"i am the cup..."

"i am the cup,
mended and washed,
i am the true container
for all that I've lost;

"for all that i've lost
and gathered again,
is only what hangs in the air,
when the music ends..."

 Carrie Newcomer's  "Visitation,"  speaks to me today, in a much different way than it did earlier this month.

You see, I wrote a post with this song - and title - two weeks ago.  But Blogger changed it's editing and formatting platform this week, and for some reason that post disappeared.  So I have no record of what it said.  But this is the perfect metaphor for what I want to say today. 

I am not who I was two weeks.  I am new.  You are new.  We are listening to this song, writing this post, and reading it from a completely new space of spiritual discovery.  

I think about the clay that sits in the palm of my hand before a prayer takes form in a vessel - a cup - that will hold something yet unknown.  

So today, let yourself be new.  Let your prayers be new.  Let them be free of your words. Let them be the song of divine Love whispering her fresh messages to you.  As our toddler daughter once said to me: 

"Mommy,
when I pray
I don't think,
I listen."

 May your prayers be full of deep listening and less thinking. 

with Love, 

Cate 

"oh, i wish I had a river..."

"oh, i wish
i had a river
i could skate
away on..."

I hope this Sierra Eagleton cover of Joni Mitchell's "River," gives you some hint of how I was feeling the other night. Not so much the lyrical meaning -- but the "feel" of it. A bit of melancholy. A bit of "why?"

It wasn't that I was unhappy or feeling a lack of purpose. It was something unreachable. I felt detached. Not only from those around me, but from the meaning of the feeling itself. It felt deep and full of message, but in a language I couldn't understand.

That was, until a friend I hadn't seen in quite a few years, caught my eye across the room. As I walked in her direction, something said, "listen."

We embraced. We talked about "how long it had been..." And then she said the "something" that I knew was the message I was being asked to listen for. I felt it stir the fallow space in my heart.

"Thank you for your blog."

Really, I thought. I didn't even know she read this blog. Then, I stopped. She was giving me something profoundly dear. I realized what a gift her words were to me that night. I had been feeling like a stream overflowing her banks. Flooding a field that was already saturated. I had been feeling as if all the words that spill from my heart, had nowhere to go.

In that moment, I realized that if there was only one reader who found companionship in what I was writing -- it was enough. This blog is a conversation about God's love and how I have experienced that love. And that each post was as vital and relevant as a call from a patient, or a meeting in a coffeehouse, or an appointment in my office.

I have been sharing those experiences in words that feel as real as the clay in my hands in the studio - palpable, honest, and beautifully taking shape in sentences, paragraphs, epigraphs, font colors, a photograph, a title. They were as real as each prayer and treatment God unfolded in my heart throughout the day.

So, thank you -- if you are reading this, I hope you realize how much you blessed me the other night. I hope you feel the gift that you gave to me -- relevance.

I don't know how this will inform the future of this blog. I've been writing for it since June of 2005. That's almost 15 years of unlacing my mental corset and letting my heart be laid bare. A young friend, Megan Neale, once wrote these lyrics for a song, "You're a Good Man," that she performed in her senior presentation:

“I'll write you a letter,
my heart is dripping ink..."
 

For that is how I feel everyday. I take calls, I see patients, I pray, I give treatment, I listen deeply for God's messages of Love, and Truth, and healing -- of divinity's coincidence with humanity, but all day long my heart is dripping words. I have often wondered, "how many little pomes can you post, how many experiences can you share in one day? When will you reach that point - each day - where you seem self-important and arcane? So I have retreated into a place of restraint.

I am realizing that this is not what God wants of His daughter -- to give her beautiful experiences and the words to describe them, but then asks her to hold them back like a river restrained by self, and saddened with unshared views of goodness and grace.

I don't know how this will inform the next chapter of my blogging journey. But if you are the only one reading these posts, I will be here for you -- and with you. I will be honest. I will be as "laid bare" in my sharing as I think I have always been. And I will be faithful to the God who puts words in my heart -- words that beg to be shared. Even if just with you.

I will be the river that I, too, can skate away on -- if just long enough to let myself feel the words fly from my fingertips like sparks from the blades of my skates. And, perhaps, by writing them down, they willfind another heart to be in conversation with.

Thank you dear friend -- you gave me a great gift the other night. Your words were the voice on the other side of the conversation - and I needed them more than you knew.

offered with Love,

Kate

"Hello Lord - it's me, your daugher..."

"Right now,
I don't hear so well and
I was wondering if you could
speak up?

I know that you tore the veil
so I could sit with you in person,
and hear what you're saying...
But right now I think that you are
whispering...

And somewhere in the back of my mind
I think you are telling me to wait.
And although patience has never been mine
I will wait to hear from you...

O Lord, I'm waiting on you...."
-  Sara Groves

Sara Groves' "Hello Lord" is such a perfect description of my morning's sweet dialogue with God.  One sided, no sided...and finally...silence.

Here is the poem that followed:


I am here
I am waiting.
I long for the voice
of One
who cried out
to His son
in the
wilderness,
who spoke
to a
small boy...
with his father...
climbing Mount Moriah,
a young man
on the battlefield
armed with only
five
smooth
stones,
a prophet
standing
by a river,
a mother
waiting
to deliver,
a saviour
weeping
in a garden...

