"We named her Life..."

"The first time ever I saw your face...
I felt the earth turn in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at Your command, my Love..."
- Roberta Flack

This weekend I was with an extraordinary family of spiritual thinkers who are committed to exploring the power of grace in their lives. A conversation came up about the value of listening deeply to the wisdom found in nature. We considered the lessons we learned while communing with other creatures...than humans. Turtles, puppies, fish, horses...and, this story about my encounter with a hummingbird. I'm re-posting it today because it's been so present in my thought this weekend. I offer it with love...

I hope you will understand why Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," leapt into my heart, when I began to write about this experience. In it, a tiny conscious being, leaves a very large imprint on my heart.

One of my favorite camp activities are the theme-inspired dinner dances that have been introduced by our extraordinary Lodge Manager, Eddie Cox.  Let me take a moment here to go on record as saying that Eddie is amazing…really.  He has taken what is, without question, one of the most challenging jobs at camp, and turned it into a platform for sharing his ebullient joy, awe-inspiring grace (on the dance floor and in his every interaction with campers, parents, and fellow counselors), pure love, and breath-taking humility. 

The CITs (Counselors-in-Training) may have learned more about servant-leadership from working shoulder-to-shoulder and broom-to-broom with Eddie Cox, than on a Peace Corp mission in Kenya, or any Noles course in Patagonia.

Okay…now that I’ve honored a really great guy, let me continue with the real story here…

Sidenote: This post was originally published in 2007. This is 2012, and this summer Eddie will be one of the Camp Directors. I'm so grateful for his willingness to accept this post.

It was mid-session after the campers returned from their three-day trips, and Eddie and his chain gang of CITs had worked furiously to create a feeling of New York dinner club elegance in the middle of a pine log lodge.  And they had succeeded admirably.  Everyone had been encouraged to wear their Sunday (or Friday night) best for 40s-style swing dancing during dinner.  Long rectangular and large round tables bordered an open space that was carved out for dancing.  Once dinner had been served, the music filled the lodge, swirling through the rafters as dancers left their plates for a turn, or two, at imitating Fred and Ginger.

Eddie hosted as our resident “Fred,” and we watched and twirled right next to him while our dinners cooled on abandoned plates.

I had just returned to my place at the table to catch my breath when Amy, a counselor and long-time friend, approached..  She asked me to come outside as there was an urgent need for spiritual care. 

I was really at camp for only one reason--I am a Christian Science practitioner.  Our campers come from families who live and practice Christian Science, and rely on its teachings for health care, life guidance, and to discover more about their relationship to God.  I am very accustomed to being called away from dinner, sleep, shower….you name it. It's always a privilege to prayerfully support a counselor, camper…or horse…in need. 

The sound of the music, the clatter of dishes, the squeals of joy from the dance floor, the grumbling of my tummy, receded into a hazy muffle of white noise as I mentally descended into a space of conscious stillness. A conscientious awareness of God’s All-in-allness-- one that I have learned to completely surrender to.

I followed Amy to the deck just outside the dining room.  There sitting on the rock wall banked with wildflowers was Ryan with something very small cupped in his large, calloused, rock-climber hands.   His face was as tender as a child’s, and his eyes looked up imploring me to “do something”.  I reached him quickly and discovered that a tiny hummingbird was lying limply in his palm.  He extended his hand to me and I took “her” into my own, much smaller hand, gently.  She was unresponsive and felt as soft and broken as a small silken sack of loose flax seeds. 

As I held her, I turned to God with my whole heart.  I had spent years of summers on my cabin porch with these vibrant creatures darting and hovering…weaving their way between the bird feeders swinging from porch rafters, and the profusion of colorful wildflowers that pepper the flowerbeds, clay pots, and hanging planters around camp.  This gentle creature was His...God’s. It was clear to me that only He could combine such intricate beauty, strength, speed, tenderness, and grace in such a tiny form.

I turned to Amy, and there were tears streaming down her face.  She shared with me that while eating dinner she noticed something skirt across the wooden floor of the dining room. It had looked like a hockey puck, being kicked back and forth by the unwitting dancers.  By the time she realized that it was this tiny hummingbird, and picked it up, it was unresponsive.  The bird had somehow found its way into the lodge earlier that morning, and had spent the day trying to get out through the tall windows, as the CITs worked on preparing the lodge for the dance.  They had tried to help her find her freedom, but had not been successful. She would just fly higher, and higher, into the pitched ceiling of the lodge.

It was obvious that she had become exhausted, and had finally fallen to the floor of the dining room. 

Amy finished her story by looking up at Ryan, who had been listening carefully.  With a shy gulp she said,

“We named her Life…”

So, that was where I started: what did I know about Life?  Life is God.  Life is good.   Life was not vulnerable.  Life, synonymous with Love, asserted itself as the only real power in the universe.  As Mary Baker Eddy asserts in her poem “Love”:

“Love alone is Life.”

So then, as I further reasoned, with mathematical certainty that, if Love alone is life, then Life alone is Love…and Love doesn’t make you weak, tired, vulnerable or fragile. These were ideas that I had been clinging to all week as I'd prayed for an indomitable sense of conscious being.  Love as life is a divine promise of invulnerability, strength, clarity and assurance. In fact, it is a clear, that when we are love, we are living.Alive and safely sheltered in Love’s encircling care.   It was clear to me that this hummingbird, because she was a hummingbird, loved the sunlight. She was one with the rich beauty and color of her surroundings...the fresh mountain air, the scent of pines, the sound of a the river.  Her efforts to reach what she loved could not have made her weak, but could have only made her strong. 

The campers and counselors loved one another. And they loved this hummingbird. They loved the beauty of the mountains. They loved the lessons they were learning from the birds, rocks, water, trees, creatures around them.  Therefore they were safe from being placed in a situation where they could be harmed, or cause her harm.

I looked down on her small broken form, and it was clear that any brokenness was incongruent with renewed my sense of “Life.” ”Life” was more than this small -- however exquisitely beautiful -- form could ever fully express. Life, God, was what this little bird’s body was only a tender whispering of. And yet I knew that each mental molecule of Life's expression of itself, had to be in consonance with the integrity of the overarching character of Life. It was a self-enforcing law.

It was clear to me that we needed to, as Eddy says:

“act as possessing all power
(to be kind, compassionate, caring and nurturing)
from Him (Love) in whom [we] have our being.”

I asked Amy to get me a small saucer of sugar water, the same solution we put in the hummingbird feeders around camp.  At first I just put a little of the water on my finger and put my finger near her long slender beak, lying on the palm of my hand.  Within a moment or two her eye flickered, and her beak parted ever so slightly. But it was obvious that she was struggling, and felt too weak to take the water into her mouth.

I closed my eyes in prayer.  The image came to me of a hummingbird hovering in front of a flower with her beak dipped into the mouth of the blossom.  So I put a spoonful of the water into my own mouth.  Then I made my lips into a pursed opening…imitating, as best I could, the opening of a flower. I then lifted my hand to my face, and placed the end of her beak into the opening of my lips filled with the sugar water solution. 

I was shocked to feel a tiny hair-like tongue darting in and out across my lips.  I opened my eyes, and there, looking into my face with all the spiritual maturity of a Ghandhi or a wise child, were the eyes of this extraordinary creature.  She locked her eyes with mine, and shuddered into full conscious being. 

