"Come Saturday morning...."

"...Come Saturday morning
I'm goin' away with my friend
We'll Saturday-laugh
more than half of the day
Just I and my friend
Dressed up in our rings
and our Saturday things
And then we'll move on
But we will remember
long after Saturday's gone
Come Saturday morning..."
- Dory Previn

It hasn't always been on a Saturday, but we have always 'dressed up in our rings and Saturday things," when we've "Saturday-spent till the end of the day."  I don't even know how it began, but now I can't imagine a summer without "going away with my friend."

My friend and I have traveled for miles together in tear and triumph...in storm and in shine.  She is the golden thread that runs through the rich tapestry of my life.  She is my constant.  She is the friend who knows my heart's deepest pain...and its greatest joy.  She shares my secrets and she knows my truth.  She knows the song that will play when I am scattered over a high meadow and  join the wind singing through the aspen.  She has felt my heartbreak as if it were her own, and she has shared her joy with me as if she were breaking bread.

There have been many winters when looking forward to "just goin' away with my friend," was enough of a reason to put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other through the gray days of January and February. Even my daughters would get excited about summer finally arriving, and we'd be back in "the valley," where mom would finally get to laugh hard with her friend under a clear Colorado sky.  They knew that our daylong conversation on a shared day-off would be like cool water to a parched traveler.

This one day retreat has been going on for over twenty years.  And although in the early days of our friendship, we made great plans for how we would spend that treasured one day off together, each year more and more of the "plan" fell away, until all that is now left is what is essential...the conversation.  It no longer matters if we drive over the Continental Divide to Aspen, or stay in town and hunker down at a table in the garden at Mothers' Bistro...as long as we talk and laugh and talk and cry....and talk.

We have walked "through the valley of the shadow of death" together, I've danced at her daughter's wedding...a daughter I couldn't love more if she were my own, and we've held eachother's toes to the fire at times when a lesser friendship might have capitulated to the ease of sympathy.

I don't remember how we found eachother, or when we started making our pilgrimage each summer.  I can't recall why we became friends, or who introduced us.   I only know that she is the person whose heart holds my secrets safe, and whose dreams I cherish as much as my own.

Mary Baker Eddy says in her own autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection:

"There are no greater miracles known to earth
than perfection and an unbroken friendship."

When I think of all the things she could have cited...healing, resurrection, motherhood, courage, success...I am humbled to have even one unbroken friendship. 

My dear, sweet, wonderful friend is one of God's most precious gifts ...her friendship is a miracle.  Spending time with her for one special day each year is a gift carved out of time and space, together we fill it with words and tears and laughter. 

"Come Saturday morning
I'm goin' away with my friend
We'll Saturday-spend
till the end of the day

Just I and my friend
We'll travel for miles
in our Saturday smiles
And then we'll move on
But we will remember
long after Saturday's gone
Come Saturday morning
Come Saturday morning..."
"Come Saturday Morning"
-performed by The Sandpipers

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy..."

<

"...Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

Out on the ocean sailing away,
I can hardly wait,
To see you come of age,
But I guess we'll both,
Just have to be patient,
Yes it's a long way to go,
But in the meantime,

Before you cross the street,
Take my hand,
Life is just what happens to you,
While your busy making other plans,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,
Darling,
Darling,
Darling Shawn..."
- John Lennon

He is my baby brother and I love him...we all do. As John Lennons sings in this video about his own son, Shawn is our "Beautiful Boy."

  Shawn, and his wife Amy, have just sold their cars, put their possessions in storage, popped everything else in four duffel bags, and flown to St. Martins where they will join a family they will serve...as Captain and a crew of one (God bless you Amy)...for the next year sailing on a high seas voyage around-the-world. 

Shawn has always been a sailor.  Amy is learning to love his world. Together they will chart new courses, explore new landscapes, and plumb new depths of inner courage, strength, patience, and grace.  We love them. 

Did I say we love our little brother? 

Last weekend five of my seven siblings and I gathered in Colorado for our mom's 75th birthday.  Shawn and Amy flew in from Maine.  We were there for mom, but it was never far from thought that within two weeks our little brother, and his wife, would sail away from the safety of our reach and off beyond the horizon.

As I said, I have seven brothers and sisters...I have learned more about myself, and life in general,  from them than from any other seven people in the world...besides my mother and children.  Each one is a gift.  I can't imagine my life without any one of them. 

But tonight I am thinking about this youngest...biggest...brother. 

