"My night with Mary..."

"Be it unto me,
according to Thy will..."

Our study of Scripture this week included the story of Queen Esther, a courageous spiritual matriarch, who, like Mary Baker Eddy...the subject of the following post...turned to God in her darkest hour, and found divine guidance. I love these women...Ruth, Esther, Deborah, Elisabeth, Mary, Mary, Mary...I find courage, and encouragement, in their journeys of grace.

These are women of substance, women of character, women who faced darkness head on, women who accepted their spiritual calling - with some version of Mary's "be it unto me according to Thy will." They are daughters, mothers, sisters, girls, widows, wives, who leapt from the edge of their own personal abyss, and into the depths of their divine purpose...with eyes fixed on God's face, and His hand at their back, waiting for the "Breath of Heaven" to lift them above a crashing sea - the ebbing tides of "what if" and "not me Lord...please, not me."

Each of these women, in her own right, is a story of Christmas, the birth of the Christ in the heart of a woman. Each of them, my hero, my mentor, my mother, midwife, my friend in the dark of night. This, repost from last Christmas, is just one of those stories, about one of those remarkable Marys...19th century spiritual thought-leader, Mary Baker Eddy. In so many ways, I owe her...and her predecessors...my life.


"On a Night in December, 1910..."

"I can't stand to fly.
I'm not that naive.
I'm just out to find
the better part of me.

I'm more than a bird.
I'm more than a plane.
More than some pretty face,
beside a train.
It's not easy to be, me..."

I weep each time I hear Five for Fighting's song, "Superman."  It makes me think of spiritual luminaries like Jesus, Mother Teresa, Moses, and yes, Mary Baker Eddy.  These were men and women who were never trying to "fly."  I believe that they were only trying to find the better part of themselves, and that once they'd discovered some significant spiritual milestones along the way, felt compelled...by compassion...to share those insights with humanity. 

One hundred years ago, tonight, Mary Baker Eddy quietly passed away at her home in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, with her dearest friends close by.  Her last written words, in her own hand were, "God is my life."  I think she discovered, not only the better part of herself, but the best.  A sense of "self" that understood exactly why God identified Himself to Moses as "I AM."

This is my story about how that night, 100 years ago, had an impact on my life, 87 years later. 

It was early December of 1997.  My husband, daughters, and I were living in the carriage house, on the property of Mary Baker Eddy's Chestnut Hill home.  At the time, I was immersed in projects related to the life and contributions of this extraordinary thought leader.  To be surrounded by the contextual setting of her life was a remarkable gift of grace.

In exchange for our housing, our we made daily security check's on what our daughter called, "the big house," Mary Baker Eddy's former home.  It is a large stone mansion set on a hill in a nearby suburb of Boston. And at regular intervals during the day, we would walk through the house to make sure that pipes had not burst, doors were secure, and the proper lights were on/off. 

That December night I was feeling overwhelmed by our circumstances.  I was facing down some pretty aggressive demons and was feeling quite alone.  At midnight, I offered to make the walk up the long drive to the "big house" and do the security check myself. 

It was a bone chilling night.  The kind of cold that didn't slowly creep through layers of clothing, but penetrated immediately like a steely claw that wouldn't let go.  The night sky was a star-peppered navy velvet, and a full moon rose over the slate roof of the mansion like the face of a benevolent luminary.   But all I felt was the weight of our plight.  Health concerns, financial uncertainty, looming homelessness...seemed to have actual mass that night, as they sat heavily on my heart.

I walked into the house by way of the back door, large flaslight in hand, and made my way through the arches and hallways of the first floor, before ascending the flight of stairs leading to the landing just outside of Eddy's former bedroom.  

[It's important to note here, for readers who are not familiar with this property, that her home had been kept intact ...each room appointed and furnished exactly as it had been the night she passed...for 87 years.  It served as a museum of sorts.  Tours were offered on which visitors could see exactly as Eddy and her household had lived at the turn of the century.] 