When I felt her no longer drinking greedily, I pulled her away from my face and looked down at her lying in my palm. Her little body began to “purr” with life.  As we watched, our little girl hummingbird, became a boy hummingbird. Her dull brown feathers pulsing into an iridescent green that caused us to gasp with delight.  Her throat throbbed a ruby color I hadn't imagined possible. 

Within a few moments, the three of us together held her, fed her, loved her.

She would “rev” (the only word I can think of to describe the feeling in my hand when her body would begin to buzz, just before her wings would start to flutter), and attempt to fly out from my hand over and over again. 

Each time we celebrated her freedom.  She'd fly a few feet, and then fluttered to the ground where I'd pick her up. After resting in my hand for a minute or two, she'd try again.  A small group of campers and counselors emerged from the dining room, and she continued to make her flight attempts in front of a loving, but concerned audience.  Since it was time for the evening program to start, I took her up to my cabin and sat quietly with her on the porch. 

A young counselor followed me, carrying the saucer of sugar water.  She sat next to me as I held our little friend.  This young woman and I had already spent a lot of time on my porch that summer.  One of her best friends from home had been killed, just after she had arrived at camp, and she had been haunted with questions about life and death.  We had talked well into the night about what we were both learning about God’s love for humanity. But her heart was still not fully at peace. 

As we sat there with “Life” I realized that all our talking was nothing compared to what we were witnessing that evening of God’s expression of Himself as Life...as conscious being...through this small creature.

Once again, “Life” attempted a flight and this time she succeeded in making it onto a branch in one of the large pine tree that canopies my cabin.  The counselor watched as "Life" made one attempt, after another, to fly from branch-to-branch, and then tree-to-tree, until she was no longer visible.  We continued to sit and talk...the sky moving from evening into twilight...when suddenly out of the blue (literally), “Life” returned to the porch and landed on my knee.  She sat there for a moment or two before I picked her up and held her. And a few moments later, she took off again.

At some point, my friend decided she should go down and join the rest of the camp community for the evening program.  After praying for a little while longer, in gratitude for what God had shown me of Himself as Life that evening, I too went to join the others at the campfire.

On my way down I ran into Amy and another counselor, Peter, sitting on the rock wall just above the fire ring where everyone was gathered for a campfire sing.  I sat down to let Amy know what had happened to “Life,” and to share together our gratitude for the experience, when “Life” herself (himself...only males are supposed to have ruby throats…although I don’t know that I will ever think of her that way) flitted into view and landed on top of my foot.  I reached down and picked her up and held her.   I petted her beautiful tiny iridescent green feathers, and stroked her ruby throat until she started to whirr into pre-flight again.  When she lifted off and flew into the lavender dusk sky I was so happy to see how strong and sure she appeared. 

Amy and I finished our conversation with Peter, and I'd walked down to the pines behind the benches surrounding the fire-ring, when suddenly I felt something at the nape of my neck, moving the hairs that had escaped from my ponytail. 

For a few moments, “Life” was on my shoulder without the slightest movement.  I turned my head and she again stared into my eyes. There was such apparent intelligence, wisdom and gratitude pouring from her heart.  I could see her desire to communicate her love, as clearly as I could see it in my daughter’s eyes each night as we lay in her little bed snuggling before she fell asleep...neither of us saying a word while we listened to her daddy singing hymns. 

“Life’s” eyes held all the awareness of love and affection, gratitude and goodness that my daughter’s did.  There was no lesser intelligence, no lesser life.

When “Life” flew off this time into the branches of countless pine and aspen trees above us, gently swaying against the background of a cobalt night sky filled with stars, I knew she was ready to let me go.  She had told me all that I needed to know to stop being concerned for her.

Over the course of the next weeks a single hummingbird would hover around the Adirondack chair on my porch whenever I sat there to pray or study. Every now and then she would light on the arm of one of the chairs as I sat quietly  In the weeks following this experience, a handful of hummingbirds decided that the flowers in hanging baskets and pots on my porch were the most tasty at camp.  

And one day, soon after we'd returned home to St. Louis at the end of camp, I discovered that my window boxes, filled with pale coral geraniums, deep blue gentien and lobelia, were where a half dozen hummingbirds would gather to feed, while I worked at the kitchen sink. And when I was sitting at my desk near the back deck, they'd relocate to just outside the nearby windows where pots overflowed with fragrant lavender and waterfalls of petunias as soft and pink as a sunrise over the Rockies.

I offer no interpretation of these experiences….I just extend them as a gift of Life, and Love.

"And Life most sweet as heart to heart,
Speaks kindly when we meet and part."
- Mary Baker Eddy

Kate

"It matters to this one..."

“He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift
who brings me news of a great thought before unknown”
-Bovee

I am a collector of quotes…and I like to collect them just as I first discovered them.  These fragments of wisdom come into my life in many ways…tiny pieces of newsprint from The Christian Science Monitor with a great idea captured in its blue shaded box from the Home Forum page (I have so many of these I'm afraid they will find solidarity and hold a prison break), a statement heard on NPR while driving to camp scribbled into the blank space that represents the Great Plains on a map of Nebraska, lyrics torn from the liner notes of a CD, a quote on the photocopied page of a good book and highlighted in neon yellow, a line from the Poet Laureate found in the magazine section of the LA Times in 1994.  As I read, listen, scour, and scan they hop in their seat with their hand raised begging me with their “Oooh, ooh…I know, I know…” to choose them like a second grader who wants to write the answer on the blackboard.  I pull them close and secret them away for future holding the way a collector of stamps can be found surrounded by his treasures, tenderly smoothing his finger across their faces with rapt joy.

These scraps of paper and ink travel with me in all their individuality and charm wherever I go, stuffed into a pendaflex file with pleated gussets.  They are my treasures.  They are ideas and I can’t get enough of a good idea.  More valuable than gold to me are wise, inspired ideas.  And ideas on yellowing pieces of newsprint or vellum, in Times Roman or Palatino, are more treasured than platinum or diamonds.

On sunny Sunday afternoons I love to sit cross-legged on the warm golden pine of our sunroom floor and take them out, one by one, and read them.  I think about how they once fit nicely into the talk I gave to a group of college students in Colorado, or how they might work their way into an article on the Vietnam war…how I could share them with my daughters…or with you.

Earlier in the week I felt a smattering of loneliness and melancholy…whether it was the gray sky or a missed call from a friend…I was blue.  I pulled out my bulging file of quotations, unwrapped the elastic band that keeps the envelope-like flap in place and my treasures from escaping, and gingerly reached in for the tattered friends I go to when human comfort seems too…well, human. 

I needed a thought to hold on to…a wisdom to share on my walk around the park with my husband that day. 

The first fragile slip of paper my fingers came across included a great story about a little girl on a beach. An old man found her throwing stranded starfish, one by one, back into the ocean so they could survive.  The old man was bewildered and he questioned her as to why she even bothered since there were thousands of them and she would never be able to help them all, so what did it matter.  She replied that it mattered to the one that she was holding…and that was enough.  I held the scrap of paper this story was written on, a well-loved and handled page from one of my favorite sources--an annual spring collection of “the best of college graduation speeches”--and smiled.

