sitting quietly in our small congregational circle, I came upon the stone that was gathering moss in my heart.  It wasn't my opinion of others - or others' opinions about me - that made me heartsick.  It was my opinions about myself.  I realized that I had entertained opinions about my own mistakes and choices that left me filled with quiet regret and remorse. 

I sat there and wondered if those feelings would ever abate, when I heard a young college professor and research scientist begin to speak about a recent healing he had experienced.  I heard him say, "people often think that science is about proving something, but science is about disproving a hypothesis…and it only takes disproving it once to prove that it is not scientifically true."  He went on to explain that if something is scientifically true, it must be true EVERY time. So if it can be disproved even once, it is not really true.

This sent a shockwave through the dark places of self-doubt I had been wandering around in.  I was wallowing in a space where I was sure I could easily spend the rest of my life trying to prove that the bad opinions I held of myself were not true... that I would have to prove in hundreds of thousands of different ways that I was not a bad mother, a negligent sister, a forgetful friend, a less than perfect wife.  But I suddenly saw that each time I WAS a good mother, an attentive sister, an alert friend, a compassionate neighbor, a good wife, I had disproved those false opinions I had harbored in the dark regions of my heart and stubbed my toe on. 

I could kick them into the light and let them be good and precious stones…cleansed by tears, bleached by the sun, strong and ready to use for building a better view of myself...a foundation strong and sure.

It only takes one act of kindness, fidelity, attentiveness, patience, humility to disprove the validity of false opinions about ourselves...and others.   It's good to be a scientist.  To be Christian in my practice of this Science - even with myself - is heavenly.

You can see why I love church…

Gratefully,
Kate

"I'm running down this mountain pass..."

"Well, I'm running down this mountain pass at midnight
Those truckers they all flash their lights at me
This highway is the very best companion
It knows there's nowhere else I'd rather be…."
- Dan Fogelberg

Okay, so I have played with Dan's lyrics just a bit here.  If you want to hear them the way he wrote them you can listen to "Mountain Pass" through this link.  But from the very first time I heard this song, these were (at first) what I thought he was saying…and from that moment on, it was the only way I every heard it.  

This is a post about a road.  It is about a 100.02 mile stretch of the most beautiful highway on earth…to me.   I think of it as my "birth canal."  On this stretch of road, I leave a place I was…each time…and come thorugh to a place where I will have been borne anew…again.

Colorado Highway 285 from Evergreen to Buena Vista is littered with the shedded snakeskins and cast-off chrysalises of my life.   By the time I reach my destination I am as naked and child-like as a babe.  I never arrive burdened…heavy-laden…with the baggage of self and sin.   Somehow the high country wind that blows through the rolled-down windows of my Jeep and the music pouring through the speaker system - washing over me like a Rabbi's blessing at a bris - strip me clean.

I am ready for camp.  I am ready to have my heart tried and tested and made new by the demands of loving and caring for "the children of the Most High."

Leaving Evergreen, I wind my way past Evergreen Lake, up Hwy 73 till I reach its junction with 285.  My trip doesn't really start for me until I am actually on this incredible "highway of our Lord"."   I am never in a hurry.  As eager as I am to get to camp, I don't want to rush this part of the journey.  I pull onto the highway at the Safeway and something changes in me.  I am not my past mistakes.  I am not my former good deeds and published words…or works.  I am Kate and I am going to camp to have a summer of transformation.  I have no agenda, I have no "to do" lists.  I only have a pure, hungry heart for this journey. 

Coming down Crow Hill into Bailey I feel like I am flying.  Flying beyond all that would want to hold my feet in the concrete of doubt and drown me in regret.  The car soars over the road…and I soar past my "once upon a times."

Weaving my way through Shawnee, past the Santa Maria shrine looking down from her mountain altar, winding through Grant…stopping long enough beside the rushing river to clasp my first handful of mountain-fed water and drink deeply of her gifts…I feel the ache lifting from my heart and a child-like joy springing from a place so deep it makes me weep to even write these words.

I return to the Jeep and sit for a moment in the pine-filtered Colorado light…now, so close to the sun…and whisper just one of a thousand prayers of gratitude I will breathe over the course of this 100 miles.

My heart leaps as the Jeep starts and I take her deeper into "a place that I love, to the Piney Wood Forest, and the High Country Snows" (D. Fogelberg - "High Country Snows").  We crest Kenosha Pass and as we round the bend I can see the high country meadows and ranges of South Park stretching before me like Shangri-La.  Because it is June there will be wild irises along the irrigation ditches, and new foals will be kicking up their heels in tall grass next to patient mothers and resolute cattle "on a thousand hills." 

