"You will miss these days…"

"suddenly,
there's a shadow
hanging over me…"
- Lennon/McCartney

"There will come a time, when you will miss these days," he said with a sigh. I was sure he was either as mad-as-a-hatter, or worse yet, just-plain-mean, for saying this to me.

When I think of that conversation, and my mentor's sigh, it's not so much the lyrics from Lennon and McCartney's, "Yesterday," that come to mind, but its tone that rings true.

I'd called my friend because my life was falling apart. Everything -- my marriage, my career, my body, my dreams -- were all coming loose at the seams and I couldn't hold it together. I was afraid and empty.  And the only thing that took away that feeling of total panic and hopelessness, was a book: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

I'm not saying that everything between the book's covers made sense to me, just that reading it seemed to lift the fog that engulfed every other moment.  I was tired, I'd been very ill, and I was feeling more alone than I'd ever felt in my life. I didn't have a job, and I didn't know how to navigate this landscape -- at all.

I needed to be useful, so I begged a friend to let me volunteer in her department.  Those hours spent in service to others, kept me from going mad. I sat at a desk outside her office, answered her phone, did odd office jobs, and read from the copy of Science and Health that I kept in the top right drawer  - laying open on top of pens, pencils, paper clips, and rubber bands.

It helped, but I wanted more than relief. I was hungry for healing. I was aching to find peace from the pain. I was starving for the Truth that would make it all go away -- the sorrow, the confusion, the emptiness.

All the truths I'd thought I understood -- about being a good human -- had just dissolved before my eyes. I couldn't believe that I had studied scripture, prayed daily, served my church faithfully, and was still facing such a "dark night of the soul."

But I was. And my friend was right. There would come a time when I would miss those days. There would come a day -- in the not too distant further -- when I would miss the raw ache of wanting a deeper spiritual understanding, in the midst of human delusion. And there have been days, since then, when I have yearned for the kind of "on my knees, begging for spiritual nourishment"  moments which I so sorely felt in those weeks and months of spiritual hunger. But there have also been days when I wondered why I missed them so. 

They still come, but today, I know enough to not be so afraid when I am facing the darkness. I have discovered that these are "the best of times," in what my human sense of things calls, "the worst of times." 

And I understand my mentor's sigh now. I think back to how every word of Scripture felt like a drop of water on my cracked and thirsty heart. I tear-up with gratitude for having walked that path, and for having found the waymarks left along the way by Biblical (and contemporary) spiritual travelers who must have known that others -- like me -- would follow, and need their encouragement to keep going.

And I did find a new view of things. It's funny, recently someone told me that I never remember to say, "and the healing came…" I am often remiss in acknowledging that there was a shift in my experience because I get so caught up in the stark beauty of the spiritual journey.  But there was a shift -- many shifts.

And I am so very grateful. There were so many fingerposts along the way. Small messages of encouragement that kept my head above water, and saved me from drowning in despair.

For example, I remember the first time I read this Beatitude, from Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," in the book of Matthew with new eyes:

"Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst
after righteousness:
for they
shall be filled." 

To realize that the primary blessing was in the hungering and thirsting. And that the "being filled," was almost an after thought -- "oh yes, and they shall be filled." This gave me such a sense of peace.

And then there was that moment when I read this note of encouragement from Eddy's Science and Health:

"Our disappointments
and ceaseless woes
turn us like tired children
to the arms of divine Love,
then we begin
to learn life in divine Science.” 

and realized that facing disappointments and ceaseless woes wasn't the end of my spiritual journey -- the equivalent of a rejection button on my failed prayers. But that these moments were actually the beginning of learning something new about life in divine Science -- now that was a big sigh moment.

Today, having faced many moments of disappointment and woe -- my own, or another's -- I've come to accept and embrace them with less fear, and more grace. They can still shake me, but they can't touch what I know to be true: that these are not days of failure, but days filled with spiritual hunger.  And these are the days that I will miss. Because these are often the days when the light of Truth is most clearly seen in the context of human disappointment and woe.

I've also discovered that I have it in me to really love this hunger. I know that I want these experiences that lead me deeper and deeper into the fields of the Lord -- gleaning every fallen seed.  So now, it is me that is sighing - with a sweet, sober sense of expectation and love.  I sigh, because I know, that when my world seems to be falling apart, I am just beginning a new journey.

offered with Love,

Kate

"I will...."

