"beyond the veil...."

"I look to You,
I look to You..."

I know that I have used Amy Kelly's version of  "I Look to You" recently, but it is the song that was singing itself to me today.

As a bride, I never wore a veil. But I have designed and created veils. As a little girl I was fascinated with all things bridal. I dreamed in shades of white and the palest blushing pink. Helping other girls plan their weddings, design their wedding dresses, making veils -- helped to vicariously fulfil many of those little girl dreams.

One afternoon, as I carefully sewed the last seed pearl on the gossamer edge of a custom fingertip veil --one that I was gifting to a dear friend for her wedding -- I decided to try it on to see if it fell evenly on both sides. I stood in front of the mirror and for the first few moments I couldn't see anything but the layers of soft illusion tulle. As I stood there, my preschool-age daughter came in the room with a hurt finger. Immediately my focus shifted from the pattern in the fabric -- just inches from my eyes -- to her sweet face. Suddenly, I was no longer aware of the fabric - just her need.

I remember in that moment having two insights. The first one was that when someone with a need was before me, I wasn't at all aware of the veil. The second was that when I actually loved what was beyond the veil -- more than wearing the veil and being a bride -- my sense of things shifted drastically.  It was one of those epiphanies I have never forgotten.

A few weeks later a friend and I were driving back from a meeting in another city when rain started falling. At first I couldn't see anything but raindrops on the windshield, and I reached to turn on my windshield wipers. My friends suggested that I wait just a moment. She explained that her husband had shared with her that "looking beyond the veil" was like driving in the rain. At first you can only see the raindrops, but within a few moments your eyes adjust and you look beyond them and can see the cars on the road, the taillights in front of you, and the signs on the highway. She was right -- I could.

When I am focused on what I truly love -- and what I truly need to see -- the veil, the raindrops, the "in your face" sense of things - dissolves from focus.

Recently this was made very clear to me. After a stop-me-in-my-tracks realization about my relationship to God as  "my first Love..." last Fall, one alarming situation after another seemed to present itself. I felt bombarded by personal demands and responsibilities. But I wasn't fooled this time -- at least not for the most part. This analogy of the veil was with me every day.

I saw myself as a bride, looking for her groom at the end of the aisle. As long as I was focused on what was "in my face" -- the details of each of the challenges I was facing -- I felt trapped by a quandary of decisions and obstacles. But when I was looking beyond my immediate circumstances, for the face of my first Love -- God, I was at peace. I wasn't distracted from my one true "goal," -- to know Him, to love Him, to trust Him.

Everything else was like the train behind a wedding dress -- it would come along.  And it did.  The more I focused on God, the less the "veil of matter" was even perceptible to me.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy has this to say in a paragraph with the marginal heading, "within the veil:"

"The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being..."

As long as I was focused on myself as a bride -- all of my attention placed on how things were going to effect me and mine -- I wasn't going to see the real beauty of being wedded to my first Love. But the minute I sought His face -- continually -- the veil disappeared from my focal distance.

Elsewhere Eddy speaks of this shift in focus when she writes:

"Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind?"

Just as a bride looks beyond the veil to find the face of her beloved, so I am looking beyond the veil to rest my gaze on the "face" of my first love. Not as a means to an end. Not to rend the veil. But to feel at one with my greatest love.

And the great Love of my life is - well, Love -- pure and simple. Later in Science and Health Eddy writes:

"The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: “Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb’s wife, — Love wedded to its own spiritual idea.”

This is the wedding feast that never ends. This is the "place" where the Christ turns water into wine. This is the never-ending moment where we are robed in white and held in bliss.


offered with Love,

Kate

"God gave me you…"

"God gave you
for the ups and downs.
God gave you
for the days of doubt.

For when I think
I've lost my way,
there are no words
here left to say,

It's true,
God gave me you..."

It's been wonderful living on the periphery -- witnessing, from a gentle distance -- a blessed wedding that will take place this weekend. Seeing dear friends gather to celebrate a couple's love for one another and their hope for the future -- well, I can't imagine a more beautiful view.