Shawn, and his sister, Fawn, are twins. They were born my last year of high school.  When dad passed on, just before they were three, they were not just siblings, they became my "babies," too. Thank goodness mom was so generous in sharing.  That meant, among many other things, that, just as I know feel with my own children, I loved spending time with them...still do!

This was the case about ten years ago when I was on a business trip to Boston.  I was there for a large meeting and after landing at Logan airoport, I hailed a taxi, lifted my carryon into the backseat and leaned back for an uneventful ride through the city and along the Charles River.  As we came up out of the tunnel my cell phone rang.  It was Shawn.  He and I checked in with one another often, so it was no surprise that he was calling.  "Hey, where are you?" he asked.  I told him I had just landed in Boston, and was on my way to my hotel.   He told me that he had just sailed into Boston harbor after 14 days on the sea with a group of high school students on an Outward Bound trip he was leading.  We decided to meet for dinner near my office in the next hour.

As I waited for him in the lobby of the busy restaurant, I noticed a large homeless man in dirty coveralls and long dread-locked hair coming through the door.  "Hmm," I thought, "I wonder if the restaurant will seat him?"  As he got closer, I realized that it was my brother.  Just off the boat meant...just off the boat.  He looked like he smelled...seaworthy.  Seaworthy is a good thing if you are a boat.  As a dinner companion...well, if it's your baby brother you don't care. 

I hugged him hard, stared into his ocean blue-green eyes and asked the hostess how long we would have to wait for our table.  When she said we had at least 45 minutes, I asked him if he would like to walk across the street to see my office.  As we came through the revolving doors of our high-rise building we ran into a group of my colleagues who were heading off to dinner themselves.  My first thought was, "Oh this is perfect, I would love for my brother to meet them."  But I could see by their faces that they assumed that Kate was just dragging another homeless person into the building to talk about spirituality in the lobby out of the wind. 

I have to admit I was a bit heartbroken.  My brother was looking for someone to mentor his spiritual journey and I was just so sure that if he could only meet one of these inspired thinkers, he might make that connection.  But it was obvious that my friends were not interested in stopping to be introduced  and chat it up with my dread-locked companion...whoever he was.

Shawn and I continued up the elevators to my office.  I showed him around our floor and then we took the elevator back to the lobby so that we wouldn't miss getting our table for dinner. 

As we came out of the elevators and crossed the lobby towards the revolving doors, in blew (literally...it was a very, very windy evening) another friend who had his office in our building.  I hesitated for just a moment, and before I could say a thing he crossed the lobby extended his hand to my brother and introduced himself.  I was speechless.  This was one very inspired (and admired) spiritual thought leader.  I was sometimes a bit intimidated by his reputation, but never his humor and affection.  His laughter and embrace were as large as his heart. 

I introduced Shawn as my brother and we invited him to join us for dinner.  He had a meeting he was rushing for...the same one the others had been on their way to...but he made it clear that he would have loved to share a meal with my sea-scented brother and I.

This man, in one handshake and genuine moment of affection, gave my brother all the information he needed to apply for mentorship.  They shared two amazing weeks of pedagogy later that year.   It is a relationship that will span a lifetime.

My friend gave my brother (and I) a perspective on spiritual leadership that was based on a genuine interest in the lives of others and a commitment to living a life of love in action.

My brother learned well from his mentor...I like to think they learned much from eachother during those two weeks.  My brother is supremely kind.  My brother is one of the least judgmental people I know.  My brother is heroic in his practice of charity.  My brother is a man who lives his days poised in grace. 

I am proud to be his sister. 

I will miss talking to him every few days...but I think the men, women, and children of Panama, Tahiti....and all the places around the world his heart will touch with kindness...are going to be blessed by his visits.

Go with God beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy...
Kate

"I have confidence...."

"What will this day be like?
I wonder.
What will my future be?
I wonder.
It could be so exciting,
To be out in the world,
To be free!
My heart should be wildly rejoicing.
Oh, what's the matter with me?
I've always longed for adventure,
To do the things I've never dared.
Now here I'm facing adventure
Then why am I so scared...''
-Rodgers/Hammerstein

It was a beautiful September day.  Cloudless clear blue skies, air that felt like satin brushing against your skin as you moved through it, and a temperature just cool enough to be felt through the sweater I was wearing. 