This is where I will slow the Jeep to a pace just fast enough to keep more hurried drivers from expressing disdain in gestures and symbols.  I am in no hurry and do not hesitate to pull aside for any and all vehicles that wish to pass.  I will drink long at this visual fountain of God's bounty. I will be languorous on this leg of my journey.  I will imagine myself a pioneer wife on a Conastoga wagon reaching the summit of this ridge and finding a paradise of flat land just waiting for the seed she's brought all the way from…I will not imagine her first winter and the snow that will drift higher than her rooftops because of those same flat meadows and strong mountain winds.

I will thread my way through the last 36 miles from Fairplay, past Como, near the Midland Trail to Johnson's Corners.  Every inch of landscape visually absorbed as if I were breathing in each molecule and as it entered my system it begins preparing me for what the next five weeks will be all about…living Love...accepting the opportunities for service, humility and compassion, with grace.

As I come over the last pass my heart is racing. I am holding my breath. Tears flow as rapidly as the Arkansas River is rushing from Buena Vista to Salida.  I am home.  My valley has her arms open to receive me. And right between them is the palm of her hand over her heart - and the center of my affections, my home - the Adventure Unlimited Ranches.  I pull over to the side of the road somewhere between where I have crested the pass and  where I will reach the turn-off for Hwy 24 leading into Buena Vista to just take it all in.

Once I can see again to drive I pull up at the three way stop, turn right and make my way through my only real hometown, Buena Vista, Colorado 81211.   Bongo Billy's in on the right.  On the open deck is a table once painted cobalt blue with a big cup and saucer in the middle where I have journaled, and read, and gazed up at Mt. Princeton for more summers than my sun-burned shoulders can count.  Further down on the left is Merrifield's nursery where I will return later in the day to pick up pansies and wildflowers in clay pots and hanging plants for my porch.  Do I stop now for ice cream at Kay's or take a short detour down Main Street for a hot chocolate at Mother's and a quick peak at what's new at Serendipity? Do I really want to pick up nubbly wool in rich deep colors even before I have walked through the door of my cabin?

No!  I have only one destination….I want to go home.  I stay on course through town.  I will return later to visit with Prana - my favorite Weimaraner in the world - at Trailhead, and pick up dried cherries and Dakoba dark chocolate bars laced with lavender at Nature's Pantry.   But for now I have my sights set on a series of avalanche chutes filled with late Spring snow, and at their base my little cabin in the woods next to a burbling stream that feeds Valerie Lake.   I am hungry for the scent of Aspen, lodgepole pine, and yarrow.  I am thirsty for the sound of hummingbirds and children laughing.  I am aching for home.

I turn left at Swishers Diesel Repair shop with its lot full of old school buses.  Five Fingers are now right in front of me and by the time I make the right at the entrance to Game Trail and the left into camp property I am both electric with excitement and absolutely still inside as if I haven't needed to even breathe for the last few minutes. My life is not dependent on air or water or forces of nature. My life is fed by the stillness of this place, the history of joy and healing that has become her cellular memory…imprinted on every rock, leaf, and flower.

I stop at the gates and climb out of the Jeep walking gingerly in my flipflops across the cattle guard to wrap my arms around one of the big pine logs that make up the vertical posts for her gate.  I hug tight, kiss her squarely on her bark-less long cylindrical cheek and thank God…again…for gracing me with another year in this place I call home.

I climb back into the Jeep and drive up the road that bisects our lower pasture.  Horses, antelope, picket pens, rabbits, birds of every name and nature barely notice I have arrived.  I take the right fork at the "Y" and circle up around Coyote's Den, past the Sky Valley corral, behind the Horseshoe cabins where each of my girls will have made their transition from little girl to young woman, up and around the tennis courts to the parking spaces in front of the Hub where my friends  will greet me as if I am the most awaited guest…ever!  But then they do that with everyone that arrives home!  After today I join them as part of the greeting committee.  I will be there in the Hub with them as often as I can...rolling out the welcome mat for others who will be arriving at the door for the first time…or the fifiteth. 

But for today I am the lamb who has found her way back to the place where she feels most the Shepherd's care, has known His staff and His rod, and recognizes his Voice in the wind as it whistles through the pines, and sees His face in the eyes of the children…of all ages.

This is a post about a road…a road I will travel next week…a road on which each deeply drawn breath of mountain air will hold a thousand prayers of gratitude....for one more year...
Kate

"Let peace begin with me..."

"Let there be peace on earth,
and let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on Earth,
the peace that was meant to be.

