"a little girl, and a smooth stone..."

"At the end of the day
I will hope they will say,
that my heart looks like Your heart,
that my heart looks like Your heart..."

Chris Tomlin's  "My Heart" came as the soundtrack to this memory of my experience with school violence.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I spent my childhood being "the new girl." We moved so often that instead of counting sheep when I can't sleep, I try to remember addresses, telephone numbers, floor plans, zip codes.

I was not the pretty, confident new girl -- that was my younger sister. And as long as I was with her, I wasn't afraid. But she was in the grade behind mine and although our classrooms were near one another in every school, she wasn't in the room with me.  I was the bookworm, the shy girl, the just-pretend-I-am-not-here girl.

For the most part, my love for learning made every classroom a safe, happy place for me. Teachers generally love a new student who lives for the sheer pleasure of doing well in any (and every) subject. And even though I dreaded the playground, I loved the classroom. Desks that were textured by years of use, the scent of fresh chalk on the blackboard, the sound of a pencil sharpener -- I loved it all. It was familiar and safe.

That was until I reached sixth grade. We'd moved to a new neighborhood. I was excited to finally be in the oldest class of elementary school. Yes, I was terrified about junior high. But that wasn't for another year. For now, I was happy to be in the graduating class.

But all my dreams of a wonderful school year -- one filled with awards, opportunities to shine, a teacher who would help me get ready for junior high - evaporated on the first day of class.

I was small. I was a bit of a timid mouse. I didn't like attention. But I liked being smart. I wasn't a child who raised her hand. I was the student who proved that she knew what she knew by doing well on tests, essays, assignments turned in at their completion -- not by speaking out.

From the second I entered Mr. S's classroom I felt threatened. His was a reign of terror. Everything was based on his experience as the immigrant son of nationalist Germans who felt misunderstood and persecuted in post-WWII America. He was a man who proudly declared that his father had served in the German Army during the war, and that his mother had been an "officer" in the Bund Deutscher Mädel - the Youth organization for girls.

I was terrified of Mr. S. And my response to that terror was to try even harder to win him over. Little did I know that - for some reason - this was the opposite of how to survive in his world order.

Mornings in Mr. S's classroom began with the playing of the music (only the music -- not the lyrics -- he wasn't a fool) to "Deutschland über alles"  - the German National anthem under Hitler's regime. We would, strangely enough, follow that musical prelude with the Pledge of Allegiance, and then an examination of our hands, faces, and the bottoms of our shoes for cleanliness.

One day, during the playing of Hayden's "Austria," - the music that underscores "Deutschland über alles" I must have had a peaceful smile on my face that was disarming to him. He came to stand in front of my desk -- paunchy belly, thick, heavy straw-colored hair flopping over his eyes, jowly chin and asked, "well, well, little rat, what is making you so happy today?"

I replied that I loved that piece of music. He narrowed his eyes at my prim, mousy little self and asked why I like it so much. I said that it was one of the hymns in our church's hymnal. This must have piqued his interest, because he asked me, "and what church do you go to that sings Deutschland über Alles as a hymn?" I told him I didn't know those words, but that, at our Christian Science church, we had a song that had the same music.

Suddenly he exploded. He grabbed me by the collar, dragged me to the very front of the room, pulled a desk right under the American flag and pushed me into a chair. He went on to rage - to the rest of the class - that I was not a Christian. That "these Christian Scientists" were not followers of Jesus. That I needed to be humbled in the sight of "our Lord."

From that moment on, my sixth grade classroom became a torture chamber. I was humiliated daily. Forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance alone, outloud in front of the class, and if I hesitated or made a mistake, I would have to say it again. I was called little rat girl. I was tiny and I had a slender face and when I smiled my eyes were all squinty. It seemed to give him pleasure to attach that name to a small child. And when the mean boys in the class took up his new nickname for me with enthusiasm, he encouraged them.

But his harshest act would be his most silent. Mr. S carried a keyfob with a small bottle of cognac encased in a resin block at the end of a short chain. He would take it out of his pocket and swing it in circles until the cognac inside of the little bottle frothed. When he was ready, he would walk over to my desk and hit me sharply on the head with the corner of the little resin square. Then he was say, in front of the class, "Well little rat, how did that illusion feel?  Can you pray it away?"

For hours I would be dizzy and in pain. This went on for weeks. I was afraid to tell my parents because I thought that if they told the principal, my life would get harder. There was only one sixth grade class in that school. And as much as I wanted to be safe with my brave sister, I didn't want to go back to fifth grade.

Finally, one Friday his sharp attack broke the skin on my head, left another huge lump, and I could barely think straight for the rest of the day. I knew I couldn't go on like that for the rest of the year. On Sunday, I waited until after Sunday School to talk with my Sunday School teacher. She was a Christian Science practitioner and one of the things I knew about Christian Science practitioners, was that they had to keep whatever you told them a secret -- just between the two of you.

I told her what had been happening and she held me close and cried. I didn't expect that. On the one hand, I was completely horrified that I had made her cry, and on the other, I was so grateful to know that someone cared about me.

