"never trapped..."

"such a cozy room,
the windows
are illuminated..."

Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Our House," must be a go-to song for me these days. Obviously, since I used it in a post, only a few weeks ago. But this time, it really is about a house. A house with walls and doors and windows.

When I was a junior in high school, our family of eight moved from a large house in a small college town in new Jersey, to a 1,000 square foot carriage house in a rural estate. If 1,000 square feet is hard to imagine, let me map it out for you. There were two floors. Each was 20" X 25" with a wide staircase bi-secting each floor.

On the first floor, on one side of the staircase, was a living room -- about 7 feet by 20 feet. And on the other side of the staircase, was a kitchen with an eating area, also about 7 X 20. Upstairs, under the eaves, was one long bedroom, "for the girls," (5 of us - eventually) that was the same dimensions as the kitchen. On the other side, were two tiny bedrooms -- one for our parents and one for the three boys. And a very tiny bathroom. Yes, if you are doing the math, those numbers don't really add up. That's because soon after our move into that house, our mom would give birth to twins -- bringing our occupancy up to 10 people in 1,000 square feet.

So, why am I writing about this little carriage house today? It's because I am hearing so many instances where people are feeling trapped in their houses, and restricted from all the ways that they have historically found a sense of freedom and social range of motion.

You see, I was a girl who needed quiet. I still am - I guess. It is more important to me than air or food. But when you have ten people living in a very small space -- and two of them crying infants -- quiet is not something you ever get. In the warmer months, I could walk out the front door and into the woods, or down to the stream at the bottom of the hill, but we were not close enough to a town to go to a library or coffeehouse.

So, in the winter months -- it was all ten of us in a large clapboard box with no privacy or sound isolation. If I wanted "my own space," my only option was to go to my bed at end of our long, narrow bedroom under the eaves and read. But there were no earbuds or noise-cancellation devices to isolate yourself from the cacophony of ten people clattering around day - and night.

Some years later, when my own family of five moved into a small 1,200 square foot cottage, I felt trapped. With only two bedrooms, our own toddler twins slept in youth beds at one end of our small master bedroom, while our 11 year old daughter had a tiny bedroom under the eaves. One bathroom. Kitchen, living room, and a minuscule office for my work -- we were snuggled in tight.

One rainy, winter day, I was feeling particularly housebound. I called my mom in hopes of her commiseration. But she was having none of it. "Kate, what was your favorite house growing up?" she asked out of the blue. I didn't have to think about it for more than a second. "The carriage house," I quickly replied. "And," she asked, "how big was that house, and how many people were in it?" Without waiting for me to answer, she told me, "ten people on two 20 X 25 foot floors of living space with a wide staircase in the middle." I did the math -- 1,000 square feet, 10 people, 100 square feet per person. And that was my favorite childhood home -- of many. It brought me up short.

I have thought about that conversation so many times over the years as we have moved from rambling suburban houses, to urban flats and small town "cottages." What makes a space "home?" What makes it a place where we feel peaceful, secure, and warmly welcomed each time we open the front door? It is a question that is so important as we navigate these times of self-isolation and sheltering in space.

I think it has nothing to do with square footage or amenities, the number of bodies or the quality of sound isolation or the toys we surround ourselves with to keep us distracted. It has to do with how well we use the space within our hearts. How well we exercise retreating into the "kingdom of God," for privacy, solace, harmony, creativity, and deep inner peace. It has to do with the love we express, and the love we feel in that space.

It was what I learned, during that time as a 16-17 year old girl trying to find herself in the midst of family bedlam, that has given me the tools to navigate this period of self-isolation without feeling trapped. To know that I could retreat into myself -- and the peace of knowing that there was more to me than my circumstances -- is re-defining this quarantine. We are never trapped. We are always free to wander the beautiful space within. I was then. I am today. So are you. So are we all.

We each have a very, very, very fine house that is bulwarked in freedom, not restricted by walls. A house whose rooms are filled with opportunities for restoration and renewal. Whose windows are open wide to the music of the spheres -- songs of Soul, and the lullabies of Love.

offered with Love,

Kate

"let worth be judged..."

"I look to You,
I look to You..."

Selah's cover of  "I Look to You"  returned to my playlist this morning.

I was talking with a dear friend recently, and she asked me a question that touched a very tender nerve:

"perhaps it's a self-worth issue..."

I heard her, but I couldn't imagine how what we were talking about - my desire to be of better support to those I loved - had anything to do with self-worth. But I trusted her and I knew she loved me. So I filed her question away for "Someday when..."  Someday, when I have the time. Someday, when I am willing to probe more deeply. Someday, when I am unable to breathe because I feel the walls crumbling around me - again. Then I will be happy revisit the question of my self-worth.  For now, I'm okay -- but thanks.

Then, a few days later I received a note with this message on the front:

"One day she woke up
and decided she was worthy,

and her soul cried out
with joy"

"Hmmm," I thought, "is today the day to plumb this question?"  But first, I had to start with another question. What defines worth?

First I turned to the dictionary. It said what I already knew: "the level at which something or someone deserves to be valued, is fit for, capable of, or suitable for." It's etymology however stopped me in my tracks. It roots trace back to Old English. The word "worth," hearkens back to the word, "woerp" which refers to "an enclosed space, or a homestead."

I sat back in my chair and let that sink in. Was I at home in my own sense of worth? Do I feel at peace with the value of what I bring to humanity? Has my sense of home been directly impacted by my sense of worth? Has my sense of my own worth been been informed by my home -  or more pointedly, my housing? What correlation might there be between home, value, and worth? It took me a few moments to take the next breath.

As I thought about the concept of worth, I realized that a thing's worth is not defined by the thing itself, but is based on its perceived value. For example, gold is intrinsically worth no more than lead or silver. We have assigned a higher value to gold. The same with sports heroes over teachers. Or celebrities over mothers. Those who have advanced degrees over craftsmen, or those in the trades. It is society that assigned that value. There is no intrinsic higher value in one, over the others.

