"There's so much to be thankful for..."

"Somedays we forget
To look around us
Somedays we can't see
The joy that surrounds us
So caught up inside ourselves
We take when we should give..."

I am really enjoying Josh Groban's new Christmas CD, Noel and can't seem to get the song, "Thankful." out of my head...and heart...today.   I've enjoyed letting it inform my prayers and recalibrate my thoughts.  It's brought me to my knees in humble recognition of how abundantly God has blessed my life.  Working with one verse at a time, and letting the chorus dance me from task to task, call to call, prayer to prayer, has been love-ly and awakening.  By reclaiming all that I have to be thankful for, I realize that I can take an even bigger bite out of the harvested blessings we've experienced this  year.  My heart is full...and yet...

"...So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for..."

I love the spirit of expectancy and promise this verse is filled with...to overflowing.  To think that we can hope for things we can't even see as yet.  Especially when it comes to the changes...in ourselves, and in our world...that we pray for.  And even though I know that there is so much more that we can be doing to care for our neighbors, promote peace, bring balance to socio-economic variance, end domestic violence, hunger, and pain...I can be thankful for all the ways we have seen progress this year.

"...Look beyond ourselves
There's so much sorrow
It's way too late to say
I'll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth
It's so long overdue..."

Sometimes I am myopic and near-sighted about where, and how, I might direct my day-to-day desire to make a real difference.  I get caught up in worrying about how other people might view my choices, if my children are happy, whether my hopes are being fulfilled...my prayers are being answered.  But today, this verse kept my heart stretched and expanding like a great white balloon larger and larger with every breath of the divine, filling me with more love, more love, more love.  My truth is, I know that I have many moments throughout the day that could be more focused, more devoted, more conscientiously given to praying, serving, living for others, working for social change, economic equity, and standing up for the spiritual dignity of man.

"...So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And every day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for..."

This chorus is gracefully moving me forward, filling me with such profound gratitude for all the ways that the spade of Spirit is digging in and stirring the settled, hard-packed spaces in my heart.  As I watched the leaf-gatherers come through our neighborhood today, their rakes and pitchforks lifting up the rain-soaked piles of leaves, loosening them so that they could be vacumned up and turned into municipal compost, I was reminded of all the ways that this song was loosening time-packed healings and transformative moments I'd experienced this year, allowing me to see them again in their true light. Each an extraordinary blessing that will nourish and inspire my life's work, my spiritual confidence, my trust...for eternity.

"...Even with our differences
There is a place we're all connected
Each of us can find each other's light..."

I think this brief lyrical bridge meant the most to me tonight.  I have spent hours sitting with it...like a new friend...trying to fully understand its message, get to know its promise, rejoice in its application...moment by moment. You know, Facebook, cable news television and satellite radio, political and philosophical blogs (including my own), religious programming, conversations with those whose opinions we do, or don't agree, are constantly telling us, in so many ways, how different we are from one another.   And how justified we are in our own personal sense of rightness.  But this little verse is a gentle, but firm, correction.  We may think we are different, we may think we are right, and therefore, someone else is certainly wrong...right (?)...but there is a place where we are all connected and it is in this space of the heart...this love, love, and more love...that searches for another's light, not their darkness, or the absence of light in them, or in their views, choices, or decisions. 

"...So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though this world needs so much more
There's so much to be thankful for..."

So tonight, as I tuck the girls into their little (I know, I know...they are almost teenagers...sigh) beds under the eaves, cover them with soft, colorful quilts, and turn down the lamps before singing them lullabies and hymns, I am thinking of all the ways I can be that "so much more" the world needs, while not losing sight of the "so much to be thankful for" all around me....I am starting with being thankful for each of you...thank you for the ways you have blessed my life, my family....your world.

I am thank-full...deeply so...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Holister Thomas 2009]

'Breath of Heaven"

"...Do you wonder
As you watch my face
If a wiser one, should have had my place
But I offer-all I am
For the mercy-of your plan
Help me be strong
Help me be
Help me...

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven..."
- Amy Grant

As we move into this Christmas season, it just seems so important to keep in mind what we are really celebrating,  and how relevant it is in our lives today.  To celebrate the birth of a baby in a manger, without an appreciation for  his mother's journey towards that manger...and where it would lead us all...would be heartbreaking to me. 

"Breath of Heaven," was written by Amy Grant, but the version sung by Sara Groves, tears me apart.  The clip in the first link is Amy's performance and the video sticks to the nativity story, but the second video, paired with Sara's extraordinary recording, although a bit rough and dramatic, underscores the human passion and pathos of the larger story.  Both are moving.  I love them each for different reasons.  I do think that Sara's vocals are as hauntingly beautiful in this context, as Barber's Adagio for Strings is in the context of the crucifixion...but that's another post.

I had been listening to these recordings before church tonight, and after the service, I was talking with a friend about our work as spiritual healers...care-givers, practitioners, nurses, hymn singers, writers, painters, and prophets...those who hope to bless the human family with "crumbs of comfort from Christ's table, be it with song, sermon, or science."  And I realized, that every day, in our own way, we live this story.  We are surprised by the humble privilege of this holy work.  We know that we never could have chosen this path for ourselves, but are gratitude-sent into a life of service to our Father-Mother God by a holy calling. 

I don't know one spiritual healer who thinks he, or she, is "all that." Not one that enters this work through the portal of pride, self-certainty, or ambition. It is a deep hunger to serve Him that sings through our hearts. And the lovely, humbling truth is, that we know, with all our being, that anyone, and everyone, can do this work.  The fullness of love required to see the Christ in another, is deeply rooted in every man, woman and child.  Devoting our lives to this work, we, like Mary and Joseph, sleep with angels who whisper a calling, and a promise, in the dark.  And upon awakening, we must be willing, every day, to open ourselves to the birth of something fresh, unexpected, and deeply moving within our hearts.  We are asked by our divine Employer to surrender the body of our lives to His purpose for us. 

Like that young couple, we walk through the desert of human hopes (usually our own), to find that there is little room for us in the busy-ness of a "world as cold as ice," a village that measures worth by the hierarchy of accomplishment, accumulation, and acclaim. We turn from its beckoning doorway and search out the silent welcome of a manger, and in its humble, simple, stillness something new, and healing, and transformative is born in us.  Angels hover and kings kneel before this babe of Christian healing.  And we are amazed that we are there...among wise men and shepherds...to witness the advent of His gift "on earth peace, good will to men," and the gospel message of, "The kingdom of heaven is within you."

This happens over and over again in the life of a spiritual healer...every spiritual healer.  Our work demands a manger...not a busy inn, a charming bed & breakfast, or a sophisticated hotel.  Our music is the simple song of angels...hymns, gospels, lullabies, rather than an exclusive black-tie performance.  Our companions are publicans and sinners.  Our highest vantage point is not found in looking out from a throne, a pedestal, or a penthouse...but the lonely summit of a cross.   We are most grounded and stable when we are on our knees...washing feet, praying, looking up into the eyes and hearts of our neighbors, not down at them.  We rest most peacefully surrounded by lambs and doves, straw and starlight.  We are manger dwellers.

On the final page of her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, at the end of the chapter, "Waymarks," poet, speaker, reformer, teacher, discoverer, founder of Christian Science, and most importantly, spiritual healer,  Mary Baker Eddy concludes,

"In this period and the forthcoming centuries, watered by dews of divine Science, this "tree of life" will blossom into greater freedom, and its leaves will be "for the healing of the nations."

                      Ask God to give thee skill
                          In comfort's art:
                    That thou may'st consecrated be
                          And set apart
                        Unto a life of sympathy. 
                    For heavy is the weight of ill
                          In every heart;
                      And comforters  are needed much
                        Of Christlike touch. 
                                                          — A. E. HAMILTON

This is how she chose to close the last chapter of her autobiography...with a call to fellow healers.  And many who have been immeasurably blessed, healed, and transformed by God's love, have gratefully answered that call.  I am honored to work among such humble servants of the Most High.  I love you, dear colleagues...I am amazed by your selflessness, moved by your example, touched by your compassion, and encouraged by your lives of self-surrender, availability, and grace. 

In your company I hear the song of angels and the lullabies of that mother-love in each of you, singing "low, sad, and sweet" as you lift up the Christ child in every man, woman and child...each moment, of every day and night...you are my heroes. 

I am honored to be manger-watching with you tonight....
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Ashley Bay 2009]

"... trying to earn grace..."

"...Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching
as if I'm not enough..."

I have been thinking alot about the word "grace" lately, and what it means to me.  I heard this song, "By Your Side" by Tenth Avenue North,  and I was just so struck by the question, "Why are you trying to earn grace?" 

My favorite dictionary definition of grace has always been "the divine influence on the heart, and its reflection in the life."  It is a definition that found me when I most needed to feel grace in my life.  It has helped me recalibrate my thinking over and over again.  I love it.  I have lived with it, and I have tried very hard to put it into practice in my life.  But, I've begun to see that this is where I may have lost the true chord.  I worked  it, tried to do something with it, and used it...like an instrument I could own.  However,  in the past few years it has come to mean something more.  And this something more, is actually something I don't know if I can wrap up neatly in all the right words and give it to this page.   But I will try. 

Grace for me is the un-earned moments of divinity that touch our human experience.  Grace is found in those instances of mercy when we least feel like we deserve that "beyond forgiveness" which the word "mercy" implies.  It is the kindness of a stranger...who is as surprised by his own expression of kindness, as I am by the receiving of it.  It is genuine peace while the storm still rages.   It is actually feeling the warmth of home, even though you are sleeping in your car.   It is dignity in the midst of prejudice and distain.  It is feeling affection when hatred screams that you "have a right" to feel otherwise...and yet you love.  And this love surprises you.  You are loving,  not because you are trying to do the right thing, but because God has moved your heart to feel something you could never have even imagined feeling, just moments before.

I am so moved by this concept, this gift, of grace.  It takes my breath away.  I have seen it in hospice rooms, at the scenes of accidents, on football fields, and in restaurants.  I have seen it in grocery stores and parking lots...I saw it after the Columbine shootings in the way that students found a hidden strength within themselves, and they were able to comfort adults and strangers, even though they themselves had just been through hell and back.

For me, grace isn't found in grand strategies, missions, or service projects...although, in the breaking down of pride, selfishness, and hierarchy that often attend a genuine desire to serve, these can be fertile opportunities for grace to appear...grace is found in the conversation between a volunteer and a Katrina victim where both discover something new about compassion and humility. It is found in the moment on a park bench when a lonely senior citizen just needs to tell his life story, and a teen sits and listens.  It is found in the child who shares one of her gloves with a teammate when it starts spitting sleet during a soccer game...and they both have one warm hand in a muddy glove and one bare hand for high-fiving with.  It is the middle school boy who surprises himself by hugging his mom in front of his friends after school.   It is in the  generosity of a remarkable singer/songwriter who gives you a song, just because she knows it moves your heart beyond the landscape of longing, and into holy space of unspeakable redemption and peace.

Grace is found in the most unexpected places.  It is not earned, but earnest.  It is a prayer that wells up from our emptiness and reminds us that there is still an ember of hope somewhere waiting to be fanned into a flame.   Grace is an unexpected meeting with a fox on a lone stretch of rocky island coast in the Bearing Sea.

I have known grace in the forgiveness of a friend, the patience of a child, the compassion of a waitress, the welcoming of stranger. It is a teacher who starts a community service and philanthropy revolution without a dime in his budget, but with a dream in his heart, a like-hearted partner by his side, and a passion for giving that sees only humanity's hunger, and his community's need to be generous in order to fulfill its true purpose.  

As I think about the start of this holiday season...the red cups are already out at Starucks...I am standing on tiptoes,  watching like a child at the window on Christmas eve,  for instances of grace this year.  Watching with my heart pressed up against the frosty windowpane waiting and watching for those moments of divine surprise when Diety reaches deep within us and fills our very human-ness with something sacred and holy.  

I know that it is in these times...times when, as a global community we are facing war, joblessness, poverty, a health care crisis, economic meltdowns, and strife among neighbors...that we are most ripe for the appearance of grace...the uncommon in the common, the sacredness in simplicity.  And I don't want to miss one tiny glimmer of this "miracle of grace..." that, as Mary Baker Eddy says, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "...is no miracle to Love."  Love, God, doesn't find it miraculous that, in Her all-powerful love, and care for us,  She surprises us with the gifts of wonder, affection, mercy, peace...grace.  Every mother knows the supreme joy of surprising her child with something wonderful...we have learned it from Her.

Grace stands waiting to surprise us in our stillness...with a gift full of spiritual promises, reminders of His presence.  Grace appears....it always has.

It appeared in the hearts of three wise me who were sent by a jealous king to find  the "prince of peace" so that he could put an end to the prophecy "peace on earth, good will to men" and this grace led them home by another way.

It appeared in the choices made by a young fiancé who actually believed an angel that came to him in a dream and told him that his pregnant girlfriend had not betrayed him, but was carrying the child of God.

It appeared in a girl who ran through the countryside to see if her long barren cousin was "with child" as a confirmation of the miracle within her own womb.

And it will appear in each of us...listen, watch, wait for the touch of grace, as gentle and quiet as snowfall, as un-earned as a mother's love....oh sweet amazing grace.  Grace is transformative, it can change the human heart from a place of want and woe, to a sacred space where lions lie down with the lambs, men whisper to foxes, and angels sing....

"My heart is capable of every form:
A pasture for gazelles,
A monastery for monks,
An abode for idols,
And a place where the votaries of the Kaaba come.
In my heart, both the Tablets of the Torah and the Holy Qur'an
are to be found.
My faith and religion is love: wherever it beckons me, I follow."
- Tarjuman Al-Ashwaq

with Him right by our side, holding us...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Nathaniel Wilder 2009]

"...you are the apple of my eye..."

"You are the sunshine of my life,
That's why I'll always stay around,
You are the apple of my eye,
Forever you'll stay in my heart

You must have known that I was lonely,
Because you came to my rescue,
And I know that this must be heaven,
How could so much love be inside of you?"
-     Stevie Wonder

My grandmother used to tell me that I was, as Stevie Wonder sings, "the apple of my eye" to her.  I can't remember when it started, but it always made me feel special.  And in a family of eight children, feeling special was...special.

I remember a birthday card I received from her the year I turned ten, it was a big red apple with some kind of fuzzy red flocking, a green stem, little green leaves, and a worm sitting on the top holding a sign that said "Happy Birthday" and inside it said, "to the apple of my eye." And,  "Love, Dee Dee." My mom found it among some special cards and letters she had been saving all these years and gave it to me last year. For a moment, I was ten again, and felt...special.  

She was never Grandma, Grandmother, Granny, Nana, or Oma...she was DeeDee.  She had bright red hair, wore stilettos at 70, and her lipstick always matched her nails.  She couldn't have been any more unlike my mother if she'd had purple skin...and that fascinated me. 

My mother was the quintessential "earth mother."  She was warm, cozy, funny, childlike, and loved the outdoors.   My grandmother was sharp, smart, crisp, intellectual, and European.  Along with the apple-themed birthday card that year, she sent me a leather poodle, with mink ear and tail puffs, and a small bottle of Chanel No. 5 between his paws.  I was  smitten with her, and the sheer impracticality of that gift.  Like the pointy toes on her 3-1/2 inch red patent leather pumps, it made no sense.  To anyone...except the two of us.  She somehow knew that I needed to feel grown up and extravagant that year.  And I did.

No, she was not very grandmotherly in a traditional way, but she was my grandmother.  She would send me Margaret Tsuda art reviews she'd clipped from the Home Forum section of The Christian Science Monitor, long after I'd decided my spiritual journey was going to take a few side trips through other religious practices and spiritual philosophies...and I read them.  There was something about receiving them from her that made me feel connected to something wonderful and magical (our mutual love for art, history, and NYC). And I somehow knew it made her happy to think of me reading them.  It never occurred to me...at the time...that by sending those clippings, she was building bridges that connected me to something that was just as critical to my sense of who I was, and where I came from.  By sending those articles, she'd found a way to keep those words, "Christian Science" in my vocabulary, not in a religious way (since she knew I was exploring many different faiths and philosophies at the time), but in a way that was more comfortable for me to engage with, and appreciate on. And to be honest, one that I was proud to be associated with.  It's reputation for journalistic excellence was unparalleled...and I knew it.

When those thickly stuffed envelopes would arrive with her very uniquely vertical handwriting on the front, I would save each packet...sometimes just sitting propped up on my desk at school all day...until I had a moment to savor the beauty of what I knew would be inside.  An article about a beautiful painting, drawing, sculpture, or photograph written by someone she knew I admired and felt a connection to. 

Tsuda had hosted my cousins and I one autumn afternoon for tea at her apartment, and then given us a guided tour of the Guggenheim at my grandmother's request.  I was 15 years old and I can still remember how grown up and sophisticated I felt in my pleated skirt and Bass loafers with navy blue knee socks, as we felt our way along the spiraled walls to the sound of Margaret's hushed guidance and snippets of history about each piece of art we were experiencing. 

Today I realize what a gift that day was to me.  It honored my life-long love for art and gave my grandmother and I a point of reference for a special connection that would endure over the ensuing three decades.  It was a thread that extended from her heart to mine and it never let me get too far from who she knew me to be...a young woman who loved beauty, history, and being treated as a vigorous spiritual  thinker.

Those hand-clipped art reviews from the Home Forum page always seemed to include the nearby "Monitor Religious article" and today I can admit to having read everyone of them.  Articles about what it meant to be spiritual and how to make that spirituality practical in our lives.

Although she often spoke of her love for God, my grandmother never mentioned religion, or that daily religious article, in her accompanying note.  But as a Christian Science practitioner herself,  I have no doubt that she sent it with the hopes that if, perchance, I was ever hungry for an inspiring spiritual idea...one that would be familiar and healing in a dark hour...I would have something at hand.

In this way she and my mother (her daughter) were very, very much alike.  They were both practical and loving in ways that really mattered.  My mother always made sure I knew how close she was if, and when, I ever needed her...even when she lived thousands of miles away and had six other children to care for.  And my grandmother never let me forget that the most important things in the world were already within me.

I once asked my grandmother why she called me the apple of her eye, and although I thought her answer was pretty "hokey" at the time, I never forgot it.  She said, "because you ripen into something more beautiful and sweet each time time I see you."  I knew she meant it.

My mother and my grandmother were like the angels Gabriel and Michael on either side of me.  My grandmother fought the war for holiness in my life.  My mother was the constant, gentle presence of ministering love.  Together, one on each side, they held my hands as I navigated my spiritual journey from sense to soul.   I needed both of them in order to become the woman I am today.  Their example helped me remember what really matters...modesty, beauty, family, generosity, honesty, faith, temperance, and hope...lots of hope.

They still do.  My mother's example reminds me that it is good to be soft, that nothing could deprive me of my right to be generous and charitable, that it is important to take time and play with my children, that a woman is most beautiful when she laughs hard, and to forgive myself, and others quickly...and to love God with my whole heart.  My grandmother's voice..singing through my heart...never, ever, lets me forget that I can do anything through Christ, that intelligence is truly beautiful, and that Love is not just a good feeling, but a law to rest one's case on.

With women like this on my side...either side...I have been supported, blessed, and loved into womanhood. 

I am so thankful to be the apple of one's eye, and the other's first (of many) cherished baby, beloved child, precious girl, adored daughter.
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Hollister Thomas 2009]

"...is satisfied..."

"...When I'm drivin' in my car
And that man comes on the radio
He's tellin' me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no
Satisfaction
No satisfaction..."
Jagger/Richards

I never really liked the Rolling Stones' version of this song. However, when Jeff came home from a FolkAlliance conference two years ago with John Batdorf and James Lee Stanley's new CD, All Wood and Stones, a compilation of their acoustic/folk versions of Rolling Stones standards, including a studio performance of "Satisfaction," I had a whole new perspective on this song.  

It is a mournful dirge.  A sorrowful anthem for a consumer society, and the insidious marketing voice that eggs us on in our search for that "just right, special something" that will satisfy our hunger for what it is actually impossible to fill from the coffers of consumerism, materialism, romanticism, or narcissisism.  Our hunger for completeness.  Our hunger to really, really know the answer to questions like: "Who am I?  What is my purpose? What defines me?  How should I live?  Where is my peace? Will I ever know love...to love and be loved?"

What does this hunger really boil down to?  I think, for me, it's all about the desire to know that our lives have meaning, that we can understand what that meaning is, and know that we are living on purpose.  These are such great questions.  But, it is the way we try to answer those questions that gives me pause.

Somewhere along the way, I think we decided that there could be human ways of determining whether we, or others, are really meeting spiritual goals, and/or achieving spiritual success.  We concluded that there is a material baseline for judging spiritual progress.

Recently our family made a new car purchase.  We were not looking for a luxury "brand," nor were we hoping to encourage others to think of us in a certain way, based on the make and model we were driving.  We were just looking for qualities of reliability, size, and functionality. However, the car that, quite literally, found us just happened to come in a more luxurious package than I had ever expected.  Although we gratefully accepted the divine gift this car (at its very reasonable, well below blue-book purchase price) represented, I knew from the get-go that it would provide important lessons in humility and grace. I was a tried and true Jeep driver.

I prided myself on my love for it's simple blue-collar lines, and truck-like "ride." It was my little slice of Colorado in Town & Country. This new car was not going to be as easy to pass off as a "Rancher goes to St. Louis" pickup truck-in-disguise, as my Grand Cherokee had been. I almost felt like I shouldn't be wearing my cowboy boots while driving it...I said almost, didn't I? As you can see I was already as intimidated by driving it, as I was appreciative of its qualities of solidity, soundness, and reliability. The lessons in grace would come sooner than I thought. Not long after picking it up from the lot, I drove to a shopping area we frequent, and someone called out "Hey, new car? [Your business] must be doing great!  Good for you!" 

I was kind of shocked.  And to be honest, I didn't know what to say or how to respond. I'd never thought my car would suddenly give someone the impression that the growth or success of my spiritual healing practice could, in any way, be measured by the car I drove. I didn't want to be seen in those terms. I liked being the fish-out-of-water cowgirl, in the land of Lily Pulitzer and tennis togs. Before that moment, I didn't think I cared one bit what my car said about me, its simple, modest, I-don't care-what-year it-is-as long-as-I-can-drive-thorugh-a-boulder-filled-pasture statement suited me just fine. This new car was sending a message I wasn't so sure fit my sense of...well, me. I wasn't a nice car kind of girl, I was an old, but clean, classic no frills Jeep driver. I was a bit shaken by the fact that I was even thinking about this stuff.

