"there was Jesus..."

"when the life I had,
came crashing to the ground;

when the friends I had,
were nowhere to be found;

there was Jesus..."

Dolly Parton and Zac Williams' song, "There Was Jesus," has meant so much to me.

In my faith tradition, we don't talk a lot about our relationship with Jesus. We talk more about the presence of the Christ.  We acknowledge the Christ in consciousness. But this post not about that deeply spiritual concept of Christ. It is about my relationship with Jesus.

"Why?" you may ask, would I write about this, -- especially when I was doing so well at not stirring things up. Because, it isn't honest for me to post month-after-month about the healing power of the Christ, and not acknowledge a relationship that is second only to my love for God.

You see, when everything is stripped from you, and you are left without human comfort, you find him. And once you have found him, you never let him go.

The details of my loneliness -- during a particularly challenging time -- are not important. Suffice it to say that Mary Baker Eddy perfectly described it when she wrote:

“Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love."
 

Been there. Felt that. And in that seeming vacuum, I found him. Not "him," as in a guy in a white robe, but him as a mentor, a shepherd, a friend -- the one who would lead me out of the emptiness of abstraction, and into the fullness of his living, breathing, palpating love.

In Scripture we are introduced to the man who would inspire gospel choirs to sing: "what a friend we have in Jesus."  To know his friendship is to never be alone again.

I remember well the nights that I sat alone in a near empty apartment and realized that I had no one to call. I had spent all day "taking calls," but felt undeserving of the same unconditional, spiritual acceptance that I try to bring to every call that comes into my office.

You see, I've made choices that did not always align with what others expected of me. My reservoir of trust - in my own ability to intuit divine guidance - sometimes runs low. There are times when I have taken all of my cues about myself, from the opinions of others. And those opinions have, at times, been full of derision.

Sitting in the dark, the light from streetlamps all that illumined the empty silence of an empty room, I begged God for something clear and unquestionable. If I was a bad person, tell me - so that I could repent and change. For all I really wanted was to love, trust, and honor Him - more each day.

What He sent me - however - was not a message. It was a man. It was His son. And in the dark, my heart is flooded with his story. I have felt held in the comfort of his example, his words, his self-sacrificing love.

In my sorrow -- he was there. In my self-doubt - he was there.  With the woman, taken "in the very act" -- he was there. With the mother begging for her daughter's life -- he was there. His words, his comforting touch, his trust in our Father's love -- it has been there to hold me close. It is there to whisper assurance. It was there to rebuke, to restore, to return me to our shared home in the Father's house - time and time again.

Sitting in the silence, I was sitting with him. Not with a specter. Not with a character from a story. Not with a superhero. I was sitting with Jesus. I was asking him about our Father.  Asking him to tell me about His love.  I was weeping in his arms. I was pouring out my heart's deepest questions, and he invariably turned me to his timeless message - "the kingdom of God is within you." Be still. Listen. I am here. I will not leave you comfortless. I have come to you."

Of the 809 times that Mary Baker Eddy refers to Jesus in her writings, 646 of them are without reference to him in connection with "Christ." And though she refers to Christ 868 times, only 494 of those instances are where it is not in connection with "Jesus" or "the Church of Christ, Scientist."

Her relationship to Jesus has humbled me. One night, when my family was living in the carriage house at Eddy's last former home on Beacon Street in Chestnut Hill, I offered to do the security check on "the big house," -- a condition of our residency. As I climbed the stairs - flashlight in hand - I came to her bedroom, and paused. I was curious about the "images" that she surrounded herself with during her darkest hours.

Eddy faced many dark nights in that last house. Her days were filled with writing, healing, founding the Christian Science Monitor, helping to guide church leadership, and facing a world that questioned her every move and decision. Her household would later recount how dark those nights actually were for her at times.

And that night, I noted that on the wall, directly opposite her bed - in that small modest room, were three images. A small painting of a pastoral scene, a familiar painting of Daniel in the Lion's Den, and a portrait of Jesus. One that you might see in many Christian homes of her day.