I will not
move a muscle,
rustle a sleeve,
let the sound of crickets,
or the murmuring of
the ego
distract me from
the space of
Your
silent
presence

I am not seeking to
be heard,
to say the right words,
to pray the right prayer,
to write a hymn,
or gather the next
testimony to
my chest,
and
tweak it
to perfection

I only want
You

I want Your
heartbeat
at
my
ear
as I
lie against Your
vast,
beautiful,
wide
world of
seamless,
universal,
undivided being

no
absolute
or
relative

no human
or
divine

no spiritual
or
material

just You

just
the
seamless garment of
Your
Father-Motherhood...
and me,
Your daughter,
pressed against You
like a
nursing child,
one
with
its
Source.

I want the silent
flow,
the undiluted purity,
the sweet savor
of the
Word that
is not words

I want to
FEEL
You coursing
through my
being
like
the
blood of the
Lamb
as she
skips
along the
edge of
a ravine...
eyes
only on
the
silhouette of
the Shepherd
outlined
by the
Sun.

I am here
I am
as still
as
a
lamb-
child
waiting
for the
first
drop
of
milk
to
flow....

waiting in the hush of a new dawn...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"what would I be...."

"Now I'm no longer doubtful
of what I'm living for...

Cause you make me feel
you make me feel,
you make me feel,
like a natural woman...."

Last night, Jeff and I were captivated by a PBS preview of the Carole King/James Taylor Troubadour Tour that will crisscross the U.S. this summer.  When Carole started singing, "Natural Woman...," she was so very naturallly herself  --  wild,  life-whitened hair, sun-softened skin, wise blue eyes, and a body that she looked as comfortable "in her own skin" with, as the warmth in her voice made me feel  --  and suddenly, I too felt at peace with my own evolving form.  Because, pouring from every pore of her being...voice, eyes, smile, embrace with her fellow musicians...was a peace that "passed understanding."   And that peace washed over me with waters that refreshed...and the valley began to bud, and blossom, like the rose.

This is the poem that spilled itself forward onto the page: 

what would I be
if 
I
weren't
who you think I am
today,
or who I think
I ought to be
tomorrow

would I
be a tree
whose branches
reach across the sky
and tremble with hope
that maybe
just, just maybe
I could be that place
where the scarlet
taninger
chooses to
feather her nest with
downy tufts of cottonwood seed
and bits of
grass
woven
together like a small
quilt
for tiny eggs
that I could
hold in the
crook of my elbow
like a
wise old aunt...and
with each soft
breeze through my
leaves
I would coo and
sigh...
rock
and weave...
softly
softly
BE a
lullaby for
what
has yet to
poke through the
shell of
its
own birthing...

what would we be
if
all that
mattered to
the other,
was the
essence,
the sap,
the consciousness....
the soupy liquid
of our being...defining us,
to us

if form and
outline were
as
free-flowing and
unfolding
as
the shifting clouds
above us
or
the
line of salted seafoam
that ebbs and
flows
upon the sand
beneath our toes
while we
splash and
play
like children
in the
surf

what would you be
if tomorrow
what
I think you are...
or ought to be...
were
washed away
like dust
from the
leaves of the sweet
and the savory,
the
green and the purple
basil,
rosemary,
thyme...
the
tender herbs
which
wait in the
heat of noonday for
rest and drink
from
a sudden summer
shower?

go ahead...

I will watch
with
baited breath...
on tippy-toes...
at the edge of my seat...
watching,
ready to sigh
with wonder
at what
God has
done...
as you!

A few statements from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy come to mind this afternoon...I will leave you wtih them, today:

"The divine Mind maintains all identities,
from a blade of grass to a star,
as distinct and eternal."

and

"Consciousness constructs a better body
when faith in matter has been conquered."

and

"Spiritual evolution alone
is worthy of the exercise of divine power."

and 

"God is the Life, or intelligence,
which forms and preserves
the individuality and identity of animals
as well as of men."

As well as this statement also from Hafiz:

"I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me
That I can no longer call myself
a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure soul.
Love has...freed me
Of every concept and image my mind has ever known."

And, finally, this from "Tarjuman Al-Ashwaq" by Muhyi'ddin ibn al-'Arabi as translated by Suheil Bushrui, Professor at University of Maryland (who was, herself, born in Nazareth):

My heart is capable of every form:
A pasture for gazelles,
A monastery for monks,
An abode for idols,
And a place where the votaries of the Kaaba come.
In my heart, both the Tablets of the Torah and the Holy Qur'an are to be found.
My faith and religion is love: wherever it beckons me, I follow."

Just some things I am thinking about today....have a great weekend!

with Love,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Here is a 1972 Carole King performance of "Natural Woman."

And a friend suggested that I provide this link to an earlier post, "after all, you're still you..."

"...you can stay as long as you like..."

"...No one's gonna take that time away,
you can stay as long as you like...
so, close you eyes
you can close your eyes
it's alright..."
- James Taylor

Sometimes, when the world seems to be spinning faster than I can navigate...while trying to stand upright on my feet...I go to a quiet place, lie down, and close my eyes.  I imagine my Father-Mother God saying, "It's alright, you can 'Close Your Eyes'...it's alright, I'm watching." 

