"you can close your eyes, it's alright..."

"Well the sun
is surely sinking down,
but the moon
is slowly rising.

And this old world
must still be
spinning 'round;
and I still
love you..."

I've always loved James Taylor and Carly Simon's, "Close Your Eyes."  It feels like a lullaby from divine Love.

The fact that most nights we close our eyes and surrender control of our lives to the Unseen, is such profound evidence of our trust in something Divine.

Remembering how peaceful it felt to watch my new babies drift off to sleep -- without any concern that they would not wake in the morning (or later in the night) -- is still something that takes my breath away.

Perhaps, without realizing it as a young mother, I was witnessing in myself an innate trust in God as the Source and substance of all life. I can honestly say that I never worried that my daughters would take their next breath. I watched the rise and fall of their little chests with such an unwavering trust in Life carrying itself out -- breath-by-breath.

This week I read a passage from Scripture that brought this trust into clearer focus:

"In quietness and confidence
shall be your strength;

Ye shall have a song,
as in the night
when a holy solemnity
is kept...”

It is this trust in the presence of God as Life, that feels like a holy solemnity to me. A promise made and kept between a Mother and her child:

"Lo, I am with you alway...”

We are never alone.  Not in our waking and not in our sleeping.  Elsewhere in Scripture we are assured:

"When thou liest down,
thou shalt not be afraid;
yea, thou shalt lie down,
and thy sleep shall be sweet.”

This promise doesn't need to be read from sacred texts to be known. Every child knows that he/she can lie down and closer his/her eyes - surrendering, without fear, to the presence of something felt, but not seen.

As children everywhere seem to be facing so much -- violence in war-torn countries, family separations in immigration detention centers, economic uncertainty, educational inequity -- this one thing brings me peace and provides a springboard for my prayers. No matter what my child may be facing, he/she knows that she can close her eyes and trust that morning will come, the sun will rise, her consciousness of being -- simply being -- will greet her when she wakes from sleep.

Nothing can touch this quiet confidence. Nothing can shake the presence of "I am..." from the core of her being. Tonight I will sing this precious lullaby from our balcony, into the vast velvet of a Colorado night sky.

"Close your eyes,
you can close your eyes,
it's alright.”

And I will pray. I will listen for the peace that passes all understanding. The peace that each of us can rest upon. The peace that fills the "I am..." in every man, woman, and child -- regardless of gender, socio-economic privilege, nationality or geo-physical location. This deeper peace is based on God's presence.  A divine Voice that reaches us in the darkness of a warm bed or under an aluminum blanket on a concrete floor.  A voice that silently sings the song of songs:

"And I still love you...”

May we each feel this promise, and our rest be sweet.

offered with Love,

Kate

"you don't belong to me…"

"You belong to me,
you belong, you belong,
you belong to me..."

No, not anymore. Not really ever.  But there were so many years when I thought that having someone belong to me was the essence of true love. To be mine exclusively. To be my husband, my daughter, my friend. Carly Simon's "You Belong to Me," was my anthem.

I played it loud.  I sang along with it on car trips. It was my weapon of choice -- I fought with it, coiled in my heart's back pocket. I wept to it in the shower. I believed it was my right to hold on.  What was I thinking?

For all those years, if you had asked me if thought I understood the nature of Love, I would have said, "yes."  But, it took having all that I loved wrenched from my death grip, to discover that Love doesn't possess -- it surrenders. Love doesn't seek to own. Love doesn't need to control. Love trusts.

For such a long time, the penultimate model of human love was knowing that someone belonged to me, and to me only. To be in an exclusive relationship meant I was special. But I have learned that true love is inclusive, not exclusive. Love never leaves anyone out. Everyone belongs in the all-embrace of true love, not to others.

My daughters have taught me more about inclusive, all-expansive, surrendering love than any other one thing in my life. From the get-go, as an adoptive mom, I've had to surrender any possessiveness -- any sense of them being "my daughters." They have always been our daughters -- their birthmother, their dad -- and, eventually, their step-mom and step-dad.  And that was only the beginning.  They have beloved friends, coaches, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, counselors.  Rather than them belonging to me, I belong with them in this incredible sense of family.

In fact, just when I begin to think that we have the family tree trimmed into another neat shape, it grows new branches, sprouts new leaves overnight.  And what I am discovering is that we will never be a neat, trim little bonsai tree.  We are messy and wonderful.  We belong to a constantly unfolding, ever-expanding family of love.  I've long-since thrown the tree-trimming tools in the dumpster. 

The world is constantly parading a version of love in front of us that is full of ownership and possessiveness.  Some of those traditions, provisions, and contracts of partnership are beautiful and practical.  But they don't give us the right to enslave one another.