It took my breath away - to think that she would wake in the night to a painting of Daniel's unfailing trust, a scene reminiscent of her girlhood in Bow, and a portrait of Jesus. I will never forget the feeling of wanting to feel what she had felt when she looked at it. It left me with a longing for something more than just words about Jesus. I wanted to know why his portrait hung on her bedroom wall and what it meant to her.

One night sitting alone in a dark apartment, I understood.

offered with Love,

Kate

"just call me, and I'll always be there...."

"You with the sad eyes,
don't be discouraged;
though I realize
it's hard to take courage
in a world full of people
you can lose sight of it all;

and the darkness inside,
can make you feel so small..."

Endless Summer's cover of Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors," is kind. And yes, a performance of a song can be kind. This is.

I love the message of this song. A lot. Today, as I was hiking back up a steep (for me) hill. I felt a sliver of darkness trying to creep in and make me feel small. I know that feeling of smallness. There have been times in my life when this smallness has felt like the only thing present.

I am not a perfect human. In the past, I have let fear and doubt bully me into behaviors that I am not proud of. For such a long time, those mistakes felt like the only milestones that peppered my timeline. I couldn't remember a single positive period in my life, without the gremlin of mistake poking its head in and saying, "don't bother smiling about that moment -- it was so small in light of all the mistakes you have made."

This verse from True Colors always touches me deeply:

"Show me a smile then
don't be unhappy.
I can't remember when
I last saw you laughing.

This world makes you crazy
taking all that you can bear.

Just call me up,
'cause I'll always be there...."

Every where I looked, I had reasons for self-doubt and regret. I had always wanted to be - only good. To be loved, liked, accepted -- to belong. That hunger for belonging was ravenous. If you have ever been truly hungry, you know that it is not a feeling you can just ignore. It twists and aches in you. Those who have known real hunger will tell you that there comes a point where you will eat the unthinkable, just to make it stop.

I have known that kind of social and spiritual hunger. And I would have done anything to make it stop. In some instances I did whatever it took to alleviate the ache of loneliness and the feeling of being detached from Love.

So what changed. I found someone. Someone who had realized that their life's purpose was being the one who saw the true spectrum of each person's "true colors" through the lens of Christian Science practice. And I knew from our very first conversation that no matter what horror story I told them about my "past," they would never - ever - believe it.

It was like re-telling a nightmare to your mom. She loves you, she listens, she assures you that it never happened (or would ever happen) and then she reminds you to eat your breakfast and not forget your homework.

There was never a sharp intake of breath, never a sigh of "oh my gosh," or a moving away from me -- only love. Always love. Always there. Even when I couldn't see my own worth. They did. And through their eyes, I began to understand that what was true about me, was not in contrast with what was false, -- it was all.

In their eyes, I felt seen. Through the lens of their heart I felt known -- and beautiful.  I felt like a child of God.

And in their eyes, I wasn't just the bright light of my good moments, or the darkness of my bad choices. I was also the soft blues of gentleness, the fervent reds of fierce hope, the rich greens of a verdant faith, the deep purples of earnest devotion, the brown sackcloth of self-immolation and surrender, the sunflower yellows and September golds of harvested experiences. Each one, pointing to the presence of light itself -- with its wholeness of spectrum, tone, saturation, hue.

In their eyes, I saw the fullness of my heart's deepest desire -- to be good. And it was that desire that turned even the darkest day feel like an opportunity to discover the beauty of slate blue, charcoal gray, sea green, and bleached wheat.

I am so grateful. When someone truly sees you, they don't just stand on the other side of the chasm, and tell you to cross over.  But they hold out their hand, pull in beside you, and offer to walk you forward -- that is love. Pure and simple. It is love.

offered with Love,

Cate

"when I was fourteen..."

"Send me away 
with the words
of a love song..."

For the last year - or so, I have been hearing the first line of something -- but I haven't known what it was meant to become. A post, a poem, a conversation I needed to have with someone? Then today, I heard it in the context of the Hemingway quote that gave voice to the last, most recent post on this blog, "Write hard and clear about what hurts."