But then I remembered an experience I'd had a year earlier.  Because of the Missouri Dept. of Transportation's two-year closing of the major (and only) highway between our home in the city, and the school our girls attend in "the county", we needed to move so as to reduce the drive time by 30 minutes each way, our fuel consumption, and our carbon footprint.  The only house I was even willing to look at, and which, to my surprise...and chagrin, seemed like the perfect, centralized location for us, was in a pretty upscale zip code nearer their school.  Although our home is one of a small number of sweet little cottages situated right in the middle of baronial manses, you wouldn't know it by looking at our address.  Soon after our move, an acquaintance called because she'd noticed my new address in a community directory.  She called to say how happy she was to know that we were able to move to what she felt would be a better neighborhood for the girls to grow up in...closer to activities they were already involved in, friends, and a village where they could safely walk to the shops and stores.  She continued, "What a wonderful demonstration of home you have made."  What???

Our former home in the city was one of the most wonderful places I had ever lived.  Finding it had been such a sweet, sacred instance of divine guidance and care for the girls and I.   Moving away was heartbreaking.  I'd not wanted to leave our lovely flat in the trees (we had the top two floors of an old three story home near an urban park and a major university) I didn't want to go back to taking care of a lawn, raking the millions of leaves I now face each fall outside our windows, or revisit the demands of gutters that needed cleaning or an icy driveway.  I thought I'd "demonstrated" freedom.  But my friend thought I'd finally been liberated from living "without"...without a single-family dwelling "all my own" and no downstairs neighbors to share a basement with.  I'd felt free of a mortgage, while she thought I'd been doomed to landlords.  I'd felt blessed by an incredible urban park and museums.  She thought we'd been deprived of a yard for the children to play in. 

I realized that our ways of looking at "success" in demonstrating good, were very different.   As I continued over the next few months to "think on these things," I recognized that my criteria for what meeting spiritual goals like humility, modesty, generosity, and charity, should look like, were also rather mortal, measurable, and out-comes based. Did I really think that one kind of social program or political agenda better defined charitableness and peace, than another? Was the economic plan on one side of the aisle more spiritually evolved than the one on the opposite side? If you know me, you know that these are REALLY hard questions for me. It was clear that I needed to realign myself more directly with a deeper spiritually-based sense of living on purpose.  But first I needed to understand where my friend was coming from. 

Later that summer, I asked her out for tea and we talked about some of those perceptions, because by then what had become really important was for me to understand her perspective...and, hopely, I could help her understand mine.  Together over the course of a series of lovely (and love-filled) conversations, we arrived at what was, I think, a revelation to both of us.  Somehow, to her, my "demonstration" of more simplicity and less personal ownership by living in our flat in the city, had seemed to her like something that could be prayed about in hopes of a higher "more spiritually evolved sense of home."   Whereas, for me, it was my prayer carved out in brick and stone. It represented a freedom to live more communally, to expose my children to different cultures,  museums, be a part of a university neighborhood filled with thinkers from many disciplines and perspectives. 

Neither of us was "wrong" in following our own hearts' desires  -  hers towards a warm, expansive home in the suburbs nearer her husband's work and her children's activities so that they could spend more time together in the evenings and less time in the car on weekends, and mine in the direction of an urban flat in a socio-economically diverse University neighborhood filled with culturally -rich opportunities, but requiring lots of driving every day. The real hiccup, for both of us, came when we realized that we had started to use matter-based outcomes for measuring anyone's inner journey. 

As a western culture, when had we begun to equate a luxury vehicle with the demonstration of professional growth as a spiritual thinker, to measure the spiritual laws of abundance, wellness, or the demonstration of an understanding of divine goodness with zip codes, bank account balances, domicile square footage, acreage, the kind of kitchen countertops you have, or the labels in the clothes you wear.  To determine the expression of beauty by the size of someone's clothes, the color of your hair, and the smoothness of your skin, or health by the speed at which you can run the mile, the range of motion in a joint, or how deeply one draws a breath of new mown air seems to put spirit in the grasp of matter.  Intelligence cannot be defined, nor is it "demonstrated" by a higher SAT score, a terminal degree, or a teacher's praise.  Charity is not measured by more or less, and humility can never be scrutinized or charted on a behavioral bar graph. The integrity of an honest man is not in a measured accounting of the deeds we witness, nor can the understanding of eternal life be ratified by more years.

True satisfaction, intelligence, peace, wealth, beauty, abundance, wellness, immortality can only be found in the heart...the province of Spirit, where divine Love reigns and governs man.  It comes from a deep and abiding conviction that God...Love, Truth, Principle, Soul, Mind, Spirit, Life...actually is what He promises to be, ever-present, all-powerful, immutable, unconditional (even beyond the conditions of our thought, our prayers, our good deeds, or our mistakes), eternal good.  

So if this is the case, what is ours to do?  What do we "demonstrate?"

Mary Baker Eddy so lovingly tells us in no uncertain terms,

"You have simply to preserve a scientific,
positive sense of unity with your divine source,
and daily demonstrate this."

Anything else is, as Stephen Gottschalk counsels in his article, written for the American Encyclopedia of Religions, "Christian Science vs Harmonialism" the desire to use Spirit to get, or "demonstrate" better matter, and is the opposite of Christian Science.  And of this Science,  its Discoverer and  Founder, Eddy states:

"The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin..."

In thinking about this purpose of Christian Science, the definition of "sin" that most resonates with what I understand to be Eddy's sense of the word, is found in its shared etymologic root with the word "sunder" or "to separate".  To me, "sin" means, simply, the belief that anyone or anything is, or ever could be, separated from God, the only Cause and Creator.

Any way of thinking that starts from the false assertion that there is a Cause or Creator other than God, a lapse of His government, or a falling away from His presence...is the only sin there is...the belief of sin, or separation.  This belief, or fear that we are separated from God is at the root of all the ways we might behave "sinfully"...behaviors that are only a fear-based reactions to that one and only false starting point  -  separation, behaviors which we ignorantly call sin.  Greed, theft, infidelity, envy, etc. are reactions to sin, not sin itself.  As long as we are trying to heal sin by going after behaviors, rather than the addressing the root belief, we are missing the mark.   Stealing is just a reaction to the base belief that God is not impartially and universally present as abundant good.  Anger, hatred, violence are just reactions to the false premise that God is in fact, not an unconditionally loving Father-Mother, but a partial God who meets out love, justice, and mercy to some, and not to others.

True satisfaction comes from, an abiding conviction that we are spiritual...that we are one with God....one with goodness, intelligence, love.  This spiritual unity is invulnerable and without abrogation.  There is nothing we can do to weaken or breach this inviolate, indissoluable spiritual link.  Because it is whole and holy...never humanly circumscribed or portioned...it can't be measured by human out-comes, nor can it be achieved or accumulated...it can only be accepted.

Mary Baker Eddy reclaims the keynote to real satisfaction, when wrote what I believe is redeeming anthem for the deeply contented, "satisfied" spiritual thinker. One for whom there is always pure peace..."whate'er be tide".  She begins this poem, "It matters not what be thy lot, so love doth guide..."  I wonder if it even matters one little bit to the spiritual thinker whether he has a lot to build his house on, or alot to put in it.  Perhaps he (or she) is just satisfied if he can love alot.  And just think about it,  what could possibly ever stop any of us from the joy of abundant loving.  As Paul says in Romans:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Or, as Eddy writes in this remarkable poem, "Satisfied":

"It matters not what be thy lot,
So Love doth guide;
For storm or shine, pure peace is thine,
Whate'er betide.

And of these stones, or tyrants' thrones,
God able is
To raise up seed - in thought and deed -
To faithful His.

Aye, darkling sense, arise, go hence!
Our God is good.
False fears are foes - truth tatters those,
When understood.

Love looseth thee, and lifteth me,
Ayont hate's thrall:
There Life is light, and wisdom might,
And God is All.

The centuries break, the earth-bound wake,
God's glorified!
Who doth His will - His likeness still -
Is satisfied."

Living in the space of this deeply satisfying spiritual certainty, our peace is unshakably fixed, immovable and beyond anything that can be bought, borrowed, wished for, marketed or measured.  In this space we really "can't get no satisfaction" because it is already, and always, ours.

with "pure peace"...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Caitlin Moss 2009]

" It's the climb..."

"...There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb..."
Alexander/Mabe

I remember the first time I heard this song, "The Climb" (as sung by Miley Cyrus) on the car radio. The girls had just jumped into the front and back seats after school, Clara calling, "I've got shotgun" (meaning "I get the front seat"...translated:  "I control the radio"), and even before closing the passenger door, had changed the station from my beloved NPR, to her favorite pop station.

I was resigned to driving in mental silence...amidst the crashing waves of pop music...when I heard the above quoted lyric.  We were stopped at the intersection of Ballas and Clayton, and I was so taken with this message that I forgot to watch for the light to turn green.  Clara nudged me, took one look at my face and said, "Emma, Emma, oh my gosh, here she goes again.  Look. I bet mom's going to be using this song on her blog."

I took my foot off the brake and we started moving again...much to the gratitude of the drivers in the line of cars behind me...while wiping an errant tear from my left temple before the girls could make, even more, fun of me for crying at a Miley Cyrus (!?!?!) song.  

From that point on, everytime it came on the radio, and one of their friends was in the car, they told the story of mom forgetting to drive because a Miley Cyrus (!?!?!?) song made her cry.   Then they'd laugh and say how they were just so sure that I would be using it to write a story for this blog.  So, even though it actually was the first thing I thought of doing...that day at the stoplight...I didn't!  Tell me now, who's the mature one in this family!?

Okay, so today I will write that post, but don't tell the girls.  I'm writing it, not because I heard the song again, but because it reminds me of something that shifted my sense of what life is all about. One of the girls was home from school, and we called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with us.  In our family, we have always encouraged the girls to have their own relationships with other spiritual caregivers who are available to pray with them...not just their moms or dads (our girls have two dads and three moms...so blessed!!!)

I think this is one of the greatest gifts we can offer our children...a relationship (or even just a conversation) with someone who is available for the pure and unparalleled purpose of seeing God's ever-present and all-powerful Love operating unspent and without lapse or variableness, in their lives.

In making the call I was aware of two things, my daughter was uncomfortable (I wanted her to feel at peace), and my daughter was missing school (and I wanted her to be in her right place where she would be having exciting new learning experiences).  But the practitioner we contacted in another state, who knows me really, really well, called me on it.  She said, "there is only one goal here, and it is not to get her back in school, it is about her experiencing God's infinite Love...only."  Wow.  How could I have forgotten, even for a second, that the only thing...the only thing...that is important, ever, is that we each feel the infinite nature of God's Love as the loved, loving, love-able reflection of His Being...as His child.

So I stopped. 

And started over again.  At the starting point.  As Eddy says, in one of my favorite statements from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The starting point of divine Science is that God, Spirit,
is All-in-all, and there is no other might, nor Mind."

My friend had also shared with me another statement from Science and Health about this search for God's All-in-allness in all things, moments, experiences, people, opportunities, and challenges:

"The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope,
not selfish or depressing..."

She encouraged me to see that it is this "search," and only this search, that we are participating in every day.  And to remember that, if we are searching for God...keeping our eyes focused on finding indications of His presence in every situation, we aren't focused on ourselves So it can never be selfish or depressing. 

You know, I can look back at the spiritual landscape of my life, and see that when I am truly in this searching-only mode (rather than the destination-based seeking of human goals and milestones, in my practice of spirituality) every moment is sweet with opportunities to find God's face in everyone I meet and every situation I encounter. I walk calmly on, knowing that I am not a human with out-comes based criterias for success or failure, but a child of God seeking her Father's presence all the time...a searcher and a re-searcher...every single second of every single day. And I discover, that in that searching place, every step of my journey is satisfying.  There are no destinations, only the joy of the climb... or the search...itself.  Thinking out from this search-based way of life, I could easily see how living in the space of hope...hoping to see God's presence more fully realized...would buoy me when the crashing waves of personal sense, or dashed dreams of disappointment, tried to shatter my peace.

My daughter and I had a really happy day. The keynote for our adventure was to focus on another statement from Science and Health that had been shared with her as inspiration:

"And Love is reflected in love.."

We looked for instances of love and loving as indications of God's presence, rather than letting discomfort, when, fear, or "what if" define her experience, throughout the day.  The next morning, she was back in school.

I think we both had fun as we spent the day hunting, searching for Love, God in every moment.  Together we were explorers on an adventure, not climbing towards some elusive summit...physical perfection, or working towards a human destination...school, but looking for the face of God, step by step.

We are all climbers.  I love this perspective of myself as a searcher, who loves the climb.  I look at each hill, mountain, sea, valley, ravine, wilderness, cliff, or avalanche with the same hunger, the same eagerness to take a step forward in finding God's presence.  To be surprised by the beauty of His holiness, His look of Love, the strength of His arms, the sweetness of His song.

It's all about the climb. 

I have decided to post the entire lyric to this really wonderful Miley Cyrus...yes, Miley Cyrus...song below.  I think it says perfectly what I am feeling today. 

with love to all my fellow climbers...and remember, you are never alone, it's never too steep...you are on belay with a God who loves you and will never let you fall.

always...really, always...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

" I can almost see it
That dream I'm dreaming but
There's a voice inside my head sayin,
You'll never reach it,
Every step I'm taking,
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking but I
Got to keep trying
Got to keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes they knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
The pain I'm knowing
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on,

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

Keep on moving
Keep climbing
Keep the faith baby
It's all about
It's all about
The climb
Keep the faith
Keep your faith"

[photo credits:  C. Hagenlocher 2009/M. Trevail 2009]

"Dishes in Her Dress"

"...She pulled me close and said
Don't worry about a thing
Now let's just keep our eyes focused on our dreams
We may not have what we want
But we're holding everything we'll ever need..."
Daniel Walcher

My husband, Jeff, sent me this video of Concerts in Your Home artist, Daniel Walcher's "Dishes in Her Dress," (you might also like this, easier to hear the lyrics, black&white version) and it made me weep.  It was one of those big cathartic, soul-cleansing cries where you find yourself caught off guard by something beautiful,  and you've got your elbows on your desk, your face in your hands, and sobs are escaping from a place so deep you forgot it existed...or, that you even had it in you.  It probably has something to do with the fact that he sent it from the city where he lives ans works, over a thousand miles away...and that I haven't had much sleep lately, but that said, I miss him.  He is in Boston because he loves God, his church, his family, and he wants to live his life with purpose, while he cares for his expanded family's needs.

People ask me all the time, "How are you guys doing, with Jeff out of town so much?"  (During the first seven months, we had him home for a total of ten days.)  And for the most part, I can honestly say that we are fine.  We love eachother. We are blessed with a marriage that is 90% living, laughing, and loving everything that crosses our path, with abandon.   We talk on the phone a lot, and we confer on almost every family decision that needs to be made.  I am grateful he is doing what he loves, and that he feels a clear sense of purpose every moment.  I wouldn't have it any other way right now.  So why write about this?

Because, I want to.  And because I want to go on record as having said that my life at 55 years old is still very full of genuine happiness, affection, and joy.  I want you to know...whether you are 18, and think your parents are too old to care about being in love (like I was at that age...sorry mom), or you are 75 and think you are past the point of ever being able to return to the days listening to love songs with a keen ear,  buying Hallmark cards, and finding flowers at the doorstep (no, mom, you aren't!!), love never becomes less lovely with time.

In my fifties I am enjoying being "in love" with someone who makes me laugh like a child.  He is my best friend.  He is my biggest fan...and I am his. I just enjoy his company so much that when he leaves, at the end of one of those rare weekends he can break away from his work and come home for a few days, I actually feel his leaving as an ache inside.  I cry at the airport,  and I drive home wishing I could just turn the car around and pull a Dustin Hoffman in the back of the church in "The Graduate" screaming out his name and pounding on the security glass that leads from the terminal to his gate, begging him not to leave.  I do feel these things.  I hope I always do.  I don't want to, or expect to, grow out of this love. 

I do not drop him off at the airport, and afterwards say, "Well, that was a nice little visit, now back to work!"  Oh, I eventually get there...but not always before I reach the front door of our house, walk to my office, turn to the Bible for a reminder that "this too shall pass", and that "to everything there is a season."  Some days the seasons feel like they are dragging...and this one often feels more like a long cold winter, rather than a cool, sweet, autumn day full of apples and brightly colored landscapes.   But, and this my real point, it is in these very moments of missing him that I most remember to be grateful. Sometimes it takes me by surprise that I do, at this juncture in my life, actually FEEL this way.  I am profoundly grateful that I am living in the rich space of this great love, and his gentle company.  And when I do remember that this marriage is, quite simply, an amazing gift of grace, then all the sadness disappears.  I surrender to God's care, and bask in the realization that I could never even have imagined it for myself.

Jeff and I do our best at being away from eachother, when we, as Daniel Walcher sings, "keep our eyes focused on our dreams" and acknowledge that this space of mutual focus, is the "home" we share day in and day out...no matter where he is. 

This is the "room" where we hold eachother.  This room that holds our dreams.  Dreams about how we might bless the world by "staying on purpose," dreams for our children, and every child, who desires an education, the right to live above the poverty level, and to experience the warmth of a family, our dreams for people everywhere...that they might know the love that passes all understanding and feel the transformative power of God's love that heals. 

And when it gets too hard, and I miss sharing ideas and discussing insights with my partner over a cup of tea, I honor our love by finding someone we have shared hopes with...a friend who devotes herself to environmental activism, an educator whose mission it is to put a new textbook in the hands of every inner city child, a couple with dreams of adopting from Africa and building alliances with other like-minded parents ...and meeting them for coffee, a great conversation, a game of Scrabble,  or to discuss a favorite book.  He does the same thing where he is...attending folk concerts, working on his book in a busy Starbucks, or having lunch with a friend who loves contemporary spirituality as much as we do.

This doesn't change the fact that I miss him.  But it honors a love that has surprised, delighted, and made grateful this white-haired teen-ager in a 55-year old woman's body.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, next to the marginal heading, "Spiritual Wedlock," Mary Baker Eddy says,

"The very circumstance,
which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares."

I'm taking her at her word!

So, the next time Jeff comes home, I will do dishes in a dress.  I will be so grateful. I will not pretend to be more "together" about all of this, than I am, but I will share with him, pray with him, and find peace, not just in the circle of his arms, but in the security of those prayers.  I will tell him, more than a few times, that I love having him home, that his presence in my life matters...alot, and that I thank God everyday for a partner who loves me, our children, the mission-based work that we do, and who makes me feel like I will never be more beautiful than I am at that moment.

Many couples, and their families, are facing hard choices these day.  The economy, a war overseas, and an ever-expanding global workplace has forced us to stretch our sense of what it means to be "close," to clarify the differences between wants and needs, and to hold onto what is important, while letting go of all that never really mattered anyway.

We are all going to make it...if we remember to "keep our eyes focused on our dreams...thanks Daniel for the song...

Nana, you have raised a son who is a prince among men...thank you.  Loren and Jeremy, thank you for sharing your dad with us.  You too have raised a wonderful father.  We are all blessed.

I am writing this one for you, honey...in a dress...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Show me the meaning of being lonely..."

"Show me the meaning of being lonely
Is this the feeling I need to walk with
Tell me why I can't be there where you are
There's something missing in my heart..."
- The Backstreet Boys

It was the fall of 2000, and Hannah was dancing competitively with "the Conservatory."  As much as I didn't like some aspects of competitive dancing...obsessive moms, makeup on pre-teens, being surrounded by dance teams with costumes that were barely appropriate (thank you, Katie Sue for always putting our girls in tastefully designed outfits that covered what needed to be covered)...I loved the comraderie I saw as the girls worked together as a cohesive team.

Hannah, Kelsey, and Megan were the Three Musketeers.  Kelsey was the girl with the perfect dancer's body...long, lean, flexible, and fluid.  Megan was the showman...charismatic on stage, a smile that stopped time, and an incredible sense of rhythm.  Hannah was the blue-collar dancer...hardworking, precise, relentlessly demanding of herself, rigorous in perfecting her steps, turns, and leaps.  They were lovely and funny, and as a threesome they were a force to be reckoned with.  Within the larger company of a dozen or more extremely talented dancers, they were unstoppable..pure beauty in motion!  At least to their biggest fans...us, their parents.

On a typical competition weekend one of the moms would drive Hannah, Kelsey, and Megan to Denver on Friday night and check into a hotel room. The other two moms would join them on Saturday, just in time for their first performance.  Friday nights in the hotel were full of orange-dusted Doritos fingers, root beer, popcorn, and bags full of food from McDonald's.  Once in the crowded hotel room, costumes were hung in the bathroom to steam while the girls showered, and moms organized curling irons, mascara, tights, and leotards. 

Saturdays and Sundays were peppered with running between marked off dressing areas in ballrooms and the performance hall, endless bottles of Gatorade, and hundreds of giggling girls in spandex and sequins.

I loved my fellow dance parents.  Laurie, Jane, Lynn, Kendall, Linda, and about a dozen other moms and dads.  We knew eachother's daughters so well we could order their sandwiches from Subway without asking "what do you want on it".

We were having so much fun, just being together, that it didn't really matter what happened once they got on stage. We were going to cheer them on while they performed, when they faltered we'd encourage them to realize that they had given it their all, and on the drive home, help them remember that the next time they would do better because of all they'd learned.   Little did I know that autumn, that by February our family would have moved a thousand miles away and although Hannah would fly home, on weekends, for the rest of the competitive season, I would never again spend another Saturday in a Holiday Inn near Denver International Airport watching a seemingly endless number of dance routines, set to the music of the Backstreet Boys, Madonna, 'NSynch, Cyndi Lauper, or my favorite that season, Sarah McLaughlin's "I will Remember You."

Our family's relocation to the midwest, far away from all things fun and familiar was only the beginning of my lesson in learning" the meaing of being lonely". During the next few years, I would face one instance after another  when the "ties that bind" were gently being untied, and my little boat was being pushed away from the dock and out into open water...times when I was absolutely sure I was would just drift helplessly into the dark sea of despair. 