Route 80 out of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania stretched before me like the yellow brick road leading to my first real adult adventure.  I was leaving the New York metropolitan area, where I had lived since high school,  and moving to Los Angeles with nothing more than a dream and a small suitcase filled with two outfits and a few small childhood treasures I couldn't part with.  I was driving an extended family member's car across the United States for her.  My destination was set, but the route and the timetable were mine to decide.

And I was terrified.  Really terrified.  I was good at surviving, coping, and adapting to my surroundings…as long as my surroundings were familiar and I had a job…or two…or three…I could depend on.   I had stayed in the area long after my mom, sisters, and brothers had moved west.  I had a small circle of friends and a strong band of fellow teachers I could count on as my surrogate family.  I knew every square inch of our small town and I was fully vested in its future. 

But I also longed for adventure.  I wanted to know myself as more.  More than how I had become comfortable in thinking about my life.  I didn't want to wake up one day and discover that I had never pushed myself beyond what was familiar and comfortable.  So when I was asked if I could drive a friend's sub-compact car cross-country, delivering it from Manhattan to Malibu, I said "yes" before I could think myself out of it.

I knew that once I had committed I couldn't go back.  It was set in stone.  My friend would be horrified to have to go back to her in-laws and tell them that I had flaked out on a commitment, and I could never do that to her.  It was my way of painting myself into a corner that I already knew I would soon want out of.  

And boy did I ever want out of that commitment once the date of my departure closed in.  But I also know that I couldn't let myself down either.  I wanted to strike out in a new direction.  I wanted to discover more of the world than what I could absorb from all the reading I did…constantly.  I wanted to see and experience the places I had, up to that point, only imagined through someone else's descriptions in a book.

I wanted to see an endless field of sunflowers stretching for miles under a wide, blue Kansas sky. I wanted to cross the "wide Missouri" instead of just teaching children a song about it.  I wanted to breathe mountain air and swim in the Pacific...not just imagine it.

The late September afternoon I finally turned in the keys to my apartment, and set my little suitcase and shoebox full of treasures in the backseat, was traumatic for me.  That little historic village had been my "hometown" since high school and anyone who reads this blog knows that as a child I didn't spend many years in the same place growing up.  Six years in one town was a record and I had felt more settled, and at home, there than I had ever felt in my life. 

I drove out of town and north along the river towards the Delaware Water Gap, crossing into Pennsylvania at dusk and through a veil of tears.  As I started west on Route 80, a terror overtook me like I had rarely felt before.  I pulled off at the first possible exit and found the Sheraton hotel where a friend's sister worked as a reservation clerk.  My splotchy tear-stained face and  tale of woe convinced her that I wasn't in any shape to drive through the night. She kindly asked her boss if I could stay in one of the rooms that hadn't been rented that night and before long I was standing in a quiet room with nothing more than a heart full of uncertainty.

"…Oh, I must stop these doubts,
All these worries.
If I don't I just know I'll turn back!
I must dream of the things I am seeking.
I am seeking the courage I lack…."

After a hot bath and a call to my mom, I began to calm down.  I spent the next few hours quietly rehearsing all the reasons why I had felt so inspired earlier that summer to quit my teaching job, give up my apartment and launch out into the unknown.  I had trusted something deeper than human reason…I had trusted that, at the root of my inspiration, there was a spiritually primitive hunger for growth.  There was something so primal in me wanting to know that I could reach beyond my own limitations and expand outside the boundaries of fear and doubt. 

Those few hours of quiet, alone with the source of my original desires, was all I needed.  Without realizing it, I fell asleep waking at dawn to a brand new day and resurrected hopes. 

I washed my face, dressed and wrote a quick thank you note to my friend's sister for her kindness.  I was eager to begin my adventure.  I was 25 years old and the world was opening its arms to greet my dreams with bright enthusiasm.  I got behind the wheel of that bright green sub-compact and popped in one of the two cassette tapes I still owned. 

I rolled down the windows and cranked the Sound of Music soundtrack up as loud as I could. Maria and I belted out our hard-fought for/hard-won enthusiasm for new adventures with full hearts..and in full voice.  As the early autumn colors of the Pocono mountains became an impressionistic blur of the Mid-Atlantic's finest season I learned something new about myself.  I leaned that I did have confidence, but not in me. 

My new-found courage came from a place much deeper than the inherent limitations of mere human self-confidence…it came from the realization that something bigger was at the root of my desire to learn more about who I was and what I was capable of…and that something bigger was, even though I was a few more years from admitting it...God.

I have confidence in Him…
Kate