wait, never doubting...

"Sunshine on my shoulders
makes me happy,
sunshine in my eyes
can make me cry,
Sunshine on the water
looks so lovely..."

Here in the high Rockies we've seen very little of the sun this spring. It's hard not to miss the feeling of "Sunshine on My Shoulders," that John Denver sings about in this lovely performance.

I actually love these cloudy, rainy, snow-spitting spring days in the mountains. But I also enjoy the bone-deep warmth of the sun on my shoulders.  I know that whatever unfolds in this valley is going to be beautiful.  Often I will ask nature, "what do you have to teach me today?" And then I wait. This morning was no different.

Lowering clouds of blue-black slate, the weight of moisture in the air, the soft filtered light of an impending storm -- what was it's message. I stood silently at the reed-lined edge of our lake, and saw the play of almost-light upon the water.  Then the question came, "why don't you doubt the sun?"

Hmmm, I thought. I haven't actually seen the sun for days. All sensible evidence would point to a fading, a dissolution, a failing. But I had never even considered the possibility that the sun was in decline.

Every glimmer of light, every sprouting seed, each flower reaching towards the southwest reminded me that the sun is where it has always been. Diffused light, soft shadows, the barest warmth -- it is enough.

I have been thinking about this today in light of Mary Baker Eddy's statement on the first page of her "Preface" to Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The wakeful shepherd
beholds the first faint morning beams,
ere cometh the full radiance
of a risen day." 

This is my purpose. To stay focused on the presence of light. To know -- with all my being -- that it portends the full radiant presence of the Sun. Or, as Eddy elsewhere encourages, to:

"wait, never doubting" 

Why? Why, if the light seems to be fading, the warmth to be retreating, the clouds overpowering, do we not doubt?  Well, I think it's  because we know that you can't just get a little piece of the Sun. If the light is at all present, it is all present.

So it is with God's presence. If we are at all aware of the presence of good, it portends the full and undiminished presence of all good, of complete health, of undiminished joy and peace.

You can't get a little bit of God. You just can't. The only measure of the Infinite -- is infinite. The only portion of All-in-all -- is all.

So, whatever tries to convince you that God's goodness is absent in your life: illness - parading itself as the absence of health, pain - marketing itself as the absence of peace, hatred, anger, fear - suggesting themselves as the absence of Love -- don't buy it. Keep you heart transfixed on whatever glimmer of God's goodness you can see, feel, hear. And never forget what it portends.

Just as the darkest shadow is really only an indication of the brightest light -- the darkest storm is only the opportunity to feel the central calm within.

And if you wait -- wait upon (serve), not wait for -- never doubting, you will discover a light that never fades, a warmth that never cools, and an unwavering peace that comes from a deeply radiant kingdom -- the consciousness of Love's ever-active presence -- within.


with all my love -- and with Love,

Kate

"Poems, and prayers, and promises..."

"Talk of poems, and prayers, and promises,
and things that we believe in:
how sweet it is to love someone,
how right it is to care;
how long its been since yesterday,
and what about tomorrow;
and what about our dreams,
and all the memories we share..."
-     John Denver

I've loved this song for almost forty years.  It was the summer of 1971.  I'd been invited, along with other girls from our senior class, to work at the historic Inn our hometown dentist owned on the shores of an island in the middle of beautiful Lake Champlain in northern Vermont.  I was thrilled....and nervous.  It would be the first time in my life I'd been away from my entire family.  I didn't know how I would sleep without my sister next to me.  

I waved goodbye to everyone from the backseat of Diane's parents' station wagon, and I was free, independent...grown up.  We drove all day, crossing onto a narrow string of islands, by ferry, in the early afternoon,  and arriving at the Inn just before dinner.

It was enchantment at first sight.  A large yellow clapboard inn with a matching yellow barn on the inland side of the road that ran along the shoreline. There were additional guestrooms in a building across the street, at the head of a long grassy pier that once welcomed excursion travelers, but now stretched into the lake and was used for weddings and special events. A small, crescent-shaped beach held a scattering of adirondack chairs just waiting for guests to arrive with book in hand and a nap on the agenda, while nuzzled against a short wooden dock was a skiboat tethered to a shiny cleat, bouncing and bumping, like an yearling colt chomping at the bit, ready for the summer adventure to begin.   It was heavenly.

Their were 14 of us girls, all going into our senior year of high school, and a manager (who masqueraded as our dental hygienist during the school year), the good dentist, his wife and two young children.  A handy man and a cook extraordinaire rounded out our summer team. 