“Ahhh”, my heart sang out as I remembered the look on a young camper’s face when I told this story in front of the fireplace one summer evening just before a group of Conquerors headed out on a four-day camping trip.  She had been sullen and angry through the first few days following arrival, unable to find her rhythm with her fellow bunkmates, and disappointed that she had not been able to get into the major of her choice that session.  With two weeks of rafting no longer available she had consented to joining a group of Conquerors…the elite mountaineering program at our camp.  Having looked forward to days in her swimsuit and Tevas riding the rapids in a raft and returning home at the end of the session with sun-kissed shoulders, she was not thrilled at the prospect of what she imagined were long hikes with swollen blistered feet in too tight hiking boots and coming off the mountain with a farmer’s tan on her calves.

She had come to talk with me in my capacity as the on-site Christian Science practitioner, at the suggestion of one of her counselors who hoped that I might be able to help her find joy in a higher purpose for being at camp than a great high-altitude tan.  I had spent time each day with her on the porch of my cabin/office trying to reach her heart, but that afternoon she had shared with me that she thought she should just go home if she couldn’t raft. 

I had talked with her about her motives for being at camp, sharing with her inspirational ideas on selfless giving and service to others. But it was this little starfish story that changed her outlook on her sense of purpose about the long hike she would be making up Mt. Yale and across a series of 14,000-foot peaks over the next four days.  I could see it the minute the moral of the story reached her heart.  She could make a difference in the life of one other person.  There was a hidden altruist just waiting to burst from her heart, but all the pain, sorrow and suffering that she saw in the world each day had always left her feeling hopeless... and helpless to make a difference.  To suddenly think that she only had to help one person at a time was empowering…and she accepted that mantle of servant leadership with joy and wore it with honor as she headed out of camp the next morning.   She was like a young crusader with a divine sense of mission.  I could see it in the sparkle of her eyes and the lightness of her steps as she waved from beneath a heavy backpack filled with her sleeping bag and gear.

"What if the little rain should say,
'So small a drop as I
Can ne'er refresh a drooping earth,
I'll tarry in the sky.'"
Each of Christ's little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore
is the seer's declaration true, that "one on God's side is a majority."
  A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or crown the tree with blossoms.
- Mary Baker Eddy

When she returned on the fourth day, she had been “made new”.  Her hair style, which on arrival at camp earlier that week could only have been achieved with the help of  “product” and electrical appliances, was now a mess…and she was oblivious to its complete and utter state of dirty disarray.  She was completely free of the self-absorption that had held her focus before. She couldn’t wait for the evening testimony meeting where her story of helping, and being helped by, fellow Conquerors practically exploded from her heart.  The next morning she was the first one to offer to help in the dishroom so that the counselors in training (CIT’s) could leave early for a planned day trip.  She returned the next year for her own CIT summer and went on to be a model bunkhouse and program counselor often cited by the camp directors for her selflessness and joy.

As I smoothed the wrinkles in the soft newsprint and let the story re-sink into my own heart, I found my own renewed sense of mission…to make a difference for just one “starfish” at a time.

I collect scraps of paper on which some journalist, writer, artist, cartoonist, poet, or daughter has scribbled, typed, written, drawn, engraved or posted a string of words that have touched my heart…a sentence, lyric, phrase or paragraph that I have discovered, picked up on this adventure ….these textual tidbits are my photographs from this journey.  I take them out and remember the exact moment when they first found me.  My thought is flooded with the images of those moments …the faces of campers, the color of the sky, the sounds in an airport waiting area, the way the sun felt on my shoulders, the feel of her hand in mine…I remember and I am so grateful for this collection of words on scraps of paper…a lifetime of ideas to ponder and to share.

Kate

Nursing...the law of kindness

"You are not alone
Love is with you
Watching tenderly over you
By day and night;

And this Love will not leave you
But will sustain you
And remember all thy tears,

And will answer your prayers."
-The Mary Baker Eddy Collection

I was thinking yesterday about an experience I had almost two decades ago that still amazes me and leaves me full of wonder…and gave for me the parenthetical "i.e." on Mary Baker Eddy's definition of the word "nurse” from Science and Health:

  "The nurse should be cheerful, orderly,
punctual, patient, full of faith,
--receptive to Truth and Love."

When I met the man who was to become my husband, he had many, many friends.....most of them women.   Once I got to know these women, I was astounded that he had chosen to marry me.  These weren't just any women...these were extraordinary women.  Women of grace, intelligence, substance and intuition.  These were women anyone would treasure as a cherished friend. 

I loved meeting each of them, but it sometimes took me a long time to get over the introduction. I was often quite overwhelmed by the beauty and grace they exuded from the get-go.  They had me at "hello".  They were moms, realtors, teachers, singers, executives and nurses.

It was one of those nurses that took my breath away as an example of amazing grace. 

Our first meeting happened just before a Jeff Lorber Band concert in Denver one Sunday evening.  Nancy had called my then fiancé and told him that she was in town.  She had tickets for a concert that a mutual friend would be playing in, and she asked us to join her.  I was thrilled and hesitant at the same time...which tends to be my modus operandi in most social situations.  But thrilled won out and we met her for dinner and then off to hear Cornelius play in a small theatre near the restaurant.  Nancy impressed me immediately with her genuine joy and deep spiritual poise.  I was relatively new to the spiritual practice and faith tradition we shared.  Although I had grown up attending a Christian Science Sunday School, my study and practice of its tenets had only been resurrected the year before and I was a sponge for examples of it being lived authentically.   And Nancy, from the first embrace, was a walking poster girl for the scientific practice of humanity, honesty and humility. 

That evening concert extended into a long weekend in which Nancy returned to where I was busily hand-painting 400 wedding invitations, rsvp cards, and envelopes--addressing them and applying stamps while the Carpenter's Christmas album played in one endless loop of goodwill and cheer..to help me paint, write and adhere her way into my heart.   Her generosity was fathomless and I chalked it up to her obvious great affection for my fiancé and her willingness to include me in the broad range of her love.

Over the next few years I would see Nancy at meetings we attended annually, or on an occasional visit to our "neck of the woods".  I always felt special to be included in the circle of friendship that she and my husband shared. 

But one particularly challenging autumn while my husband was out of the country on business, the phone rang in the kitchen of our lake house near Boston. It was Nancy and she was in the "neighborhood" and wondered what I was doing.  I explained to her that my husband was out of the country and that I was holding down the fort...commuting into my office each day, caring for our pets, home, etc.  She wondered if I was open to an overnight visit and going to church the next morning and out to lunch before she headed back into the city to catch a flight.  Again...thrilled and hesitant.  Thrilled that she would want to spend some time with me, hesitant because I wasn't so sure I brought much to the social table.  I was fine as a third wheel.    But as the main focus of someone's time...not so confident.

By the time she arrived late that Saturday evening the house was sparkling, the dog was bathed with a shiny pettable coat, the embers from a cozy fire were glowing in the fireplace, the starlight was reflecting in the surface of the lake just beyond the large windows on each side of the fireplace.  And I was a mess.  My shoulders and neck felt like someone had strung my vertebrae too tightly on the length of string I imagined was my spinal cord, with beads twisting out of alignment from being bunched too closely together.  I had worked myself into a self-conscious frazzle.  I had just sat down on the loveseat in front of the fire to pray when I heard her knock at the door.   Well, so much for that, I thought.  I just need to be warm and welcoming enough to get her things to her room and offer her a cup of tea, and then I can go to bed and sleep this off.  By that time I felt like I was in too much pain to either think or pray.