With God as our Father,
brothers all are we,
Let me walk with my brother,
in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me,
let this be the moment now.
With every step I take,
let this be my solemn vow,

To take each moment
and live each moment
in peace, eternally.
Let there be Peace on Earth,
and let it begin with me."
-     Jackson/Miller

In 1972 our graduating class of high school seniors sang this song as we took our place on the bleachers beneath the same lights our boys had "beat Central" for the State championship earlier that fall. 

We were graduating from a small regional high school surrounded by dairy farms, large summer estates, and the small pastoral villages that fed our student population with its "best and brightest."  

We were Woodstock wannabes.  We wore the requisite pumps and hose, but went bra-less under our white sundresses, and had a pair of tattered jeans and a halter top in the backseat of our get-away car for wearing to graduation parties after dinner with our parents and "honored guests."

We wore hope for the future on our faces and tried to keep our fear of the unknown hid well beneath a deep layer of optimism and folk music.   We were a generation of activism and protest.  We had watched our brothers, cousins, and friends be drafted into fighting a war we didn't believe in and die for a cause we were confused about.  And soon, as we knew all too well, some of us would no longer be protected from this system (of drafting young men once they graduated from high school) by our childhood and youth. Soon, someone's boyfriend or best friend would volunteer, or be asked, to take an oath, don a uniform and travel to a place with jungles and monsoons to fight an enemy we weren't sure we hated.  It was our last moment of childhood…and we knew it.

I remember walking up the steps of the platform where we would sit…waiting for the principal to make his remarks, the valedictorian to give her speech, and our names to be called in alphabetical order…and wondering how we could stop the madness of a war that took fresh-scrubbed boys from farms and small towns and turned them into fighting machines…or worse yet, the unthinkable…fallen heroes sent home to weeping mothers and girlfriends, fathers and teammates.

It was one of those moments burned into my memory like the initials my sister and I carved into an old beech tree…not faded by time, but remarkable for it's clarity "after all those years."

For the first time that I can remember, I actually listened to myself think what I was thinking…and then I listened to the words that were coming out of my mouth while I was thinking those thoughts…and the "coincidence" was staggering.  I was terrorized by the thought that my friends and I were being launched into a world at war, a world where we felt hopeful, but somehow--in the deep recesses of our fears--powerless to make a difference, and yet the answer was falling from my lips with such clarity.

"Let it begin with me…"  

I was very angry with a family member that night.  I was hurt by what I felt was negligent disinterest.  I had vowed earlier in the day that if this person actually showed up at graduation, I wouldn't even acknowledge their presence beyond the polite, "hello, thank you for coming."  I had actually practiced being elegantly aloof.  I would be above it…on the surface…but I would continue to seethe deep inside.  I had the right…right? 

Walking up to my place on stage that evening I suddenly realized that I didn't have the right to harbor a war within my heart….even one that seemed so reasonable and justified.  I did have the right to let peace begin with me. 

Sitting down in my place and looking out at my family taking up two whole rows near the front, I felt all that anger and hurt wash away.  They were there.  They had come to celebrate a milestone in my life.  My parents were proud and my seven siblings were fresh-faced and dressed for a party. My grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins and one great-aunt were smiling up, each with their own memory of me as a child skipping through their hearts as they waited for my name to be called.

I decided to actually think about what I was seeing.  They were in the one of the closest rows to the stage.  This meant that my family, who were customarily late for most appointments, events, etc., had arrived en masse early enough to get premier seating.  My parents had driven 60 miles, from where they had moved earlier in my senior year, with a car full of seven children from age one to sixteen, and had kept them neat and clean, on a very warm June afternoon with no air-conditioning.   My grandmother had driven with my great aunt almost as far, but very slowly, to be there.  And my aunts, uncles, and cousins had carved out this evening from very busy schedules to gather on a football field, sit on hard metal chairs, listen to a guy they didn't know talk about a bunch of kids they would never see again, only to watch me walk a dozen yards, shake the principal's hand, accept my diploma and return to my seat.

Where was the war I was so hell-bent on continuing to fight only hours before?  Where was the disinterest I was willing to sacrifice my own grace for?  Where was the hurt I felt so justified in wearing like a badge of honor?  It was not "out there" in the smiling faces of my family and friends.  It only had a life if I gave it one…in my own heart.  I suddenly realized that by perpetuating that war within, I would be the one missing out on my own "party."  I was the one who, although I might get to parade around in my practiced aloofness, would miss out on all the warmth, affection, and joy that had brought my family to my graduation in the first place. 