That was when I knew. That first sentence was a prompt, a reminder.  And it wasn't giving up.  It was saying, over-and-over again, "You need to write about this:

"when I was fourteen..." 

So today, I stopped and listened. And it was like a sucker punch to my heart.  I sighed deeply.  "Yes," I thought, "this is what once hurt, and needs to be written."

A few years back, there was a song, by The Band Perry, titled,"If I Die Young," It may sound self-indulgent, dramatic, and morbid, but whenever I heard it I wanted to weep for the girl I was at fourteen. Sometimes death comes to us in ways that aren't an escape - we just have to find a path through.

When I was fourteen, my life finally felt like it was becoming livable. The abuse I'd endured since the age of four had all but stopped -- when my family began to explore a deeper understanding of our individual and collective relationship with God.  We still moved houses regularly, but I had a real friend for the first time in my life. A friend that I wasn't related to.  A friend that didn't disappear when we changed neighborhoods and zip codes.

You see, even though we changed schools, we still lived in the same town and went to the same church. I was still able to participate in the same camp-based local activities. For the first time, there was continuity in my life - one that extended beyond my family.  And there was hope for a future that included my dream of having a life-long friend -- something I'd only read about in books.

I loved my new Sunday School friend.  We rode bikes, sat by the pool, went to movies, and talked about things that mattered.

And then one day, we had a family meeting. My parents told us that we were moving -- again. But this time it was going to be out-of-state and time zones away. Spontaneous phone calls, movies, sleepovers on weekends -- were over. Long-distance phone rates would make calling impossible.

Saying goodbye that last Sunday after church was one of the most painful moments of my childhood. As our parents waited, my friend and I said goodbye and promised to write letters -- every day. Later that week my family loaded up our station wagon and we were on the road to a new state, a new town, new schools, a new neighborhood, and a new church home. I saved my babysitting money, I bought pretty stationery and postage stamps. I wrote my friend almost every day. She never wrote back.

For a year I checked the mailbox daily - the minute I got home from school. If it was empty, the first question I would ask my mother as I flew through the kitchen door was, "Was there a letter today?' There never was.

You may be wondering why I feel the need to write about this tonight -- isn't it just water under the bridge? Well, besides the fact that I kept hearing that one line: "When I was fourteen..." it is because it was a great hurt that I can now write hard and clear about.  

And if I have learned anything after six decades of living in this world, it is that we are never alone in the pain we have experienced. To feel dismissible when you are doing everything to connect with another human being is heartbreaking. It can make you want to "die young" -- as it did me.  So, if there is someone out there feeling this kind of loneliness -- I need for them to know, you are not alone.

For many people, their lives are filled to the brim with continuity and connection. They grow up in loving homes, they have the same friends throughout childhood, they are embarrassed by indulgent parents, and overwhelmed by a hyper vigilant community that knows everything about them and the details of their lives. 

 If you are one of those people, I can't tell you how much I envied you -- most my life.

But for some of us, life was lonely. We dreamed of familiarity, connection, continuity of place and people. When we finally had a friend, we were willing to do anything to keep that thread intact. And sometimes we made grave mistakes. We over compensated, we gave gifts that seem too generous, we called, wrote, texted more than we should, we hesitated to say "the hard things" for fear of being rejected or dismissed, we are too easily crushed and too quickly hurt. We take things too personally. We are too grateful one minute and too needy the next.

If you have lived a life filled with family, friendship, connection, and community you are blessed. If you have a friend who has come into your life and seems too needy, or too willing, or too eager to write, call, text -- please be patient and kind. If your child has a friend who moves away and writes them a letter - please encourage them to reply. It may be the single most important thing they do for another human being. Rejection hurts.  Childhood rejection is devastating -- even when it is done without malice or rancor -- which I am absolutely certain was the case with my Sunday School friend.  She was just a girl herself.  She just had a full life.  I was simply that extra drop that flowed over the edge of the cup.

But, I still remember the name of my friend. I still think about her all the time - almost 50 years later. I wonder if she ever read my letters -- on pretty stationery spritzed with Love's Baby Soft perfume and filled with all the details of a 14 year old's life in a strange new place where she felt more alone than ever before. 

