"if a picture paints a thousand words..."

"If a picture paints 

a thousand words, 

then why can't I paint you?

the words will never show,

the you i've come to know..." 

I remember the cover to this "Best of Bread" album, as if it were the face of a loved one.  I played it over and over again.  David Gates' beautiful vocals on "If," were filled with the kind of melancholy I was feeling that year. 

I was thinking about this song, recently, after my niece took a photograph of me.  

We were at a camp social and she had just received a new instamatic camera.  She quietly snapped a photo, waited for it to come out of the slot and then walked over and placed it in my shirt pocket for processing, and said, "I took a photo of you while you weren't looking."  I was in the middle of a conversation, and completely forgot about it until later that night. 

I have never liked having my photo taken.  It's hard to explain, but every photo I have ever seen of myself feels like a picture of someone I don't know.  Even photos of me, doing what I love most, feel like I am looking at someone else - a familiar face that I don't feel connected to. 

So it was strangely beautiful - when remembered my niece's photo in the pocket of my shirt - to find the perfect portrait of "the me" that I have come to know.  It wasn't a face, or a form -- it was a color.  

The entire image was a shade of blue.  A deep, achingly beautiful shade of blue.  And I felt it.  I felt so connected to that photo that I gasped, and then I cried - just a bit.  This little instagram photograph captured how I feel about myself.  It felt accurate and perceptive. It felt as if my niece had bored into my heart and discovered something hidden.  

And for the past few weeks, it has had me thinking about identity, perception, and image.  I have long-resisted identifying with a face in the mirror, the shape that I put clothing on, or the changing features that look back at me from my driver's license -- or any profile photo on Facebook or Instagram.  

Perhaps some of us aren't capable of simply being outlined by a layer of skin punctuated with features - eyes, nose, shoulders, etc.  What if we are not "that," -- whatever that is.  And what if, instead, I am best identified as a color, and you are a sound that makes birds sing, and someone else is the scent of cedar or cinnamon -- or both.  

Just as we often think that answered prayer will come in the form of words -- and so we let the deep feelings that have no words, or the sounds that cannot be described, pass through us without noting their message, while we wait for the illusive English text to float across the mental page.  In the same way, what if our faces and body shapes and hair color, are not necessarily the way we experience ourselves as God's image and likeness - most clearly.  What if it's a shade of blue, or a minor chord, or the taste of grapefruit, or the touch of a breeze, or the silence of a prayer...

In her compilation, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, Mary Baker Eddy refers to a "fourth dimension "when she writes:  

"Christian Science translates Mind, God, to mortals.  It is the infinite calculus defining the line, plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It absolutely refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorption, or annihilation of individuality."  

and elsewhere she states: 

"Comeliness and grace are independent of matter.  Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color." 

What if our sense of who we are, and how we are defined to one another, that has been limited by a collectively agreed upon expectation that we are three dimensional humans form made up of lines, shapes, and features.  Or that this is the only way of experiencing and communicating our identities - our truth and beauty.  

What if deepening our color, or perfecting the pitch of our voice, or enriching the scent that we leave upon everything we touch, were as important to being known, as the cut of our hair, or the shape of our eyes, or the tilt of our head?

These are the questions I am in tonight.  In the meantime, I am so grateful that my niece was able to capture what no photographer has ever been able to do -- a photo of "the me I've come to know."  A perfect shade of blue.

Disclaimer:  if this post seems a bit abstract or out in left field -- i completely understand.  

offered with Love, 

Cate 

  

"it's all a part of sacrament..."

"it's all a part
of sacrament,
as holy as
the day is spent..."

Oh Carrie, you never let me down. When I need a song to speak my heart, I can always find one in your catalog. Thank you for "Holy as the Day is Spent," It is perfect.

I don't know if there will eventually be a song to go with this post -- if one come, wonderful. I will have posted it above, if you are reading this.  However, this piece is not song-driven, but love-demanded. It is a post of gratitude.

Sometimes a friend's contribution to the color of our lives is profound, but deeply subtle. Her impact on me is just that -- profoundly subtle, but infinitely rich.

You see, when I met her, I was older, but she was wiser and more sophisticated in ways that I didn't even know existed. The woman I am today, wears the impress of her love for all things beautiful.

I grew up in a house without art. Or at least that is my memory. I remember there were two paintings on canvas boards that were hidden away in a box.  They were from my mother's brief exploration into the world of painting as a child. But I cannot remember any other artwork on our walls, save the refrigerator art of 8 children.

By the time I met her, my collection of artwork was limited to a few framed prints and a wooden deer that an old friend had carved from a piece of maple he'd found in the Maine woods. I didn't know, what I didn't know. And I didn't know what it meant to love -- what I'd rarely been exposed to -- original works of art in a private home.  Oh, I was very aware of museum art.  But real people didn't own paintings, they only owned prints of paintings that hung in museums.

But my friend knew that original art was accessible, and rather than make fun of my "collection," she began to introduce me to her love for the way light catches the texture of actual paint on canvas. She sowed in me a love for the rich colors found in textile antiquities.  She cultivated in my heart a hunger for original works of sculpture that could be touched and held in your hands -- rather than just look at from the other side of a velvet rope at the Museum of Fine Arts.