During the most lonely of these times, I often recalled one particularly sweet afternoon from those dance competition days.  Hannah and I had driven to Denver by ourselves, so that we could enjoy a short visit with my sister and brother-in-law, her aunt and uncle.  We'd had a fun dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant and were on our way back to the hotel listening to the Backstreet Boys CD, "Millenium" which includes "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely."  Since Hannah was learning American Sign Launguage at the university Laboratory School she attended, and I was a fluent signer, we were singing with our hands, as well as our voices...trying to remember the right sign for each word or phrase.   I loved signing to music and watching Hannah's hands move from word to word, was like seeing her dance in a new way.

I remember thinking that the word "lonely" was not only a sad word, but a sad sign.  A forward extended circle made with the index finger from the lips down, out, and around, returning to it original position in front of the lips.  The sign itself is supposed to be accompanied by a somewhat somber facial expression.  There was a sobering silence in that sign.  It was the opposite of our somewhat raucous weekend with our dance family.  It seemed incongrous in the context of all the giggling, cheering, whistling, singing that seemed to fill our weekend.   Where did "loneliness" fit within the cacophonous sea of 18 girls (age 11 - 18) getting dressed at the same time.  By Sunday, I was often unsure if my hearing was still intact...but never suffering from loneliness.  To see my daughter singing this song in the midst of such an exuberant weekend was unsettling in some ways. In hindsight, it felt like the hand of prophecy pointing towards the next bend in the road on my spiritual journey

And it was always...every time I heard it...that line, "Is this the feeling I need to walk with" that seemed to make my heart stammer.  How could any boy-band sing about the need to walk with the feeling of loneliness?   It wasn't a concept I was looking for the opportunity to ponder deeply during that weekend of frolic and friendship, but it kept poking at me.  And to be honest,  I couldn't imagine the strength it took to actually embrace it.

In the coming months that phrase started to haunt my steps.  It was almost as if I knew what was coming.  I would hear it and my hands would start to feel as if they were dissolving in front of me as I felt myself begin to sign the words without meaning to.  My days of walking in the space of loneliness were about to begin.

In referring to Jesus' time following the crucifixion, while in the sepulchre, Mary Baker Eddy  states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being."

Soon many of the friendships I'd held dear seemed to fall away. It was a  particularly challenging period of spiritual discovery.  A time of self-examination and of being fully engaged in crucifying a false sense of my self, my ego, and all the ways that it seemed to define my expereince.  Surprisingly,  I found myself holding onto this particular statement  from Science and Health for encouragement...and hope.  And I would sometimes catch myself signing the words to the above verse of "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" to myself in the dark before I fell asleep.  I often signed the Lord's Prayer, or the 23rd Psalm to myself at night, lying on my back in the dark, so this was not unusal.   And although at times it felt as if I was in a period of self-imposed exile from my friends, and all that I held dear and familiar, I also discovered that, in the silence of my own company -- from deep within the confines of that profoundly alone sanctuary of my sepulchre space --  I was also  finding, as Eddy promised, refuge from my foes - the dark and insidious suggestions of self-doubt, regret, anger, frustration...and in this space, I could begin to glimpse Christ's solution to the great problem of being.

I could, as "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (this link is the acapella version) suggested, walk with that feeling of loneliness, until I discovered its meaning in my life.  I could companion with it, until  it blessed me with the only kind of friendship that no one, and nothing,  could take away...my oneness with God, with Love. 

I believe that this is the space that Paul is speaking to us from in Romans when he says:

"I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

When we cease to see ourselves as the object, or recipient of love, and begin to accept our relationship to "the love of God" as its vehicle, its body, its articulation of being, and not its destination, we being to live life as one who can never be deprived of love...because the only love that matters in our lives, the only love that is divine, is the love that we ourselves embody or express.

For me, this was the meaning of loneliness.  To teach me that my relationship to Love is only as strong and inviolate, as my willingness to rise from the ashes of hurt, shame, anger, betrayal, sadness, sorrow, exhaustion, and "love more."  This Love "alone is Life."

These days, with Jeff in Boston and the girls coming and going...school, soccer, their dad and Melinda's house, friends...I spend a lot of time alone...but I am never lonely.  Once I learned its meaning and purpose, I discovered that every silent moment in the "sepulchre" was an opportunity to  fill my heart with the pure joy of consciously being the love of Love for anything and everything that crossed my mental path.  And when I am in this space I  enjoy the company of dancing, singing, signing angels...my best friends.  

with love...and with Love....
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Lila June Jones 2009]

"My life would suck without You..."

"...'Cause we belong together now, yeah
Forever united here somehow, yeah
You've got all of me
And honestly,
My life would suck without you..."
-     Kelly Clarkson

It was one of those amazingly gorgeous October Saturdays.  The sky was as blue as a robin's egg and the leaves were almost irridescent with color, and incandescent with light.  We were all sitting on folding spectator chairs in a clearing surrounded by cornfields, watching hundreds of children competing in the Belleville Fall Invitational Soccer tournament.  But each of us, had eyes only for "our girls."

The setting was really quite surreal. Mud-soaked soccer fields packed with young athletes dressed in primary colored uniforms.  They were miniature warriors in shin-guards and matching long socks, the scent of drying cornhusks wafting across us on a cool breeze, and the sound of...well, actually, pop music blaring from speakers set up throughout the sports complex.   But I was sitting with Vickie and her husband, Josh, so it was all good.  With them, everything takes on a new lightness...a joy...which provided just the right environment for listening to these songs with "new ears."

Vickie's daughter, Jordan, is one of the goalies on Emma and Clara's team and I love to sit next to her as we watch our girls fly from back and forth across the field.  Vickie makes me laugh...hard.  She is one of the funniest women I have ever met.  She has a GREAT laugh and a wonderful way of looking at the world.   Her laughter diffuses the competitive tension of watching our daughters throw their all, and everything, into each second of every single moment of those 30 minute halves.  I think I'd leave those games trembling from the sheer stress of watching even just one game that goes into overtimes and shootouts, much less two...if it weren't for Vickie's light-hearted good humor.

When Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" came on over the loudspeakers, my first thought was, "oh my gosh, how inappropriate, and what an imposition!"  But as readers of this blog know, I am all about reclaiming lyrics for God.  So I just sat with this song for a while waiting for God to show me how he was truly the only cause and creator of everything...even that song.   And you know...He did (not for all of the lyrics in this song...but the chorus is all His now...for me). I realized, that in that moment, my life did not suck at all.  It was a perfectly wonderful moment.  I was sitting in the sunshine with my older daughter (who had just returned from South Africa) on one side and a friend who made me laugh on the other, watching our twins do what they love most.  Does it get any better? 

But I had to admit that it was this suggestion of life's suckiness, just what had been screaming at me for the entire drive to Belleville.  I had been wallowing in the murcky waters of:  It sucked that Jeff had to be in Boston instead of on the soccer field coaching the girls...something he loved doing.  It sucked that the girls had four hours between games and had had to come back and forth (an hour each way) twice in one day.  And on and on the suggestions spewed themselves all over my gorgeous fall day, like spilled coffee on a gorgeous watercolor painting.

That was when I started to love this Kelly Clarkson song.  I happily realized, sitting there in the heavenly space of Vickie's laughter, Josh's all-around-good-guy-ness, Chris's laid-back good humor, and my daughter's company, that even though I missed my husband...alot, and I was still pretty doggone far from being, or having a life that was, humanly perfect, the only thing my life would really suck without, was (and is) God.  And since I never, ever, think that His, God's, absence is a possibility, my prospects for a pretty sweet life are golden.  In that moment, I was as sure of His presence in my life, as I was sure of my love for my daughters.  In fact it is my love for my daughters that is always one of the most sure and irrefutable signs of Her, God's, presence in my life...and as my life. More than any other one thing I have ever known.  And I know it in the deepest and most true part of my being.

Yes, but that was easy.  God's presence as Motherhood is so intrinsic to how I see my own life actually being the moment by moment expression of divinity as humanity.  But Saturday,  it was  remembering God's presence as Father that really broke the spell of human suck-iness. Mary Baker Eddy says that:

"As our ideas of Deity become more spiritual, we express them by objects more beautiful. ... Thus it is that our ideas of divinity form our models of humanity."

This statement has helped me realize that it is my concept of God as Father, that has most transformed the way I see myself as a daughter, a woman, a wife, a mother, a friend, a global neighbor.

As a child I attributed every "I can't", "I will never be...", "I am just not worthy of..." as truth, all because I didn't have "my own" father in my life. I lived in an almost, but never quite, fairytale space where I had a wonderful mother who loved me and a stepfather who took good care of me, but I would never really be all I could be...a special someone, a princess, a prized daughter, a successful woman...because my birthfather had chosen to disengage from my life when I was just a little girl. I would always be a step-something, second best, tolerable, the one to be "okay with" having around, but never the precious one, the first choice, the beloved. Not that my dad (my stepdad) treated me that way...I just always thought it was the way it must have been for him, in light of all I'd seen about step-parents in Disney movies, which I now know to be completely untrue. I am a step-parent myself today, and I love all of our children equally. And my husband has taught me, through his love and devotion to my children, that love knows no biological hierarchy, is not validated by time, and cannot be interrupted by distance or strengthened by proximity.

But this is a hard won perspective, as a child and young woman, I harbored fantasies in which a white-night father figure would swoop in and tell me I actually was his princess (it never mattered to me that there were a million other princesses whose fathers were their kings, I just wanted to be somebody's princess) and he had a kingdom waiting for me to feel special in.    "If only..." plagued my sense of myself...my strengths, my opportunitites and my options for many years. 

It wasn't until I was in my late thirties that I discovered,  that I did, in fact, have a wonderful, attentive, caring, affectionate, adoring Father who was real, knowable, present, and involved in my life.  God.  God became for me, what He had always been...my one and only Father.  My real daddy.  My Abba.  My papa.  My King.

So last Saturday,  as I sat there in the sweetness of laughter, friendship, sunshine and motherhood, all of this flooded my heart and I couldn't help but sing along, "My life would suck without You!!!"

And it would. 

Without my Father, God, I would not have the confidence to try new things without fear of failing.  That would suck. 

Without Him I would not have been able to survive my daughter traveling around the world to South Africa, to live for three years, with no promise of her ever returning.

Without Him I would not be able to sleep peacefully on those nights when Emma and Clara are not upstairs in their beds, but four miles away in their beds at their dad's house.

Without Him I would never be able to do what I love...taking calls or appointments from patients and clients seeking spiritual care...with confidence in His ability, not mine to bring them answers, healing, comfort, and peace.  I am only there to remind them of His presence in their lives too.

Without Him I would never be able to sit on the sidelines watching my daughters compete in a contact sport...without fear.

Without Him I would never have been able to watch campers go on three-day overnights where they would climb 14,000 foot mountains, raft raging rivers, mountain bike across high country ridges, and ride horses above tree-line...and not experience one moment of worry or concern.

Without Him, I would not feel at peace with my husband, my best friend, living and working in a distant city...at peace only because we know  that it was God who "called him according to His purpose" in serving our church whose stated mission is "to reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."

Without You, dear Father, I would not be able to get up each morning and face a brand new day trusting in your love for your children, your forgiveness when we falter, your mercy when we fall, your tenderness in lifting us up, and often, your willingness to carry us in your strong arms.

And these are just the first few things that flew out of my fingers, across the keyboard and onto the screen within moments...and I know that there are an infinite number of ways that my life is peaceful, blessed, satisfied, joyful, trust-filled because of You.

Without you...my life would suck.  I am so grateful I never have to live my life without You.  I know I have a Father who will never leave me.  I have a Father who, in the santuary of our relationship, has eyes only for me.  We all do. We are all precious in His sight.

Thank you Papa.

your daughter...your princess,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Hollister Thomas 2009]

Contagion: "...give a little bit..."

"Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
Give a little bit
Ill give a little bit of my love to you
Theres so much that we need to share
So send a smile and show you care..."
-     Roger Hodgson

Sorry Roger, and Supertramp, but this version of "Give a Little Bit" by the GooGoo Dolls is my favorite, and it's actually the one that I thought about this morning as I drove along the Mississippi River on a breezy autumn day, gray with the promise of rain and filled with all the colors of a Thanksgiving card from Hallmark.

In the air space between "Morning Edition" and "The Diane Rehm Show," our local NPR station shared "news" stories on the "swine flu epidemic," the availability of a preventative vaccine, and the likelihood of it making a difference "in time"...or at least before most of the country had experienced symptoms. I couldn't help but remember Jesus' injunction to preach, or share, the gospel...the good news...as well as his statement, "I am not come to destry, but to fulfil. But how to do that from the seat of my SUV on a cool October day along the Great River Road.  

While praying for the "good news," as I listened to the "breaking news," I think the words contagion, contract, spread, share, and catch were used more times within that news blink, than I have fingers on my hands...and toes.  So as I drove, this little song from the eighties flu into my heart.  What was I giving "a little bit of" today.  Was I sharing germs, microbes, bacteria...or was I giving off kindness, warmth, gratitude, a smile. 

I didn't need to be afraid of my child sharing a drinking fountain at school or taking the hand of a younger student who needed assistance on the playground ...she was spreading love, and in the power and presence of that divine influence on humanity...there was nothing but good being passed from hand to hand, and from heart to heart.

Each word being used, ignorantly or maliciously, to excite fear and twist the beauty of what is true and always had been, could be reclaimed for God, the only Cause or Creator of any idea, concept, action...word.  "Contagion" to start with. What was really contagious in our environment - the place we all live and move and have our being, and the space that dwells in us - individually and collectively?  A smile, joy, appreciation.  What "spread" quickly?  Good news, the sound of laughter, generosity.  What could I "contract"?  I could contract fellowship, inspiration, understanding.  What did I want to "share"?  A hug, a prayer, a song.  What would I "catch" if I moved freely and fearlessly "among the people?"  A wave of excitement, a tune, a right idea, up with a friend.   What was "influenza-ing" me?  Love, the desire to know God, a deeper search for spiritual answers, the call of my divinely-appointed purpose.

This had been so clear to me one morning, not long ago, when all the symptoms of "not feeling well" niggled at me like insistent little gremlins.  Their slimy little voices urged me to be fearful of what I might be carrying with me as I climbed the stairs to wake the girls for school.  I shook them off and scattered their scrawny, measly gnome-like bodies to the four corners of my room as I leapt out of bed with unusual vigor and happily sang a joyful, made-up-as-I-went song about all the things I had to be grateful to God for....all the spiritual gifts I would be sharing with my girls that morning...patience, happiness, light-heartedness, order.  That was the end of those silly little monsters....they must have taken off at the first sound of laughter.

Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Resist evil, error of every sort, and it will flee from you..." 

And in an article titled, "Contagion" from her Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, Eddy writes:

"If only the people would believe that good is more contagious than evil,  since God is omnipresence, how much more certain would be the doctor's success, and the clergyman's conversion of sinners."

In this same article she also offers, in defense of humanity:

"If he believed as sincerely that health is catching when exposed to contact with healthy people, he would catch their state of feeling quite as surely and with better effects than he does the sick man's.

I think these "good" ideas are so inherently familiar to us as spiritual thinkers. I believe that they are our native habitat.  And since the very nature of Spirit, God, is good, and we are spiritual,  it is absolutely natural for us to always be on the lookout for good, for health, for kindness.  We are drawn to it...and to sharing it.  We are as "most at home" in the company of health, as the quetzal is in the leaf-filtered sunlight of the Rain Forest's ancient canopy trees.

When we refuse to let anything but God define our actions, our lives, the words and ideas we traffic in, then, anything that is unlike His goodness flees, scrambles, runs, can't get away from us fast enough! We, in our loving, in our joy and compassion, become an environment that is not conducive to it survival or incubation.

And so I thought, as I drove along the great river that carries barges filled with coal and corn, "what will I give to my world today...what will I spread quickly?"  A little bit...no, a lot...of my heart, my appreciation, my hunger for the Truth, my ompassion, my silence, my prayers...especially my prayers.

In this giving is my immunity from any false influence...washed away in the affluence of a roaring, rushing river of Love.

Time to give a little bit, give alot of our hearts to you...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Heidi Cooper 2008]

"...only don't forget to sail, back again to me..."

"God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there...

She is young
Not afraid
Let her rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring her home
Bring her home
Bring her home..."

It is not simply the lyrics to this song, "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables that sing through my being tonight...it is the actually sound of it.  The mixture of sweetness and sorrow, ache and serenity...that brings me to my knees.

Hannah is home.  Hannah is asleep in her bed upstairs in the room next to her sisters.  If you have read this blog, you might have some idea of how deeply happy I am.  But no matter how well you know me, it really could only be "some idea," because even I was surprised by the depth and complexity of these feelings.

As an adoptive mother I have always been aware of how rare and precious the privilege of motherhood is to me.  I never forget.  Never, ever.  Each day since the day she was born, I have lived my life to prove this one thing...to myself, my daughter, and to God...that I am deserving of (and am supremely grateful for) the gift of having Hannah in my life, to nurture and to love.  What I have since learned is that I would not BE her mom, if it weren't that God thought I was already well prepared, eager, willing, and ready for this opportunity to express Her, God, as Mother-Love in this way...as Hannah's mommy.

That said however, I have never assumed that I would have necessarily been Hannah's "choice" as a parent.  I have always known that it was "the grace of God" that brought her into our lives, our home, my heart. But I also knew that God had appointed her birthmother's place in her life. So, I was not surprised when she showed an early interest in knowing about her birthfamily, the country she was born in, and its culture.  And when she asked if she could accept her birthmother's offer to come to South Africa on holiday three years ago, I prepared myself for the call I knew would follow, "mommy can I stay..." 

It was a call that I responded to with mixed emotions.  I was overjoyed that she would be realizing her long-time dream of living in South Africa and getting to really know her birthfamily, but I was also very sad that we wouldn't be getting her off to school each morning, saying goodnight to her before bed each night, or helping her prepare for prom, graduation, or another summer at camp.

But then it always came down to the question, "who was I to be sad?"  I'd been given the greatest gift I could imagine...16 years of loving her and watching her grow.  And even though the happiest day of my life was the day she was placed in my arms,  I'd been preparing myself ever since for the day I would be asked to let her go.   It was never a question of whether it would happen...but when. 

I'd learned - the hard way - that motherhood was not an adventure in bonding, but in letting go.  From the very moment a child comes into our lives, our bodies, our hearts, we begin the journey of surrender.  It begins when we surrender the privacy of owning our own bodies, holding "close to the vest" treasured secrets/plans about a growing family, and it continues as we share more and more of our child's life with family, friends, teachers, the world.   As she grew, I learned to open my hand up more and more in sharing "the wonder of Hannah"...letting go (so that she could stretch her wings) was the hardest muscle I ever flexed...watching her fly away was bittersweet and inevitable.  We'd prepared her heart to stay open and accepting of other people, places, cultures, the world around her...and she was, open and eager.

We'd sought out, embraced, and nurtured an open relationship with Hannah's birthmother from the time of her birth.  It was important to me that Hannah have the right to choose for herself whether she wanted to know and love the mother who'd carried her for nine love-filled months.  I'd been so blessed and delighted by Hannah's presence in my life, it seemed selfish to think that we could keep her from knowing someone who'd loved her and sacrificed so much for her.

As an adoptive mom I was always aware that as an infant, Hannah had had no say, at all, in whether she would be surrendered for adoption, or raised by her birthfamily.  Releasing her, and letting her fly home to the country, and the family, who'd nourished and nurtured her for nine month, sixteen years earlier, was my way of giving that choice back to my daughter.

Shortly after she arrived in Johannesburg, Hannah chose to stay in South Africa, live with her birthfamily, and continue her schooling in her home country.  My only hope was that she would always know how much we loved her, and how grateful we were to have experienced the joy of loving her as a baby, toddler, preschooler, child, teen, and young woman.  I prayed daily...and sometimes hourly...that she would find peace, happiness and a sense of belonging wherever she was. 


My own visits to South Africa each year were lovely...and painful.  Every time I would walk away from her, through the security checkpoint, and towards the plane that would take me further from her smile, I was sure I would stop breathing.  Leaving your child, never knowing when...or whether...you will ever see her again, is agony.  Seeing her happy and loved helped to mitigate the pain of boarding the plane, and flying 12,000 miles away from her, at the end of each visit, but not much...not enough.

Last Friday, when she boarded a plane in Capetown, beginning the journey in which she would bring herself home, she chose to return to us...to all of us, mom, dad, sisters, stepsiblings and step parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.  It is a joy I can't even begin to explain.  She came home because she wants to be with us again.  She is choosing to be "with us" again.  We are her parents, her siblings, her family.  She will have loved, and learned, and discovered so much about herself and her family in South Africa, but she will be coming home to us.

I remember when she was in Mrs. Baker's second grade class at Cameron Elementary School, we gave a little presentation on adoption and she said, "My parents chose me and that makes me very special."  We did, and she was...and still is.  Now she has chosen us.  It is the greatest gift. 

As I said before...there are no words.  Before this weekend, I'd always thought that the day she (and her sisters) were put in my arms -- as infants --  were the happiest, and most wonderful, days of my life.   But I was wrong.  The day she chose...for herself...to come home to us was much, much better. 

When she walked through that gate after 35 hours, and 12,000 miles, of flying I glimpsed the truth behind that time-tried axiom:

"If you love something, let it go.
If it comes back to you, it is yours...always."

Loving Hannah is a joy, and a privilege that all of her parents...adoptive, birth, step, grand...will now, and forever and always, know and cherish. God has appointed each of us to these holy offices.

Tonight as I finished singing the girls their series of nightly lullabies and hymns, and then turned on a CD of their daddy singing hymns for them to fall off to sleep to, I couldn't help but sigh a prayer of thanks, and silently sing another lullaby for my sweet girlie.  I wish I could share her Aunt Lisa's version (my favorite) with you here, perhaps one day she will produce a video I can replace this one with, but until then, I will let you listen to the only clip I can find  -  from the voice of a child...."Sail baby sail, out across the sea, only don't forget to sail, back again to me..."

so grateful for His unspeakable gifts,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[top photo credit: Dwight Oyer 1989]

"In your eyes, I am complete..."

"...Without a noise,
without my pride
I reach out from the inside...