When the ceremony was over, and my friends and I had turned our tassels to the other side of our mortarboards before throwing them high into the air, my family crowded near the steps of the stage to congratulate me with tears (Mom's),  hugs, kisses and my uncle's bearlike grip around my shoulders.  

Instead of the cool "hello, thank you for coming" that I had practiced, they got the real me.  I cried in my mom's arms, I jumped up and down waving my diploma with my sister and cousins. I was the oldest, so the first to graduate from high school in our generation. I picked up my little sister and carried her around as I introduced my family to the teachers, administrators and friends who had made my years of high school so wonderful.

As we headed off for a surprise graduation party at my aunt and uncle's house--something I would have been mortified to discover had been planned all along if I had been aloof and distant as planned--all the warring in my heart had ceased and there was a great peace in me as I squeezed into my place in the way-backseat of our 9-passenger station wagon with my sisters.  It was a great night. I would join my friends at a graduation party later, but this was family time and I was ready to celebrate my first post-childhood lesson in being a real peace-activist in their warm embrace.

This would be one of the most important lessons I ever learned…one that I am still working for mastery in…but grateful for each "refresher course" along the way.  

As I watch a new generation of young men and women march off to a questionable war, I can vote, I can protest, and I can write my congresswoman and senator. But I am still convinced that the most effective way to make a difference is to go to battle with any wars that may be raging within my own heart…with peace…."peace that floweth as a river, from the eternal source alone…" (hymn 276 - C. Wesley)

With peace,
Kate

"I see the moon...."

"I see the moon
And the moon sees me
The moon sees somebody
I want to see
God bless the moon
And God bless me
And God bless the somebody
I want to see…"

My friend Maria reminded me of this lullaby the other day, and I can't seem to stop myself from singing it through my chores and into the middle of the night.  It has helped…a bit.  It has made the earth with it's wide oceans, far-off lands, and distant shores…seem somehow smaller and more circum-navigate-able. 

"…It seems to me
That God above
Created you
For me to love
He picked you out
Of all the rest
Because He knew
I'd love you the best…"

When Hannah was very little…I mean very, very little…even before she was born, I would sit in the rocking chair, looking out at the lake just beyond my window and sing this song to her.  I would imagine her from where I was on the shores of the Atlantic, and her nearly 8,000 miles away in South Africa, the moon reflecting as brilliantly on her face, as it was on the dark, still surface of Long Pond outside my window.  I was always astonished at how present it seemed.  It was almost as if the moon were actually floating on the water, instead of 238,855 miles away in orbit around the earth.  There was something so comforting about knowing that from where I sat in my little cottage near shore, I could easily see the moon, whose light was capable of touching both of us. 

I was thinking about this last night as I lay in the dark praying for our children.  Just as the moon is not the source of the light I see reflected off it's surface, I am not the source of the love that has nourished and tenderly cared for our children.  Just as the sun is the source of the moon's light, so is God the source of all the love that our children have experienced through our loving of them. 

The light that I saw reflected on the surface of the lake, was actually only the moon's reflection on the water, of the sun's reflection on the moon's surface.  All that lovely light was just on a never-ending journey of bouncing around touching everything in sight. And it's illumination was not diminished.  It shone just as brightly on the water's surface, as when I looked up at it from where I sat in my rocking chair in the dark.   It wasn't diminished by distance, or by how many surfaces it had bounced off of along the way…it still had enough light to send a path of incandescence along the surface of the water like a yellow brick road to the shoreline at my window's ledge.

Last night it struck me that even though Hannah is in South Africa, every bit of love that I reflect in caring for her sisters…who were sleeping soundly beneath their quilts in their bedroom under the eaves...was reaching her.  It was like the moon's light.  My love doesn't have its source in me.  It originates in God and I am just one reflection in it's undiminished bouncing of light and affection as it finds its way to her heart. 

I could trust that as long as I was "shining" the light would reach her and would be just as brilliant when it arrived in her room, as it is when I tuck her sister's into their beds and sing them lullabies…my breath brushing the hairs at the nape of their necks with every verse…my fingers laced in theirs under the covers.

I could trust that Hannah could feel that same love last night…just as present as the moon's light felt on the surface of Long Pond from my rocker by the window on those nights, almost twenty years ago, when I sang to her from 10,000 miles away even before I had held her…in her bed near the Cape of Good Hope, under a Southern Cross sky.  

Love reflected knows no distance…it just bounces, and like a red rubber ball, picks up momentum and force with each surface it touches along the way…

"…I see the moon
And the moon sees me
God bless the moon
And God bless me
There's grace in the cabin
And grace in the hall
And the grace of God
Is over us all"
-     traditional folk lullaby
-     additional lyrics by Jean Ritchie

"I have confidence...."

