"and when I don't belong..."

"and when
I don't belong,
you say
I am Yours..."

Lauren Daigle's "You Say," was the fire that drew me to her side this morning -- as the first snow of the season, fell gently on the last of summer's roses.

Some days I wake up without a sense of belonging in the world. Not just in big abstract ways, but in the details of the day. I look in the refrigerator for something to eat and nothing seems right -- and not just "not right," but foreign. I walk out the front door and I feel detached from the community I have loved and cherished for decades. I feel like a stranger in a strange land.

I have to yield a sense of who I am based on context -- the where I live, who I know, what I do version of my self-- to something invisible and indivisible in me. This lyric from Lauren's song really spoke to me this morning:

“The only thing that matters now
is everything You think of me..."
 

It doesn't feel disorienting or disassociating when I yield to this one "thought of me," but I actually feel more connected, more fully engaged, more at peace with my place in the world. I am able to sit for hours and hours in my office and feel the presence of a community so inclusive and universal that all those feelings of "not belonging" drop away.

As I was pondering this line her song:

“You say I am loved,
when I can't feel a thing..."
 

I realized that it does not feel at all personal for me. How often do we pray that our children, friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers on the border, or soldiers and refugees in a far away land can actually feel that they are loved -- truly, viscerally loved, deeply held, completely protected and defended.

How many times have I felt empty and bereft of love in my own life? Too often. But no matter how loudly it feels like that emptiness is echoing in the cavity of my longing, it is not true. And I can know it is not true. In fact, I can actually prove that it is not true.

For example: I, myself, am filled with love.  Even though it may not feel that it is coming at me, or towards me -- from someone else at that particular moment -- but it is always radiating from within me. My love for my daughters, my love for beauty, my love for honesty, goodness, innocence. These are always there -- ready to be called up as a reminder that I am not "without love" in my life.  This is consciousness of the presence of Love, is the I AM of divine Being.

Mary Baker Eddy gives us such clear direction in our search for identity, belonging, an invariable sense of who we are in the world -- and how we fit -- when she wrote:

“How shall we reach
our true selves?

Through Love."
 

What God -- divine Love -- says about me, or you, is all that matters. Everything else that might be said about us is lovely -- or not. Whether those voices are from others, or just the false voices that hiss in the night.  Either way, they don't matter.  They can just as easily bring us joy and comfort one minutes -- and the next, drive us to our knees with the weight of insecurity and self-doubt. They are fickle and unreliable sources.

But we are not limited by those voices of admiration -- or dismissal.  We each have the right to ask ourselves, where is this "message" of grandeur or smallness, belonging or emptiness, success or failure, love or fear -- coming from. If God isn't saying it to us -- we can question it.  We can decide to sit with those feelings a little longer, and let them instruct us in compassion, or we can listen more deeply until we hear the voice of divine Love reminding us:

“you are not alone,

what I say about you
is all that matters,
and you are Mine..."
 

It is enough to lift us up, to dissolve our fears, to humble our ambitions, to walk us forward...

offered with Love,

Kate

"and when I don't belong..."

"and when
I don't belong,
you say
I am Yours..."

Lauren Daigle's "You Say," was the fire that drew me to her side this morning -- as the first snow of the season, fell gently on the last of summer's roses.

Some days I wake up without a sense of belonging in the world. Not just in big abstract ways, but in the details of the day. I look in the refrigerator for something to eat and nothing seems right -- and not just "not right," but foreign. I walk out the front door and I feel detached from the community I have loved and cherished for decades. I feel like a stranger in a strange land.

I have to yield a sense of who I am based on context -- the where I live, who I know, what I do version of my self-- to something invisible and indivisible in me. This lyric from Lauren's song really spoke to me this morning:

“The only thing that matters now
is everything You think of me..."
 

It doesn't feel disorienting or disassociating when I yield to this one "thought of me," but I actually feel more connected, more fully engaged, more at peace with my place in the world. I am able to sit for hours and hours in my office and feel the presence of a community so inclusive and universal that all those feelings of "not belonging" drop away.

As I was pondering this line her song:

“You say I am loved,
when I can't feel a thing..."
 

I realized that it does not feel at all personal for me. How often do we pray that our children, friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers on the border, or soldiers and refugees in a far away land can actually feel that they are loved -- truly, viscerally loved, deeply held, completely protected and defended.

How many times have I felt empty and bereft of love in my own life? Too often. But no matter how loudly it feels like that emptiness is echoing in the cavity of my longing, it is not true. And I can know it is not true. In fact, I can actually prove that it is not true.

For example: I, myself, am filled with love.  Even though it may not feel that it is coming at me, or towards me -- from someone else at that particular moment -- but it is always radiating from within me. My love for my daughters, my love for beauty, my love for honesty, goodness, innocence. These are always there -- ready to be called up as a reminder that I am not "without love" in my life.  This is consciousness of the presence of Love, is the I AM of divine Being.