We never talked about it. Her cultural awareness, my naivety -- but it was always there.  This actually surprises me today.  I was shy, but I was also quite eager to learn. I think that by the time we could have discussed it, I was too embarrassed to tell her that the framed Sargent print I'd purchased at the MFA Gift shop, was the finest piece of art I'd ever owned. So, I just watched her navigate the world of real art. And I watched with the absorbed interest of an acolyte.  I wanted to know everything, and she was generous with her sharing.

I remember the first original piece of art I purchased for my own space. It was a small oil on canvas by a young artist whose work made my heart tighten -- and I loved it. From there I branched into larger pieces with a bolder confidence in my own preferences for color, subject-matter, texture.

Before I knew it, I'd discovered the joy of patronage. To find a young artist whose work delighted my soul, and to begin  collecting, or gifting, his/her original work.

I remember asking my husband once if there was anything that he had always wanted -- thinking he might describe for me a particular model of car, or a signature guitar. But he became very quiet and told me that he had always wanted to own a painting by a childhood friend who had become a fine artist. He loved his work. That sealed eternity for us in my heart. And although gifting him with that painting took a couple of years, it is still one of my favorite moments in our marriage.

Now you may think that this is a strange post for someone who writes about the intersection of the spiritual and the visceral. The collision of the inner landscape with the outward experience. But that is just what this post is about.

For me, art is a sacrament. Webster defines "sacrament" as:

“an outward and visible sign,
of an inward or spiritual grace..."
 

Yes, this is what this post is all about. It is about a woman who introduced me to the sacrament of beauty. The "beauty of holiness.:  She could have left me to my own sensibilities. But instead she shared with me her love for what had life and texture, visual pathos and poetry.  I love her.  I think of her each time I escape into the deep and sacred space of a Brooks Anderson landscape, a Melissa Miller sky, a Caitlin Heimerl vista, a Debra Myers abstract, a Nancy Pollack "equation," a Carol Carter bird-in-flight, a Lillian Sly floral, or a Duncan Martin shoreline.

Today, our few walls are lined with the paintings of artists we love -- and believe in. Some have been purchased on a "whim" and others on installment plans. While we drive old cars, and buy most other things at resale/consignment shops, we invest in art. We invest in the birth of beauty, rising from the hearts and hands of those who are boldly and courageously willing to share their inner landscape with us. 

I cannot begin to say how grateful I am for the kindness my friend showed me in taking me to her favorite galleries, lunching with me at the Museum of Fine Arts - while discussing a recent exhibit, allowing me to hang her textile fragments in my office, introducing me to Shaker simplicity, or sharing her love of texture and color with me as if I were her peer in appreciating art. It changed me.

And yes, there is now a song. You may have noticed.

offered with Love - and fathomless gratitude to you -- my dear friend,

Kate

"Just when you least expect it..."

"Hope has a way
of turning it's face to you,
just when you least expect it.

You walk in a room,
you look out a window,
and something there
leaves you breathless.

You say to yourself,
it's been a while since I felt this,
but it feels like it might be hope..."

I know, I know...I've used Sara Groves' "It Might Be Hope" before...to keynote a piece...but I just love it so much.   

Today, it was the perfect soundtrack for what I've been thinking, and praying, about lately...the connection between random acts of kindness, senseless instances of beauty...and the power of hope. 

I am starting to believe that these instances of spiritual serendipity, these moments of grace, are actually gifts of encouragement from a beneficent God. 

I am convinced, that the challenges and demands in our life are actually exercises in the laboratory of Love.   They are opportunities for practicing the very special kind of love which transforms lives.  That they allow us to plumb the depths of who we are at our best, to explore the far reaches of what we are capable of experiencing...as genuine spiritual beings.

But I also think that these moments often feel like they will never end.  As if we will never, in our wildest dreams, finally reach the point of actually discovering the great lesson, uncovering what was hidden, or understanding the reason for it all.

It's not hard to become weary, feel discouraged, or wonder to one's self, "am I  just destined to get it wrong...again, and again...to never reach the promised land, find my freedom, rest my heart, and heal my body."

And this is where a simple act of kindness from a stranger, the beauty of a double rainbow, or an unsought moment of inspiration comes and resurrects, rekindles, restores what felt so fragile.   Just when we least expect it, there it is...a moment of grace.  And this instance of grace, as surprising as water springing from the crevice of a rock  in the sub-Saharan desert, causes us to stop, take off our shoes, and refresh our parched hopes...we are on holy ground.  

Emily Dickinson says that:

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all."

As much as I love this quote, and believe, with all my being, that it is true...that hope is persistent,  always singing her song of encouragement within us...it  often gets lost in the din of despair.   But hope is relentless, and God has, as Mary Baker Eddy promises,

"Infinite resources with which to bless mankind..."

Thus, beauty, kindness, and inspiration come to us in our moments of discouragement, and waning strength, to shore up our patience, replenish our courage, and revive our ability to persevere. 

Whatever might seem beyond hope, to you, tonight...isn't.  Nothing is beyond hope...just ask a butterfly, the man "who was born blind," the ash-borne phoenix, the father of a soldier missing in action, the mother who sits each night in a rocker she bought for the child she is waiting to adopt ...they know the song...because they too:

"sing the tune without the words,
and never stop at all."

because it feels like it just might be hope,

with Love,
Kate

"Till I remember - everything is beautiful..."

