"So far away...."

"So far away...
doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door.
It doesn't help to know,
You're just time away...."

Besides the pure pleasure of seeing James Taylor and Carole King performing together in 1971, this recording of "So Far Away," was the perfect keynote for today.  A new friend asked, recently, if I could write a piece about "long distance relationships."  Boy oh boy, can I.

One, because I've experienced so many of them...with significant others, my mom, siblings, and even my children...and two, because I have grown to love them. 

Some of the most deepening (and telling) times in the development of a lasting relationship, have come during weeks, months, and years when we have not lived in the same place.

Letters, phone calls, long walks by myself where the only conversation I'm having is the one I have with God about my loved one, emails...all of these alternative models of communication have strengthened the "ties that bind"...or they've gently untied the ones that weren't meant to be tied tightly.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her work, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, counsels:

"Space is no separator of hearts."

I believe this to be completely accurate.  A relationship that is dependent on proximity, may become a relationship that suffers with proximity.  A relationship that thrives...no matter the miles between you...is a relationship that can withstand the "too close for comfort" times when unemployment, retirement, or cramped quarters puts two people in constant contact.

Sometimes, a relationship that is best when "touch" is involved, can become a relationship where another's touch is annoying or intrusive.   There is nothing wrong with touch...I love touching, hugging, embracing...and being touched, but it is  having my hopes, my dreams, my thoughts cherished by a loved one, that reaches into the deepest place in my being, and leaves the most lasting, resonant impression on my life.

I have learned the most about myself as a wife, mother, and friend, during those times when my loved one was on another continent, in another state, or has passed on from this experience. 

My devotion to the life and dreams, hopes and ambitions of one dear friend, has been strengthened and edified since her passing.  I am in constant, almost daily, relationship with her through my ongoing commitment to what she loved and cherished most in this world.

My loyalty to a cause, a patient, a dream, a project, a child...had never been, even once, impacted by the distance between us.  My relationship to the camp that I love is immeasurably stronger than it was when I lived in the same state.  My relationship with my dearest of friends is unchanged, by whether she is in the next room, or on a different continent.  My love for my husband, children, mother, siblings has only strengthened by those times when we have needed to be in different parts of the world.

The time invested in writing letters, making phone calls, prayerfully supporting their dreams, their hopes, their travels has only galvanized the tenacity of our love for one another. Sometimes it is in those moments of "stepping back" that I have seen things in the other person...gifts of humility, compassion, patience, strength, their ability to nurture others...that were not as clear when I was standing so closely I that could touch their sleeve, or look in their eyes.

In reality, we all really, only dwell "in the secret place of the most High."  We dwell in the consciousness of Love, in the silent place of prayer, we dwell in the place where thought is persistently and assertively defining our experience.  If you think about it spacially, we are "away" from everyone all the time...and yet, in that "house of the Lord," in that spiritualMind-home of consciousness...we are never any farther away from eachother, than the thoughts we embrace about one another.

One of my favorite hymns, from the Christian Science Hymnal, starts with this line:

"Pilgrim on earth, home and heaven are within thee..."

There is something about this lyric, that gives me peace when thinking about my loved ones...far and near.  According to Webster, a "pilgrim" is "a person who journeys to a sacred place."  Every relationship is a sacred place, a home for the affections, and the only place where we unite with one another...in reality...is within.

Finding you there...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"...a bow of promise on the cloud..."

"Little darlin'
It's been a long, cold, lonely winter.
Little darlin'
It seems like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun,
Here comes the sun,
and I say,
It's al right...."
- George Harrison

Since there is not (at least not one that I could find) a recorded version of my first choice song for this post, "Love," by Mary Baker Eddy,  I am going to lead with this hauntingly lovely James Taylor and Yo Yo Ma version of "Here comes the Sun," written by The Beatles' brilliant George Harrison.  But the story is still the same. 

It was almost twenty years ago, but I can still feel that sudden shift, a recalibration in the weight of my mental "air," whenever I think about that Sunday morning service in Valerie Lodge.  I'd been in my cabin all night wrestling with demons...and angels. I'd gotten a phone call, in the middle of the night, that threatened to take me so far down into a chasm of depression, that I wasn't sure I'd be able continue my work at camp that summer.  My heart was in shreds, and I could barely breathe.  I'd been caught in the middle of an emotional battleground all night.  One minute the angels of Love and peace were winning...and the next minute I'd become a ricocheting crossfire of anger, hurt, and regret. 

If you were to have painted a picture of my mental sky, it would have been as grey as slate, and as black as a battalion of thunderheads creeping over the western slopes of the Collegiate Peaks, on a late summer afternoon. 