When she had composed herself, she reminded me of the story of David and Goliath. We talked about David eschewing the King's weapons and armor -- even a helmet.  And I could have really used one of those!  Instead he had taken five smooth stones from a brook. And with just one of these stones, he had smote the giant.

She explained that I, too, had five smooth stones. Spiritual ideas that I had worked till they were well-honed. And that I could use them as my armor and my response to Mr. S's goading, humiliation, and painful abuse. She also told me -- and this was long before health-care professionals were legally required to report child abuse -- that she would have to speak with my parents.  I kinda knew that was coming.

She asked me what I thought my five smooth stones were. I remember two of the five I came up with: I love God. I am smart. She then told me that I should pick one to use the next day in class. I should hold it in my heart and be willing to let it fly in the face of rage, hatred, and violence. I chose: "I love God." I know she talked to my dad later that dad -- but I was not part of that conversation.

The next morning, as I stood in front of the classroom to say the Pledge of Allegiance - all by myself - I almost screamed the line: "one nation under God..." It seemed to shock him. This meek, little mouse of a girl roaring about God. Then I sat down. When he came over to my desk during math, swinging his keychain, I looked up at him and said, "I love God." He didn't say anything, but he also didn't slam that keyfob on the crown of my head.

Within a week we had a long-term substitute for the rest of the year. I don't know if my parents or my Sunday School teacher spoke with the school, I only know that my sister did not have to have Mr. S for sixth grade the next year.  We moved before the following year so I don't know if he ever came back.

Teachers are people. I was one. I loved being in the classroom with children. Most teachers have the noblest motives for doing what they do. But some teachers are carrying around stories, memories, and hurts that haven't been healed or resolved. For these teachers, a classroom can be used inappropriately. We need to provide healing support to both teachers and students who are facing demons they haven't exorcized.

When I think of teachers being armed in the classroom, I am reminded of Mr. S., and I am grateful that he was only carrying a bottle of cognac encased in a block of resin. His rage was sudden, and his willingness to take all that unresolved angry hurt out on a small child, was without any perceivable sense of self-knowledge or remorse. His willingness to teach gentle little boys and girls to model his violent, humiliating behavior towards another student -- was unchecked. He needed to be protected from himself -- and his stories.

We need to love the bully enough to separate him (or her) from settings that allow them to act out their rage with the social weapons of sarcasm, humiliation, harassment, revenge, and violence.  This separation is not dismissive.  It does not ignore the issue, but provides a setting conducive to counseling, compassion -- and yes, healing.

This experience actually made me love Hayden's "Austria" even more.  Lyrics to that hymn read:

"On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
By salvation’s walls surrounded
Thou mayst smile at all thy foes...."

For me, the Rock of Ages is not a big boulder, it is a smooth stone. With one smooth stone in our hearts, nothing can offend us. Nothing can reach within the walls of what we know at the very core of our being. Nothing can shake the sure repose that comes from a Truth that we have used, and proven.

And then, we actually can smile at our foes -- because, in Truth, we have no enemies. Even as a little girl, I could see that Mr. S's stories about his parents and the war -- were not filled with pride, but the confusion and hurt of a little boy trying to make sense of it all, while still find his way in the world.  I can't imagine what it was like to live in this country as a German after the war. I can only hope that by reminding him that I was a real girl - who loved God, he was able to find a smooth stone of his own to smite the giant in his own stories.


offered with Love,

Kate

"Love has the final move..."

"if paradise has
up and flown away for now,
but hope still breathes
and Truth is always true,
 just when we think
it's almost over,
Love has the final move..."

This summer has asked a lot of our humanity. I don't know about you, but I've slept little and questioned much. I can't help but wonder if Thomas Paine was just being historically accurate, or prophetically clear-eyed when he wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls." It certainly feels as if my soul - my spiritual senses -- have been deeply tried. Chris Rice's "Love Has the Final Move," soothed my heart one recent night as I lay in the dark praying for the world.

My prayers were not complex. They were not the unpacking of deep metaphysical premises. They didn't lead me to profound moments of realization. They were simple. "God, help me practice the two great commandments -- to love and trust You - supremely,  And to love my neighbor as myself."

But then my heart begged the age-old question: "But who is my neighbor?" And I remembered Jesus' answer to this question: the story of the good Samaritan. The neighbor was a stranger, a foreigner, someone whose customs and traditions were very different from those of the questioner. Well, I mused, no one could have more foreign ideas, customs, or rituals from my own, than an angry, torch-carrying neo-nazi, waving a swastika emblazoned flag, while spewing hateful rhetoric about racial supremacy. Yup, not my finest thinking.

"Dear God," I prayed, "please don't ask me to love them as myself." In other words, please don't ask me to love them in order to be my best self. But God said, "Isn't that what you have already been doing? Loving yourself in exact proportion to how you have been loving them." 

This wasn't going quite the way I'd expected.  But God persisted.  "You haven't been loving them, and you haven't been loving yourself very effectively. And since I am asking you to love them as you love yourself, it's important that you do that first.  But, you haven't been very kind to yourself. You have judged yourself based on your mistakes, your failures, your body fitness, your sense of being "less" in the world, your sense of what other people think of you."

