"Christmas wedding bands...."

"I'll be home
for Christmas,
you can count on me..."

Tomorrow, I will walk into a local pawn shop - as I do each Christmas. I will ask the person behind the counter if he/she has a sense that there had been a mom, or dad, over the past few days, who'd needed to pawn something precious to them, in order to make Christmas for their children. Then I will offer to redeem that pawned item.

Later, the person behind the counter will call the owner of the item and ask them to come back and pick it up. I will not know who they are, and they will not know who I am.  This post will be the first time I've shared the details of this very private holiday tradition.  But, it has been the best gift I have given to myself - every year.

Here is why:

The year I turned 11 was especially difficult for our family. The youngest of six children had been born. Dad had been out of work for nine months, and we had lost our home.

In September, Dad found temporary work towing mobile homes cross-country. It was hard work, but he had a large family to feed.

Because we'd lost our own home earlier that year, we were living in a house that was located in a much different neighborhood. We were going to another new school and starting to make friends. Dad was away much of that fall, and in early December he left on another long trip across country. Driving a wide load tractor trailer in the middle of winter was treacherous.

Each day we listened to the weather forecast and hoped that clear skies would allow him to make good enough time to be home for Christmas.

As the other children in our neighborhood talked about the gifts they wanted for Christmas, we, too -- not realizing the financial constraints our parents were under -- asked for new bikes, train sets, a full-size play kitchen, and other childhood gifts.

Mom, being alone with six children, and having no financial support until dad returned to collect his paycheck, could be heard working late into the night. While we were in school she'd gathered orange crates from the local supermarket -- as well as stove burners, knobs, and dials from discarded appliances at the junkyard. She painted the crates, glued on knobs, dials, and burners -- turning another family's junk, into our play kitchen.

A sheet of plywood - found in an abandoned lot - became a miniature town with painted train tracks, twigs glued on for trees, and cardboard houses for neighborhoods and stores. Tiny cardboard cereal boxes with button wheels were painted and strung together to make a train set for my younger brothers.

Slowly our garage became a Santa's workshop, and her treasure bag grew.

While she prepared for Christmas in her way, we prepared for Dad's arrival. In school, each of us had learned a Christmas song that we shared with our younger brothers and sisters. That song, coupled with my new ballet/tap skills, turned us into a song-and-dance troupe that we hoped would "wow" dad on Christmas Eve.

But as Christmas grew near, weather conditions on the other coast became hazardous. Financial constraints prohibited phone calls, so each day we watched and waited, practiced and built.

But no matter how resourceful Mom was at the junkyard, she couldn't come up with the two-wheeler bikes my sister and I dreamed of.

On Christmas Eve, we vowed that we would not go to sleep until we knew that Dad had made it home. But somewhere between Bing Crosby crooning, "The Little Drummer Boy," and "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." we dozed off.

The next morning we woke up and quickly gathered the rest of our brothers and sisters. We ran into the front room, and there on the sofa, still in his work clothes, was Dad. Mom was asleep, with her head on his knee.

The Christmas tree had presents under it, but none were as important to us as the picture of our parents sleeping. When they woke up - to our noisy shushing of the younger children, we performed our Christmas songs, to the generous applause of our parents.

We opened our gifts, and each one drew breathless surprise - a homemade kitchen set, the miniature plywood town with it's painted cardboard trains, bowling pins made from felt-covered cardboard tubing filled with dry beans, a hand sewn ball for the baby, doll clothes remade from our too-worn-for-hand-me-down clothing.

Soon we were bustled off to the kitchen for breakfast. Mom asked me to get the milk from the refrigerator, but there was none to be found. With feigned surprise she said she must have left it in the cold, on the back porch. I headed for the back door, but instead of finding a gallon of milk, there were two beautiful new bicycles.

No one was more surprised than our dad. He just stared at Mom's glowing face. I don't think I had even seen her look so happy or so beautiful as that day, sitting at the kitchen table with chin in her hands and her eyes on us.

It would be years before I would notice that her engagement and wedding rings were missing from her hand. They had been pawned, so that she could surprise us with the bikes we'd dreamed of.

For a very long time, I couldn't understand why it had made her so happy to give up the beautiful rings she loved. Rings that had been given to her by someone she loved.  Rings that she had never been able to get back.

That was until my 16th Christmas. It was the first time I had held a full-time job, and I had saved up enough money to buy a beautiful dress for the Christmas dance at school. I had seen it in the shop window for three months, and after receiving my paycheck, I could finally go and pick it up.