The first few days were spent cleaning, prepping in the kitchen, setting up the dining room, and making up guest rooms.  The fourth day we readied small sailboats and the water-skiing boat for guest arrivals and raked the beach.  Day five was ours.  We were told to enjoy it...another day off would be rare.  In hindsight I realize that they weren't kidding.  We worked long days, rising before dawn and turning out the lights in the dining room near midnight, seven days a week...all for $14.77 and as much ice cream as we could eat.  We all, did everything...waitresses, chambermaids, sailing instructor, sous chef, hostess, babysitter, registration desk, you name it...we did it.  And we loved it. 

But back to that first day off.   The fourteen of us girls, piled into sunnies (the small sailboats we used to teach sailing to children) and made our way out into open water, around to the other side of a small island covered in bramble and old growth scrub pines, to reach an even smaller rocky island with few trees.  Gull Island was about the size of a small city block.  Large granite outcroppings, and a few stands of scraggly pine trees. It looked like a great, playful giant had pitched a handful of enormous marbles onto the beach.  These boulders were soft and worn and perfect for lolling on in the early summer sun. 

I'd only ever been with my siblings, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents at a beach.  This was different...this was a dream come true.  Sally had brought her transistor radio and a satchel full of magazines, candy, fruit, a bottle of baby oil laced with iodine (a silly tanning myth from the 70s), and extra batteries for the radio.  We each had a towel, a sack lunch, and a soda.  We were ready.

Before I could stretch myself across the back of a large grey boulder, I noticed that bathing suits were being abandoned faster than the gulls on the beach could retrieve an errant brownie crumb.

This was going to be a skinny-dipping sun-bathing party.  "Well," I thought, "This is a first for me, but we are in the middle of nowhere, so what the heck!"  I was as bare as a baby before the next wave could hit the sand.  We talked and laughed and listened to music, turning this way and that to be sure the sun had touched every bit of us.

When a bank of clouds started to hide the sun, we put on suits and t-shirts, turned up the music and danced on the rocks like the dancers on our favorite variety show.  And before the first raindrop, from a sudden afternoon storm, hit the beach, we were on our way back around the larger island, across the expanse of clear blue water, and pulling up to the beach ready to tie up the skiboat, pull the sunnies onto the sand and run for the Inn.  We were pink-cheeked, sun-kissed, and dreaming of the gorgeous tans we'd have the next day for guest arrivals.  Who knew, perhaps one of the families would have a college-age son. 

It had been one of the best days of my life...so far.  I fell asleep under the eaves of our attic dormitory lined with fourteen beds...seven on each side...singing all the songs we'd heard on Sally's transistor radio that day.  It was the summer of the singer-songwriter, and James Taylor, Carole King, John Denver, Cat Stevens and Bread. And long after each of the other girls had nodded off, James Taylor and friends were still singing lullabies in my head as I fell asleep that night.

But I didn't stay asleep for long.  Sometime in the middle of the night, with thirteen other girls sleeping heavily all around me, I woke to a searing pain covering my body....all of my body.  Every square millimeter from head to toe, back and front, stinging and burning.  I padded off to the bathroom, on the third floor below our attic room, turned on the light and gasped.  I was a swollen, blistered, red version of an oompah loompah. And it hurt...everywhere. 

I didn't know what to do.  These were the days of pre cellphone, pre cordless phones and expensive long distance rates...and I didn't even know where to find a phone, much less how to make an out-of-state long distance collect call to my parents.  I was on my own and suddenly, being on my own was really scary.  I missed my mom, my sisters, my own bed, the little lamp next to my bed and the books that lined the bookshelf that served as my bed's headboard back home.  I felt like crying, but the salt in my tears burned as it ran over the blisters on my face. 

I went back to my bed in the attic and lay as still as I could on top of the softly-worn, white cotton sheets.  But I couldn't turn off the radio that had been playing, all night, in my head.  I tried, but all I was able to do was change songs.  I was frustrated and scared. 

That was when John Denver's "Poems, and Prayers, and Promises" came up in the rotation of selctions on my mental radio.  And it was just what I needed.  The sound of it was as gentle and peaceful as my mother's nightly litany of lullabies.  The words were meaningful and I listened with new ears...and then I thought about what I was hearing.

"...talk of poems, and prayers, and promises,
and things that we believe in:
how sweet it is to love someone,
how right it is to care..."

I thought of poems.  Mary Baker Eddy's "Mother's Evening Prayer." "Feed My Sheep." "Satisfied."  Each stanza working like another layer of healing oil.  Each comforting verse, a calming balm on my heart.  I thought of prayers.  "The Lord's Prayer," "The Little Children's Prayer," "The 23rd Psalms"...the prayers of my childhood.  The prayers my mother had so vigilantly taught me to say, and sing, every night since I was a little girl.   And promises.  "I am with thee." "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good," "before they call, I will answer," and "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."  Promises God had faithfully kept throughout my childhood.