"Buried in the questions
I can find the answers
I close my eyes and listen,
till I remember...
Everything is beautiful
everything is beautiful
everything is beautiful...here"

Sometimes it might feel as though we've been handed a bitter pill, a hard road, an empty cup. But, I am learning that it is in these very moments...when it looks like we have so little, or less than nothing...that we discover the very best, most creative, extraordinarily beautiful things growing inside of us. 

The other day I was feeling as if my resources were stretched pretty thin.  How to make what looked like too little time, not enough money, or exhausted energies go as far as they needed to go, seemed like an impossible equation to factor.  It almost felt as if I were wringing drops of water from a stone.  I needed something, but what. 

That's when "Everything is Beautiful" by Ann Marie Boskovich filled up the achingly unsettled spaces of my heart.  "Ah yes," it said,  "you need to remember." 

I sat quietly and let the silence carve out a little room.  There, on its inner walls, God could play a slide of the countless instances when I had experienced, or witnessed, His abundant grace in the midst of heartache, fear, lack, or doubt.  I snuggled into the warmth of His embrace and let Him show me what He wanted me to see...right then.

Ann Marie's music swelled as the opening credits rolled...God, God, God, and as an image came into view. 

It was in the weeks just after my daughter's birth, and she and I were staying with friends at their game farm near the Botswana border with South Africa.  It was a large compound, and you drove through the surrounding bushveld to reach the farmhouse and other buildings at the property's gated core.  

Once there you were in colonial Africa.  A place where Isaak Dinesen would have felt most at home.  Inside a gated compound, was a lovely farmhouse with terraces, orchards, gardens, and a watering hole where non-predatory animals and birds could often be seen drinking during the day.

But outside of the gates, one traveled by Land Rover, and guns were de rigeur.  The home was well-staffed and I had become close to the young housekeeper whose help in navigating the newness of being a mom was priceless.  I knew that she lived outside of the inner compound, but she arrived so early in the morning, and slipped out so silently at the end of her day, that I never thought about where she went. 

One afternoon when our hostess and I were out bouncing around in the Land Rover on photographic safari, with an armed driver for protection, we passed a small clearing and my host noted that this was where their young housekeeper lived.  I was stunned.  We were in the middle of the bush.  There was nothing for miles in any direction.  I asked how she got back and forth, and my hostess said that she walked.  She then asked our driver to take us into the small courtyard. 

We pulled in, and there was a one story, one-room cinderblock building with a corrugated metal roof and dirt floor.  This was where she, her husband and their five children lived.  The house was surrounded by a dirt yard, and  that was encircled by a cinder block wall that seemed to be about 6 feet high.  From outside the courtyard, the wall was gray cinder block, but once inside I gasped with delight. 

Almost every inch of the cinderbock wall was covered with the most exquisite motifs and primitive designs I'd ever seen, and could never have imagined.  Spirals, chevrons, animal images in heavenly shades of umber, sienna, gray, charcoal, khaki, rust, pumpkin, a fiery red. I was rendered speechless. 

"Who did this?" I asked, as I slowly turned to take it all in.  My hostess told me that our young housekeeper was the artist.  "What is her medium?" I asked.  The colors were so alive with a delicacy and richness I hadn't seen before. 

"Dung," she said. 

Then she went on to explain that this young woman...wife, mother, housekeeper who seemed to manage a constantly changing staff with seamless poise, precision, and efficiency...would collect fresh dung on her walks back and forth through the bushveld.  Because the animals ate different seeds, berries, meat, roots, bark, plant life, beetles, the dung provided a very diverse spectrum of shade and consistency.  When she arrived home she would spread the dung on the wall with her hands, using the different colors, and textures, to determine that day's palette, and inspire her designs.

I was deeply moved. 

I later learned, from a conversation she and I had while bathing my tiny daughter, that she just loved making things beautiful and that one day it occurred to her that she could make her wall beautiful using the different colors of dung she saw on her way home.  She told me that when that thought came to her, she felt is if she had been given a great gift and her spirit soared. 

As she spoke, I thought about all the times I had complained to my parents that "real painters" needed fresh canvases, tubes of paint, the right brushes, when I was in a high school funk about my art projects.  

So back to my recent reach for spiritual direction and inspiration...

It became clear to me, immediately, just why this was the "remembered moment" that God played out on my heart the other day.  This memory of a young woman who painted with dung and was grateful for every color she found and gathered into the skirt of her dress as she walked through the bushveld she called home, was a reminder that I needed to embrace what seemed to stink in my life and let it be the medium for beauty, and creativity of spirit.  

And it really was just what I needed.

Sometimes you just have to stop long enough to hear the reminder, "What hast thou in thy house...in your consciousness."  And you may just find that what looks like dung in your life, adds color, texture, richness...

...a richness, a wealth of ideas, concepts, vision, and beauty...always beauty...

to what only moments before looked like a dusty, empty cinderblock courtyard. 

Just a thought...

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Grace like rain..."

"Hallelujah...
Grace like rain
is falling down on me..."

I love the simplicity of Aaron Keyes' gently, and reverently, recorded version of "Grace Like Rain."  But isn't this the very nature of grace itself, to be "simple, yet profound," a combination of qualities Mary Baker Eddy wisely uses in reference to John's statement, "God is Love."  And I think it is God's love for us, that gives birth to this thing called grace.

