"I need You..."

"I need You,
like the flower needs the rain.
You know I need You...
Guess I'll start it all again,
You know I need You,
like the winter needs the spring.
You know I need You,
I need You..."

It was the winter of 1971, and the boy I'd had a crush on for two years,  finally liked me too.   But the sad part was that he lived about an hour from our home, and because of that distance, we only saw each other on rare occasions.  Because of this, "I Need You,"  by America, became the soundtrack for my melancholy.  In our small house, we had only one telephone, and it was in the kitchen...and it was attached to the wall.  It's not-long-enough spiral cord kept me tethered to our family's epicenter,  the most constantly occupied room in our house, which was already overflowing with kids, and babies, and parents.  My love-life seemed doomed to isolated light-hearted conversations about the teen church activities we shared an interest in.   In those days, what I thought I needed most was privacy.

I remember thinking that this song was all about our budding, but seriously repressed, romance.  I've always thought about it that way.   So I was surprised this morning when, in the middle of praying with this statement from Mary Baker Eddy's 1895 Adress in The Mother Church, "more love is the great need of mankind," the song's chorus flooded my thoughts, and pooled in my heart.

I had been asking God, "what do I need?"  And, "more love" was the answer that came,  set to the background strains of  "I need you, like the flower needs the rain..." 

The reciprocity implied in that line broke over me like a ray of sunshine through the clouds.  And it wasn't about an old boyfriend.  It was about me...and more importantly, it was about me and God. 

I need God, and God needs me.  We are a team.  We are essential to one another's purpose.  I cannot be all that I hope to be...do all the good that I hope to accomplish...with out Him at the center, the core of my being.  I cannot make a difference...in all the ways that I yearn to make a difference in the world...if I don't have the Source of all good at the headwaters of my being, flowing affluently and abundantly, moment-by-moment-by-moment.

Just like the ray of light needs the sun to feed it with light, warmth, projection, and intensity, I need God to feed me with ideas, affection, desire.

And God needs me.  He needs me to be "the space"...of humility, grace, hunger, desire, and hope...that I am, so that he can fill the world with all that He is.   So as I pondered what "I need," it was natural for me to turn to what inspired my hope or clarity and direction...The Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy.  And in them, I found these two statements, which stood out immediately:

"More love is the great need of mankind..."

and

"What we most need is the prayer
of fervent desire for growth in grace,
expressed in patience, meekness, love,
and good deeds."

So today, it is these statements that are driving my life forward.  If mankind needs more love, and I need the fervent...the burning...desire for growth in grace (expressed as patience, meekness, love and good deeds), then my need for expressing more love,  is going to only be supplied by mankind's need for experiencing more love.  And this "more love" that is most needed, only has its source in God, the one and only limitless source of Love.

It takes great love to be patient...in the face of impatience.  It takes more, and more, and more love to be meek (not inclined to anger or frustration)...to love generously when we are facing circumstances that invite us to feel self-justified in our anger or resentment.  And even more love to push one's self out of the zone of self-indulgent comfort, and into the space of doing "good deeds," in service to others.  I need God...Love...limitless, infinite, and abundant, if I am going to realize those needs.

Elsewhere Eddy remarks in reference to "need," that:

"The human affections need to be changed from self to benevolence and love for God and man; changed to having but one God and loving Him supremely, and helping our brother man.  This change of heart is essential to Christianity, and will have its effect physically as well as spiritually, healing disease."

and

"We need much humility, wisdom, and love to perform the functions of foreshadowing and foretasting heaven within us."

Yes, I am realizing...more and more each day that, as Eddy says:

"More love is the great need of mankind. A pure affection, concentric, forgetting self, forgiving wrongs and forestalling them, should swell the lyre of human love."  [emphasis added]

Not the nouns...the wants, or "what ifs" of humanly circumscribed outcomes, but a change of heart, and a recalibration of our desires from our wants, to what we really need...the birth of new unselfish sentiments and  behaviors.

Eddy doesn't say that what we most need is better jobs, more money, bigger homes (or more homes), greater financial security, better bodies, admittance into the "right schools," or admirable lifestyles...but growth in grace expressed in....better behaviors...patience, meekness, love, good deeds...actually, more love!

I love this line from an early poem of Eddy's titled, "Signs of the Heart,":

"O Love divine,
This heart of Thine
Is all I need to comfort mine."

To have the heart of God...generous, giving, abundant, selfless...this is all the comfort I need...like the flower needs the rain.   And I do need it.   As my grandmother used to say, "you never go searching for the Comforter when you are comfortable..."   Hmmm...

Thanks DeeDee...

always,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"The promise that guides me..."

"...Your love is the promise that guides me
All of the days of my life..."

This line from Dan Fogelberg's "Missing You" has been playing through my heart for the last few days.  For many years this song has been all about the relationship between two people who love and miss one another.  But this week I have been thinking about this line in a new way.  For me, today, it is all about the love that divine Love, God, puts in my heart as a promise of His ever-present direction and guidance in my life.

