"sending big waves into motion..."

"Like a small boat
on the ocean
Sending big waves
into motion
Like how a single word
can make a heart open..."

When Sam asked me to write a post using Rachel Platten's "Fight Song," as the keynote, I was intrigued. I'd never heard of Rachel -- or her song -- but once I did, this post gave birth to itself. I just got out of the way. Here what fell on the page:

I'd spent so many years trying to prove my worthiness. I'd chased a sense of belonging -- to family, church, and in the communities I've lived in. Enough.

I refuse to fight any longer for a personal sense of validation. And actually, I have discovered that I don't need to. I am enough. In her song, Rachel sings, "a single word can make a heart open…"

That is the line that simply took my breath away.  You see, once upon a time, not so long ago, I had a life-altering experience that supplied the "one word" I'd been waiting for. The word was "no."

I had been holding my breath, waiting for someone to to take note of my worth -- for far too many years. I'd done everything - shy of standing on my head - to get a thumbs up. Then one day, I got a clear, decisive thumbs down. And it was wonderful.

Sure, the first moment or two was filled with "what did I do wrong?" "Give me another chance -- please -- I'll try harder to win you over. I promise, I'll do better next time." 

 And there were many times in the following days - and weeks - when I thought it actually meant something about me that I didn't measure up. As if looking through any human lens could serve as an accurate assessment tool for measuring a person's merit. For weighing worth, validating value.

But I soon came to realize, that it never would. It never could. And it just didn't matter. Really. I knew I had given "it" my honest, genuine, authentic all, and it was still not enough -- for him, for her, for them.

That "no," was actually the key to my freedom. It released me.  It wasn't a "no" to my dreams and desires.  It was only a "no" to their participation in it.  I was free.  I was free to be empowered from within.   

In the wake of their "no," I could begin to look in another direction. And I chose to look towards my relationship with God for any - and all - meaningful information about my peace, my purpose, my place in the world. That relationship was intact and unwavering. My trust in His love for me was sound. 

Like a small heavy-keeled boat, I was secure in my spiritual seaworthiness. I was deeply grounded in an unsinkable certainty that I knew Him, felt His presence, and was filled with His grace.

What I also learned through this experience was that a clear "no," is sometimes the most wonderful version of "yes." To know -- without a shadow of a doubt -- that permission from others is just not going to be yours, actually frees you to stare unflinchingly into abyss of your own heart's fathomless worth. For this is the province where God is Sovereign -- enriching your affections for what is really yours.

Nothing that is truly ours, requires someone else's approval or permission. When we feel inspired and impelled by that deeper demand from within -- we are driven to find ways to live those desires moment-by-moment. We stop asking for permission.

I think that, for me, parenting has been one of the most powerful examples of this. For such a long time I thought that I needed to have a child to be a mother. But mothering is a verb. I could mother colleagues, nieces, neighbors, countries, causes. I didn't need to wait for the validation of a baby. I didn't need someone to choose me as the adoptive parent of their infant or child. I could mother -- nurture, encourage, support, cherish -- without hesitation, without apology.

Whatever it is yours to do, you know it in your heart. You don't have to think it into being.  You don't need to poll the opinions of others to find consensus.  Your purpose springs from that sacred place in you that is so deeply aligned with divine Love that nothing can extinguish its primordial fire. 

Are you impelled to heal -- then heal. Are you kept awake by a desire to write, to keep bees, to partner, to coach? Then do it -- even if the "doing" begins with simply and importunately  praying for the integrity and success of that industry, institution, activity in the world.

If you love the thought of being in a marriage and you have not met Mr. Right -- so? Love marriage. Love the office of husband so much that you would never criticize, demean, or undermine that office in any way. No matter how it is being carried out by those around you. 

 Uphold the best view of that office in your conversations, interactions, and in support of your family members and friends. Nothing can make you think of that office in any way that violates your highest sense of its potential to bless -- not even someone else's behavior. You own your right to uphold your highest sense of husband, boss, mother, friend, world leader, global citizen. Take possession of it and defend it.

Don't wait for the validation of the "right" person, place, or thing, to live your relationship with whatever God is impelling in you. Don't wait for permission from an employer's "hiring" to live your desire to do, what it is that you love -- whether it is to exercise a skill, share a talent, or support an organization's mission. Their "no," may just be your "yes" in finding a clearer, brighter path towards the realization of a deeper sense of what it means to fulfill your divinely-designed purpose, to answering your highest calling.