Mary Baker Eddy gives us such clear direction in our search for identity, belonging, an invariable sense of who we are in the world -- and how we fit -- when she wrote:

“How shall we reach
our true selves?

Through Love."
 

What God -- divine Love -- says about me, or you, is all that matters. Everything else that might be said about us is lovely -- or not. Whether those voices are from others, or just the false voices that hiss in the night.  Either way, they don't matter.  They can just as easily bring us joy and comfort one minutes -- and the next, drive us to our knees with the weight of insecurity and self-doubt. They are fickle and unreliable sources.

But we are not limited by those voices of admiration -- or dismissal.  We each have the right to ask ourselves, where is this "message" of grandeur or smallness, belonging or emptiness, success or failure, love or fear -- coming from. If God isn't saying it to us -- we can question it.  We can decide to sit with those feelings a little longer, and let them instruct us in compassion, or we can listen more deeply until we hear the voice of divine Love reminding us:

“you are not alone,

what I say about you
is all that matters,
and you are Mine..."
 

It is enough to lift us up, to dissolve our fears, to humble our ambitions, to walk us forward...

offered with Love,

Kate

"wanting to belong..."

"as the ruby
in the setting,
as the fruit
upon the tree;

so are you to me..”

Some habits fade slowly. Feeling the first stirrings of a post, seems, more often than not, to come with a song. It was EastMountainSouth's  "So are You to Me"  that underscored those first stirrings this morning.

Here is my confession. I want to belong. I have always wanted to belong. Yes, I have often shrugged off the importance of clubs and sororities, teams and groups, but not because I really think they are unimportant - but because I always felt like I was on the outside looking in.

This morning I watched four groups of girls welcome new members as into their world as initiates. It was heartbreakingly beautiful to watch the faces of girls - who had felt outside of an inner circle - suddenly feel welcomed in. One after the other they waited - until their name was called and their team was announced. Then, cheering, hugging, smiling. I cried. Yup, walked outside and bawled like a baby.

I wanted my name to be called. I wanted to have a forever family, a team affiliation that would follow me for the rest of my life. I wanted my children and grandchildren to feel the legacy of place.

Last night, I was talking to a dear friend who had missed the opportunity to be on one of these teams. And even though she knows that this does not define her sense of place, she also told me that some of her friends had shared with her that they just knew, that if she had been on a team, it would have been on "this" particular team. [She has given me permission to share this.] I could see that this meant something very special to her. But I understand.  I feel the same way today. When a young relative received her team "assignment" this morning, I wanted to say, "can I be one too?" So this morning, I secretly chose to join her team -- for life.

I don't know that I have anything profoundly spiritual to say about this. I am still listening for inspiration and peace. But I know this, I want to belong.  I think we all want to feel a sense of belonging.  I want to know that there is a place where when I return, they will take me in and love me. I want to know that I don't have to show up perfect to be welcomed in.  I just am.

And perhaps this is the small seed of spiritual inspiration that I can bring to this moment. When I turn within, when I enter the sanctuary of prayer, I am always welcome. God never makes me feel like I don't belong here.

This morning as I walked away from that ceremony, I could barely speak. My throat was tight, and my chest burned with unspent tears. Self-knowledge is a powerful catalyst for growth in humility. I had to face the fact that I, too, so wanted to be on a team. And this is something I don't think I could ever have admitted to myself before this morning.

So, where is this going. I have no idea. But I have a better sense of myself and the girl who I was. The girl who never belonged to anything and wanted it more than she could bear to say. Owning my name, owning my heart, owning my words, owning my mistakes, owning my feelings, owning my place in the world, owning my deep need to belong -- that seems to be the theme of this summer.

In the meantime, thank you to all the people and places who are helping me see the beauty of the things I have not always allowed myself to feel. I am so deeply grateful.

I wonder if this desire to belong to something bigger than ourselves, is one of our first natural steps out of being defined by a personal, limited sense of self. To have a sense of belonging to a more inclusive sense  of:  "I am..." Perhaps it is why Jesus' Lords Prayer reads:

"Our Father which art in heaven;

give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors;

and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil...”

Could this have something to do with the success and popularity of the Harry Potter book series.  Does it hint at an innate desire for belonging -- Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw.  Did this series speak to children who were simply hungry for the promise of belonging?  

Just some thoughts to ponder and feelings to examine in the light of Spirit.

offered with Love,

Cate

"to be the new girl..."

“to be the new girl...”

This beautiful piece of music by Paul Collier is called,  "Alone in a Crowded Room" . There are no lyrics to reference as an epigraph.  But the emotions it evokes speak as deeply as all the right words.

I was the new girl. Always the new girl. Year after year -- the new girl. The girl who never eats lunch but lives in the library. The girl who is never without a journal and pen, so that she has someone to "talk" to. Is it a wonder that when the "devil" wants to make me feel insignificant and small, it will insinuate those feelings upon moments of self-discovery, and opportunities to be made new.