I needed to have a clear sense of what I valued in order to see my own -- or another's -- worth. So, I dug deeper. What clues could scripture give me in finding a truer sense of worth. I looked at what prophets, disciples, apostles, and Christ Jesus himself valued. Humility, meekness, self-sacrifice, patience. These resonated with me, but I still couldn't feel the deeper  shift that I knew came with a radical transformation of thought. Then something I found in Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scripture hit that nerve again -- and this time, it was like a tuning fork. She writes:

"let worth be judged according to wisdom..."

It rushed through me like a lightning bolt. A few weeks earlier my Sunday School class had been examining the difference between intelligence and wisdom.  And in response  to the question: "How would you describe that difference?" -- one of the girls said:

"Wisdom is intelligence
used with love."

When I heard it, I knew it was true. It immediately became my go-to definition for "wisdom." And here was Eddy saying that our sense of worth should be judged according to wisdom -- the loving use of intelligence. It all shifted into place. If I was feeling less than "worthy," I needed to examine how I was using the God-bestowed intelligence that filled my consciousness throughout the day.

For example:  Was I reading scripture, and delighting in every word, but not bringing these vital truths into Christian practice? Was I consciously bringing wisdom -- intelligence used with love -- to bear on every interaction? Was I vigilant in my daily defense of the wise [loving] use of intelligence? Did I affirm throughout the day that intelligence could only be used for good, for the benefit of humanity. Did I refuse to believe that intelligence could ever be corrupted or used "against" others?

Elsewhere in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 Eddy assures us that:

"Conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart
and nothing else can..."

To be conscious of my worth -- my right to engage in the loving use of intelligence -- was all that would ever satisfy my hunger for peace. My worth is not based on an irrevocable history of personal mistakes, failures, choices, or accomplishments. It is not defined by how others perceive me. My worth is founded on my day-to-day practice of wisdom. This is what has value. And this is practice of wisdom is something I can monitor throughout the day.

It's not surprising that this "loving use of intelligence," aligns with a radical, conscious application of The Golden Rule: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  The Golden Rule is not a human choice, but a divine imperative.  It is a law that operates unspent throughout the deep collective root system of humanity. It is ever-establishing our ever-active spiritual worth -- moment-by-moment,  heart by heart.

We are worthy of this intelligent view of ourselves and others. We are worthy of the peace and joy it brings. We are worthy of being conscious of our worth,  and the worth of being conscious.  It is our divine right to be conscious of what we know, and how to use it.  This is a place we can homestead and abide in -- forever.

offered with Love,

Cate

"first we fold in, then open out...."

"first we fold in,
then open out;
there is a faith
that's only found in doubt..."

This post did not start as an idea clothed in words. It started as a feeling. And then a name. Carrie Newcomer. So I went to Youtube and pulled up Carrie's station. The title,  "The Point of Arrival," gave words to the feeling. So I listened to the song -- which I'd never heard before. Yes. That was it. The feeling now had a sound, and a shape.

Now for the words. I woke up this morning and it was the feeling of kicking a ball that came to me. Now this is quite funny. For one thing, it is because I don't have any relationship to balls -- soccer balls, baseballs, basketballs. As a child I was ball-averse. I very much disliked anything that had to do with balls.

It wasn't till our daughters became soccer, volleyball, and Polocrosse athletes that I saw any reason to change my relationship to balls of any sport. And, at best, it was a distant relationship. One of an observer with a foreign object that seemed to have no purpose other than to come hurtling through space at you -- at random speeds.

So for me to wake up with the feeling of kicking a ball was actually quite arresting. So, as I do with all strange feelings, I sat with it. Thought about it. Plumbed it for some spiritual meaning.

Carrie's song helped me find what I was listening for. It is a paradox. One of my favorite things about being a conscious being, is being able to recognize a paradox and ponder it deeply.

This morning's paradox is all about the motion of kicking a ball forward. One has to drawn back the foot, in order to add velocity and distance. If you try to kick a ball from a straight leg, stationary, starting point it doesn't have near the speed, precision, or trajectory. Try it.

I have been praying about the hundreds of young men and women who will soon be leaving summer camps for the next legs of their life journey. I have heard some version of trepidation in their individual and collective voices. "I feel safe here. What if I'm not as funny, selfless, purposeful, focused when I leave here? What if I get too busy to read Scripture? What if I forget how it feels to pray?"

This concern is filled with a desire.  And it voices itself as either a desire stay longer in the place they are in, or to not have to "go back" to the life that they left before summer began -- to return to towns, friendships, school settings where they did not feel that they had previously been as kind or spiritually confident as they have been at camp.

I understand this feeling. I am feeling it too. This summer has been all about God's trajectory for my life. I have said, "yes," to opportunities that in other years I might have found a way to sidestep. In some instances I have returned to places where I'd made grave mistakes in the past -- in order to find peace and resolution. In other instances I have stepped back from my personal preferences -- for example: I like dry air and cool night, I like familiarity, I want to be near my dogs -- in order to walk forward into opportunities that were completely without a roadmap.

For those of you who are natural adventurers this might seem like a walk in the park. For me, a spiritual homebody, it was like waking up from that dream.  You know, the one where you have gone to school in your pajamas - and then realized it wasn't a dream. You actually are in math class and everyone is whispering about your flannel nightie.

But what I have been feeling today - as I've embraced this adventure - is the feeling of kicking a ball. Each time I have drawn back -- whether it is to return to a place I need to find redemption and healing in, or from my sense of personality, I am moving forward into the next moment with greater freedom, purpose, strength, and precision. Each time I have folded in and dealt with a past mistake or a deep fear of the unknown -- I open out with a new grace.