...In your eyes
The light. the heat
In your eyes
I am complete,
In your eyes
The resolution of all
the fruitless searches..."
- Peter Gabriel

One of the most wonderful moments in my own journey towards a more authentic humility, and real confidence in Christ, came while driving home from church one early Spring day.  I'd  been spending most of my time quite alone that week.  My husband was on assignment in another city, and my children were on a trip with their dad and stepmom.  It was me and Mollie, our little Golden Retriever, and she wasn't talking much.  I was looking at myself and my world, through the silent lens of living, moving, and breathing, as Peter Gabriel suggests, "In Your Eye".

I'd made a commitment, earlier that year, to spend as much time in silence as was humanly possible.  In order to strengthen my practice of "deep listening" I was carving out spaces in my day for silence...blocks of time where I would open my heart to hearing only the voice of my divine parent.  No television or music at home, not even our lovely classical station or my beloved NPR (National Public Radio) in the car...and by the way, it was this giving up of "All Things Considered", "The Diane Rehm Show", "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, "Fresh Air", and "Morning Edition" that gave me the shakes.  But I'd made a commitment and there was no going back during that 100 days.  I'd decided that cold turkey was the only way to go, and soon wished I'd found an AA-like sponsor to help me through the first few road trips.

On this particular Sunday I was missing the distraction of listening to someone else's talking, an inspired guest on "Speaking of Faith", or the witty brothers, Tom and Ray, on "CarTalk" to fill the silence, and to save me from my own thoughts.  They'd be funny. Whereas, my thoughts were dark, and I felt small and insignificant.

I decided to stay the course, "step away from the radio", and instead, launch into a dialogue with God. I began by asking the question, "What is it that most often leaves me feeling this way...scared and small?"  I just sat with that question until the answer became perfectly clear.  And I knew the answer was accurate, because I accepted it without another thought.  It said, "When I compare myself to others."  Hmmm.  I didn't question it for a second.  I knew it was true. 

I'd spent most of my life alternately being obsessed with, or haunted by, comparing myself with others.  Comparing my body, parenting skills, possessions, work, inspiration...to those of the people around me.  How did I measure up? Was I better than...or did I fall short of?  But the person I could most often be found comparing myself to was, well...myself.  My past self.  My imagined self.  My self that made mistakes, my self that had, in the past, reached beyond her goals, or wondered if she would ever really be inspired (or inspiring) quite the way she'd always hoped.  The self that was never good enough...the self that perceived she was separated from God, good. 

"But how do I stop?" I wondered from behind the steering wheel, in the drumming silence of a rainy Sunday afternoon.  Then I remembered I was supposed to be listening to God, not my own musings.  So I asked, "Father, why do I compare myself to others?"  God's response was quick and as clear and penetrating as glass slicing through the years of guilt, self-doubt, and regret.

"What others?" my Father's voice asked.

I got it.  In the sacred sanctuary of our relationship, there was no one else "in the room"...in God's heart...but me.

But could this really be possible?  Then I thought about my relationship with my own daughters.  I do not compare my love for Emma with my love for Clara.  I never compare one's gifts with the other's.  Each is completely wonderful, completely beautiful, completely complete in my heart.  There is no measure of love...a certain portion with one, and a different amount with the other...only All-for-each.   I fully love them, each of my children, completely, but individually...without comparison.

I can't tell you how many times this divine question, "What others?" has stopped me in my mental tracks when the comparison snake starts to slither and hiss its sneaky self around my heart. 

"What others?"

In my relationship with my Father-Mother God, there is no one else in the room.  I have His/Her entire attention and love.  But then, so do you...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Carol Nicoli-Matthews on an Italian beach as taken by, and through the eyes of her mother, my friend, Laura Matthews 2009]

"Crayola doesn't make a color for your eyes..."

"...spring-green is much too yellow
sea-green is far too pale
cornflower is way too mellow
so i'll try again and fail
there's no way i can capture
the way you make me feel
one look from you is rapture
whether blue or green or teal
no color qualifies
that crayon's telling lies
crayola doesn't make a color
for your eyes...

hey look it's periwinkle
so sure i got it now
But you wink and there's a twinkle
in your eye and still somehow...

crayola doesn't make
a color for your eyes
There is no way that
i could possibly describe you
crayola doesn't make a color
to draw my love..."
- Kristin Andreassen

My friend Susie posted this video of Kristin Adreeassen's "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes," today, and I immediately knew what I wanted to write about.

Eyes. 

Mary Baker Eddy, in her "Glossary" of spiritual terms found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, defines "Eyes" as:  "spiritual discernment, not material but mental."

How then could you choose a color for your eyes?  It would be like choosing a single color for joy, or love, or home.  Can you imagine the sadness that would descend on the world if  the word "home" was defined as "blue", even the most perfect shade of blue.   Every house, in every land, blue...or green, or yellow. 

Can you imagine if there was a crayola with the word "body" on it?  As if there was only one perfect color for a person's skin.  Oh yea, they do have that don't they...it's called "flesh"...hmmm...I wonder, do they still make a crayola with the word "flesh"  printed on that narrow strip of peach paper with black stripes and bold block lettering wrapped around a crayon? Now that I think about it, it's kind of creepy actually...

Which brings me to....well, where it brings me.  The story.

I was teaching Kindergarten in a relatively small Southern California town surrounded by Los Angeles County on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth.  I loved my class of eager students.  We were a diverse group -- five of seven continents represented by 35 students and one teacher.  I loved walking onto the playground in the morning and hearing the buzz and chatter of almost twelve languages blending as parents said "goodbye" and siblings called, "see you later" to one another in the language used at home, but usually left outside the gates at school.

One of my favorite projects each fall was to unroll large sheets of butcher paper onto the floor of our classroom and have each child (and teacher) stretch out on top of their sheet, so that another child could trace the outline of the his/her body.  Then each one would fill in the outline with a "self portrait" of how we saw ourselves.

Pencils, crayons, scraps of fabric and glue, buttons, strips of lace, and shoe laces would contribute to a fully fleshed out version of how each of us thought we looked.

It was a fun beginning-of-the school-year project and did a lot to help classmates get to know one another through the other's eyes.  After we'd finished our large paper doll selves, we'd hang them on the walls...after introducing them to the class in a series of presentations.  "Hi, this is Amy.  She is five years old.  She lives with her Nonie and Pop Pop while her mom goes to school.  Her dad is away on business for a few years...."  And later in October we would dress our paper doll selves in Halloween costumes. 

At the end of the year we would do the same project over again and see how our concept of  "self" had changed.  It was always most apparent  when we'd introduce this new self (who was now graduating from Kindergarten and was ready for first grade) to the same children we hadn't really known in September, but who were now as familiar to us as our siblings.  "Hi, I would like you to meet Arturo, as you know, he loves to read and do math.  His favorite song is "Thriller" and he can moonwalk.  He has new baby brother that he thinks is too noisy, but he is helping his mom by not telling her to take him back to the hospital."

I loved this project.  Sometimes the introductions were sweet and funny, and sometimes they were sad and full of despair.  Either way we were  going to be a class, a family and we would be there for one another.  We were all in it for the long haul.  We would learn and we would grow.  And it would be fun most of the time, and hard some of the time.

This particular year, I had a little girl in my class named Marguerite.  Her family had recently relocated from San Salvador and she was the only one who  spoke any English...at all.  She was a fragile and shy as a small fawn caught in the middle of an urban park and I could feel her heart beating wildly as I gently placed my hand on her shoulder that first morning.  In that moment, I knew that she would be my tracing partner for our whole-man self portraits that afternoon. 

Over the next few days I got to know Maggie (as she asked to be called) and we laughed about how much more tracing she had to do than anyone else (since I was the biggest kid in class), how funny her braids looked after being traced, and the odd shape of our feet.  

Soon it was time to fill in the blanks.  We drew in fingers, eyes, nose, mouth...and for some freckles, long (mostly just wished for) fingernails, and pierced ears.  It was a fun, noisy time of day...and we thoroughly enjoyed watching one another come to life as our flatter selves took on personalities.

When it was time to color in our selves, however, the mood changed (as it usually would each year).  Choosing the right color for hair, skin, hands, lips made everyone a bit tense.  I watched as Hispanic children wrestled with the right shade of brown, tan, or beige.  African-American children struggled with why they were called "black" and what did it mean that they wanted to use the same shade of brown as their Hispanic classmates.  Asian children wondered why someone had suggested yellow as a skin color and no one wanted to be "white"...except those who just didn't want to do any coloring at all.  We spent hours talking about colors and how they didn't define us accurately.  I remember "Maggie" being the last to choose her skin color.  She chose "rose,"  a soft strong pink, because she thought it was the most beautiful...and she wanted to be seen as beautiful and sweet like a flower. 

But it was the shift that came with the choosing of eye colors that astounded me that year.  Our joy returned.  Everyone felt that they could mix and match colors for their eyes.  We spent one afternoon moving from person to person, just looking deeply into eachother's eyes, trying to describe the colors we saw, to one another.  There were stripey blue-green eyes with spots of gray, deep brown eyes that sparkled with golden glitter, and gray eyes streaked with purple.  There were eyes like shards of pottery, and eyes that looked like the ocean on a summer's day, eyes as dark as a midnight sky and eyes as pale as the blue snow of the arctic. 

I will never forget, however, the color of Maggie's eyes. Once we'd finished our describing exercise, and were sent off to color in our own eyes..supplementing those one-on-one shared descriptions with visits to the long mirror in the back of the room...we were alone with our flatter selves.  I came up behind Maggie kneeling tenderly over her paper doll self in the far corner, and almost gasped.  She had painted rainbows in each of her eyes and sprinkled the paint with glitter.  Then she had drawn a big eye on her chest where her heart would have been and painted it in with a glowing, glittering sun...again, spirinkled with glitter. 

I kneeled down next to her and watched her work, her forehead crinkled in concentration until she sat back on her bottom and heaved a big sigh.  I asked her if she would tell me about her eyes...especially the one in her chest.  She said that the eye in her heart was the one that was like the sun.  It made everything she saw turn into rainbows even when it was gray and cloudy in her mind. 

I've never forgotten it.   I ask you, "who was really the teacher that day?"

What color would your eyes be?

Thanks Maggie...who introduced her end-of the-year self portrait to us as Marguerite with confidence and joy...I love the color of your eyes...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Hanging by a moment..."

"I'm desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
I'm chasing after You..."
- Jason Wade

In the last few weeks I have had three photographs come into my life.  Each one has reached me at a different stage in what seemed like a process towards greater self-discovery.  It is the journey I wonder if Lifehouse isn't singing about in "Hanging by a Moment" 

"...I'm falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until You make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with You..."

There is s stillness in this hanging.  There is a way of being upside down to yourself.  It's almost as if the very air around you could disturb the process if you move too quickly or speak before you are ready to.

"...Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take Your invitation
You take all of me now..."

There have been moments when I have felt that I was hanging, like this climber, by the tips of my fingers from a precipice.  Waiting...on belay...for the next fingerpost to reveal itself, like magic, in the face of the rock.
There are other moments when I know that if I were to hang there forever, it would be enough to just be connected to that rock, by the slenderest thread, ad infinitum.   I am at peace with my suspension from His firm hold on me.  And actually that's the most wonderful part, the more I think I am holding onto God, the more I realize I have it all wrong.  He is holding on to me.  And you know, there is nothing I can do to loosen his grasp on my life, my hopes, my salvation.  In those moments of divine suspension, I actually do forget all that I am lacking, all the ways that I think I am completely incomplete as a mortal, and I find myself really believing that His invitation, to "take me as He sees me"...all of me...is a gift of grace.

"...I'm falling even more in love with You
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until You make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with You..."

This is the real deal, the Love that all other loves spring from. And you know, I can only truly let myself go, and love others...without fear of rejection, betrayal, hurt...because I have fallen even more in love with Him.  I think I could hang here forever, so tenderly connected to Him with all that I am, Suspended in His timing, waiting until He moves me to take the next step in any...and every...relationship in my life.

For me it is like the butterfly in the chrysalis. She is hanging from the rock by a single fragile thread that has unimaginable tensile strength...with nothing beneath her.  It is actually helpful for me to remember that the butterfly inside doesn't yet know that there is light, air, wings, flowers...flight.  All she knows is her hold upon the rock.  Soon there will be movement, a paradigm-wrenching trembling which will escalate until she has shaken herself free from the dark uncertainty of the chrysalis.  Until then, she can't even imagine that soon she will spread the wings she doesn't yet know she has, and soar on the winds of God's purpose for her.  But until that moment comes, she has only one thing to do...hang on to the rock.

"...I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with You..."

I am living for the only thing I know.  There are a lot of things that I think I know, and even more things that I have opinions about, but there is only one thing I am absolutely, positively sure that I know.  And that one thing is, as Mary Baker Eddy, says in her poem, "Love":

"Love alone is Life."

And since, as John avers, "God is Love," the above statement in conjunction with another of Eddy's statements, "God is All-in-all" reminds me that God, Love is All-in-all.  In everything, in everyone, governing every thought, motive, action, decision, choice, and outcome. It is enough. 

Somedays, when I find myself running madly in circles looking for answers, searching for meaning and inspiration, hoping for "something new"...I can stop to realize that all I need to do is "hang" for just a moment with Him.  With what I know about Him...as Love.

"...There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind..."

In the stillness of that space with Him, I remember what I know. Nothing in the world can change my mind.  Love is all that matters.  Love is all that makes a difference.  Love is the only goal, the only accomplishment, the only holy grail.  To find the love that burns like an inextinguishable ember in my heart and let it glow, burn, radiate, sing, laugh, purify my motives, motivate my actions, be my life.

"...There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else..."

Just hanging by a moment here with You,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credits:  Caitlin Little, Ashley Bay, Joan Knoll 2009]

"...let her love you sweetly..."

I don't think I have ever posted a something that was written by someone else...but my sweet Sam has penned this piece:  It is our story. A story that only she could have written. I am honored to share it with you in hopes that it will inspire you to persist in loving those people in your life who may not seem to want it...you never know when it will make a difference

"Instead of acting crazy
chasing things that make you mad
Just keep your heart ahead,
it'll lead you back to what you have
With every step you are closer
to the place you need to be
But it's up to you to let her love you sweetly

Instead of feeling bad
Be glad you've got someone to love
Instead of feeling sad
Be happy there's a God above
Instead of feeling 'lone
Remember you are never on your own..."
- Madeleine Peyroux

Yes, this song, "Instead" by Madeleine Peyroux, has its slight romantic connotations.  But for me, it stems from a lot of "letting go", and not fighting the love that someone shows you.

I remember the day that i first started to accept the love from well...my mum.

The story of how she became my mum is quite complex.  But in a nutshell, she and my birthmother were the best of friends.  When i was a baby our family was hit by a drunk driver.  Kate was by my mom's bedside until she passed away.  She has loved and looked out for me in different ways ever since. Ways that i did not even know about until now, and i am still learning the extent of it all.

In my camper days at Adventure Unlimited I remember this "Kate lady" was always very present.  I knew Kate had a significant role somewhere in my life, because my grandmother would always say "Say hi to Kate and give her my love" each year before i left for camp.  I never did.

I noticed her around when I was about 14 and moved up to Round Up, the camp for high schoolers.  I would be sitting at breakfast in Valerie Lodge with my cabin, and see her staring at me from the "table of the hierarchy", as i called it.  I would either stare back, shoot her a look of disgust, or pretend i didn't notice and avoid her gaze all together.  One day in the lodge, Kate approached me and wanted to talk to me.  She told me that she and my parents had been friends, and if i ever wanted to talk about them she was there.  I tensed up and gave her a simple "ok thanks" answer.  I didn't talk to her that summer.  I wasn't ready for it.

My parents were a topic that I never wanted to talk about.  I think it was because nobody in my family ever talked about it either.  Kate, being the practitioner at camp gave inspirational talks before we went out on out 3-day camping trips.  I remember it being a pattern each year for her to somehow mention my mother in these talks.  I was so terrified each time i sat on a cushion on the floor with my friends and counselors.  I was afraid Kate would talk about my parents and i would cry.  I hated crying and being pitied.  I needed to be strong.

Before she started her talks, Kate would look into the crowd and talk about campers and counselors that she knew.  She would say something she remembered about them, or loved about them before she began speaking.  I remember the way she looked at me.  Eyes as blue, sharp, and intense as ice.  Her facial expression was warm and inviting...but the eyes...it was a look that penetrated your depths, and saw into your soul.

My last summer as a camper I sat down on the floor and listened to her speak.  I can't remember exactly what this talk was about.  It could have been the popular "sex and eric" story, the $20 bill story, or the one about my mother approving of her marriage.  All I know is that after that talk,  I needed to finally say something to this woman.  This woman who I knew loved me so much, loved me as much as her own children.

After my counselor, Tina, had finished talking to her (when the talk was over) I shyly went up to her and said, "I liked your talk tonight".  I hugged her and walked away.  This was our main interaction that summer.  But for me this was the pivotal moment when i had "let her love me sweetly", and let go of the negativity i associated with her presence in my life.   All she wanted to do was love me, and i was going to let her. 

The next summer we had a talk that would allow our relationship to blossom into the mother-daughter relationship we have today.  This cherished relationship is ever evolving, ever changing, ever growing.  I am so grateful for it.  Thank you mum for all you do for me.  You're beauty-full.

I love you...
Sam

I love you too Sam.  Letting yourself be loved takes courage...I think your mom would be very proud of you tonight...dad too. I know I am...but then, I always have been. Hugs,

Mum
Kate Robertson, CS

"...in your name I find meaning..."

"...I'm hanging on another day
Just to see what you will throw my way
And I'm hanging on to the words you say
You said that I would...would be ok

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain there's the healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on
I'm still holdin' on,
I'm holdin' on
I'm barely holdin' on to you..."
-     Lifehouse

The other day I felt like I was "falling apart" in much the same way that Lifehouse articulates in this lovely, plaintive song of hope and longing titled "Broken."  But it was also just the reminder I needed.   When I heard it, I was feeling particularly lonely in the aloneness of a moment, and it immediately brought me peace. 

I love that line, "in your name I find meaning."  And the "you" in whose name alone I "find meaning" is the great "I AM" whose presence feels as intimate to me as my own hopes and dreams, sorrows and joys...the very private thoughts I cherish in the dark silence of the night. 

When I was still a very young woman, but thought I was all grown up and more than ready to fly solo, my mother and siblings...with whom I had been living since my dad's passing...moved to another state.  In some ways one might think I would have been happy and relieved.  I'd worked two or more jobs for a few years in order to help pay for our rent, utilities, food and family expenses, and this might mean a bit of a break from those demands.  But that wasn't how I was feeling.

Yes, I was excited to be out on my own.  I'd found a Manhattan couple who'd purchased a gentleman's farm in our rural community and talked them into letting me renovate the loft of their beautiful barn into a loft apartment in exchange for rent.  And I was thrilled by the opportunity to creatively redefine the space, by their trust in my twenty-one year old chutzpah, and for my first real privacy...I'd always lived in other people's spaces and had always dreamed about my own apartment.  But there was also a sadness about living away from my mother, sisters, and brothers.

I moved my few belongings into a small storage space in the barn that was heated, had been insulated for winter, and had a tiny bathroom in the corner.  I'd cook on a hot plate and use a tiny little dorm-size refrigerator until I'd finished the renovation.  I had a twin bed pushed under the barnwood eaves and a little table with two chairs. I'd brought three small paintings I done in high school, ones that the school had had framed for an exhibit at the local library.  I used my simple cedar hope chest for storing my clothes and I'd hung my three dresses (and two waitress uniforms I needed for my second job) on a nail at the end of the room.  An antique embroidered linen pillowslip folded over a wooden dowel served as a curtain on the one small window framed by rough barnwood.  I loved way the sunrise looked through the ripply green-tinted glass each morning and vowed to make that window a centerpiece in the renovation. 

That first night after I washed my mug and bowl out in the bathroom sink, dried them with the worn blue and white checked dishtowel I'd begged my mom to let me keep with me, I brushed my teeth and climbed between the soft white sheets and under the colorful quilts that represented the entirety of my dowry.  I'd always loved vintage linens and had gathered bits and pieces over the years from my grandmother, a generous neighbor who'd shared her treasures, and a dusty antique shop in the village we'd lived in while I was in high school.

I turned off the small lamp that sat on an upturned fruit crate that served as my first bookcase and lay in the dark.  I'd grown up in a family of eight children.  I'd shared a bedroom with as many as four of my sisters, depending on the size and number of bedrooms a house had, all my life.  We'd always lived in small houses.  Houses in which our rooms were so cozy, and close to one another, that I could hear my brothers whispering in their room while I read in my bottom bunk across the hall.  I'd never, ever, heard or experienced the kind of visceral silence I was greeted by that night once I'd turned the lamp off.  It was as if someone had sucked every bit of sound out of the room.  I was aware of my heartbeat, my own thoughts, the sound of my nightgown rustling against the soft cotton of my sheets.  I was aware of the unique rhythm of my own breathing, in and out, in and out, in and out. 

This was so new to me.  New, and lonely.  Soon I was aware of more than just my breathing, and my heartbeat.  I was aware of the sound of my own crying. I was alone in the dark, I was falling apart, and I was hyper-aware of everything around me.  And more importantly, everything within me.  I discovered that if you listen closely you really can hear the sound of tears dropping from your eyelashes, rolling along your cheek and falling to the pillowcase under your face. I discovered just how much I really did miss my family.  I missed all the sounds I'd complained about throughout high school when I'd thought all I wanted was "a room of my own."  I missed my sister purring in her sleep, my mother's tapping of her fingers on the kitchen table as she enjoyed a late night cup of tea in the quiet of her own house long after midnight.  I missed the mewing of babies and the turning of more than a half dozen children in their beds while I read.

I missed them. And I was aware of missing them.  It was quiet enough that nothing distracted me from the sound of the love that was happening in my heart.  

This missing them in the silence of the dark was my first awareness of the deep intimacy we each have with our God.  In my aloneness, I discovered that I was really not alone.  There were new thoughts coming to me every moment.  I was feeling the seeping in of a new awareness of my love for my mother, appreciation for my sisters, I could feel the presence of my dreams for the future, and my hunger for meaningful love and purposeful work.  I could actually feel my desire for my sister Nancy's bony spine against mine as we slept back-to-back in the double bed we'd shared at times during childhood.

