"Can you paint with all the colors of the Wind..."

"...You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind..."
Stephen Schwartz
"Colors of the Wind*"

Our twins had lived in the suburbs for most of their childhood.  Everyone in their neighborhood had gone to the same school, shared similar values, shopped at the same stores, and spoke the same language....and my children had known almost everyone they knew...as long as they could remember.

When we moved to a wonderful urban neighborhood near the largest university in our city a few years ago, they were uncomfortable with their surroundings. The children who lived on our street were fearless, outgoing, gregarious...and different.  They came from many different countries and faiths, spoke a dozen or more different languages, ate unusual foods, and weren't afraid of strangers. 

As much as we encouraged them to engage in neighborhood games, it took almost two years before they felt comfortable walking across the street and joining the other children who were taking turns on a wonderful rope swing that hung from an ancient sycamore tree in front of the University coop. As their parents, we longed to have them feel at home in a neighborhood we loved dearly.  We loved walking in the public gardens that quilted the large urban park near our home.  We felt blessed to be surrounded by museums, galleries, a world-class zoo, and libraries.  We hoped they would grow to enjoy it too.  And they did, but it took dissolving false perceptions about what it meant to be "different."

I remember the first breakthrough.  It happened one afternoon as we drove home from their private school in the suburbs that first fall after school was back in session.  As we turned on to our wide street canopied by enormous oak and sycamore trees, the girls commented on "those poor children" who were playing hopscotch, dodge ball, and foursquare...or sitting in small groups...on their asphalt play yard behind the large church/school surrounded by chain link fencing on the corner.

I drove slowly by the school and the girls bemoaned the plight of "those poor children."  Their well-equipped playground out "in the county" was filled with state-of-the-art equipment, landscaping, environmentally friendly wood chips, and even a new Gaga pit.  They couldn't understand how "those poor children" could stand it.

After we pulled into the parking space in front of our house, unloaded backpacks and lunch boxes from the car, and changed out of school clothes, I suggested to the girls that we take a walk to the coffeehouse on the corner for an after school treat.  They loved the coffeehouse on the corner where their big brother was a part-time barista and were happy to walk hand-in-hand with me past the school across the street, on the corner. 

As we approached that end of the block, skipping along cracked sidewalks, uneven from the growth of large tree roots that had lifted them like seismic plates long ago, a bell rang and children poured onto the playground from doors on two sides of the school building.   It was for me easy to slow down our pace.  My girls were fascinated by children who quickly divided themselves into teams for kickball,  and congregated in small groups to play foursquare or hopscotch in hand-chalked squares all over the pavement. 

I asked the girls to close their eyes and tell me what they heard.  They were still young enough to like this kind of game.  They said they heard, laughter, giggling, cheering, balls bouncing, girls whispering, boys yelling.  I asked them to open their eyes and tell me what they were seeing.  The identified happy preschoolers, fast boys, girls who danced around making up cheerleading routines, or threw markers for hopscotch. 

I asked them if they could point out one of "those poor children" they felt so sorry for only minutes earlier...disadvantaged children they had been sure "just couldn't be happy" without the same kind of well-equipped playground they enjoyed at their school "in the county".

They couldn't find one.  These were happy children, they were wearing clean, brightly-colored uniforms, they were with their friends, they were laughing, cheering, teasing, competing, being disciplined by teachers that obviously cared about their safety and happiness...they were just like them.  

This was a lovely opportunity for each of us to practice "spiritual translation."  What from a limited perspective appeared as a diminished sense of bounty...no swings, grass, or equipment, fewer teachers, "less" screaming from every direction,  to spiritual sense -- " the constant conscious capacity to understand God" (and that He is always present) -- there was an abundance of creativity, joy, innovation, community, generosity, patience, sharing.  We started to see that through the lens of spiritual sense the girls had more in common with these children...than what at first glance appeared different.

This was the first, of many breakthroughs.   We enjoyed two dozen months of happiness in our city home.  The girls grew to know their neighbors, to feel protective of the "wild-haired professor"  and his black kitty who greeted us each afternoon when we returned from school, to anticipate the return of grad students at the end of Spring Break, to wave to the little girls who visited their grandma each weekend, and to look forward to the first signs of spring and the ducks in the park.

The day we reluctantly filled the moving van and left our wonderfully diverse urban neighborhood, we had to call the girls away from where they were playing with a group of neighborhood children across the street...they had become part of the beautifully rich and diverse threads that made up our neighborhood.  A tapestry more lovely because of the many colors and textures found woven through its fabric. 

Last weekend we joined friends for a Spring Break visit to our beloved Forest Park in the old neighborhood.  The girls pointed out favorite gardens, trails we had walked hundreds of times when they were just a day-to-day part of our neighborhood, recognized saplings that had been planted after a devastating Spring storm...flowering trees that had grown "at least a foot", and wondered if the ducks in the pond were decedents of "our duck family"...the ones we fed and talked to on our family walks in the park after dinner on summer evenings.