Silly devil, I am on to you -- and your tricks. I have reclaimed being "the new girl," for divine Love. Yes, I am the new girl, but I am not afraid and alone anymore. I am no longer the waif sitting in the cafeteria with my nose buried in a book -- well maybe sometimes -- but now, I am there with that book because I am learning something new about myself and the world around me. I am writing in a journal because I am discovering that the world, and the people in it, are notable.

Today, I want to be the new girl. And as uncomfortable as I know it will make me, as many difficult memories as it will trigger in me -- I embrace it. I belong here.  There is a promise here, and I am going to experience it.

To be new, is not to be afraid and alone, small and over-looked -- it is to be given the opportunity to walk away from past stories and into the light of a new version of your timeless self. And because that new girl is not yet known, it often feels like I am watching her from a safe distance. I observe her steeling herself with the courage of knowing who she is at her very core. I hear her praying in the midst of a hundred voices humming like a beehive. I watch her step away, just long enough to remember her worth.  I love her.  I love her willingness to show up in that space.

A song from our hymnal says that:

"New occasions teach new duties..."

I now welcome new occasions. They not only teach me new duties, but refresh ones that I have long-loved. I love the moment that comes just as I enter a "new space," I am the new girl, filled with fresh hope, a quiet wonder, and the certain sense that God is Love -- everywhere I go.

So, if you are in a crowded room, and you are the new girl -- embrace it. Let it truly make you new.

And if you are in a crowded room, and you are quietly observant enough to notice the new girl -- make eye contact, ask her a question, smile in passing -- you may have just discovered a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

And when she returns from her maiden flight, she will light on you.

offered with Love,

Kate

"this is where we belong..."

"I hear the wind across the plain.
A sound so strong that calls my name.
It's wild like the river,
its warm like the sun.
Yes, it's here -- this is where I belong..."

Bryan Adam's soundtrack for Spirit - Stallion of Cimarron is my go-to when I am missing my daughters. When they were little girls we would watch it on rainy Saturdays, or on long winter days when our dreams of summer, horses, and camp seemed too far in the future. The other night, it was "This is Where I Belong," that sang through my heart.

I've just finished three weeks at camp. There is no place on earth that means as much to me as the Adventure Unlimited Ranches. I know I am not alone. This place is the heart's home to many generations of campers, counselors, staff, families, and volunteers.

At the beginning of training school Ranch Director, Alison Peticolas, encouraged the summer staff to join with the full-time staff in embracing a number of key results that the organization had identified - and agreed upon - earlier in the year. Each of them would give greater clarity and focus to our individual and collective purpose this summer. The first two really spoke to my heart -- articulating an over-arching organizational desire to help constituents and stakeholders:

- deepen their relationships to God

-  feel loved and valued 

There was something so simple and profound in these desired outcomes. I kept coming back to them throughout training school as I interacted with, encouraged, and supported staff, evaluated my own thoughts, and assessed the soundness of my actions at the end of each day.

These questions helped me clarify whether or not my expectations were consistent with the goals of an organization I felt so honored to serve: "Were my words and actions encouraging a deeper relationship with God? Did I leave others feeling loved and valued?"

They were questions that stayed with me throughout the day. They gave structure - and breadth - to each opportunity for service.  They brought greater focus to our collective preparation for receiving campers - and families - at the end of the month.

For example, each time that I was asked to speak, I had to ask myself, "Will what you are saying, make others think about you and your relationship to God, or will they be encouraged to deepen their own relationship with divine Love -- through their own prayer and listening?"

The same kind of clarity came with the second key result. I found myself examining my thoughts and words throughout the day -- asking questions like: "If someone could actually see your thoughts would they feel loved and valued? Are your words and actions leaving others feeling loved and valued?"

Then on the last night of training school, after the annual Heritage Night banquet, my friend Heather gave a talk in which she honed in on three promises for staff to cherish -- for themselves, and for their campers:

1. You belong here.
2. You are ready.
3. You are not alone.  

I couldn't help but think of how it had all come together so beautifully. Between the key results, and those promises, everyone had all that they needed to go forward with confidence, humility, and grace.

We each belong here -- exactly where we are -- in the cabins, programs, roles, responsibilities, and the relationships we are in.  No one is out of place.

We are ready for whatever presents itself as a platform for spiritual growth, healing and adventure. We are prepared -- but so are our fellow staff members, and the campers -- we will be working with throughout the summer. Everyone has been graciously prepared. We can trust this truth. Everyone is the very manifestation of the promised "kingdom of heaven within" -- inspiring, governing, guiding. 

We are not alone. Scripture promises that, God is with us always, everywhere.  So, not only are we always "with the Lord," -- individually.  We are also part of that "us." -- collectively.  Yes, we each have the "kingdom of God" within us.  But we also have each other -- to encourage, inspire, listen with, and appreciate.

What a wonderful three weeks of training school. The staff is focused on deepening relationships with God, and helping others feel loved and valued. They know that they belong, they are ready, and they are not alone -- and neither are their campers.  Thank you for this succinct reminder, Heather.    