And in that motion, there is an almost imperceptible pause between the drawing back, and the moving forward. An immeasurable, timeless moment where I feel God's presence and power. It is as if, for a quadtrillisecond, there is an absolute stillness filled with peace - just before I am sent forward into the next moment - of being at play in the fields of the Lord.

This post may not make any sense to you. I am sorry if that is the case. Perhaps, I am writing it for the sole purpose of watching the feeling take shape in words. I don't know if writing this is a drawing back, the sweet pause, or the hurtling forward. But I know I am feeling God-sent this morning.

Each camper and counselor, in every camp around the world, who has spent time in servant leadership and spiritual self-discovery will soon return - be drawn back into - schools, friendships, towns, families where they will be poised for the pause -- and then they will be sent forward into a world so ready for the young men and women they have become. "Children" who are wiser, gentler, less self-focused, more intentional. And we will all be better for their summer of vision and service.

offered with Love,

Cate 

"how emptiness sings..."

"I haven’t been asked yet
to walk the hard roads,
still there’s a sense
of deep loss in my soul.
In the middle of a party,
I’ll just want to go home.

But oh,
My bow is on the strings,
and I’m beginning to learn
where to find the words
to the song that emptiness sings..."

Christa Wells' recording of  "How Emptiness Sings" touches me on two levels. One is just the sound of the song -- it makes me want to wrap my arms around myself and weep. And then there are the words -- so full of self-compassion, understanding, and patience with our humanness.

One of my favorite contemporary Christian singer-songwriters - Sara Groves, posted that she was looking forward to the release of Christa Wells' new single "Velveteen." I'd forgotten all about Christa's music. So I went looking for her, and when I found "How Emptiness Sings," it was enough.

This week I've been steeped in the Easter story. From Jesus' foretelling of the crucifixion to his disciples, to Peter and John's race to the sepulcher.  His narrative has colored everything for me.

His acceptance of God's purpose and path for him is so humbling. I have had to ask myself, "Would you be able to walk into the arms of Judas and accept his kiss? Would you stand tall before Pilate and not plead your case? Would your last words be, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

No matter how many challenges I have faced in my life, I have not faced this level of self-surrender. I remember once calling the man who was my mentor is Christian Science healing. I was tired. I felt bombarded, misunderstood, maligned. I expected his sympathy. But what he said was, "Are your feet bleeding yet today?"

I knew exactly what he meant. He was referring to three passages from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy:

"Prayer means that we desire to walk and will walk in the light so far as we receive it, even though with bleeding footsteps, and that waiting patiently on the Lord, we will leave our real desires to be rewarded by Him."

"The God-inspired walk calmly on though it be with bleeding footprints, and in the hereafter they will reap what they now sow. The pampered hypocrite may have a flowery pathway here..."

"If impatient of the loving rebuke, the student must stop at the foot of the grand ascent, and there remain until suffering compels the downfall of his self-conceit. Then that student must struggle up, with bleeding footprints, to the God-crowned summit of unselfish and pure aims and affections."

That simple reminder was enough to still my self-pity and complaint.  The last path I wanted to pursue, was the one traveled by the pampered hypocrite.

I think of David, so good and pure as a boy. Yes, a wee arrogant and over-confident - but for good reason. His innocence has been his freedom from the jaws of the lion, the paw of the bear, and the terror of the Philistine. But as a man, he let his self-certainty undermine him. I can't help but wonder if his faltering footsteps didn't serve to teach him the words we turn to in our hours of darkness and despair.  What Christa calls:

"the words to the song
that emptiness sings..."

It has never been self-confidence that has served me in times when my feet were raw -- if not yet bleeding -- on this journey. It has been humility, self-surrender, and mercy that have brought me the deepest peace. Those moments of:

"Abba, Father,
take away this cup from me:
nevertheless not what I will,
but what thou wilt..."

and

"Help me, O Lord my God:
O save me according to thy mercy..."

Lately, I have found myself listening for the song that emptiness sings whispering in my heart. The song that I have yet to learn the words to, because I have not yet traveled this road.  But I am willing -- and I am ready.  I don't yet know what I will need, but I do know that if I am very, very quiet I will hear a new song.

So, if you see me leaving the party, sitting by myself with my eyes closed, or facing the emptiness and scanning the horizon -- it is because I know there is something out there. There is something asking me to go farther than I have ever been before. It's just a feeling -- but I've grown to trust them. Sometimes in the middle of the party, I just want to go home and be still. My bow is waiting on the strings -- the music will come. And then the words.


offered with Love,

Kate

"a need for solitude..."

"I have a need for solitude
I never feel peace
in crowded rooms.
I like the sound
of silence coming on..."

The following, remarkable photo taken by my friend, Todd Herzer, was the perfect reminder to revisit the following post from 2010 - about my once, insatiable need for solitude.

  
Sometimes re-visiting the depths of my own spiritual journey starts with a photograph or a song. Mary Chapin Carpenter has sung me down many a dusty road.  With my hands on the wheel, sobbing, driving hard and fast just to get away from the sadness, her songs have been the answer to my  prayers for a song that will make me feel less alone.

Her CD "The Age of Miracles," was borne on the wings of her own "miraculous" adventure through a life-threatening health-related crisis.  A wilderness experience that led her into a period of what she characterized as" painful depression, fear, and anxiety." 

The lyrical content of this CD is masterful, sobering, intuitive, and deeply moving. What it takes me hundreds of words to hint at, she hammers home with three verses.  When married to her musical vision, it is a CD that makes my heart weep, sing, and soar.  Her songs have always reminded me that I am not alone on this wilderness path.

There are cuts on this CD that I can't help but listen to with my eyes closed.  It is almost as if I am remembering how it felt to have lived through the moments that gave the song birth.  She is singing from her own experience, but like a tuning fork, it is resonating with my own.

There is one song that, when I read its title, "I Have a Need for Solitude," I couldn't help but wonder if we weren't actually "twin daughters of different mothers."