This awareness of "me", my hopes, my desires, my thoughts, my sadness and longing, was rich with being, was full of the "I AM" of conscious being...God. For me, this is what Mary Baker Eddy is talking about when in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she refers to:

"...the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity..."

I learned to love the silence of that small bed under the eaves, because it introduced me to myself...the self that had an inner life.  The self that was no longer being drowned out by all the hustle and bustle of being one of many voices, movements, breathing in a big family.  The self that was conscious of the infinitude of her identity and was discovering that right there, within her own conscious being, lay all the important answers she'd been looking for. 

My silent life in a drafty barn didn't last long...but I have never forgotten it in the ensuing years, as the quiet spaces started filling in with husband, children, phone calls, patients, guests, dogs, washing machines, dishwashers, computers and babies. 

And to this day, when I am feeling most alone in the world, it is not people I seek to surround myself with...even the people I love the most...it is the silence of a darkened room.  My favorite time of day, the time of day - the space - that fills me, and satisfies me most...so that I have something real to give others...are those moments just after waking, when I have not heard a sound, moved even a single finger or probed a toe seeking to feel the sheets or rustle the bedclothes. Those are the moments before I have opened my eyes to see the light of day playing on the pear colored walls of our bedroom. And it is in this timeless time that I am aware, in that profound silence, of the "great I AM" that is me, my conscious being. 

In these moments of great intimacy with my God, I am most keenly atune to the "pain" of missing loved ones...a profound love that heals.  I am most appreciative of the joys of having thoughts that are beautiful and rich with purpose...even if just to me.   I am most conscious of knowing that I am never alone...but always filled with Him...with Her...with the I AM that is the only real oneness that matters...the only I or US that all other relationships spring from.

In the silence of a my first waking thoughts, I find God...the kingdom of heaven within. And this same infinite nearness of the divine is there for each of us...all the time.

with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"It's all coming back to me now...."

"...Why do I keep on suffering this carpool?
Even when I've had enough
of being the world's fool
'Cuz she knocks me out;
she fills up my heart
She's my everything;
my shining star
Oh yeah, it's all coming back to me now..."
- Tracy Newman

  Tracy Newman is a renaissance woman -- folk singer/songwriter, screenwriter, and sister of 70s Saturday Night Live regular Laraine Newman -- her songs blend funny, with meaningful, in a way that resonates with me. A friend's recent Facebook posting of an article about her career, led me to Tracy's song. "It's All Coming Back to Me Now"  It's the perfect keynote for a follow-up post to last Thursday's "Come with What's in Your Heart" below (scroll down to the September 18th post on this blog).

I love Tracy's music, her courage (can you imagine being a successful screenwriter and then putting yourself out there as a singer?),and her humor (not that I believe in the genetics of humor).  But this song took me on a quick journey through maternal comraderie, head-shaking recall, parental "oh my gosh, that's exactly what it felt like", and right back to maternal tears of joy.

One of my daughter's happiest days...the day she drove off with a new driver's license and her own wheels...was one of the saddest for me.  Don't get me wrong, I actually loved helping her learn to drive...she was a natural from the start, I celebrated when she and her dad walked through the front door -- her new driver's license clutched in her hand, and I loved having her spell me as a second driver on road trips.  But the day she had her own keys and wasn't sitting up front, next to me...either driving or riding...was a relationshift turning point I didn't see coming.  It wasn't that I wanted to keep her dependent on me for transportation or that I wanted to control her activities. 

I missed her.

Pure and simple.  I missed her company, her laughter, her voice, her music...her friends in the backseat.  I missed those nights when we'd almost arrived at our own driveway after vollyball practice and she would urge me to get back on the highway, or "just keep driving" around and around the neighborhood,  until we'd finished talking about something important...or not, or a favorite song on the radio had finished playing. 

My favorite car...ever...was a very old Jeep with a big bench-style front seat. It was a big truck of a car, the paint was sun-damaged and the gas mileage was probably in the single digits, but I loved it because when Hannah and I would drive around town or take short road trips into the mountains, she would move into the center section of the seat, put the seatbelt around her waist and lie down with her head on my lap as I drove with one hand on the wheel and the other smoothing blonde tendrils away from her forehead as she dozed off to whatever was playing on the radio.  Those were the days before passenger airbags and shoulder belts...at least in that car...and I loved our relationship within that old Jeep.

When Hannah started driving herself...from here to there and back again...I thought I'd lost something irreplaceable...forever.  Until one day I came upon a favorite statement by Mary Baker Eddy from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"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."

I'd long loved this statement, especially in light of Eddy's own experience as a mother who'd had her young son taken from her care (because of her frail health and then discovered his caregivers has taken him far away from her) with her husband and father's permission.   My reduced "car time" with my daughter was nothing compared with Eddy's isolation from her beloved son.  And yet she could confidently encourage mothers to claim the immortality of maternal affection under any difficulty through her prose, poems, and spiritual songs.   I realized that I, too, could find other ways to enjoy closeness with my daughter...texting, a shared journal, asking her to take me places, playing Apples to Apples with our friends -- hers and mine -- at a nearby Starbucks over Christmas break. 

These exercises in stretching my heart's ability to embrace her closely, even though she wasn't in the seat next to me, was essential preparation for the day she would fly off to South Africa for a summer visit that would turn into three years of her living 10,000 miles away with only my annual two-week visit to see her face and look in her eyes while she told stories or we laughed together. I learned too learned to pour my prayers out in poems and songs, to write stories of her childhood (like this one), and to send my love through the whatever technology I had at hand.

Love is spirirual, it is not geographical.  It cannot be contained within the cubic square footage of a car, a house, or the borders of a country. 

If you still have children that need a ride here, there, or anywhere...and back again...enjoy it, soak it in, bask in the sweetness of it.  The day will come when you will miss the sound of their laughter from the backseat, their music on the radio, and their questions and stories that you hope will never end....while you drive around and around just to hear their voice over the hum of the engine, above the underscore of a turned down radio, and in the glow of the dashboard lights. 

And when they do get behind the wheel of their own car, on a plane to fly off to a country far, far away, or close the door of their dorm room once you've fluffed the last pillow, hugged them too long, and reminded them to call...often... before leaving campus after dropping them off for the beginning of the new semester, remember, "a mother's affection cannot (not "ought not) be weaned from her child." It will make it easier...not easy, but easier...we promise. 

Thanks Mary...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

My friend Cliff sent along this song by Trace Atkins, "You're Goona Miss This"  as an addendum to this post...thanks  Cliff...I can always count on you to bring your sweet, gentle heart to everything you see, read, do.  Love you, Kate

"If I wrote a note to God..."

"If I wrote a note to God
I would speak whats in my soul
I'd ask for all the hate to be swept away and
For the love to overflow
If I wrote a note to God
I'd pour my heart out on each page...
If I wrote a note to God..."
- Joanna Noelle

I heard this song recently and it sparked a question for me, "What would I say, "If I wrote a note to God"...from my perspective...as a mom, a spiritual healer, a social activist, a human rights advocate...as a fellow citizen of universal humanity?

At first I thought about things like world peace, human trafficking, poverty, suffering.  Would I ask God to end these atrocities?  Would I plead with the divine for intervention?  Would I bargain for mercy...our monetary losses (in light of the financial meltdown in the western world) for an end to genocide in Africa.

All month I have continued to ponder the song's invitation to write my own letter to God.

Sometimes, in the wee small hours between the deep darkness of "after midnight" and the soft lavender light of dawn, I would find myself thinking in terms of the minutiae of my own life.  Would I tell God about my daughters and ask Him for guidance in parenting them with compassion, courage, and trust?  I might remember my beautiful mother and make note to mention my hungry hopes that she experience only the same kindness and generosity in her life, that she has always given others. I would try to remind myself that asking for more of my husband's company might be a less than selfless request in light of his nobleness of purpose in taking on an assignment in a far away city.  I would try to refrain from begging Him to bring my daughter home "from the ends of the earth,"  and our son from college, safely...and soon.

The other day, standing in the middle of an upscale shopping mall, I imagined the paragraph I'd pen as my prayer for an ending to flagrant consumerism.   Before I knew it, I'd mentally outlined the need for simplicity and a more responsible use of natural resources,  as well as my pledge to live with less.  In air script, I wrote out my fervent promise to judge less and give more...compassion, understanding, patience. 

But tonight, as I continued to mentally draft my note to God,  I was reminded of so many statements from Mary Baker Eddy's, chapter "Prayer" in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, including, but not limited to these:

"God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more? God is intelligence. Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already comprehend?  Do we expect to change perfection? Shall we plead for more at the open fount, which is pouring forth more than we accept?"

and

"Asking God to be God is a vain repetition. God is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;" and He who is immutably right will do right without being reminded of His province. The wisdom of man is not sufficient to warrant him in advising God."

and

"Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation."

Humbled by these gentle, but profound reminders of God's omnipresent love for, omniscient awareness of, and omnipotent power to govern His universe...my note became very brief, I drew a softly textured, creamy white note card from the navy blue Crane's stationary box I'd received from a client for Christmas last year, and uncapped my favorite fountain pen.  Then I wrote in my best script:

Thank you Father...
I love you...your daughter,
Kate

"Come with what's in your heart..."

"Come with What's in your heart
We all have our cross to bear
The sweet will grow sweeter
And you will be freer still
Come with what's in your heart...now"
Mary Huckins

I was thinking about the inspirational selections...on the subject of "charity"...I needed to compile for a church meeting the other day, when I realized that what I really wanted, was to be moved by a perspective beyond the view from my office window.  I wanted to feel the deep drawn breath of humanity filling me with its hunger and its need.  All morning I'd imagined carving out an hour or two to return to our old neighborhood in the city where the hungry and homeless share the sidewalk with college professors and graduate students.  I knew that in this social diversity any citations I'd chosen would either ring true with meaning, or fall flat on the face of pretense...rather than practice.

But as hard as I tried all day to make it happen, my visit to the old neighborhood just wasn't in the cards, God had other plans for me. 

A last minute appointment, scheduled just before I had to pick the girls up from school, took me in the exact opposite direction I'd intended.  I found myself in a suburban Starbucks where luxury cars, rather than shopping carts filled with redeemable soda cans taken from trash bins and dumpsters, defined the socio-economic baseline.

At first I was disappointed and cynical.  I'd wanted to feel the want and woe of life where "need" trumped "want".  I couldn't imagine that I would run into anyone in that Starbucks who needed anything, much less charity.

But I trusted that God had led me there and that He had put this desire in my heart for an opportunity to apply the Bible-based principles...relating to the subject of charity...I had been cherishing all day, to my experience...wherever I was.

As I sat there praying, I couldn't help but notice, through the front windows, a large SUV pull into the parking lot.  A teenage girl and her mom got out and approached.  The mom was broken, there was no other word for the look in her eyes.  It was clear that there had been harsh words, and the mom's face was stoic, but pained with heartache.  The daughter's face was critical and cold.  The look she shot in her mom's direction was one of disrespect and disdain.  But her mom moved through the space between the car and the front door of the coffeehouse with dignity..reaching deep within herself for love, patience, and poise. 

I admired her grace.  It was palpable in the spite of the daughter's angry sniping at her heels.  All conversation stopped once they entered the store until mom turned to her daughter and quietly asked her what she would like from the barista.  A curt response followed and without reaction, the mom ordered graciously, thanking the boy behind the counter when he repeated the order perfectly and completed the transaction.

As I sat there, I realized that this woman was hungry.  She was as needy as anyone I might have met on the streets of my old neighborhood.  She needed kindness and understanding, and as a mom I I understood.  I was filled with admiration for her poise.  I was overflowing with an awareness of how truly beautiful her patience was in the face of disdain.   Although I was a bit embarrassed...not sure if she would think I was a bit odd...I rose from my chair and followed mother and daughter out of the Starbucks.  I called to her and she stopped and turned towards me.  I said to her, "You are beautiful.  I couldn't help but notice the dignity and grace with which you hold yourself.  I hope your daughter sees how beautiful you are."  She just looked at me and asked, "you really think I am beautiful?" I said, "Yes" And then I looked at her daughter who had a look of true surprise on her face as she said, "Do you really think my mother is beautiful?"  Again I said, "Yes, I think she is very beautiful...so graceful and beautiful."  With that, her daughter's face softened into a child's and she walked over to her mother and put her arm around her shoulder and said, "I think you are beautiful too mommy."  The mom looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "You just made my day.  I needed this.  Thank you." 

I learned so much in that encounter.  More than money, food, or a place to live, we all need to be seen for who and what we are.  We need to be seen for what we love and how we love and live. 

I learned that my view of that woman and her daughter was the most valuable thing I could give them.  More desirable and hungered for than gold, or cars, or a mansion on a hill.  And I had lots and lots of that kind of "seeing" to spare.  I had so much I could give it away all day and never run out.

I also learned that I should never prejudge anyone's experience.  Our gifts are needed everywhere we go.  We can never go to, or find, a place that is free of the need for spiritual gifts...compassion, understanding, generosity, kindness, long-suffering, genuine interest in another's life. And sometimes those gifts lead us to the sharing of a sandwich, a bus ticket, and most importantly, a cup of cold water in Christ's name. . 

Mary Baker Eddy says:

"The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud."

This passage took on new meaning for me the other day.  I realized that Love gives me...even when I think I have the least to give...might (the possibility to make a difference in another's life), immortality (the tirelessness of invigorating compassion), and goodness (helping someone see the good that is already present in their lives when it seems obscure) to bless the life of someone else.  In that moment of giving I realize how rich I am...I have something to give. 

Or as Peter said to the infirm man:

"Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee..."

This spiritual giving was foundational to my mother.  When faced with opportunties for charitable giving, or philanthropy...even as a widow with eight young children and nothing in her bank account...she would affirm, for her own edification, as well as for anyone who thought they might try to convince her to hold back her widow's mite, "my children have the right to be generous."  I now realize what she has always understood, that giving is as fundamental as breathing to the human heart.

All you need to do is "come with what's in your heart".  Enjoy this beautiful song performed by one of my favorite Colorado-based folk/bluegrass/country bands, Dakota Blonde, and written by their lead singer and our friend, Mary Huckins. 

What is in your heart...right now...

with love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS
[photo of Carol & Lizzie by Scott MacKenzie 2008]

"Everybody wants to be loved..."

"...Happy is the heart that still feels pain
Darkness drains and light will come again
Swing open up your chest and let it in
Just let the love, love, love begin
Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh..."
Ingrid Michaelson

My friend Anna sent this Youtube video of "Everybody" by Ingrid Michaelson to me yesterday, and I was so honored to know that she would think of me when she heard it.   It was perfect.  But then I knew it would be. It was from Anna.   I love it when someone I care deeply about knows me so well that they can pinpoint a song they think I would love and send it to me.  It's especially sweet when the song hits home so accurately.  Thank you Anna.  I do love it...alot. 

Anna's spiritual intuition is no surprise to me.  She has a gift for listening deeply for guidance and then bringing ideas together that will bless one another.  But I learned just how clear her love, love, love-based intuits were this past summer.

Anna was the head of the Horsemanship program at Adventure Unlimited's Sky Valley Ranch for 3rd through 8th graders.  This is the program that our daughters have majored in each summer since they started going to camp. Anna had been their patrol leader the year before, so although she'd had some experience in working with the girls last summer, it had been a year since she'd spent time with them.  However, when love and prayer are the compass you use for finding your way, time and frequency play such a small role in informing your decisions.  But I am getting ahead of myself...

One of our most loved traditions at Sky Valley is the assigning of horses to each camper a few days into the session.  Horsemanship campers arrive at camp and enjoy a few days in the corral working with different horses in our herd, and on the third or fourth night something magical happens. 

Campers are told right from the beginning that while they are getting to know a number of different horses...grooming, saddling, early riding lessons...an old squaw, named Listens to the Wind, and her companion, the Old Prospector,  are watching to see which horse is the best match for both the horse and rider.  Then on that magical night, after all the campers have gone to bed, Listens to the Wind and the Old Prospector wend their way down from high in the mountains with only a lantern to light their path.   Camp is dark, and the voices of watchmen (and women) echo through the crisp star-studded night air, "Do you see the light?"  "I see the light."

Pajama-clad horsemanship campers are gathered, boys in one location and girls in the loft of Chuckwagon Lodge breathless with anticipation, hope and wonder.  Waiting on the upper deck, girls watch as Listens to the Wind is led by the Old Prospector to the lawn beneath them.  Silently she delivers the scroll and then gallops off into the night air like the wind, long braids flying out behind her on a horse as fast as the wind she is named after.

The program head then brings the girls into the lodge and reads a message from Listens to the Wind and then reads of the name of each girl and the horse that will be "hers" for the rest of the session.  This is the horse she will love, care for, ride, partner with, and eventually enter the rodeo arena on at the end of the session, to race around the barrels, canter through a series of poles, and in the final event ride as fast as they can to the opening of a keyhole, carefully turn around in a small chalked circle (without disturbing the chalk outline) and then race back to the gate...all timed for placement.  The rodeo is not just a measure of skill and speed, it is an opportunity to show how well you have developed a partnership with your horse. 

But back to that magical night...

I ran into Anna in the office long after campers were asleep, happily dreaming about the new partners, they would re-introduce themselves to early the next morning.  I'd been delayed and had missed seeing our girls learn who their horses partners would be for the rest of the summer.  She shared with me that Emma had been paired with Ayla, and Clara would be with Remington.  I knew both horses, I'd seen work with other campers, and perform in previous years' rodeos.  They were both good horses and I was happy that the girls would be working with them.

But I was amazed when Anna shared with me why Listens to the Wind's had paired the girls with their horses.  She explained that she had chosen horses that would teach each of the girls something important.  She said that in order for Emma to be a good partner for Ayla, she would have to learn to quiet her body.  She would have to learn greater stillness and poise.  And that Remington would help Clara learn to express more self-confidence and inner strength. They would help the girls discover something necessary and beautiful within themselves so that they could all succeed as partners.  As Anna shared these reasons, I was truly dumbstruck.  These were exactly the inner qualities that both girls needed to more fully realize, already deep within in themselves, not just to be successful in the rodeo arena, but in school, at home, in their friendships and on the soccer field.   

Listens to the Wind had intuited exactly what our girls needed in horse partners and had found just the right match for each of them.  She had given them horses that would help them discover these qualities that were so inherent and natural for them to express. 

Two weeks later, in a hot dusty rodeo arena the girls and their partners proved, without a doubt, that Listens to the Wind was as wise and intuitive as I'd discovered that magical night when Anna told me what she'd seen in my daughters and how she was going to help them discover it within themselves by giving them wise, strong, and gentle teachers. Listens to the Wind was blessed in having Anna's keen eye as a wonderful, wise, and discerning Program Head.

The greatest gift anyone can give a mother, is to see deep within the beauty of your child (or in my case children) and discern those unrealized, divinely natural gifts that only need to be drawn out from the infinite depths of their divine identity. To help them see themselves more fully as the amazing, wonderful, remarkable children of God you've always seen them to be.  This is what it means to really be loved...and everybody wants to be loved.  The girls felt loved by Anna.  And as their mom there was nothing more wonderful than to have someone love my daughters for who they really were, and who they had to right to more fully be.  I'm starting each day with the question, "who will I choose to really love today by helping them plumb more fully the spiritual depths of who they are. 

Anna helped Listens to the Wind choose perfect horse partners for our girls...and she chose a perfect song for me.   

Thanks Anna for teaching me more about the how of loving....I love you,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Dara Glotzbach 2009]

"Here, and There, and Everywhere..."

    "...I want Him everywhere
and if He's beside me
I know I need never care
But to love Him is to see Him everywhere
Knowing that Love is to share

To be there and everywhere
Here, there and everywhere..."
-     Lennon/McCartney

Okay, I admit that I have taken a bit of license with the above lyrics for "Here, and There, and Everywhere," but this is how I hear it these days.  For me it is all about Him...it is always about God. 

And it really was the first song that filled my heart when I considered writing about this healing tonight.  Besides, I love, love, love this song.  Thanks guys. 

So, about the healing.  I woke up the other morning with a headache.  Right away, from my first conscious moment, I was in severe pain. It was a surprise.  It didn't fit into any headache patterns I'd experienced in the past and so I didn't seem to have a well-honed spiritual response at the ready...in my back pocket...to draw upon.  My prayers didn't flow as effortlessly as I would have expected, which sent me directly into the space of deep spiritual stillness.

At first I just needed to silence the screaming of "My head hurts so much..."  So I listened for the music of Spirit to cut through that loud and insidious voice of pain.  It was vehemently insisting that I was in so much pain I could not think.  I was already certain that it was only screaming because it knew that it had neither the authority or power to stop me from thinking clearly (for more on this, see "Screaming Has no Authority") but I still longed to feel what did actually have authority and power...spiritual law in operation.

As I sat there, open and willing to hear God's message of peace, the thought came through, "It says your head aches, but it isn't saying that your hand aches. That's proof that it isn't true, or a product of Truth, because Truth, God is always All-in-all.  It can never be localized, but is always universal.  Whatever claims to exist only here, but not there...or there, and not here, is a lie.  Spirit, God is always universal, impartial, omni-present, everywhere...and in everything."

Wow...I could see the implications of this law in operation immediately.  And it went way beyond its application to my headache.  I spent the next four hours pondering all the ways this truth, this law, could be applied in my life and in the lives of others.  I never thought about the pain in my head again...but I sure thought about this law of God, good's All-in-allness.

I was amazed, when I actually started thinking about it,  how many ways I've been "talked" into believing that a lie was the truth.  Everytime I thought I could be happier at the beach than in the Midwest, that I could feel pain in my head while my leg was fine, whenever I've been convinced that intelligence existed more in one person than another, or that peace could be experienced in one nation, more than in another.  That my daughter could feel my love more completely when I was with her in South Africa than when we are farther apart geographically.  It went on and on.  I was fascinated at how obvious the lie was when I applied this very simple truth to discerning what was real.

I thought about Spirit and its nature.  When we feel peace, we don't just experience it in our finger, or in our house...real peace travels with us everywhere we go.  The same thing with joy, meekness, happiness, patience...they cannot be localized, but permeate every mental molecule of our existence.