I put on a smile that I thought most closely matched the real warmth I felt in my heart and gathered her into our home.  We chatted for a brief few minutes.  Considering the lateness of the hour and her long day of travel, I suggested we both retire.  I helped her with her bag, showed her the towels I had left out for her, and then I excused myself and literally collapsed into my bed.  My condition had devolved to the point of pain so great that it was making me nauseous.  I had hoped that if I could just fall asleep before I lost what little dinner I had thrown down my throat between vacuuming and laundry, that I would be fine.  But it was obvious in a few moments that this was not going to be the case.  I went to raise myself on my arms to hurry to the bathroom, when there at my side…was Nancy...with wastebasket, warm washcloth for cleaning me up, cool washcloth for my forehead afterwards, and cold glass of juice at the ready. 

I so was stunned by her intuitiveness...her preparedness and her kindness, that within moments I was well, and my respect for nurses was forged....instantly. 

I accepted her proffering, hugged her closely and she was gone....without a light ever having been turned on.  I sat in the dark and thought of all that she had just taught me about nursing...nurturing...kindness and care.   I wanted to BE that in my own practice of spiritual healing.  Just as intuitive, prepared and kind...ready.

The next morning we went to church and then out for the very best corn waffles I have ever had (and have spent the last 18 years trying to reproduce...I'm getting close).  We sat in a wooden booth at a funky little breakfast cafe a few blocks from the ocean, and talked for hours.  Our friendship was no longer based on our mutual affection for someone dear...it was based in a moment of charity, selflessness, and peace.  I can still feel the coolness of her fingers at the back of my neck when I remember how softly she came and went from the room that night.


My friend Nancy taught me one of the most powerful lessons of love in that darkened room.  Mary Baker Eddy perfectly summarizes that lesson in her article "Love" which can be found nestled in her book Miscellaneous Writings when she says,

Love

"What a word! I am in awe before it....
Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down
on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf. 
I make strong demands on love,
call for active witnesses to prove it,
and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results.
  Unless these appear, I cast aside the word
as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal. 
Love cannot be a mere abstraction,
or goodness without activity and power. 
As a human quality,
the glorious significance of affection is more than words:
it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret;
the silent, ceaseless prayer;
the self-forgetful heart that overflows;
the veiled form stealing on an errand of mercy,
out of a side door; the little feet tripping along the sidewalk;
the gentle hand opening the door that turns toward
want and woe, sickness and sorrow,
and thus lighting the dark places of earth."
- Mary Baker Eddy

Thank you, Nancy.  Your picture still sits next to the definition of "nurse" in my copy of Webster’s...Noah and Merriam, Cambridge, Oxford...and Science and Health...

K

First Day of School...again

" I'll be alone
each and every night
While you're away,
don't forget to write
Bye-bye, so long, farewell
Bye-bye, so long
See you in September
See you,
when the summer's through..."
- Wayne/Edwards

I've always loved this song, recorded by The Association (and, as my husband - who teaches a course on "the popular song" - reminds me..others.. including the Tempos, Shelley Fabares, the Happenings...) in the 60s. It dances through my head everytime I think about shopping for three-ring binders and cutting down brown-paper grocery sacks (and ironing the paper flat) so we'd be ready for the arduous task of covering all the heavy textbooks we were sure to be lugging home after the first day of school.

I posted on this topic in September when the leaves were turning from a blanket of green against blue sheets of clouds and sky, to a carpet of mustard, russet, burgundy and…okay, bring me a fork because this is starting to sound like a great meal from Café Provencé …or something you might need a pitchfork to get rid of.

Okay, so I wax poetic and I digress.  Anyway, I will start over…

The leaves were brown and crunchy from searing heat this past September but I still felt some kind of “pull of the moon” aching for new pencils and the smell of freshly mimeographed pages of math worksheets, and the sweet cool air of autumn when the time came for the girls to grab their backpacks for the first day of “academic year 2006-07”. We sent them off with a hearty “have a great day” and a few tears (mine, not theirs) as they climbed into the car with their new brother for the commute from our urban neighborhood to their suburban campus.

It was a great day.  And usually, whether as a student, teacher or parent, I indulge in one of those a year and get my fix. 

Ah…but this year I get two.  And for this former overachieving bookworm of a student, consummate classroom junkie of a teacher, and recovering homeroom-mom addict, nothing could be better.  More tears, more nostalgia, more ”pencils, and paper, and chalk..oh my!” (must be sung to the tune of “Lions and Tigers and Bears”).  "See you in Janaury"...not so much... it just leaves something to be desired...and it's just not that catchy..

As you may know, our daughter decided to complete her high school career in South Africa.  This is a dream come true for her.  Becoming her mom was mine, so I couldn’t be more thrilled that she is getting to have hers come true, too.  I got out the pictures from her first day of Kindergarten.  I scanned and sent them to her as a reference point for how amazing God is.

And He/She is…

There I was in pictures taken 12 years ago smiling as her dad snapped shots of her in her little dress and new shoes, her backpack properly and snugly over her shoulders. There we were holding hands sitting on the front steps of our house at 7:30 in the morning, recording a day for future reference.  And as I sat there, I knew what that future reference was.  I had always known…with every journal entry recorded of her first tooth, her first step, her favorite food.  It was always in the back of my mind each time we took a photo of her dance recital, her birthday party, her new dress.  It was always there in my heart…there would always be someone I would want to be able to share Hannah’s life with.  There is a cosmic order to the universe.

I was able to recall my first day of taking her to Kindergarten with such sweet joy and without any overarching sadness.   I could remember the hours my sister and I spent sitting on a picnic table outside of our kids’ classroom, teary and anxiously waiting for them to emerge.  How fragile and silly I felt when the teacher marched by with the entire class for a tour of the school with us still there two hours after drop off.  I was grateful for the kind look of mixed understanding and sympathy she gave us as they paraded by in a perfect Kindergarten line.  That compared much more favorably to the look she and her cousin gave us when they saw us waiting.  It was the first time I realized I could be an embarrassment to someone I loved.  I thought that privilege was reserved for my mother.

As I sit here today and smile about all the things she will enjoy about school this year…class pictures, homework, finding a system for remembering library books before they are overdue, prom…I know I will enjoy them in my own way.  I am certain of this because I don’t feel ten thousand miles away on this first day of school.  I realize that I am as close to her as my love for her is in my heart and my thoughts of her throughout the day.  

Yesterday I found myself making the 7-hour time zone adjustment hundreds of times as I thought about her finding a group to sit with at lunch, organizing her locker, and emerging from the building eager to share the interesting, funny, and sometimes unsettling details of the first day of school…

…again…

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

It is neither time nor proximity that makes you a mother…it really is only Love that does…

K

"It was enough..."

A friend sent me this remarkable poem from a recent issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.  It was written by 14th-century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz (translation by Shahriar Shahriari):

"I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me
That I can no longer call myself
a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure soul.
Love has...freed me
Of every concept and image my mind has ever known."