I wasn't surprised the next morning, when I finally did leave my cabin, that it was actually overcast, and that heavy raindrops were beginning to splatter...darkening the pale, sun-bleached cedar decking that apron-ed Valerie Lodge.  I'd already missed breakfast, but I couldn't miss Sunday School. 

We gathered in the Lodge, while one of the campers played a prelude, and we moved chairs from the dining room, passed out hymnals, and got everyone settled.  The Sunday School superintendent announced that we'd be singing Mary Baker Eddy's poem, titled, "Love."  It barely registered on the landscape of my dark thoughts.  Then she read the poem, the pianist played through the melody, and then we stood to sing. 

I did not feel like singing.  I was not at peace.  I was in pain.  I hoped that I could get by with just listening to the rest of the congregation sing.  I thought that, perhaps, I could find some comfort in the sound of their voices.  And so,  while quietly wiping at my tears, and...hopefully...without notice, I stood in a cocoon of mixed sorrow and hope.  But, before long, I found myself singing along as if each word were the sacred building blocks of a prayer.   And, not surprisingly, I was finding comfort...and hope. 

But it wasn't the comfort I found in its words that shook me to my core, it was the promise, the hope that I found in this line:

'Twas Love whose finger traced aloud
a bow of promise on the cloud..."

Love wasn't going to paint a rainbow of promise on a clear, cloudless blue sky...but on a cloud.  Love was going to use my cloudy moments as a canvas for painting a promise...full of color, dimension, beauty.  I could count on it.  Without the cloud, love wouldn't have the droplets of water...my tears...to bounce and refract light off of.

My tears were going to color my life with beauty and texture.   I could count on it.

And, it wasn't just the words from the poem that gave me strength, but it was the poet herself.  Mary Baker Eddy had lived through so many days that were heavy with clouds of darkness and despair.  She had borne sorrow, rejection, disdain, and regret with grace.  She had suffered and survived, hoped and persevered, wept, worked, watched, and prayed.

If anyone knew how to navigate a personal storm, it was Mary Baker Eddy.  If anyone had the "street cred" necessary to inspire, encourage, and "call forth" the kind of inner resolve that, alone, could weather the seething sea of human crisis, it was Mary Baker Eddy. 

And I trusted her.  I trusted her honesty.  I knew that her poetry was wept with the purity of the Magdalene's tears, and written with meekness of the our Master's courage.

For almost two decades now, this simple statement:

'Twas Love whose finger traced aloud,
a bow of promise on the cloud..."

has given me a lens through which my darkest days have portended the greatest opportunity for Love's light to shine through my heart and become a multi-hued rainbow of promise. 

I did not leave camp early that summer.  Instead I discovered how beautiful life can be when love passes through the prism of our tears and paints the world with light, and color, and grace.

I hope that if you are feeling the lowering of clouds, you can find promise in Eddy's words.  Words she poured out in tears, to give each of us fresh hope.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Here is the link, for those of  you who might prefer the more classic Beatles version of "Here Comes the Sun."

And for a rare performance by George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and Phil Collins here is another version of "Here Comes the Sun." 

"...while Christ is rich, can I be poor..."

"...He that has made my heaven secure,
Will here all good provide;
While Christ is rich, can I be poor?
What can I want beside?
O God, I cast my care on Thee;
I triumph and adore;
Henceforth my great concern shall be
To love and praise Thee more..."
-     John Ryland

Over the last few months, these words from a much-loved hymn, have come to me often while praying for spiritual solutions in the wake of this economic crisis. And not only this hymn. I have found many of the inspirational songs in the Christian Science Hymnal to be trustworthy spiritual companions as I pray. 

This is far from new. Over the years, I have often heard the words to a hymn when listening for God-based answers. But lately this very clear focus on hymns has been startling and pointed.  A line, a verse or an entire hymn -  one after another - has sung it's way into my prayers. 

Case in point, while praying in support of a non-profit organization facing budget-related concerns, the above hymn floated through the air so softly that it was as if my Father-Mother God was singing a lullaby near my ear.

Why so many hymns, I wondered...why hymns almost exclusively?  I picked up my  old, soft, leather-bound copy of the hymnal and started turning the well-worn pages.   And there it was...copyright 1932. It was suddenly so clear to me that there was a direction relationship between the relevance of these messages of hope and encouragement to our times, and the historic context of their roots.  

This most recent publication of the Christian Science Hymnal had been completely revised, and republished, in 1932.  Old favorites had been adapted, words had been revised, lyrics had been set to more modern tunes, completely new hymns had been written - and collaborated on - by spiritual thinkers who were poets, musicians...and healers.  Contributions that were born of their experiences. Their choices of what to include - from the works of earlier songwriters and composers - in this 1932 revision, was also the result of humble prayer. Editors prayed for guidance in choosing texts and music that would inspire, comfort, and heal.   These were the songs (and song selections) of depression-era psalmists.  Men and women who had lived and prayed through a stock market crash, black Tuesday, the great depression, the dust bowl, food lines, and "Brother can you spare a dime..."