I can't help but think of the passage in Mary Baker Eddy's The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany from which the name Adventure Unlimited comes:

"This day drops down
upon the glories of summer;
it is a glad day,
in attune with faith’s fond trust.
We live in an age
of Love’s divine adventure
to be All-in-all." 

Here's to a summer of unlimited adventures.

offered with Love,

Kate

"i was never the same…"

"the sun's not so hot
in the sky today,
and I can see summertime
slipping away..."

James Taylor's "September Grass," takes me to a time long before it was even written. A time when JT's voice was the soundtrack of my heart. September 1971 -- Sweet Baby James, a boy who played football, and a town as quaint as a Gilmore Girls episode.

Only I was the thing that didn't fit in. I was not the confident, charming teenager living in a quaint village.  I was a misfit character from all the shows that weren't even being written in those days. Stories about self-doubt, tears that fell in rivers, and feelings that were choked back in silence.

I didn't know that things could be different for me.  I was the girl who lived in a secret.  Until one day God dropped me into the arms of a sweet town and a lovely boy.  The town was a small village that I grew to love.  And the boy was kind.  He gave me hope.   Hope that someday I might actually be a normal girl.  A girl with a family that laughed loudly and fought openly. Because he was a normal boy.  He was all about fishing and football, olds car and hands that were strong and capable and fixed things. He was safe. And believe me, safe was everything to me.

Our family had only moved to the area that spring of 1970.  We lived in a small carriage house on an old estate just outside of town. I had attended the local high school for two months before we broke for summer.  Since then I'd endured three months of babysitting younger siblings, canning endless bushels of tomatoes, pickles, and beets, and searching for places to hide and read. My mother was ripe with twins, so I became her arms, legs, hands and feet. I would make breakfast, do dishes, hang laundry on the line, take it down, fold it, and put it away. Dinner, baths, bedtime stories. The next morning it started all over again.

I had circled the Tuesday after Labor Day on a calendar that hung on the wall next to my bed. The first day of school. I would be free of it all -- small children, and mind-numbing chores, the smell of tomatoes waiting to be canned, and the weight of wet laundry.

The first week of school was glorious. I was learning to type, my english teacher was young and eager, our civics class was interesting, and I wasn't new. I'd been at the school for two months in the spring and I actually knew a few other kids. This was a rare for me.  We moved constantly when I was growing up. That first weekend there was the promise of a youth group gathering at the local community center. Basketball, records, dancing, board games, and s'mores.

My dad agreed to let me go if I took my younger sister. That was easy. She was outgoing and popular. I was neither. But entering any social gathering on the trail of her Love's Baby Soft perfume had become my mode of operation in high school. I didn't mind. If I was going to be associated with anyone, my sister was the perfect companion.  In her company I had a chance of being included.

We'd gone to the opening football game of the season that afternoon and our team had won. The air was crisp and spirits were high when we arrived at the community center that evening. There was a group of guys shooting baskets in the gym, girls on the periphery talking, and other kids playing twister and monopoly on the raised stage at one end of the long room that was used as a combined gym, theater, and town meeting hall.

The music was loud and there were as many kids playing on the swings and playground equipment outside as there were inside. I stayed in my sister's orbit as she gravitated towards a group of girls she knew. They were nice girls. I knew some of them from classes we shared. When the conversation stalled I excused myself and went to the stage where a boy was waiting for someone to play chess. That would be me -- the game geek. Scrabble, chess, backgammon, Yahtzee -- I loved them all.

Some time later -- time filled with intense strategic concentration -- I noticed that the lights had been lowered and half of the kids had gone home. Those who remained were dancing on the basketball court. These were nice kids, I liked them. I wanted to be one of them. I left the game area on the raised stage and joined my sister on the sidelines. It was a sweet moment.

Then a boy I knew from our English Literature class came up and asked me to dance. The song was James Taylor's "Fire and Rain." I was sure he was talking to my sister. But no, he was asking me. I remember the clean scent of laundry detergent on his red and green plaid flannel shirt. I remember that he was a good foot taller than I was. I remember feeling something I'd never felt before -- at home.

We became friends.  Later, we were a couple within the safe context of a larger group of kids that spent Friday nights together at the local Methodist Church -- playing games, talking, and eating pizza. He was kind. He was gentle and quiet. He had a big family that laughed and fought and took me under their wing. His mom would scold me when I needed it. His dad would give me advise on all measure of issues from applying for jobs to changing the oil in my car. His brothers teased me and his sisters were my allies.

This isn't a particularly inspired or poignant post. But for me, this moment in my life was magical. For the first time, I felt like I belonged somewhere. Home felt like crisp September air. It tasted like apples and it smelled like woodsmoke and laundry detergent on a flannel shirt beneath my cheek. Home was a community center in the middle of a small town where my sister and I stood together without our parent or siblings -- and I wasn't afraid. Home was the promise of friendship and belonging.