 Did she like the four-leaf clovers I found, pressed, and tucked in with the program from my new school's homecoming festivities. Did she ever even read the poem about friendship that I finally found the courage to send?  Did she ever wonder whether the boy I told her about was kind or funny?  

She was beautiful and popular.  She had many friends.  Her life didn't change when I left. I was just a small, shy girl who she meant the world to. A church friend. But to me, she was my first real friend. 

 Sometimes, I just think of what she may have missed -- a lifelong relationship with someone who thought she was very, very special. Someone for whom she was a refuge of friendship, in an unfriendly world. Someone who would have never let her down.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection:

"There is no greater miracle
known to earth, than perfection
and an unbroken friendship."

 
I pray she knows that I would have been in her corner forever. I would have done anything to be the friend she may have needed someday - and could always turn to.

Since then I have been blessed by some amazing friendships. But being a friend is not something I am always confident about. I am often awkward in groups, I shut down if I feel insecure, I don't always know what to say, I take things too personally, I need a "job" to be at ease in social settings.  Yet I am always trying to be the friend I never had as a child, or as a teenager.

I don't think I am the only one who has ever felt "friendless."  Friendship is hard.  It requires a level of vulnerability that leaves us feeling naked in a crowd. It also requires trust in a Love that overarches those moments when we do feel alone in a world obsessed with group selfies, and accumulating "likes," on social media.  A love that can't be measured, apportioned, given, taken back, extended, or unfriended.

Elsewhere in her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy offers this encouragement to anyone who has ever felt lonely and friendless:

"Would existence without personal friends
be to you a blank? Then the time will come
when you will be solitary, left without sympathy;
but this seeming vacuum is already filled
with divine Love."

 
This statement was a promise for me as a fourteen year old girl waiting for a letter in the mail.  And tonight, as I look back at that chapter in my life, I realize God was always there in my heart.  I was filled with love and hope.  I was the one who had the courage and strength to love someone, even when there was no response.

Tonight I am writing as hard and clear as I can, about something that once hurt, but is now a memory of the sweet, shy girl I was. The girl who never stopped hoping.  I write, in hopes that it will help someone else remember how rare and remarkable it is - in this world - to be loved and believed in by another person.   And maybe - just maybe - to hold hands across the miles with someone else who feels alone.  If you write, I promise -- I will always answer.

offered with Love,

Kate

"because I knew you..."

"who can say if I've been
changed for the better,
but because I knew you,
I have been changed for good..."

I was deeply moved watching Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel's final performance of "For Good." What a beautiful way to circle back, bringing sweet closure to a year that has been full of opportunities for spiritual growth -- but all, for good.

I can't help but think of the experiences and people that have touched my life. Each one has changed me -- for good. Yes, each one for good.  For good [vs. for bad] -- but also for good, meaning forever. Because of you, I will never be the same shy girl, the broken waif, the bitter teen, the confused and self-destructive young woman, I once was.

It didn't happen in a flash. But it happened. Little by little, each of you has given me an insight, an experience, a perspective that has shifted my sense of things, and these shifts in consciousness have changed me -- for good.

I noticed a significant change just the other day. I was having an online conversation with another woman. She was describing a new project she was excited about. And I was just as excited for her as I would have been if I were launching a new venture. There was no comparison, no desire to respond with my own accomplishment, none of the old feelings of failure. I was genuinely happy. Not just for her, but for the world we share -- I was happy that something new and beautiful was being born, and it didn't have to have anything to do with me.

I've been thinking a lot about this since that realization. I have noticed how content I feel with my life. All the old ambition to "become" something has melted away. All the desire for having the cutest house on the block -- is gone. I feel peaceful in a way that I can't ever remember feeling before. It's lovely.

I have been changed -- for good. There is a deep contentment in witnessing the accomplishments, successes, and achievements of others. There is peace in just showing up for my life -- my family, my friends, my community, my work -- without the need to prove anything to anyone, but God.