As I stood on the landing, it was not lost on me (steeped as I had been in the history of her life) that it was close to the anniversary of her passing.  I thought about that night.  How her household workers had supported her, but how this must have been a very private part of her spiritual journey...a threshold that she alone could cross.

I felt that way myself that night.  I was facing my darkest fears.  Being without housing as a wife and mother...with no seeming resources at hand to secure a home for my family...was my worst nightmare.  And it was a dark corridor that loomed just beyond the dawning of the New Year.  With one child in grade school, and infant twins, I couldn't imagine how we would find our way out of the situation without divine intervention. 

My husband was doing everything he could, but options seemed non-existent, and our prospects for housing, bleak.  Besides that, we were in the middle of the early stages of adopting our twins and we needed to be in a home for the adoption agency to sign off on our compliance to state requirements and for the judge to finalize us as our daughters' permanent family.

Standing on the landing, just outside of Eddy's bedroom door.  I longed to have her tell me what to do...or at least how to pray about such a hopeless situation.  Then it occurred to me that she had faced many dark nights in that room.  I wanted to know what it felt like to be her.  What did she surround herself with? 

I stepped over the satin rope that kept visitors just outside the threshold of the room during tours, and sat on the floor right next to the head of her bed.  I turned off the flashlight,  closed my eyes for a few moments, and prayed to really see what she saw. 

When I opened my eyes, there were three things that immediately caught my attention. 

When Eddy first moved into that house she was disappointed with it size and opulence. So she'd had her quarters reconfigured so that she had a small bedroom and an adjoining office. She'd also had a skylight put in above the landing just outside her bedroom door, which let in natural light.  That night in the darkness of winter, the moonlight that poured through the skylight, and filtered into her bedroom through the open door, was as "soft as a moonbeam mantling the earth" and it fell on the other two images that had immediately caught my attention.

One was a portrait of Jesus.  Simply framed, a bit to the right, and just above eye-level on the wall directly in front of her as sat in her bed.  This made me cry.  To be reminded of the savior who as she herself said was, "waiting and watching in voiceless agony" during his night of "gloom and glory" in the garden of Gethsemane,  humbled me greatly.  I could see how his portrait served to galvanize her courage.

The other image was an already familiar etching of Daniel in the lions den.  In this depiction, Daniel has his back to the lions, his hand are gently folded behind him, and he has his face upturned towards the light that is pouring through a small barred window.  He is facing the light...not the lions.  He is peaceful, not defensive.  He is focused and calm, not distracted and distressed.  Its message was clear to me.

This piece was also simply framed and hung almost at eye-level on the same wall as Jesus' portrait, just opposite her headboard.  The moonlight fell on these two images with such gentleness that I felt as if they had been kept exactly as they had been, for all those years, just so I could sit with them that night and be comforted, encouraged, and healed.

I will never forget that night sitting on the floor next to her bed.  It was as if I'd been given a holy land tour of the garden of Gethsemane and nothing had changed.  It was almost as if, Jesus' tears had never dried that night, and still lay in salty pools on the rocks.  As if I could hear the song of the those first century nightingales, the cooing pair of doves that had nestled beside him as he prayed, and the scent of jasmine that perfumed the velvety air while his disciples slept. 

But my holy land was a worn carpet, a narrow bed, a moonbeam, the face of the Savior, the posture of a peacemaker...and the prayers of a woman.

It seems like such a small part of this story to say that during those next months of ceaseless prayer, we were shown...step-by-step...exactly what we needed to do to continue the work we loved, and find just the right home for our family. 

The larger story for me is about a woman...who was just that, a woman.  A woman who never sought to be great..only good.  Who never sought fame or fortune, but to understand, for herself, that the better part of "me" is, the "I AM." 

I believe, that when she wrote, "God is my life," two days before her passing, on December 1st, she did just that.