Last night, as I thought about Valentines Day and considered songs that spoke to me of enduring love and the beauty of "being known." And it was Lennon and McCartney's I will…" that came to mind. Here is a earlier post from 2012 -- and with a few tweaks -- it still rings true for me.

"Who knows how long I've loved you..."

"Who knows how long I've loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely life time
If you want me to I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we are apart…"
- Lennon/McCartney

I have always felt this way about my children and my husband.  It is as if I have always known them.  And when I say always, I don't mean as far back as their birth -- or mine -- but to and from infinity and beyond. 

And meeting someone new -- a family member of a friend -- has often been more of an, "oh, I remember you," than a "nice to meet you."

There is always something vaguely familiar poking at the edges my heart. It is almost as if I've seen them somewhere before. But the details of the memory elude me.  There is an, "oh yes, there you are" to the shade of green in my eldest daughter's eyes. A foreverness in the way my sister's fingers feel -- slender and cool in my hand -- as we talk about hopes, and dreams, and heartbreak.

It is found in the graceful beauty of my girlfriend's gestures and mannerisms whenever she's animated about something. It is in the sharp intake of breath, and then the shy girlish giggle, when my mother is startled. I hear it in the sound of another daughter's voice singing from behind my seat in the car.   And the way her sister's eyes well up at the thought of a homeless puppy waiting for adoption at the neighborhood Petsmart.  It is in the color of the African veld at sunset. These are things that feel as timeless and familiar as the strains of an ancient lullaby.

I have written about my confidence in the eternality of life -- when a loved one has passed. But I feel this same sense of timelessness about a child's birth, meeting a new friend, or discovering love.

Carly Simon sings in "Life is Eternal":

"Life is eternal
And Love is immortal
And death [birth] is only a horizon
And the horizon
Is nothing save
The limit of our sight..."

I believe that the horizon we call birth, is nothing but the limit of what we remember.  And the timeline of measured moments between birth and death which we refer to as life -- and then try to extend as long as possible -- is just one chapter in a very long book. Just one more expanse of prairie, between mountain ranges. Simply the stretch of landscape we can see in a given moment. But not the end -- or the beginning -- of the journey itself. 

Early memories -- our own, or those of someone who claims to have been there -- seems to define the beginning of our lives.  But what if these moments -- when we recognize something familiar, in someone we are meeting for the first time -- is really just a glimpse beyond the last horizon.

I only know that when my husband laughs, I often feel that I have known that sound longer than my own name -- or his.  I know that his hand at the small of my back -- gently steering me out of harms way -- is as enduringly familiar, as my own hand against my cheek in sleep.

It gives me great pause to think that perhaps we are rarely meeting anyone for the first time. Maybe we are just reconnecting on this side of the last horizon.

"…And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
And you know I will
I will…"

Here is a link is to my favorite recording of
I will…" by Alison Krauss

always -- and again,
Kate

"Everywhere..."

"I need you everywhere,
and as long as you're beside me
I need never care
For to love you is to
have you everywhere..."
-     John Lennon

I know that the original lyrics to Lennon's "Here, and There, and Everywhere," were written for a girl...but, that's just not the way I hear it these days.   Please forgive the liberty I have taken here....again.

It all started last fall, when I was writing a post about the omnipresences of Spirit, sharing a healing I'd experienced on the heels of realizing that any suggestion of something -- good or bad -- being exclusive to one location, person, body part, activity, etc....and not to another...is a lie.  A lie.  The opposite of the truth.  Not even a little bit true.  Not containing even one tiny molecule of truth.  No matter how good it may look, or how bad it may feel, it is a lie.  Period. 

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

"Love (God) is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."

In the study and practice of Christian Science, the word "Love," when capitalized, is another name for God...along with Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, and Truth.  These terms, or names, are synonymous - meaning that they are interchangeable...that the presence of one, directly implies the presence of the others. So, for example, if Love, as Eddy promises, is impartial and universal, so is Principle (order), Soul (beauty), Life (vitality), Mind (intelligence),  Spirit (substance), Truth (health).

I have come to see that this law of universal impartiality is the truth about God's relationship to each of us...individually and collectively.  It is a law that is reliable and foundational to our trust in Him as our Father...a Father who has no favorites. He never plays one child against another in His universal family.  And this truth holds us in a closer, gentler bond of sweet union and affection ...it embraces us in the gospel (the good news) of His generous, impartial Love.  The children in this family never need to compete for their divine Parent's affection, attention, resources, or time.  What a wonderful place to grow up!

