"My life would suck without You..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it would. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you Papa.

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

[photo credit:  Hollister Thomas 2009]

"I loved her first..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

always, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Darcey Snyder 2009]

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

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

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

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

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

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

My friend's hope is that by sharing her email, through this post, it will "help even one person from feeling this way." And it is this hope that has encouraged me...just this once...to share someone else's cry for fellowship in Christ. With her urging and permission.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kate

"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.

"Come on people now..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What can you do….who do you know? 

With hope... 
Kate

"He's got the whole world in His hands..."

He's Got the whole world in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,_
He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,_
He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the tiny little babies in His hands,_
He's got the tiny little babies in His hands,_
He's got the tiny little babies in His hands,
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got you and me brother in His hands,_
He's got you and me sister in His hands,_
He's got you and me children in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands…"

He's got my little bitty baby…who is now a beautiful tall woman…in His hands.  I pray this prayer everyday. 

Having a child living overseas brings Myanmar, Nairobi, Darfur, and Zimbabwe as close to you as your own heart.  When you hear her voice, in your ear on the phone from 12,000 miles away and your entire being feels her presence as if she were sitting next to you, the world suddenly shrinks like a deflating balloon. 

Global crises that once seemed so far away, so insurmountably "distant" are as close as your child's laughter is to you everyday that you are living with eight time zones and a vast ocean between you.  The first time she calls and isn't feeling well you realize that time and space cannot dull the ache of not being where she is to sing her to sleep and make her bowls of Cream of Wheat "with lots of brown sugar." 

I thought about this yesterday as I watched a young professor, who was teaching here in the states, interviewed about his parents and siblings who were still in Myanmar.  You could see the heartache in his eyes, you could heart the concern in his voice.  This was not a man who was relieved to be here away from the devastation, this was a man who wanted to be with his family helping his brothers find shelter for their parents, helping his sister carry her young children to safety.  To that young professor, Myanmar is not a world away…it is as close as his heart.

As I've watched news footage from Myanmar following this most recent cyclone's sweep across a sea of humanity, or of felt sickened by the media's coverage of violent civil unrest in an African country north of where my daughter lives, I breathe a prayer of longing for my neighbor's peace. I am so grateful to know that, even though the crises feels to those with loved ones in the midst of distant devastation and unrest, God is even closer.  God, Love bridges the gap between father and son laboring to save a family.  God as Mind imbues each of them with ideas, solutions, and yes, prayers that heal and save.

God comforts the heart of the mother whose daughter is not feeling well continents and oceans away while at the very same instant soothes the daughter who is feeling so far away from her mommy.  His love floods both the mother's…and the daughter's… thought with memories of childhood healings and the words to a forgotten, but well-loved hymn that can still the storms of worry and sadness, bringing peace to each troubled breast.   Both mother and daughter can rest as children in God's very wide-reaching divine arms.  The arms of this divine Mother stretch, as Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "across continents and oceans to the globes remotest bounds" gathering us all to Her divine bosom.

Today my prayers for the mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, business owners, monks and emergency personnel in Myanmar are not for a nameless, faceless sea of humanity ten thousand miles away.  My prayers are for His sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters who are as close to me as the sound of my daughter's laughter…or tears…in my ear when she calls to "touch base"  at the end of her day.

We are all just "little bitty babies" in His hands.
Kate

"Dear God...Who am I?"

As a child, I grew up afraid of doing wrong. I was afraid that if I broke a rule, or law, that I would lose the love and care of a God who was just sitting back, waiting for me to mess up.

I thought of the Ten Commandments as a set of regulations that told me what I wasn't allowed to do.

A conversation I had with God some years ago, opened my eyes to a fresh, new, and for me, healing view of the Ten Commandments. Suddenly, they weren't just a list of edicts, rules, directives and laws...or even choices - but promises. They were, in fact, God's way of describing me...to me. 

God is telling us who we are, and who we aren't (and won't ever be). And since He is the only power, we aren't even able to create a different selfhood than the one that he has already created. We have an identity that He continues to maintain with perfect attention and precision...accurate and intact.  Here's my version of that conscious correspondence with God:


Dear God:

I need to know who I am.  Who did you create me to be?  What were/are your expectations for my life, my thinking, my choices, and behavior?  What do you want me to do with this gift of life, that you have bestowed?

your loving daughter,

Kate


Dear Kate:

I love you, and because I love you, I have created you for only one purpose....to love Me (and your brothers and sisters), completely and without question.   The rest you are to leave up to me.    In order for you to do this, I have made you perfect. I have made you complete - wanting nothing.  You have everything you need to accomplish this task, to fulfill this mission.  In fact, since you asked, let me tell you exactly who you are, and why this is all so doable. Let me tell you why you aren't even tempted to be, or do, anything outside of my plan, purpose, or promise for you. 