On the way there, with my every penny in hand, I passed the jewelers. Suddenly, I noticed the wedding bands sparkling in the shop window. They were more beautiful to me than anything I had ever seen. I walked in and picked out a very modest gold band for my mom, without giving that dress another thought.

That Christmas, I sat with my chin in my hands, watched with a smile on my face - and finally understood.

offered with Love,

Kate

If the substance of this story sounds familiar, it first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor in the late 1980s.

"Everybody wants to be loved..."

"...Happy is the heart that still feels pain
Darkness drains and light will come again
Swing open up your chest and let it in
Just let the love, love, love begin
Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh..."
Ingrid Michaelson

My friend Anna sent this Youtube video of "Everybody" by Ingrid Michaelson to me yesterday, and I was so honored to know that she would think of me when she heard it.   It was perfect.  But then I knew it would be. It was from Anna.   I love it when someone I care deeply about knows me so well that they can pinpoint a song they think I would love and send it to me.  It's especially sweet when the song hits home so accurately.  Thank you Anna.  I do love it...alot. 

Anna's spiritual intuition is no surprise to me.  She has a gift for listening deeply for guidance and then bringing ideas together that will bless one another.  But I learned just how clear her love, love, love-based intuits were this past summer.

Anna was the head of the Horsemanship program at Adventure Unlimited's Sky Valley Ranch for 3rd through 8th graders.  This is the program that our daughters have majored in each summer since they started going to camp. Anna had been their patrol leader the year before, so although she'd had some experience in working with the girls last summer, it had been a year since she'd spent time with them.  However, when love and prayer are the compass you use for finding your way, time and frequency play such a small role in informing your decisions.  But I am getting ahead of myself...

One of our most loved traditions at Sky Valley is the assigning of horses to each camper a few days into the session.  Horsemanship campers arrive at camp and enjoy a few days in the corral working with different horses in our herd, and on the third or fourth night something magical happens. 

Campers are told right from the beginning that while they are getting to know a number of different horses...grooming, saddling, early riding lessons...an old squaw, named Listens to the Wind, and her companion, the Old Prospector,  are watching to see which horse is the best match for both the horse and rider.  Then on that magical night, after all the campers have gone to bed, Listens to the Wind and the Old Prospector wend their way down from high in the mountains with only a lantern to light their path.   Camp is dark, and the voices of watchmen (and women) echo through the crisp star-studded night air, "Do you see the light?"  "I see the light."

Pajama-clad horsemanship campers are gathered, boys in one location and girls in the loft of Chuckwagon Lodge breathless with anticipation, hope and wonder.  Waiting on the upper deck, girls watch as Listens to the Wind is led by the Old Prospector to the lawn beneath them.  Silently she delivers the scroll and then gallops off into the night air like the wind, long braids flying out behind her on a horse as fast as the wind she is named after.

The program head then brings the girls into the lodge and reads a message from Listens to the Wind and then reads of the name of each girl and the horse that will be "hers" for the rest of the session.  This is the horse she will love, care for, ride, partner with, and eventually enter the rodeo arena on at the end of the session, to race around the barrels, canter through a series of poles, and in the final event ride as fast as they can to the opening of a keyhole, carefully turn around in a small chalked circle (without disturbing the chalk outline) and then race back to the gate...all timed for placement.  The rodeo is not just a measure of skill and speed, it is an opportunity to show how well you have developed a partnership with your horse. 

But back to that magical night...

I ran into Anna in the office long after campers were asleep, happily dreaming about the new partners, they would re-introduce themselves to early the next morning.  I'd been delayed and had missed seeing our girls learn who their horses partners would be for the rest of the summer.  She shared with me that Emma had been paired with Ayla, and Clara would be with Remington.  I knew both horses, I'd seen work with other campers, and perform in previous years' rodeos.  They were both good horses and I was happy that the girls would be working with them.

But I was amazed when Anna shared with me why Listens to the Wind's had paired the girls with their horses.  She explained that she had chosen horses that would teach each of the girls something important.  She said that in order for Emma to be a good partner for Ayla, she would have to learn to quiet her body.  She would have to learn greater stillness and poise.  And that Remington would help Clara learn to express more self-confidence and inner strength. They would help the girls discover something necessary and beautiful within themselves so that they could all succeed as partners.  As Anna shared these reasons, I was truly dumbstruck.  These were exactly the inner qualities that both girls needed to more fully realize, already deep within in themselves, not just to be successful in the rodeo arena, but in school, at home, in their friendships and on the soccer field.   

Listens to the Wind had intuited exactly what our girls needed in horse partners and had found just the right match for each of them.  She had given them horses that would help them discover these qualities that were so inherent and natural for them to express. 