He was right. It had been a hard summer. There were times when I'd felt awkward and small. I hadn't felt a clear sense of belonging. I felt like a square peg in a round hole. And I wasn't sure how something that had once felt so right, had come to feel so wrong. Had the square hole I'd thought I fit into -- so beautifully -- become round? Had I grown sharp edges, so that I no longer slipped effortlessly into the round, smooth hole?

Because I didn't know where I fit, I'd spent much of the summer holed up in my office, where I could focus on God -- letting my work singularly shape my sense of belonging.  It was wonderful, but I knew I couldn't stay sequestered forever.  The world was rightfully encroaching on my sublime isolation.  I had to find a way to expand my sense of loving others  -- as myself.  And this was much harder than I wanted it to be.

What I wanted was answers, I wanted a path to a solution, I wanted a way out of my own too-tight skin. Suddenly the conflicts and chaos I was praying about in far-away  Charlottesville, were really much, much closer. A small, awkward version of me was marching round the memorial I'd erected, and chanting in my head, "you will not replace us." Threatening the "me" that longed for a larger, more expansive sense of what it meant to love my neighbor as myself. It was no longer enough to feel good with (and about) those I shared a common hope -- my neighborhood was expanding.

So I held a rally within myself. The kind of rally I wanted to see happening in Charlottesville, Boston, San Francisco, and in my own community. I realized I needed to listen -- and to listen deeply, and attentively. All the doubts, hurt, fears, confusion, and anger needed to be seen, heard, and thoughtfully addressed.  I needed to lay down my weapons of self-certainty and be willing to hear something new.

For example, I had been feeling like I was no longer relevant - in my children's lives, in my friendships, in communities that I loved. 

First, I listened to the self-pitying logic that wanted to claim justification for this feeling. And then I was quiet. Really, really quiet.  I didn't just jump all over it with a slew of metaphysical quotes. I calmly looked at each of the suggestions and asked myself questions like: "Is this true? How do you know that it's true? Is it possible that it's not true? What would things look like if you didn't believe it were true? And if it is true, what are you willing to do to change it?"

I was respectful and considerate. I was not dismissive or reactive. I committed to loving myself.  Really loving myself.  Not only the me that I knew was the reflection of God, but I loved the me that felt buffeted by self-doubt.  The shift was remarkable. I wasn't afraid of my feelings. They were just feelings, they weren't necessarily facts. I could question them without feeling attacked for being less spiritual or less metaphysically "on top of it."

And more importantly, I felt real love for others the minute I started loving myself. I felt love for the journey that had brought me to this very moment of willingness, of deep self-examination.  I belonged here.  I was ready to grow from it.  And I was not alone in the uncertainty of it all.  

I also felt a genuine love for the girl in me -- the teen, woman, wife, mom, friend, healer, neighbor who had navigated this journey with courage -- day after day.  She'd made mistakes, but she was also bravely confronting those mistakes with humility and acceptance.  She was learning from those mistakes and that was all God was asking of her.

And in this loving of myself and my journey -- as full of missteps and blunders as it was -- I was able to love my neighbor and his/her journey -- no matter how little I understood of its history or its trajectory.  Regardless of how much I might not agree with the reasoning or decisions that got them there.  

Their journey was not mine to judge. It could only serve as an opportunity for me to learn to love more unconditionally.  I could learn to nurture my best self, by loving my neighbor -- regardless of the script, costume, props, or story that the ego was offering as right or wrong -- for either of us.  I could know that Love was/is working Her purpose out in every one of us.  

I began to see, I could trust that no matter how far gone the game seemed to be, Love would always have the final move -- in my life, in my neighbor's life, in my community, and in the world.  Love would always win.


offered with Love,

Kate

"healing moral injury…"

"I am a good child,
born of God's grace,
whatever would try to claim
deliver me, Almighty One…"

Today, I discovered this post, "Beyond PTSD to Moral Injury," on Krista Tippet's On Being site, and it "had me at hello."

I love the word "moral." Especially since discovering Mary Baker Eddy's definition in her textbook for healing,  Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"Moral. Humanity, honesty, affection, compassion.
hope, faith, meekness, temperance." 

Immediately I wanted to call Krista on the phone and say, "No. No, no, no - hope can't be injured. You cannot wound compassion." I wanted to send her a link to Michelle Armstrong's beautiful song,"Unfallen." A song that speaks so gently to the heart of both the wounded -- and the wounder.

Eddy's definition of "Moral," has helped me in so many ways. It continues to bring me to my knees in gratitude.  Realizing that no matter how deep the wounds, nothing can deprive me of my right to act with moral courage -- right now -- has been an untold gift of grace. No matter what I may have done to another -- or what may have been done to me -- I cannot be kept from acting with compassion, meekness, hope and faith -- today.

A few years ago I wrote a piece titled, "An active Moral Imagination." Writing the piece was very healing for me. It provided a space for revisiting memories that had always brought me sadness. It gave me a lens through which I could reclaim the word "moral," as a vital part of my daily ministry.

To be moral, is to be dynamically hopeful. To be moral, is to be actively humane, to have a living  faith [trust], to be temperate, meek, honest, affectionate.

To be "moral," was not about what we are not doing -- lying, cheating, lusting, abusing substances, being vengeful.  To be moral is to be engaged in doing something that serves God, and blesses others. And nothing on earth can injure or violate our right, or ability, to do that.