So even now, when September sweeps in on the cool breath of autumn's promise, I feel safe. I am in the arms of a tall boy with kind eyes. I have just discovered what it might feel like to belong, and I never want to leave. I have a glimpse of my sister and I as whole people -- not just one tenth of a family. I have begun to realize that there is more to life than being small and scared -- the new girl who is awkward and bookish.

September is my reminder of that feeling.  It says, remember that you belong. Remember that you are not small and afraid of what you cannot see, or control, or understand. You know what home feels like. You know what it means to belong -- not to a place or a person - although those are lovely -- but to something so infinite and kind that it gave you the gift of a September evening in 1970.  It let you feel the promise of something you didn't even know you were aching for.

I believe that these moments of spiritual serendipity imprint themselves on our hearts.  They never leave us and they are always there to remind us to have hope, to persist, to be patient, and to trust. September does that for me. September is not a 30 day span on the calendar. September is a promise. A promise of home, and belonging, and discovering something you hadn't even known to hope for. 

We all have opportunities to make this kind of a difference in another person's life.  It doesn't always happen in big ways.  Sometimes it is the smallest act of acceptance that leaves the most enduring imprint on the heart.  That evening a boy simply asked a girl to dance.


offered with Love,

Kate

"how bad we need each other…"

"life, is too far to walk alone
you can't do it on your own.
it's like bare hands
digging through stone..."

For a while now, I haven't written a post unless something really catches in my heart. Today, I heard Marc Scibilia's hauntingly lovely song, "How Bad We Need Eachother,"and broke into tears. It speaks to where I am right now, and where I think our world is.

We've become so full of our own self-reliant determinism. We have computers that give us all the information we could ever want, on any subject we can think of. We have devices that entertain us in the middle of the night. We have phones with geo-locators that can give us directions to any place on earth and help us find our way home when we are lost. But they can help us find what we are still searching for.

We are still looking for a sense of belonging.  There is a distance we are trying to bridge.  We are hungry for connection.  And all the binge watching of our favorite television series cannot replace what happens when we laugh with a friend or cry with a loved one. 

That modulated voice on Google maps will never be able to imitate your mom -- or dad -- no matter what accent or vocal tone you program into its settings. It will never be able to remind you of that crazy road trip the family took in 1968, when a missed turn took you to the edge of the Grand Canyon in the middle of the night and you ate s'mores for breakfast at dawn. It will never be able to place its hand over yours on the gear shift, singing along to Carole King's "You've Got a Friend," as you drive across Kansas.

We need each other -- badly. Facebook gives us a false positive -- all the time. It allows us to be dismissive and careless with those we see every day, and then get online in the middle of the night and have our consciences soothed by all those "likes," that just keep on coming. Who needs to be kind in the moment, when at the end of the day our latest status update, photo, or "share" leads to a stream of likes, heart icons, comments, thumbs ups, and admirations.

Recently a friend was going through hell. I mean serious human hell. Her most current Facebook profile photo showed a smiling, happy wife and mother. Her latest status update was full of personal joy, professional achievement, and showed photos of a beautiful family event where she was surrounded by those she loved. Weeks later friends were still commenting about how delighted they were for her. No one had picked up the phone in weeks to call her. Everyone assumed her life was suspended in ether of her last status update.

But it wasn't. A family tragedy had kept her from returning to Facebook, and she was deeply in need of comfort and encouragement. When I learned of her situation I called her. Little did she know that I actually needed her, to need my friendship, just as much as she needed a friend.

The desire to belong is woven into our spiritual DNA. I believe it is why the Lord's Prayer is written in the language of our, us, we. It is in our relationships -- our real, living breathing, face-to-face relationships with one another -- that we discover the depth of our humanity. And it is in the midst of this humanity, that our relationship to the divine is excavated from the ego's burial of substance, in symbol.

The other day, I was sitting at my desk feeling quite alone. I love my work. I am blessed with a career that allows me to speak, text, and email with folks in the most life-afirming way. But I hadn't heard myself laugh in a long time. I missed sister/colleague/girlfriend/neighbor/citizen of the world time. I missed beating my husband in a game of Scrabble. I missed sitting with a friend while we waited for a movie to start. I missed linking arms in advocacy for social injustice issue, with like-hearted citizens. I missed driving through a new town, stopping for breakfast in a random diner, and learning something about the life of a single mother in a small rural community.

I needed human connection. I needed to feel that I belonged to a family, a community, a cause. It just wasn't enough to know that my Facebook friends liked my most current status. I needed to make eye contact, to hear the nuances in a friend's sigh, to have someone intuitively know that I didn't have it as "all together" as I was trying to project.

I grabbed my keys and drove to the library.  Checking out a book, I found myself standing at the counter talking with Melissa about her new haircut. Then I drove to the coffee shop where I ran into a few neighbors and caught up. Wandering next door I caught up with a new friend who owns a small business, before stopping in at another friend's shop where we discussed the economic plight of women in third world countries. Running into a dear friend, who had recently lost a loved one, I shared her tears -- and her gratitude that these relationships give us access to the deepest parts of ourselves.