So, I surrender to Her voice,  and once again:

I
enter
the nucleus of prayer

that
sanctuaried silence
where
earnest longings
meet
the
splayed form
of a
repentant heart...

and steps over
the discarded,
scattered,
sun-bleached bones
of the
ego's
carcass*

here
in this place of
deep margins,
white space,
and
unpaginated moments
of conscious
streaming

there are
no words....

there is
nothing but the
heartbeat
of
a divine Mother,
Her bosom at my cheek...
cooing,
a lullaby
sung
in the nursery of
human hopes


the
orchestrated
rhythm of
the universe..

spiritual
grace-notes
thrummed
softly
on
an infant humanity's
small
shoulders

it is
an ordered
hushing
of the earth, earthy

the tender stroke
of Her
cool fingers
on the
brow of a child...
the
toddler... who's finally
dropped off
from
edge of
fighting

fallen from
the
precipice of
control,
into the
canyon of
letting go
and trusting
Her
deep arms

released from
the fitful thrashings
of the self
and
quieted
beneath
Her
calming
touch

the lavender
scent of Her promise
calming,
stirring,
soothing,
drifting across
bare questions
of innocence...
through
the window of
gratitude...
rustling
the bedcovers of
the heart
and
resting on
holy
ground...
the
waiting
petals
of
unfurled hopes...
warmed
by
what lies waiting
for you
in
the nucleus of
prayer

For those of you who love rare moments of music history, here is a lovely clip of James Taylor and Joni Mitchell singing "Close Your Eyes"...precious...

"We must close the lips and silence the material senses.
In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings,
we must deny sin and plead God's allness."
- Mary Baker Eddy

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS


* this section is inspired by an excerpt from "Living Like Weasels" by Annie Dillard

"If I could ever say it right..."

"If I could ever say it right
And reach your hostage heart...despite
the doubts you harbor
Then you might,
Come to believe in me.

If I could only do one thing,
Then I would try to write, and sing
A song that ends your questioning
And makes you believe in me
Oh, you can believe in me...."
- Dan Fogelberg

Does God say it right...to you?  Does Love reach your hostage heart...despite the doubts you harbor?  He does in my life...and often, through "the Word."  The Word comes to us in many forms.  There are the more accepted and obvious literary vehicles.  The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the poetry of Hafiz, tablets of stone carried down from Mt. Sinai, spiritual texts from many philosophies, religions, belief systems...all satisfy our hunger for something enriching, comforting, and edifying.  And then there is the presence of the Word as the Logos.  The Logos is often defined as "divine reason" the presence of Truth in the heart, divine discourse, an indwelling grace.  This is where God's voice feels most real to me.  This doesn't lessen, but enhances, my love for reading the Bible, Science and Health, and other spiritual texts. In their company, I find a timeless sense of community. 

Someone asked me recently, "Why do you read the Bible?  Is it so that you will have the right ideas to heal someone?" I didn't have to pause long to think about my answer.  It's one that I've given a lot of thought to.  It came in the form of a quote I read once on a Celestial Seasonings teabag:

"We read to know we are not alone."
- CS Lewis

I believe that CS Lewis got it right.  Since Mind is All-in-all.  We already include all intelligence, all knowledge, all inspiration.  So we are not reading to discover something new.  We are reading to discover we are not alone in the thoughts that keep us company in our silence, in the sweet sacred waking hours of the night, in the holiest of holies...the space of prayer.

I do not read the Bible to find something I think I have never known. I read the Bible, the Tao, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" to remember more of what I already know, already include, already delight in.  I read to feel fellowship with another thinker who can't stop him/herself from writing a "song" that forwards someone else's questioning, and helps them believe in themselves...in the presence of the great I AM within themselves.

Spiritual thinker and thought-leader, Mary Baker Eddy, said it so beautifully when she wrote:

I have nothing new to communicate;
all is in your textbooks.
Pray aright and demonstrate your prayer;
sing in faith."

Tonight I was listening to Dan's song, "Believe in Me" and I found myself wandering into the pages of the Gospels, walking with Jesus on his journey from the baptism, through the wilderness, and towards his destiny as a healer and pathfinder for spiritual thinkers of every age and tradition. 

Poetry is "my native tongue" as I wrote in this linked post from September of 2007.  And the poem that follows below, is one that I found my heart singing...again..as I kept pace with him along the dusty road earlier today.  The words and rhythm felt familiar but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it before, until I was led to finally clean out a folder that had been recovered from an old hard drive two years ago.  This poem was there.  It is one I'd written in 2005 and had not read since.  It had poured out late one night when I was hungry for a more genuine relationship with Jesus.  I'd been feeling a like he was someone I spoke about...not to...or more importantly, with.  This poem was the beginning of something more timeless, present, and rich with fellowship between us.   

This is just the first poem of dozens.  Dozens of conversations with him that flow in poems.  Conversations that I've experienced on our walks through the holy land of consciousness:

the gift
descended
like a dove
...surprising

surprising
to see a dove
descending from
heaven

to hear
a
voice

to
feel the water
pouring
like
silk over
my forehead
and through dust-coated hair
and lashes

the gift descends
from
where there seems to be no
reservoir of
hope

and yet from the
unseen...
from somewhere
beyond the
clouds
there is a voice
that whispers
thunders
roars
a promise
of
love

the gift descends
and
we are caught
off guard,
breathless,
driven to our knees
in awe
wet from the
baptism,
spent with
surrender,
dazed by the
anointing

we are
on our
tiptoes
waiting
without
sandals
feet bare
unshod
on holy ground

we are
naked before
His
knowledge of
our hearts' most
unspoken
longings

egos are
shattered by His
grace,
by His
love,
by His
gift....

I am His son
He is pleased?


then why
then...
ah..."then"

the wilderness
the hunger
the temptations
the taunting
the false promises and
coercion,
hypnotic offers of bread and
celebrity

but
we
are
not
afraid
of this jeering...
snake
pharoah
satan
baal
herod
devil...