In fact, if I were lying in a bed - unable to move a muscle or even speak a word - I could still express compassion in my prayers for others. I could still think with affection, I could still bless my neighbor by holding out hope for the future of our planet, I could still be temperate in my thoughts, consciously meek.

Reading the above article, "Beyond PTSD to Moral Injury," I was flooded with so many opportunities to actually engage my moral compass -- to be moral. As I read each comment at the end of the article, I was absolutely filled with compassion, overflowing with faith, eager to reach out to others with an honest response about my own healing of "moral injury."

The world will tell you that those who have been abused, violated, or exposed to severe trauma are broken. Broken in a way that is almost impossible to heal without scarring. The deeper and longer the wounding - the harder to heal. The bullied, become the bullies. Those hurt, hurts others. The abused, turn into abusers. But I am here to tell you that is just not true.

Every abused, bullied, traumatized, wounded, or angry man, woman - and ye, child - hopes that they will find freedom from the guilt, and shame, and terror associated with the injury. And the very presence of that hope, is the power of moral courage asserting itself. You can't just get a little bit of hope. If it's there, it represents just the tip of the iceberg -- and it - hope - is always there. To quote Emily Dickinson:

"Hope is the thing with feathers,
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune without the words,
and never stops, at all..." 

Resilient hope, persistent faith, unwavering compassion, relentless honesty...

I've seen the most wounded teen hope that she will someday be a loving mother. I've held a weeping soldier whose humanity won't let him forget that he was once a boy, who loved his brother. I've listened to the shattered spirit of a convicted child molester, who wanted to help others from the confines of a state prison cell. I've watched, while the most hardened among us, kneel to nurse an injured animal.

There is no moral injury -- perpetrated or felt -- that can't be healed. There is no shame so sharp and pointed that it can burrow it's way deeply enough to trespass on who we are at our spiritual core. There is no act of violence that can corrupt our essence. No regrettable choice that can undermine our right to be moral, right now -- to treat others humanely, to be honest, to show affection, to extend compassion, to be hopeful, to have faith, to be meek, to live with temperance.

And sometimes, that seeming broken-ness gives birth to a new light. From the depths of the shattering comes a new compassion, a deeper willingness to understand another's heartache, a gentling of pride, a fathomless humility.  A more profound desire to of care for animals, children, the broken-hearted among us.

No matter which side of the injury you (or a loved one) seem to be on -- the wounded, or the one who regrets having wounded others -- this line from Michelle's song is a prayer of hope:

"I am a good child…" 

That's the truth for each of us. We're all just children. There are no "adults of God." And we all have a divine Parent who holds us tenderly, loves us unconditionally, and gives us an infinite number of ways to express our freedom from moral injury -- every moment, of every day. We never run of reasons to hope.

with so much affection....


Kate

"How mercy looks from here..."

"When you face your greatest fear --
losing all that you hold dear,
open up your eyes my dear...my dear.

That's when boundless grace appears,
unseen angels hover near.
Saints are singing loud and clear,
"Oh how mercy looks from here..."

The title track from Amy Grant's new CD "How Mercy Looks from Here," came to me with such gentleness.  It fluttered  against my heart like a whisper, upon hearing the first news out of Boston this afternoon.

The call to "love mercy," washed over me like a sudden spring shower. It was a soft cleansing -- a baptism of grace -- with each heavy tear.  I found myself praying with this scripture from Micah:

"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; 

and what doth the Lord require of thee, 

but to do justly, 

and to love mercy, 

and to walk humbly with thy God?"

To love, really love, mercy.

I realized, that as the immediate expression of God's love, I didn't need the medium of time or human thought-taking to process what I was hearing and seeing. I didn't need to walk through the proscribed steps of shock, anger, sorrow, grief -- to get to the place of forgiveness and mercy.

I could stand still -- nevertheless poised, calm, and sure of God's love -- in the midst of human drama. I could center myself in what I knew about power of peace, while being buffeted by emotional storms. I could refuse to be threatened by fear -- the fear that all we hold dear is vulnerable and so easily shattered by violence -- focusing instead on the presence of kindness, compassion, courage, and selflessness right in front of me. Nothing could distract me from seeing Love, God, in action.

Mary Baker Eddy once wrote:

“No evidence before the material senses

can close my eyes to the scientific proof 

that God, good, is supreme.

Love is especially near in times of hate, 

and never so near as when one can be just 

amid lawlessness, and render good for evil.” 

This statement was a lifeline in the days following the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. It helped me stay focused on the evidence of good all around us during long days spent counseling students, parents, faculty, staff, and neighbors at a nearby church. They'd opened their doors to those who were seeking pastoral care and counseling -- and those of us who were privileged to serve.

Over and over again I could hear the song of angels as a caregiver opened his/her heart to someone in need. Few volunteers were prepared for what they faced, but they were there day-after-day -- on their knees in humble affection and service -- silent, prayerful, willing to listen, and hoping to bring comfort. And almost invariably we were led by the Holy Spirit to turn one another towards the light of Love -- the indomitable power of compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. This was the inner reservoir that each of us -- volunteer and "victims" alike -- drew upon to find freedom from anger, resentment, anguish, and fear.