I fell asleep without realizing it.  I slept through the night and woke at 4:30 on the day our first guests arrived no less red or blistery, but peaceful, just about pain-free, and eagerly ready to start the summer.  I slipped into my 100% polyester pique white and harvest gold uniform with the zipper up the front, and headed down to the kitchen to fry rashers of bacon and baste dozens of sticky pecan rolls with butter and brown sugar.  It was a good day...I was filled with poems, and prayers, and promises...and things that I believed in.  My mom had prepared me well for my first summer away from home.

Almost forty years later I still love this song. 

"...I have to say it now,
it's been a good life, all in all.
It's really fine to have a chance
to hang around...

...and talk of poems, and prayers, and promises,
and things that we believe in:
how sweet it is to love someone,
how right it is to care;
how long its been since yesterday,
and what about tomorrow;
and what about our dreams,
and all the memories we share..."

Yes, these are the things that I still believe in.  Somethings just don't change.

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Click on this link, if you would like to watch a video of John Denver singing "Poems, and prayers, and promises" with The Muppets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[photo credit: Emily Alexadra Conroyd 2009]

"...poems and prayers and promises..."

"...talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long its been since yesterday
And what about tomorrow
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share…"
-John Denver

The girls and I will drive out of the Arkansas Valley on Friday night.  Only part of the reason we will leave under the cloak of darkness is logistical, there is also my historic reluctance to be here for the early morning goodbyes as the airport bus pulls out of the parking lot to the tune of teenagers reduced to tears and counselors singing "Happy Trails" (do we still do that…it used to tear my heart out)  I admit it, I am weak. 

Instead I will snuggle the girls into their seats after banquet, surround them with pillows and old quilts, put a CD of hymns on for them to fall asleep to, and by the time we head up the first pass, I will be alone with my thoughts. 

Those thoughts will be a celebration of one pretty amazing summer of love.  Pure and simple that's what it's all about here.  Love, love, love…and more love.

Love for horses, love for friends…old and new, love for God, love for adventure, love for this place of beauty and majesty, love for ourselves...honoring the best we can be through service to others…love for a vision held by Adventure Unlimited founders Cap and Marianne Andrews and cherished by parents, campers, counselors, staff, supporters and trustees for the last 53 years.

This summer I will take home memories of horses nobly shaking off injuries to serve campers at polocrosse matches, on 3-day mountain treks, and in rodeos where the dance between rider and mount is choreographed by a God who loves beauty and grace.

I will take home countless reminders of God's instant and irreversible healing care of His beloved children…of all ages.  I will celebrate the once-lame dancing and the once-sorrowing leaping with joy.  I will hold close the memory of dinners where every bite is a work of vegetarian art and conga lines weave between tables in a crowded dining room.

But most of all, it will be the conversations on the porch of Crowsnest that will feed my heart all year long.  Teens clutching camp-worn and notation weary copies of their Bible lessons sharing inspiration found on in the middle of a scree field at 13,000 feet or hungering for a spiritual understanding of their moral freedom, physical wellness, unerring direction, or just a sense of peace in the midst of personal storms.

I will smile when I see a county worker digging ditches or construction workers in hardhats remembering the ranch hands dressed as The Village People and dancing to "YMCA" as their camp introduction on arrival night.

I will mentally sing "The Bristlecone Pine" in a squeaky voice (with "wrists together" and "booty out") until I drive myself crazy.  I will wipe a tear or two whenever I think of Lach's tenderness with horses (and riders) or Alison's early morning visits to Round Up for staff inspirational.

I will clutch these images closely all year long and pray for the love that is the substance behind them, to live and breathe and echo in the hearts of these children we all love so much. 

Camp will live in me all year until I can live in her again…
Kate

"Sweet, sweet surrender..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

"He was born in the summer
of his twenty-seventh year
Comin' home
To a place he'd never been before…"
- John Denver

Well, it wasn't my twenty-seventh year, but close.  The first time I drove through the gates of the Adventure Unlimited Ranches I was "coming home to a place I'd never been before".  But the story of my relationship to this place nestled high in the Rocky Mountains at the base of Columbia, started when I was 11 years old.

My best friend from Sunday School, Becky (and her younger sister Suzy, who was my sister Nancy's best friend) went to Adventure Unlimited every summer for weeks of horseback riding, canoeing, singing camp songs, and sleeping under the stars.  Preparation for "camp" however started in the spring.  There were shopping trips for boots, cowgirl shirts and hats, jeans, pocket knifes and flashlight.  And my sister and I loved being included in any way we could. 

We were the eldest children in a family of eight and camp was not an option on an already stretched budget.  But rather than feeling jealous or resentful, something that still surprises me, we felt so happy to be able to participate in "camp" through the shopping expeditions and the long Saturday afternoons of taking turns standing at the ironing board pressing name labels into every piece of clothing they would take with them.