I am well-prepared...
a childhood of study...Hebrew school
Shabbat, Passover
conferring
with the elders
a stolen afternoon at twelve
alone with
doctors, lawyers, holy men
learned Rabbis
hours with the Torah
mornings in the temple
I am ready

I remember

I know...I have always known

"It is written..."

and the Word was made flesh...
and angels
ministered...
the sweetest bread
the Word...

ah yes, the gift...

you remember too...
don't you?

shared with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Stacey Vandermast Barton 2010]

My native tongue...

"Deep in your blood or a voice in your head
On a dark lonesome highway
It finds you instead
So certain it knows you, you can't turn away
Something or someone has found you today..."

I pray in poems
Unrhymed stanzas of
long undulating metaphors and
vivid mental pictures
that pierce complacency
and leave me aching
for moments
that are pregnant with Your
infinite nearness...
your touch so familiar
I cannot tell if it is my own
hand upon my heart...or Your
fingers on the pulse of my desires
palpating them into life...
so close I sometimes
cannot see
the Forest for
the trees...

But...
in these poems
There are lines
I cannot speak
Sentences that
catch in my throat and pen
and make my fingers
hover above the keyboard
hesitant to string letters
together in a way
that will reveal what
simmers within
the chambers
of prayer

my sacred words
may
not be welcome
in 
their sanctuary

i write about
You

i pour my
prayer
onto the page
and it reads like
a lunatic woman
beating her breast
weeping and
wailing

i can't seem to find
the words to
say
how
far into
this sanctuary of earnest
     longings...
this chapel of surrender
this triage of healing and salvation
this gnashing 
and wrestling with angels...
Your eloquent silence
has taken me

is the sacred in us
so raw
and unsettling
and naked...and messy
that
all the hymns we sing
all the solos written
all the articles
all the testimonies

are only a tellable
version
of
what
causes us to
rock ourselves to sleep
...tears
pouring
out so endlessly
that we  finally
have enough
to wash
feet

were the first
40 days
so unspeakable
that he only shared
the thoughts
that followed...
thoughts that were
more palatable to
a world of followers,
admirers
and disciples
that would
make him
their Messiah

or were they so private
so intimate
so completely
self-shattering
that
he could not let them
(or us)
into that place
of deep
nakedness

I have no default behavior
no
practiced coping skills
no
false convenient mask
of acceptable words
for painting
the landscape
of
this
journey....

toward You

"I don't remember a voice
On a dark, lonesome road
When I started this journey so long ago
I was only just trying to outrun the noise
There was never a question of having a choice..."
-Mary Chapin Carpenter

Kate

I had a yellow house....

"the house does not rest upon the ground
but upon a woman"
- Mexican Proverb

For Hannah...together we loved a yellow house...

I Had a Yellow House

i had a house
of
yellow
clapboard...
windowpanes
that rippled
in
the early light
of a
cool September day

her
window sashes
sang
a song
of prairie
widows
when the snow
swirled
across the
plains
and the cattle
stood like
boulders
against the cutting
winds of a
January night

I had a little house that
once held a
family 
of seven
with
only a wood stove for
heat and books
to keep them
company
when the days were long
with summer light
and the
fireflies were all that
twinkled long before
switches and wires
crisscrossed
the plains and
made
the day even longer and
his rest from
back buckling labor
as welcome
as the silence that
descended on the
land
when the
horizon turned
violet in the west

I had a little
yellow house with
a kitchen so full
of light that
she felt warm
even when
ice formed inside the
window panes and
she creaked
like my grandmother's
knees
after a game of
checkers on the
playroom floor

I had
a
little house
a
yellow
picket fence
hedged her hem
like rick rack
seven
birdhouses sat
in her trees
and pale, pink
roses trailed
her arbored gate

each Spring
she spread her
skirts and
let us
plant within
the folds of
its soft green taffeta
our tomatoes
peppers and
tender ears of corn...
marigolds to
chase away the
beetles and
lavender to
welcome hummingbirds
and bumble bees
for the hope
of honey

I had a
yellow porch rail
the color of butter 
fresh from the
churn

Morning glories
entwined their
fingers among her
spindles and lifted
the edges of
the ancient
layers of
paint a woman
once
spent her
food money on
to make her
beautiful

i have a yellow
house
she lives inside of
me like a
breathing child
I feel her
shift with
the sweetness of
time and as
the memory of her
grows I love her more

I never needed food
but butter
yellow paint
would feed
my soul on
mornings when the
sky was pink with the
sweet cool air
of dawn
my tea was
hot and
my heart was full
of a
yellow house
and
a child that
slept softly
under the
eaves....
dreaming of
her
yellow
house

K

Do butterflies cry...

"Emerge gently from matter into Spirit."
- Mary Baker Eddy

The poem below, though written over a year ago still brings me to my knees in self-surrender...that drive across the Kansas prairie was just one segment in a spiritual journey so cloaked in darkness and isolation that I sometimes wondered if I would emerge in a form recognizable as me...even to me.  The transformation continues...I am starting to get used to the butterfly me.....