"What will this day be like?
I wonder.
What will my future be?
I wonder.
It could be so exciting,
To be out in the world,
To be free!
My heart should be wildly rejoicing.
Oh, what's the matter with me?
I've always longed for adventure,
To do the things I've never dared.
Now here I'm facing adventure
Then why am I so scared...''
-Rodgers/Hammerstein

It was a beautiful September day.  Cloudless clear blue skies, air that felt like satin brushing against your skin as you moved through it, and a temperature just cool enough to be felt through the sweater I was wearing. 

Route 80 out of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania stretched before me like the yellow brick road leading to my first real adult adventure.  I was leaving the New York metropolitan area, where I had lived since high school,  and moving to Los Angeles with nothing more than a dream and a small suitcase filled with two outfits and a few small childhood treasures I couldn't part with.  I was driving an extended family member's car across the United States for her.  My destination was set, but the route and the timetable were mine to decide.

And I was terrified.  Really terrified.  I was good at surviving, coping, and adapting to my surroundings…as long as my surroundings were familiar and I had a job…or two…or three…I could depend on.   I had stayed in the area long after my mom, sisters, and brothers had moved west.  I had a small circle of friends and a strong band of fellow teachers I could count on as my surrogate family.  I knew every square inch of our small town and I was fully vested in its future. 

But I also longed for adventure.  I wanted to know myself as more.  More than how I had become comfortable in thinking about my life.  I didn't want to wake up one day and discover that I had never pushed myself beyond what was familiar and comfortable.  So when I was asked if I could drive a friend's sub-compact car cross-country, delivering it from Manhattan to Malibu, I said "yes" before I could think myself out of it.

I knew that once I had committed I couldn't go back.  It was set in stone.  My friend would be horrified to have to go back to her in-laws and tell them that I had flaked out on a commitment, and I could never do that to her.  It was my way of painting myself into a corner that I already knew I would soon want out of.  

And boy did I ever want out of that commitment once the date of my departure closed in.  But I also know that I couldn't let myself down either.  I wanted to strike out in a new direction.  I wanted to discover more of the world than what I could absorb from all the reading I did…constantly.  I wanted to see and experience the places I had, up to that point, only imagined through someone else's descriptions in a book.

I wanted to see an endless field of sunflowers stretching for miles under a wide, blue Kansas sky. I wanted to cross the "wide Missouri" instead of just teaching children a song about it.  I wanted to breathe mountain air and swim in the Pacific...not just imagine it.

The late September afternoon I finally turned in the keys to my apartment, and set my little suitcase and shoebox full of treasures in the backseat, was traumatic for me.  That little historic village had been my "hometown" since high school and anyone who reads this blog knows that as a child I didn't spend many years in the same place growing up.  Six years in one town was a record and I had felt more settled, and at home, there than I had ever felt in my life. 

I drove out of town and north along the river towards the Delaware Water Gap, crossing into Pennsylvania at dusk and through a veil of tears.  As I started west on Route 80, a terror overtook me like I had rarely felt before.  I pulled off at the first possible exit and found the Sheraton hotel where a friend's sister worked as a reservation clerk.  My splotchy tear-stained face and  tale of woe convinced her that I wasn't in any shape to drive through the night. She kindly asked her boss if I could stay in one of the rooms that hadn't been rented that night and before long I was standing in a quiet room with nothing more than a heart full of uncertainty.

"…Oh, I must stop these doubts,
All these worries.
If I don't I just know I'll turn back!
I must dream of the things I am seeking.
I am seeking the courage I lack…."

After a hot bath and a call to my mom, I began to calm down.  I spent the next few hours quietly rehearsing all the reasons why I had felt so inspired earlier that summer to quit my teaching job, give up my apartment and launch out into the unknown.  I had trusted something deeper than human reason…I had trusted that, at the root of my inspiration, there was a spiritually primitive hunger for growth.  There was something so primal in me wanting to know that I could reach beyond my own limitations and expand outside the boundaries of fear and doubt. 

Those few hours of quiet, alone with the source of my original desires, was all I needed.  Without realizing it, I fell asleep waking at dawn to a brand new day and resurrected hopes. 

I washed my face, dressed and wrote a quick thank you note to my friend's sister for her kindness.  I was eager to begin my adventure.  I was 25 years old and the world was opening its arms to greet my dreams with bright enthusiasm.  I got behind the wheel of that bright green sub-compact and popped in one of the two cassette tapes I still owned. 