Two weeks later, in a hot dusty rodeo arena the girls and their partners proved, without a doubt, that Listens to the Wind was as wise and intuitive as I'd discovered that magical night when Anna told me what she'd seen in my daughters and how she was going to help them discover it within themselves by giving them wise, strong, and gentle teachers. Listens to the Wind was blessed in having Anna's keen eye as a wonderful, wise, and discerning Program Head.

The greatest gift anyone can give a mother, is to see deep within the beauty of your child (or in my case children) and discern those unrealized, divinely natural gifts that only need to be drawn out from the infinite depths of their divine identity. To help them see themselves more fully as the amazing, wonderful, remarkable children of God you've always seen them to be.  This is what it means to really be loved...and everybody wants to be loved.  The girls felt loved by Anna.  And as their mom there was nothing more wonderful than to have someone love my daughters for who they really were, and who they had to right to more fully be.  I'm starting each day with the question, "who will I choose to really love today by helping them plumb more fully the spiritual depths of who they are. 

Anna helped Listens to the Wind choose perfect horse partners for our girls...and she chose a perfect song for me.   

Thanks Anna for teaching me more about the how of loving....I love you,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Dara Glotzbach 2009]

"There are places I remember...."

"There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, [some] for better
Some have gone and some remain..."
-Lennon/McCartney

There are people and places that bring out the best in us.  And there are moments and events that provide the setting for this very best self to shine.  And then there are times when an unexpected moment between two people provides the opportunity for something rare and exquisite to occur. 

Yesterday afternoon I was reminded of two such instances among many. 

While preparing dinner for our family – a simple quiche and a fresh grapefruit, raspberry and pear salad –  I was stopped in my tracks by two memories.  Each taught me something about unexpected, and simple, gifts.

The first experience happened about 16 years ago. A dear friend who was my spiritual mentor and teacher had been through, what I assumed was, a very difficult time.  I called him to schedule an appointment that I hoped would allow me to show my support and express my gratitude for all he had taught me.  I arrived at his home late one afternoon expecting that we would go to his office for our visit and was sweetly surprised when he led me to their kitchen.  It was obvious that he was in the middle of preparing he and his wife a modest dinner of soup and fruit salad.  As we stood there talking he took the time to teach me how to section a grapefruit without wasting any of the fruit.  I was so moved by the precision and grace he expressed as he parted each segment of succulent pink fruit from the surrounding membrane.  I was struck by how he never missed a beat…answering the phone, responding to my questions, stirring the soup, pausing to pray, setting the dinner table he had generously invited me to share with them.  There was a sure peace, a confident poise, a humble grace in his movements and his sense of place.  It was a delight to see that his "office" had changed from an elegant suite high above the city, to a corner of their kitchen counter where a small easel, canvas, and paints sat next to his phone and a set of the books he turned to for inspiration and guidance in his busy healing practice.  Oil painting had taken the place of approving budgets and signing correspondence between calls from patients…and it was clear he had never lost his rhythm in keeping focused on the things most essential…as Mary Baker Eddy encourages in Pulpit and Press:

"You have simply to preserve a scientific,
positive sense of unity with your divine source,
and daily demonstrate this."

Standing there at the kitchen sink watching this man who was, and is, a spiritual giant in my life gently sectioning grapefruit as he shared what had excited him about some fresh inspiration he had gained through his Bible study that day…I was humbled by his purity and grace.  I still am. Everytime I cut grapefruit I think of that afternoon in his kitchen classroom and the fruit feels sacred in my hands.

The other instance also happened nearly twenty years ago.  A young woman had come to stay with us while she recorded some original compositions in our recording studio. 

We were all living quite modestly in those days…our guest included.  Our meals were always simple and there were very few "treats".  One afternoon our guest asked if she could prepare the evening's meal.  I was happy to have her go through the cupboard to find the ingredients she might use.  By dinnertime a lovely aroma was filling our home.  We arrived in the kitchen for dinner  to find a simple quiche and a beautifully set table with wildflowers and candles in jelly jars. 

It was a wonderful meal.  The quiche was delicious.  We sat for hours talking and laughing long after the candles had flickered out.  When our guest left later that month I found the recipe for the quiche on the kitchen counter.  I have used that recipe a hundred times since then.  I have it memorized, but still take out the recipe card written in our guest's careful script each time.  That quiche recipe and the memory of that simple meal has lived on long after chocolates, flowers, or a dinner "out" might have.  That well-worn recipe card is a reminder to me that sometimes the gifts that leave the biggest wake are the ones that we pour the most of ourselves into.