For me, solitude is not just a refreshing interruption from the otherwise social norms of people and events. Solitude is my natural habitat -- like salt water to a sea anemone. I need it. 

It is the oxygen I begin to gasp for, after a long day of truly wonderful conversations, and deeply inspiring interactions with people who I truly love. And it has only been by the grace of God, that I have learned to accept and appreciate the importance of these shifting levels of aloneness in my life.  But that was not always the case.

There was a time when I seemed to need solitude in a way that was almost crippling. My need to be alone felt insistent.

There were days when taking our daughters to school, or having people come into our home, was terrifying. It was as if the sound of other people's voices, their shapes slicing through the changing light, the movement of air, the rustling of atmospheric ions as they stole from room-to-room, felt like someone was sucking all of the carefully negotiated alone-ness out of my perfect solitude -- and I couldn't breathe.

Unfortunately, my profession as a spiritual healer seemed to give me an endless supply of "get out of jail" cards --justifications for why I needed to leave a party, a gathering, a dinner.  My work gave me one great excuse after another for demanding my solitude. 

I would seek it out from daybreak to well-past midnight.  Often staying up through the night, because it was only after my family went to bed, that I could most easily find it.   

There was a point in this chapter, when my favorite place in the world was a three foot by five foot windowless, cedar-lined closet under the eaves of our house where I had a little chair, table, lamp and fan. I would take my phone, and go there for hours on end, just to take be alone in the dark, take calls and pray. For me,  it was a slice of heaven. It became a self-imposed tomb that I never wanted to leave.

Yes, I did learn to cope with the need to be out-and-about as a mother, wife, professional, and member of my community.  But it was a coping - not the peaceful shift from alone to "in company" that I knew was balanced and right.  The ache for solitude was never far from reach. I took it with me wherever I went. And when society became too much, I would retreat. I would leave. I would excuse myself and find a place to hide - a bathroom, a closet, the backseat of my car, under a quilt, in my head -- all alone. 

Social gatherings felt cloying, dense, and paralyzing. Solitude was like walking into a fresh, sweet, light-filled clearing -- a high mountain meadow, fragrant with the scent of chamomile and pine. 

But as much as I loved it, and as happy as it made me,  it was not freeing or liberating.  I truly thought that I couldn't be "me" anywhere else. My need for solitude had become a prison, instead of the open space I thought it was.  I was trapped in the self-certainty that without solitude I could not be inspired or creative. It felt like madness, and I didn't know how I would find my way out of the labyrinth of my own creating -- or if I even wanted to.

And then something quite beautiful happened. 

On a very ordinary day - while I was sitting all alone in my perfectly silent kitchen - I realized, that in all spiritual actuality, solitude was impossible. 

And in that moment, I started to feel the grip of my need to be alone, relax.   Solitude was no longer the holy grail in my life. Just like that.

As I sat there surrounded by blue and white gingham and bathed in golden light, I found myself asking, "Why would I  want something that was never going to be true in God's eyes."

It was as clear as day to me that I couldn't be me - truly me - all alone, without you. And not just the "you" of my immediate friends and family -- my husband, my children, my friends.  But all who I am blessed to have waft through my life -- like the perfume of hyacinth blossoms on a warm spring day.

I realized that I could express love, without "you."  I could not discover myself as generous, kind, compassionate, honest, forgiving -- without you. Each of the you-s in my life, allow me to more fully be who I am. God's beloved and be-loving child. 

Although it's been a struggle at times to remember that I really do want to be this "best me," -- and not someone who seeks out closets and solitude like a drug -- I now find, that even in those lovely moments when the gift of solitude does descend like a divine surprise upon my day, I am no longer more at peace than in a crowded room or a noisy kitchen. I've stopped seeking something spiritually unattainable -- since, in Truth, we can never really be alone anyways. We live together as "one universal family, held in the gospel [the good news] of Love."

We are not, as Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "isolated, solitary ideas." We are each, and all, members of the body of Christ, the spiritual collective called "man." In Truth, we are but individual saplings - the branchings of a vast root system.  We are the offshoots of one spiritual organism -- one that is even larger than "the aspen grove," which stretches its arms across the Continental Divide. We are one with "the earth and the sky, one with everything in life," -- and I am as much you, as I am myself. We are His.

Yes, to answer the unasked question, I still love my solitude.  I love my alone time when the house is clean, the silence is golden, scent trails of lavender swirl with the shifting breeze. In that space figurative notation paper hangs in the air -- just waiting for poetry and music to find their positions, like birds on a wire, and become a song or a prayer. 

 But I no longer like my life better without people in it. I no longer think that I need soliude to be myself -- to breathe, to feel peaceful, or to hear God's voice. 

And yet, as Mary Chapin Carpenter sings, I will always love, and welcome, "the sound of silence coming on." 

Thank you MCC -- so grateful you are in our world.  I have missed your voice.  Thank you for your words, your music, your heart that sings to us of miracles. Thank you for bringing this statement to life for me:

"My sense of nature's rich gloom,
is that loneness lacks but one charm
to make it half divine — a friend,
with whom to whisper, 
"Solitude is sweet."

- Mary Baker Eddy  

I smile when I think of this verse today. In it, I am sitting in the forest with my back to the trunk of a sturdy tree -- but not all alone, just all quiet.  Around me are countless other solitude lovers -- basking in the pine-filtered light, the wind-hushed quiet, in our aloneness -- together.


offered with gratitude -- and with Love,

Kate

"i was never the same…"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


offered with Love,

Kate

"If I could see..."

"If I could see
what the angel see,
I'd see that Love
will conquer hate,
there's always hope
it's not too late,
I'd find the Truth
is easy to believe..."

She's done it again. And once more, with a song from her new CD, How Mercy Looks from Here. Amy Grant's "If I Could See (What the Angels See)," was just the ticket this week.