Mary Baker Eddy says, on the first page of her primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that:


"Desire is prayer, and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires…"


These desires -- which she clearly identifies as prayers -- are actually:

"God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind."

I'm learning to trust this truth. To act upon it without permission from anyone -- but God. I am discovering that when the eyes of my heart are fixed on Him, I cannot be disappointed. I am empowered by His reign in my heart -- enriching my affections and governing them.  

You may not be a big ocean liner - filled with folks lining up to party with you.  But, you may find that you are like a small deep-keeled boat, happy to do whatever it is that small boats do.  Perhaps you will carry the Christ, or hold those who are casting their nets -- within.

Offered with Love,

Kate

"The sun never says...."

"Silent, wordless, everything was still.
You breathed us, yearned for us,
our hearts began to thrill..."

I'm not sure why Corinne May's "Your Song," brings this story to life, for me.  But, perhaps, it is the message of surrender.  Yes, maybe it is...the message of giving one's self to a greater purpose -- which she sings so humbly about -- that reminds me of that day.   Whatever it is...here's the story.

The air was soft...fragrant with the scent of wood fire, and eery with the echoing call of loons...that mid-October afternoon in 1988.  My husband was traveling in South America, and I was enjoying the "alone" time...reflectively.  

It was, for me, the most beautiful time of year.  I loved each quiet hour of walking along the water's edge on our small New England pond, and cool evenings spent staring out to sea from my sandy perch on a nearby beach.  

This particular afternoon was no exception, it was spectacular.  The bright leaves of autumn were still clinging to tree branches along the shoreline, and reflected in the still blue water of the pond.  It took my breath away.  I pulled my sweater close, making my way towards our dock, and up the pathway through the now empty wild blueberry bushes and raspberry canes.     

Walking through the leaves, I was lost in thought.  I'd been pondering a recent call from a friend.  She was in the throes of heartbreak, and needed to be with someone.  I'd invited her to come spend the weekend with me on the water, and was waiting for her arrival.  

Love and loss were not foreign, or distant, to me that autumn.  I'd experienced a fair share of recent heartaches, and I knew how thought-consuming they could be.  

I also understood how lonely it felt to suddenly not be part of a the dreams you'd hoped would soon come true. And from past experience, I knew how an unexpected breakup could leave you asking the "why" question -- obsessively.

It didn't take long until I was plunging heartlong into the past.  I found myself thinking about a heart-shattering breakup of my own.  Wondering what had, at the time, not made me love-able enough.  Asking myself if I was still "that girl."  The girls who was always trying to prove her deserving.  And remembering how much I tried to transform myself into whoever I needed to be so that "he" would want me.  Oh my, how I'd so wanted, to be wanted.    

But as I scuffed through the leaves that day, I could see -- for the first time -- that my version of a "love" story, was full of me.  If I loved someone, shouldn't I be loved in return.  If I was in love, didn't I have the right to expect to feel loved.  And not just loved, but loved best.  To be someone's one, and only, love.  To feel loved, by the object of my loving.  Me, me, me. 

It was about this time, in my self-reverie, that a stanza from the 15th century Persian poet, Hafiz came to mind: 

"Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky." 

I found my knees buckling with something akin to swooning.  It was as if all the colors in the autumn landscape started shimmering with a new light.  And it wasn't just a visual light.  It was a light that actually had sound.  It was a visceral light...one that somehow felt like the sparks from a Fourth of July sparkler against my skin. 

And it was a light that had sound, playing a song of love along the strings of my heart, my soul, my mind.  

Its message reached me in a new way as I hovered between a version of love that was full of attachment to an object of my affection,  and a sense of love that needed no personal target, radiating light without any specific object of intention.   

The sun was my teacher.  So I let her show me what love does.  How love acts. 

For instance, I knew it was a beautiful sunny day.  Hadn't I said, just that, a dozen times that morning? "Wow, what a beautiful sunny day!"  And yet, I hadn't even looked up at the sun...no, not even once...to be verify that fact.   

The reason that I knew it was a beautiful sunny day, was by what the sun was doing to...the effect it was having on...everything it touched.  Not by looking at the sun itself. 

I knew it was a beautiful sunny day, by the way the sun's light danced over the surface of the pond, brought out the colors in the asters and chrysanthemums, caused the leaves to turn and pivot towards it's warmth -- revealing all the sides of their changing beauty.  By the way it warmed the stones along the shoreline, dried the bark of the fallen tree trunk I was sitting on.  I had no doubt about the sun's presence. 