I wonder sometimes, though, if we really live out from the liberty that this truth affords.  We talk about Spirit, God, being All-in-all.  And our prayers sing of a God who is omni-present...both present - as in everywhere, and present - as in always,  "now," in this moment.  But do we really trust these promises? Do we rest our hopes, our expectations,  and our freedom from the fear of "well, that's great for him/her...but not for me," upon them?

The other day I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) on my drive across Kansas.  Reports of a stalled financial recovery and the ongoing collapse of the housing market, were followed by stories of congressional resistance to extended unemployment benefits, corporate corruption that continues to result in exorbitantly inflated bonuses for CEOs, and then, a heart-rending account of a young father who'd been the responsible provider for his family, until his middle management job had been cut and the loss of income was forcing them out of their home. Here was a man who desperately wants to work, but can't find a job...any job. 

My heart was sick, and soon my tummy was feeling sick, too.  I could easily see the cause-and-effect connection that wanted to present itself: "See Kate, you are completely upset by the ample evidence that God's love for humanity is partial and exclusive...resulting in growing a socio-economic caste system of haves and have-nots, therefore you are experiencing this unsettledness as an upset stomach."  But I knew that this kind of reasoning would get me nowhere. I needed to start with the truth of being, not lies, if I was going to get anywhere in addressing this turmoil.

I turned off the radio.  And as I began to pray for peace in my heart...and my tummy...I was reminded of the healing I'd experienced last fall, and the truth of God's universal omnipresence I'd come to trust, return to, and rely on, pretty consistently since then.  I reminded myself that if something...good, or bad...seems localized, it is a sure sign that it is a lie.   Truth, being synonymous with Spirit, cannot be contained, personalized, partial,  portioned, isolated, or exclusively experienced...by a segment of society, or a body part.

I prayed out from God's impartiality.  I claimed that the only things that were, or ever could be experienced as true and real, were those things that can't be localized.  Things like joy and peace...have you ever tried to feel peace only in your ear or your elbow, affection only in your wrist, or hope in your little toe.  But, even though my tummy was soon feeling well again, I couldn't seem to let the sense of sorrow go.  I found myself wrestling even more vigorously with the evidence of socio-economic inequity all around me.   I knew it wasn't going to dissolve without clear spiritual reasoning, so I persisted, continuing to go back to two of my base spiritual truths... over and over again:

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

and that:

"Love is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals."

As I prayed for clearer insights and spiritual guidance, I saw that although I loved these statements from Science and Health,  somehow they weren't quite enough.  I wanted scriptural bedrock...the inspired word of the Bible as a place to build my mental house on. This was what I knew I was reaching for. 

As a spiritual law student, the Bible is my constitution...it constitutes the foundation on which I build, and rest, my case in defense of our God-given liberty as spiritual thinkers.  It is my divine law library where I can often be found, at all hours...day and night...seeking precedence for placing unshakeable trust on the timeless, irrefutable laws of Spirit.

Persisting in prayer throughout the day, God led me quietly, and quite forcibly, to the exact Biblical truth that would ground my faith, and steel my trust.

It's probably important to explain, here, that as a student of Christian Science, I accept the premise that the first Chapter of Genesis (through the third verse in Chapter 2) is the spiritual record of Creation.  And the fourth verse of Chapter 2 through Chapter 5, as allegorical examples of how the opposite of truth...or the opposition to truth...would present itself to our thinking, and thereby color our experiences.

And in the midst of my Scriptural study I found this:

"We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

YES!  Because this statement appears in the second chapter of Genesis, the record of creation that we believe is a lie...we get to thumb our nose at anything that mocks divine Love, anything that parades itself in front of humanity as injustice, inviting us to limit our hopes and defile our view of our Father and His love for us.   This false story refers to, and tries to get us to accept the false premise of a partial God, with a "special" tree.  It asserts that good and/or evil could be localized in one exclusive, and isolated, tree.  A lie.  And the fact that this story was placed in this "lying" second chapter of Genesis gives us the Biblical basis, the scriptural authority, for dismissing it as a fallacious tale...as an inversely instructive fable.  And by inversion, by stating what the lie, the opposite of the truth, looks and sounds like, it serves to point us towards the truth, God's impartial love...constitutional law for every citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  It gives each of us authority for rejecting this suggestion of divine selectivity, out of hand.