Recently I have been looking deeply into what Mary Baker Eddy's writings contribute to my relationship with others. There are too many profound insights to share in one post, but this long-loved statement from her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection bears repeating:

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

Yes, it implies the importance of sustained affection between friends. But "no greater miracle?" When I was a girl, my family moved around -- a lot. My sister was my only enduring relationship. We had our ups and downs. We shared a bedroom, clothes, friends, and interests. We fought. Because I really didn't have any other long-term relationships -- until after high school, I was ill-equipped for the comings and goings of affection in friendship. I thought everyone would be like my sister. Regardless of what we'd done, or said, to one another -- we couldn't "break up." Not so.

It took me many years to discover that my relationship with my sister was one of the most precious gifts in my life. But it also took me as many years to discover that I needed to nurture friendships beyond what was easy or even necessarily expected. If I wanted to understand the "miracle," it was incumbent upon me to invest the time, attention, affection, and forgiveness that it would take for any version of "us," to weather the ups and down of being in relationship with another human being. Over the years, I began to see the profound wisdom in Eddy's words. Each of those relationships have, and continue to, change me for good -- and that's the miracle.

But what about the other relationships in my life -- the ones that I can't file under the heading of "friend?"  What about those people who have come into my life, and for one reason or another -- or at one moment or another -- I might have had a contentious, envious, dismissive, or even just less than friendly relationship with. The people I've been hurt by -- or more tragically -- have hurt with my own words and actions. For a long time, I believed that the best thing to do was to walk away. Yes, forgive - or hope to be forgiven, but walk away. These statements - among many in Eddy's prose writings - from an article titled, "Love Your Enemies," have often called me up short:

"Who is thine enemy that thou shouldest love him?
Is it a creature or thing outside thine own creation?

We have no enemies. Whatever envy hatred, revenge,
-- the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind --
whatever these try to do, shall "work together for
good to them that love God." 

It has taken me years to realize that by being willing to cross swords with my own sense of being a victim, or a villain, I have become less judgmental, and more compassionate, patient, and  kind. In short, it is the relationships that I once considered "less than friendly," that have changed me the most, and nurtured the qualities in myself that I most love.

This has been particularly true in relationships where I have been the one to have made mistakes in judgment. By learning to say "I'm sorry," rather than run away from a situation rife with self-reproach, I have discovered that I am bigger than my mistakes.

I believe that each person that comes into our lives, either by example or engagement, encourages us to grow in grace -- in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds.  I believe this is why our Lord's Prayer begins "Our Father..." To discover the very best in ourselves -- humility, compassion, courage, meekness -- we need each other.  I can't become my best, without you.  

No matter who you are, where our relationship started -- or stands today -- because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

with Love,

Kate

"half as hard, and twice as good..."

"...With my good news
you're dancing on the table.
Baby's born, to celebration.
The joy of life,
oh what a sweet communion,
shared with you.

Every burden I have carried,
every joy--it's understood.
Life with you is half as hard,
and twice as good."
- Sara Groves

I hope that whoever you are, you have at least one...at least one special someone, with whom, life is half as hard, and "twice as good."  Be it a sister, a brother, mother, dad, daughter, best friend, colleague, neighbor, pen pal.  You may have immediately thought of that "someone," the minute you heard the chorus to Sara's song.  Perhaps you have two, or three, or a dozen such someones.

I've been thinking about what it is that makes one very special "twice as good" friend, the perfect friend...for me.  And, I think it boils down to trust.  I trust her.  She trusts me.  I know that whether we talk, email, or visit once, twice, a dozen times...or not at all, in a given year, it will not matter one tiny, teensy, eensy bit.  We trust eachother, and we trust the Source of the love we share...divine Love, God...unconditional, reliable, persistent, irrepressible, inexhaustible, disarmingly relentless, infinite Love. 

We trust that the bonds which have been forged in Life's purifying fires, are tried, galvanized, and pure.  And, we trust that those same bonds have been strengthened and set in the ceaseless flow of Love's cooling waters of...drop by droplet of compassion, humor, and wisdom.  My friend has often been the "face of God" when I needed to see His, God's kindness, hear Her voice of mercy, and feel the unearned  presence of divine grace...in tangible, recognizable ways.