I don't remember the cold as I walked back from "the big house" to our cottage that night.  I only remember the moon, the stars, and the simple room where a woman prayed one December night in 1910.

Thank you for your courage, and your example...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

If you would like to read the comments on the original posting, click on this link, "One day in December, 1910," and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

"Every heart has so much history..."

"Every heart has so much history.
it's my favorite place to start.
Sit down awhile
and share your narrative with me.
I'm not afraid of who you are.
I'm all here, and you're all there...
Some of this is unique,
and some of it we share.
Let's add it up,
and start from there.
Oh, it's all right here...

It's what is best,
and what is worst.
And it's how I see the universe.
Oh, it's all right here..."

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking alot about our stories - our spiritual life narratives - and why they are so important to us and to the humanity.  And this past weekend it was my privilege to conduct workshops on this subject for Dick Davenport's Midwest Bible Conference titled, "I Love to Tell the Story."

While I worked and prayed in preparation, Sara Groves' "It's All Right Here," kept lingering in my heart. 

I love that she reminds us that:

"Every heart has so much history.
It's my favorite place to start.
Sit down awhile,
and share your narrative with me.
I'm not afraid of who you are..."

This weekend I loved hearing the stories of truly brave men, and women, who were willing to unpack their suitcases of history with one another...in workshops, at lunch, and sitting on a basketball court between sessions.  Together we looked at all of those mental artifacts from our life narratives...deep sorrow, soaring joy, haunting regrets, rich accomplishments...and we listened.  I was so blessed by their stories, and I felt so honored to be trusted as a listener.  I sat in awe of their courage as they reclaimed each of those life-moments for God.

It became evident to each of us, that God had been there when the floods rose. God was there in the dark of night, the bright dawning of a new day, when bitter tears fell, and when hopes rose. God is always there, and the gift of seeing this seamless thread of His presence running golden through our life stories is an exercise rich with humility and redemption.

Looking at the Biblical life stories of people like Joseph and Jesus, Ruth and Hagar, gives us a platform for this kind of spiritual re-building in ourselves. Our lives become contemporary parables for others. 

Joseph's story is filled with pride, rejection, self-certainty, heartache.  And yet, when he recounts his life trajectory to his brothers...men who are horrified to come face-to-face with the victim of their bullying and betrayal...he doesn't ask for their apology and regret (which they are more than eager to extend) He reclaims his entire life narrative for God when he says:

"Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, for it is not you, but God, which sent me before you to preserve you a posterity upon the earth."

Wow, arrogance, pit, slavery, false accusation, prison, rise to fame...nobody's fault, nobody's credit. He claimed he was God-sent into each moment as a blessing, and that was that.

You can look at the life of Jesus...just take the cutting off of Malchus' ear and his rebuke...of not the soldier arresting him, but his disciple defender...in these words:

"Put up again thy sword...thinkest thou not that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will give me more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"

Or Hagar who discovers God's relationship to her son in the middle of the wilderness after being rejected by her mistress and her son's father. 

And of course there is Ruth, Bathsheba, Tamar Rahab...women whose life narratives are, at best, questionable, but whose true stories are redeemed through their presence in the geneology of Jesus Christ himself as related in the first chapter of Matthew.  And then there is Mary, a girl whose suspect pregnancy is redeemed through the birth and life of a boy who will become the risen Saviour.

In his "The Gospel According to Jesus" Stephen Mitchell suggests in contrasting the life narratives of Buddha, the prince who would become a humble servant to mankind, and Jesus, the illegitimate child who would become the Prince of Peace, that:

"We can see the respective beginnings of these two great men as opposite ends of the spectrum that is the human condition.  Together, their meaning is that no life is so sheltered or so shamed that it can't be transformed into a vehicle of God's grace, a vessel filled with the deepest charity and wisdom.  So capable are we of using whatever materials (or circumstances) we are given; so irresistible is the phototropism of the human soul."