Once school was out in early June, the four of us, with Becky and Suzy's mother, Jane, would kick into high gear.  We would scour the packing list looking to see if there was anything we missed.  I felt like I carried that list in my head with me.  I would go over and over it as I drifted off to sleep at night.  Did we have enough bandanas, did we remember to label Becky's new belt, how would we pack the cowboy boots so that they didn't take up too much room. 

By the time we were actually ready to put everything in the big trunks with the chrome corner "bumpers" and the wide leather handle, I had already done so in my head a hundred times.  I had done it so often that I had to sit on my hands when, to my surprise, Becky's mom put the jeans on the left, instead of in the middle next to the cowgirl shirts with the pearl snaps and pointy pocket flaps.  Didn't she realize that they went together?

Nancy and I were included in everything right down to taking Becky and Suzy to the airport.  And that was really where it all started…at least for me.  Becky was a great best friend.  She knew how much I longed to be there with her.  So she wrote me almost every day describing everything about camp.  She drew maps and told me stories.  I would write back with my questions about names of horses, what they had for breakfast, and the love lives of counselors.

I would try to follow the camp schedule from my bunkbed and suburban neighborhood back home. 

And when she returned at the end of her Colorado summer, we could hardly wait for her photographs to come back from the lab.  We would pour over them…me asking hundreds of questions and Becky patiently answering all of them.

By the summer of my almost, but not quite, twenty-seventh year, although my dad had passed on, we had found a way for each of my younger siblings (who wanted to) to go to camp.  And although I had been very active in local youth activities sponsored by the Adventure Unlimited organization's regional chapters, serving on teen boards and volunteering throughout high school, I had never been to "the ranches".

That first drive through the gates of "A/U" was truly a homecoming.  Thanks to Becky's maps, sketches, photographs, letters, and endless patience with my bottomless pit of questions, I knew this property like the back of my hand…or more accurately…like the landscape of my heart.

But there was, however, one place that surprised me…Marianne's chapel.  It was named for one of the real heriones of my lifetime (I had many historical and fictional ones…Mary Baker Eddy, Jo March, Elizabeth Bennett, Isaak Dinesen, Joan of Arc), Marianne Andrews, who with her husband, John (affectionately called Cap) founded the Adventure Unlimited Ranches. Since it had been built in her memory some years after Becky had stopped coming to camp I had never heard about it and so was astonished to have something new to add to the map etched on my heart.  After I had climbed the stairs to the Chuckwagon loft… letting my fingers drift across sun-bleached and faded spines of score of old blue cloth covered Nancy Drew mysteries, well-loved but weary hymnals, and Audubon field guides, lay on a bottom bunk in Horseshoe cabin L…reading the names of girls I might have known engraved in the bed slats above me, and sat in the middle of the island at Valerie Lake…straining to hear the sounds of camp songs echoing through the decades and across the valley - I wandered down the path to the chapel.

There I let myself be "born again.  I let Marianne's dream of nurturing the best in children …cherishing their spiritual maturity, witnessing their boundless bliss, and giving them a laboratory, through this camp, to practice practical scientific Christianity…become my own. 

When the wind whispers through the aspens above my cabin and the breeze sings through the pines…when the little stream murmurs a prayer just beyond my porch and the hummingbirds whir and weave around me while I sit, looking out across Valerie Lake, and pray…it is God's message of grace I hear…but the voices are those of Marianne, Becky, Maree, Cap, Mac, Annie, Deb, Alison, and so many more...I hear the voices of all the teens who have filled this valley with healing, songs, tears, and laughter...and my heart...and my home are full.

This is my home…but it is not a place on a map.  It was my home long before I ever stepped on this piece of geographical real estate in the Arkansas Valley.  This place existed in my heart for almost a dozen years before felt it's sage and ochre landscape under my feet.  I could come here at a moment's notice and never needed a penny to have access to her promise.

Coming here was "coming home…" but carrying her with me…her mission, her opportunities, her purpose and promise…has grounded me on a rock through many personal storms.

Last night, when the words to "Rocky Mountain High" wafted up from the campfire to my cabin porch I wept tears of deep gratitude and peace. Not just for the gift of being graced with another year of serving her purpose through this office.  But my tears were also for the gift of knowing that each of those teens (and maybe even a friend or sibling they might be sharing letters with back home) now has a home that can never be taken from them.  This is a home where they can always go and rediscover something pure and good and selfless in themselves…a place they will carry within their heart forever.  And, I hope, it is a  place where the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures became a "key to every door".

"He was born in the summer
of his twenty-seventh year.
Comin' home
To a place he'd never been before.
He left yesterday behind him,
You might say he was born again.
You might say he found the key to every door.

Colorado Rocky Mountain high,
I've seen it rainin' fir in the sky
The shadow from the starlight
Is softer than a lullaby,
Rocky Mountain High…
Colorado"

It 's good to be home,
Kate