In my darkest hours, my "twice as good" friend has always been there, sitting next to me, saying nothing, but feeling everything.  In my moments of supreme joy, she celebrates my happiness...with more abandon than I ever could, or would.  She is the best kind of mirror... she is arrestingly honest, and infinitely kind.

"...When I am down
and need to cry till morning,
I know just where I am going.
When I'm in need of sweet commiseration,
to speak out loud.
Raise a glass to friendship
and to knowing
you don't have to go alone.
We'll raise out hearts
to share each other's burdens
On this road. ."

When I lost a child in a pre-term birth, she was the person who best understood that, as heartbroken as I was, I would not have given up the experience of carrying my tiny daughter, and feeling her move, even if it meant that I could have avoided the pain of her loss.   She is still the "place" I go when I need to be able to say her name aloud.  She understands.

Soon after the twins were born, my "twice as good" friend flew to Massachusetts (where we were living), to celebrate their arrival.  After dropping our older daughter off at school, she and I drove along the North Shore, to my favorite stretch of sand, sea, and sky on earth, Singing Beach.  We parked the car, put the girls in front packs, walked the sand, searched the foamy shoreline for sea glass, and talked and talked while the girls slept on our chests.  It was a perfect example of life becoming twice as good when shared with someone who "gets you." 

Heartbreak, hopes, sorrows, joys, silence and laughter...she is my living, walking, breathing journal.  I have written my life...on her heart.  All my thoughts are naked before her.  All my dreams take on the golden light of "possibility" in her eyes.  She washes the windows of my soul with her tears, and polishes them with her love-softened view of me...which is always kinder than I see myself.

"...Every burden I have carried,
every joy--it's understood.
Life with you is half as hard,
And twice as good.

I know we're growing older.
Can you imagine what that will bring?
It's all a mystery to me now.
Except this one thing...
It'll be half as hard,
and twice as good."

As I look back with gratitude and forward with hope, I know that I have learned more about unconditional love through my friendships, than can ever be measured or recorded. This friendship is as constant as the sun, and as liberating the wind.  When I think of her heart, there is nothing but complete trust.  I trust that she will always tell me the truth.  I trust that she will never ask me to violate a confidence, or pass me over a learning experience, lightly.  She will hold my hand, as she holds my toes to the fire. 

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

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

I agree...

As a wise sage once told me, "You will always know your true friend.  With her/him you will say, "I am as much you, as I am myself."  How right she was.  I don't know how to separate the woman I am becoming, from the better view she has always held of me...and encouraged me to find inside myself...with God. 

One night during some intense spiritual study, I became transfixed on the word "behold," and it occurred to me that I hadn't re-acquainted myself with it, through a fresh sense of its meaning, in a long time...something I like to do with my word friends.  I went to one of my favorite online dictionaries and typed in "b-e-h-o-l-d," and there it was, a definition that took my breath away, "to not only see, but to see and call attention to."   That's what my "twice as good" friend does for me.  She not only sees something of God in me, or in an experience I am having (no matter how obscure) but she sees it and calls my attention to it. 

Together we stand, side-by-side, hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder looking at the world through each other's eyes.  I've learned quite a lot about how beautiful it all is, from her point of view. 

In another of her books, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, Eddy encourages:

"Hast thou a friend, and forgettest to be grateful?
Remember, that for all this thou alone canst,
and must, atone."

My prayer is that I never forget to be grateful...for this, Thy so great a miracle.

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...love letters to God..."

"...The sky may be starless
The night may be moonless
But deep in my heart there's a glow
For deep in my heart
I know that you love me
You love me...
because you told me so..."