Chrysalis Surrender

Is this how it felt when
the earth shook
and the waters parted
and a man
          born blind
came seeing....

darkness

dissolution

shattering

uncertainty

release

surrender

i am not ready
     i cried out
alone and frightened
     car radio
playing one
     old Journey
          love song
after another
     as I drove through tears
          and rain
               and the sweet ache
                    of it all

          the darkness rushes
               past the window
                    as I fly through
               the silence
                    of a Kansas prairie
               the color of ravens
                         surrounding
                              my cocoon of
                         steel and song

          will I emerge from this chrysalis...
               this casing.... like a
                    butterfly
               transformed by
          a midnight journey through dark
               cornfields and sunflowers


take me in Your arms
wrap me in
Your promise
Father
hold me close to You and breathe
Your message of grace
into my heart...

i serve You
i love You
i long for You in my life

if You are at the core
of this
shattering
let me
yield to it
and
have the patience to
let You
and only You
put me back together
in Your way
according to
Your plan
full of
You

only You
can
eclose me from
this tight
swaddling
of
darkness and
despair, uncertainty
and doubt
into....

what...
I do
not yet
know


can prayer
really
look
like
a tear...
wept

do butterflies
cry






Kate

"There is no involuntary action..."

"There is no involuntary action...."
                    - Science and Health
                              with Key to the Scriptures
                                        (Mary Baker Eddy)


not a blade of grass
springs up
not a hand reaches for
its perfect pairing
not a heart
leaps to hear
the song of
its echoed chord
without
divine intent

"there is no involuntary action"
without Love's impulsion
the heart
could never break
open and
expose it's inner core
to
risk
or
promise
or
hope

"there is no involuntary action"
without
Mind's conceiving
not a song
would be sung
a line of music composed
a
stanza of poetry
bled
from the pen of
heartache
and
pathos

"there is no
involuntary action"
without
Soul's longing
for the beauty of
It's own reflected light
the sun would not rise in the
East
the leaf would not
turn with it's neighbor
in perfectly
choreographed
movement to
raise its
face
to the sky
and drink in
rays like
newlyweds sharing
a sunset
on an island
balcony

"there is no involuntary action"
without
hope
the widow
would not rise
from the bed of
dispair
and feed her family
the
forsaken
might never
dream of
love
and the abandoned
child
could not trust
the
kind eyes of a
social worker
who offers
the promise of  "a family
all her own"

"there is
no
involuntary action
there is not a
desire
a
hope
a
longing
to be good
to find peace
to know love
to give generously
to live unselfishlly
to be known
     "as yet ye are known"
that is
separate
from
the divine
the immortal
the inescapable
imperative of
Spirit

"there is
     no
          involuntary
               action"

"...The Dvine Mind includes all action and volition..."
                    - Science and Health
                              with Key to the Scriptures
                                        (Mary Baker Eddy)


K

Where is camp

where is camp?


she thinks
it
sits at the base of
a
series of
avalanche slides
in the
middle of the
Collegiate range
just
to the east of the Western Slope
over beyond the
river's edge
at the North End of the
Arkansas valley
redolent with
the sounds of laughter
and singing
and the silence of prayer
when we are
all
alone with our thoughts

for him
it seems
to be
a
lake Long and clear
between the birch
and the pine
west of the
Altlantic but
East of
here
it is windy and
green and the
color of
sails and
the wake of a
ski boat
it is Indian lore
and
khaki shorts

so where is
camp and
why do we care
when the
grass upon the
lawn turns
brown and the
columbine and
yarrow
no longer
bend in the coolness of
a mountain
breeze

why does camp
not
hibernate like the bears
in the
mountain caves
above tree line

why does it
kick up its heels and
call us to the dance
in our
hearts throughout the
winter months when
other summer
images
curl up and doze in
sleepy
dreaming positions
of surrender to
holidays and
hot chocolate

why is camp still
calling out from
its summer space of
sun and sails and
silken breezes full
of
salted spray and
sandstone
summits

I think it is
because
camp is
not
a place that
can be
put aside and
taken out
only when the
calendar
turns
beyond april
and across a
month of
may

camp is a
living
breathing
palpable
reachable
space
within us

it is
what we want
most to be
when
we
stop
from all
the day
to day of
notebooks and
grades....
schedules
and
carpools, chores
and timeclocks...
appointments
and
things we must postpone

camp is
not a
place
you can go to
and come
home from
and
leave...only allowing
it to
resurface again
after
the dust
behind a summer's
day of
service
and the selfless care of
a child's fears
has settled
on the road that leads
out the gate
and beyond our best hopes
of who we were
and what the world
might look like
or what we might "imagine"
it could be

camp is
who
we
are
when
we
are at our best

when
selfishness
has given
place to kindness
and
we find our
own
in
another's good
it is "whither" and grace
and peace from on high

camp is
the
space where
hope
is
realized
and
peace is
still...nevertheless...
always
the same
power within
us to
be more
than
we
ever even
imagined...

camp is
all the
people livng
life in peace
where
you may say that
I'm dreamer
and
the world
can
live as one

camp
it is not
a place you go
home from

it is
home...
the
kingdom...
the space where
love
alone
is
life......
within







K

Forgive me Father

please
forgive
me
Father for

i have sinned....

i have judged others who
stood on this holy
shaking
ground with You
and told them
to walk
away

i have
turned my back
on their pain
and let them
bear this
child alone in a
wilderness of
judgment
and doubt

i have forgotten
to see You
in every moment...in
every instance....
of
love

i stopped
healing...
knowing Your presence...
and tried to
change the
course of
hearts...
Your province...
Your domain

I stand here
in awe of Your power...
Your insistence...
the imperative of
Your will
in my
life...
and theirs

i stand here small
and frightened and
humbled by
Your
grace
that
cares enough
about a
sinner...someone
who could even
imagine Your
absence...Your separateness...
from another's
life,
decisions,
choices of the heart...
to let
her
feel

to let her
know
that You were
always there
You were always the Cause
You were always at the
core
shaking
convention,
rattling
comfort,
disturbing the
false convenient
peace
of
self-righteous
indignation
because
You love…
we love

because You are All
we long for all
not just some
percentage
of
your
good…
a portion
of Your
love…but
the
All-in-allness of
Your Love in our loving
in our lives

did I think
that only
some deserve
to know the depth
of Your
Love
reflected in love....

please
forgive me Father
for
I have seen love
separated from
Love

and judged
Your hand
in
their
hearts....