Nothing -- and no one -- can close our eyes to the presence of love in the midst of hate, mercy when revenge screams loudest, courage where self-preservation seems most instinctual, and compassion in the face of fear's vain alarms.

I've learned that it's pretty easy to "love mercy" when we are the ones who have said something hurtful, done something unkind, or made a mistake that affects others. But to "love mercy" -- when we feel so sure that forgiveness is the last thing the recipient deserves -- well, that's divinity embracing, and elevating, humanity. And perhaps it's the kind of transcendent love that Mary Baker Eddy is talking about when she writes:

"Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven."

In these times of trial -- when there is an invitation to be shattered by events that make no sense -- we can allow something larger to break forth into being. To begin to unfurl the soft-winged dove within us. And a new sense of love breathes itself into life.

Divine Love takes what seemed shattering, and reclaims it for a holy purpose -- a bursting forth. It releases us from the shell of who we thought we were -- with its false limits of loving, our "thus far and no fathers," to reveal what is inherent, divinely natural, ever-present -- our infinite capacity to understand and forgive. To love mercy.

It'a not always easy, but this call to "love mercy" offers us an extraordinary lens on humanity and divinity -- coincident within us. Since, as Eddy says, "Love alone is Life," when we take back our right to love, we lay hold on our divine right to live fully.

Tonight I pray we all glimpse something of this miracle in ourselves and one another. I can't think of anything more empowering and beautiful -- or more healing.



offered with Love,

Kate

"and oh my soul so weary..."

"When I am down,
and oh my soul so weary.
when troubles come,
and my heart burdened be.
Then I am still,
and wait here in the silence.
Until you come,
and sit a while with me..."

I was driving back from a full morning of office visits at the college, when a report on NPR about the shootings at another high school...this time in Ohio...stopped me, literally, in my tracks. I pulled off the road and sat next to the coursing Mississippi River and remembered another day, along another road...and a hawk's reminder.

I remembered how her trust in the power of the Unseen to, as Josh Groban sings, "Raise me up..." gave me something to cling to during, what could have been, insurmountable grief during some very dark days. She reminded me that the unseen power of Love, would, if I let it, lift me above the currents of sorrow and fear, as I drove towards Littleton Colorado in April of 1999.

Without a moment's hesitation, the tears of gratitude...for that experience and the lessons learned...flowed with as much power as the river in front of me.

And as I turned my face into the brisk wind off the river this afternoon, something caught my eye. It was an eagle lifting off the bluffs as she caught a thermal which took her higher and higher. I've revisited that drive to Columbine High School, many times over the ensuing years, especially when I've needed a reminder that God is there...however unseen He may seem to be...in each of the communities that have faced these tragic shootings. God is there, right now, to bring healing, comfort, courage, and peace. I wrote the following piece in September of 2006, after the Platte Canyon High School shootings...I share it again now in hopes that it may be helpful to someone.

It is offered with Love...

In April of 1999 two young gunmen entered Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado and opened fire on their classmates. 

On the immediate heels of this tragedy I had the privilege of joining scores of fellow pastors, psychologists, counselors and health care professional as we gathered to provide counseling and support services to students, parents, families, teachers and staff over the ensuing weeks of shock, grieving, healing, and recovery. 

When I read of the shooting at Platte Canyon High School this morning, I was reminded of my drive to Columbine that April afternoon and couldn't help but think of the drive parents made to that high school yesterday afternoon to connect with their children..fighting the terror, with hearts full of hope.

Hwy 285 in Bailey Colorado has always been my favorite stretch of road anywhere in the world.  It lies between my sister's house in Evergreen, and my summer home at the Adventure Unlimited Ranches in Buena Vista, and sits at the bend of the road just before the sweet mountain village of Shawnee. 

I have often stopped by the river to pray, and connect more deeply with God, before finishing the last leg of my trip to camp where I will be "on" 24/7, supporting campers, counselors, horses, and camp operations.  It is a deeply spiritual place for me.  An open air temple among the aspen and pine. 

Today I am cherishing its families. I am closing my eyes and remembering the deep peace of its endless blue mountain skies, the pure constancy of the rushing Platte River which runs between the folds of her meadows. And I am seeing her held in the palm of God's hands, comforted by Her tender love, and encouraged to focus on the good all around her as she find her peace.  Here is a small snapshot of my journey towards that kind of peace in 1999 as I drove towards Columbine High Schol that day:

It was a beautiful day in late April and yet that drive from our small town in northern Colorado to a suburb of Denver that afternoon, which I made quite often, was anything but ordinary. I strained my heart to find the presence of God. I searched the still beige and gold prairie for instances of order, beauty, peace. I knew that if I could focus on the presence of these qualities in nature I would be acknowledging the presence of their source, and one thing I was sure about God was that He was either All or nothing. So if He was at all present...He was all-present.

I needed to know His presence in very real and tangible ways that afternoon. My heart was heavy and I knew I couldn't let it stay that way. I had work to do and this work would require anything but a heavy heart. It would require the absolute certainty of God's presence and power that I was searching, the endless Colorado landscape, for evidence of.