I remember well the day that God answered my prayers for help in "fixing" a relationship I'd clung to for dear life.  His message to me was:

"Do you love him enough, 
to let him go?" 

The answer was immediate. I did.  And so, I did.  I let go.  Since then, actively letting go of "owning" the people, places, and things that I love, has been the most perfect sense of living in grace for me.  

Letting go has also given me the gift of an infinite, and eternal, sense of love.  A love that is not based on sharing time or proximity of space -- but a love that is fully defined by what I hold dearly in consciousness.  This is where love is timeless, invulnerable, and fearless.  I can't help but remember what Paul says in Scripture:  

"neither height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature can separate 
us from the love of God..." 

This is the love that I seek in myself -- to love the way that God loves.  To love without permission, and without condition.  A love that, as Mary Baker Eddy states in  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"cannot be deprived 
of its manifestation or object." 

I cannot be deprived of it, because it was never "mine," never owned, never personally possessed. 

Lately I've been working to change my language when it comes to love.  Rather than referring to the girls and Jeff as my daughters or my husband, I am using their names.  These small shifts have allowed me to step back from everything passing through the filter of "my" relationship with them, into a larger sense of their relationship with God and their world

Rather than thinking of this as my home or my town, I have been thinking of it as a wonderful place that I am blessed to share with my family, friends, and neighbors.

Today I realized that I no longer want someone to belong to me.  I want each of us to belong to God, and to the vastness of His infinite, eternal love for all of us.  

with all my love -- and with Love,

Kate

"You belong to Me..."

"You don't have to prove to me
that you're beautiful to strangers..."

There was a time when Carly Simon's "You Belong to Me," represented what I thought wanted. I wanted someone to belong to, and someone who belonged to me.

And not just someone to call my own, but a place of my own, a family, friends, a spiritual community, a job, a purpose. I wanted to feel that I'd found my niche in the world, and in someone else's heart.

I wanted, wanted, wanted. I didn't think I wanted things, but I definitely wanted a feeling. I wanted to feel that I belonged.

And there was a point in my life when I really began to believe that I was coming close experiencing that sense of belonging in a number of ways. That is, until I didn't have any of it -- anymore. And that was probably the best day --  the day I began to discover a real sense of belonging.  A sense of belonging that is invulnerable and eternal.

You see, I'd always thought that if I could just be "enough" for everyone around me, I would get the chance to belong. If I was attentive, kind, loving, neat, smart, funny, spiritual enough, the people in my life wouldn't need anyone else. They would want me and I would belong to them, with them, near them.

I thought that if I always saw them through the most loving eyes, gave the best gifts, provided the most attentive care, served with the greatest willingness, made the best meals, had the coziest home, tried to be the most thoughtful colleague, tenant, friend, daughter, sister, mom -- my belonging would be secure.

But this kind of thinking -- and behaving -- was exhausting. It meant that if I made one false move, dropped one carefully juggled ball, forgot to say the right thing, broke the rules -- even a little, I'd be out, rejected, dismissed. And I was.

And that rejection was probably the most vital, enduring, and life-transforming gift God could have given me.

You see, I'd never, ever -- no matter how hard I'd tried -- really felt like I belonged. I always felt like a visitor, a tolerated guest -- only "there" at the behest of my hosts. Once out in the cold, I had to go deep within to find warmth and comfort. And in that space of prayer -- the great interiority of conscious worth -- I found a reliable place to abide, not just visit.

This is the place where we are not a tenants -- vulnerable to eviction, rejection, homelessness.  And because it is a place of grace, we can't buy it or earn it.  It is God's place where no one, and nothing, can tell us we don't belong. Ever.

Robert Frost once said that:

"Home is the place where,
when you go there,
they have to take you in."

But I no longer think this is true, if we are talking about home as a geographical, personal, or institutional "place."  For me, this statement can only be true in a spiritual context. It only feels possible in the "place" where God and men do meet. In that stillness of consciousness -- that deep interior sanctuary -- where thoughts and deeds take form and flight.

Of course we delight in our loved ones, we cherish our communities of fellowship, and appreciate houses, temples of worship, and spaces that are sacred to us. But our sense of belonging can never be fully satisfied, or secure, if it is based on personal or organizational acceptance. And no matter how hard we try, we will never find that "place" on earth where we can feel eternally rooted and grounded. For me, this kind of unconditional security, acceptance and belonging can only be found in the heart of God.