Then I went back to my office. I was refreshed and connected. Not just to those people I had laughed, cried, and listened with, but with a palpable sense of the divine operating in each of us. We can't fake those moments. We can't photoshop the tears out, nor can we correct the wrinkles and blemishes that make each of us vulnerable to the other's humanity. 

We can't put a perfectly crafted spin on a regrettable moment, or pretend that we aren't hurt. We are forced to see the way our words might have affected someone, feel their sadness, and do what we can to alleviate suffering. We can't just soothe ourselves with the one hundred and thirty-four "likes" on a witty status update, a new cover or profile photo,  or a recently shared inspirational meme.  

All of those likes and comments can be encouraging, endorsing, and edifying, but they will never replace the tender touch, an attentive look, the intonation in a sigh, precious times spent in silence -- together.

In times of national and international sorrow, it is so easy to feel connected by linking to of an article posted by a friend, or find a sense of community in our common take on social/political issues. But we need more. We need shared laughter, heart-to-heart conversations that  make our eyes brim with tears. We need to feel forgiveness in a touch, or comfort in an embrace. We really do need one another -- badly.

In her spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Give us this day our daily Bread.

Give us grace for today,
feed the famished affections..." 

I don't know anyone who is fed by a beautifully lit photo of loaves of just-baked bread, or is refreshed by a perfectly described glass of icy, cold lemonade. We need the warm embrace, the bracing laughter, the healing touch. We need each other -- in real time.

We don't have to be afraid to honestly and candidly face the storms of being human - together. To hold one another, to listen deeply, to speak words of comfort.  Because, as Marc sings in his song:

"Storms never come to stay,
they just show us,
how bad we need each other..." 

And we do, we really do need each other.

offered with Love,

Kate

"You belong to Me..."

"You don't have to prove to me
that you're beautiful to strangers..."

There was a time when Carly Simon's "You Belong to Me," represented what I thought wanted. I wanted someone to belong to, and someone who belonged to me.

And not just someone to call my own, but a place of my own, a family, friends, a spiritual community, a job, a purpose. I wanted to feel that I'd found my niche in the world, and in someone else's heart.

I wanted, wanted, wanted. I didn't think I wanted things, but I definitely wanted a feeling. I wanted to feel that I belonged.

And there was a point in my life when I really began to believe that I was coming close experiencing that sense of belonging in a number of ways. That is, until I didn't have any of it -- anymore. And that was probably the best day --  the day I began to discover a real sense of belonging.  A sense of belonging that is invulnerable and eternal.

You see, I'd always thought that if I could just be "enough" for everyone around me, I would get the chance to belong. If I was attentive, kind, loving, neat, smart, funny, spiritual enough, the people in my life wouldn't need anyone else. They would want me and I would belong to them, with them, near them.

I thought that if I always saw them through the most loving eyes, gave the best gifts, provided the most attentive care, served with the greatest willingness, made the best meals, had the coziest home, tried to be the most thoughtful colleague, tenant, friend, daughter, sister, mom -- my belonging would be secure.

But this kind of thinking -- and behaving -- was exhausting. It meant that if I made one false move, dropped one carefully juggled ball, forgot to say the right thing, broke the rules -- even a little, I'd be out, rejected, dismissed. And I was.

And that rejection was probably the most vital, enduring, and life-transforming gift God could have given me.

You see, I'd never, ever -- no matter how hard I'd tried -- really felt like I belonged. I always felt like a visitor, a tolerated guest -- only "there" at the behest of my hosts. Once out in the cold, I had to go deep within to find warmth and comfort. And in that space of prayer -- the great interiority of conscious worth -- I found a reliable place to abide, not just visit.

This is the place where we are not a tenants -- vulnerable to eviction, rejection, homelessness.  And because it is a place of grace, we can't buy it or earn it.  It is God's place where no one, and nothing, can tell us we don't belong. Ever.

Robert Frost once said that:

"Home is the place where,
when you go there,
they have to take you in."

But I no longer think this is true, if we are talking about home as a geographical, personal, or institutional "place."  For me, this statement can only be true in a spiritual context. It only feels possible in the "place" where God and men do meet. In that stillness of consciousness -- that deep interior sanctuary -- where thoughts and deeds take form and flight.

Of course we delight in our loved ones, we cherish our communities of fellowship, and appreciate houses, temples of worship, and spaces that are sacred to us. But our sense of belonging can never be fully satisfied, or secure, if it is based on personal or organizational acceptance. And no matter how hard we try, we will never find that "place" on earth where we can feel eternally rooted and grounded. For me, this kind of unconditional security, acceptance and belonging can only be found in the heart of God.

When singing the words of H. F. Lyte's timeless hymn "Abide with Me," * I always imagine my Father-Mother God standing at the threshold of stillness, bidding me, "come in." There I find an ever-wakeful divine Parent always welcoming me home to the one place where I will always belong:

"I know Thy presence
every passing hour,
I know They peace,
for Thou alone art power;
O Love divine,
abiding constantly,
I need not plead,
Thou dost abide with me."  