The sun was beautiful, because of how it revealed the beauty, texture, usefulness in everything it touched.  Not because it called attention to itself.  

Then I remembered a statement by Mary Baker Eddy:

"The sunlight glints from the church-dome,
glances into the prison-cell,
glides into the sick-chamber,
brightens the flower,
beautifies the landscape,
refreshes the earth."

and 

"It is Love which paints the petal
with myriad hues,
glances in the warm sunbeams,
arches the cloud with the bow of beauty,
blazons the night with starry gems,
and covers the earth with loveliness."
 

I realized that Eddy saw Love, and the sun, as metaphorically related.  And in that instant, I did too.  This was, actually, what I was witnessing in every breath of light.  Love, brightening the flowers...painting the petals with myriad hues.  

And isn't this exactly what true love...the kind of love that reflects God -- the source of all love...does.  It reveals the best in everything, and everyone, in the path of its shining.  It doesn't try to change a leaf to a twig, but it does cause the leaf to dance.  It doesn't try to own pond, it makes it sparkle.  

Until that day, love was something I wanted, and thought I needed, to feel as a sentient experience.  I needed to be the object of someone's loving...a partner, a friend, a child.  

But love, real love, like the sun is not sentient, it is radiant.  It doesn't wait to feel love from something else, in order to be stimulated to react in a way that is loving. It doesn't take in the feeling of being in a relationship with another person, and then decide how to process it.

Real love, is radiant.  It lives deep within us and radiates out from a core -- the core -- relationship with the Source of its being, God.   It is not sentient.  It does not wait for the permission of the senses.  To find the right object -- based on how it looks, what it does for a living, whether it shares interests -- to shine its light, and illumine what is good and beautiful in another.  

Love looks out from an inner vision, an inner light and sees only the beauty it naturally in the lovelight of its shining.  To radiant love, all is lovely. 

That day, by the water's edge,  I realized that real love is true vision.  It sees only what it knows is true, from deep within the fathomless well of its own light.   

Love doesn't take in a collection of pixels, a body of sentiently gathered information, process it...decide to think about it in a more loving, spiritual way...and then spit out a better picture.  Love never sees anything but the loveliness of its own radiant revealing. 

When my friend arrived she was so beautiful to me.  I realized that all I could do, was radiate peace, joy, and contentment...a vision of loveliness.  

with Love, 

kate

  

"Oh, I've gotta keep my eyes wide open..."

 
"Oh I've got to get a new view
the only way I know to.
Oh I've got to keep my eyes wide open
keep my eyes wide open..."
- Sara Groves

The story was feeling stale in my heart.  I felt like I was on a hamster treadmill, living in my own version of the movie "Groundhog Day." In this film, the main character wakes up in a small town, only to repeat the same day over, and over again, until he starts to take notice, reason differently, and change his responses to the people, circumstances, conversations, and events around him.

In my case, it seemed as if I'd been down the same street, greeting the same people, and getting mud-splattered...hundreds of times in the past.  But, like Bill Murray's character, I'd always responded through the lens of my own historic, socio-economic, religious, and cultural paradigms. 

What I thought was right, was right...right?  Based on that premise, I had every right to defend, react, rebuke what I was seeing or experiencing however I deemed appropriate, because I was right...right? And because another's choices, decisions, take on things, didn't line up with my inspiration, wisdom, experience, he/she was wrong...right?  How was that working for me?  It wasn't...at all.

And because of this false sense of judgment about things, I'd ceased to experience this particular story with "Eyes Wide Open." 

By that I mean, that I had forgotten, as Mary Baker Eddy says in Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896, that:

"We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world's evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it, - determined not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor even when it is, unless the offense be against God."

But unfortunately, I had lost sight of this wisdom.  I was seeing things "my way" only.  I had forgotten, that my "take" on something, was only the version of reality that I had decided...based on my own human history, culture, exposure to a narrow field of inspirational texts...was unconditionally right or wrong.  And this stale version of my story was getting old. It had falsely informed, and colored, the tack I chose to take in navigating the situation, and it wasn't going well...at all, Something had to change.  

Thank goodness for bracing wake up calls that open our eyes. Through a series of experiences, I had begun to learn that if my "certainties" are based on human reasoning, and my human reasoning is based in a limited sense of God...that He is anything less than All-in-all, then I am limiting the depth and breadth of my own expanding understanding of Truth.   I am saying that my current thinking, is the only definitive version of being.  And as self-indulgent and self-satisfying as this might be at the time, it only limits my openness to divine mystery and awakening. 