If something tries to say that goodness is here, and not there; that health is in one body part, but not throughout the entire system; if it tries to convince you that some have, and some don't, or that one person/group deserves good..justice, mercy, joy, peace, prosperity, wellness...and another doesn't, it is a bold-faced lie.  If you buy it in any form, it will come sneaking in through the back door of your experience, and bite you in the proverbial donkey.

Dismiss this lie of partiality with as much conviction as you would reject an imposed penalty for breaking an inhumane and unconstitutional law...therefore, a law that was never really a law to begin with...a law that never has, never is, and never will be... a law!  Dismiss it as confidently as if your neighbor came up to you one day and said that you were going to prison because you smiled on a Tuesday.  Well, you know, with absolute certainty, that there is no law that prevents you from smiling on Tuesday...so smile, laugh, kick up your heels, dance in the streets...you are free.  You are always free...impartially, universally, absolutely, spiritually, Biblically, joyfully free.

with Love, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Nathaniel Wilder 2010]

"You were only waiting for this moment to arise..."

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings
and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting
for this moment to arise..."
Lennon/McCartney

We'd been friends and colleagues. We loved music and coffeehouses, Joni Mitchell and anyone singing "Blackbird."  It was our song. 

I'd sat knee-to-knee with her in faculty senate meetings. I'd listened to her ideas on countless conference calls, and we'd enjoyed talking mission and vision in the company of colleagues with opposing points of view. I'd helped her with curriculum planning.  She'd helped me with tenure, promotions, and appointments decisions.  The goal was a better institution, not to be better than one another.  Ten-year plans and organizational strategies were our favorite board games.  I trusted her.  I respected her.  And in the blink of a moment, our relationship was gone. 

As our career paths had crossed, converged, and diverged over the years, we'd each had opportunities and disappointments, successes and setbacks.  We were each other's shoulder to cry on, and biggest fan.  That was, until one of us broke through a glass ceiling of sorts, and became the other's "boss."

I'd never felt more misunderstood and alone.  Navigating this new territory was terrifying.  No matter what I said it was taken as a slight.  No matter what she said, it felt like an attack.  Our mutual friends were traumatized, our families were confused, and our hearts were breaking.

The funny thing was, I now know that we were both praying…humbly, meekly, importunately. And we were both hearing our “angels” (God’s thoughts passing to man, spiritual intuitions – pure and perfect) but, in our own, personal angel-inhabited versions of heaven, we were, each, the only one who could possibly be right…leaving us both alone. She stole my voice, I undermined her vision, which of us had more authority, “who’s on first” …and on, and on it went, until we found ourselves avoiding department meetings if we thought we’d run into eachother.

Then one night I was sitting in my office, long after the cleaning crew had come through, and I heard sobbing from the other end of the hall.  I wondered if it might have been a graduate assistant with boyfriend troubles, and decided to offer my sage twenty-something counsel. 

I got up from my desk, headed towards the "bullpen" at the far end of the hall where staff assistants and student interns, had their desks. 

But the sound of crying became fainter with each footstep.  So I turned and headed back toward "our" end of the hall, where private offices lined the corridor.  As I passed my own office and continued further away from the bullpen, the weeping got louder until I was standing in front of my friend's office.  It was obvious.  She was in deep emotional pain.  These were not frustrated, angry tears, this was the sound of a broken heart.

I didn't have to know if I was at the core of her heartbreak, just the thought that I might be, was more than enough.  Tears flooded my eyes and washed the darkly imagined personal sense script of hurt, and ego-centric "me-vs.-thee" thinking from my heart.  The compassion I immediately felt for my friend...in that moment...was like light radiating from within.  A laser-like Love that cut through mis-understanding with the only kind of "understanding" that ever really matters...an understanding heart. 

It didn't matter who was "boss."  It didn't matter which of us had a better working understanding of the lives of early women thought-pioneers, or a more scholarly understanding of the importance of suffrage, or who understood the history of feminism or spiritual texts that honored the divine feminine.  The only understanding that really mattered was our sisterhood, our compassion for one another.  The only thing that would make a difference was an understanding of where someone else might be coming from, what they might be going through, and how they might be feeling. The understanding that mattered was the kind that was synonymous with compassion, not intellectual achievement or scholarship.

In that moment of compassion, divine Love pierced the membrane of self, and deflated the ego. 