This poem resonates with me at such a visceral level that I am paralyzed by the intimacy of its ability to see through to the deepest places in my heart.  Yet, I am also mobilized by the sense of community and shoulder-to-shoulder hope for humanity I feel when realizing that I am not alone in this sentiment.  I have a brother in Hafiz and, I trust, in many of you.

I was talking with a young friend in my office yesterday afternoon and she asked me for my “take” on a particular social issue.  I looked at her and realized that the old me would have tried to come up with one. I would have tried to articulate my position and shared with her how I had come to that place through research, reason, revelation, and personal experience.  But yesterday it all seemed so pointless to share.  God would lead her to her own conclusions in the way that would leave her with a more intimate sense of His voice in her heart…even if that path took her through “the valley of the shadow”. 

In fact Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his recent book, The Lord is My Shepherd, suggests that there is a relational shift in the 23rd Psalm* from talking about God, to a more intimate sense of talking with Him…following the walk through the valley.  Why would I ever impose my opinions, suggestions, or positions on someone if it might deprive them of their own journey towards greater intimacy with their divine Parent?   So I told her I really didn’t have a take on how she might view the issue…as I was also still listening and praying for the moment by moment inspiration that would guide and direct my own choices and decisions.

What I really wanted to tell her was how much her kindness had meant to me in the past year.  How much I looked forward each week to her eager smile and her gentle heart.  What I thought about Iraq, same-sex marriage, tax reform, etc. held no real value for her…and it held but marginal value for me.  What mattered in the grand scheme of things was that I loved and that she loved.  And because God was the source and condition of all love and is all-powerful, we could trust God--Love--to be motivating others wisely and compassionately, thus freeing us to occupy ourselves with what, as Mary Baker Eddy says  "we most need":

“…. fervent desire for growth in grace,
expressed in patience, meekness, love and good deeds.”

Ask me about my journey towards patience with myself and the surrender of self-certainly. Ask me about the effect that your kindness has had on my sense of what it means for me to be Christian in my behavior.  Ask me what I am learning about the opportunities that we  (you and I…not a faceless them) have for restoring hope through compassion and consideration. 

What I am really learning is that my opinions about social and political, religious and relationship issues have but fleeting, if any, value…what really counts is Love.  What does Love--God--tell me, directly and intimately, that I have the right to express, to be, to do?  Directing the thoughts, opinions, paths or journeys of others?  Well, I think I best leave that to Him.  Even when the invitation to share my "position" is so genuine, my words will never give someone the real “bread of life”, the manna which fills the heart--His voice.   What I can share are snapshots from my journey…postcards of what the view looks like from here, and a reminder that we each have our own sacred guidebooks for mapping out a travel itinerary that is unique ours. 

I truly yearn for Eddy’s "Daily Prayer", my daily bread,  to become an assimilated part of the body of my being.  It reads:

"Thy kingdom come;”
let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love
be established in me,
and rule out of me all sin;
and may Thy Word
enrich the affections of all mankind,
and govern them!

Not my word or words, but His Word…

It no longer matters to me whether I “get it right” in this world…or whether you do.  What matters to me is Love…am I letting Love be the one and only reason for my being. 

So I told my young friend about how, one morning the previous Spring, it was her warm smile and generous hug in the college concourse that made a difference in the way I felt about myself and the work I do and love.  I told her that her kindness was a gift more precious than gold to me.

She smiled.

It was enough.


Kate

*This is a link to my niece, Lily's, beautiful performance of the 23rd Psalm. I hope you enjoy it. The story that goes with this clip is linked here. "

"And ten thousand more to go...."

As promised, here is the fourth installment on this story (earlier posts can be read by scrolling down).  Here is where we left off yesterday:

A blizzard blew into New England that afternoon and we left for Colorado with snow swirling and every mile in front of us a slow, hard-fought battle to gain traction...both on the road...and in my heart.  A battle had been won.  But the war with self, with feelings of betrayal and abandonment, was not over with the surrender of our son back to his birthmother’s care...in fact it had really just begun...

"Now the first of December was covered with snow
And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Lord, the Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go"
- James Taylor

No, it wasn't the first of December, but it was snowing as we turned off Route 128 onto the Massachusetts Turnpike that evening.  I would love to be able to say that an inspirational hymn was what I was rolling over and over again in my head.  But it wasn't.  My head was filled with "Sweet Baby James.",".  The visuals out the windshield…snow, Berkshires, the turnpike…were just too coincidental with these lyrics I had sung since high school.  So there I was with the lyrics to yet another James Taylor song holding court in my head, along with what I came to refer to as “devil dialogues”…the arguments between thoughts that are dark and destructive, and the angels…the thoughts from God, the thoughts of redemption and peace that descend on our hearts when we are in need.   And it was the presence of these devil dialogues that made me realize that, although I had ten miles behind me... having released a son to his mother, I also had "ten thousand more to go" before I too would be released from the grip of sorrow and regret...and it felt as if I was going to have to make that journey in the bitter cold with bleeding footsteps.

My husband and I rarely talked as we crawled our way through driving sleet on the turnpike that night.  Cars were off the road at rakish angles having come to a stop at the end of a slide and been abandoned right where they ended their flight from peril.  The radio didn't come on and we were, I think, both too engaged in our own thoughts to go looking for a cassette tape to put in the deck on the dashboard.  So we made our way through the empty darkness of the Berkshires in the brittle cold silence of personal heartache, regret, and anger with a faceless target

We took turns driving through the night and by the next morning my eyes burned and my head felt battered by the demons that were having it out with the angels who had felt so at hand the previous day.  Yes, love had made me a mother...but the demons were insisting that love had also made me a fool...a victim....vulnerable and open to the deep wounds of betrayal and abandonment.  It wasn't enough, they argued, that I had quit a job that I loved to stay home and keep her company through the loneliness of her pregnancy, it wasn't enough that we had gone deeply into debt not only to meet our own obligations but hers too during the course of her isolation, it wasn't enough that I now had empty arms and an empty nursery... that I no longer had a happy marriage, an interesting job, or a sense of purpose...but she had now left me alone in a house that was just meant for a family...a baby...for him.   I imagined what I would say to her if she were sitting next to me, standing in front of me, on the phone with me...then the next minute I would find myself praying with the angels of peace that had been gathering around me since that day at the blackboard. 

By afternoon I had my eyes closed as I sat in the passenger seat.  I was now fully involved in the dialogues.  I had been a very effective debate team captain in school, but this was more like refereeing.  The arguments were flying.  I felt like I couldn't disengage from my fascination with the demons’ subtlety in wrestling the angels to the ground as if they (and I) were silly, foolish and naive.  But we kept at it...bloodied and bruised...and still standing.  At one point I felt a hush fall over my mental courtroom and the thought came, “stop and call her.” 

Hmmm....who was that?  Angel or demon? 

But the thought was quiet and the feeling in my heart was warm and still, not agitated and hot.  I opened my eyes and asked my husband if he would stop at the next service area.  He probably thought I had finally woken up to the usual rest stop needs. 

Within minutes we slowed down and signaled to pull off the road into a large parking lot.  As I got out of the car I told him that I just needed to call her.  I saw the look of concern on his face and knew immediately that he thought I was going to give her a piece of my mind since my emotional state had been so erratic over the previous few days.  One minute I had been peace-filled and certain of God's allness and the next minute I was teetering on the brink of a grief-induced madness that would have had many partners looking for the nearest straightjacket and padded cell.   Regardless, I was certain of one thing as I walked into that rest station...he was praying.