Eddy further states, elsewhere in The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany that:

"Christian Scientists are practically non-resistants..."

I believe...and I repeat here, I believe...that by this, she doesn't mean that we are "almost" non-resistant, but that we practice -- apply in practical, consistent, scientific ways -- non-resistence. 

What is there to resist, when God is All-in-all.  What is there to battle, outside of our own false beliefs about anything.  These false beliefs and perceptions...the ones we carry around, and project on our view of ourselves, our neighbors, and the world, are always, and only ever, an offense against our sense of Deity, our understanding of the nature and character of God.  Therefore, if I truly trust that God's wisdom is All, in all, I know that I can't possibly have the only version of good, the only accurate, enlightened take on spiritual being.   Eddy counsels:

"Love [God] is impartial and universal
in its adaptation and bestowals." 

For me, this means that there is, no language, culture, teaching, socio-economic community, where His voice is not heard...or understood...and practiced.  The only thing that ever needs changing...or adjusting...is my view of things.  In other words, I must keep my eyes wide open to the presence and power of a God that is always there -- right in front of me, is always good....and is always in all.   The ego-self would have me believe that I am an isolated, solitary being with a uniquely enlightened point of view.  Silly ego.

I am more than willing to destroy this ridiculous ego-self...to dismantle its argument...in pursuit of this glorious Truth of Love's all-inclusive spiritual being.  And, oh what a glorious truth it is...

Eddy assures us that:

"Nothing short of our own errors should offend us...it is a question in my mind, whether there is enough of a flatterer, a fool, or a liar, to offend a whole-souled woman. "

I can't think of a better thing to be, than a whole-souled woman.

with Love,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Crayola doesn't make a color for your eyes..."

"...spring-green is much too yellow
sea-green is far too pale
cornflower is way too mellow
so i'll try again and fail
there's no way i can capture
the way you make me feel
one look from you is rapture
whether blue or green or teal
no color qualifies
that crayon's telling lies
crayola doesn't make a color
for your eyes...

hey look it's periwinkle
so sure i got it now
But you wink and there's a twinkle
in your eye and still somehow...

crayola doesn't make
a color for your eyes
There is no way that
i could possibly describe you
crayola doesn't make a color
to draw my love..."
- Kristin Andreassen

My friend Susie posted this video of Kristin Adreeassen's "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes," today, and I immediately knew what I wanted to write about.

Eyes. 

Mary Baker Eddy, in her "Glossary" of spiritual terms found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, defines "Eyes" as:  "spiritual discernment, not material but mental."

How then could you choose a color for your eyes?  It would be like choosing a single color for joy, or love, or home.  Can you imagine the sadness that would descend on the world if  the word "home" was defined as "blue", even the most perfect shade of blue.   Every house, in every land, blue...or green, or yellow. 

Can you imagine if there was a crayola with the word "body" on it?  As if there was only one perfect color for a person's skin.  Oh yea, they do have that don't they...it's called "flesh"...hmmm...I wonder, do they still make a crayola with the word "flesh"  printed on that narrow strip of peach paper with black stripes and bold block lettering wrapped around a crayon? Now that I think about it, it's kind of creepy actually...

Which brings me to....well, where it brings me.  The story.

I was teaching Kindergarten in a relatively small Southern California town surrounded by Los Angeles County on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth.  I loved my class of eager students.  We were a diverse group -- five of seven continents represented by 35 students and one teacher.  I loved walking onto the playground in the morning and hearing the buzz and chatter of almost twelve languages blending as parents said "goodbye" and siblings called, "see you later" to one another in the language used at home, but usually left outside the gates at school.

One of my favorite projects each fall was to unroll large sheets of butcher paper onto the floor of our classroom and have each child (and teacher) stretch out on top of their sheet, so that another child could trace the outline of the his/her body.  Then each one would fill in the outline with a "self portrait" of how we saw ourselves.

Pencils, crayons, scraps of fabric and glue, buttons, strips of lace, and shoe laces would contribute to a fully fleshed out version of how each of us thought we looked.