I rolled down the windows and cranked the Sound of Music soundtrack up as loud as I could. Maria and I belted out our hard-fought for/hard-won enthusiasm for new adventures with full hearts..and in full voice.  As the early autumn colors of the Pocono mountains became an impressionistic blur of the Mid-Atlantic's finest season I learned something new about myself.  I leaned that I did have confidence, but not in me. 

My new-found courage came from a place much deeper than the inherent limitations of mere human self-confidence…it came from the realization that something bigger was at the root of my desire to learn more about who I was and what I was capable of…and that something bigger was, even though I was a few more years from admitting it...God.

I have confidence in Him…
Kate

"Our house...is very, very, very fine house..."

"...Come to me now
And rest your head for just five minutes
Everything is good
Such a cosy room
The windows are illuminated
By the sunshine through them
Fiery gems for you
Only for you

Our house is a very, very fine house..."
- Graham Nash

We are ready to walk
Out the door
We will soon flip the light switch and
Turn the key in the door for the last
Time

I have wept silent…and not so silent
Tears in these last few weeks
I have run my hands tenderly 
across your light-drenched window sills,
wrapped my arms around your strong newel posts
And tiptoed along your golden wide-pine floors
from my office to the kitchen in the middle of the night
staying up to wring every last moment from
these final weeks within the periwinkle and pear...
khaki and prairie grass sancutary you have
been for us...for me...

I have loved you well
You have been a retreat for my heart
When it was most lonely and
Frightened by choices
And unsettled by transitions that
Seemed impossible
Day after day after day…and
Night after night after long, long night

My daughter
Far from home in Africa
Last slept here
She knows me here
She imagines me in this kitchen with
The sun streaming through large casement window
And an old pine table holding steaming mugs of tea…
This is the last home where I made her bed or
A big bowl of Cream of Wheat
with lots of brown sugar.

This is the last house where her
Laughter bounced off photos from her childhood
And was absorbed in the softness of
Her well-loved quilts.
She will easily make the transition to a
New room in our new house just a few miles from here
When she returns home….

But I will have to wait till then
for  her perfume to linger on soft white pillow cases
Or to find her towel on the bathroom floor.

This house held the twins warm and safe
And cushioned their footsteps in the middle of the night
Her walls have heard their secrets and her
Windows have known their breath, visible on cold winter days.

This house launched our son on his journey towards
Manhood and welcomed our eldest daughter and her partner
Home from their first year out of college…

This house held her breath as I prayed and
Gave my husband a place to start anew.

This house
with her high ceilings and stained glass transoms
has been my friend, my confidante,
my shoulder to cry on….my home

This house has given me a place to learn that
I am stronger than I ever thought I could be
And that kindness is more valuable
Than gold.

This house will live in me always…
          As a home…

This house has raised me
          it has made me ready
     For our new house…
          Another home….

I have loved every moment ...
     in this house.
Kate

"Come on people now..."

"...If you hear the song I sing
You will understand (listen!)
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at you command

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another..."
Right now
-Powers

The phone rang at 2:30 in the morning the other night.  Thanks to caller ID I knew it was Hannah's birthmother before I even answered it.  I was grateful for that advance notice.  It gave me the moment I needed to center my heart, and reaffirm for myself the unflagging fact that God was with Hannah wherever she was, whatever she was doing.  I may be 12,000 miles from where she is, but God was infinitely near.

I answered with my heart in His hands.  She must have known that I would be concerned because she immediately said, "Hannah is fine."  I could breathe again. 

"But," she followed, "we are going through a terrible time here." She continued to explain the situation that they were facing in Johannesburg.  A situation that was quickly reaching beyond the city and spreading throughout other regions of South Africa.  Tens of thousands of refugees from other African countries had streamed across her borders seeking sanctuary.  Local Africans fearing loss of jobs, resources, and aid were lashing out violently against those who were there for asylum. 

She was calling for help.  And I wanted nothing more than to be able to catch a flight and be there standing next to her volunteering at the makeshift refugee camps that were popping up in school yards and at police stations, in open fields and under bridges.  But that wasn't what she was asking for. 

"You have a blog, you could tell people what we are facing and what we need…" she offered.  She knew what I could do and she knew what resources I had to offer.  She knew that I, as one small human 12,000 miles away, would be practically useless in the scheme of feeding and caring for 30,000 refugees.  But her sense of my reach was larger.  She reminded me that I have a voice.  I have words.  I could let readers know that there was a grave need for supplies, food, and most importantly, prayers.

Then she asked the question that would take my response to a higher level of peace, "Who do you know…don't you know someone who can help?" 

