"in the quietness of now..."

"oh, abide with me,
where it's breathless and it's empty;

yes, abide with me,
and we'll pass the evening gently;

stay awake with me,
and we'll listen more intently..."

Oh, Carrie.

Carrie Newcomer's  "Abide,"  is a most perfect description of the shared silence I so value in our marriage.

There are many day -- and even more nights -- where we share the space of our small home without sharing words. And yet, I have rarely felt so completely heard, understood, and known.

It is this "quietness of now" which allows each of us to serve our communities in the ways that we are most inspired to do -- moment-by-moment. I feel loved and supported in the deep silence of this space we occupy together.

To know that the person I am with, is listening into the quiet - with me - is such a comfort.  And it brings great peace.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her 1898 communion message:

"My sense of nature's rich glooms is, that loneness lacks but one charm to make it half divine — a friend, with whom to whisper, “Solitude is sweet.” Certain moods of mind find an indefinable pleasure in stillness, soft, silent as the storm's sudden hush; for nature's stillness is voiced with a hum of harmony, the gentle murmur of early morn, the evening's closing vespers, and lyre of bird and brooklet.

“O sacred solitude! divine retreat!"

I have been so blessed to have a life partner, children, dogs, and a friend, who share my love for simplicity, solitude, and silence. In these relationships, I have found the most profound kind of companionship. They are my sanctuary - my home.

I feel blessed -- pure and simple. I feel so blessed.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"All those years ago..."

"I'm shouting all about love,
While they treated you like a dog..,
when you were the one
who had made it so clear
all those years ago.

I'm talking all about how to give...
but you point the way to the truth
when you say,
"All you need is love."

Living with good and bad,
I always look up to you...
Now we're left cold and sad...
by someone who offended all.

Were living in a bad dream.
They've forgotten all about mankind,
and you were the one they
backed up to the wall...
All those years ago
You were the one who imagined it all
All those years ago.

Deep in the darkest night
I send out a prayer to you.
Now in the world of light
where the spirit, free of the lies
and all else that we despised.

They've forgotten all about God.
He's the only reason we exist.
Yet you were the one
that they said was
so weird...
All those years ago

You said it all,
though not many had ears,
All those years ago
All those years ago...."

I don't know that I will have much to say about the above lyrics...they have left me speechless tonight.  I hope you read them before you listen to this video link to the song, "All Those Years Ago."

This George Harrison song, has been a part of my muiscal memory for decades now.  I have such a lovely memory of hearing his friend, Paul, singing it during an amazing Wings concert at Boulder's Folsom Field in the early nineties.  And though I love the song...and remember singing along...I don't think I'd ever thought about the message.  That was, until I read a small descriptive note that appeared with a friend's posting of the video on Facebook. 

The note explained that "All Those Years Ago," was George Harrison's tribute song to his Beatles bandmate and friend, John Lennon.  Well, now I was thoroughly interested.  I have a particular soft spot for George, and the rest of the boys from Liverpool.  But as I listened to this song, I could almost imagine John, the disciple, singing this to Jesus, and it gave me chills. 

It reminded me of Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"To suppose that persecution for righteousness' sake belongs to the past, and that Christianity to-day is at peace with the world because it is honored by sects and societies, is to mistake the very nature of religion. Error repeats itself.  The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, 'of whom the world was not worthy,' await, in some form, every pioneer of truth."

I know that not everyone, who reads this post, may think that John Lennon, was a pioneer of truth...but, that 's not the point of this piece anyway.  Its purpose is to express gratitude for each experience of fellowship, brotherhood, friendship, and sisterhood, that every "pioneers of truth," throughout history, has known.  I am so grateful that Jesus had John...and Mary, that David had Jonathon, Paul had Silas, Mary Baker Eddy had Calvin, John had George, Paul, and Ringo... oh my goodness, so many wonderful examples of love, that it fills me to the point of overflowing tonight.  To think that their journeys were not without kindness, warmth, companionship, understanding, and fellowship...makes me weep.

It's something I'm thinking about as I walk my own journey with profoundly inspired thought pioneers.  If I am seeing each of my brothers and sisters as the Christ presence in my life...and in the world, I have to ask myself, "Am I being that friend, or sister, who observes, records, brings warmth, extends encouragement, comforts, defends, loves...beholds....their promise?"

This is the question I am in tonight...