Ahhh, "the phototropism of the human soul," that irresistible turning to the light of who we are as God-sent disciples of Christ with a holy purpose.  Standing in this light, we begin to see our stories through the lens of His over-arching presence within every moment.  As Sara also sings in another favorite,  "Add to the Beauty":

"Redemption comes in strange place, small spaces,
calling out the best of who we are..."

Redeeming our life stories for God, sharing them with others, and trusting those redemption narratives to call out the best of who we are...moment-by-incredibly-courageous-moment...turns our lives into living, breathing, healing contemporary scripture, blesses humanity, and brings the kind of freedom that we can only imagine from the dark precincts of the lonely tomb where fear, pride, and regret try to  shroud us in sorrow.  Spiritual living is not measured by a string of human success stories, but by moments radiant with salvation, redemption, and peace...an inner peace that persists in storm or shine.

"It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth.."

Thank you, God, for sending me into this weekend full of loving community...I am your grateful daughter...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Turn around and you're a young girl going out of the door..."

"Where are you going
My little one, little one
Where are you going
My baby, my own
Turn around and you're two
Turn around and you're four
Turn around and you're a young girl
Going out of the door..."
- Belafonte/Greene/Reynolds

Tonight our daughters, and their fifth and sixth grade friends, gathered with their parents and school administrators for "the movie".  We've all been through it.  You know, that awkward film that describes the changes our bodies go through sometime between age 8 and 13.   This one was done quite well compared with the very obtuse version we watched in 1964.  

Emma and Clara's school did something lovely before the screening.  They hosted a brief inspirational talk that provided a Biblical context for these inevitable changes.  Our friend Dick Davenport, the Executive Director of Higher Ground Bible Seminars, really hit a home run on this one for me.  I loved his willingness to stand in front of over forty 10/11 year olds and talk about puberty in a way that was not only engaging, but gave them a reason for embracing these changes as a spiritual rite of passage.

He started by reminding us all that in each major religious tradition this season of changes is celebrated.  Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Quinceañeras, Confirmations, the public reading of the Koran, church membership, etc.  provide young spiritual thinkers with an outward acknowledgment of a deep inner change. 

Then he asked our children if they could think of some Biblical examples of young men or women who we know because of this time of change in their lives.  Hands raised and they contributed stories of Jesus' in the temple learning and talking with the rabbis and lawyers, Samuel hearing the voice of God and at first thinking it was his mentor, the priest, Eli, and young David asserting his spiritual courage and confidence before Saul and offering to bring down Goliath with five smooth stones.   The girls were reminded that they too had an example in young Mary Baker Eddy who challenged her family minister at this age, questioning the doctrine of predestination in her interview for church membership and garnering this same minister's respect and admiration for her integrity. 

Then he said something that really resonated with me and caused me to search for a scrap of paper and dig in my pocket for a pen.  He helped all of us see that although we have been educated to think that these seasons of change are precipitated by elevated hormone levels, organic evolution, glandular secretions, and/or  structural growth...we see, through the lives of these Biblical models that the changes really start in the realm of spirit. 

He said, "These physical changes aren't what's driving your life.  These physical changes are what's following your inner spiritual growth."   I loved this idea.  It reminded me of what Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health, "Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been given up."  And for me this suggests that, if what is precipitating these physical changes is a deeper spiritual evolution, then the effects have to reflect the spiritual goodness inherent in any God-based, God-caused change.    There don't have to be any negative side effects of this deep inner spiritual growth.  No mood swings, social discomfort, crankiness, family friction.  These changes can portend greater maturity, better responses to social uncertainty, more harmony within family relationships, and less selfishness.

Our assembly broke into two groups for the film.  The boys and their parents went down the hall where they viewed it safely distanced from our room full of giggling girls.  Especially during the drawings of those funny bodily changes.  I was one of those giggling.  It's still funny (and awkward) 45 years later.