Grace.  What an amazing word.  It evokes such tenderness and peace.  To speak it, is to sigh a prayer of mercy.   To think it, is to hope.  To live it, is to trust that God's care is not a salary earned or a reward bargained for.   It is a gift,  the gift, the inheritance, the unconditional outpouring of love from a divine parent to His beloved child.  

Grace, like rain, doesn't choose where it will fall, it doesn't decide what fields to bless, which wildfires of fear to still, or whose thirst for mercy to quench.  Grace is the activity of Love, which, when it falls like rain is, as Eddy promises:

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

Grace under fire, amazing grace, grace to go forward, by the grace of God...axioms of grace that persist and permeate, resound and resonate, align and elevate us to our birthright as children of the Most High.

I wonder sometimes, how often am I truly aware of, and grateful for, those gentle grace notes of spiritual being..  Those times when I suddenly realize that God has met my need...blessed my life with  all that was necessary, or required...and yet goes that extra step to bring a touch of unexpected divinity to my  humanity. 

I love grace...it is the "thought gently whispers" threading itself through the sometimes complex tapestry of my days.  It is the "peace be still" to the shrieking winds and waves of fear, emotion, distraction or doubt that try to wear me out, and drown my spiritual ardor.

I noticed the presence of this grace, the other day when a moment of ego-centric atrophy came crashing through me.  I seemd to be caught in a trainwreck of misunderstanding and reaction...one that threatened to send me spiraling into another county.  But there, right there in middle of it all, in the cacophonous swirl of self-justification, and the twisting metal of  self-loathing, was the grace of God, the presence of the Christ, singing hymns of peace.  Songs of grace...coming from the most unexpected place at that moment...within me. 

This is grace...an invitation to be beautiful, as Sara Groves sings in "Add to the Beauty."  By the way, do you get that I love this song.  But this is grace...the invitation, from within us, to be beautiful in the middle of those moments that are...shall we say...less than beautiful.  

Jospeh Cooke once wrote that:

"Grace is the face that love wears
when it meets imperfection."

These instances of human imperfection are the field in which grace flourishes.  They are the meadow where grace blossoms into a kaleidoscope of color.  They are the moments we often find embellished with divine ornaments...gentle grace notes of unsought kindness, humility's silence, and a stranger's compassion.

Anne Lamott says:

"I do not understand the mystery of grace -
only that it meets us where we are
and does not leave us where it found us."

Oh my....it is more than enough  to bring  me to my knees.  But then, isn't there were we belong anyway?

The fervent [burning] desire for grace, is, as Eddy says, "what we most need."  And if it is what we most need, our grace-bestowing Father-Mother God will not leave us with just what is necessary...but with something more...something surprisingly, serendipitously, amazingly more.

Ah yes...grace.  What a word. 

standing in awe of it...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

I have included this video clip of two high school boys singing "Grace Life Rain," (the recording is Todd Agnew's) because I am so touched that this is how they would spend an afternoon in a meadow.  It makes me want to cry.

"I'm looking through you..."

"I'm looking through you,
where did you go
I thought I knew you,
what did I know
You don't look different,
but you have changed
I'm looking thorugh you
You're not the same..."
-     Beatles

I love this version of the Beatles classic, "I'm Looking Through You," by the Wallflowers.  It always reminds me of a moment in 1994 that stopped me in my tracks and changed the way I would look at others...and myself.

It was a bright beautiful, clear blue-sky, Colorado day in early autumn and I'd spent the morning at Just Baked, a wonderful downtown bagel shop where I often scheduled "office" appointments with patients who preferred talking over tea, to sitting in my office.  My last appointment of the morning had left for class and I was enjoying taking in the warmth of the bakery before heading home to check phone messages, before picking our daughter up from half-day Kindergarten.

It didn't take me long to notice the young man at the counter.  He was signing (American Sign Language) to the girl behind the counter, but she was not understanding him.  The University in our town was a leader in the field Sign Language Interpretation, and Speech Pathology, and it was not unusual to see sign language used in stores and restaurants.  I was a fluent signer, so I stepped up to the counter to offer assistance.  The young man "told" me his order and I gave it to the waitress.  Within minutes he'd made his purchase, thanked me for my help, and was out the door.

A few days later we ran into one another again at the same bagel shop.  But this time I was thrilled to see him sitting at a table, signing with a woman I had recently seen act as the sign language interpreter at a Wynona Judd concert.  I had been unable to take my eyes off her hands.  They danced in the air like a pair of ballerinas interpreting the music in graceful, subtle movements that made American Sign Language look like an art form.

I walked over to their table and the young man immediately recognized me,  rose from his chair, and thanked me again for helping him earlier in the week.  Then he turned to his companion and before he could make introductions, I gushed my admiration for her performance at the Judd concert.  She accepted my compliments graciously, but the look on her face betrayed her bafflement.  I chalked it up to modesty and excused myself. 

Before long it was time for me to gather up my books and journal and leave for home.  I noticed that the young man and his companion were also moving towards the door.  I waved a quick goodbye, found my car, and drove the four blocks to park on the street in front of our house. 

As I began to walk from the car to the front gate, and through the pale yellow rose arbor in the picket fence, I noticed that my neighbor about four doors down was also pulling into her driveway.  Sarah and her husband were young newlyweds who'd moved into the neighborhood about six month earlier.  We'd spoken briefly when I'd delivered an apple pie as a housewarming gift, but since then I'd only waved from afar whenever we were in our yards or going to and from our cars. 