Whenever something tries to tell us it exists in (or is absent from) a particular body part, a specific location, or a certain person...it is a sure sign that it is not Spirit, it is not God, or of God...therefore it has no authority with which to defend itself,  or law to stand on.

Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, next to the marginal heading, "No divine corporeality":

"The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be understood aright through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of small importance in comparison with the sublime question, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?"

No matter how hard pain, fear, evil, sin, disease, or death tries to be God-like...to speak with authority...it can never be all, or in all.  There is always an exception.  Nobility of character thrived in the middle of Auschwitz, meekness radiated from the cross, forgiveness sings from the wreckage of betrayal and hate.

And in contrast, hatred has never been able to destroy deep spiritual peace...but feeds it with ample opportunity for growing into heart-swelling grace.  War has never been able to shake a man's love for God...but gives him a canvas on which he paints the strength of his faith. Personal wealth has never been able to take the place of a generous charity, but when it fails to bring us joy, sends us searching hungrily for opportunities to give, and in giving find in ourselves the best we can be. 

In listening for the language that any suggestion comes in...All-in-all, or localized, personal,  partial, circumstantial...I have a filter for discovering what is real.  I have become more alert, than ever, to what actually does have the law-based authority of Truth.  And, more importantly, I have the tools for discerning what is a lie...a puffed up, arrogant, bully.  A tyrant voice that throws itself at body parts, locations, people, and situations...but is never, EVER, able to make itself really God-like...All-in-all.

I can't think of anything I rather do than, "think on these things"...

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Love will keep us alive..."

"...When we're hungry,
Love will keep us alive..."
-     Capaldi/Carrack/Vale

From those first sweet notes sung by Eagles' bassist, Timpthy B.Schmit, "Love Will Keep Us Alive" stops me in my tracks and helps me remember how little we really need in this world...beyond the loving.

My mom knows all about the power of love to keep children "alive."  She is a genius at it. 

For years after our dad passed on...leaving her to raise eight children alone without insurance, pension, or even the necessary job experience to secure employment at a working wage...mom depended on the divine power behind her love for us, and our love for her...and eachother...to house, feed, clothe, and educate us all.

Her love for us didn't lead her to acts of desperation or fear, but to creative ways for stretching a budget, remaking hand-me-downs, encouraging us to share (or make do with less than we may have wanted, but more than we needed), and to always, always be generous.  Even when the whole world was screaming we should hold on tightly to anything we had, because it might be gone in an instant, leaving us empty and threatened with  homelessness, she was looking that demonic suggestion in the face and fearlessly telling it to back off, all the while offering it a meal, a helping hand, a ride to work.

My mother is the most generous person I know.  She has never known material wealth, but the richness of her life is found in the love she engenders in the hearts of her children, decades of friendships with their friends, and the adoration of her grandchildren...and the children she nannies each day.

My mother's "bank account" is not found in a 401K, or a pension, but on bookshelves stacked with photo albums.  Each one lovingly filled with pictures of my siblings and our friends...and it doesn't take a genius to see that we were oblivious to any sense of poverty.  Our days were so filled with the joy of being her children and the abundance of beauty, order, and affection she showered on us all, that any sense of lack was lost in the abundance of her kindness, the sound of her laughter, and the warmth of her love.

Soon after dad's sudden passing, our family station wagon was in desperate need of an oil change.  Mom never mentioned it to anyone, but knowing her, she must have been praying for an answer. There was no money for a visit to a service station, much less the oil needed.  But she didn't seeem worried...even though our car was her only way to get to the grocery store or to the children's school in an emergency. We lived on a farm in rural Pennsylvania Dutch country...a move we'd made in the year before dad passed.   And although the families living on neighboring farms were friendly and kind, none of us knew anyone well enough to ask for help.

One weekend I got a call from a high school friend I hadn't seen since he'd left for college months earlier.  He was home for the holidays and wondered if I thought it would be okay if he drove the 70 miles up from his parents house to visit my mom and siblings.  I told him I thought she'd love to see someone from "the old gang"  (a group of our friends who often came by the house when we'd lived close to the high school my sister and I attended) and the next day a car full of college freshman arrived at the farm ready to work. 

They sorted and organized the garage, changed the oil in the station wagon, cleaned leaves out of the gutters, and on, and on, and on.  The years of kindness, and the simple meals my mom had offered them whenever they'd come by during high school, had made those boys want to help care for her...and her children. 

From then on, while home from school for breaks, the boys would drive over 100 miles round trip (from a neighboring state where we'd lived in high school) to shovel snow in the winter, mow the lawn in the summer, prepare the soil for a vegetable garden in the spring, and rake leaves in the fall.   I think they were as blessed by their trips to mom's farmhouse, as we were blessed by their help.  When I attended my 2oth high school reunion, 17 years ago,  there were as many questions about my mom's well-being from friends I hadn't seen in almost two decades, as there were about my own life since high school.

Last month I stayed with mom on my way to...and from...a brief weekend at camp.   I'd driven through the night just so  I could have an evening at "home" with her.  We stayed up way too late looking at photo albums together, talking, laughing, and remembering.  Those photo albums were filled with faces I'd long forgotten, but included young men and women who'd stayed in touch with mom through the years. 

One photo showed a group of college-age boys on the front lawn of the farmhouse kneeling on one another's backs, stacked in a human pyramid, with my youngest siblings laughing from the top.  We were all happy. We were with her. 

Which one of those boys would remember whether they were served small bowls of rice, or thick, juicy steaks for dinner that night...I doubt that anyone cared.   What I remember is that we laughed, we pulled weeds in the vegetable garden, we played card games at the kitchen table, and I remember, clearly, that no one wanted to leave at the end of the day.  My mom gave those boys a "place to hide" from the social demands of being college boys, fraternity brothers, star football players, heartthrobs..."too cool for school." In the space of her heart, and her "home" we were all generous, cooperative, selfless, and childlike...just like her. She fed that hunger, in all of us, to be filled with our best selves. We didn't need frozen mini pizzas, video games, soda, or lemony Pledge-polished furniture...we needed to be needed.

My mother taught me how thoroughly "alive" love will keep us, when we put "loving" first in our lives. It's a lesson I need to revisit, and refresh myself on, continually.

In a poem, titled, "Love," Mary Baker Eddy writes,

"Love alone is Life"

My mother has not owned her own home since I was eight years old....it's very difficult to purchase a home when your priorities are the raising, and educating, of eight children as a young widow.  But she has taught me everything I know about the importance of home and what a real home feels like.  She has taught us how to make any house, apartment, condo, cabin, or rented room feel like home, not by filling it with new furnishings or expensive foods, but by filling it with the light of her laughter, the warmth of her smile, her genuine interest in your dreams, the depth with which she listens to your heart...and her love, always her love.  In my mother's home, Love has always kept us alive.

thank you mommy,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Lila June Jones 2009]

"Love will find a way..."

"...There's a perfect world
Shining in your eyes
And if only they could feel it too
The happiness I feel with you

Like dark turning into day
Somehow we'll come through
Now that I've found you
Love will find a way...
I know love will find a way..."
-     from "Lion King II"

It was May of 1989 and I was holding the handset to a 1940s era black rotary-dial phone, listening so intently that I felt like I was almost crawling into the receiver ear first.  I was hoping, with all my heart, and soul, and mind, that "Love Will Find a Way" for us to bring our daughter home so that we could be a family...and share her with so many people who already loved her 12,000 miles away.

Our infant daughter, Hannah, was about three weeks old and although we'd completed all of the South African adoption paperwork, and the adoption had been finalized,  we'd just learned that her travel visa from the U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization was far from being "in hand."

I thought we'd done everything right.  We'd stood in line at the I.N.S. office in Boston for hours.  Filled out paperwork, written our check and filed forms over six weeks in advance of her birth.  I'd assumed we would just have to show up that the U.S. Embassy in Johannesburg with her adoption papers and we'd be given all the documents we needed to leave the country as a family. 

But our visit to the embassy had been a shocking disappointment.  We were told that we should never have expected to receive a visa so quickly.  It was taking over a year to receive visas, once applications were filed. And we'd only filed our application 6 weeks earlier. The embassy told us that our application was probably sitting along with hundreds of others on an I.N.S. officer's desk in Boston, waiting to be reviewed and signed off on.  We were told that we'd probably have to leave South Africa without our daughter...and return once we had all of her travel documents in hand, since under apartheid-realated laws and policies, Americans couldn't be in the country without a scheduled and confirmed return flight.  Our flight was scheduled for later that summer and it was assumed that the likelihood of having her visa before then, was slim.

We returned from the embassy...to the farm where we were staying...in silence.  Our daughter was finally...our daughter. Our beautiful, precious, beloved, prayed-for,daughter.  Her adoption had been finalized by the government agency responsible, and we were legally her parents.  I couldn't imagine being away from her for ten minutes, much less 12,000 miles.

After arriving back at the farm, I took some time to pray...listening for spiritual guidance and direction.  I opened one of my favorite books, Unity of Good, by Mary Baker Eddy, to an article I'd turned to over and over again in my life, "Seedtime and Harvest."  I'd remembered a statement that gave me hope:

"...neither red tape nor indignity hindered the divine process. Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and is included in Mind; that while ye say, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest; and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes."

I knew that our motives were Love-based.  And I trusted another statement by Eddy:

"nothing but wrong intention can hinder your advancement"

Our intent was to love our daughter, to bring her home where she could meet, and be loved by, her new "family" including grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and our work colleagues who were waiting to welcome her with warm hearts and open arms. She was already changing me, her mom, into a more selfless human being.  She was already blessing the world, her world, with her presence.  My world was becoming more perfectly wonderful in the space of her eyes, and her heart, and those tiny, little, beautiful hands so eager to reach out and grasp hold of the lives of those who loved her.

As I sat holding my dog-eared copy of Prose Works (a collection of Eddy's writings other than Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures) it occurred to me that we had a friend in Boston who had offered to help in any way she could.  I walked to the phone and placed a call to where she worked.  And, lo and behold, the call went through...one more "miracle."  Phone service on the farm, and in that rural part of South Africa, was very unreliable.  But there I was standing in the hallway, next to the telephone table, talking to our friend on, what could only be described as, vintage equipment. 

As we talked, a plan unfolded.  Contacts I'd not even considered came to mind.  A sequence of steps fell into place with such clarity. 

Once we'd discussed a way to proceed and hung up, our friend contacted the lawyer, at our mutual workplace, that I'd worked with in the past to coordinate immigration paperwork for someone we'd hired into my department from another country.  The call was made in hopes of getting some guidance on next steps to take, but resulted in getting the name and phone number of the immigration officer who was responsible for approving all immigration visas out of the Boston office.  Our friend called his office and when his secretary said that he was out of the office, our friend, intuitively, was led to ask her if she had the time to hear our story. 

To make a long story short, within minutes the secretary had located our application in the middle of a large stack of files, put it in front of her boss for his signature, and within hours our daughter's visa was being couriered to the U.S. Embassy in Johannesburg. 

Within 24 hours of being told that we might have to wait months and months for Hannah's immigration visa to be processed and her documents sent to South Africa from Boston, the embassy had her visa in hand.

This was just the first of many "opportunities" we'd have to exercise our trust in the Principle, behind the promises, in these statements.   When we finally left South Africa later that summer, we brought Hannah home wrapped in laws we'd applied, trusted, and seen proven to be true and reliable. 

Time after time, neither indignity, or red tape, hindered the divine process. 

Whatever ways that a human sense of process seems to be hindering your advancement...a job application/interview/hiring process, an adoption, the unfolding of a wedding, a healing, the finding/contracting/purchase of a house, investigation/application/acceptance at a college, a pregnancy, birth, salvation...you can see it unfold clearly through the lens of divine process.  Governed by God, not requiring cycles of time...or thought, unfolding according to divine order, white for the harvest...it's a promise.

my love, and deepest appreciation to each friend who walked this journey with us...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Dwight Oyer 1989 - print damaged by exposure]

"All you need is love..." - a pledge

All you need is love,
all you need is love,
All you need is love, love,
love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't
...where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

All you need is love,
all you need is love,
All you need is love, love,
love is all you need.
All you need is love
...all together now
All you need is love
...everybody
All you need is love, love,
love is all you need."
-     Lennon/McCartney

Tonight my friend, James, posted this "I Pledge" video from Youtube (please don't miss watching it...just click on the title "I Pledge" in quotes) on his Facebook wall, and I liked it so much, that I plagi-posted it to my Facebook wall. But first, please let me state for the record, that for me, this video is not political, it is a compelling piece about what people are willing to pledge their lives to.

So, that said, soon a few of my girlfriends and I (at least the ones who were still awake at 12:30 in the morning) had a great "conversation" about what it is that we pledge our lives to. At first I listed off a number of things that I am committed to.  Among which were:  injuring no man, but blessing all mankind,  kindness, commiting to my own change, before I ask others to change, service to humanity, etc. 

But as our conversation evolved, and we each moved through the space of crafting our own pledges, I loved how my friend Michelle finally boiled hers down to this very simple sentence at the very end of a more lengthy statement:

"I pledge to Love"

I think it was what each of us was trying to say, but we were using way too many words. We were caught up in "more" -- more words, more ideas, more breadth of vision -- when that simple statement...more profound than anything that could have been carefully crafted by the wisest sage, or the most renowned philosopher...was absolutely perfect.  It reminded me of something Mary Baker Eddy said in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty,
and glory of infinite Love fill all space.
That is enough!"

And it is enough.  It is more than enough to ponder, to exercise, to live by, to hold ourselves accountable for...to pledge to.

Paul and John got it right..."All You Need is Love" I don't know that it is always easy, but I do know that it is all we need. It's all that we ever need. It is enough...

So, tonight this is all I will say:

"I pledge to Love"

yes, it is enough...always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I can see summertime slippin' on...slippin' away..."

"Well, the sun's not so hot in the sky today
And you know I can see summertime slipping on away
A few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red
But the grass is as soft as a feather in a featherbed..."
-     James Taylor

Summertime is no longer "slippin' on, slippin' away"...it's pretty much gone.  The girls will register for middle school tomorrow, get their photos taken for ID cards, and put their school supplies in new lockers.  The sun, filtered through the lazy, late August air, casts a golden light on everything it touches, and the "September Grass" JT sings about is a softer shade of green and even softer to the touch. 

As we say goodbye to the summer of 2009, and turn our faces towards all the newness of September, I can't help but recall the year I moved from third grade into fourth.  I had really loved third grade.  I'd had a wonderful teacher that was sweet and snuggly.  She would bring in cookies and could play the piano while teaching us Red River Valley and Home on the Range.  I thought Mrs. Hanson was the nicest grandmotherly person I had ever met, I wanted to live, and learn, in the warmth of her softness...forever.

I didn't want to go to fourth grade.  I did everything I could to convince my parents that I wasn't ready.  Wasn't I already really, really little for my age...I really, really was.  Hadn't I been really good at third grade? I had.  I had aced third grade.  In fact I had done so well at spelling, times tables, long division, and plant science that I just KNEW I should stay there.  Didn't ace-ing something mean it was your right place.  I sure thought so.  And if you got along really, really well with your teacher, didn't that mean that she should be your teacher forever and ever? 

Fourth grade was unfamiliar.  I didn't like the idea of having a man for a teacher...that was something I just couldn't get my head around.  Teachers were women.  They were soft, and kind, and they baked cookies sometimes.  That's the kind of teacher I needed.  That's the kind of teacher that worked for me.

And fourth graders ate their lunch in the lunchroom instead of in their classroom.  Fourth graders had to carry their books back and forth from home in a bookbag.  I wasn't sure I could do that.  Like I said, I was really little.  I didn't know if a bookbag would make my bicycle basket too heavy and make it hard to steer. 

I spent most of the month of August worrying about all of this.  I was so sure that I should be allowed to stay in third grade, that I refused to say that I was a fourth grader when people asked me what grade I was in.

Labor Day weekend was my last chance for convincing mom and dad that I shouldn't have to "move up".  We were doing some last minute "back to school" shopping for a blue cloth-covered three ring binder, a clear plastic ruler, a cello-wrapped package of 200 sheets of notebook paper, a new petticoat, and a pair of saddle shoes, when my mom suggested that I consider a red and black plaid bookbag with two leather buckle closures on the front.  I burst into tears and told her that I was not going to be tricked into going to fourth grade.  I didn't need a bookbag for third grade. 

She took me outside of the store and we sat in the shade on a concrete wall.  She asked me if I ever wanted to be able to read fat books with no pictures.  Now this was sneaky.  I loved, loved loved books.  I practically lived in the local library all summer.  I'd worked my way, first, through all the books in the "young reader" section on horses and dogs, and then moved on to stories about medieval castles, knights in shining armor, and damsels in distress.

I wanted to read every book in the entire library.  Mom suggested that there would be new vocabulary words in fourth grade, new periods of history I couldn't even imagine, new math games that I might find even more exciting than the times tables I had already memorized.  She said that we were going to get the bookbag, just in case I wanted to have a place to put all the new books I would be able to read, and understand, once I started fourth grade.

That night I sat in my bunkbed looking at the collection of books that filled the bookcase, that was my headboard.  The books were all skinny. And although the illustrations weren't on every page, like when I was in kindergarten, they still had some pictures.  I was beginning to think illustrated books were for babies who didn't have any imagination of their own.  I wanted to read books that let me come up with my own ideas about what a princess looked like, or the color of the sky over Narnia.

I got up in the middle of the night and quietly moved most of my books to the bookcase in my sister's headboard above me.  Before long I had made space in my bookcase, and in my heart, for fourth grade and all the new ideas that would come with it.  I found my new bookbag and took the little piece of paper out of the clear plastic window on the front and wrote my name and "grade four" in pencil...then slipped it back in to it's little leather frame with the plastic window.  It was mine...and I was going to fill it.

By the next morning I was ready.  Mom had helped me realize that, as wonderful as third grade and Mrs. Hanson had been, I was ready to take what I had learned from that experience and build on it.  I was ready to expand my horizons.  I was hungry for more.  And I was going to get it...and I had the bookbag to hold it all in.

That was the fall of 1963.  Later that November I would be so grateful for my teacher, Mr. Gaydosh.  He was strong and funny, wise and cool.  We all loved him.  He treated us like "scholars" and taught us how to play chess.  He let us make decisions about things like consequences and expectations.  We learned to set goals and work in teams. 

When our Principal came in one day and told us that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas, Mr. Gaydosh was the perfect teacher for me.  He brought in his black and white television the next day, let us watch "history in the making," he encouraged us to write about our feelings and how the events were effecting our families, our neighborhoods, our sense of who we were in the world.

I don't think I would be writing this post if it weren't for Mr. Gaydosh.  He expected us to know ourselves, to probe our feelings, to sort through our experiences, and to see how world events were having an impact on how we behaved, thought about our roles, and began to help us determine what we wanted to become.  

I started to see that I had needed exactly what Mrs. Hanson brought to my life as a third grader, but that if I wanted to grow and expand as a learner and as a person, I would need lots of different kinds of teachers, friends, and other adults to help me discover all that the world had to offer.   I somehow knew that I needed diversity.  Even when I was content with where I was.  Mr. Gaydosh, and fourth grade made me want to learn from people who didn't necessarily think like I thought, or agree with my opinions.  Mr. Gaydosh taught us to love debating issues and ideas.  He taught me that people could disagree without being disagreeable.

In fourth grade I would meet someone who would be my first "best friend" besides my sister.  She was the first person outside of my family I ever loved.  That experience alone was critical to my understanding of how expansive the heart is.  What if I had never gone to fourth grade. 

Tonight as I thought about my daughters entering Middle School, I remembered a statement from Mary Baker Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings:

"We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it, - determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God. "

I hope and pray that with new teachers, classmates, opportunities, and experiences, our daughters will grow in their ability to have compassion for the lives and circumstances of their new acquaintances, patience with the strong opinions of others, and a willingness to surrender their own opinions for open-minded discourse.  I pray they develop a keen relish for, and an appreciation of, everything that is beautiful, great, and good. And I hope that they discover...within themselves...a charity so broad, and a temper so genial, that the world becomes a playground...and not a battlefield.

Today I wrote the girls' names in black Sharpie on all their new school supplies, tomorrow I will sit outside their classrooms as they take math placement tests, I will help them find new lockers, and sew an embroidered "W" (in honor of their soccer coach) on new soccer jerseys.  I'm as excited about this "first day of school" for them, as I was for each new school year (or at least once I got over my fear of fourth grade). I can't wait to see what "new views of divine goodness and love" this "successive stage of experience" (Eddy) will bring to all of us...

Welcome September...I have always loved your promise....

always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo from Wyeth's first day of Kindergarten 2009]

"Another day..."

"...Oh, wake up Susie
Put your shoes on
Walk with me into this light..."
-     James Taylor

The minute I heard this video, of James Taylor singing "Another Day,"  which my friend Amy posted on Facebook, I thought of my love for the hours between dusk and dawn.  In the Bible's first chapter of Genesis, it says, "And the evening and the morning were the first day"...and the second day, and the third day, and on and on until creation was complete and given the benediction that, "God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good, thus the heavens and the earth were finished..."   I love this.  I love thinking that my day begins with a proper sense of "evening" and naturally evolves into the "morning," and not the other way around.   In part, Mary Baker Eddy, spiritually defines these terms as:

"Evening: ...peace and rest"

"Morning:  Light, symbol of Truth; revelation and progress."

Of course, there is always the demand, in beginning one's day with the evening, to arrest any mistiness of thought...and weariness of mind...that would obscure our views of Divinity, present as humanity.  But once that is done, I love establishing the foundation of my day by beginning with a clear sense of peace and rest in the evening.  Then I can watch, in the hours between the evening and the morning, for those "first faint morning beams" of inspiration and promise wakening me to new view of divine goodness and love...in my life and in the lives of others.  When the morning dawns, I am filled with a confident expectation of revelation and progress throughout the day. In this "space" the night (or evening) is not the opposite of day, but is folded into the delight, wonder, and promise of its beauty.

But back to my love for the night...and one instance of why.

The other night someone dear to me called at about two in the morning...heart aching, peace shattered, confidence quaking.  She thought she was calling too late.  I assured her that I was very much awake, had been, and was certain, that I was awake for no other reason than to be completely ready for her call.  This was the absolute truth. 