But what I am taking away from the evening is not just some great ideas to think about with regard to our preteen children. These same ideas are just as helpful in considering the changes that my generation of men and women are facing as we continue to grow and mature.  There don't have to be any negative side effects as we move into our next seasons of change.  Perhaps wisdom is giving birth to a body that simply uses its resources more wisely. It's not that my metabolism is slowing down, but just that I need less fuel to operate it. I can't imagine a more fuel-efficient vehicle saying, "Yes, I know that I get 35 miles per gallon, but I really like the taste of fuel, so could I just guzzle it down anyway?"

Could it be that this new, more efficient chapter in our lives reflects a deepening sense of spiritual growth that is actually precipitating the changes we have been told are driven by hormones, glands, and aging...and that we have falsely interpreted the "symptoms" of this evolution as inherently negative.  I am so ready to embrace the deepening of wisdom, grace, and dignity in us all...as well as the body it's giving birth to.

I'm looking forward to discovering what my Biblical matriarchs...those wise spiritual wise sages...have to say about all of this through their life stories. I am ready to learn from them about maturity, poise, and the beauty of holiness. .I can already think of a few I want to have tea with today...thanks Dick,
Kate

"A tapestry to feel and see.."

"My life has been a tapestry
Of rich and royal hue;
An everlasting vision
Of the ever-changing view;
A wond'rous woven magic
In bits of blue and gold;
A tapestry to feel and see;
Impossible to hold…"
- Carole King

Our lives are like a "Tapestry,"and each person weaving the golden threads of their love, joy, compassion through out lives, makes that tapestry stronger...and more beautiful. I remember as a teenager thinking that if I couldn't grow up to be my own mother, who was my hero, I wanted to be her sister.

Aunt June was pretty near perfect as a runner-up.  She was a home economics teacher and it seemed as if she could do anything.  Cook, sew, garden…there was no end to her talents and accomplishments.  To one who had spent a lifetime with only one adult female role model, who, it just so happened, was now the person telling you "no" most of the time, having a perfect aunt was, well…perfect!

I have often wondered if my cousin Christie, Aunt June's daughter, thought her own mother was as perfect as I did.  Or was she, in her parallel teenage universe watching my mother through the same rose-colored glasses of distance…the way I was with hers. 

I would not get to know my aunt until the year I turned twelve.  That summer,  my family of eight piled into our old station wagon and drove 2,000 miles across the deserts of the southwest, through the endless beige plains and into the cool green of the mid-Atlantic.  First stop: The Audubon bird sanctuary outside Princeton, New Jersey.  You see, not only was June perfect, but she had married an equally perfect Uncle Doug.  If she was my 12-year-old model of a perfect grown-up wife, mother, and teacher (the three things I aspired to be), he was the perfect partner. 

Doug was the resident director of th sanctuary/outdoor education center and so our visit included immersing ourselves in the world of  field guides, binoculars, and duck blinds.  We walked through forests and sat beside marshy fields  learning about silhouettes and migration patterns.  A man who was smart, handsome and kind.  Not a bad resume for a dream uncle.  Forty years later I remember that vacation as clearly as if I were standing at the top of the broad curving staircase of the large old house that was home to the sanctuary's offices, exhibits, classrooms, and living quarters,trying to memorize the pattern in the red and white quilt that hung on the wall.

Day trips to visit other relatives…grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins…were filled with laughter and singing. The Turtles "Happy Together" poured from the chrome-dialed radio in the dash of our station wagon serving as the film score to our vacation.  I felt like we belonged to an even larger and more wonderful family than I had ever imagined possible. 

Those few weeks of bird watching, visiting our parents' childhood stomping grounds,  and discovering what we had in common with our cousins were extraordinary.  Yet it was an early morning visit with my aunt that I remember most poignantly.  So much so, that to this day I can still actually feel the outline of the roosters, painted in the glaze,  that my finger traced on the tuscan yellow plates and cups in her kitchen while I drank weak tea, nibbled on a buttered piece of toast, and watched her teach my cousin Scott basic reading skills.  I was smitten.