Blessings,

Kate

"Dishes in Her Dress"

"...She pulled me close and said
Don't worry about a thing
Now let's just keep our eyes focused on our dreams
We may not have what we want
But we're holding everything we'll ever need..."
Daniel Walcher

My husband, Jeff, sent me this video of Concerts in Your Home artist, Daniel Walcher's "Dishes in Her Dress," (you might also like this, easier to hear the lyrics, black&white version) and it made me weep.  It was one of those big cathartic, soul-cleansing cries where you find yourself caught off guard by something beautiful,  and you've got your elbows on your desk, your face in your hands, and sobs are escaping from a place so deep you forgot it existed...or, that you even had it in you.  It probably has something to do with the fact that he sent it from the city where he lives ans works, over a thousand miles away...and that I haven't had much sleep lately, but that said, I miss him.  He is in Boston because he loves God, his church, his family, and he wants to live his life with purpose, while he cares for his expanded family's needs.

People ask me all the time, "How are you guys doing, with Jeff out of town so much?"  (During the first seven months, we had him home for a total of ten days.)  And for the most part, I can honestly say that we are fine.  We love eachother. We are blessed with a marriage that is 90% living, laughing, and loving everything that crosses our path, with abandon.   We talk on the phone a lot, and we confer on almost every family decision that needs to be made.  I am grateful he is doing what he loves, and that he feels a clear sense of purpose every moment.  I wouldn't have it any other way right now.  So why write about this?

Because, I want to.  And because I want to go on record as having said that my life at 55 years old is still very full of genuine happiness, affection, and joy.  I want you to know...whether you are 18, and think your parents are too old to care about being in love (like I was at that age...sorry mom), or you are 75 and think you are past the point of ever being able to return to the days listening to love songs with a keen ear,  buying Hallmark cards, and finding flowers at the doorstep (no, mom, you aren't!!), love never becomes less lovely with time.

In my fifties I am enjoying being "in love" with someone who makes me laugh like a child.  He is my best friend.  He is my biggest fan...and I am his. I just enjoy his company so much that when he leaves, at the end of one of those rare weekends he can break away from his work and come home for a few days, I actually feel his leaving as an ache inside.  I cry at the airport,  and I drive home wishing I could just turn the car around and pull a Dustin Hoffman in the back of the church in "The Graduate" screaming out his name and pounding on the security glass that leads from the terminal to his gate, begging him not to leave.  I do feel these things.  I hope I always do.  I don't want to, or expect to, grow out of this love. 

I do not drop him off at the airport, and afterwards say, "Well, that was a nice little visit, now back to work!"  Oh, I eventually get there...but not always before I reach the front door of our house, walk to my office, turn to the Bible for a reminder that "this too shall pass", and that "to everything there is a season."  Some days the seasons feel like they are dragging...and this one often feels more like a long cold winter, rather than a cool, sweet, autumn day full of apples and brightly colored landscapes.   But, and this my real point, it is in these very moments of missing him that I most remember to be grateful. Sometimes it takes me by surprise that I do, at this juncture in my life, actually FEEL this way.  I am profoundly grateful that I am living in the rich space of this great love, and his gentle company.  And when I do remember that this marriage is, quite simply, an amazing gift of grace, then all the sadness disappears.  I surrender to God's care, and bask in the realization that I could never even have imagined it for myself.

Jeff and I do our best at being away from eachother, when we, as Daniel Walcher sings, "keep our eyes focused on our dreams" and acknowledge that this space of mutual focus, is the "home" we share day in and day out...no matter where he is. 

This is the "room" where we hold eachother.  This room that holds our dreams.  Dreams about how we might bless the world by "staying on purpose," dreams for our children, and every child, who desires an education, the right to live above the poverty level, and to experience the warmth of a family, our dreams for people everywhere...that they might know the love that passes all understanding and feel the transformative power of God's love that heals. 

And when it gets too hard, and I miss sharing ideas and discussing insights with my partner over a cup of tea, I honor our love by finding someone we have shared hopes with...a friend who devotes herself to environmental activism, an educator whose mission it is to put a new textbook in the hands of every inner city child, a couple with dreams of adopting from Africa and building alliances with other like-minded parents ...and meeting them for coffee, a great conversation, a game of Scrabble,  or to discuss a favorite book.  He does the same thing where he is...attending folk concerts, working on his book in a busy Starbucks, or having lunch with a friend who loves contemporary spirituality as much as we do.