We now live halfway between "the city" and "the county."  We are learning new things here too.  When we drive through our old city neighborhood the girls tell us how much they loved "our old house" and the neighborhood where "the sidewalks were crooked and there was a big rope swing where all our neighborhood friends played in front of the student coop across the street."  Yes, we smile too.  "Those poor children" had become their neighbors...and friends.

"You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know
And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains
We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind*..."

*WIND. That which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements of God's spiritual government, encompassing all things."  - Mary Baker Eddy

with Love and hope...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"All around me are familiar faces..."

"All around me are familiar faces,
Worn out places, Worn out faces,
Bright and early for the daily races,
Going nowhere, Going nowhere,
Their tears are filling up their glasses,
No expression, No expression,
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow,
No tomorrow, No tomorrow,
And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad,
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had,
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take,
When people run in circles it's a very very,
Mad world, Mad world…"
- "Mad World"

I remember the first time I saw Los Angeles….or at least the hazy, gray megalopolis I thought was Los Angeles.  I had been driving cross-country for over a week.  Suddenly the empty desert of southeastern California gave way and in the distance...creeping closer with every mile...were the edges of what I thought was the City of Angels. A city I imagined to be the size of Philadelphia.  I assumed with that level of population density so soon, I must be near the city's epicenter.  I was wrong.  It would take me over two hours to reach the inner belt of urban Los Angeles and every mile felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into a looming grey hole.  I knew exactly one, count her…one, person in all of Southern California and she would be leaving soon after I arrived to begin my time house-sitting for she and her husband.

I was terrified.  Prior to this experience, my "city" had been New York City. Brownstones, brick cobbles, Washington Square and "the Village" were easy to navigate on a summer's evening...but this place was the color of asphalt and cement, concrete and steel...and for some reason it made me feel frantic and helpless...more alone than I had ever felt before. And because I was terrified, terror was all that I could see on the faces of men, women, and children I passed on street corners and observed at bus stops.   It took me weeks to discover that the hopelessness I was observing was really just a mental film over my own eyes coloring everything with a dull, gray, sad tone of despair.

I spent many lonely weeks in this gray mental fog until one afternoon when I was sitting on a concrete bench near the corner of Wilshire and Western. There I saw a young Korean mother and her toddler daughter waiting for the bus.  My first thought was, "I wonder where you would go if you could afford to get out of this place?"

But then the little girl turned to me and shot a 3 million megawatt smile in my direction.  It was like a strong gust of wind blowing the gray/hopelessness glasses off of my face and suddenly the world was suffused with color and charm.  I scootched over on the bench to where her mother was watching her daughter…obviously as smitten as I was…and cleared my voice.  She turned briefly in my direction before re-fixing her gaze on the little girl not ten inches from her side.  "Hello," I said. "Oh, hello," she replied.   "Do you live near here?" I asked.  "Oh no," she laughed shyly, "if only we could…"  Her palpable longing to live in this inner city neighborhood where dumpsters and concrete made up the "landscape" surprised me. 

She went on to explain that she, her husband and four children had only just come to America from Korea and were living with relatives in another town two hours away by bus.  Both she and her husband worked in the downtown neighborhood where we were sitting, but on separate shifts so that someone would be home for the children after school.  She brought Lea to work at the dry cleaners each day since her husband's bus left for downtown before her bus arrived home.  Lea, she explained was too much for her elderly mother to care for…in addition to the other three children…during the in between time.

"This is where I have dreamed of living since I was a little girl in Korea," she sighed. 

She told me, in halting English, that her dreams were coming true everytime she and Lea rode the bus to the corner of Wilshire and Western.  She then pointed to a bank of second story windows above a strip of shops where a Korean restaurant, dry cleaners, market, and insurance office stood.  "Someday we will live in an apartment above our own shop," she dreamed aloud.   The joy she exhaled seemed to be enough to drive my own hopelessness into exile.

Right at that moment I was sitting in someone's "dream come true".  The world of urban concrete and international commerce…filled with hand-lettered signs in languages I had never even heard spoken before…made sense to me through her eyes.  This was a place to come to…not a place where everyone was eager to leave…as I had imagined.

I looked around me and could find people who were smiling, purposeful, and at peace, whereas a mere hour before I saw only gray, resolute drones going from here to there and back again with robot-like mindlessness.  I saw what I felt.

There is a story in the Bible from the second chapter of Kings where the prophet Elisha and his servant are on the run from the Syrians and were finally trapped, surrounded in the city of Dothan by the enemy army.  Elisha's servant is "sore afraid" when he sees that they are compassed about by horses and chariots and a "great host". 

Elisha first assures his servant, "Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them."

Then he prays.  And his prayer, surprisingly, is not for deliverance. He doesn't hope for, or even ask God to show him a way of escaping Dothan or how to circumvent the army of Syria.

His prayer is "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see."

And the story continues:  "And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."

What only moments before had looked like an untenable situation that foretold sure doom, with "opened eyes" became not only a safe situation, but one where Elisha and his servant were "cared for, watched over, beloved and protected". 

That day I felt like Lea and her mother "opened my eyes" and everything gray and hopeless became full of color, beauty, opportunity and awakening.  