When singing the words of H. F. Lyte's timeless hymn "Abide with Me," * I always imagine my Father-Mother God standing at the threshold of stillness, bidding me, "come in." There I find an ever-wakeful divine Parent always welcoming me home to the one place where I will always belong:

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

This is the place of my belonging. This is the place where I don't need to plead for acceptance, grovel for forgiveness, hope for mercy, or fear rejection. This is the place I abide, dwell, rest -- the sweet, sacred interiority of the kingdom -- within. And in this place, I belong to Him.

offered with Love,

Kate

* The link to this hauntingly lovely Emeli Sande version of "Abide with Me" was sent to me by one of my daughters this morning after I'd already posted this piece. She had no idea that this particular hymn was in my heart this morning and was part and parcel to today's post. Although this version does not have the lyric quoted above, it carries the spirit of this post, and it allows you to "hear" the hymn in a most sacred way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love you my girl...
Kate

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

"...eternity in bloom..."

"…Life is eternal
And love is immortal
And death is only a horizon
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight…"
-Carly Simon/Teesa Gohl

Today is the 53rd time the earth has circled the sun during this chapter of my "life"…or as our ten-year-old daughters would say…"oooh Mommy is 53 years old today."  I'm not a big birthday person. I forget mine, I forget most of my siblings' birthdays (I have seven) until well after it is too late to call them…and rarely in time to buy a card and send it so that it gets there on the day.  I make light of it, but Nancy, Linda, Ricky, Wayde, Lila, Fawn and Shawn…I really do feel awful when it happens…really awful. 

If three of my daughters didn't have the same birthday, I am not sure if I would do any better with their "special day."   Thank goodness for my cellphone's calendar feature.  I can set alarms for all five of the children.

Anyone who has spent any time talking with me about the issues of life and death has heard the above lyrics from Simon and Gohl.  I have typed them on so many memorial websites and guestbooks that I can key them in my sleep.  I love this explanation about death…or really about life.  To see that death is not the limit of someone's life, but only the limit of what we are able see of their life…is so consonant with what I have come to know through my own experiences and what I have witnessed of the "death" process.  And it takes my breath away.

But today I am replacing the word death with the word birth.  My birth, though a wonderful, joyous moment of meeting my mom face to face, and discovering a new landscape to play in, was not the beginning of my life.  I may no longer remember my experiences prior to my birth, but I have no doubt that I had them, that they were full of lessons learned and people loved, and that I was a completely mature conscious being.

My birth was a horizon…and only a limit to what I remember of my pre-birth experience or what anyone else on this side of the horizon sees of that pre-birth chapter of my life.

So…as Simon and Gohl recommend:

"I've been doing a lot of thinking
About growing older and moving on
Nobody wants to be told that they're getting on
For a long, long stay
But just how long and who knows
And how and where my spirit will go
Will it soar like Jazz on a saxophone
Or evaporate on a breeze
Won't you tell me please..."

My experience has proven to me that I will not "soar like jazz on a saxophone" there (wherever there is)…unless I have begun to do so here.  The body that I have now is my highest sense of how thought…consciousness…is embodied today.  When I dream I have this same body,  I know that when I move on from this chapter of my life I will have the same body…just as flexible, lithe, strong, toned…as I do at the moment of my transition beyond your horizon of seeing.  Until my concept of body changes, I'm stuck with the one I'm entertaining in thought.  Thank goodness thought is ever evolving, developing, de-enveloping from all the "education" we have been handed.  Sometimes it's almost as if someone is walking around with a tray of "aging" canapés at a reception offering, "A flabby tummy or a missed opportunity, ma'am?"  No thanks…I think I'll pass.  I'm eating "raw" these days…the simple diet of kindness, laughter, silence, love.   The recipe for a beautiful body of thought, a strong body of work, a flexible body of family.

But if right here I have learned to soar like jazz on a saxophone, or evaporate on a breeze, or walk on water, or live without chocolate…well, I think that's what I'm gonna take with me. 

"...Here on earth I'm a lost soul
Ever trying to find my way back home
Maybe that's why each new star is born
Expanding heaven's room
Eternity in bloom..."

I do like thinking that heaven is expanding, making room for new stars in my life.  That right here, and right now, "eternity's in bloom."  Isn't this what pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting is all about?  Falling in love, graduating from high school, climbing Machu-Pichu…eternity in bloom.

"...And will I see you up in that heaven
In all it's light will I know you're there
Will we say the things that we never dared
If wishing makes it so
Won't you let me know..."

I know that there are things you and I don't dare say…but why? Are we afraid of rejection, judgment, or of being thought silly?  Why wait until some far-off "heaven"…why not now, why not here…heaven on earth?  We all know each other here…this is the place…this is the time…to say all the things we "never dared"…because,

"…life is eternal
And love is immortal
And death is only a horizon
Life is eternal
As we move into the light
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight
Save the limit of our sight."

So, on my birthday…as my children celebrate 53 rotations of this planet around our central star since I started this chapter of my life…I beg each of us…say the things to one another that we never dared…

…soar like jazz on a saxophone…

live eternity in bloom…

because Life is eternal…

thanks Carly…thanks Mom,
Kate