I tiptoed away from my colleague's door and back towards my own office where I picked up the phone and called her at her desk.  I somehow knew that if my own ego-hardened heart could be spiritually re-booted, perhaps so could hers.  I can now see that we'd both been hoodwinked by "the ego," and we were discovering that it was time to kick it out of our relationship...together.

When she answer softly...probably having seen my office extension displayed on her phone console, I told her I'd noticed the light under her office door and wondered if she wanted a cup of tea and some of the girl scout cookies I'd brought in that morning.  I knew I was on sacred ground, we shared a great love for Thin Mints...and eachother.

Within ten minutes, we'd started over...tea, chocolate cookies...and understanding.  We were not two isolated blackbirds singing in the dead of night...alone and broken.   We were women, sisters, friends...waiting for "this moment to arrive" like an updraft, a thermal of Love, lifting us above competition, hierarchy, comparison, and the insidious invitation to jockey for position. We were beyond glass ceilings...we were soaring in the space of Love's genderless sky where all sing...where all sweep, and glide, and speak, and dance in Pneuma's ever-equalized, rarified spiritual enviroment. No drop in pressure, no ozone layers of pride and selfishness, no toxic envy or arrogance....just Love.

We would go on to celebrate eachother's victories, encourage one another to dream very special dreams...even after we ceased to have offices on the same hall...make big differences, in an even bigger world, and pledge to never stand on the shoulders of another woman, but link arms with our fellow sisters and rise together on that updraft of spiritual compassion and love...to bring other women higher with us as we learned to fly.

I am so grateful for the sisterhood of sweet-throated blackbirds...sharing a thermal is the best way to travel!!

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I pledge to Love"

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

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

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

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

So, tonight this is all I will say:

"I pledge to Love"

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

"Who knows how long I've loved you..."

"Who knows how long I've loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely life time
If you want me to I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we are apart…"
- Lennon/McCartney

I have always felt this way about my children…and my husband.  It is as if I have always known them.  And when I say "always" I don't mean as far back as their birth…or mine…but to, and from, "infinity and beyond". 

"Meeting" each of the people I love has been more of an "oh, I remember you" than a "nice to meet you" (for the first time) moment.

There is always something vaguely familiar poking at the edges my heart, like a memory, when we are together.  It is almost as if I've seen them somewhere before, just as they turned a corner on a crowded street, but then the memory of where and when is gone.  The shade of green in my eldest daughter's eyes, or the way my sister's fingers feel slender and cool in my hand while we talk. A girlfriend's mannerisms when she's nervous, my mother's sharp intake of breath if she's startled. The sound of my younger daughter's voice singing from behind my seat in the car – something she will do only if she thinks I'm not listening..  And the way her sister's eyes cloud up when she is moved to tears by the thought of a homeless puppy, waiting for adoption, at the neighborhood Petsmart.  The color of the African veld at sunset. All these things feel as timeless, and familiar, as the strains of an ancient lullaby.

I have often written about my confidence in the eternality of life...in the face of a loved one's passing…but I don't think I have related it to how powerful those same insights have been in thinking about  my children's birth, meeting a new friend, or discovering love after decades of freindship.  

Carly Simon sings in "Life is Eternal":

"Life is eternal
And Love is immortal
And death [birth] is only a horizon
And the horizon
Is nothing save
The limit of our sight..."

I believe that the horizon we call "birth" is nothing but the limit of what we remember.  I am so certain that this "timeline," of measured moments between birth and death which we call "life (and then try to extend as long as possible)...is just one chapter, in a very long book. Or to stay with the "horizon" metaphor…just one more expanse of prairie between mountain ranges.  It is simply the stretch of landscape we can see, but not the end…or the beginning…of the journey. 

Memory, our own...or that of someone who claims to have "been there,"…seems to define the beginning of each chapter.  But what if those moments when we recognize something familiar…in someone we are meeting for the first time…is just a glimpse beyond the horizon behind us.

I know that when my husband laughs, I feel as if I have heard that sound longer than I have known my name…or his.  I know that his hand in the small of my back, as he gently steers me out of harms way, is as familiar as my own hand against my cheek in sleep.

It gives me great pause to think that none of us are really meeting for the first time, but perhaps are just reconnecting on this side of the last horizon.

"…And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
And you know I will
I will…"

[here is a link is to my favorite recording of
I will…" by Alison Krauss]

always...and again,
Kate