Last night as we sat at the kitchen table eating our dinner I shared these stories with my family.  The girls said, "cool", as they finished their last bites of quiche, asked to be excused, and ran off to start their homework.  My husband was attentive and thoughtful.  I couldn't help but wonder if I have done enough to honor the lessons these gifts (and their givers) have taught me.  Today I will do better…I hope.

"...Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love them all..."

Gratefully,
Kate

"What then can I give Him..."

This past Sunday my husband, daughters, and I went to the Christmas show at our son's high school.  There were classical and contemporary works sung by the choir, band performances, a lyrical dance number and opportunities for the audience to sing Christmas hymns and carols together.  The most memorable act for me was a skit that our son performed in with his Advanced Theater Arts class.
 
It was the story of a cobbler who had a message from God that He, God, would visit him on Christmas Eve.  The cobbler stayed at his bench throughout the day waiting for God's arrival.  A beggar, a crone and a lost child come through his life that day in great need, and as the day wanes on he helps each one by offering shoes, a loaf of bread, warmth, guidance and direction, but is saddened that God had not arrived, as promised, as the day grows dark.  He calls out to God asking if God has forgotten His promise and God answers that he had visited that day as a beggar, a crone and a child and that the cobbler had served Him well.  It brought tears to my eyes remembering a Christmas that God brought out the best in my family through acts of kindness and unselfishness.

"What then can I give Him empty as I am?

I was ten that Christmas in 1964.  It had been a very hard year for our family.  My parents had both been hospitalized, at different times,  my dad had lost his job...and we had lost our home...because of his extended illness. My mother had given birth to her sixth child that year and had been so weak following my sister's birth that she was unable to return home from the hospital for some days.   Hospital bills had mounted and debts had taken away all that we owned.

My dad had finally found work driving tractor-trailer cross-country hauling one of the most dangerous cargoes..."wide load" modular home units.  The roads between our home in the southwest and the destination for his last load of the year, on the East coast, were particularly treacherous that December.  My mother, left at home with her six children...ages ranging from my baby sister at 9 months, to me at 10 years...tried to do her best to prepare for the holidays in the house that was assigned to us by a local philanthropic organization which provided needy families in our city with food, clothing, and shelter.   We were grateful for the 50 pound bags of rice and pinto beans that were delivered regularly, but we had to wait until dad was paid following the conclusion of his delivery of his outgoing cargo and his return with another load, to purchase anything further. 

My mom did everything she could to make Christmas wonderful for her children.  She helped us make Christmas tree ornaments for the tree (that the Optimist Society had delivered to all of its recipient families) a week before Christmas, out of newspaper, string and tempura paint.  She helped us learn a version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" that we five older children could sing and perform for dad when he made it back from his delivery.  She took us to every possible free Christmas activity she could unearth in our community...activities that often included free hot cider and Christmas cookies made be loving volunteers.  Christmas cookies that would replace the ones we wouldn't be baking that year without butter, eggs, and flour to spare. 

As Christmas approached we children were oblivious to the heartache she faced each day.  Without a phone (this was a luxury that was not provided for) or a car (ours had been lost along with our home when their financial security disappeared with dad's job) and no money for a baby-sitter, she was housebound much of the time unless a kind neighbor offered to watch the children so that she could run errands.  Each of those occasions found her rushing off to the busstop and returning an hour or so later with a couple of large paper grocery sacks.  We never thought to ask her where she had been or what she brought back.  Late at night, after we children were snugly tucked into bed, she could be found out in the garage..her breath making small puffs of steam in the cold air...busy as one of Santa's elves. 

She didn't know if our dad would make it back from his latest run in time for Christmas morning.  Refusing to be daunted by a lack of money and reports that icy roads and winter storms were standing between dad and his children's dreams of presents under the tree, she set her heart and her mind on the tasks at hand.

My younger sister had been searching the Sears catalogue with her friends for the perfect Christmas gift to request in their letters to Santa and all had settled on child-sized kitchens made out of painted tin, replete with miniature stove and refrigerator filled with small pans and plastic fruits and vegetables.  Not to be hindered by dollar signs mother spent her few hours away from her six children, in those weeks leading up to Christmas, scouring the local junkyard for orange crates, old stove knobs and cupboard handles with which she filled those shopping bags and brought home to her workshop in the garage. 

The boys had set their sights on a train set and mom was going to make that dream come true as well.  She found an old piece of plywood on which she painted a birds-eye-view of the small New England town she had grown up in.  Discarded ends of two-by-fours painted with windows and the names of cargo companies hosted large buttons glued on for wheels and were tied together with pieces of ribbon.  Branches from dead trees became miniature trees and bushes and discarded milk container, rinsed and covered with construction paper became houses, churches, and a fire hall. 