That was when I really started to feel like there was a practical answer to her call for help.

Yes, I did know someone….I knew God.  I knew my Father-Mother God who had cared for my mother, siblings and I when dad was killed suddenly leaving us in debt, without money and very few options for employment or assistance

I knew this all-loving divine Parent intimately.  I knew His over-arching care in the midst of dispair.  I knew Her comfort when the nights were dark and there was no hope in sight.  I knew the radiance of His warmth filling me from within with love and compassion for my mom, raising my seven younger siblings with only my sister and me as bread-winners.  I knew the strength of His hand in guiding and protecting us.

Yes, I knew someone…I knew the only One who could really help. 

In the last few days I have contacted the American Red Cross, shared the story of South Africa's plight with colleagues, friends, neighbors, and organizations I work with.  I have made calls and written emails.  But these efforts pale in the light of what I know will be the answer. 

To know someone…to really know Him.  To know that She is already there.  She is there in the heart of Hannah's birthmom who leaves her young children each day to go volunteer in a refugee camp.  He is there in the compassion shown by those who are giving their foreign neighbors sanctuary and relief.  He is there in the hands of aid workers bottling water, distributing food, tucking blankets in around the shoulders of nursing mothers weak and tired from days of travel on foot.  She is there nursing children and singing to babies.  She is there.

What can you do….who do you know? 

With hope... 
Kate

"I need not plead..."

"…Abide with me; fast breaks the morning light;
Our daystar rises, banishing all night;
Thou art our strength, O Truth that maketh free,
We would unfailingly abide in Thee.

I know no fear, with Thee at hand to bless,
Sin hath no power and life no wretchedness;
Health, hope and love in all around I see
For those who trustingly abide in Thee.

I know Thy presence every passing hour,
I know Thy peace, for Thou alone art power;
O Love divine, abiding constantly,
I need not plead, Thou dost abide with me…"
-     Lyte/Woods

This is the song that often comes to me, in the middle of the night, when my body...or spirit...are sore.  The last verse is a reliable life preserver in the midst of a raging inner storm.  It is what I can be found clinging to when I am laid low by pain or sorrow, confusion or doubt.

I needed this reminder, "I need not plead, Thou dost abide with me," one night not long ago when the sky was pre-dawn with the blue of an ocean a mile deep.  It's a color I associate with the feeling of being so far underwater that you lose your sense of which way is up.  Diving with weights it is sometimes almost impossible, at certain depths, to know whether you are swimming deeper into an abyss, or towards the surface.  This disorientation can leave you feeling frantic and unable to use your limited air supply wisely.

Any diver knows that if you lose your sense of direction underwater there are laws that you can rely on. There is a law of buoyancy which, when you drop your weights, will take you to the surface.  This same law will also inform your underwater compass.  Watching the direction air bubbles from your respirator are traveling, you can discern what is "up"!

I thought about both these examples in those hours of pre-dawn when I was struggling and unable to find direction for my prayers...or rest for my body.  Discomfort had me swimming in circles.  I just wanted to be able to think clearly.  I needed to rest and I longed to feel that I was resting upon spiritually inspired laws rather than just resting from exhaustion and pain. 

That was when the line, "I need not plead Thou dost abide with me…" came like a strong hand upon my shoulder.  I had been swimming about frantically looking for "which way is up", thinking that without my effort in the right direction...prayerfully and practically…I could be headed deeper and deeper towards drowning in a dark chasm.  This thought, "I need not plead, Thou dost abide with me…" was like watching my air bubbles rise towards certain light and air. 

It allowed me to let go of the weights that were holding me down…the weight of thinking that if I didn't think the right thought, pray the right prayer, or make the right human decision, God couldn't help me…and rise towards the light of His all-powerful, always present care and guidance.

I didn't need to plead.  I didn't need to swim frantically in the depths of chaos and old night searching for the light.  I only needed to drop the weight of thinking it was up to me to do the doing, think the thinking, or pray the prayer.  Prayer was, and is, as Mary Baker Eddy says, "…God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully for the Christianization and health of mankind."  So prayer isn't my means for pleading with God, but His means for reminding me that He is God, that He is always present, that He does love me, and that He has all the power in the universe to successfully accomplish His will for health (wholeness, wellness, completeness, perfection) and Christianization (kindness, honesty, compassion, selflessness, purity, innocence, temperance, joy…) in my life…and in the universe. 

My rest came and when it was time to wake the girls up for school I was ready for a full day of work, family and gratitude.

Just as the light of a new day will always follow that beautiful deep, rich blue of pre-dawn, we can be just as certain that we need not plead…He does abide with us.  We can drop the weights and rise to the light that is always there. 