Okay, so I had it made.  But I have skipped to the middle of this story...let me start again...

My dear, funny, sit-in-Starbucks-and-laugh-yourself-silly, smart, kick-in-the-butt, hold-you-accountable friend Jill got married last summer to her childhood sweetheart…I couldn't have been happier to know that she was cherished and adored by this precious man.  But, he lived in Iowa.  Iowa!?!?!?  This was not good.  It took us 7 hours (one way!) to drive up for the wedding.  I was going to miss her terribly.  Then she told me the other good news…that she would continue to teach at the community college here each week and would be coming down on Monday and staying through Thursday evening.  We could still meet at Starbucks once a week to connect and catch-up.  So, it wasn't really going to be that bad after all.   Well, at least not for me.  I wasn't making that commute, I wasn't going to be away from my husband four days (and nights) a week.  I wasn't going to have to coordinate raising two still-in-school age children from 7 hours away. 

As summer turned into Fall I started really looking forward to our visits.  I had missed her laugh…and her wisdom.  Each week those visits left me feeling like a girl.  We had a blast.  The hours flew by and I felt refreshed.  But it was becoming more and more obvious with every visit that this was not the very best situation for Jill and her family.  She loved her job at the college, but needed to be with her husband and children.  It was clear that a job near home would be a perfect solution. 

I joined her in scanning postings for a great job in Northern Iowa.  I prayed with all my heart that she would be seen as the perfect candidate.  And she was!  Just before Thanksgiving she was selected for a wonderful position that would eliminate the 14 hour round trip commute and would put her home each night with her family.
I was thrilled. 

What???

Then it hit me.  I was THRILLED!!!!  Really thrilled for her.  I wasn't bummed, depressed or heart-broken that I wouldn't see her every week.  I was so happy for my friend.  So happy for her family.

My love for her had over-ridden any selfish desire to have her here each week so that I could enjoy her company…to laugh and talk with her.  It was, once again,  a powerful indication of God, as Love, working in my heart…causing me to desire, truly desire, what was best for someone else. 

I love these reminders.

When someone asks me how or why it is that I am so sure that there really is a God, these are the kinds of things that I think about…and share.  I'm not as inclined to talk about the physical, emotional, financial or relationship healings I have experienced and witnessed, however powerful those experiences may have been.  No, I am more likely to share an experience where God, as Love, has so filled my heart with unselfishness, over-ridden self-interest, and has made me WANT, really want something good for someone else that it goes against all that is "me" oriented. Because it is in these moments that I am reminded that I am, at my core, just plainly and simply, his child, a good person…the instrument of His love.  That He has the power to govern my heart, to steer it with this love.

At the end of her, very brief, "Daily Prayer", Mary Baker Eddy encourages us to pray:

"…And may Thy Word
enrich the affections of all mankind
and govern them."

God is enriching my affections, my love for others, and this is the way he guides and governs every moment of my life.  This is how he moves each of us towards our purpose, establishes our mission, and defines our legacy…each day. This is why I can trust Him with my heart…because He has shown me over and over again that He has the power to make me want something that it would make no sense for me to want if I were only a self-defined, self-determined, self-protective, self-ish mortal.  The desire to parent, to unite with another in marriage, to serve others, to work out a relationship problem…it could only be this larger hand of Love guiding my heart so completely away from self. 

This love is, for me, the promise that guides me…all of the days of my life….
Kate

"There's no place like being known..."

"Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays
'Cause no matter how far away you roam
When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze
For the holidays, you can't beat home, sweet home..."
-Al Stillman

It was the week before Thanksgiving, 1979, and it was going to be the first year in my life that I would not be with my mom for this favorite holiday, or to be more accurate, my favorite day of the year. 

Since dad's passing, she and I had worked together like left, and right, hands. We were a team, caring for and supporting, my seven younger siblings. And although her recent move to another state 1,200 miles away, had been a step of progress for us all, I was feeling lonely and adrift.

But then, I think we all were.  My next younger sister was on the opposite coast, and my brother was in the Air Force and stationed in a completely different part of the country. We were each feeling like loose halyards on a tallship's mast...each flapping aimlessly in the wind. 

The five youngest children were with mom in the Midwest, but it was a new community and they had only been there since the beginning of the school year. They'd yet to make any friends who might include them in weekend activities.

  Thanksgiving for our family was all about being together...praying, cooking, going to church, and playing games.  I didn't know how to "do Thanksgiving" without my mother…and I didn't want to learn. 

Long distance phone calls were expensive in those days, and I knew my budget would only allow for a short visit after the rates went down on Thanksgiving day. then, at the last minute, my sister was able to scrape up the fare for a plane ticket to fly out and surprise mom, and although I was thrilled for her, I couldn't imagine not being there too.  It was almost too much to bear when my brother called to tell me he'd been able to catch a flight from his base to the airport near mom, so now he, too, was going to be there to surprise her. 