My old jeep and I were on our own form of autopilot. I prayed and it just held to the road like the bottom-heavy friend it had been on our many trips into canyons and backroads visiting homebound patients and/or traversing ice and snow to reach someone in need. But today we were on a dry highway traveling briskly toward a place not yet trail-blazed in my experience.

It was April 20, 1999, and although the radio in the jeep was silent, the voices of newscasters and commentators seemed to be filling my mental airwaves. Words like gunmen, Columbine (which before that afternoon had only been the name of a delicate mountain flower my daughter and I admired each summer in high meadows), fallen, and victims punctuated that silence like gunshots.

I knew I had to find a peace so solid and secure before I arrived at the catholic church in Littleton where I would join religious leaders, spiritual counselors and social workers who were gathering to minister to the broken hearts and shattered families whose lives had been directly and indirectly touched by the days events, that nothing to move me.

Those mental voices were so loud and the tears on my cheeks were so hot with horror and grief that I couldn't seem to find the focus and deep-centered peace that was usually mine within milliseconds of any report of sickness, disease, fear or anger. Today that peace seemed illusive and ungraspable. I was ready to turn the Jeep around and head home knowing that I would do no one any good if I couldn't find my spiritual grounding.

Just then something in the sky caught my eye. It was a hawk riding an invisible updraft over the prairie. I pulled off the highway and got out of the car. Other cars and tractor trailers whizzed past but as I watched that hawk soaring on an unseen thermal I found my peace. Right there on the side of the road I too could feel the same soft, but powerful, current of air moving through my hair, I could see the way that hawk used what was unseen to lift him higher and higher without beating his wings. I could see the way that same breeze was giving movement to millions of individual blades of tall grass and golden grains across farmlands and straight up into the foothills of the mountains where I knew pine trees and aspens moved like choreographed dancers directed by a great and all powerful director. I was ready.

I got back in my trusty Jeep and together we moved with the same syncronicity of mission towards, not a suburb full of broken hearts and shattered peace, but towards an enormous human meadow full of hearts ready to be moved by the breath of God's love towards a greater sense of peace, a more certain sense of life, a better view of themselves. I knew that God would show us all, in the context of each others need, our better selves. We would see one another not as an endless sea of hurting humanity, but as individual blades of grass moving and being moved by God's love to bend and reach and touch each other's hearts. Our weeping would be the music of our compassion and of our tenderness. To it's chorus we would help each other soar on the unseen thermals of God's love....as that very love expressed to and with and for each other.

By the time I reached the Light of God Catholic church near Columbine High School I was ready and eager to hear the symphony of spiritual care I knew would be echoing through the halls of that church, the streets of that community, and in the homes and hearts of everyone who needed it's "peace be still" to move and ground them in God's presence. I didn't see counselors, pastors and victims, but blades of long golden grass moving in a harmonious dance of care and compassion. I loved joining that dance.

Those were long, full days. The sadness, grief and horror still whizzed around and past me like those cars and tractor trailers on the highway that day. Some days I felt so tired that I wondered why I wasn't blown away...but I wasn't. From where I soared with the updraft under my wings I could not be moved or swayed by their force. I was riding on the thermals of God's love higher and higher where I could only see a sea of human grass dancing to a song of spiritual grace. I was watching love in action, love moving unseen through those around me to cause us all to reach out and touch someone with a word of kindness, to listen with an open heart. I watched as the sky I was in soaring in became filled with others who had spread their wings and caught the thermal and could better see God's unseen hand in each moment.

Today, almost eight years later, the color of the sky that day in April is still the color of peace to me. When I close my eyes in prayer I see an endless blue sky, a horizon-less sea of golden prairie grasses swaying and moving to a silent song as I let the thermals of God's presence lift me higher and higher for a better view of whatever I am being asked to pray about. That day lives in me, not as a day of infamy, but as a day of beauty and grace and seeing the very best that humanity can be when we let a silent song of love move us to help each other.

Those of us who were honored to be caregivers were given the best seats in the house for God's ballet of love.

Whenever the world tries to drown out peace with it's cacophony of horror....get off the highway and catch a thermal....the view is amazing from here.

I hope this is helpful...
Kate

"You may say that I'm a dreamer..."

"Imagine all the people,
Living life in peace....

You may say that I'm a dreamer
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you will join us,
and the world can live as one."

I love this original  John and Yoko video for "Imagine."   It is a song that I believe speaks to an imperative promise...and not a distant dream.  Poet and lyricist, William Knapp once wrote,

"The one far-off divine event is now. 
And that event is Love."

Today, these are the thoughts I am holding to in defense of my heart...and the collective heart of humanity. 

Gunfire at a community event, anger across the dinner table, violent wretching over the toilet...intolerance for the views of "the other side", misunderstanding, self-loathing, complaint, criticisim, judgment.  Enough!! 

There was a time when "all the world"...or at least almost everyone I knew...told me that I had every right to be hurt, angry, to give up, feel bereaved, and seek redress. 

I remember thinking, "How is it that their love for me is giving them (my loved ones) permission to be so unlike themselves. To be so unlike the incredibly generous, compassionate, kind, and loving people they are by their very nature as children of God."