Abiding with Him…always,
Kate

"Sweet, sweet surrender..."

"...There's nothin behind me and nothin that ties me
To somethin that might have been true yesterday
Tomorrow is open and right now it seems to be more
Than enough to just be there today

And I dont know what the future is holdin in store
I dont know where Im goin, Im not sure where Ive been
Theres a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me
My life is worth the livin, I dont need to see the end

Sweet, sweet surrender
Live, live without care
Like a fish in the water
Like a bird in the air."
-John Denver

I was so young...when I thought I was so old.  Now that I really am "so old" (according to our eleven year old twin daughters) I realize how young I was then. 

Mary Baker Eddy says, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "…age is halting between two opinions or battling with false beliefs, [while] youth makes easy and rapid strides towards Truth." This statement is like a toddler holding my hand leading me away from my aged halting, battling self, and towards the youthfulness that makes easy and rapid strides towards truth. 

This has been especially helpful in the last week or so.  We are moving.  There! I've said it.  It has not been an easy thing to accept.  I LOVE our flat here in the city.  I love her character. I love the light that pours in through stained glass transoms and large rippled-glass-multi-paned windows, bathing our days in gold.  I love her squeaky wide-pine floors that catch the sun's rays in the morning, sending it bouncing up onto her one hundred year old hand-plastered walls and splaying it across our bedroom quilt like a langorous cat stretched out for a nap.  And oh her colors….periwinkle blue, pear green, wet sand, raffia, persimmons, candied ginger…they wrap us in beauty on even the coldest, grayest days of winter.

But.. we have eleven year old twins and they love soccer, and puppies, and running and yelling and their friends who live "way out west" (in the suburbs), and their school (which is also way out west) and being eleven.  And we love them.  So, we are moving. Wow! I said it again…it gets easier.

We are moving to a wonderful house, not all the "way out west"...but closer.  It is a house with a wide front porch and a tree-filled yard.  It is a house with a little elementary school at the end of the street with playgrounds and a soccer field.  It is a house where the girls can wrestle with their new puppy, Mollie.  It is a house where they can go from the living room to the kitchen without these beloved squeaky floors announcing their every move to a very patient downstairs neighbor.

I am learning to let go of even the most wonderful things when it is right.  It seemed easier when I was younger.  I could harvest our treasures, give away what was extraneous to survival, pack the rest (mostly books...some things never change) and head towards the next outpost with a spirit of adventure.  I have become a bit clingy.  Okay, so not just clingly, more accurately, it's like I'm wrapping my arms around the newel post and sobbing.   But with my family's help I am making easier and more rapid strides towards what is right for our "truth" today.  Today we are, happily and gratefully, the parents of eleven year old twins.  Today, we are a family with a new puppy. 

This is our truth and my youthful self can make easy and rapid strides towards all that embraces and appreciates where God has led us…today.  God will unfold tomorrow, God will grant me the serenity to accept His gifts of grace.   God will gently hold my hand.  He will tenderly pry open my fingers so that I can begin to let the once beautiful petals of yesterday's fresh, fragrant gifts scatter like seeds into the fertile soil of tomorrow's lessons in grace, opportunities for growth…and accept the treasures of today.

Last week the new house got coats of poached pear and robin's egg, prairie grass and willow tree on her wall.  Bookcases will soon line her walls and her wood floors will be scrubbed and polished till they throw the light from her windows onto tables tops and into cozy nooks for reading.  Soon she will be the flower clutched tightly in our hearts.  Grown from the seeds of home we have sewn in yesterday's hopes that our children would always know how much we love them.

May your surrenders today be sweet with serenity...and His gifts bring you peace, 
Kate

"Parents are people..."

"...Parents are people
People with children
When parents were little, they used to be kids
Like all of you, but then they grew
And now parents are grown-ups
Grown-ups with children
Busy with children, and things that they do
There are a lot of things a lot of mommies
And a lot of daddies,
and a lot of parents can do..."
-     Carol Hall

I was barely out of high school when my dad suddenly passed on (following a road collision) that left my 39 year old mom widowed with 8 children under the age of 19.  I am still ashamed to admit that although I was heartbroken for our family, and devastated by the way his passing turned our lives upside down socially, financially and emotionally, I was not as deeply concerned about my mom losing her husband and companion, as I should have been.  I thought, "they were old anyway".  Horrible, huh!?!?  But honest.  I was so immature.  The world of "adults over 30" was filled with senior citizens in my eyes.    I couldn't imagine that my mom still had the capacity to feel romance...or be in love.   Sh