I have made you to love me.  I have given you a heart that only longs for goodness, for love, truth and beauty.  This heart is designed to actually search for this goodness, love, beauty and truth...everywhere, in everything, to search high and low for my face in all things. 

Therefore you won't have any other Gods besides me.  You won't have any other creators, minds, sources of intelligence, affection, will...feared or imagined...they don't exist and you aren't powerful enough to create them ...I promise...this is how I have created you.

I also promise that You won't even be tempted to make unto yourself any graven images...I have already created everything you could ever need or want...in fact, since I am the only Mind, I am the only source of your wants, your desires.  Your desires are my gracious means for preparing your heart for what I have prepared for you. 

Speaking of our relationship, I know that you are aware that (at this writing) I have only called myself by one name...that is "I AM"...so because we love eachother neither of us would ever use this name, "I AM", in vain.  When you say "I am...." you will always follow it with a statement about yourself that is true according to the way I made you, that honors the integrity of our relationship.  You are only ever even inclined to say "I am good" or "I am honest" or "I am intelligent".  You would never promote a self that is separate from me, or refer to that self in a way that is futile and leads to nothing of value and promise. 

Okay, so here are some other descriptions that I have of you, my beloved and beautiful daughter:

You will (I promise... and I keep my promises) remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, I promise.  How could you ever forget that I put my benediction on that last step, that completion of creation and said, "It is very good."   I am the only Mind you have and you can't forget.  You will remember it is done, and it is good and that it is holy, wholly complete, finished, every tiny detail perfectly taken care of....I promise.  

Aren't you happy that you can rest in knowing that you will always honor your father and your mother...you don't have to worry that you will forget and do something that doesn't honor Me, your Father-Mother God, your only creator....because I am omnipotent, all powerful....you don't have the power or the will to usurp my authority and do something that will dishonor our tender loving relationship with eachother or the relationship you have with the mom and dad I have appointed for you to grow with in your experience,  this relationship with them (and all who represent those qualities of respect, nurturing, guidance in your expereince) allows you to express that love and trust which we share in practical and tangible ways.

Okay here are a few no brainers based on the above promises and descriptions I have given you of yourself:

You won't kill...you won't kill another's joy, promise, hope or peace.  You are like me and I love the beauty of the life that I have brought forth.  I know you do to because that is the way I made you.  So go ahead and love life to it's fullest.  Have life and have it more abundantly.  You will never even be tempted to kill even your own potential for good in this world....or anothers! 

You won't commit adultery...I made you singular in design...there are not versions of you.  I only have one mold for my image and likeness and its design remains intact.  You have only one will and it is "Thy will be done". I am with you at all times helping you remember who you are and what promises and vows I have given you to protect you and to keep your integrity intact.

You will not steal...why would you?  You have Me for your Father-Mother.  You have a Father-Mother who is all-powerful, always present and has all the resources of the universe at His disposal to be used to bless and to support Her dearly loved child of promise.  There is nothing good I will ever hold back from you. You trust me.  You know that you have no need to steal because I love you so much and want the very best for you.  You will never steal another's joy, peace of mind, hope for the future, confidence or gifts....you are a joint heir and you know that your common Parent has a limitless supply of good to bestow on all Her children.

You won't ever bear false witness against your neighbor...I haven't given you a heart for it.  You love your neighbor and you want only good for him/her.  You are so busy fulfilling my purpose for you, and it is so much fun, so wonderful, and so rich with blessing that you have no time to talk about others...you are to busy talking to them about Me and how wonderful your common Parent is in blessing, guiding and inspiring your life with purpose and goodness.

You won't covet your neighbor's wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, ass...well, really not anything that is your neighbors.   Why would you, based on all the above.  I love you...do you get that!  I have created you so perfect...so complete and whole...so without the need for want or covetousness.  You celebrate, joyfully acknowledge, your neighbor's abundance, your neighbor's good.  You appreciate it, good, wherever you see it.  You know that your appreciation of that goodness anywhere is an indication of your conscious awareness of it...in your own consciousness...and therefore it is already yours!!!   If you are conscious of it...you include it!  It is already consciously yours.  Trust it to take form in your experience.

Basically, that's my description of you.  This is how I made you.  This is who you are and I promise that I will never leave you.  I will maintain the integrity of this promise...the perfection of this creation.  I have the all the power in the universe, I am ever aware, always present and most importantly...I LOVE YOU!!!!   Now get busy with loving your neighbor.

Your loving Father-Mother,

God

"All that is made is the work of God, and all is good.  We leave this brief, glorious history of spiritual creation (as stated in the first chapter of Genesis) in the hands of God, not of man, in the keeping of Spirit, not matter, -- joyfully acknowledging now and forever God's supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence."

                                             - M. B. Eddy (Science & Health, pg. 521)




Dear God:

Wow...thanks!

all my love,

Kate