This doesn't change the fact that I miss him.  But it honors a love that has surprised, delighted, and made grateful this white-haired teen-ager in a 55-year old woman's body.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, next to the marginal heading, "Spiritual Wedlock," Mary Baker Eddy says,

"The very circumstance,
which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive,
Love can make an angel entertained unawares."

I'm taking her at her word!

So, the next time Jeff comes home, I will do dishes in a dress.  I will be so grateful. I will not pretend to be more "together" about all of this, than I am, but I will share with him, pray with him, and find peace, not just in the circle of his arms, but in the security of those prayers.  I will tell him, more than a few times, that I love having him home, that his presence in my life matters...alot, and that I thank God everyday for a partner who loves me, our children, the mission-based work that we do, and who makes me feel like I will never be more beautiful than I am at that moment.

Many couples, and their families, are facing hard choices these day.  The economy, a war overseas, and an ever-expanding global workplace has forced us to stretch our sense of what it means to be "close," to clarify the differences between wants and needs, and to hold onto what is important, while letting go of all that never really mattered anyway.

We are all going to make it...if we remember to "keep our eyes focused on our dreams...thanks Daniel for the song...

Nana, you have raised a son who is a prince among men...thank you.  Loren and Jeremy, thank you for sharing your dad with us.  You too have raised a wonderful father.  We are all blessed.

I am writing this one for you, honey...in a dress...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Show me the meaning of being lonely..."

"Show me the meaning of being lonely
Is this the feeling I need to walk with
Tell me why I can't be there where you are
There's something missing in my heart..."
- The Backstreet Boys

It was the fall of 2000, and Hannah was dancing competitively with "the Conservatory."  As much as I didn't like some aspects of competitive dancing...obsessive moms, makeup on pre-teens, being surrounded by dance teams with costumes that were barely appropriate (thank you, Katie Sue for always putting our girls in tastefully designed outfits that covered what needed to be covered)...I loved the comraderie I saw as the girls worked together as a cohesive team.

Hannah, Kelsey, and Megan were the Three Musketeers.  Kelsey was the girl with the perfect dancer's body...long, lean, flexible, and fluid.  Megan was the showman...charismatic on stage, a smile that stopped time, and an incredible sense of rhythm.  Hannah was the blue-collar dancer...hardworking, precise, relentlessly demanding of herself, rigorous in perfecting her steps, turns, and leaps.  They were lovely and funny, and as a threesome they were a force to be reckoned with.  Within the larger company of a dozen or more extremely talented dancers, they were unstoppable..pure beauty in motion!  At least to their biggest fans...us, their parents.

On a typical competition weekend one of the moms would drive Hannah, Kelsey, and Megan to Denver on Friday night and check into a hotel room. The other two moms would join them on Saturday, just in time for their first performance.  Friday nights in the hotel were full of orange-dusted Doritos fingers, root beer, popcorn, and bags full of food from McDonald's.  Once in the crowded hotel room, costumes were hung in the bathroom to steam while the girls showered, and moms organized curling irons, mascara, tights, and leotards. 

Saturdays and Sundays were peppered with running between marked off dressing areas in ballrooms and the performance hall, endless bottles of Gatorade, and hundreds of giggling girls in spandex and sequins.

I loved my fellow dance parents.  Laurie, Jane, Lynn, Kendall, Linda, and about a dozen other moms and dads.  We knew eachother's daughters so well we could order their sandwiches from Subway without asking "what do you want on it".

We were having so much fun, just being together, that it didn't really matter what happened once they got on stage. We were going to cheer them on while they performed, when they faltered we'd encourage them to realize that they had given it their all, and on the drive home, help them remember that the next time they would do better because of all they'd learned.   Little did I know that autumn, that by February our family would have moved a thousand miles away and although Hannah would fly home, on weekends, for the rest of the competitive season, I would never again spend another Saturday in a Holiday Inn near Denver International Airport watching a seemingly endless number of dance routines, set to the music of the Backstreet Boys, Madonna, 'NSynch, Cyndi Lauper, or my favorite that season, Sarah McLaughlin's "I will Remember You."

Our family's relocation to the midwest, far away from all things fun and familiar was only the beginning of my lesson in learning" the meaing of being lonely". During the next few years, I would face one instance after another  when the "ties that bind" were gently being untied, and my little boat was being pushed away from the dock and out into open water...times when I was absolutely sure I was would just drift helplessly into the dark sea of despair. 