As I saw her little red car pull into her driveway, I robotically smiled and raised a hand in hello...until I noticed that there was a man getting out of the car on the passenger side nearest me.  And he was the same young man I had just seen with the sign language interpreter at the bagel shop.  I was perplexed.  It hadn't even been three minutes since I'd left them and here he was getting out of my neighbor, Sarah's, car. 

Then I took a better look at Sarah.  She was the same woman I'd just seen him with.

I literally did a double, then a triple take. 

And then it dawned on me.  I had never really looked at Sarah.  I had already compartmentalized her as my young newlywed neighbor who was a student at the University.  I had assumed she was an undergrad studying something I didn't have time to care about.  In the context of our university neighborhood, she was, in my eyes (I am horrified and embarrassed to admit) just another pretty coed.

But in the bagel shop, in the context of seeing her sign with the young man, and recognizing, not her face, but the beautiful dance of her hands...something I had studied, tried to master, and was deeply interested in...she was special, a celebrity, someone to be impressed by, and honored to be in the company of.

No wonder she was so baffled when I gushed on and on about her signing at the Judd concert, as if I'd never met her before.  I was mortified.  I left my purse and books on the walk inside the gate and walked towards them. 

I apologized for myself.  Sarah was gracious enough to invite me in and the three of us talked until I had to leave to pick our daughter up from Kindergarten.

I learned a very important lesson that day.  I learned that I needed to be willing to really open my eyes, and see each and every person I met as if they were truly important, intriguing, remarkable, interesting, fascinating...because they are!  I had to stop looking through people, categorizing and then dismissing them based on what I did or didn't know about their lives, and be willing to ask questions, listen deeply, and discover what was unique, and beautiful and wonderful about them. 

I have never forgotten this lesson.  The following story was shared with me recently by my friend Nancy.  I think it perfectly illustrates the importance of taking the time...and the heart...to listen for what we should never dismiss...the divinity in eachother's humanity.  Enjoy this story...

------------------------------------

He was standing in the Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After 3 minutes, a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds...and then hurried to meet his schedule.  After four minutes, the violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued on her way.  After six minutes had passed, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

Ten minutes into his playing, a three year old boy stopped to listen to the violinist, his mother tugged at him, but the toddler lingered looking at the violinist.  Finally the mother pulled harder, and the child continued to walk, turning his head toward the musician all the while.  This same interest was repeated by several other children.  Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.  Forty-five minutes had passed, and the musician played.  Only six people stopped and stayed for a while.  About twenty people gave him money, but continued to walk at their normal pace.

He collected thirty-two dollars. When one hour had passed, he finished playing and let the silence take over. No one noticed.  No one applauded, nor was there any recognition that he had played...or stopped.

No one who passed through the metro station that day knew it, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the finest violinists in the world. He'd played one of the most difficult and intricate pieces ever written for the violin.  He was playing a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his morning in the metro station,  Joshua Bell had sold out a theater in Boston where the average price of each seat was $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities.

The questions raised were: in a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it?  Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context? 

One possible conclusion, reached from this experiment could be: If we don't have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made...

How many other things are we missing?

--------------------------------------------

A friend once told me that one of his favorite prayers, for himself, each day included putting  the words of the prophet Elisha in the first person:

"Lord, I pray Thee,
open Thou mine eyes that I may see..."

Something to think about...have a great weekend...
with open eyes, listening for beauty in unexpected places...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I Can Only Imagine..."

"...Surrounded by your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus,
Or in awe of you be still?
Will I stand in your presence,
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing Alelluja,
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine
I can only imagine..."
-     Mercy Me

AS much as I love this song, "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me, I don't have to imagine...I know.  I have been surrounded by Christ's glory and my heart has felt it all...awe, the desire to dance, to fall to my knees, and to sing Alelluia...all at once.  I feel it whenever I stop throughout the day and just listen. 

It happened today.  It happened only an hour ago.  I had just put the girls to bed and came downstairs to return calls, respond to emails, and transfer the last load of laundry from the washer to the dryer.  On my way from their bedroom, upstairs, to my desk I decided to stop on the landing and just listen in the silence of the house breathing. 

I sat on the landing and gave Him my heart. 

"What do you have to say to me in this moment dear Father?" I asked.  "I want to remind you that I am the source of your desire to express order and beauty.  My ideas are orderly and clear...and therefore lovely...as Love and Principle are synonymous, you can't express order and not experience beauty." 

This may seem like a pretty simple and obvious message, but for me it was merciful.  As I'd been heading down the stairs I was actually beating myself up about how much I love to make things beautiful.  I was feeling a bit ridiculous about how happy it makes me to put beautiful flowers in vases, make neat stacks of clean laundry, shelve books in patterns of color and width of spine, carefully fold antique quilts collected through the years.

It reminded me of a moment four years ago when a friend brought her sister  by for a visit.  When we'd moved into our home I'd had a stunning wall of custom bookcases built in our great room.  It housed over a hundred books I'd collected as a voracious reader.  Each book was like a good friend.  As I'd finish reading a particular volume, I would write a note to my daughters inside.  The notes would tell them where I was in my life when I'd read the book, the feelings it had elicited, the insights gained, and any conclusions reached.  The books were my way of cataloging my feelings and thoughts so that my daughters might someday know me as I was.  The bookshelf was my way of putting my life in order.  Turning it into something beautiful. 