I then realized, that I had to love them enough to NOT believe that this kind of empathy was what I needed.  I remember thinking that it was my own belief in my need for "sympathy" that was the back door to "symptoms" of depression, hopelessness, heart-ache, and fear-based agony about the future.

The second stanza of Mary Baker Eddy's poem, "The New Century" (found in her slim volume Poems, became my constant companion:

"'Tis writ on earth, on leaf and flower:
Love hath one race, one realm, one power.
Dear God! how great,
how good Thou art.
To heal humanity's sore heart;
To probe the wound, then pour the balm -
A life perfected, strong and calm.
The dark domain of pain and sin
Surrenders - Love doth enter in,
And peace is won,
and lost is vice:
Right reigns, and blood was not its price."

Yesterday I found the tattered slip of yellowed notebook paper I had written this snippet of poetry on in 1988.  I'd carried it tucked into the back of a journal that I used for recording my thoughts. During a particularly aggressive bout with self-pity, I'd turned to it often, fingering its soft folds and letting the strength of its admonition steel my resolve.  I've carried it in my heart...memorized like a Psalm...ever since. 

I realized then, and again now, that when Love enters the wounded space...the heart, the head, the home....peace is won, God reigns, and our lives are no longer broken, shattered, shaken, or violated, but more tender, softened, supple, and rich with compassion, mercy, and grace.

This slip of a Psalm is back in the front pocket of my heart today....I will caress it in my prayers.

with love and hope...
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"to see you holy, holy, holy..."

"Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart.
I want to see you,
I want to see you  -
holy, holy, holy..."

Last week's Bible study was rife with reminders that it's all about seeing what is right in front of you through different eyes.  I haven't been able to move on from those scriptural messages this week.  I've woken with the Women of Faith's version of Paul Baloche's "Open the Eyes of My Heart" singing through my veins this week.  I wanted to think about it more, but each day seemed to make its demands on my thoughts before I could find the time to really ponder it.

But this morning,  I lingered in the space of stillness -- that conscious vestibule between sleeping and waking where I am only aware of my thoughts, not the sentience of seeing the room around me, hearing the birds outside our windows, or feeling the quilts and linens around me - and stayed with last week's messages about "seeing" for as long as I could.  This space of conscious being is my favorite place to "abide," and it was in this mental room that I finally saw the relationship between the story of Elisha and his servant facing the army of the King of Syria, and Jesus' parable of the householder who finds his field is sown with wheat and tares. 

For the first time I noticed the contrast between the worrisome King of Syria's suspicion that someone in his own household had betrayed his location to the King of Israel, and the peaceful householder in Jesus' parable who never once accuses a member of his own household, but immediately states, "an enemy hath done it" and confidently trusts the power of Spirit, the breath of God, to separate the tares from the wheat...much the way the prophet Elisha, in the former story, was sure that his servant would be able to see an army of angels "round about Elisha,"  if his eyes were just opened to God's universal goodness. 

Right where the servant's fear saw a host of enemies, the eyes of the prophet's heart, the lens of Love, revealed only a host of angels.   An enemy becomes a friend through the eyes of Love.  Love never sees anything but the child of God.   There weren't two different armies -- but the transformation of an enemy fitted for battle, into a host of angels ready to bless and protect.   The tares of fear, hatred, suspicion, and distrust blew away in the strong breath of spiritual vision.

As I was pondering this, I realized how true it is that we never need to sort our global "neighbors" (or household) into friends and enemies, but to change our sense of them into only "children of God" or, as the prophet promised,  "a host of angels round about" us.

Whether we seem to be a facing a border dispute with a contentious neighbor, battling with memories of a time when we were in conflict with a family member, burdened by fears that a future event could devolve into hurt and regret, or hear about a gunman terrorizing a Texas university campus, through prayer, we can always "open the eyes of our hearts" to the freshening breath of Spirit, see "even this" through the lens of a loving prophet vision, and begin to diffuse fear, hatred and anger with the gentling hand of Soul. 

Today, as I was looking for a favorite passage from Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art," I accidentally googled the title backwards, and up popped a reference to Napolean Bonaparte's "The Art of War," highlighting this quote:

"The extent of your consciousness
is limited only by your ability to love
and to embrace with your love
the space around you, and all it contains"

I was stunned.  This was not the kind of thinking I'd associated with a man I had always considered a pint-sized dictator with a hungry, mad ambition to rule Europe, and a relentless drive to push his army across a frozen continent towards their doom. 

Suddenly I wanted to know more.  I was interested in knowing him, in understanding more about a man I'd long dismissed out of hand as not very admirable.  What a wake up call. 

All day I've been asking myself, "how have I been seeing my "neighbors" -- globally and locally? As enemies, when I could just as easily  "open the eyes of my heart" and see them as friends who may have some arrestingly beautiful thoughts to share, and viewpoints that could enrich my life with vision and inspiration.

Again, Mary Baker Eddy's statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures reminds me:

"The very circumstance which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.  Then, thought gently whispers..."

I love it when Mind, expressing itself as consciousness, surprises me with a gift of grace...

thank you God,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

Love, not terror, is contagious

With today's latest news of yet another attempted school shooting, this one thwarted by a courageous school administrator, buzz about the contagious nature of these copycat acts of "playground terrorism" seems to be reaching a feverish pitch. 