During the most lonely of these times, I often recalled one particularly sweet afternoon from those dance competition days.  Hannah and I had driven to Denver by ourselves, so that we could enjoy a short visit with my sister and brother-in-law, her aunt and uncle.  We'd had a fun dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant and were on our way back to the hotel listening to the Backstreet Boys CD, "Millenium" which includes "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely."  Since Hannah was learning American Sign Launguage at the university Laboratory School she attended, and I was a fluent signer, we were singing with our hands, as well as our voices...trying to remember the right sign for each word or phrase.   I loved signing to music and watching Hannah's hands move from word to word, was like seeing her dance in a new way.

I remember thinking that the word "lonely" was not only a sad word, but a sad sign.  A forward extended circle made with the index finger from the lips down, out, and around, returning to it original position in front of the lips.  The sign itself is supposed to be accompanied by a somewhat somber facial expression.  There was a sobering silence in that sign.  It was the opposite of our somewhat raucous weekend with our dance family.  It seemed incongrous in the context of all the giggling, cheering, whistling, singing that seemed to fill our weekend.   Where did "loneliness" fit within the cacophonous sea of 18 girls (age 11 - 18) getting dressed at the same time.  By Sunday, I was often unsure if my hearing was still intact...but never suffering from loneliness.  To see my daughter singing this song in the midst of such an exuberant weekend was unsettling in some ways. In hindsight, it felt like the hand of prophecy pointing towards the next bend in the road on my spiritual journey

And it was always...every time I heard it...that line, "Is this the feeling I need to walk with" that seemed to make my heart stammer.  How could any boy-band sing about the need to walk with the feeling of loneliness?   It wasn't a concept I was looking for the opportunity to ponder deeply during that weekend of frolic and friendship, but it kept poking at me.  And to be honest,  I couldn't imagine the strength it took to actually embrace it.

In the coming months that phrase started to haunt my steps.  It was almost as if I knew what was coming.  I would hear it and my hands would start to feel as if they were dissolving in front of me as I felt myself begin to sign the words without meaning to.  My days of walking in the space of loneliness were about to begin.

In referring to Jesus' time following the crucifixion, while in the sepulchre, Mary Baker Eddy  states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being."

Soon many of the friendships I'd held dear seemed to fall away. It was a  particularly challenging period of spiritual discovery.  A time of self-examination and of being fully engaged in crucifying a false sense of my self, my ego, and all the ways that it seemed to define my expereince.  Surprisingly,  I found myself holding onto this particular statement  from Science and Health for encouragement...and hope.  And I would sometimes catch myself signing the words to the above verse of "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" to myself in the dark before I fell asleep.  I often signed the Lord's Prayer, or the 23rd Psalm to myself at night, lying on my back in the dark, so this was not unusal.   And although at times it felt as if I was in a period of self-imposed exile from my friends, and all that I held dear and familiar, I also discovered that, in the silence of my own company -- from deep within the confines of that profoundly alone sanctuary of my sepulchre space --  I was also  finding, as Eddy promised, refuge from my foes - the dark and insidious suggestions of self-doubt, regret, anger, frustration...and in this space, I could begin to glimpse Christ's solution to the great problem of being.

I could, as "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (this link is the acapella version) suggested, walk with that feeling of loneliness, until I discovered its meaning in my life.  I could companion with it, until  it blessed me with the only kind of friendship that no one, and nothing,  could take away...my oneness with God, with Love. 

I believe that this is the space that Paul is speaking to us from in Romans when he says:

"I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

When we cease to see ourselves as the object, or recipient of love, and begin to accept our relationship to "the love of God" as its vehicle, its body, its articulation of being, and not its destination, we being to live life as one who can never be deprived of love...because the only love that matters in our lives, the only love that is divine, is the love that we ourselves embody or express.

For me, this was the meaning of loneliness.  To teach me that my relationship to Love is only as strong and inviolate, as my willingness to rise from the ashes of hurt, shame, anger, betrayal, sadness, sorrow, exhaustion, and "love more."  This Love "alone is Life."

These days, with Jeff in Boston and the girls coming and going...school, soccer, their dad and Melinda's house, friends...I spend a lot of time alone...but I am never lonely.  Once I learned its meaning and purpose, I discovered that every silent moment in the "sepulchre" was an opportunity to  fill my heart with the pure joy of consciously being the love of Love for anything and everything that crossed my mental path.  And when I am in this space I  enjoy the company of dancing, singing, signing angels...my best friends.  

with love...and with Love....
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Lila June Jones 2009]