This is the place of my belonging. This is the place where I don't need to plead for acceptance, grovel for forgiveness, hope for mercy, or fear rejection. This is the place I abide, dwell, rest -- the sweet, sacred interiority of the kingdom -- within. And in this place, I belong to Him.

offered with Love,

Kate

* The link to this hauntingly lovely Emeli Sande version of "Abide with Me" was sent to me by one of my daughters this morning after I'd already posted this piece. She had no idea that this particular hymn was in my heart this morning and was part and parcel to today's post. Although this version does not have the lyric quoted above, it carries the spirit of this post, and it allows you to "hear" the hymn in a most sacred way.

"Will there ever be a place where I belong..."

"Fatherless and nameless still,
fallen heart and broken -
will there ever be a place
where I belong..."

I was ten, and as broken inside as a child could be. At four I was given a name I'd never heard myself called before, and was told that one of the people I thought loved me most -- didn't.  I was told that I would never see him again. No explanation, just new name, new dad, new home.

Can you spell devastation? I couldn't, but I knew it's color, tone, and temperature. The only thing that mitigated the reach of it's cold horror, was my little sister. She was my hope. She was the thread of belonging that kept me alive to myself.

When I first heard Chris Rice's "Belong" a few years ago, I couldn't listen to it. It was too hard. I wanted to stay here -- in the light of who I am today. But the other day a friend posted a link to "Belong" on Facebook, and I knew I had to write this piece.

As a little girl I had only brief flashes of God. As a toddler, my aunt and uncle took me to Sunday School whenever I visited them.  And during my darkest hours I would remember walking from their church to the town bakery for crumb buns.

I loved watching the powdered sugar falling on my black patent-leather shoes as we made our way along the cobbled sidewalk -- one hand in hers, one wrapped around my pastry. Those Sundays stayed with me, not because of the sweets, but because I associated those memories with a feeling of belonging to the "something bigger than myself," I was learning about in Sunday School.

My grandmother would also take me to Sunday School when I visited her.  Afterwards, we'd return to the her yellow bungalow on a shady street.  We'd eat our lunch on the sun porch and then water the African violets that covered every window sill in her sunny kitchen. I associated caring for plants with home, and a sense of belonging to something safe, sure, and alive with beauty.

When my family moved far away from both my aunt and grandmother, I gathered those memories of belonging close to my heart, and tried to share them with my sister in every way I could. We moved often, but she and I always shared a bed and dreams of home. I always knew that I belonged to her, and with her.

There were many dark nights when I would curl myself around her, and silently recount all the ways that we were whole. We had our mother's love, our growing family of siblings, but most importantly, we had each other. We were smart and creative -- we liked to draw and dance; she was very strong, and I could read faster than anyone we knew. I could spell and she was the best runner -- ever.

Then one day everything changed. Our parents started going to church -- the same kind of church that my grandmother and aunt had taken me to as a toddler. Our younger siblings were going to Sunday School with us and we were became part of a community of people who believed that God was real, people were good, and Love heals. It was a whole new world for us.

My sister and I were not really as alone and vulnerable as I had long-feared. I didn't have to be afraid that someday we might have to fend for ourselves in a dark, cold world -- one where loved ones could disappear in the breath of a moment. We had God and He loved us. He had all the power in the universe, and he knew our every thought. He wanted only good for us. We would be okay.

One day, in Sunday School, my teacher read a sentence from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.  It said, in part:

"...the author has often remembered
our Master’s love for little children,
and understood how truly such as they
belong to the heavenly kingdom."

That may seem like "just a sentence" to some readers, but to me -- as a child who wasn't even sure who she was anymore -- it was a "place" I could cling to -- it was where my sister and I really belonged.   It was a place in time and eternity that no one could take from us.

Now, I won't say that this sense of belonging was always easy to remember. Over the years I've struggled mightily with suggestions of rejection, abandonment, feeling untethered and homeless. But always, right around the corner, was the memory of belonging to a "heavenly kingdom" where the Master loves his little children.

And if you are thinking, "I don't really know anyone who feels like that..." Don't be so sure. I was not a waif. My clothes were always clean, my mother loved me, and I was surrounded by siblings I adored. But I was starving for this sense of belonging -- to know that I was not a random piece of human fluff, tossed indiscriminately by the winds of chance and circumstance.

Today, as I navigate each moment's responsibilities, decisions, and appointments -- being a neighbor, mom, volunteer, wife, daughter, sister, colleague -- I try to remember that just because someone seems to "have it all together," doesn't mean they aren't hungry for that same sense of belonging I was so desperate to feel. There is nothing more wonderful than knowing you belong to a broader spiritual community -- a family of Love -- warm, all-inclusive, impartial, and universal.  This is the kingdom of heaven, and it exists within us all -- regardless of socio-economics, religion, culture, race, or gender.   In this kingdom, we are united to one another as siblings of one common Parent.