I'd had a full day, a fuller evening, and a very, very full night of calls and emails...but as I finished up the last reply, folded the final load of laundry, started the dishwasher, and walked the dog...it was so clear to me that the physical and mental weariness that had been screaming at me all night as reasonable, was suddenly like an annoying, little gnat buzzing around my head.  I could easily swat it away in light of the joy I knew I'd feel in speaking with my friend.

As I've explained above, night is my favorite time of day.  It is so rich with silence, fathomless space, and inspiration.   I wish I could stay awake all night and only take cat naps occasionally through the day.  I've never been a big sleeper.  It seems like such a waste of all that silence.  The need for sleep is not something I have prayed about, overcome, or "demonstrated over".  It's just the way I arrived. I believe that this must be what God intended for me to "be" from the beginning...and I have been faithful. 

As a child I was, in fact...and much to my parents exasperation...very, very faithful to my appointment as someone who "refused to go to sleep."  I was often caught reading hours and hours after "lights out."  After I'd almost burned down the bunkbeds my sister and I shared by taking the wall-mounted lamp off the wall and putting it under my covers, my parents let me leave the lamp on, for as long as I wanted to read, on the condition that I was up, dressed, and off to school on time each morning.  I was.

I really do trust that if God wanted me to get my rest by sleeping, he would begin by putting the desire for sleep in my heart.  It hasn't happened yet! But this is also why I believe that this is not the way it is, or should be, for everyone...or anyone else. This is why there is such beautiful "diversity of spirits" in the universe of fellowship. God puts our desires in our hearts in individual ways so that there are both night owls and early birds...that way all the moments of the day are loved!!! Anyway, back to my story...

So when my friend called I was happier than a child sitting on the front steps holding a new ball, hoping someone would come by to play catch.  I'd been reading, thinking, praying, listening for exciting new ways to look at thing spiritually, and so the joy of having someone to listen together with...for ideas, inspiration, unfolding direction...was a slice of pure happiness for me.  

It wasn't a case of me walking her into the light, but the two of us walking together in the radiating light of love that our united hearts created when we came together in the dance of "Our Father...give us this day...".  It was like having two batteries, instead of just one, in a flashlight.  The connection of our two hearts coming together in a united hunger for a divine sense of  purpose, brought a light which illumined a rich field of inspiration and direction, white for our harvesting harvest.  The resulting bounty fed us both to overflowing.

The hours sped by quickly as we talked and listened and laughed and talked.  But by dawn we were both so deeply rested that our voices were light with joy as we said our "love you, talk to you later"s.

The only place the word "exhaustion" has in my vocabulary is as a waste product the come from a combustible engine.  I am not combustible.  I do not depend upon a stimulus/reaction model to nerve my endeavors, to drive my actions, to kindle my desires, to encourage me to work, or to motivate my behavior.  I have no space in my life for any waste...and exhaustion is a waste of my time...day or night.

The Biblical precedent for my confidence came from a Sunday School student, who, when we looked together at the story of Moses and the burning bush that was not consumed, found promise for the environmental challenges we face in an expanding carbon dependent global community.  As he said, "The bush burned, so it put off energy...heat, light...but it was not consumed, so there was no waste."  Brilliant, and out of the mouth of a babe.  It figures!!

No exhaustion with the expending of useful energy. 

Mary Baker Eddy says two things that I love about active, purpose-filled sleepless, but restful, hours:

"The highest and sweetest rest,
even from a human standpoint, is in holy work."
and
"The consciousness of Truth rests us more
than hours of repose in unconsciousness."

I am resting the case of my wakeful heart on these Law-based promises, and on Biblical precedence.  And so far, these divine promises from my Father-Mother God,  have been kept throughout my life. Thanks Amy for posting "Another Day". I loved it.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Falling slowly..."

"...You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along..."
-     Glen Hansard

[a note written to a new friend...shared at her suggestion, and with permission..in her hopes that it might help others]

Dear Friend:

I am so glad you thought to call.  I know how hard these months have been for you.  I couldn't help but think of the above verse from "Falling Slowly" after our conversation this afternoon. 

I know how hard it is, because I have been there myself.  I have been on the battlefield with a false sense of self that is trying to convince me that I am not worthy of life, love, or compassion...that my mistakes, or the mistakes of others, have doomed me to a life of perpetual regret and self-doubt.

But those suggestions are not my voice, and they are not yours either.  This inner battle, this relentless warfare is not an indication of your weakness, but of your strength.  The "you" that somehow knows these suggestions of self-hatred and self-destruction is wrong, the "you" that picked up the phone and called for help, the "you" that, as Dylan Thomas once said:

"Rages against the dying of the light"

that very "you"...is the Christ in human consciousness.  That "you" is rising like a phoenix from the ashes of despair, refusing to let a voice that is so unlike God's, lull you into a stuporous state of tolerating a life that lacks joy, purpose, vision, and hope.

That false voice would never, in a million years,  allow you to pick up the phone and advocate for the real "you" by asking for help in this warfare.  It is the Christ-consciousness, present as your very own thinking, that fights despair, holds onto hope like a drowning man, and knows that there is an answer, another way of living, a different way of looking at yourself. 

It is this Christ-consciousness, operating as an insatiable hunger for healing, that remembers something Mary Baker Eddy describes as:

"A great sanity,
a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen..."

and it:

"...has wrought a resurrection among you,
and has leaped into living love."

When these suggestions rail against your peace, you can stand, mentally still and immovably fixed, on the certainty that God's love for you...and your purpose in serving Him...is all that rises from the ashes of self-immolation. 

In another of her writings Eddy states that we should:

"Be of good cheer; the warfare with one's self is grand; it gives one plenty of employment, and the divine Principle worketh with you, - and obedience crowns persistent effort with everlasting victory. Every attempt of evil to harm good is futile, and ends in the fiery punishment of the evil-doer."

The evil-doer is never a person...and certainly never you...or me, or any of God's beloved children.  The evil-doer is the suggestion, that comes in the sound of our own voice (in our head).  A voice that insists that we are unworthy of love, goodness, happiness, health, and peace.   That we are incapable of being generous, confident, non-judmental (of ourselves or others).  A voice that hisses like a snake, "you don't make a difference...so why even try?"

But there is always an ember of innocence and joy...a hunger to love and be loved...waiting to leap into living, breathing, palpating love.  It comes in the voice of a remembering of who we are, and were, as a child.  Fearless, generous, spirited, and pure.  We remember.  It comes as the call...the desire...to mother, to husband, to teach, to heal, to serve, to curl up in the arms of a kinder, gentler "I am" within us. 

This very call within us is the presence of the Christ.  And the Christ that is making that call for help, is the same Christ that is present to answer the call.  When we stretch forth our hand to reach for the proffered hand of one who is offering help, we are feeding their hunger to serve humanity by helping others. 

This giving and receiving, is a cycle of divine light and love, refreshing and redeeming each of us, through mutual attention and approbation.  And it's in the wake of this divine calling, that all are healed and restored. When we rise to a new view of our God-appointed (and annointed) mission in life, nothing can depress our hope, curse what God has blessed, or cause us to doubt the value of our contribution in the lives of others.

Dear sweet friend, thank you for giving me the opportunity, today, to watch my own phoenix-self rise...you have given me the gift of knowing that I, too, have a purpose ....I cannot be my best self without you...and therein is your purpose, you are important, vital, needed, valued.  Your life has beautiful meaning in this moment of mutual giving.  Your hope that you make a difference, that your love matters, and that you are loved...is fulfilled.

You have won...
with affection...and with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Ashley Bay 2009]

"I'm looking through you..."

"I'm looking through you,
where did you go
I thought I knew you,
what did I know
You don't look different,
but you have changed
I'm looking thorugh you
You're not the same..."
-     Beatles

I love this version of the Beatles classic, "I'm Looking Through You," by the Wallflowers.  It always reminds me of a moment in 1994 that stopped me in my tracks and changed the way I would look at others...and myself.

It was a bright beautiful, clear blue-sky, Colorado day in early autumn and I'd spent the morning at Just Baked, a wonderful downtown bagel shop where I often scheduled "office" appointments with patients who preferred talking over tea, to sitting in my office.  My last appointment of the morning had left for class and I was enjoying taking in the warmth of the bakery before heading home to check phone messages, before picking Hannah up from half-day Kindergarten.

It didn't take me long to notice the young man at the counter.  He was signing (American Sign Language) to the girl behind the counter, but she was not understanding him.  The University in our town was a leader in the field Sign Language Interpretation, and Speech Pathology, and it was not unusual to see sign language used in stores and restaurants.  I was a fluent signer, so I stepped up to the counter to offer assistance.  The young man "told" me his order and I gave it to the waitress.  Within minutes he'd made his purchase, thanked me for my help, and was out the door.

A few days later we ran into one another again at the same bagel shop.  But this time I was thrilled to see him sitting at a table, signing with a woman I had recently seen act as the sign language interpreter at a Wynona Judd concert.  I had been unable to take my eyes off her hands.  They danced in the air like a pair of ballerinas interpreting the music in graceful, subtle movements that made American Sign Language look like an art form.

I walked over to their table and the young man immediately recognized me,  rose from his chair, and thanked me again for helping him earlier in the week.  Then he turned to his companion and before he could make introductions, I gushed my admiration for her performance at the Judd concert.  She accepted my compliments graciously, but the look on her face betrayed her bafflement.  I chalked it up to modesty and excused myself. 

Before long it was time for me to gather up my books and journal and leave for home.  I noticed that the young man and his companion were also moving towards the door.  I waved a quick goodbye, found my car, and drove the four blocks to park on the street in front of our house. 

As I began to walk from the car to the front gate, and through the pale yellow rose arbor in the picket fence, I noticed that my neighbor about four doors down was also pulling into her driveway.  Sarah and her husband were young newlyweds who'd moved into the neighborhood about six month earlier.  We'd spoken briefly when I'd delivered an apple pie as a housewarming gift, but since then I'd only waved from afar whenever we were in our yards or going to and from our cars. 

As I saw her little red car pull into her driveway, I robotically smiled and raised a hand in hello...until I noticed that there was a man getting out of the car on the passenger side nearest me.  And he was the same young man I had just seen with the sign language interpreter at the bagel shop.  I was perplexed.  It hadn't even been three minutes since I'd left them and here he was getting out of my neighbor, Sarah's, car. 

Then I took a better look at Sarah.  She was the same woman I'd just seen him with.

I literally did a double, then a triple take. 

And then it dawned on me.  I had never really looked at Sarah.  I had already compartmentalized her as my young newlywed neighbor who was a student at the University.  I had assumed she was an undergrad studying something I didn't have time to care about.  In the context of our university neighborhood, she was, in my eyes (I am horrified and embarrassed to admit) just another pretty coed.

But in the bagel shop, in the context of seeing her sign with the young man, and recognizing, not her face, but the beautiful dance of her hands...something I had studied, tried to master, and was deeply interested in...she was special, a celebrity, someone to be impressed by, and honored to be in the company of.

No wonder she was so baffled when I gushed on and on about her signing at the Judd concert, as if I'd never met her before.  I was mortified.  I left my purse and books on the walk inside the gate and walked towards them. 

I apologized for myself.  Sarah was gracious enough to invite me in and the three of us talked until I had to leave to pick Hannah up from Kindergarten.

I learned a very important lesson that day.  I learned that I needed to be willing to really open my eyes, and see each and every person I met as if they were truly important, intriguing, remarkable, interesting, fascinating...because they are!  I had to stop looking through people, categorizing and then dismissing them based on what I did or didn't know about their lives, and be willing to ask questions, listen deeply, and discover what was unique, and beautiful and wonderful about them. 

I have never forgotten this lesson.  The following story was shared with me recently by my friend Nancy.  I think it perfectly illustrates the importance of taking the time...and the heart...to listen for what we should never dismiss...the divinity in eachother's humanity.  Enjoy this story...

------------------------------------

He was standing in the Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After 3 minutes, a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds...and then hurried to meet his schedule.  After four minutes, the violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued on her way.  After six minutes had passed, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

Ten minutes into his playing, a three year old boy stopped to listen to the violinist, his mother tugged at him, but the toddler lingered looking at the violinist.  Finally the mother pulled harder, and the child continued to walk, turning his head toward the musician all the while.  This same interest was repeated by several other children.  Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.  Forty-five minutes had passed, and the musician played.  Only six people stopped and stayed for a while.  About twenty people gave him money, but continued to walk at their normal pace.

He collected thirty-two dollars. When one hour had passed, he finished playing and let the silence take over. No one noticed.  No one applauded, nor was there any recognition that he had played...or stopped.

No one who passed through the metro station that day knew it, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the finest violinists in the world. He'd played one of the most difficult and intricate pieces ever written for the violin.  He was playing a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his morning in the metro station,  Joshua Bell had sold out a theater in Boston where the average price of each seat was $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

The questions raised were: in a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it?  Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context? 

One possible conclusion, reached from this experiment could be: If we don't have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made...

How many other things are we missing?

--------------------------------------------

A friend once told me that one of his favorite prayers, for himself, each day included putting  the words of the prophet Elisha in the first person:

"Lord, I pray Thee,
open Thou mine eyes that I may see..."

Something to think about...have a great weekend...
with open eyes, listening for beauty in unexpected places...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I loved her first..."

"...I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
And I prayed that she'd find you someday
But it still hard to give her away
I loved her first..."
- Heartland

As a lyricist, primarily known for writing (and loving) wedding songs, how did this one, "I Loved Her First," (click on the title to hear the song) get by me...and more bafflingly, why didn't I write it???

There are a few songs in this world that from the very first time I hear the "hook," I wish I could start the moment over...and listen to it for the first time...again, and again, and again.  My own musical version of the film "Ground Hog Day."  This song was no different.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Early Sunday morning I scooted through a security checkpoint at St. Louis Lambert Airport, to board a flight for Los Angeles, where my friend Dick Davenport would pick me up and whisk me off to Palos Verdes for his daughter Beth's wedding. 

Beth had been in my Sunday School class for three years, I'd been her sponsor for a stunning Senior project on liturgical dance, and we've become very close friends over the last seven years.  Beth and her family have never been less than kind, compassionate, generous and embracing.  Dad Dick, mom Jerri, sisters Amanda and Natalie, and brother Brian are as dear to me as my own family.

When Beth and Ricahrd asked me to co-officiate their wedding, I was honored by the invitation, and humbled by their recognition of, and enduring trust in, my commitment to the sacrament of marriage.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect.  I was home from camp, the girls were on holiday in Maine, Jeff would be at work in Boston, and Mollie would get to have a playdate with her new puppy-friends - Izzie and Kaylie and their family, the Dooracks.  Saying yes was a joy.

I had met Beth's fiancé the first week they started dating. It was the beginning of their freshman year of college, and she brought him to Sunday School with her.  I knew he was "the one" by the way he loved what was most important in this world to her with as much devotion as she did...her family. 

The Davenport family makes a person feel like they have found something rare and beautiful in this world when they take you in, and care for your heart.  And Richard, Beth's fiancé was taken into their hearts and home with complete, pervasive, and unconditional love. And he fit right it. He laughed at all the right spots in movies like Stripes and Anchorman with Brian. He became another big brother (along with Amanda's, then fiance'...now husband, Ben) to Natalie, and he was every bit a part of Davenport family gatherings...talking, playing games, helping with whatever projects needed an extra pair of hands.

And he "got" Bethany. He loved her, as much as her parents and siblings did. I have always loved the way Beth shares every bit of her life with her family.  They laugh, cry, pray, and work together.  And Richard joined her in that sharing.  I have watched them grow as a couple, and as an integral part of the Davenport family tapestry of living and giving...and it is a beautiful fabric...without seam or rent.

However, as much as I have loved watching the tender relationship Beth has with her siblings and mom, having spent my post high school years without a dad, it was her relationship with Dick that has been most endearing and instructive to me.

Jerri and Dick have beautiful relationships with each of their children, but Beth and Dick have a relationship that can best be described as "choreography".  It is more beautiful than a ballet and more remarkable than the synchronization of hundreds of aspen leaves turning towards the sun on a bright Colorado morning.  There is an ease of movement...light one moment, strong and sure the next...that characterizes the beauty of what I have witnessed over the years. And it is this same sense of choreographed beauty that was tangible at the reception when the DJ announced that they would be taking the dance floor for their daddy-daughter dance. Dick and Bethany taught ballroom and swing dancing together at her high school, and there was an almost weightless sense of movement through space between them. It speaks to the nature of their relationship as father and daughter...a burdenless joy, a trust-filled peace.

I have written wedding songs just for the purpose of daddy-daughter dances, and so my heart was momentarily suspended in air while I waited for the first chords to resonate through the room so that I could identify a familiar love song.  But when the music started, I didn't recognize it...at all. Since I love wedding songs...and lyrics...I listened closely to each word...hanging on phrases that caught me off guard.

And when I heard Heartland's swell - a growing crescendo of parental love - towards the line, "...but I loved her first, and I held her first..." there was an immediate catch in my throat, tears burst from my eyes and heart, and a sob leapt from my chest without warning.

To see Dick waltzing Beth around the dance floor was breath-taking in light of these lyrics.  I can't imagine there was a dry eye in the house, but I will never know because soon I couldn't see for the sting of my own tears.

It was the highlight of my day. I felt as if I had waited seven years to see that one dance. I had to leave the reception soon after their dance, to catch a red-eye flight back to St. Louis so that I could welcome the girls back from Maine, but I spent the next 11 hours from there to here, thinking about that song...about Beth, Richard, Dick and Jerri, and their families, looking for a spiritual lesson...and benediction...in that deeply moving moment.

What I began to wrestle with, first, in the wee small hours of the morning high over Colorado or Kansas, was my own sadness. Sorrow that, because of my dad's untimely passing, I had never known a daddy-daughter dance. I felt deep sorrow that so many young men and women, for whatever reason, might never experience the kind of relationship with their parents...or step-parents...that I saw reflected in Dick and Beth's faces as they waltzed around and around, Dick leading her lightly over the the gleaming wood of the dance floor. They might never know the look of love and joy on a mother's face, the way Jerri's face looked as she watched them sweep and dip, laugh and twirl together in time with the music.. 

I prayed deeply for all of us. Then it dawned on me, I do have that kind of a relationship with my divine Parent...with my Father-Mother God...we all do.  He/She "loved us first".  Or as John promises in I John:

"We love him, because he first loved us."

He first loved us...from even before "the first breath we breathed" or first smiled at our moms, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents or friends...we knew the love of a Father that runs deep.  And we have always known how it feels to have a Father-Mother who never  has to give us away...but shares us with eachother so that we can show Him that we have learned the lessons of loving unconditionally He has so generously, patiently, and wisely taught us.

Whether you are a bride like Beth in a diaphanous white gown, an Indian princess in a brightly colored sari, a young mom alone in an apartment hoping for love, and cherishing the qualities of husband (and father) you long to bring into your child's life, a shy Iraqi bride in a burka, a fifty (or seventy) something bride standing face-to-face with the love of her life...again, a couple on the steps of a San Francisco courthouse, or a teen bride exchanging vows with your young groom just before he ships out for a desert base in the Mid East on his first tour of duty...you have a Father who loved you first.  And you have a Mother who cherishes the strength of that relationship, and the tenderness with which you are held in his arms as He dances you through life...one stanza at a time.

Beth's wedding was a gift to me.  Not only did I have the privilege of standing with her, and Richard, as they pledged themselves to one another, before their family and friends.  But I was reminded, in the dark afterglow of a beautiful wedding, while flying through a clear moonlit sky, that I have a Father "who loved me first"...we all do.

Congratulations Beth and Richard...may your hearts grow together in faith, hope, trust, grace...and love...never forgetting that He loved you first.

always, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Darcey Snyder 2009]

"Whither shall I go from Thy spirit..."

"Whither shall I go from Thy spirit
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence
If I ascend up into heaven Thou are there
If I make my bed in hell Thou are there..."
- Adapted from Psalms 139

In Tuesday, July 28th's post (scroll down in you are interested in reading it) I referred to our camp tradition of counselors and staff singing "Whither" to campers at the end of the session.  Thanks to Michael's thoughtfulness, we now have this beautiful tradition captured on film, posted on Youtube, and linked in this post...click on the title earlier in this paragraph. 

This song runs so deeply through my life, that it is like an underground stream...with the onset of the smallest fissure it springs to the surface of thought providing living waters to the thirsty...me.

This was the case last March.  The girls and I left straight from a Saturday morning soccer game, to drive almost two hours through the backroads of Missouri for the last day and a half of the Midwest Youth Summit.  From the minute I pulled up in front of the Lodge, the girls were gathered up by chaperones and absorbed into the middle school program...laughing and running from here to there with a happy group of friends. 

My day and evening were full and happy as well.  A fresh approach to hymn singing, a variety show, conversations with friends I hadn't seen in years filled hours that felt like minutes. Sometime during the evening, the girls found me in a large gathering, to say goodnight before heading off with their friends for cabin-time and a good night's sleep.

And somehow, I too, finally made it back to my room around 2AM.  After mentally reviewing a rich feast of conversations and dozens of reconnections with old friend, I prayed a prayer of deep gratitude, and softly fell off to sleep. 

It couldn't have been more than about fifteen minutes when my cell phone beeped with a text message.  It was one of our daughters.  She was facing a difficult moment alone in the dark, everyone else (including the adult chaperones) was asleep, and she didn't know what to do...and she was fearful.  I tried to text her back with encouragement and to tell her that I had gotten her message and would begin praying, but my phone repeatedly told me that I did not have enough of a signal to send a text message. I thought about calling, but I didn't want to wake the rest of her cabin.

We were in the middle of the woods in a very remote part of southern Missouri and there were few options at 3:30 in the morning.  Her cabin was about a quarter of a mile from where my room was, but I pulled a wool sweater on over my nightgown, and slipped my feet into my flipflops and wandered into the dark without a flashlight picking my way across the gravel and rocks, stones and shale...up and down a long hill to the porch of her cabin.  The door was locked, and all the lights were out.  Not a sound. 

I sat on the porch and prayed.  I very gently tapped on the door, but it was a  large cabin and I had no idea where her bed was in relation to the door.  So I quickly gave up that plan.

Finally I decided to return to the main lodge and try standing on a rise in the hill, where I thought I might be able to get enough cell signal so that I could text her.  But after fifteen minutes of trying...nothing.  I went back into the lodge. 