My cousin, whose learning needs were not being fully met by the local school system, was being "home-schooled" for the most part…long before the current trend in parent-based educating.  June was patient with Scott's frustration and unswerving in her persistence, despite an uber-schedule that surely left little room for rest and visiting relatives (our family of eight was not easily tucked in to even the most welcoming of home).  She must have repeated the same lesson twenty times that morning, and each time with the freshness and joy of an enthusiastic recruit eager to try new and inspired ways for  introducing the curriculum to her pupil.

For me, this was a pivotal moment in the way I looked at the uncharted territory I then called my future.  Up until that point, I think I just wanted to have things "when I grew up."  I wanted to have a nice home, a good job, a smart and funny husband, and loving children who, with their parents, were devoted to church, community and family.  Not a particular make of car or brand of clothes…my family was socialistic enough for me to have subjugated any overt consumerism from my wish list.  But I did have a full inventory of"wants" that were more spiritually-acceptable in the culture I had been raised in.  

I watched my aunt patiently and persistently teach her son the simple lessons that his younger siblings, cousins and friends had learned so easily at much younger ages.  And it made me realize that what I really wanted was to make a difference in someone's life.  To be a person who gave…not got.  Getting a particular house in a particular neighborhood was less important after that morning…it was giving one's family a loving sense of home that really mattered.  Giving someone the opportunity to learn was much more satisfying a dream to cherish than getting into the right school.  Or, as Barack Obama said in a talk he gave at Principia College last spring, "I don't want to become something, I want to do something." 

On the long drive home I thought about my aunt and what I had learned from her in the kitchen that morning, but it was Mom's example I was observing hour after hour in the car. I realized that she had always been there as a model for how to live a life of giving, rather than getting.  Day after day she modeled joy in the face of hardship, patiently walked a path of hope rather than wallow in discouragement, and gave opportunities to her children rather than pursue personal desires.

Although I left my aunts' house with a clear desire to become a teacher, I arrived home from that long drive wanting to also become someone who could turn a loaf of day-old bread and jars of peanut butter and strawberry jam (a serious vacation indulgence when grape jelly was so much cheaper) into a midday party.  That Mom could hold the attention of six restless children at a weathered old picnic table in a Salina, Kansas while she spread jam and poured juice was a miracle I wanted to learn how to perform.

By the end of that drive I didn't care if I drove a battered old car when I grew up…if I could only learn how to keep everyone in it feeling as happy, loved, and cared for as she did.  It took me years to realize how blessed I was to have the examples of two amazing women that summer.  One would awaken in me a desire to live a life worth giving…the other would show me how. 

When I look at my sisters and myself, and the relationships that our children have with each of us, individually and collectively, I am humbled by the divine design of it all.  It may take a village to raise a child, but in our family of five sisters (another story about brothers and spouses later), we are, perhaps even without realizing it, holding hands with one another as we share in the warp and weft of weaving the lessons of giving and grace to our children. 

Today the sumptuous, color-filled tapestry that Mom and Aunt June carefully wove for us is as strong as their love for one another and for all of us.   They each brought to their shared loom, the richly textured and strong, yet subtly colored of threads of their own lives as women, wives, mothers…and sisters.  Side-by-side, maybe without knowing it, they created a pattern, now so interconnected and entwined, that today we feel only the tensile strength, warmth and beauty of its fabric.  We, their sons and daughters, trace these soft, worn threads with our fingertips and can make out the story of sisters who have lived generously and courageously. 

No matter who we are, or where we live, whether we have sisters or girlfriends, colleagues or neighbors, we live our lives of giving in the context of others.  We are weaving life patterns that will give our children profound stories to trace for their sons and daughters..