Years ago I had a Sunday School teacher who suggested that if every time we were tempted to use the word "If..." with regard to God,  instead we used, "Since..." we would be on solid holy ground.  

For example:  "If God is good, and God is all, then all is good," can be read, "Since God is good, and God is all, then all is good."  When it comes to God, she said, there is no "if."   I've been practicing this for decades now, and it's almost like thinking in another language.

So when I heard Amy's new song, "If I Could See What Angels See," I naturally translated it and heard, "Since I can see what angels see..."

This song became a prayer of affirmation, a rock on which to stand, an overlook from which I could see things with clarity and spiritual vision.

This was a particularly helpful prayer as my heart leapt into action in praying for the children, parents, teachers, families, first responders, volunteers, and rescue workers in Moore, Oklahoma this week.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her Glossary of spiritual terms at the back of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, defines the word, "Angel" as:

"God's thoughts passing to man,
spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect,
the inspirations of
goodness, purity, and immortality..." 

In assuring us that these angels, or intuitions, are spiritual she is reminding us that they, like Spirit, are everywhere. They are not confined to one faith-tradition. They are not personal, but impartial and universal. They suffuse every moment with hope, every action with kindness, every word with encouragement, every heart with faith, every thought with intuition, wisdom, and clarity of direction.

The morning after the tornado hit Moore I was feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. As I stood at the kitchen window I noticed a small bird's nest that had fallen during the storm the night before. I knew right away that it was the nest a pair of small birds had been building in the crook of a tree nearby. I walked outside, gently picked it up and returned it to it's place. This morning I noticed them feathering their nest again, readying for the eggs that would soon appear.

There are no ideas in the universe of Mind that are too small, no communities that are too isolated, no homes too fragile to be precious and dear to our Father-Mother God.

We are all receptive to the angels of His Presence. These angels populate every mental molecule of the universe. Nothing is beyond their control, no one is lost to them, there is no place so devastated, no moment so terrifying that they cannot reach to comfort the frightened and give wise council to those who feel disoriented.

This has been my prayer this week: that we can all see, hear, feel, know, trust -- like angels.

offered with Love,

Kate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

with love,

Kate

"make this place your home..."

"Settle down, it'll all be clear.
Don't pay no mind to the demons
they fill you with fear
The trouble, it might drag you down.
If you get lost, you can always be found.

Just know you’re not alone.
I’m going to make this place your home..."

Phillip Phillips' beautiful song, "Home," must be singing through the spiritual ether tonight.

First, I found myself thinking about its lyrics in the car this evening, then discovered that it has been referenced in a new Question of the Week, "How come I still feel lonely when I'm not alone?" on TMCYouth, and then found that another friend had posted a link on Facebook. I am not surprised. This song speaks to the universal desire to know that we are not alone.

My own thoughts, in connection with its lyrics, have been resting with Mary Baker Eddy's spiritual interpretation of the final line of David's 23rd Psalm, from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"And I will dwell in the house,
the consciousness of Love,
forever..."

In my faith tradition, Love is another name for God. To know that I dwell in the consciousness (the Mind) of Love, of God -- forever --is my "dearest spot" on earth.  Or in heaven.  This is my one true home. This is where I know that I am always welcome, always safe, always secure. This is where I can rest my heart, and my hopes.

From as far back as I can remember, my favorite time of day has always been that moment when I first wake up in the morning. That space of time between being conscious of my thoughts, and becoming sentient -- or aware of my surroundings. Before I even feel the coolness of the sheets with the tips of my toes, or hear a bird, or open my eyes to make sure that the world is as I left it the night before, I am certain I am living. I have experienced conscious being.

I don't need to see, hear, feel, taste, or smell anything to know I am alive.  To know that I am me.  For me, this is "home."

I clearly remember a late fall day when I was 15. We'd just moved 2,500 miles across the country to a new state, a new town, a new house, and most unsettlingly, a new school.

Every day I felt like a stranger in a strange world. I felt foreign. My body was changing, I had no friends, the styles were different than "back home," and nothing made sense...except those moments before I became sentient.

I lived for them. I would try to make them last as long as possible. I would allow my sense of self to steep in the warmth of "just being" with God, Mind. I had thoughts. I had dreams and ideas. I had beautiful images, words, feelings. I was me.  I was at home in this place.  

The longer I stayed there, the better my day went. I wasn't getting up, rushing to get ready, and then waiting for the world to confirm for me who I was.  I wasn't asking it to tell me  whether I deserved to be liked, appreciated, or seen as a viable person to talk to, befriend, or even just acknowledge as a legitimate being.

From this space, I knew I was worthy.  Before the first blush of dawn I'd already connected with the "me" who was chock full of wonderful thoughts and feelings.  I'd already spent time with the "me" who had interesting ideas, thoughts that delighted me.  From this conscious place, I realized that I had questions, and those questions were ones that I could never have "made up" on my own.

I don't know that this will make much sense to anyone else, but in that place of consciousness -- of my oneness with God -- there were no strangers, no demons, no loneliness.

I still go there...now, more than ever. It is my favorite place to be. It is the home of my heart, my work, my life, my very sense of being.

It is where I can always be found...

with Love

Kate

"a memory in every corner..."

"It took me by surprise
this old house
and these old feelings
Walked around and looked inside
familiar walls, and halls,
and ceilings..."

I've always dreamed of giving my children a sense of home that would evoke the same feeling Sara Groves sings about in "This Old House."

I've dreamed in houses all my life. Fairy tale houses in the piney woods. Log cabins above tree line. Clapboard farmhouses with wide front porches under a stand of cottonwoods along the Platte River. Gingerbread victorians, craftsman style bungalows, mesquite-thatched adobes that blend into the arroyo. I love them all.