I headed to the bank of pay phones near the restrooms and found an empty booth.  I had long since memorized her mother's phone number after the hours we had spent in the hospital together during Austin’s birth and I dialed it without knowing what I was going to say.  When her mother answered on the third ring, I asked for her daughter as if I were observing myself from a few steps away, wondering what I was going to say once she came to the phone. Her mother called her and said that she didn't know who it was.  

Then I heard her say "hello" in a voice so subdued and broken that it shocked me out of my self-indulgent reverie.  This was someone I loved, someone with whom I had spent seven months cooking, laughing, and dreaming about "our" son's future.  I said her name and she asked who I was.  Again I was shocked.  I knew that the sound of my voice was as familiar to her as that of her own mother's.  Hadn't we talked for months at the kitchen table...hadn't I been the one to pray aloud, sing hymns, whisper inspiration, coo messages of comfort and assurance to her through the long hours of labor and delivery?

I said, "It's me..."  With that a sob burst forth from the deep well of grief that we were both drowning in. 

"I never thought I would ever hear from you again," she said…  “I thought I had blown our relationship forever." 

The hard veneer of grief that had begun to form over my heart shattered into a million pieces that dissolved in the warmth of angels breathing a benediction of love over our friendship. 

"I miss you and I need to see you," I said.  "We are driving cross country on our way to Colorado...I wonder how long it would take us to get to your parents’ house?" 

"Well, where are you now?" she asked.  I didn't know so I stuck my head out of the phone booth and asked a truck driver in the cubby next to me where we were.  He pointed to a sign above the doorway and I repeated the name of the service area to her through the phone.  "Oh my gosh," she said, "that's only about two miles from here"...and she proceeded to give me directions to her parents' home. 

My husband didn't ask any questions when I asked him to drive to where we would soon see the son we had lost custody of only two days before...if he had any questions, he was taking them to God.  We both were.

We arrived in the late afternoon dusk.  As we drove into the long driveway I could see light coming from behind her as she stood inside the storm door with her son in her arms.  I took a deep breath and asked God for strength as I opened the car door and walked towards her.  When she opened the door and I saw the pain and sadness in her eyes, the final hardness in my heart broke way and out poured more love than I could ever remember having felt in one moment. 

Then I knew. 

I wasn't looking at the baby in her arms.  I was looking at her.  I was loving her.  She was the "child" I had adopted into my heart and my life.  This beautiful courageous woman who had lived with us for those long months in isolation was the child I had raised.  I could see that she was in pain and it broke my heart. 

I went to her.    She held her son out to me to hold, but he was her son and I no longer needed to hold him.  I wanted to see my "daughter" smile.  I wanted to see her happy holding her son.  I wanted her to know how happy I was to see her and to see her with her son.  We had loved, cherished and nurtured the very best in her, and she was doing what God had moved her to do...to love her little boy...to be a responsible and loving mother.  I couldn't have been prouder.

We went in and spent an hour or so with her and her family.  We saw the nursery she had carved out of a corner of her childhood bedroom.  The toys and clothes we had sent along with her were carefully folded and placed around her room.  She was a great mom who was making difficult but love-inspired choices for herself and her son.  I felt my heart swell with love in a way that I had never felt before.

We left later that night and continued our trip to Colorado where we saw family and friends.   We were able to honestly tell them that as hard as the experience had been, we were going to be okay.  I knew that I had now put twenty "miles behind me.."  I also knew that, on this journey towards truly understanding motherhood, love and selflessness, I still had 9,980 "more to go". 

To be honest this journey continues today, 19 years later.  I have stopped counting miles, I've stopped thinking I will ever "get there"....at this point I am just in awe of the landscape. 

Austin's mom and I continued to stay in close touch as she moved through his infancy and childhood. We became Austin's godparents and she served as a character reference when we adopted our daughter a year later.  Soon after that I was a bridesmaid in her wedding to a wonderful man who later adopted Austin. 

Sometimes when I am asked how many children I have, I remember that beautiful woman in the doorway holding her baby and I think...."Ah yes...don't forget her.”

I never could.

"...There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway,
A song that they sing when they take to the sea,
A song that they sing of their home in the sky—
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep,
But singing works just fine for me . . .

“So, goodnight, you moonlight ladies;
Rockabye sweet baby James . . .
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose;
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James."
-JT

So..there you go.  There is more to this story...so much more...but I will let it filter out as "the Spirit moves"
Kate

"Time doesn't make you a mother...love does..."

On Tuesday, I promised to post today another installment in the story of our first adoption (scroll down to read earlier posts), covering the drive to Colorado.  Actually, that will come tomorrow.  Today’s post covers what happened in between…

“O for a faith that will not shrink
Though pressed by every foe;
That will not tremble on the brink
of any earthly woe…”
- William H. Bathurst

The next morning dawned sunny and bright.  It was as if the world itself had moved on from the grayness of my grief long before I had.  It was Sunday and the thought of teaching Sunday School was beyond me.  I hadn't slept well and was waiting by the telephone for the clock to report a time that would make calling the Superintendent  reasonable.  I figured 7:30 would be safe and I rehearsed what I needed to say to convey my need for absence and the last-minute finding of a substitute for my class of 14-year-old boys and girls from all over the Boston metro area.

As I sat there it kept coming to me that I just couldn't impose upon them my face blotchy and swollen from crying and my eyes blood-shot from lack of sleep.  I needed to have it more together before facing those impressionable young men and women.  They had been through this joyous 9-month-long journey toward parenting with me and I just felt that I couldn't let them down at this point by telling them that we had lost the baby.  Didn't they deserve a Sunday School teacher who had actually been successful in applying the healing law of Christian Science and gotten the baby?   As I sat there staring, again, out of the big picture window in the kitchen, it occurred to me that what they most needed was honesty.

"Honesty is spiritual power."
- Mary Baker Eddy

I realized that what had happened with our son's adoption--and it had happened--was our truth.  It wasn't as important for my Sunday School students to see that we "demonstrated" a perfect, harmonious adoption, so much as it was important for them to see us demonstrate grace, forgiveness, humility, integrity...to demonstrate our Christianity....not as a doctrine, creed or dogma, or religion, but as a way of behaving with others and in every aspect of our lives.  Well, that was the end of any thoughts of avoiding Sunday School.  As terrified as I was of showing up without a baby in my arms that Sunday, I was now even more concerned about letting those kids down by not showing up at all...honestly and meekly.

I explained to my husband that I felt I really needed to be in church that Sunday...a conclusion that he had already reached for himself.   Soon we were dressed and making the hour-long trip to Boston for church and Sunday School.  The ride was quiet and I was grateful to see that the car seat had been removed from the van as we passed ice encrusted trees and houses with smoke puffing from their chimneys like the deep breathing of sleeping giants on snow-covered lawns.  When we reached the highway I closed my eyes in prayer and stayed that way for the rest of our drive.  .  I hoped that by the time we reached Boston I would have "an answer of peace", not tears, to their questions.