I didn't want to wake my roommate so I sat in the hallway and as I prayed, bing...another text came through from my daughter.  She was still awake and unsettled.  She didn't know what to do.  She was praying, but was fearful.  This situation was something that, at home, I would have gone to her immediately, snuggled under her quilts with her, whispered spiritual truths about her identity,  and stroked her temples singing hymns to her until she felt well, and had fallen back asleep.   But I couldn't get to her.  I couldn't even get a text message to go through to her.  It had me almost frantic...and yes, I was praying all the while.

That was when this song, "Whither," which my daughters have grown up singing at camp, and hearing throughout the year for inspiration, healing, and comfort, came to me as a new prayer.

I know it sounds simple, but something about these words completely lifted my concern for her.  I remembered.  Her Father-Mother God was already with her in her cabin, in the middle of the woods, in her narrow bunk. Her divine Parent was comforting her, assuring her, giving her all the ideas she needed to be at peace with the situation at hand, to rest upon God's wisdom and guidance, and to pray for herself a prayer of gratitude that she was dwelling in "the secret place of the Most High" where nothing could unsettle her joy.

Within moments I too was at peace.  I remembered that I loved her...and that since there is no fear in love...I was NOT fearful.  I couldn't be.  Love and fear could not dwell in the same space...and my heart was filled with love for my daughters...I was sure of that.

I returned to my room, climbed into my bed and spent the rest of the night silently singing "Whither" to myself, listening for all the assurances from my own divine Parent.  Assurances that I too was Her child and could trust all that I love, including my daughter, to Her care. 

I thought of all the times when the girls were itty-bitties and I had to leave them with my mom, their grandmother, so that I could go where I was needed in caring for the spiritual needs of others.  And as much as I missed being with them and holding their soft little bodies and cuddling with them, I never worried about them.   I knew how my mother loved, I had experienced it as her daughter.  I knew that she loved me, and my children, with an everlasting love...a love that was unfathomably deep and fiercely attentive. 

But I also knew that as much as she loved us, God loved us more.   This was enough.

I didn't fall asleep that night.  I didn't want to...or need to.  As Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint,
is in holy work."

And it is.  The next morning I caught up with my daughters at breakfast in the lodge, and both girls were happy, rested, and ready for the workshops and activities that would fill their day.

I was too...happy, rested, and ready. 

Here are the words to "Whither" in case you would like to sing along as you watch Michael's video: 

"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit
Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence
If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there.
If I make my bed in hell, Thou are there.

If I take the wings of the morning
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there shall Thy hand lead me,
And Thy right hand shall hold me.

Grace unto you
And peace from above.
Peace from on high,
From Thy Spirit.

Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am God.
Peace has come,
Let it stay.
Peace has come,
To all...today."

Peace unto you...and and grace from above...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"So are You to me..."

"...As the ruby in the setting
As the fruit upon the tree
As the wind blows over the plains
So are you to me..."
- Eastmountainsouth

This lovely song, "So are You to Me," by  Kat Bode and Peter Adams, formerly known as Eastmountainsouth, has lived in my heart as a poem, since the first time I heard it. Writing poetry, for me, is like taking dictation from God...or in this case, writing a love letter:

You are my love
You are the love of my life
Yours is the first face I seek
when I wake in the morning
yours is the first hand upon my heart.

You are all that I have ever hoped for.

When I am empty
your love fills me with purpose
When I am full
you give me ways to empty my soul
into the hands of the hungry,
the sorrowing,
the sick and weary...
so that I am ready for more.

You are my  "safe place to fall"
No one else could ever really know the curves,
the rough places...the crooked and straight,
the narrow and dark spaces
of my life so well as You.
Our fit so perfect
that there are no pressure points
to leave me aching for relief.

When the world seems to crash
in around the edges of my peace
and demons scream
that I am vulnerable and small
You, and only You
whisper, "you are stronger than diamonds,
brighter than reflected light,
larger than the love you long for..."

You are my every reason for taking the next breath
my cause for joy, the only One who gives purpose
to my minutes
stacked one-by-one
until they create a hour, a day, a year....a life.

You are the place
I run to
but never from
The "home away from home"
I never leave

You are the voice I listen for
in the quiet of the morning when I
am conscious of life, but not yet aware of
colors, people, sounds....my own skin.

You are my Life. 

I am your life.

We live in a dance of Father and child
Mind and idea...
Love and loved.

I love you with all my being
I cannot live without your love...
because you are all that is...
the I AM that I am...
You are the center of my
being, my home, my heaven within
...my God.

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Nathaniel Wilder 2008]

"Happy trails to you..."

"Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smilin' until then.

Who cares about the clouds
when we'ere together?
Just sing a song,
and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you,
'Til we meet again."
- Roy Rogers/Dale Evans

I've been thinking a lot about goodbyes lately.  Leaving camp, one daughter half way around the world and two more on a trip to New England,  friends passing on...others living in different states...or countries, children moving into new chapters in their lives, siblings finding their "home" in far-off ports.  And this song, "Happy Trails" by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (for those of you who grew up watching The Roy Rogers Show every week, click on this link for the familiar opening) brings a smile to my heart.

For many years, singing this song to departing campers as the airport bus pulled out of the turn circle, was a tradition.  Campers would lean out of bus windows waving wildly, as counselors (and those campers who were blessed with another session) waved back singing "Happy Trails".  It always made me feel peaceful to think that we would all see one another again.  I never doubted that our trails would re-converge.  I knew that many of us would pour through the camp gate in another year, and that we would find ourselves at the same campfire, hymn sing, or rodeo...again. 

I much prefer "see you later," to "goodbye."  I am so sure that we will see one another again.  My grandmother once told me, when I asked her, well into her 90s, "what will I do without you?", "Well, I hope you will live your life in a way that you will have great stories to share with me when we see eachother again!"  Her conviction that we would see one another again, and that I better have good stories to share with her, gave my life direction. 

I knew the kind of stories she was talking about...we were both Christian Science practitioners who devoted our lives to helping others discover more about their relationship to God...she expected stories of healing, redemption, transformation, salvation, and resurrection.  She would settle for nothing less.  Nothing else would interest her. 

She had proved that throughout our relationship as grandmother and granddaughter.  Every letter, every postcard, every phone call was full of spiritual inspiration and stories of healing.  As a teenager, this was something that I didn't understand or even like.  I wanted her to talk about grandma things.  To ask me more about my dancing, clothes, boys, school.  But her letters were always about God, and me as His child...pure, perfect, whole, and good.

I still strive to live my life in such a way that I will have good stories to share with her.  But I also try to do the same thing for my daughter who lives 12,000 miles away in South Africa, my friend who lives in another state, campers and counselors I will not see until next summer, and other loved ones who have passed on.

In remembering the lyrics to Happy Trails, I couldn't help but remark on the stanza that is often forgotten:

"...Some trails are happy ones, _
Others are blue. _
It's the way you ride the trail that counts, _
Here's a happy one for you...

Happy trails to you
'Till we meet again..."

Good stories are not just defined by sunny days full of light and laughter, joy and comfort.  Good stories are stories where "the way you ride the trail" counts more than the horse you're on, the weather you encounter, or the scenery along the way.  Were you kind, did you turn to God -- immediately or eventually, were you patient with yourself and others, did you give generously of what you had to share - the act, not the amount being what mattered, did you love much, laugh often, and live with abandon.  

It's the way you ride the trail that counts.

As I look back on the stories of this summer, I am blessed with countless instances where I had a front row seat to campers and counselors who rode their trail...rocky, steep, smooth, dark, or rugged...well.  Very well.  They rode with grace, with courage, with unselfed affections, with persistence, with patience.

My grandmother will love these stories.

Happy trails to each of you...till we meet again,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo of Brittany Richardson by Ashley Bay 2009]

"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy..."

"...Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

If I had a day that I could give you
Id give to you a day just like today
If I had a song that I could sing for you
Id sing a song to make you feel this way..."
-     John Denver

Oh there were so many days at camp this summer I would give you, if I could, my darling daughter.  Each day with moments of "sunshine on my shoulder" that made me happy...and could make me cry. 

There were the mornings that dawned clear, and almost cold, under skies the color of a mountain bluebird's breast feathers.  Mornings when counselors, gathering for the Staff Inspirational at 6:25, could see their breath in front of them as they spoke of God's sustaining love, and could hear horses whinnying for breakfast as we joined in a closing prayer of benediction on the day.  Then silently, a ragtag army of spiritual thought-leaders shuffled their way back to cabins in pajamas, running clothes, and Sherpa hats, for a precious 30 minutes of Bible study before waking campers up.

There were breakfasts in the Lodge.  Steaming serving dishes piled high with applesauce pancakes and rashers of veggie bacon (they had the "real" stuff too...but I just pretended it wasn't really there).  Campers, eager for the day's adventures, jostled for position at the toast bar and giggled over steaming cups of hot cocoa or hot apple cider.  Later they would stop by my cabin to talk about how they could prayerfully support their own growing courage and faith, but at breakfast it was all about cereal and bagels.

I would give you a moment on Valerie Lawn under the searing Colorado sun just after the rafting bus pulled out of the turn circle...a stack of big blue rafts bobbing on the trailer...the promise of a day on the Arkansas River and sun-kissed shoulders.  I would let you sit on my porch and listen to the quiet that really isn't quiet at all.  The burbling of my little brook that carries water from higher on the mountain past my cabin, over the rock wall and down to Valerie Lake.  The buzz and thrum of hummingbirds visiting the mountain flowers that tumble from pots across my porch and the feeder hanging from a cross beam.  The whisper of aspen leaves, pine needles, and tall yarrow in the breeze.  I would give you a front row seat to a mountain symphony more remarkable, to me, than anything written by man or machine.

I would offer you a window on my version of heaven on earth.  The view from Crowsnest porch after programs are back on property and campers and staff have showered, dressed for the evening's activities and are reassembling on Valerie Lawn.  Girls, pink-cheeked with sun-washed hair laughing, reading mail or talking by the lake, and boys tossing Frisbees across the lawn or strumming guitars from within the folds of hammocks hanging on their porches.

Would you like a slice of "Alone with Your Thoughts"...the silence of 100 teens spread out in Crazy Creeks and Adirondack chairs as evening twilight turns to soft dusk and the sound of fish breaking the surface of Valerie Lake is all that interrupts the quiet of their listening for God's voice in their lives. 

I would gladly give you the joy of a theme dance.  The happiness of hearing the floorboards in the Lodge pounding with campers dancing to "Jai Ho" or "Thriller"...yes, it's back.   Counselors indistinguishable from campers as favorite songs are played and dancers leap from card games in the dining room to rush for the dance floor together. 

I would love to sit with you at the weekly testimony meeting and share in the joy of hearing about fears overcome, doubts dismissed, and obstacles surmounted.  To see one friend comfort another when after sharing a particularly meaningful healing, tears flood the heart.  Or to hear the sound of a lodge full of teens eager to sing their favorite hymns with mingled reverence and joy.  To see the signals of love run from "eye to eye" as experiences are shared that touched others with inspiration and awe.

I would find great joy in standing with you at the fence during the end of session rodeo and whooping with encouragement as riders navigate barrels, poles, and the keyhole on horses that have long since ceased to be vehicles of adventure and have become loved dancing partners...camper and horse choreographed by Spirit to a song of Soul.

And the final banquet.  Parents and campers, couselors and camp directors, guests and visitors all sharing in a feast of love and celebration for all that has been overcome, discovered, revealed, resurrected of our best most amazing selves in fellowship and service.   To hold your hand as we remember when you received your 3-year carabiner, your 5-year silver pendant with the Five Fingers in bas relief, your 10-year blanket embroidered with "A/U" and the camp logo you know as well as your own name, or the night I received my beloved painting of the Collegiate Peaks by artist Brooks Anderson.

But most of all, what I want to share with you is what happens every session at the end of the night. Just before campers are sent back to cabins for a final night of sleeping in their bunks and hearing the giggles, tears, and sighs from their friends beds as they doze off, we gather them on the floor of Valerie Lodge for the most beautiful tradition of all. The singing of "Whither". It is our lullaby of love on their last night. It is a reminder that wherever they go, God is leading them, holding their hand, loving them all along the way. The text is from Psalms 139 and it is "low, sad, and sweet". We sit on the stairs of the stage holding candles and we sing them home. We pray the words and music swirl around them, enter their hearts, carry them, comfort them, inspire them. We hum the last verse before we blow out the candles and sitting together in the dark, Aaron (the Camp Director) sends them off to bed with a benediction of love and promise. It is the sunshine of living love descending on their lives. And it always makes me cry.

Yes, if I had a day that I could give you, I'd give to you a day just like any one of these days.

"...Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high..."

I know why John Denver wrote this song...it is the feel of Rocky Mountain sunshine on my shoulders that reminds me that I am home again.  There is no other feeling like it.  It is as warm as the hand of God at your back telling you, "Go ahead, you can do it...you can do anything with Me by your side."  And you can...we can...no, we did.

We found our best most amazingly courageous, generous, selfless selves in this place where the sunshine on your shoulders makes you happy, and sunshine in your eyes can make you cry....with gratitude and joy,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Emily Alexadra Conroyd 2009]

"You just call out my name..."

"...When you're down and troubled
And you need a helping hand
And nothing, whoa nothing is going right.
Close your eyes and think of me,
And soon I will be there,
To brighten up even your darkest nights.

You just call out my name,
And you know wherever I am
Ill come running,
To see you again.
Winter, spring, summer or fall -
All you've got to do is call,
And I'll be there,
To see you again..."
-     Carole King
"You've Got a Friend"

Sometimes the voice of "one crying in the wilderness" reaches out from the darkness with such clarity that it gives itself form and vehicle in ways that may seem miraculous to the mind that needs to have things make sense...in order to be believed.

This was clear one night some years ago when our daughter stayed at camp, for an extra session, after I had already left for home. 

I was sitting in my office when the phone rang.  I picked it up and answered, as I usually do, "This is Kate..."  The voice at the other end of the line was barely audible, and the line was full of static, but it was clearly our daughter.  "Mommy, I can't find my way out," she said.  "Where are you?" I asked.  "I am in a dark tunnel and I can't find my way out," she cried,  "I am confused and no one is hearing me."  I asked her to stay where she was and I quickly found my cellphone and made a call to camp. 

I asked the person answering the phone where the Camp Directors were, and to please put me through to the lodge where an all camp activity was in full swing.  When Ryan, the Assistant Camp Director answered the line I asked him if he knew where our daughter was.  He said that she hadn't been feeling well and had talked briefly to the practitioner on duty, before being taken to Highview, the nursing facility at camp, for rest and care. 

I went back and forth between talking to our daughter on our landline....encouraging her to stay awake and talk with me...while also telling Ryan exactly what Hannah was saying.  He assured me that he would very quickly drive to Highview and see what was going on, and would call me right back.

I had only been on the phone with Hannah for a few moments longer when the line was disconnected and I assumed that Ryan had reached her and would be calling me back soon.  I continued to pray...with all my being...while I waited.

The call that Ryan made a few minutes later arrested any sense of human reasoning and logic.  He reported that when he arrived at Highview the nurse told him that Hannah had just seemed a bit tired. She had asked to rest and had been shown to one of the rooms and tucked warmly into a bed.  The nurse, Roseanne, had poked her head in a short time later and Hannah seemed to have fallen asleep and was resting quietly. 

When Ryan told her that Hannah had called her mom (the nurse and I were good friends and had partnered many times in caring for campers over the years...so she knew me well) the nurse was baffled.  There was only one phone at Highview and it had never left her sight.  There was no way that Hannah could have placed a call. 

Ryan and the nurse went to the room where our daughter was sleeping, and discovered that she seemed delerious and  was muttering incoherently.  Ryan started calling her name and encouraging her to wake up and come towards his voice.  Within minutes she had returned to consciousness, was lucid, hungry, and able to respond to questions. 

Hannah later told me that when she heard Ryan calling to her, she just naturally moved towards where his voice was coming from. 

Soon after Hannah was able to sit up, and Ryan called me to explain that Hannah was conscious, talking with he and Roseanne, and wanted to speak with me.

Because Hannah's call came in on my landline, I was not able to identify what number the call had been placed from.  What we do know is that there was no phone in the room she was in. The only phone in Highview that night had never left the nurse's sight. 

We will never know how the phone rang in my office, one thousand miles from camp, and Hannah's voice was able to find it's way to my heart.   But it doesn't matter.  My daughter's cry from that "wilderness" of confusion, darkness, and fear reached me where I was so that I could facilitate getting her the help that she needed that night.   Ryan's voice reached through that darkness to answer her call.   Hannah used Ryan's voice as a lifeline, pulling herself up and out of that darkness. We all rejoiced in the light of God's power and love. 

No explanation...just our experience.
offered with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Prayer for this Child..."

"...I do not know how I am to pray for this child
as a mother I don't want my baby denied
but in the waiting in the waiting
I learned to hold onto the heart of God..."

I discovered this song, "Prayer for this Child," by Sara Groves, just when my heart was ready for a reminder that He holds us all...babies, toddlers, children, teens, adults...all of us held in the wideness of His heart, the vastness of His omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient care. 

Two days ago we sent almost one hundred teens out on their four-day outcamp trips.  Whitewater rafters headed south for a put-in along the Arkansas River.  They would navigate the rushing rapids of the Arkansas between here and Salida, and each night camp under the stars along its banks.  

Horsemanship campers headed east and west for the high country on wise, gentle steeds.  They would traverse ravines and carefully walk their horses along  mountain trails that lead higher and higher.

Mountaineering programs will hike, camp and peak 14,000 foot mountains...one program peaking two mountains in the course of three days...and mountain bikers will cover over one hundred miles of trail over canyons, along ridges, and through ancient aspen groves.  The photography group will look through their lens at flora and fauna so extraordinary I wonder if they will even want to come back after experiencing such serene beauty and divine grandeur.

But these trips will also be full of opportunities for each rafter, mountaineer, rider, photographer, and biker to push through old personal boundaries.  Almost every camper and counselor will face a wall where an old, outgrown sense of self will say "thus far and no farther," but which a new born (and borne) sene of self will greet with "bring it on" courage and eagerness.

My grandma used to say, "You never want the Comforter as long as you are comfortable!"  These kids will not be comfortable.  They will definitely find themselves well outside of their former humanly circumscribed comfort zones.  And they will want the Comforter!!!  So many years of being on tiptoe with expectation in supporting these spiritual adventures has taught me that this longing for the Comforter...is a given.

"...Every instinct in me wants to shield him from pain
take the arrows of misery heartache and blame
but in the sorrow in the sorrow
I learned to hold onto the heart of God..."

I remember one summer some years ago, when my daughter was in the Whitewater Rafting program for the second -- or was it the third -- year.   They had gone out on their three-day trips and I was joyously engaged in my work...praying for the safety of each camper, and the peace and joy of each program. 

It was a beautiful three days.  Sunny and hot with a cool breeze off the still snow-cevered mountains during the day, and cool, clear, star-lit nights.  My prayers had started and ended with God's All-in-allness, and although there were a few calls from the mountains or river for specific support, it was a very peace-filled and inspiring three days.

I was grateful to hear their whoops and hollers of joy upon returning to camp for hot showers and bunks that, although not tempurpedic-mold-to-your-body comfortable, were still softer than a sleeping bag and foam mat under the stars in a scree field.  I was eager to learn about the spiritual healings they had experienced. I couldn't wait for them to share insights gained and self-discoveries made while on their three-day trips. I was eager for the camp testimony meeting later that evening. 

"...I only have two eyes -  but You are The all seeing
I only have two hands - but You are The everywhere
I do not know enough - but You are The all knowing
I give my babies up into your care..."

As I sat on my porch silently giving thanks for their safe return...smiling at campers walking by covered in happy grime and carrying backpacks filled with dirty clothes...I watched for my own river-scented daughter and her best friend to come up from the raft barn sun-kissed and silly with brand new best-friend memories already starting to gel in their hearts.

But once I caught a glimpse of Hannah's face, I knew something had happened that I might not hear about right away.  And I didn't.  However in that moment it was alright. I somehow knew that there had been a moment of divine intervention, and I rested my need "to know the details" on that alone.

"...I long to know how I am to pray for this child
I want to guard him from everything wicked and wild
but in the trial in the trial
I learned to hold on..."

Weeks later, soon after we returned home, Hannah shared her story with no drama...very typically Hannah!

They had been riding blissfully down the river.  Each raft filled with a counselor and his/her boat family.  It was a very peaceful stretch of river, and everyone was relaxed under the clear, cloudlessly blue  Colorado sky...waiting, with oars at the ready, for the next stretch of rapids.   Hannah was sitting high on the side of the raft when they hit an invisible "hole" and she was popped out of the raft  and into the arms of the river.  This was not disturbing to her at all.  "Swimming" is fun for a rafter.  But this time, something was different.  She was pulled under and one of the straps from her Teva sandals got snagged on a hidden boulder and she couldn't get loose.

On the surface, still in the raft, a fellow rafter felt something impel him to follow Hannah into the river.  Then it told him to dive beneath the surface and locate Hannah.  Only then was it revealed that she was in trouble and needed help in extricating her sandal's webbing from the sharp point on the boulder that was holding her under the surface where she would soon have been unable to breathe.

Within moments both rafters bobbed to the surface, climbed into the raft, and their trip continued on down the river to their next camping site.

Hannah told me she was "fine" right away.

That's the story....no interpretation.  Hannah did not give a testimony during the church service that night at camp.  It makes me wonder how many beautiful stories of divine intervention, guidance, and healing - expereinced on three-day trips - are never shared publicly each summer.  

As her mom, I could never have known exactly what needed to be specifically prayed about with regard to this experience....but I could always know...with all my being...that God was with each camper and counselor.  I could affirm that  God never ceases to live "on purpose" as unconditional, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient (all-knowing), impartial and universal Love.  I could rest my mother's heart on this fact as divine law...always in operation, always reliable, always wise and at the ready.

"...And in the trial, in your trials
You'll learn to hold on to the heart of God..."

As a mother I have learned that inner peace in only found in "holding on to the heart of God" and trusting His love for my children...and all children.   In these moments of trial we learn so much about the constancy of His love for each of us.

with loving trust in His omniscience...always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Ashley Bay 2009 - Adventure Unlimited Ranches]

"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