Thinking about marriage, and what it takes to open the door of our hearts and our lives so completely to another human being, takes my breath away. There is something so sacred about this holy space that Love carves out in us. And today, it's Blake Shelton's "God Gave Me You." that speaks to what I believe about marriage -- with all my being.

It's no secret that I've been divorced and remarried. And I've discovered that, generally, people think that I must have considered my earlier marriage a "mistake."

But that's not true. Not at all true. I believe that every marriage -- every relationship -- is blessed, sacred, and holy. I was deeply blessed by my earlier marriage. However I've come to learn that for me -- and I can only speak for myself -- relationships evolve.  They don't end. My children's dad and I -- with our current spouses -- are devoted parenting partners. I continue to be blessed by what we are learning together. It's just that now, we have expanded that circle to include more love.

I am learning that we never really end any relationship. We continue to think about the people who have been in our lives. And that act of "thinking about" them is always in done the present. We don't actually think in the past. So, how we think of them - in any given "present" moment is our truth. And how we treat them -- in our thoughts, even as memory -- is all that matters.

This is what defines us -- our capacity to love without the permission of roles or reasons. We just continue to love -- honestly, appropriately, trustingly. It doesn't end, it just changes, or evolves.

I won't lie. To believe that my former spouse and I had once made a mistake -- and that we had now corrected it by "moving on," would romantically tie up all my loose ends up in a neat little bow. I could say, "whew, I got it wrong, and then, I got it right. Thank you God. Now I can be happy."

But that would put happiness on a personal, rather than a spiritual, basis. And it would also mean that at some point we had been separated from God's guidance, care, direction, and wisdom. It would mean that at some juncture, our omnipotent God either ceased to have all power in our lives, or He did have all-power, but He really didn't love us all that much. Otherwise, wouldn't He/She have intervened on our behalf and saved us from our mistakes?

Nope, I can't afford the luxury of that thinking. It would send a fissure through every holy place in my heart, shattering my trust in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who is impartial and universal Love.

The alternative is so much better.:

"God gave me you..."  

And not just the "you" I married, but all the yous in my life. Family members, neighbors, friends, fellow parents at school -- everyone.

Every person in my life, for whatever reason, is God-appointed, God-annointed, and God-sent as a blessing. Or as Blake sings, we are all part of "a divine conspiracy" designed for our spiritual awakening.

As I learn to let love unfold itself in my heart, within the context of each relationship I am learning something new about my capacity to reflect the divine Source of that love. I discover that "Love is reflected in love" -- unconditional love, impartial love -- in me, through me, as me. No exceptions.

But, I haven't always seen it this way. In fact, there was a time when I thought I had the privilege of choosing whether to love, how to love, and when to love the people in my life. I doled love out like a commodity -- and hoped it would return in kind. When it didn't, I judged the relationship as either good, or "not so good," and adjusted my affection, and expectations, accordingly.

But this never worked. I was always on the edge, waiting for something to improve -- or to end. If someone hurt me, I had the right to expect an apology. If I hurt someone else, I deserved to feel regret, sorrow, and hope for their forgiveness.

It was all in our hands. We determined the success or failure of our relationships. And God help us, if we were doomed from the outset by a poor initial choice.

Then one day I actually realized that I was dishonoring God with this thinking. It was unholy. It left God out of His own creation.

So, you may ask, if this is the case, how could I possibly allow myself to even entertain the concept of "divorce." To be honest, I never did. I was completely intractable when it came to my commitment of "making it work."

But then one day, there was an inbreaking of the heart -- and from that space of surrender, grace began to flow. Where once, I was rigid about what a "spiritual outcome" had to look like, there was a new gentleness and humility.

Something shifted, and I felt led towards a kinder version of myself. I was willing to let God unfold a more authentic relationship with my former spouse. An honest relationship that was/is filled with fresh hope and a more radical trust in God's plan for each of us -- individually and collectively. A relationship based on God's love for him, for our children, and yes, for me.