Later that week I decided that if I was going to be living in a big city with international neighbors, I would make it a time of discovery.  I started exploring international film, cooking, religions, and music.  Any given Saturday I could be found holed up in a Japanese cinema reading English subtitles under a classic Akira Kirowsawa film or visiting an Ethiopian restaurant for conversation, injira, and wat with a group of Rastafarians.  I spent a few too many Tuesday nights at a Salsa Club downtown and, sadly, not as many Friday evenings sharing Shabbat dinner with a fellow teacher from school.

My Los Angeles chapter was filled with color, music, exploration, adventure...and yes, some mistakes that I learned a great deal from.  A mother's dreams at a bus stop mid-city had opened my eyes to all that I was suddenly surrounded by.  Not horses and chariots of fire, but even better, the wonders of being a global citizen in an international city. And as an invested and engaged member of the human family, there were no longer any foreign faces... all faces became "familiar faces"... 

"…Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen…"

I'm still listening,
Kate

"I won't be idle with despair..."

"If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we're all OK
And not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
I won't be made useless
I won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear..."
- Jewel

I just spent five weeks serving the spiritual needs of teens at a camp high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  It was quite a jolt to return to urban St. Louis.  My first night home my husband and I took our usual nightly walk to "The Loop" – a wonderful street full of restaurants, coffeehouses, shops, boutiques, an arts film house, galleries, and two well-known live performance venues.  This great stretch of urban magic is only short blocks…through tree-lined neighborhood streets…from our home.

I was looking forward to reconnecting with our favorite street performers, shop owners, and Amy, the girl at the coffeehouse who knows just how to make my hot chocolate.  But I had forgotten – in just five short weeks – how much I pray during those walks.  It didn't take long to be reminded. 

Although the walk through the neighborhood was idyllic, it also reminded me that our city needs our prayers.  The small elementary school on the corner is a beacon of family warmth here.  It's empty asphalt playground reminded me that there are children – children who run around the block for "track" instead of on a surface technically calculated for optimal performance. Children who have only a rubber ball and some painted white lines for playground equipment…no grass, swings, gaga pit, rubber "wood" chips to break their fall from a jungle gym that doesn't exist.  Only asphalt a ball and their imagination.   What can I do to contribute to the educational experience of the children in my neighborhood?  My heart broke open a bit as we rounded the corner and I sent up a prayer of humble thanks for the realization that I am not helpless to help.

"My hands are small, I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken..."

By the time we reached the corner where our neighborhood meets the Loop I had found more of my rhythm as a spiritually-empowered, not embattled, thinker - living in an urban neighborhood.  I knew that I knew how to respond to requests for hand-outs, help, food.  I knew that my heart was ready.  I could spread as much love, joy, kindness as was needed in my neighborhood that night.  It is joy that is contagious, it is compassion that spreads like wildfire…it is love and kindness that steal through a neighborhood lifting hope…not pocketbooks or dignity.

"...Poverty stole your golden shoes
It didn't steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn't ever after..."

I felt such confidence in my place on the streets of our neighborhood.  I love my time in the mountains…I love the sweet joy of finding a teen who wants to talk waiting on my porch after dinner or the tentative knock on my door after bedtime of a counselor who wants to talk.  But this kind of urban street work is what God has given me the heart to embrace.  I love the challenge of seeing through the veil of ghetto-tough to the deep desire each of us has to know that we matter and that we are doing something of value with the gift of life that God has given us.

"...We'll fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what's right
'Cause where there's a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing..."

Later as we were heading home we caught sight of a young mother being placed in handcuffs while her young son and daughter were being escorted towards another vehicle by a kind, but obviously unfamiliar, officer in uniform.  My heart seemed to split in two.  What could I do to help? Then I remembered who, and what, I am.  As Mary Baker Eddy states in her book Miscellaneous Writings:

"As an active portion of one stupendous whole,
goodness identifies man with universal good. 
Thus may each member of this church
rise above the oft-repeated inquiry,
What am I? to the scientific response: 
I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness,
and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing."

I could, right then and there "impart truth, health, and happiness".  I could express joy and gratitude that this mother was getting the help she needed.  I could know the truth that those children were safe and that they could feel the kindness of that police officer.  I could see that their mother's health – her wholeness, her purity, her dignity – was untouchable, inviolate, and invulnerable in the eyes of her children…and her God.  I could rejoice that if she needed some space from the demands of caring for her children in order for them all to be safer and happier in the long-run…then God would only bless that time apart with His grace.  That mother's tears for her children were an indication of her love for them and her desire to be a better parent would only be blessed of the Father and would not return unto her void.

"...My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
I am never broken..."

My heart ceased to feel broken and began to swell with hope for our city.  Good is operating unspent in the hearts of everyone here.  We all want the best for those we love…we just need to expand our sense of how far and wide the arms of Love reach within us and those we see.

"...In the end only kindness matters..."

This is the message that my heart took home that night…"only kindness matters"…are my prayers filled with kindness…or fear, hopelessness, despair.  There is much to be done to see our city for what it is…a city of hope, light, love, and yes…a city of kindness.

"... I will get down on my knees, and I will pray

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
And I am never broken
We are never broken
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart

We are God's hands"

with Love,
Kate

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