I went quickly to my table in the bank of windows partitioned off into bays along the curve of the northwest side of the pie-shaped Sunday School building.  I was early and sat with my back to the room looking to the west.  The morning sun was bouncing off of the dome, granite walls, stained glass and clear windows in the building surrounding me in panorama.  I couldn't see the sun...but I was absolutely sure it was out there somewhere by the mark it was leaving on my environment.  I couldn't see our son, but I could feel the marked effect that loving him had left on my heart and how it continued to make me want to be a "mom"...a nurturer..even if just for this hour with this group of 14-year-old boys and girls.  It would have to be enough for that morning.

One by one the students filtered in to our bay towards the end of the room...and one by one they saw my face.  The questions...and the sympathy poured out.   "How could she do that to you?" "You must be devastated." "I am so sorry.."  "Do you want me to go beat her up...really I will.." (this one from my favorite tough guy/sweetheart of a hockey player).  Soon it was time for the opening exercises and the first hymn literally took me out of play.  "Mother's Evening Prayer" with its now hauntingly familiar and poignant:

"Oh make me glad for every scalding tear
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain;
Wait, and love more for every hate
And fear no ill, since God is good
And loss is gain."
- Mary Baker Eddy

I was singing it and I was hearing it, as I had done since childhood.  But now I was feeling it.  Here was another "sister" standing next to me with her "story" of heartache, telling me that this loss was gain.  God was sending me angels at every turn.  Mary Baker Eddy, herself had had a child taken from her.  This poem turned hymn was her response to that experience...her prayer for her son.   It could be my prayer for my son too.

Once the opening exercises concluded and we turned to one another to begin that Sunday's class I realized that I could either press on as if nothing had happened, or I could let them into the sanctuary of my heart and let them know what I was facing and how I was praying.  Again, the phrase from Science and Health, "Honesty is spiritual power." came with pointed relevance.  Just be honest…how have the spiritual truths that you have been studying and praying with all week been helpful to you. 

I began to share some of the journey my heart had been on and how I was praying, when one of the boys in the class interrupted my train of thought.  I had noticed that he hadn't had much to say that morning...something that was rare for this very social young man.  He had been listening, but really seemed to be in his own world.  When he jumped in quite suddenly with a real sense of inspiration we all grew quiet.  He began..(and I apologize if I don't get this verbatim...it's been 19 years...but I have also thought about it almost weekly ever since, as it was so profound to me) "Okay, you know how I am 14 years old, right?  Well, my brother is 18, and he has lived at home his entire life, but my oldest brother who is 20 went away to boarding school when he was 13 and then he was at camp all summer every year...my mom has hardly ever made him breakfast since he was about 13.  So...my mom has raised me every day for 14 years, my middle brother for 18 years, but my oldest brother for only about 13 years....which of us is more important to her?  Which experience of being our mom makes her a valid mother or a better mother?  She just is our mother no matter where we are or how long we live with her." 

Then he turned to me and asked, "Did you love him completely every day that he was with you?"

"Why, yes." I replied." 

"Then you are a mother.  No one can take that away from you...time doesn't make you a mother, love does!  And I bet you will love him for the rest of your life.  My mom will always be our mother even after we go to college and get married, because she will always love us.  And you will always love him." 

With that it was over.  I was no longer waiting to become a mother.  I was a mother...and by golly I was a good one.  I had loved him completely...it didn't matter how long.  I had loved him enough to listen for what was the most right, most loving thing for him...it didn't matter if it meant it wasn't with me.  I had loved him enough to let him go.

We continued discussing this for the rest of the Sunday School class.  And more changed that morning than the way I looked at myself as a mother...the way I looked at Sunday School and my role in being there was also transformed. I was not a "teacher" coming to impress, inspire, outline, direct or define...I was a "fellow citizen of the household of God" coming to break bread with fellow spiritual thinkers.  All I had to bring with me was my honesty, my love for God, and my sincere desire to grow in grace through study, practice, application, celebration, praise...and tears throughout the week. 

By the time we left our bay-nestled table by the bank of windows along the west wall of the Sunday School, the sun had crested the tall buildings to our east and light poured across the plaza in front of us.  I knew that my hard won peace was fragile...at best...that I still had to return to our home, dismantle the nursery, and we were planning to drive to Colorado and face the same mixture of support and sympathy there.  But for that moment I knew that I had received yet another angel...or two...to walk with me on the next leg of the journey...and it was enough. 

The words to a hymn that had before been only a taunting to the mother I was waiting to be...became my silent lullabye...to myself...on the quiet drive home that afternoon:

"God is known in loving-kindness,
God, the true, eternal good;
Zion, ne'er will he forsake thee,
Trust His Father-Motherhood.

Can a mother leave her children?
Can unchanging love forget?
Though all earthly friends betray thee,
Lo, His arm enfolds thee yet.

Every prayer to Him is answered,
Prayer confiding in His will;
Blessedness and joy are near thee,
Hear His gentle Peace, be still.

Hear His voice above the tempest:
I have not forsaken thee;
In My hand thy name is graven,
I will save both thine and thee.
- Johannes Heermann

A blizzard blew into New England that afternoon and we left for Colorado with snow swirling and every mile in front of us a slow, hard-fought battle to gain traction...both on the road...and in my heart.  A battle had been won.  But the war with self, with feelings of betrayal and abandonment, was not over...in fact it had really just begun...

But that is tomorrow's installment....stay tuned…
K

"...she was in bitterness of soul...and wept sore..."

A dear friend, and faithful reader of this blog, reminded me yesterday that I have not always produced the promised extensions to stories that I touched on in earlier posts.  So rather than wait a few weeks or months to expand on the leg of "the journey" shared in last Thursday’s blog called "Success Within" (scroll down to read), I will extend the story today.  Here goes...

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.”
- Kahlil Gibran

One afternoon, not long after my morning at the blackboard with God, our son's birthmother came down to join me for tea while I was nursing him in the kitchen.  She sat down gingerly at the pine table in front of the picture window where I was cooing to our son and explaining to him that the birds standing on the frozen ledge of ice along the shoreline of our lake were actually warm in the icy air sprinkled with sparkling snow crystals drifting from the eaves of our home.   She listened distractedly and I held my breath while I continued speaking, knowing that the winds were shifting in our home as clearly as I could see the snow flakes changing direction in the invisible dry air beyond the pane of glass in front of us.

She took a sip of her tea, cleared her throat and then began...and once it started, there was no stopping the outpouring of regret, love, heartache, tears, and pain that flowed out of her that morning.  Yes, she loved us...no, she couldn't bear to leave him...yes, she had asked the adoption agency to advocate for the dissolution of our adoption plan.  But she also needed time alone with him before she could decide what she really wanted. I sat as still as stone that morning.  I don't think I cried.  I think I appeared pretty supportive….I was sure trying to be.  But I knew that something inside me was shattering...falling like broken glass into sharp shards of pain that, if I moved in the slightest, would slice and cut and stab the most tender places of hope and fulfillment I had just begun to believe were safe and secure in my Father's care.

We hugged, and I told her I understood.  And the funny thing was...I did.  I understood her love for this baby, because I was feeling it too.  And with that, I handed him to her and she took him to her room and closed the door.  I called my husband at work and shared with him what had happened and he promised to return home as soon as he finished a project he had gone into the studio to work on. 