I am sorry




K

Bird and Tree

bird and tree

if you
were a tree
i would build my nest in the
crook
where your highest
branch meets your trunk

I would feather my nest with
the tinsel
from a Christmas tree
dragged to the curb on
January 2

I would find the auburn hair of
a young princess to
weave through it's walls giving
it strength and
continuity

I would search the
landscape for
blades of soft grass and tender
herbs
so that it would
ease the tension in
your limbs

i would bring home
bits of
string and
glitter, a rainbow of
paper and a sliver of the bluest
beach glass
to show you how
the world
is colored

i would rest in your arms
leaving only
to find something
i could bring back
to you in
your
immobility
to examine
together

there would be
nothing
between us but
this nest
that could not exist
without us
both

if i were a bird
i would
leave feathers behind
so that you would
feel my touch with
every breeze

i would ache
until i returned
from
flight
i would
be willing
to
give up
wings
to
stay
in
the
safety
of
your
branches...

if we were bird
and tree
we would
know no
species,
genus
or
gender
we
would
know
we
belonged together
because
we shared
a nest



K

"where have all the flowers gone"

"when will we ever
          learn"

sometimes
i wonder

is it possible to
live and
move and
have our
being in this world
without
gossip

can we
really
refuse to
talk
ABOUT
someone else

forsaking this
addiction for
the
sheer
joy of
talking
WITH
them

can we really
find
a new
way to
BE
a family,
a community,
a civil
     ization
on this
planet where
turtles
can sit silently next to
one another
in
a
still
pond

and not devour
one another

trusting the other to
     the shelter of a closet,
          a shell
                    the wracking sobs of humble, naked hunger
                         for direction and guidance

          where only the Divine
               knows the sanctuary of another's heart
                    and "enriches its affections"*...governing it

i asked a
group of
teens
not long ago

which would you
rather
have done

be punched in the stomach
or
talked about behind your back


their answers were
swift
clear
immediate and
passionate...

punch me in the gut
tear out my hair
slap me
     squarely across the face

but please don't
talk about me
behind my back

gossip hurts
everyone

it is the war
we
should protest

it is the
death
to souls
and reputations
we should
hold
vigils for

it is the
assassination of
character...
by insinuation...
that we
should
revolt against

it hurts
the child
the mother
the father
the spouse

it hurts
the celebrity
the president
the peasant
the cheerleader

it hurts
the ceo
the coworker
the neighbor
the girl nextdoor who
     has only gained a little
          weight...not a reputation

it hurts
you

and me

why don't we
use
each invitation to
talk about another person
as
a key in the lock of
one more potential friendship
and
pick up the phone
get in the car
walk across the playground, the church lobby
          the parking lot
the grocery store
the Boardroom
open up a dialogue
a conversation
a car door
a heart
and talk TO someone

stop this violence
     of
          words
stop it
stop it
stop it
before all we have
left
are broken lives
wounded hearts
shattered friendships...each of us
living in isolation

until all we have left
are
the echoes of
shallow laughter
surprised gasps of horror
sideways glances of rebuke
sneers of disgust
lingering in our air
like
a poisonous gas
that will
kill us off slowly
and
leave us wondering
"where have all the flowers gone"
"where have all the children gone"
.....where have all the friendships gone
"gone to..."
where....

"when will we ever learn
     when will we ever learn ..."**




* Mary Baker Eddy
**Peter Seeger

K.

Prairie Winds

Prairie Wind

you draw your hand
across my
hip as
we
watch the billowing
of sun-bleached cotton
sheets whipping in the
wind on
a tightly strung clothesline
just beyond the
hope of
peonies at edge of a vegetable 
garden we dream of
filled with colors
foreign in
the dry beige of
a prairie august

the air crackles
with its threat of the storm we watch
move closer
and closer
from miles away
across the vast
gray sky
of a
kansas
summer afternoon

cottonwoods
near the
dry creek bed
turn the underbellies
of their dusty leaves
toward the
sky to catch what
little moisture will fall...
first gently...and then with a vengence...
between the veins
that line 
their fingers
reaching up to touch the
sun
now hidden behind black clouds

we stand calloused
hand in
calloused hand
listening for the
first rustlings of
a prairie wind to
touch the grasses
just beyond the
fence line
and watch a wave of
golden
grain
roll towards our ankles

it comes in like the foam
of the sea we
left
far behind
in the wake of
ruts from our wagon
wheels
through mud and
dust and
rain-soaked
passes

i hear it now
the soft
breeze that will soon
grow to roar
through
the cracks in
our sod house where
grasses grow above our
heads and
crickets and beetles
share the dirt
floor with
toddlers and
bare-footed boys who
whoop and
holler like the injuns
they only think they wish
to see
on the ridge above the
lean-to where
our one milk cow
finds the only shade
on this treeless sea of
grass and
dust