I was a teacher, and since our Thanksgiving break was limited to a four-day weekend, it was hard to justify the exhorbitant cost of a ticket, for such a short visit.  It was money that could be better spent on mom's utilities or to help with the many other expenses associated with raising six children as a single working mom.

The plans I came up with for my weekend seemed like the "best under the circumstances," and I was determined to be at peace with them.  Even though a long-term relationship had recently ended, and I wasn't sure where I belonged emotionally, if it wasn't with my family.   So, in light of my new social standing,  and, as yet, shaky emotional landscape, I had volunteered to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the boys and girls at the state institution for developmentally disabled children where I was a teacher. 

Afterwards another teacher and I were going to go to the movies.  Yes, I told myself, it seemed like it would be a good plan.  And I could always look forward to calling mom, and the kids, in the evening once the rates went down…it was going to be okay...really.

But that afternoon, a week before Thanksgiving I wasn't so sure I was ready to "go it alone." Then I got a call from the my former sweetheart.  He wondered if I would like to meet him for bagels at our favorite bagel shop.  I said, "yes,
while wondering why we were doing this to eachother. 

It had been so clear, earlier that fall, that our relationship was changing, and that we needed space to figure out who we might be without the other. Neither of us knew how to transition from the two "halves" that we'd been since high school, into two wholes. But perhaps this was a first steo.

As I sat there waiting for him, I thought about all the Thanksgivings that we had shared at my mom's house.  I was so grateful for his willingness...over the years...to eat two big meals. 

He also came from a large family with eight children, and they were just as deeply devoted to their own family traditions, as we were.  Thanksgiving day for him had become a day full of driving between our family homes.  And as an avid football fan, he would often miss crucial moments in televised bowl games that his brothers would have to tell him about later. 

By the time he arrived at the bagel shop that day, my heart was full of appreciation for the years he'd sacrificed relaxing at home, for driving an hour to be with my family too.

  And as much as I knew that it was right for us, as a couple, to be going our separate ways, I was profoundly grateful for every moment we had spent together, as teenagers and young adults. In many ways we had helped each other just grow up. 

As he walked in, I immediately noticed the bouquet of flowers he was carrying. I was very concerned that he wanted us to discuss our relationship.  It was something that I was not yet prepared to do.  I knew that we needed much more time to sort through our feelings. And I wasn't ready to have that conversation yet. 

But as he sat down at the table, I realized that this wasn't what he had in mind.  The look on his face was one of absolute glee.  It was disarming.  And as he handed me the bouquet of flower tied with a wide satin ribbon, .  I could tell that he was barely able to contain his excitement. He pressed me to open the card that he placed in front of me, even before we ordered our food.

When I did I was speechless.  It contained a plane ticket to the Midwest, and one hundred dollars. 

He explained that since we wouldn't be spending Thanksgiving together that year, he wanted to be sure I was with my mom and siblings

.  He had worked it out with my sister and brother. We would all meet at the airport once our flights had all arrived, and we would be picked up and taken to mom's front door together, so that we could surprise her. 

The one hundred dollars was his gift. He wanted me to be able to help mom with the expenses of the weekend, once I got there.

  It was all worked out. Another volunteer would take my place in serving dinner to the children that day.  He had called the restaurant where I waitressed as a second job, he had made sure that my shifts were covered. 

I was going home for Thanksgiving!!.  In fact, he'd even made arrangements to get time off from his own job, so that he could take me to, and pick me up from, the airport about an hour away.  I was stunned. 

I knew how hard he worked at his job…and how modest his salary was.  I knew how many phone calls he must have made to arrange all the details.  This was not a gesture…it was a priceless gift of love.

He knew me.  He knew my heart.  This was one of the most selfless and generous gifts I had ever experienced. But for some reason it was unsettling.  I felt vulnerable and naked, I was the one who was supposed to be "the giver".  What did he want from me? 

But then I looked across the table, and into his eyes, and I knew immediately that  all he wanted was for me to know that he understood…and that he cared.  He wanted me to see him for the man he really was…generous, thoughtful, intuitive, and good.

I did go "home for the holidays" that Thanksgiving.  The look of surprise on my mother's face was priceless.  The hours of family warmth, love and laughter were nourishing and revitalizing.  And when my flight landed that following Sunday evening, he was there waiting at the gate (you could still do that then). 

I returned to my teaching invigorated and happy.  Eventually, he and I went our separate ways, a decision that was right for both of us.  But he'd given me another glimpse of what it felt like to be loved, and known. 

God had placed yet another angel in my life's path. And even though I have many lovely memories from that relationship, this is what I remember most when I think of him. 

The story of that Thanksgiving is rich with lessons of love.  This is just one of them…but it is the one I think of each time I remember that year. I am still so touched by his unconditional generosity and kindness. He knew my heart. 

To be known is to be loved.

His gift has given me over three decades of happy memories, but most of all, it gave me a glimpse of what it means to be truly known by another person…it is a gift I hope to recycle year-after-year.

with Love,   
Kate