The 1932 Christian Science Hymnal came alive for me in new ways. As a practitioner of spiritual law, these hymns were a welcome addition to my law library--a much loved and poured over collection of testimonies that includes the Bible with its accounts of spiritual law exercised and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and its chapter "Fruitage" filled with personal letters testifying to the healing power of prayer--precendent setting cases to stand on in confidently trusting God's care during a crisis of any kind...depression, recession, inflation. Each hymn was proof that someone had faced fear, despair, uncertainty, want, or woe, and had not only surmounted their troubles, but had been inspired to leave a trail of hope for generations yet unborn.

My husband, our friends...Susan, Sue, and Carey (The Solo Committee), my children's dad, and other poets/musicians we are blessed to know, are writing new hymns and inspirational songs through these trying times.  Their psalms of hope and praise are comforting and inspiring us today and will become a legacy of faith for our children...and our children's children.  A supplement to the 1932 has been published and is making some of these new songs available to us as we pray for fresh spiritual solutions. 

Knowing the historic context of these hymns, songs that had been coming to my heart in prayer over the last few months...with such divine imperative...has been a gift of grace.

As you pray for yourself, your family, your neighbors, your community's employers and employees, those with jobs...and those who are looking for work to support their families...perhaps these hymns...or the hymns from your own church's hymnal, will give you comfort and inspiration...a gift of promise from a generation of spiritual thinkers who have blazed a trail for each of us leaving waymarks of encouragement along the way.

This hymn, #224, has always been very special to me...I hope it brings you peace tonight...

O Lord, I would delight in Thee,
And on Thy care depend;
To Thee in every trouble flee,
My best, my ever Friend
When all material streams are dried,
Thy fullness is the same;
May I with this be satisfied,
And glory in Thy name.

All good, where'er it may be found,
Its source doth find in Thee;
I must have all things and abound,
While God is God to me.
O that I had a stronger faith,
To look within the veil,
To credit what my Saviour saith,
Whose word can never fail.

He that has made my heaven secure,
Will here all good provide;
While Christ is rich, can I be poor?
What can I want beside?
O God, I cast my care on Thee;
I triumph and adore;
Henceforth my great concern shall be
To love and praise Thee more...

with Love...
Kate

"In mercy, in goodness...."

"In mercy, in goodness, how great is our King;
Our tribute, thanksgiving, with glad hearts we bring.
Thou art the Renewer, the Ancient of Days,
Who givest, for mourning, the garment of praise..."
-     William P. MacKenzie

I think I must have been a pollster in a former life.  And before you "mute" this post because it talks about reincarnation, or get your knickers in a twist, I do not believe in past lives…I do believe in eternal life.   I believe in the seamlessness of being which death neither interrupts nor sidetracks.  That said, I will go back to my original statement…I think I must have been a pollster….

It's not that I love polls.   I love polling.  I love asking a broad spectrum of people the same question and watching patterns emerge.  Sometimes these patterns support a thesis, sometimes they are arrestingly contrary to what I assumed, and often they indicate what works…and doesn't work…in our relationships with one another, our schools, our places of commerce, our businesses, and in our communities of faith.

Over the years, especially since launching my website and this blog, I have had the privilege of talking with many people who have left their faith traditions to explore other worship communities or to go solo in their journey towards a deeper relationship with the inner unseen…the spiritual.

One question, of the many that I pepper my new friends with is, "While you were 'away' from your former faith tradition, what did you miss the most?"  There have been many answers, but the one that surfaces over and over again is:

The hymns, songs, chants…choir…the music about God.   Responses overwhelmingly support the important role that music plays in the spiritual lives of children…men and women.

I get this. 

Readers of this blog know that I left my own childhood faith at 19 after the sudden passing of my father.  At first I thought it was because I was angry with God…"how could You, a loving Parent Yourself, so thoroughly let down a good and kind woman like my mom…a woman who now has to raise eight children with only a teenager (me) to help her?", I fired off in an angry prayer.  But I quickly acknowledged that I was praying, so I still had some faith, and hadn't completely given up on God.  So secondly,  I thought I must be angry, hurt and frightened by the way my parents' church had retreated from our family following dad's passing.  But even that yielded with the realization that the church members really didn't know how to behave when facing a widow with eight young children in their midst…there was really no model in their culture for responding and that if they had known how to do it better, I was absolutely certain that they would have.  

Hmmm…that left me with only one option in considering the cause for my rather tangential journey -one that took me away from my childhood faith tradition - and it was, and could only be, God...since He is the only, omnipotent Cause and Creator.  He had created me to be a thinker who asks a lot of questions.  Someone who loves research and reason, therefore I deduced, my path needed to include a broader exploration of spiritual ideas in order to harvest out what worked for me. 