The birthmother had explained that her counselor from the agency would be coming for her and the baby later that afternoon.  Her mother was flying in from out of state to join them in a "safe harbor home” to have a quiet place to think and come to a decision.  Going somewhere else seemed ludicrous to me.  All of her clothes were there, at our home.  His nursery was set up and all of the things that they would need for his care were already prepared...just for him...this was his home.

My husband arrived home just before the adoption counselor.  In front of the counselor I asked him if he thought they couldn't just stay at our home.  We could go stay with extended family nearby until we heard from them.  The adoption counselor was a bit disoriented by the offer.  But because it made sense for the baby to not move around from place to place in the middle of winter, he consented to this very unorthodox plan...chuckling that everything was unorthodox about our, then, very unconventional open adoption and he wasn't sure any longer what was "appropriate".  But he knew that this particular request was the most loving approach...so he went with it.

We made a few phone calls to arrange for our stay with family members.  We gathered our things together, said our goodbyes, and drove away from our home.  There was complete silence in the minivan in the large presence of our son's little, empty car seat that afternoon.  We were praying….both in our mobile closet.  I don't know what my husband's prayers were, but I do know that mine involved pleading one minute and surrendering the next.  My husband had to go back to his office/studio and I accompanied him there.  I found a dark corner of the green room, quiet on a Sunday afternoon since no radio guests were being interviewed on the weekend, and prayed.   Prayed that the birthmother would know that I would be a good mom regardless of the outcome....prayed to remember myself… that she would.

We spent the next days with family members who gently tiptoed around our very fragile spiritual poise.  My prayers wavered between a calm surrender to God's omnipotence and a frantic begging for His benevolence. 

That was until the phone rang one gray late afternoon.

It was the adoption counselor.  The birthmother had made her decision.  She wanted to rescind her surrender of our son and she planned to leave that evening with her mother for the long drive to her parent’s home in another state.  I asked the counselor to offer her all of his clothing, baby toys, etc.

Then...I lost it.  Period. 

There is no other way to describe that moment.  I lost all poise, vision, hope and balance.  I wept, wailed, beat on pillows...trying to drown out the pain in my heart.  I cannot think of that afternoon in my husband’s aunt’s home without feeling tightness in my throat.  My apologies still go out to all who were present and had to witness that anguish.

Soon we left for the drive back to our house an hour away.  Our van was still filled with a heavy silence and an empty car seat.  The agency's counselor for adoptive families had told us that we did have recourse, that although it would be difficult, we could appeal her decision and buy ourselves some time with him and establish our case more securely as being the better home.    And I have to admit this consideration was poking at my thought, when with absolute clarity...as if spoken by the only Counselor...the Mighty King, the Prince of Peace...the message came.  "Can you imagine yourself, when he is 12 years old, explaining to him that his birthmother had loved him and wanted to parent him, but that you had fought real hard and won?"  The answer was as simple and clear as the question itself..."No".

And that was that.

This didn't make the next hours any easier, but the question of whether to pursue recourse was answered with supreme finality.  We arrived home in the emptiness of a cold, clear winter's night.  The sky above the ocean and our lake was dark and fathomless.  The stars were as brilliant as if laid on a jeweler’s mat of black velvet above us.  I wasn't prepared to see her car still in our driveway as she and her mother finished packing the trunk and back seat with baby clothes, the remnants of her seven-month stay with us, and a new, infant car seat I didn't recognize.

We sat in our van nearby, not wanting to put anyone in an emotionally awkward position, as they buckled Austin into his little seat and into their seatbelts before edging their way out of the driveway and out of our lives.  We remained there in the cold without speaking, long after their taillights disappeared around the bend of the wooded lane on which our home sat.  Finally my husband broke the silence.  He opened his car door, got out, and walked into the house.  It had been a long siege and he was ready for it to be over.  I, on the other hand, couldn't imagine going into a house that was filled with the baby scents of bath soap, powder, and baby oil.  I hugged my parka close to my chest, pulled my hat down over my ears, and tightened my scarf around my neck before pulling on my gloves and getting out of the van.  I headed up the hill through the frozen grass and pine needles that crunched beneath my feet.  I needed a place to grieve.  The nearby Indian burial ground suited my mood perfectly.  I opened the rusted iron gate and found my favorite place at the base of an ancient pine tree where I could settle myself between her strong roots.  I collapsed against her trunk and allowed myself to  weep with abandon.

Looking out over the lake that reflected a billion stars in her icy still surface, I sent up to the heavens a sound as primordial as motherhood itself.  I found myself listening to the howling in the air, and I realized it was not a coyote or a wolf but my own voice that had me riven with terror.  I began to chuckle and I thought to myself, "Thank goodness there is not a living soul for miles around, because if anyone were to hear me they would think I was a drunken woman wandering through the woods."

This realization itself was a Godsent angel message for me.  It woke me up from the grief-induced hypnosis I was under and I began to actually think....and the first thought was:  "Well, didn't Eli, the priest, think that Hannah was drunk (see Bible story, I Samuel 1 ) when she came to the temple praying for a child and was "in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore."  In that moment I felt a kinship with Hannah, her plight...and her victory. That spiritual sisterhood was as real and tangible as if she were standing next to me with baby Samuel in her arms saying, "Look, it was true for me...and it will be for you too...God has heard your prayers as He heard mine...the promise will be fulfilled."

Centuries of time melted and we were sisters...I was looking to her for confirmation that the trust I had placed in God's love was warranted...and she was telling me not to falter.  Her story became my story.  I knew in that moment that my tears, my weeping and wailing like a drunken woman in the dark winter's night, were the prelude to a promise.   I gathered my coat and my wits around me and walked slowly and calmly back to the house.  I knew that "according to the time of life"... just like Hannah, I too would become a mother...but this time to a daughter and that we were being asked by her Father/Mother God to name her after this woman who had comforted and encouraged me in my sorrow.

Staying in our home that night was peaceful, yet heartbreaking.  The nursery seemed like an empty hole in our home that mimiced the one that I felt had been carved out of my heart.  But I held to the promise that this hole was really a nest being carved out for the daughter God was telling me was "on her way".

The next morning we left our home for an unscheduled trip to Colorado to see family and friends who had been prepared to meet and celebrate the birth and adoption of our new son.  We knew that we needed to go there to assure them that we were alright and were going to survive this experience....even though I was still on a roller coaster of emotions.  But more about that trip and the healing that took place during our drive to Colorado in Thursday's blog....I promise!

A little over a year later I would be holding our daughter, Hannah, sitting on a sunny veranda in the middle of an African bushveld farm with a gang of gibbon monkeys in the orange trees nearby throwing half-eaten fruit at the farm manager as he tried to chase them out of the trees so that they wouldn't ruin the whole crop.  I chuckled and turned my face to the bright sun of the southern hemisphere and sang to my daughter verses from the "lullabye" that had held my heart together through those bleak days of winter that seemed so far away from the warmth of Africa in April.

"Mother's Evening Prayer"
Oh make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate,
And fear no ill,  -- since God is good,
And loss is gain.

No snare no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's teardrops gain,
And mother finds her home and heavenly rest.
- Mary Baker Eddy

The Bible has a precedent setting story for you that holds hope and comfort...let its prophets and matriarchs speak to your heart...a message of peace and promise.

K