My friend's sister saw this the minute she walked in the door.  She looked at the wall of books...some of them shelved with spines vertical, some stacked horizontally...and exclaimed, "Your bookshelf is a quilt to you isn't it?  The colors and graphics, widths, depths, and heights of each spine has been placed carefully, hasn't it?  This is your quilt of ideas." 

I wanted to cry.  I felt known. 

So when I stopped on the stairs tonight and God spoke to me of Himself as the source of my love for beauty and order, it reminded me of that moment of being known, and a wave of peace and joy washed over me...refreshing and encouraging me...to be me...to love the me I am.

I don't have to imagine how it will feel to be standing in His presence, enveloped in His love, seen through His eyes and known...and I am singing Alleluiah...when I can speak at all.

I love the way that Mary Baker Eddy describes it:

"When will mankind awake to know their present ownership of all good, and praise and love the spot where God dwells most conspicuously in His reflection of love and leadership?  When will the world waken to the privilege of knowing God, the liberty and glory of His presence..."

You don't have to imagine...just stop and let Him speak to you.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"I had a garden once..."

"I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear,
falling on my ear
is the voice of God…and discloses…

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

I'd stay in the garden with Him
'Tho the night around me be falling
But He bids me go;
through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known..."
-     Anne Murray "In the Garden"

I had a garden once
Her lavender bushes
fat with fragrance
splayed willowy limbs
beyond their beds
And spilled
silver leaves and
redolent spikes
Along
a meandering
slate
pathway

Armloads of
pale pink
"Baby Blanket"
roses
threw themselves
across the
top of
our butter
yellow picket fence
and trailed slender fingers full of
tiny perfectly formed
blossoms
towards
the sidewalk
where
lovers walking
hand -in-hand
would
brush against her tiny gifts
breathing in
her aire.

Just after dawn,
morning glories would
uncurl themselves
from sleep and
open their
pale purple
throats
to catch each
drop of
dew
that
fell from heart-shaped leaves
and slaked
a nightlong thirst

I would arrive
tea pot, cup, saucer
and books in
hand
to join them
on our wide
porch
for
My own first
cup of
Water dripping from
leaves…
each page
a cup of refreshment
My version of
a morning glory's
awakening.

One by one…
marigolds,
dusty miller,
sweet peas,
hydrangea
and
hollyhocks
Shake
the dawn and
begin their
daily
pilgrimage
following the
Sun

from east to
west
their heads
turn so
slowly
I am reminded
of Tibetan
nuns
on temple pillows
made of
green
silk

By evening
The white garden
is ready to
unfurl her
quiet
elegant
display
of reflected light

From
beneath the arbor
I can see
delicate
Moonflower,
creamy Campanula,
diaphanous Heath Aster, and
the patient
Impatient
waiting all day
for her moment
to shine

Even the hearty
Daisy looks
like a slip of
lace against
the blue light of
dusk

I had a garden once
Sweet Peas
And tomatoes
sat side by side
tendrils
reaching for one another
through the
picket fence that
held
our summer's bounty
like a disciple's basket…
dinner for
five
And more than enough to
share

Rich soil
stained
my fingernails
Lavender oil stained
my linen apron
Beads of
perspiration
stained my nightgown when
weeding
came before
breakfast
and by noon
small streams...
salty rivulets...
carved pale paths
down
dusty shoulders
and across
a sun-kissed back

There the bees
were my
friends, my colleagues...and I
waged a
miniature war
with aphids and potato mites and
grasshoppers
who thought
my garden
was
a banquet
a feast
a table of plenty

I had a garden once
that
filled my heart
with color
and beauty and
oh, so many firsts
First crop of perennials in their
second season
First warm tomato my
dad hadn't handed me
fresh from the vine
First bundle of lavender from my
own plants
First summer spent weeding before
swimming
First harvest and
canning in my own kitchen…

I returned in secret
one summer...
long after
we had moved on
to other gardens
other arbors and
picket fences
trailing roses

I could barely find her…
but she was there
I had planted her well
and deep
I could see
dry, hard, darkening
rosehips
formed at the
fingertips of
once supple vines on the
other side of
a peeling picket fence
still, but only just, butter yellow
a fence loved so
much that a child
spent
summers nestled with her
best friend
in
the far corner where their worlds
met and
the roots from
an old cottonwood
made a
natural
CrazyCreek for
her to read in.

I could almost
see
Lavender spires
deep purply-blue and
fragrant
springing from the
out-stretched tips of
scraggly gray-green
bushes leaning
frail and un-anchored
along the clapboard
above the stone foundation
just beyond the
porch lattice

I dared to
walk back
and forth in
front of the trellised gate
now free of the weight
of antique roses and
English Ivy
searching for the
scent of
hyacinth I
knew lived
just beneath
the dusty
dry earth at
the
sidewalk's edge

I keened
my ears
for the sound
of butterfly wings
hovering over
hollycocks
once profuse against the
wall of the garden shed
in pinks and
reds and
whites that
shimmered in the
hazy velvet darkness of a
midsummer's twilight

I ached to feel
the rich black soil I
knew was waiting
just inside the
garden gate
where heirloom
tomatoes once
dripped their
rare seeds
at summer's zenith

I had a
garden once
she surrounded a
yellow cottage with
a wide front porch
where I would rock my
daughter to sleep on
summer evenings that buzzed with
Cicadids
hummed with
tree frogs and sparkled with
fireflies
singing lullabies about
a moon that saw us
and the mother we couldn't
see who
sat under an African sun

I had a garden once that
I later visited and
saw what lay beneath the soil but
was invisible to others

I
walked away
clutching a fistful of
her deep
brown
earth
soil stolen from
just inside the
garden gate
filled with
heirloom seeds
and memories of
summers filled
with she and I…and
A chocolate dog with
deep brown eyes
on a wide porch
dripping morning glories
before dawn.
Kate

"White lace and promises..."