you are here
until you
go
to town

i watch the wagon
until all
i can see is the dust
your wheels
kick up
along the rutted
path that
takes you
where I cannot see ....
even farther than
beyond the
horizon that sits so close to
the setting sun
that I am sure
you will return
as purple as the
sky she
casts her
light upon

you will bring me
ribbons as
blue and pink
as sky and
clouds
sugar for
cakes and
sweet tea that never
gets colder than the
earthen tomb I keep
the crock in below the
roots of
a once upon a tree
that now lies ancient and
stoic near the back
door
her trunk and branches
the only shade the old
yellow dog can
find when
the sun is in the west and
the house no longer
casts her
shadow on the
ground

you will bring
a canary
this time
one that will sing
when the
winds stop blowing and
there is no sound
to protect me from the
madness that comes
from
never hearing
anything but your
own voice

come home across the
treeless
sea of
grassses taller
than our
almost grown
boy with
eyes as
green as new hay
and
hair the color
of the
wheat
you
drive our
wagon through

come home
and
hold me
in the hollow of
the night
silent
as the eye
of a storm

come home and
I will watch
your brown back
bent over
plow and
hoe
and
water trough
I will weep
tears
of
gratitude
that
you
have
found your way through
the grasses
along the
hot breath of
prairie
winds
to
lay your hand
along my
hip
and watch 
sheets and
clouds
and
grasses
billow and blow
beneath
a
canopy of sky as
blue
as
your eyes




K.

Follow

father
the sea
is
vast and
the
dust is rising
from the
pounding of
hoofs and the
rattling wheels
of chariots

we are
here
because we trusted
your name
we were sure that
you alone
were the
I AM
in our
lives
impelling
us forward
away from
what is sure
for
the promise of
freedom in
this company....
of strange hopes
where nothing is certain
and we cannot find water to drink
yet there is a sea of it
holding us captive

show us the way
your way
give us
an outline
of what
you have in Mind

My dear
children
i have you in Mind
i have your
hand in mine
your heart is the province in
which I live
I reign
here
with
absolute
sovereignty

you have never
made a choice
considered an opinion
weighed an option...
without me

why did you
follow him
this far

what hunger for
good,
for love,
lept like a
fire in your
heart
and
burned like
a torch
to get you to
this
barren land beyond the walls of security

it has not been
easy
and yet you are here
why did you
go the ends of the earth
if staying
in an old
space was safer
and promised fleshpots..
a meal...
however
flavorless and
unsatisfying

what impelled you
to take the
fist step

it is still there...
that fire...
I am still there
calling you toward Me
telling you
to
step
forward
into
the promise
i am there,
I AM
there
I am the I AM that is
there in
your heart
I will
not leave
you
I will
fulfill my
plan
and
it
is
My plan
not
yours

follow
your heart
and
you will
know Me
it is
where I
dwell



K

Dorcas

Weeping widows



Here they are
the purples and blues
linens for
Mary and a scarf for
Ruth

Don't mind our tears
we miss her so
she was one of the good ones
everyone who knew of her
came to her for what they needed
even the women with golden thread.. who
live up the hill

her garments were
strong
her seams sure
the cut exquisite

she was a good woman
we will miss
her
look at this saffron robe
for
Martha
oh how we will miss her
she was
one of a kind
oh how we will miss her

please leave
please take your things with
you and go downstairs
I would like to be
with her
the way God knows her
pure and good
and alive to
His purpose for her

please leave
please take your weeping and wailing
however well meaning
and full of affection
you are seeing her as gone
and I,
I need to see her
as God sees her
full of purpose and
good deeds here and now

please take your
memories
they are pulling us all backwards
away from I AM
into I was....she is not there
because He is not there....
His name is I AM
and so is hers by
reflection

It does not help me know her
as "I was" or "she was"
when I am is where
God needs her to be.

Please leave
please give me
this space of "now" with her
to see her for
who she IS
not who she was....

take your
"once upon a time"s
and
"remember when"
and
"wasn't she then"
away from here

take your
a little bit worn
and a smidgen torn and
full of holes
thinking from this room
where He is still
making all things new
each moment of
Life
each moment of living
woven into a tapestry of
the bluest of morning skies
hot yellow sunshine
the red juice of pomeegranites
dripping down her fingers
as she feeds a toddler the
tiny jewel-like seeds

Let me speak to her
purpose
implore her mission
ask her for
a garment so
pure and white and full of
beauty that
she cannot bear to sleep through
the request to
rise and sew....

Here she is
Full of life
full of purpose
full of I AM
ready to do His will
and to laugh with you

Here she is
don't tell her that
she dozed off for a moment or
two....

Here she is
let her sew...

Hospice - You are not alone

"you are not
alone"
my heart cries out
from the
dark
emptiness of the night

"you are not alone"
in this place
where monitors
beep
and tubes drip
and your mother
breathes the shallow rest of
one who resists
the lure of sleep

she stirs
fitfully
in the hard plastic
chair near your
bed

she is there
and "you
are not alone"
she railed against the
sleep that overtook
her in the vulnerability of
exhaustion
she beat against the
slow
ache of her bones and
the burning behind her eyes
she cursed the
drowsy seductress that offered the
false pleasure of
dreams
where you are well
and laughing and
a sweet girl with
floating auburn hair
sits in the passenger seat of
your car waving
as the two of you
drive back to college
for the
last two weeks of
spring term