The other day, as I was thinking about marriage, and the beauty of weddings -- first weddings, second weddings -- and in some cases third or fourth marriages. And I was reminded of Mary Baker Eddy's wedding blessing from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"May Christ, Truth,
be present at every bridal altar
to turn the water into wine
and to give to human life
an inspiration by which
man's spiritual and
eternal existence may be discerned."  

Every bridal altar. What promise!

Eddy, herself, was a new bride -- three times. And I pray with all my heart that she felt beautiful, pure, hopeful, filled with promise -- each time. I pray that we all do.

Whether the "new" relationship in your life is the birth of a child, the resurrection of a once-stale friendship, a business partnership that excites you, or a first, second, or third walk down the aisle -- may it feel like a miracle. For in each case, it is.  It is a divine gift. A gift of grace.

I know -- because God gave me you. Each of you.

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

with great hope, and always with Love,

Kate

"a golden second marriage…"

"I want a moment of silence,
and a moment of prayer,
for the love we'll need to make it
in the world out there..."

I know that I have used Don Henley's, "For My Wedding," before to illustrate a sentiment. But today, it leapt into my heart as a song of gratitude.

You see, my dear friend Barbye posted a status update on Facebook that read: "On my way to help my dad and stepmom celebrate their golden anniversary." It took me apart.  And since my friend mentioned that it was her stepmom -- it was obviously a second marriage for her dad.  It touched me deeply, and I found myself weeping with joy for them.

I remember, not long ago, sharing with an acquaintance that my husband and I would be celebrating our anniversary. I was so grateful for all the ways we'd navigated unaddressed issues, grown in grace, and worked together as a couple -- and as partners with my former spouse and his wife -- in parenting our children. But the response I got was heart-breaking. She said, "Well really Kate,  it isn't your first marriage, so I don't think it matters if you are together for seven years, or twenty-five years -- you've already failed."

I was stunned into silence. Truly. I didn't have a single thing to say.  And she'd said it so matter-of-factly, that it was clear to me that it held no malice. It was not her intent to be hurtful. But it was, never-the-less, hard to hear.

We went on with our meeting, and when I was finally seated behind the wheel of my car, I lost it. I let my head fall into my hands, and wept long and hard. Not just for myself and our marriage, but for all the couples who have given themselves another chance at loving unconditionally, sharing selflessly, and hoping for "forever," even in the face of a disappointing sense of loss.

Every second - or third - marriage is a tribute to the power of hope over experience. And to hear that my friend's dad and stepmom were celebrating their 50th anniversary, was an unexpected gift today. I wanted to stand on a mountaintop and sing a song of grateful praise.

I don't believe that any couple goes into their marriage with a "plan B." We all hope and pray that we will not fall. We pray that we have what it takes to endure, to find solutions to our problems, to feel grace coursing through our days together. As Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Itzak, once wrote, "When any marriage ends, even the altar weeps."

But, I believe, that when we have the courage - and hope - that it takes to try again, "even the altar kneels…" in holy wonder and benediction.

In her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy offers this blessing:

"May Christ, Truth,
be present at every bridal altar
to turn the water into wine
and to give to human life
an inspiration by which
man's spiritual, eternal existence
may be discerned."
 

Christ, Truth, present at every bridal altar. First marriages, second marriages -- all marriages. Because marriage is a triumph of hope. And, as poet Emily Dickinson so beautiful writes:

"Hope is the thing with feathers,
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune,
without the words,
and never stops - at all…"
 

So, bless you Barbye's parents. Bless your marriage, and your example of enduring love.  Bless your family gathered to celebrate you, and bless your willingness to allow hope to triumph -- 50 years ago, and every day since.

Every marriage is a blessing. Every moment we spend in the laboratory of persistent, cooperative loving is a triumph of selflessness over self-interest. Every day is a gift of grace. First marriages, second marriages, eighth marriages. A first anniversary or a fiftieth -- each is a triumph, worthy of celebration.

As Don Henley so humbly sings, this is my prayer:

"To want what I have
And take what I am given, with grace.
For this I pray…" 

On my wedding day, on your wedding day, and at each anniversary - let's celebrate each other's triumphs of hope and love.

So grateful,



Kate