"We've only just begun to live,
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we're on our way.
And yes, We've just begun.

Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.

And when the evening comes we smile,
So much of life ahead
We'll find a place where there's room to grow,
And yes, We've just begun..."
-     Paul Williams/Roger Nichols

I didn't know her well...yet.  My friend's mother was a retired widow with a generous heart. When she learned that I had been through a devastating heartbreak, she offered her home as a quiet sanctuary where I could rest, pray, and begin to heal.

I was grateful for her hospitality…and more than a little bit shy.  I had visited her home before, but always in the company of her children.  This time I was there alone.  I arrived late one evening, emotionally and physically exhausted, falling into bed after a brief, warm greeting and being shown to the room I would stay in.  The next morning I tiptoed down the stairs just after dawn hoping to make myself a cup of tea and retreat back to my room before she stirred.  But as I rounded the bottom of the stairs, I was surprised to discover that she was already up, and sitting on the sofa in front of an open photo album.  

After polite "good mornings", I asked if she would mind if I made myself a cup of tea and excused myself to the kitchen with her permission.  Minutes later I returned, tea in hand and found her sitting exactly as I had left her…this time a faded black and white photograph in hand, and a faraway look on her face.

I asked her if it was a lovely memory and she smiled and patted the cushion next to her. 

As I joined her on the blue plaid sofa, she passed the photo to me and told me that it was her wedding picture.  I was not surprised to see a younger version of the kind and gentle woman sitting next to me...smiling, from within the circle of a lanky, grinning young man's embrace, for the photographer.  She was in a simple outfit and her expression was peaceful. 

I asked her about her wedding.  She explained that she and her groom had chosen a simple ceremony with just a few guests.  I was surprised.  It was curious to me...as a rather romantic young woman who had cut her teeth dreaming through the dog-eared pages of Bride magazine...that someone would actually choose to not have a big beautiful wedding if they possibly could, and asked her why she hadn't. 

Her story was simple.  But I have never forgotten it. 

She told me that she had met her future husband in church one Sunday just after he had begun exploring spirituality and attending her place of worship.  They fell in love and he proposed.  She said that she thought about a big, fancy wedding, but that planning one would take time.  She knew that her groom's spiritual integrity was the most important thing to him…and to her.  She also knew that "waiting" through a long engagement, in order to carry out extensive wedding plans, might be difficult for him.  So she decided that she would rather have a husband who felt the deep inner strength of his spiritual integrity and courage, than have a big wedding.  So she suggested that they get married right away in a simple, modest wedding. 

She smiled sweetly when she said that she gave up a fancy wedding and a big beautiful dress for a wonderful man.  She went on to say that she never regretted that decision.

This story touched me deeply.  My admiration and love for this new friend was forged...and galvanized...by this story.  I have never forgotten it…or her.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says, "Marriage should improve the human species, becoming a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to man, and a centre for the affections. This, however, in a majority of cases, is not its present tendency, and why? Because the education of the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations, - passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment, display, and pride, - occupy thought."

Over the years I have been amazed at the wisdom and spiritual maturity this, then, very young woman displayed at a time when women were given little credit for making wise choices and thoughtful decisions.   What a blessed young man she married.  What a blessing she was to me.  Her example of true bridal beauty and grace continues to give me pause. 

Humbly, 
Kate

"Lord, can you hear me now...or am I lost?"

"Cold, cold water surrounds me now
And all I've got is your hand
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Lord, can you hear me now?
Or am I lost?"
-     Damien Rice (from the film "I am David")

I recently had the rare privilege of watching a remarkable film about the power of love, kindness, and hope in the human heart.

"I am David" is memorable, not only for the indomitable spirit of this young boy on an impossible journey out of the horrors of a post-WWII prison camp, but for the instances of kindness that propel him forward.  Small moments of humanity which, like the soft fingers of flagella, move him through the cold dark waters of fear and doubt, towards the light of love.

Without giving too much away and ruining it for you, there is a scene where young David tries to fit into the landscape of human normalcy in order to avoid being returned to interment.  The voice of his mentor reminds him to assimilate. When a well-meaning baker is suspicious of his presence in the village because the boy doesn't smile, David realizes that smiling is something he needs to learn to do.  His early attempts to create a smile result in a distorted grimace, a forced expression which, when tried out on another unsuspecting merchant, undermines his desire to fit in to the social landscape and go unnoticed. 

Although he generally tries to stay hidden from others while making his pilgrimage, his inherent humanity surfaces and he finds himself rushing to the aid of a young girl in need.