"you are not alone"
she wants
to send it...
this message.... her heart
screams it,
repeats it,
prays it...
like a buddhist's mantra...
into
your veins
rather than the mysterious
liquid that
drips from a transparent
plastic bag
near the head of your bed
with its
buttons and wires,
handrails and
table that rolls away
taking with it
the dinner you haven't touched
or juice your
throat can no longer swallow

"you are not alone"
you
say with eyes as intense and
penetrating as
the needles they no longer
need to poke into
your hip
now that this tube has become
a new appendage to your
body

you hunger to know
that she has
heard
your imploring

ventilator
stole your voice a
week ago
and you can no longer
lift a pen to write
the message you want her to
know... the
way you know the pattern...
the network...
of veins that line her
hand
veins you once traced
with index finger as
a child and now
trace with your eyes... and try to
memorize for later... 
as her hand clutches the
bedrail near your
shoulder 

"you are not alone"
you try to say to her....
even when I am not here
to remind you with
whatever body part
still functions and
can move
or blink
or emote
you will know
you will know
you will know...

that there is a spirit
in me that rises
above what you
see...
and
watches while you fight sleep
and
forget to eat
and weep tears so hot and angry that
they burn your cheeks
when you think the drugs
have taken me out of the
range of hearing
your heart's
pain

"you are not alone"
we both look up...
neither having spoken
both having heard
the Voice
the Voice that was not hers or yours
the Voice that was not
silent and yet the nurses did not
hear

"you are not alone" and
I AM here with you
I will not leave you
I will not leave you
I will not leave you

"you are not alone"
you never were
neither was she

"you are not alone"
I am here with you
I always have been
I always will be

"you are not alone"
rest in My presence
both of you

be My children
both of you

be free from pain
both of you
both of you
both of you....
are loved

i live in the city

I live in the city....
with its sounds
that start before dawn and
remind me that I
am not alone

this city is a living
palpating
body of life

i breathe differently here
my inspirations come
from a place of
deep
companioning with
neighbor
driver
man on the street
who pushes a
shopping cart filled
with
his possessions
a rolling home
away
from convention
and conformity
and sometimes
his choice

i wake when they wake
dumpsters
car doors
those metal brushes
from the street
cleaners
calling me up
from the
dark velvet
dreamy
place
I am floating in...

i wake even before the
sound of my neighbor's
screen door
snaps me forward into
light and
the laughter of two
graduate students on the balcony
next door
with  French press coffee and
hand thrown mugs
discussing kafke
and kierkgaard over
croissants and jam
remind me that
i too am a thinker
with
worlds to
consider

there is no
slipping back into
dreamy
escape here
the world
calls out to us as healers
to join in the
march
to
check in and
engage with humanity's
surging forward
into
global self-actualization

one cannot remain
passive here
indifferent to
the
injustices of segregation by
color
economy
property-ownership and
labels
brands
or
hood ornaments

this is a body
in which the hand and
eye must
cooperate or
perish

this  is a body...
an organism
that must
choreograph its movements
so effectively
so efficiently
that
car and pedestrian
privileged
and needy
young and
wise
man and woman
gay and
straight
can share a blood stream
an immune system...
air...
in peace

i live in the city now
i am neither hand
nor foot
i am a mental molecule
eager to
enter the
heart and
be
re-oxygenated
by Love's
demand
for compassion
humility
grace....

self-surrender
for the
good of
the whole

I live in the city
now and
the park
wild with zoo
and
beautiful in bloom
rich with
museum quality views of
history and a
painter's brush stroke
along the face of
a child's dream
color
my
life with
new purpose
and
opportunity

i have a
body that wakens
with each
stranger's smile and
weeps
at the drop of a
dime
from the fist of
a child into the
cup of the
blind

I live in the
city now
and
my heart
beats
to the
sounds of
reggae and
lullabies from the
window
across the
park
where a mother
holds her infant and
dreams the dreams
of mothers
everywhere

in cities
villages
the steppes of Mongolia
the arid caves
the wartorn reaches
the rice fields
and deforested amazon...
the rural,
the suburban,
the urban
the kingdoms
and emirates and farms
and communes...

the dream that
her child
could one day
be the master of his own heart
the leader of his village
his brother's keeper

i live in the city now
where
the body of
life
pulses
with
the need
to
care
the need to be
needed
... to
love


kate

The Wilderness

The Wilderness

the wilderness
came
so suddenly
on the journey
it
was a
desert unbidden
without
warning

coming from the
lake that day
a dove-borne
benediction
freshly
laid on my brow

I was unprepared for
the way the
trees fell away
and water
disappeared and
all life
seemed hidden
beneath the
surface of
arid
clay

my last
drink
was not as I had
hoped it would be
a gulp of
lake water on
my way back
up from
surrendering to
his "suffer it to
be so now"  that
he said becometh us

the wilderness
came upon me
so quickly and
with it
the darkness
of doubt and
fear

how quickly
i traveled
from
exalted son
to
exhausted
child
searching for
a parent
to make things
right
again

jackals
pursue me into
the
night
yelping at my
heels
mocking me for
thinking that I
could ever
be
what I thought
you told me I
was to
you...
a loved son
who
pleased you

at first I
pick up a large stick
and
flail at them with
all my might
missing
my mark
with every swing
until I
realize
my power is
in
Your words

just as it was Your
words that
convinced me of
who I was and
what your purpose for
me is
it is those same
words of
authority that
will send them
cowering into
the
shadows
where they
have no
identity

so I
take your lead
and
speak
with authority
and the
wilderness
becomes a
place of
beauty
and
promise

It is written

I remember now

It is written
and it is
done

and I am
fed








K