As a girl, we grew up in rental housing. We'd just get moved in -- walls freshly painted, furniture artfully arranged, warm and cozy -- when the landlord would see that my parents' hard work had increased the value of his property. Their sweat equity -- combined with mom's ability to add charm to a cardboard box -- made it the perfect time for selling.

Finding my "forever" home, became an obsession for me. Owning a house meant that no one could sell your memories out from under you.  And although I've been blessed to own at least one house I truly loved, it was never my forever house. I've moved often. Far too often.

For years, suggestions of homelessness could still poke through to a very tender place of vulnerability. I'd try to catch them before they pierced my peace, but I was not always aware of what the triggers were. And once it hit, it could make me feel irrational and frantic. In those moments, I just had to find my forever house so that I never had to move again.

And considering that this is my 58th house, in 58 years, I've got lots of experience with moving. I'd joke about it. I'd pray about it. I'd try to convince myself that owning a house didn't really matter -- it's the spiritual sense of home that I carry in my heart that makes all the difference...right?

But someone would say something, and Iid be in a puddle of tears searching realtor.com for something we could afford...in a town/village/city we'd want to spend "forever."

For years I'd worked long and hard to find my peace about this. Probably more than any one issue. It could send me into tailspin that was very hard to pull out of.

It was my Achille's heel. Just when I'd think I was "over it," it would come in through a hidden back door, and I was toast.

It actually happened not so terribly long ago.

We lived in a sweet neighborhood, in a lovely little cape cod-style farmhouse with a big front porch.

We'd charmed this baby up as much as any rental property could possibly hope for.  She'd been blinged out with re-purposed, dumpster-found, shabby chic-ish porch furnishings...painted shutters, window boxes overflowing with wildflowers and herbs, adirondack chairs, and, what my daughter refers to as my menagerie of stone pets...turtles, ducks, birds of every size, squirrels, and a fox...yes, a stone-cold fox.

But all it took was for someone (who didn't know we were "renters") to make a thoughtless remark about the "those people who are foolish enough to get caught in the rental trap," and I was driven to my knees in prayer.

Thank God for musical angels. Sara's song spoke to me about the real value of home and it's spiritual foundation.

In light of the recent housing crisis, the value of "home" is something I pray about daily. Not just for myself and my family, but for all families. 

 And I am finding that this more inclusive kind of prayer has made a difference in the way I feel when circumstances poke at my tender places. I can no longer be found in a fetal ball when I hear that someone has just closed on a new house purchase.

I no longer cry while watching HGTV's Property Virgins. I no longer believe that my life will be better, "if only," I could finally move into the house I would never have to leave.

I'm no longer haunted by questions like: "What if we never left "that" house?" "What if my children had never had to move?" "How would I be different if I knew the emotions Sara sings of in "This Old House?" It's taken me a long time to get here.

In times like these, it's critical for me to remember that none of us are alone in facing these fears. There are millions of children who don't know where they will lay their head tonight. And millions more who will never know another night because of poverty, toxic water, civil war, global unrest, poor healthcare, and ethnic cleansing.

Each day I try to remember that our life's journey well-prepares us for helping others.  God has never lost touch with us.  He has never forsaken us.  Every step of my path has been designed to foster compassion, understanding, humility, grace.   

 Because of my path, I understanding what it's like to face uncertainty. I know what it feels like to discover that there's not enough in the checking account to pay the rent and buy food. But letting these experiences inform my heart...and not define me...has turned humiliation into humility. The desire to stand under my own roof, into a heart full of understanding.   And I really do understand.

So tonight -- as the temperatures drop and images of cozy fires with families around a table piled high with bounty parade across television screens and pepper the dreams of children living in shelters -- I pray that the happiest, warmest, most beloved "place" in every child's life becomes the security found within the circle of her divine Parent's arms.

I pray that the safest place she will ever know, is under the shelter of God's wing. And that the most perfect spot on earth for her, is the kingdom of heaven.

Happiness, peace, security lives in, rests upon, abides with, and resides within God's capacious Love.

In her spiritual interpretation of the 23rd Psalms, Mary Baker Eddy translates "I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life..." into:

"I will dwell in the house,
the consciousness of Love,
forever" 

This is my forever house. This is my forever home.

And in fact, it is yours too. The man huddled in the cardboard box, the child on the streets of Bangkok, the woman driving aimlessly to avoid an abuse, the couple feeling trapped in an upside-down mortgage...they have it as well. We all have a forever home in the consciousness of Love. It's really the one true, sure, certain, secure home we will ever know...unmovable within our hearts.

In this "consciousness of Love" there is a memory in every corner...and they are all very good because they always include Love.

warmly,
Kate

"I'm going home..."

I'm goin' home
to a place where I belong...
where Love has always been enough for me..."

I love Chris Daugherty's "I'm Going Home."  I hope you do too.  Here's today's story.

I was standing on our front porch this afternoon, just about to leave for an appointment, when it occurred to me that although this has been my 56th house in 56 years,  my home has never changed.

That may sound like a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo...and to be honest, it would have struck me that way (although I'm not sure I would have admitted it) not so long ago.   But in that moment, those were no longer just good thoughts that could sustain me through another day of wondering if I'd ever really feel an abiding sense of home...they were substantive, tangible...I could actually feel those ideas, as if they were part of me.

Sure, I have long loved the sentiments of writers whose axioms about "home" have graced the walls of mansions, suburban split levels, farmhouses, and mobile homes in framed cross-stitch pieces and hand-painted signs for centuries.  Sayings like:

"Home is where the heart is."
and
"Home is where your story begins."
or
"There's no place like home."

But I've still ached to find that last place I could call home...forever.  A place that no one could take away from me.  A place that is mine.  A place where I can put down roots, and where our children could come home to roost...no matter what, no matter when.

I don't think that those dreams are unattainable...for anyone else.  But, for me, they have felt like something just beyond the fog or mist...just out of reach...and for such a long time. 

But this afternoon, standing on the front porch, looking back through the open front door, and into the house -- where my husband was standing with our puppy in his arms --  something became a little clearer to me.

The light behind him...spilling, and pooling, in soft golden puddles on the polished pine floors,  the unique mix of patterns...florals, stripes, black and cream checks, the bookcases that line the walls...filled with volumes of prose, poetry, fiction, biography, inspirational and self-help books that mirror the quilts folded and shelved throughout the house, the co-mingling scents of lavender, brownies, and cinnamon that fill the air...my favorite perfume  -  all these things are not geographical.  They do not have anything to do with a particular house or neighborhood.  They are the languages of my heart.  They are the landscape of Love.

No one can take these things from us...or from my children.  My children come home to my heart's landscape, not a particular address.

Standing on the porch this afternoon, I realized that wherever I go...whether I have this couch or that painting, this lamp or that Adirondack chair...or nothing...within hours I would find a way to carve out a space, feather a nest, create a home that was as warm and cozy -- as filled with all that we love -- as this one is.   Home is in me...it is a active presence voicing itself.

That moment brought a very special feeling of freedom...

Mary Baker Eddy says,

"Home is the dearest spot on earth..."

I agree, but I don't think this "spot" is geographical...it is spiritual. 

welcome to my home...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"This old house..."

"It took me by surprise.
This old house and these old feelings.
Walked round and looked inside,
familiar walls, and halls, and ceilings.

Where I'd dream and plan,
every moment of sunshine.
This was my whole world.
It was all I knew.
Like the hull of a seed,
this old house cracked wide open as I grew..."
-     Sara Groves

Sara Groves' "This House," brings up so much love and gratitude, and so many memories, for me.  This is a post about, and to, a house...and God, who made the dream come true.

We were outgrowing our loft-style apartment...high in the trees, as quickly as our daughter was growing out of her footed sleeper pajamas.  No yard for her to play in, a long flight of stairs that was no longer conducive for a walking, running, leaping toddler, a kitchen in the middle of our one big living space...no, we were no longer a young professional couple, we were a family.  And a family needed a house and a yard.

I passed by the object of my affection every day.  Once a petite, smartly appointed turn-of-the-century Victorian debutante...a beau on the front porch swing every Friday evening...she was now a sweetly, nutty old spinster with her stocking rolled down to just above her knees, her gray and turquoise apron faded and torn, the corner of her front porch propped up with a railroad tie.  But I loved her.  I still saw the debutante she once was, and wanted to fix her hair, wash and press her house dress, and sit on that same porch listening to her stories of grand balls, and teas, and the beaus she'd turned away.

Thus began my love affair with a decrepit little Victorian house in a small university town in Northern Colorado.

The first time I saw her she was, quite literally, falling apart.  Her gray clapboards were peeling and her garish turquoise trim was a reminder that someone's mistake at the paint store was her landlord's "Wow, can you believe it? I got this whole can for $2!" moment.

But I could see her high cheekbones, her delicate frame, her soft eyes...and I was smitten.   It didn't matter that I had no money to buy..or even lease...her.  It was of no consequence that we were up to our ears in debt...I knew that she and I were destined to share stories.   I knew that she was like a wonderfully colorful spinster aunt who would hold my daughter's heart and tell her tales of lost loves, dog-eared classics read under the eaves, and kisses stolen on that same time-weary old front porch.

It was also obvious that she was horrified by the indignity of her current situation.  She had been purchased in a fire sale as an investment, and rented out to college students en masse.  Like a phone booth, or a volkswagon bug, crammed with fraternity boys, she was rented out by the bed.  $175 got you a key, a shelf in the refrigerator, and a place in line for the one bathroom.  On the weekends she spent her nights perfumed by the spray of beer kegs on her faded wallpaper, and her days filled with boys sleeping off the night's hangover. 

Since no one seemed to know exactly who owned her, and her neighbors...families who were trying to reclaim a part of town that had formerly been the jewel of the city...were thoroughly disgusted by the sight of beer cups in her front garden each Saturday and Sunday morning, I started asking around.  I eventually went to the office of the town Clerk and discovered, in the county records, that she was owned by a man who was broadly considered an opportunist, the town "slumlord," because he bought up older homes...once their elderly occupants had passed away...and turned them into college rentals without taking responsibility for the crude and disrespectful behavior of his tenants, or the effect it had on the neighborhoods they'd moved into.

As soon as I had his phone number I began calling him.  Would he be willing to rent her to me for a minimal amount and let me fix her up.  He laughed...and he laughed loudly.  Was I joking, he asked.   He was able to make ten times what I could pay him, renting it to college students, and he didn't have to do a thing to improve her condition or appearance...those kids just didn't care.

But I persisted. He may have seemed like a dolt of an owner, but he was HER dolt of an owner, and I knew that if I loved her, I had to see him differently. And I did love her. So I would persist...and I would persist calling, not a slumlord, but the only kind of man I could imagine being connected with her...good, kind, honest, responsible. She deserved that. I had to do something, she just looked so sad.  I would walk by every day, and imagine her in her hayday.  Gardens blooming where car parts and beer cans now littered the oil-spotted "yard" (read: hard-packed dirt and tumbleweed). I could just see her with a picket fence and an arbor gate, roses trailing along the pickets, and lavender along the steps leading from the sidewalk to the wide front porch. 

But each time I called, he would laugh, until he just stopped taking my calls.  But I was unstoppable, I could never give up on her.  I talked to the neighbors, as our daughter and I passed each day on our way to church, downtown, or just for a tricycle ride around the block.  I would ask them about their home improvement projects, paint color choices, comment on the beauty of their gardens...all the while wishing that I had just walked out of the kitchen door, to lean over the fence with a plate of cookies, and a cup of tea.