So, for over a decade I explored many different churches, religions, belief systems and faiths.  I learned so much about humanity and how much we have in common.  I also learned that each path towards a greater understanding of God is perfect for the person who is led to choose that path, at that moment.  The destination, and how we treat eachother along the way, is all that matters. 

And even though my path always felt like hunger and longing, it was rich and full of new landscapes to explore and new cultures to assimilate.  I loved all that I discovered as a Buddhist, a protestant, a Rastafarian…but for me, there was a song that kept calling me home…calling me back to the familiar and well-tested, the proven and foundational in my life.  Quite literally.  It was a song…a hymn that continually poked at my heart when I prayed, or walked past a Christian Science Reading Room, or sought comfort in a moment of fear. 

While I was in high school Larry Groce released an album (yes, Virginia there really were vinyl albums with square cardboard covers once…those aren't just props in a Pottery Barn catalog) titled, Peace, and Joy, and Power, and on it was the song, "In mercy, in goodness". It was a radical departure from the "church music" I was used to.  It was all folk.  Guitar, flute…rich vocals, gentle messages.  And I loved it.  I couldn't get enough of it.  Playing it on our old portable record player with the maroon fake leather finish made me feel closer to my God, the one who made sense to me, more than anything else in my church…or my life. 

When I left my daily practice of Christian Science I somehow thought I couldn't listen to it anymore.  This worked for a while.  I was okay with the gospel choir at the Baptist church I attended with my friend Benita.  I like meditating with a recording of Tibetan monks at the "reformed" temple I visited in LA.  I played tapes by contemporary Christian artists, swayed with "born agains," and moved rhythmically to a Rastafarian beat with my Jamaican friends as we prayed together, but when I was alone it was "In mercy, in goodness, how great is our King…" that played through my heart and made me weep with longing for something I couldn't put my finger on.

And to make matters worse, whenever I moved…which was a lot…I always ended up living near a Christian Science Reading Room.  On the way to the market or to the dance studio I would pass plate glass windows filled with books and imagine that somewhere in the back of a quiet room was a cassette player with a copy of "Peace, and Joy, and Power" just waiting to be played.  And I wanted to listen so badly.  I wanted to walk boldly through the door and right past the woman at the desk and find that tape player and sit in a big comfy chair and just drink it all in.  But I couldn't.

I would certainly think about it.  I would imagine myself opening the door with the little bell attached to the inside.  I would say hello to the Librarian and….well, that was where I would stop.  You see, I was a school teacher and principal during the day…a respectable profession, but a few evenings a week and on weekends, I was a freelance sommelier…a wine expert.  My expertise was in the French reds and the exciting, new world of Californian wines...just beginning to blossoming in the 1970s.  I consulted with high-end restaurants (that couldn't justify a full-time sommelier) on a per diem basis and wine had become my culture, beautiful wineries and crystal stemware defined my world, my perfectly-tuned palate was "a gift". And I was afraid…afraid that if I walked into a Reading Room I could never be sure that the person behind the desk wouldn't be able to detect wine on my breath and then what…what if they knew my family.  What if I brought shame on my mother, a wonderful woman who was still very active in her church community.   So, I would walk on.

This went on month after month, year after year…in one neighborhood, city, state after another. 

It's a long story…most some of it's chapters are buried in the archives of this blog in stories that have already been told.  This post isn't about those stories of how I finally found my way back into my childhood faith community, it is about the power of a spiritual song, a hymn, a musical prayer…to penetrate our fears of rejection or disappointment, reach deeply past hurt, and tenderly touch the heart of one who longs to feel fellowship in grace.

The first thing I asked for, when I did find my way back, was…"can we sing 'In mercy, in good, how great is our King'…"  Really.  My family looked perplexed, but no one hesitated.  And I will never forget how good it felt to sing it with my family and a few friends that first day.  The joy and warmth I felt as the words poured out of our hearts, over and around me and those I loved…wrapping us in a Comforter of fellowship…was priceless. 

Is there a hymn, a song of praise…a spiritual lullaby you've missed singing lately…

…then sing it!  Don't let anything stop you.

Mary Baker Eddy tells us, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that:

"Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love —
be it song, sermon, or Science — blesses the human
family with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table,
feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty."

The song you are singing, may just be what someone else is longing to hear.

And if you happen to be one of those generously wonderful and dear person(s)-behind-the-desk at a Reading Room in the heartland…or in a big city…don't hesitate to get up, go around to the other side of the desk, open the door and talk to the person who doesn't seem to have the courage to come in.  It might just be all the encouragement they need.  And who knows…you may just have someone new to sing hymns of praise with!

With Love,
Kate