The baby was given a small stuffed bear that mom had made from an old furry jacket that she really needed herself to keep stay warm. Instead she could be found in one or two of dad's old flannel shirts layered for warmth after ears and legs were cut out of the back and front sections of her own jacket and its small black buttons became eyes and a nose.

But night after night she agonized over what she would do for her two eldest daughters, my sister Nancy and I.  We had our hearts set on the same dream as all of our 4th and 5th grade friends.  Bikes!  We had torn the pictures of our favorite models from the Sear catalogue and had them tacked to the bulletin board in our bedroom.  Blue bikes with baskets on the front for carrying books from the library or our lunch sacks to school.  We had dreams of riding our bikes to the local pool in the summer time and even offered to carry groceries home for mom if our dreams came true that Christmas. 

You see, mother had made our Christmas...no, our lives...so full with her creativity and joy that we were clueless as to the desperation or the financial mountains she faced each day. 

As reports of more winter storms were forecasted for dad's route, and no hope of knowing his whereabouts without a phone mom made a decision on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.  She asked the next-door neighbor if she would invite us children over to watch the bubble lights on her Christmas tree and sing carols while she ran an errand. 

Later that night she tucked us all into bed and went to her workshop in the cold garage to put the finishing touches on a miniature town, a small kitchen made of orange crates and old dishtowels for cupboard doors and tied the piece of pink ribbon on the bear for her youngest before she brought it all into the living room to put under the tree. 

We tossed and turned in our beds.  Mother having finished every last detail climbed onto the sofa where she and dad slept each night and turned out all the lights but the Christmas tree.  When we woke up the next morning and ran down the hall there she was curled up in dad's arms.  He had arrived home sometime in the middle of the night and crawled in behind her amazed at all that she had done. 

We were so happy to see him and each knew our part.  We lined up in the hall from youngest to eldest and to the tune of "Chopsticks" we marched out singing "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...."
Dad woke up and smiled up at us and I will never forget the look on mom's face when she realized that he was there.  She had been so tired that she hadn't even felt him tuck himself in behind her on the open sofa bed. 

After our song we all welcomed dad home and went to the tree to see all the beautiful gifts that my mother had made.  Nancy and I didn't say anything when we realized that there were no bikes for us to ride to school that year.  Dad had brought home small gifts for each of us, including a small bottle of "Windsong" perfume for mother.  

We went to the kitchen and were thrilled to see small bright orange tangerines, an assortment of tiny boxes of cereal  (we would keep those boxes for Linda's child-sized kitchen cupboards), and cocoa powder for hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows to float on top of each cup.  Cereal boxes were opened and the pot came out of the cabinet for cocoa but there was no milk.  At least until dad told Nancy or I to go out to the back porch and bring it in from the cold where he had left it to stay cool...why we didn't question the wisdom of it not being in the refrigerator escapes me, but we didn't.  We obediently went to the back porch and there standing side by side with red bows on each of the handle bars were two shiny blue bikes. 

We were so happy....it wasn't until later that year that I noticed that my mother's left hand was bare.  She had pawned her wedding and engagement rings to purchase those bikes and when she went back with her claim tickets to retrieve her rings it was too late...they had been sold.  My mother never complained.  She never mentioned her empty finger or the absence of rings that she had loved. 

Three months later my parents were reintroduced to the study of Christian Science (my mom had grown up going to a Christian Science Sunday School as a child but had left it her religious roots in the past when she married and my dad didn't know anything about it) and its practice of Christ's law of selfless charity, compassion and love.  I have always believed that my mother's unselfishness that Christmas opened the door of our home for the Christ Spirit to fully enter and transform our lives and our hearts with abundant grace and vast opportunities for gratitude. 

By the next Christmas my dad had two great jobs that allowed him to be home with his family at night and we had moved into real home of our own in a lovely neighborhood.  We had a Christmas tree that we picked out at a local lot, there were presents wrapped in colorful paper, and Bing Crosby singing from a record player in the living room.  Our lives had changed and our tradition of little tangerines and tiny assorted boxes of cereal had been born.  We would never forget the BEST Christmas ever.

Seven years later I would try to relive my mother's lesson of love by replacing her engagement and wedding rings with a simple gold band....but that's another story...

How are your acts of selfless love, kindness, compassion, generosity and charity opening doors for the Christ to enter into the hearts and homes of loved ones, neighbors and strangers this Christmas? 

"What then can I give Him
Empty as I am?
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a Wiseman
I would know my part.
What then can I give Him
I must give my heart."

"In the Bleak Midwinter"
Christina Rossetti

Katie