Later, in the presence of her gratitude and sympathy for injuries he sustained during her his heroic rescue, David discovers how natural a smile is.  Her kindness has the irresistible effect on his face of creating what all of his desperate trying could not form....a simple, sweet smile.

It wasn't a manipulation of physiology, psychotropic medications, excited hormones, the production of pheromones, calming serotonin, plastic surgery or psychotherapy that produced a smile.  It was the presence of kindness…the flow of gratitude.

A smile - the expression of beauty, the outward manifestation of joy - is irrepressible, undeniable, imperative.  It springs from a place so primitively spiritual and eternal that we mistake it for physiological reaction.  But it is not a reaction, but the very action of divinity in humanity, the outpouring radiance of Soul in the presence of Love…operating in, and on, the human heart.  This radiance can't help but shine in all its beatific loveliness from the face of any child of God.  

David discovers his smile. He doesn't have to create it or learn how to do it. It just is. From under the debris of hatred and the rubble of cruelty his beautiful smile springs forth at the first warm touch of Love's radiant love.

How many smiles will spring forth at the warm touch of your kindness, gratitude and love today?
Kate

"...eternity in bloom..."

"…Life is eternal
And love is immortal
And death is only a horizon
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight…"
-Carly Simon/Teesa Gohl

Today is the 53rd time the earth has circled the sun during this chapter of my "life"…or as our ten-year-old daughters would say…"oooh Mommy is 53 years old today."  I'm not a big birthday person. I forget mine, I forget most of my siblings' birthdays (I have seven) until well after it is too late to call them…and rarely in time to buy a card and send it so that it gets there on the day.  I make light of it, but Nancy, Linda, Ricky, Wayde, Lila, Fawn and Shawn…I really do feel awful when it happens…really awful. 

If three of my daughters didn't have the same birthday, I am not sure if I would do any better with their "special day."   Thank goodness for my cellphone's calendar feature.  I can set alarms for all five of the children.

Anyone who has spent any time talking with me about the issues of life and death has heard the above lyrics from Simon and Gohl.  I have typed them on so many memorial websites and guestbooks that I can key them in my sleep.  I love this explanation about death…or really about life.  To see that death is not the limit of someone's life, but only the limit of what we are able see of their life…is so consonant with what I have come to know through my own experiences and what I have witnessed of the "death" process.  And it takes my breath away.

But today I am replacing the word death with the word birth.  My birth, though a wonderful, joyous moment of meeting my mom face to face, and discovering a new landscape to play in, was not the beginning of my life.  I may no longer remember my experiences prior to my birth, but I have no doubt that I had them, that they were full of lessons learned and people loved, and that I was a completely mature conscious being.

My birth was a horizon…and only a limit to what I remember of my pre-birth experience or what anyone else on this side of the horizon sees of that pre-birth chapter of my life.

So…as Simon and Gohl recommend:

"I've been doing a lot of thinking
About growing older and moving on
Nobody wants to be told that they're getting on
For a long, long stay
But just how long and who knows
And how and where my spirit will go
Will it soar like Jazz on a saxophone
Or evaporate on a breeze
Won't you tell me please..."

My experience has proven to me that I will not "soar like jazz on a saxophone" there (wherever there is)…unless I have begun to do so here.  The body that I have now is my highest sense of how thought…consciousness…is embodied today.  When I dream I have this same body,  I know that when I move on from this chapter of my life I will have the same body…just as flexible, lithe, strong, toned…as I do at the moment of my transition beyond your horizon of seeing.  Until my concept of body changes, I'm stuck with the one I'm entertaining in thought.  Thank goodness thought is ever evolving, developing, de-enveloping from all the "education" we have been handed.  Sometimes it's almost as if someone is walking around with a tray of "aging" canapés at a reception offering, "A flabby tummy or a missed opportunity, ma'am?"  No thanks…I think I'll pass.  I'm eating "raw" these days…the simple diet of kindness, laughter, silence, love.   The recipe for a beautiful body of thought, a strong body of work, a flexible body of family.

But if right here I have learned to soar like jazz on a saxophone, or evaporate on a breeze, or walk on water, or live without chocolate…well, I think that's what I'm gonna take with me. 

"...Here on earth I'm a lost soul
Ever trying to find my way back home
Maybe that's why each new star is born
Expanding heaven's room
Eternity in bloom..."

I do like thinking that heaven is expanding, making room for new stars in my life.  That right here, and right now, "eternity's in bloom."  Isn't this what pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting is all about?  Falling in love, graduating from high school, climbing Machu-Pichu…eternity in bloom.

"...And will I see you up in that heaven
In all it's light will I know you're there
Will we say the things that we never dared
If wishing makes it so
Won't you let me know..."

I know that there are things you and I don't dare say…but why? Are we afraid of rejection, judgment, or of being thought silly?  Why wait until some far-off "heaven"…why not now, why not here…heaven on earth?  We all know each other here…this is the place…this is the time…to say all the things we "never dared"…because,

"…life is eternal
And love is immortal
And death is only a horizon
Life is eternal
As we move into the light
And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight
Save the limit of our sight."

So, on my birthday…as my children celebrate 53 rotations of this planet around our central star since I started this chapter of my life…I beg each of us…say the things to one another that we never dared…

…soar like jazz on a saxophone…

live eternity in bloom…

because Life is eternal…

thanks Carly…thanks Mom,
Kate