It's a sense of belonging that even the most lonely person on earth has access to -- right this very second.

with love,

Kate

"Does anybody hear her..."

"She is running
A hundred miles an hour
in the wrong direction...
Under the shadow of our steeple,
with all the lost and lonely people,
searching for all the hope
that's tucked away in you and me..."
Casting Crowns

I know this song...intimately.

Casting Crowns' "Does Anybody Hear Her?" could have been the song narrative to a chapter in my life.  A chapter filled with hope..and with despair.

When I "go there," it is the early 1980s and I am walking down a street paved with platinum and prosperity.  The setting is one of just a few American towns where there were more Bentleys parked on the streets, than Toyotas, and the average price of a restaurant meal was $200...in the 80s.   I was leaving a couture boutique where I'd gone to exchange a one-of-a-kind gift from the designer himself, for something "more to my liking," and as I passed the plate glass window of a another nearby boutique, and caught a glimpse of my perfectly manicured self glancing back at me, I felt as flat and brittle as the glass itself.  I knew that self could be shattered as easily as the fragile shell of a robin's egg...and it terrified me so much that I looked away quickly. 

On the surface, I seemed to have it all...the job, the boyfriend, the clothes, the car, the right neighborhood, the friends...and, the ever-present ache for something deeper.  I have come to learn that this yawning ache is the one thing that no amount of money, drugs, wine (even the best vintages...), designer clothing, plastic surgery, or "stuff" can fill.  It is the ache that we try to deaden with social anethesias, but never dies...it has life everlasting.   This is the hope that persists.  This is the insistent child, the pressing desire, the urgent "gaunt want" that, for me, is "the hunger and thirst for righteousness," that is always, and only, filled by the Christ.

Skip to another day...same year, same city, cars, clothes, shop windows, neighborhoods...but this time I am walking past another plate glass window.  In this window, what catches my eye, are a set of books.  Each one opened to pages tinted by years of pale blue chalk, marking out citations of scripture and related passages from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  I pause for just long enough to read each of the highlighted sections before walking on.

In that moment, I'm standing in front of a Christian Science Reading Room.  I can see the woman sitting at the desk in the room beyond.  She looks very nice.  I see her look up from her reading, smile, and return to her books. 

I wonder if they have a cassette deck and a tape recording of favorite folk hymns I loved as a teen.  I consider going in and asking, but I don't know how to cross the threshold of a doorway that seems a mile thick with guilt and regret.  Will she note the scent of wine I'd had with my power lunch?  Will she have some connection to the church-based school my mom works at?   Will she ask me if I realize that I "look just like" someone she knows at the school (my mom and I look quite alike)?  Will I bring embarrassment to my mom because of that glass, or two, of wine I'd had with my lobster salad. 

The woman doesn't look up from her books again.  The glass door with the beautifully etched words, "all are welcome" seems as heavy and impenetrable as the door of a bank vault, and I'm pretty sure that my account is no longer open.

So I walk on. 

It will take another few years, a different city, the love of a grandmother, the devotion of a mother, the kindness of a man I'd never met before, and a church community that stepped outside of itself, and boldly asked me (after only one visit to their Sunday service) if I wanted to help out in their Reading Room...to put me on the other side of that door.   The church member who approached me must have heard something I didn't think I'd even said.  And her response was to give me the opportunity to give of myself.  Somehow she knew it was what I needed most...to realize, that even in my brokenness, I had something to share...a desire to serve.

That next day, Monday, I arrived early for my "guest" shift (to plant flowers), shyly said "hello," then walked straight past my new friend (who was sitting at the attendant's desk), made a bee-line for the resource room, where I found the tape player, the cassette recording of the hymns I'd been missing for ten years, popped in the cassette, pressed play, heard the music,  and wept.  I was home.  And even though my family had indulged me earlier that weekend, singing some of those loved songs with me, it hadn't been the same as hearing the actual recording, and feeling like a deserved to be there,,,in a Reading Room...ready, willing, and eager to serve.

Another city, another plate glass window. 

I am the woman behind the desk in the Reading Room.  The door is wide open.  I see a young girl standing outside looking in the window...I smile, get up from the Scriptural study I am immersed in, walk out the door, and join her in front of the window.  It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  There are balloons tied to the parking meter in front of our building.  A couple of chairs have been pulled out onto the sidewalk.  The music is wafting from inside, and out to where we sit and talk about...well, just anything she wants to talk about.  No agenda.  We are two women who have stopped long enough to find God in a moment of fellowship.  It is enough.

I hope she felt heard.  I did.  We were there for eachother...no hierarchy of spiritual vision or inspiration.  Her questions were my questions, and God had all the answers for both of us.

so grateful,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Here is the story behind Mark's writing of "Does anybody Hear Her?"  The story is a compelling. The song is worth hearing again.

And if you would like to read an earlier telling of a different facet of this experience, here is the link to  "In Mercy, In Goodness" from October of 2008.