At the same time we are already being overwhelmed by a flood of well-meaning recommendations that we get early flu inoculations to preempt the contagious nature of viral elements that seem especially prevalent during the winter months.  

Both of these concerns, virulent in their ability to move through the system of social consciousness, are quite aggressive and frightening to parents and children...therefore, to families...locally and globally.

But there is a way of looking at contagion that leaves us  feeling the dominion and authority that Light must feel in it's association with darkness.

There is an old tale of three elements (and many versions of this tale, so please bear with me if this version is not consistent with the one you have heard)....water, cold, and wind...these three pals are walking in the wilderness one day when they come upon a cave in the side of a mountain.  Sitting a the edge of the cave is their friend, Heat....trembling with fear.  "Why what's the matter dear friend, why are you so afraid?" they asked.  Heat could barely get the words out, "Darkness..." he whispered.  "I went in and turned up the temperature of my heat as high as I could and still I could not get rid of it....it wouldn't budge!" 

So sure of her abilities to roust out such demons, Water says, "I will go in and drown darkness."  So, in she goes and before long she comes dribbling out with her droplets scuttling into the corners...."I poured every drop of myself into that cave and filled it to the brim and still the darkness wouldn't budge...this is one very scary enemy." 

Wind, the blustery blowhard of the group, says with a flourish, "Well, show me the way because if there is one thing I am sure of it's my ability to blow anything out of my path..."  So in he goes blowing with all his might...but after only a few moments, out he comes with a gasp....reduced to a little puff, and says with barely a breath, "Oh my goodness...that is one immovable foe!"

Cold, with her frigid stare and icy touch has had enough.  "I will freeze this darkness until it shatters and lies in cold shards on the ground" and in she stalks.  But it is not long before she darts out in terror.  Her icy touch melting in the heat of her own fear.  "I don't know what that is, she says, but I can't seem to make it even shiver, much less shatter." 

So there they sit on the edge of the cave's opening licking their wounded pride and terrified of an adversary they cannot budge when along comes Light.  Full of warmth and radiating her love for everything her hand touches... revealing its inherent beauty,  she sees her comrades broken and afraid.  Her heart leaps to warm them and she asks, "dear friends, what could have possibly left you so unsettled and afraid."  "Darkness.." they whisper.  "Hmmm...I don't know of this darkness," she marvels.  "And you don't want to" they murmur in hushed tones.  Then they begin to tell her their story.  "Oh," she says, "I will go in and see if I can find it and talk with it about sharing the space with us."  "Oh no, please don't" say her three comrades, but Light is fascinated.  She has never seen Darkness, so in she goes.  A few moments later she returns to the opening of the cave, perplexed and baffled.  "I couldn't find this darkness you are talking about," she says, "everywhere I went, it was not there...not even in the corners."

Water, Cold, and Wind, being the smart (and now humbled) elements that they were decided then and there to join forces with light and enter that cave...today they live in one of the most beautiful places in the world....the Grand Canyon. 

Now, before you jump all over this sweet story and point out all of the inconsistencies...yes, at night there is darkness in the Grand Canyon...etc....just take the point intended into your heart for a moment.  When we are "walking as children of light" we cannot detect darkness...around us or in others.  When walking as children of health (this word comes from the root word "whoelth" which is "wholeness") there is no disease....absence of health.  Are we trying to freeze out terrorists, are we attempting to blow the cover off hatred...or... are we walking so completely as the very light of love, the very light of goodness...illuminating the inherent beauty, spiritual reality, and grace in every situation, person, season...that we can't even find darkness, fear, harm, terror, hatred.

Mary Baker Eddy says, "To light there is no darkness, all is light."  To love there is no hate, to appreciation there is no criticism, to the presence of health (wholeness, wellness, well-being) there is no dis-ease...no absence of health or well-being to antidote.  This is not a blind denial of a problem, quite to the contrary, it is an acknowledgment and appreciation of the presence of the truth...the truth that at any given moment and in any given situation we can find the presence of God...the presence of Love, Principle, Soul...in the concern of a family member, the orderliness of nature...all trees grow towards the light, root systems seek out water....in the precision and reliability of a mathematical equation.   And since there is only one "measure"  of God ... infinite ALL....each (however faint) instance of God's presence is the promise of His All presence...no matter how obscure at that moment...keep watching, keep your focus on presence of the light...because it indicates the presence of the Sun....the full radiance of the day.

So....what about contagion....don't be as concerned with what the news would try to spread or what it is trying to convince you is spreading....be so occupied with what you are broadcasting,  spreading...are you spreading joy, love, appreciation, goodness, kindness, compassion....then like our friend Light, not only will you never find the darkness...even in the corners, but those who accompany you in thought or experience....those whom your thoughts dwell on (intimately, locally, or globally) or who share your company....will be thereby benefited.

Spread light...remembering how fast it travels and how pervasively it reaches...if you need a reminder of how quickly and broadly joy and laughter spread visit this wonderful video in which a very serious yogi shares his practice of Laughing Yoga

with Love,





Kate