The legacy of these life stories is found only in how well they point us towards the future…toward lives of strength, beauty and grace.  Like my mom and her sister, we can work together, each of us gathering our own richly colored threads of love, patience, humility, meekness, and grace,  weaving them, as we sit side-by-side,  into this beautiful tapestry called life.

"…In seamless gratitude I weave
A silent, healing prayer,
With shining threads of ceaseless joy;
For man is God's great heir."
- Violet Ker Seymer

Kate

[the above photo is of my sisters, Lila and Fawn..and I
it is with regret that I have neither a photo of
my mom and her sister...together,
or one of all four of my sisters and I...
if anyone has either...please send it along
and I will add it to this post...with great joy!]

Heroes

It seems, these days, that many of my heroes are quite a bit younger than I am.  I realized this one morning when I was feeling decidedly uninspired and one of my Sunday School students' Instant Messaging tone rang through on my computer letting me know that she wanted to chat.  I pushed myself out of the comfy chair in my office and shuffled over to my desk, thinking of how generous I would be in having this “chat” with her instead sitting in the sun like a cat and praying about the depression-like feelings that were again descending around my shoulders like a damp fog along the ocean on a summer evening.   But was I brought up short. 

This 19 year old Mother Teresa was just "being in touch"  to let me know that she had been praying for the world and God told her to check up on me.  Check up on me????   My first reaction was how bold...here was a teenager checking up on me, her Sunday School teacher and the Christian Science practitioner she herself often called for healing through prayer.  But my second response was awe.  At her age I would no more have had the courage to follow through on that message from God…much less praying for the world before I went to school.  I swallowed deeply and decided to be honest with her.  Thank you, I began, I needed to be woken up from the mesmerism of dark thoughts and personal doubts seeping into my day by her tender care.  My young hero offered to pray for me and within about 24 hours I was not only free from some of the depression-like symptoms I had been struggling with off and on for about a year, but I began to find some spiritual clarity in direction about difficult decisions that I had been struggling with and avoiding for some years.  This young woman taught me much that day about Christian courage.

Another young hero is my friend, Dee.  Dee is a nickname given to young man whose large family moved to the United States from Africa in order to enroll he and his siblings in a school where character education is still being pioneered a century after it was first founded.  Dee, although an excellent student and athlete who would have been eagerly received at a number of colleges and universities following his graduation from high school, chose to enlist in the United States Army rather than accept scholarship and grants that he was extended in order to help fund his younger siblings education and assist in supporting his family.  Dee is a man of great humility.  A man who would never "put himself out there" and yet his integrity, humility, strength and grace were recognized by his superiors during his basic and specialized training and he was recommended for a commission to West Point based on these qualities alone.  Six months earlier Dee wasn't even a citizen of the United States, today his is serving this country in Iraq while waiting for his orders to “show up” for his first term at West Point.  When he called from Fort Hood Texas to let me know that he had received his commission he asked me to be discreet in sharing his news as he didn't want to seem less than humble in speaking about this extraordinary unfoldment of good in his life.

Heroes aren’t always people we look up to…sometimes they are people we haven’t even had the grace to look at…who…for whatever reason…become central in our lives.

The Good Samaritan represents that kind of a hero for me.  The man who is left wounded on the side of the road probably wouldn’t have chosen the Samaritan as his good buddy, but he never had a greater model of human heroism than the man who only days before would have been a stranger and a foreigner to him…a nameless face on a rocky path.

So…today as I go about my day…I am going to look for heroes in unlikely places.  I will try to listen to a child with more expectation that this may be the very voice of God in my life…and maybe, just maybe I will hear that message of forgiveness, mercy, or tender care that my heart is crying out for…or maybe I will be given a reason to smile…a hug on the run….a offer to take my hand as we cross the street …these too would be the gifts of a young hero to the broken-hearted or the wounded…

Where will you find a hero today?







K.