I remember Darby Tygraber's mom listening to the Nat King Cole album that included this song, Love Letters from Your Heart,  while she "ran the sweeper" around their Leavitt Brothers ranch-style house, in our 1950's suburban neighborhood.  The sweeper wasn't an electric vacumn cleaner. It was an enclosed dustpan with two bristly brushes that rotated and picked up dust and dirt when you pushed it along the carpet or floor using the long handle that was attached to it.  It was quiet, so listening to this album on the record player in the living room, while "running the sweeper," was actually doable in those days. 

Mrs. Tygraber was someone you could honestly refer to as "a lovely woman"...because she was.  She wore belted shirtwaist house dresses in pastel prints, stockings, pumps, pearls, and earrings when she cleaned, altering her outfit only slightly with a skirted apron when she cooked.  She was unconditionally kind.  She was the "genuine article." A pearl of great price...in pearls!!

To this day I can remember the way she would sing along with whatever was playing on the record player. Or how she would dry her hands on the red and white striped tea towl at her waist, toss it on the kitchen counter, untie her apron and drape it over the room divider on her way to the front door, whenever the doorbell rang. It was like watching Ginger Rogers dance to a well-choreographed segment in a musical...I am certain that she actually glided across the aqua cut-loop carpet as she made her way from the kitchen to the entryway without missing a beat. She opened the door to the Fuller Brush salesman with as much hospitality, warmth, and joy as she would greet a long-lost sibling.  My sister and I loved to go to their house after school.  It was as warm and cozy as our house, but with no babies or toddlers to hold, and feed, and try to keep from crying while our mom got dinner on the table. It was a refuge from the "romper room" of our house, and we loved it...and her.

Today, when I unexpectedly received an email, from a friend I hadn't heard from in the past six years, "Love Letter from Your Heart" was the song that popped into my head.  My friend's "voice" came as a gentle hand reaching out from a place I had not given myself permission to revisit for a long time.  Ours was a friendship that had been steeped in the waters of another chapter in my life, one filled with mission and purpose...one I loved dearly, but didn't know how to hold onto, while still trying to walk forward into a new space.

It wasn't that I hadn't thought of her...often...I did.  I just didn't know how to bridge time and distance and questions that didn't have easy answers.  But I discovered that , like Mrs. Tygraber, she knew how to open the door without pre-disposition or suspicion.  She just opened it with love. 

I also discovered that my friend had read this blog.  Perhaps once, perhaps more than once...it didn't matter...just the thought that we had connected for the briefest of moments somewhere in the ether, where my thoughts (recorded on this site) had united in the space of her heart (as she read them), was like an ember whispered upon by the softest breath of friendship and love.

She said, in speaking of this blog, that the posts were like "love letters to God, love letters to the world"....I wonder if she knew that her sweet message...less than five sentences long...was like a love letter to God, in my life.

We write love letters to God everytime we celebrate the beauty of friendship, the joy of surrendering self-interest in service to others, express courage in reaching out when it is scary, each time we support the blessings we see in another's life.  By doing so, we are acknowledging the presence of God in the lives of others...and therefore in our own consciousness by reflection - with appreciation and joy.  It is as if we are saying, "oh my dear Father-Mother, I see You and You are Wonderful in all the fullness of your Being...in her, and him, and them."

In her Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, Mary Baker Eddy states:

"Abiding in Love, not one of you can be separated from me; and the sweet sense of journeying on together, doing unto others as ye would they should do unto you, conquers all opposition, surmounts all obstacles, and secures success."

and elsewhere, in The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, she writes:

"Beloved Students: — Your letter and dottings are an oasis in my wilderness. They point to verdant pastures, and are already rich rays from the eternal sunshine of Love, lighting and leading humanity into paths of peace and holiness."

When we embrace someone in our hearts - whether it be in prayer, letter-writing, reading their heart's musings, phoning, texting, or even just appreciating them in memory - we invite them into the secret place of the most High...the consciousnesss of Love, reflected in our loving consciousness...of them.  And in this cherishing space we journey on together in fellowship, extending a divine embrace across the threshhold of time, timidity, and eternity.

So, tonight I am saying thank you to my friend (and friends)...for their love letters to God...and to me.  I think this is often how God reminds us, over and over again, that He loves us. Please accept this post as my return reply... 

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS