"And it's run for the roses..."

"..It's the chance of a lifetime
in a lifetime of chance
And it's high time to join in the dance
it's high time to join in the dance..."

My husband and I went to see Disney's Secretariat at midnight, on the day before its opening in theatres. I was sure we'd be standing in long lines, and was surprised to see that we were the only ones at the ticket counter.  Where was everyone?  I was as excited as a school girl.   As we found our seats (30 minutes early) in the empty auditorium, I could barely contain my happiness.  I was nervously impatient with the silly previews (something I normally enjoy).  I wanted opening credits, a title screen, the first appearance of a "Big Red" stallion.  This was a story I'd loved for a long, long time.

I remember the 1973 Kentucky Derby, like it was yesterday.  Sitting on the avocado green, sculptured-loop carpet in my best friend's living room...eating popcorn and drinking TAB...while we waited for the horses to appear...emerging from the bowels of the stabling area...on their way to the starting gate.  My heart thumping, my palms sweaty, I searched the television screen for the first glimpse of him.  Then, there he was. 

Like so many girls (most of them much younger than I was at the time) I had a crush on a horse.   And not just any horse, this was a very special horse.  This was a horse whose story had captured the heart of a nation.  But I felt like I had seen him first.  From his first appearance in horse magazines, I'd been making pencil drawings of him on notebook paper, dreaming of him, wondering what it would be like to ride him.  I was short, I was little, why couldn't I be a jockey???


Secretariat was the object of my affection.  He was tall...16 hands of pure muscle.  He was fast...the Kentucky Derby in under 2 minutes.  He was handsome...a deep rich chestnut thoroughbred.  And he was much safer to be in love with, than any boy. 

Dan Fogelberg's "Run for the Roses" talks about "chance" but for me, Secretariat's success on the racetrack had nothing to do with chance, and everything to do with heart.  I'd been following his story like the rise of a young rockstar.  and there was no question in my mind that Secretariat had the heart of a champion.  He certainly had mine.   I rankled at any suggestion that his potential was based on chance, luck, breeding, or investors, rather than his right to run...to do what he was meant to do because of his relationship to God.  Even when I wasn't sure about this spiritual fact for myself, I was sure of it for him.

One of my favorite Bible stories is that of the man who was "born blind."  Jesus disciples are baffled that they cannot heal him of his blindness and so they bring his case to Jesus.  Jesus gently rebukes their question, "who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" with the paradigm-shifting, "neither did this man sin, nor his parents, but that the works of God may be made manifest." 

He then spits in the dust, makes clay of the spittle, anoints the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and then asks him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam - "which is by interpretation, 'Sent'".  The antidote to being born blind, was seeing oneself as sent...sent by God, sent for a holy purpose, sent to manifest the works of God. 

How often do we see ourselves as "borne (carried) blindly through life by chance, circumstances of family...wealth, poverty, academic legacy, genetic-predisposition to a certain level of intellectual rigor...political leanings, acculturation, nature, nurture...you name it. 

But we are not "borne blindly."  We are "sent" into each moment with a heart for every task put before us.  It is our fidelity to that "heart" that fulfils our right to be the manifestation of God's work...the coincidence of divinity with humanity, moment-by-moment...every second of every day. 

I believe this was true for Secretariat.  He just "showed up" with a heart full of wonder.  He was not genetically predisposed to winning.  He was not an anomaly of chance.  He was spiritually predisposed to being Secretariat.  To being the manifestation of God as "horse"...full of wonder, joy, eagerness, determination...heart.  He was a horse with a heart for every task put before him. 

He was verb-driven, not noun-defined.  He wasn't running Belmont any differently than he ran his home track at Meadow Farm.  He didn't run for jockey Ron Turcotte, differently than he ran for trainer Eddie Sweat, or beloved owner Penny Tweedy...he just ran.  

There's a lesson in this story for each of us.  When we run, really run, our race...the race that is "set before us", day-by-day, moment-by-moment, with a heart that fully understands it has been sent, and is bursting with a desire to live in service to its divinely appointed purpose, we "win" our own spiritual triple crown...self-knowledge, humility, and love.

I love you "Big Red"... still do,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Here is a link to Secretariat's hear-stopping win of the 1973 Preakness which wrapped up his Triple Crown.

"God must be a cowboy at heart...."

"Campfire, some coffee,
from a tin cup in my hand.
Sure warms the fingers when it's cold

Playing an old guitar,
a friend I understand,
sure smoothes the wrinkles in my soul

And I think God must be a cowboy at heart.
'Cause He made wide-open spaces,  from the start.
He made grass and trees and mountains,
and a horse to be a friend.
And trails to lead old cowboys home again..."

There was a year or two when this Dan Seals album served as the background music during long, happy days of driving my old Jeep, along Colorado's Front Range, for office appointments and home visits.  Me 'n Dan singing "God Must Be a Cowboy..." at the top of our lungs...the window cranked down, my books next to me on the long bench seat,  and a perfect blue Rocky Mountain sky overhead.   

I like thinking of God as a Cowboy....it makes me smile.  I've had the privilege of knowing some pretty amazing cowboys.  Guys...and gals...like Bob Howe, Rusty Signor, "Bronco" Bill Webster, Dave Marshall, Don Gregory, Dustin Monie, Steve Chitwood, Rob Boucher, Kit and Ian Bartalos, Brooks Anderson, Leslie Miller, Linda Clarke, Allison Paddock Abdelnour, Pete Husack, Heather Barron, Jessie Orlet, Matthew Leon, Laura Southworth, Moffet Zoe, Kenny D"Evelyn, Kristin Voorhees (and oh my goodness, there are so many, many more...including all* the AU corral staff from the last few decades)...but, for me, the cowboy I've learned the most from, about what God, as a cowboy, might be like...is Lachlan Clarke. 

Lach is, first and foremost, a gentleman.  He is gentle.  And it is this gentleness, that makes him one of the strongest men I have ever known.  He is quiet.   Without saying a word, teenagers stop what they are doing...or saying...and wait quietly for instruction.  Horses are calmed, dogs stop barking, and the earth seems hushed in anticipation of his next move. 

He is alert.  If there ever, really, was a man with "eyes in the back of his head," it would be Lachlan Clarke.  He moves with the stealth of an Indian brave hunting in the forest, and on a cattle drive, he can anticipate a steer's next move with uncanny foresight. 

This summer while working with Lach, I learned a lot about why the metaphor of God, as a cowboy, might serve as a spiritual discipline.  I discovered that a cowboy is unfazed by shifting conditions, or scenes.  He is well-prepared, and stays deep in the saddle, whether in storm, or shine.  He is ever-alert to the direction of the wind, the quiver of a horse's flanks, the undulating, hard-packed pasture beneath her hooves, the scents of crushed mountain yarrow, and the evolving gold of an aspen-filled valley.  He is alert, but unruffled by fast-approaching weather patterns...making course corrections, and trail changes without reaction, or remark. 

No matter how alarming the picture, a cowboy...or at least the ones I've known, and especially Lachlan Clarke...takes it in stride.  It's not a problem, just another opportunity to put a developed skillset to use...cleaning, bandaging, repairing, navigating, nursing, all done without fear, or trembling.    He knows that the real work happens in the heart.  He is calm, mentally disciplined, unruffled.  He has an entire herd of horses (and sometimes, kids and cattle) reading the winds of his emotional leadership, he can't afford to react...so he doesn't.

I could go on and on. 

A cowboy's love for the entire earth...dry, dusty pastures, verdant mountain valleys, long hot days, clear, cold nights under a bowl of stars with a "horse to be a friend," a mug of something hot in his hands, and a guitar for conversation...it's all good.  His ability to lead without saying a word...to signal a change of direction, with a hand so gentle, that those watching have no idea that a finger even twitched.

But what Lach most taught me this summer, about God as a cowboy, was the gentle strength of love.  Love without words, love that encourages with the tenderness of a whisper, love that is firm, love that lets go, love that has the courage to do what needs to be done, love that laughs, and sings, and says, "no," while making you just so glad that you were deserving of his correction. 

I learned practical lessons about the love that listens with every cell of its entire being, while still aware of everything else around him.  About the love that comforts with one smooth stroke along the long neck of a mare who is skittish and uncertain in a new setting.  I learned about the love that persists long after everyone else has gone to the dining room for dinner, and is up before dawn.  I learned that an entire herd will stand at the fence line waiting for his boots on the porch of his cabin in the morning, or his truck on the road at dinnertime...and I learned that even the most distracted teen will give his/her undivided attention to the kind of love that puts up with "no nonsense," but loves beyond mistake or failing. 

Yes, I do think that God must be a cowboy at heart, because not only did He make "wide open spaces from the start," but because all the cowboys (and cowgirls) I know have taught me to trust in the unseen, listen for the unheard, wait for the unexpected, and love with the unparalleled, unfathomable, incomparable tenderness founded in real strength...strong faith, hope, and respect for God's silent power, tender mercy, and amazing grace.

Thanks Lach, Linda..and all the amazing horses who have taught us immeasurable lessons in gentleness, strength, patience, perserverence, trust, and grace...especially to our dear Espresso who taught me to fly...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit:  Ashley Bay 2010]

*there are so many of you who have taught me the gifts of divine Love, from the saddle of a horse...I wish I could name you, each and all, here...but the list would be so long I would never get this posted.  Please know that you are there in my heart, and between the lines. Thank you for teaching my daughters about God from this vantage point.  

"Saddle up your horses..."

"This is the greatest journey
that the human heart will ever see
The love of God will take us
far beyond our wildest dreams...

Saddle up your horses
we've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder
of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader
into the glorious unknown
This is a life like no other
this is The Great Adventure

Saddle up your horses,
come on get ready to ride..."
-     Steven Curtis Chapman
& Geoff Moore

Horses and camp..they go together like bread and butter, blueberries and pancakes, Emma and Clara.  Dapples and paints, bays and bucksins...I love them all. As a girl I loved to read about horses, draw them, paint them, brush, curry, feed, and ride them. I was horse obsessed. Driving up the camp road and seeing our herd in the pasture takes my breath away. Being able to pick out Riata, Dusk, Sugar (Lach's and Linda's), Ayla, Remington, and the rest...is like walking into a family reunion in full swing.

This morning, I was listening to Chapman and Moore's "The Great Adventure," just as a patrol of campers and their horses came up the hill during a trail ride.   I couldn't help but notice the trust these tiny riders (and the parents who'd sent them to camp knowing that they'd be participating in the Buckaroos program) had in their four-legged partners.  It is a well-placed trust, and it is soundly grounded in the spiritual fact that, as Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"All is under the control of the one Mind, even God."

These riders and their horses all have the same God, the same Mind, governing their every movement with divinely choreographed spiritual certainty.  It is a sacred dance...one that thrives on both "lightness of touch," and a firm hand. And as much as I thrill at the sight of young riders excelling at barrels, poles, and the keyhole in the end-of-session rodeo, this dance of horse and rider is never more beautiful to me than in these first few days of camp. 

I love wandering down to the corral, and watching a line of grade-school age children mounted high atop their horses, soft hands lightly cradling (or tightly clutching) leather reins, feet barely reaching stirrups, and smiles as wide as a quarter moon lighting up their faces as they move slowly along the dusty road towards the arena.  You cannot watch an eight year old, astride a 800-pound buckskin, and not be in awe of the remarkable trust on the part of both the rider who is sitting brave and tall, and the horse whose mouth holds a metal bit under the control of a youngster.


Our daughters have been riding since they were preschoolers, and watching them tear into the rodeo arena, pass through the electronic eye of the timer, round the barrels, and race back through the gate, is like watching a pod of dolphins cutting through the sea,  leaves turning towards the sunlight, or a hummingbird hovering in midair above the long-throated chalice of a trumpet flower. It is as natural, beautiful, and breath-taking as an Arkansas Valley sunset after a storm.


Tonight, as I pondered the spiritual message in Chapman's "The Great Adventure," I've been thinking about my own eager readiness to ride into the "glorious unknown" of spiritual trust.  I have been assessing my own willingness to enter the arena of healing and salvation with a childlike trust that anticipates only the promised joy.  I have been imagining myself bouncing high astride my great desire to greet each request for treatment, each appointment, each visit to my office, each moment's call to be present in my life...with grace.   I long to be able to put self aside...and live in service to God...with a smile as big as a quarter moon, a heart that is chomping at the bit, and a willingness to trust Him -- a Love that is so much bigger than I am -- with all that I am or ever will be -- with my life, my hopes, my dreams, my desires, and my children.

I'm saddled up and ready for the ride of my life...

Loving camp!!  More soon...from the porch of Crowsnest,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS
[photo credits: Ashley Bay 2009]

"Everybody wants to be loved..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But back to that magical night...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[photo credit:  Dara Glotzbach 2009]