One night, after being away at camp for six weeks, I was walking home from church and noticed that she had been painted the perfect soft shade of pale, butter yellow.  Her trim was a pefect shade of leaf green, and her front porch was no longer propped up by a broken off railroad tie, but perfectly poised on latticed ballet slippers to match her dress.  My heart sank.  Someone had talked him into selling while I was away, and they'd bought her, and were fixing her up.  Then my heart soared.  I knew how unhappy the neighbors had been with her state of disrepair and her tenancy.  She must have felt like a girl in a new party dress.   I was sad that she wasn't mine, but I was happy she was looking more like herself, and that someone would love her...and they darned well better love her A LOT. 

But day after day, as I passed by, no one moved in.  Finally I asked the neighbors what they new about the new owners.  They said that all they knew was that one day workmen started arriving, they had worked inside cleaning for a few weeks, and then they'd repaired, scraped, and painted the outside without saying a word.  When they were finished, they left, and no one had come by to inspect. So, she'd just been sitting there in her new party dress, waiting, ever since. 

I was really curious now.  I went back to the county office and discovered that there was no record of recent sale.  So I called the landlord and he told me that he'd just gotten tired of the neighbors (and me) calling about the way she was being treated by the tenants, and the effect it was having on the neighborhood they loved, and he had decided to clean her up and paint her so that he could sell her.

We still had no money.  But I knew she was my house.  I asked him if he would give me a week to figure things out.  We agreed on a fair price...a very fair price...and I started praying for the steps we'd need to take.  We talked on the phone every day, and when I couldn't find a bank to write a mortgage to someone who was newly self-employed, in debt, and with no collateral, he offered to carry the loan if I could just come up with a modest deposit.  Okay, I thought, I might be able to do this...and actually thought I had...for a while. 

But at the last second...a hour before the signing of our papers...my source for the down payment retracted the offer to advance the amount needed, and I was unable to bring anything to the table..  I was devastated, but I also knew that the owner had extended a wonderful opportunity to us that had taken his house off the market for weeks.  As I told him that I no longer had any money for a down payment, I assured him that I would do everything in my power to help him sell her to the perfect family.  He looked at me and he said, "This is your house, what can you afford to pay in rent until you can buy her...I will still carry the loan when you are ready." I had brought what I DID have to the table...my love for her. And it had been enough.

I almost collapsed with gratitude.  I told him a ridiculously low (but honest) amount that we could afford monthly, and he agreed to lease it to us with the option that when we could come up with a down payment, he would sell her to us, and carry the loan at a very low interest rate.

That night, by the light of the moon, we moved from our loft apartment around the corner, into my perfect little girl of a cottage dressed in butter yellow. Carrying chairs and loveseats, beds, clothes, dressers, and dishes through the silents streets under a blanket of stars...I thanked God with each step. 

Before long she had a beautiful lawn, gardens overflowing with lavender, roses, hollyhocks, rosemary, and lush veggies, a matching butter yellow picket fence and arbor gate, and beautiful dark periwinkle front doors with beveled glass windows and a wide front porch for sitting on and listening to her stories.  And we had neighbors...the most remarkable neighbors you could imagine.  I was, to say the least,  blissfully happy in a little yellow little house, set in my version of heaven on earth.

Two years later...after the Colorado real estate market  had exploded in value, and our little house was now worth more than double the price our landlord was originally willing to sell her to us for, we had that down payment.  I called him on the phone, and asked him if he was still willing to sell her.  He said, of course, but that we should get an appraisal to discover what her current value was. 

A cold shot of dread coursed through my veins as the appraisor walked through her sweetly appointed rooms, shutters thrown wide so that softly filtered sunlight could splay itself across antique quilts and oiled hardwoods.  I held my breath as he commented on the beauty of her lush lawn and fragrant, colorful gardens.  He promised to get an appraisal to us right away, as he slipped through the arbor gate, and let his hand trail along the rose-laden pickets. 

Later that week the appraisal arrived in its innocuous manila envelope.  I pried open the little silver clips, pulled out the report, and immediately noticed the assigned value.  My dread was well placed.  The number was more than double the price point we had been offered two years earlier.  It was a price we could not afford. 

I called the owner and told him that I would be sending a copy of the appraisal in the mail, but wanted him to know what it was right away.  I told him the number, and he said, "Isn't that nice. You've got equity before you've even bought the house."  I asked him what he meant by that, and he said that because the purchase price would be the same as when we originally talked about buying the house from him, all the equity it may have gained was ours.  Because, as he said, "That house has always been yours."

For two years we had poured our heart and soul, blistered hands and sore shoulders into returning her to the beautiful belle of the ball she already was in my eyes. We'd invested so much sweat equity that she glistened. Friends and family who knew that we were still just renting her had expressed grave concern that we were just building value for an owner who would never even acknowledge our work. But, for me, there was no other way to live in her and love her. She deserved to be loved...and loved she was. And they'd been wrong. He did see all that we'd done. It was such an act of grace.

That day, with the help of a family member, we bought her.  She was ours...she was mine...for a while.  A wonderful, sweet, beautiful, cozy, while...

A couple of years later, when the former owner was being maligned in the local newspaper during a run for public office, I was honored to be able to write an honest editorial about his integrity, generosity, and kindness in our dealings with him.

This is the story of a little house...a slip of a clapboard girl, dressed in butter yellow. A girl with periwinkle eyes and the scent of lavender on her shoulders.   She told me her stories. She held my daughter...and my dreams...safe and warm...for a while.  I will never forget her.

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

The photo, at the top, is of the picket fence between our home, and our wonderful neighbors' (Barb, Kent, Heather, and Tyler Stauffer) house...it was the place our daughters met each morning to plan their days, and where we would stand and talk...mugs in hand, and with dreams to share. This shared fence is one of the "places" I loved most during that chapter of our lives...thanks Barb and Kent for sharing it with us.

If you would like to read it, here is a link to the poem,"Butter Yellow Picket Fences," written in her honor some years ago.