It was a fun beginning-of-the school-year project and did a lot to help classmates get to know one another through the other's eyes.  After we'd finished our large paper doll selves, we'd hang them on the walls...after introducing them to the class in a series of presentations.  "Hi, this is Amy.  She is five years old.  She lives with her Nonie and Pop Pop while her mom goes to school.  Her dad is away on business for a few years...."  And later in October we would dress our paper doll selves in Halloween costumes. 

At the end of the year we would do the same project over again and see how our concept of  "self" had changed.  It was always most apparent  when we'd introduce this new self (who was now graduating from Kindergarten and was ready for first grade) to the same children we hadn't really known in September, but who were now as familiar to us as our siblings.  "Hi, I would like you to meet Arturo, as you know, he loves to read and do math.  His favorite song is "Thriller" and he can moonwalk.  He has new baby brother that he thinks is too noisy, but he is helping his mom by not telling her to take him back to the hospital."

I loved this project.  Sometimes the introductions were sweet and funny, and sometimes they were sad and full of despair.  Either way we were  going to be a class, a family and we would be there for one another.  We were all in it for the long haul.  We would learn and we would grow.  And it would be fun most of the time, and hard some of the time.

This particular year, I had a little girl in my class named Marguerite.  Her family had recently relocated from San Salvador and she was the only one who  spoke any English...at all.  She was a fragile and shy as a small fawn caught in the middle of an urban park and I could feel her heart beating wildly as I gently placed my hand on her shoulder that first morning.  In that moment, I knew that she would be my tracing partner for our whole-man self portraits that afternoon. 

Over the next few days I got to know Maggie (as she asked to be called) and we laughed about how much more tracing she had to do than anyone else (since I was the biggest kid in class), how funny her braids looked after being traced, and the odd shape of our feet.  

Soon it was time to fill in the blanks.  We drew in fingers, eyes, nose, mouth...and for some freckles, long (mostly just wished for) fingernails, and pierced ears.  It was a fun, noisy time of day...and we thoroughly enjoyed watching one another come to life as our flatter selves took on personalities.

When it was time to color in our selves, however, the mood changed (as it usually would each year).  Choosing the right color for hair, skin, hands, lips made everyone a bit tense.  I watched as Hispanic children wrestled with the right shade of brown, tan, or beige.  African-American children struggled with why they were called "black" and what did it mean that they wanted to use the same shade of brown as their Hispanic classmates.  Asian children wondered why someone had suggested yellow as a skin color and no one wanted to be "white"...except those who just didn't want to do any coloring at all.  We spent hours talking about colors and how they didn't define us accurately.  I remember "Maggie" being the last to choose her skin color.  She chose "rose,"  a soft strong pink, because she thought it was the most beautiful...and she wanted to be seen as beautiful and sweet like a flower. 

But it was the shift that came with the choosing of eye colors that astounded me that year.  Our joy returned.  Everyone felt that they could mix and match colors for their eyes.  We spent one afternoon moving from person to person, just looking deeply into eachother's eyes, trying to describe the colors we saw, to one another.  There were stripey blue-green eyes with spots of gray, deep brown eyes that sparkled with golden glitter, and gray eyes streaked with purple.  There were eyes like shards of pottery, and eyes that looked like the ocean on a summer's day, eyes as dark as a midnight sky and eyes as pale as the blue snow of the arctic. 

I will never forget, however, the color of Maggie's eyes. Once we'd finished our describing exercise, and were sent off to color in our own eyes..supplementing those one-on-one shared descriptions with visits to the long mirror in the back of the room...we were alone with our flatter selves.  I came up behind Maggie kneeling tenderly over her paper doll self in the far corner, and almost gasped.  She had painted rainbows in each of her eyes and sprinkled the paint with glitter.  Then she had drawn a big eye on her chest where her heart would have been and painted it in with a glowing, glittering sun...again, spirinkled with glitter. 

I kneeled down next to her and watched her work, her forehead crinkled in concentration until she sat back on her bottom and heaved a big sigh.  I asked her if she would tell me about her eyes...especially the one in her chest.  She said that the eye in her heart was the one that was like the sun.  It made everything she saw turn into rainbows even when it was gray and cloudy in her mind. 

I've never forgotten it.   I ask you, "who was really the teacher that day?"

What color would your eyes be?

Thanks Maggie...who introduced her end-of the-year self portrait to us as Marguerite with confidence and joy...I love the color of your eyes...

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"Teach your parents well..."

"You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye…"
- Graham Nash

Last Saturday we graduated our son and 61 of his friends from high school.  It was a commencement full joy and tears.  There was the traditional hymn of welcome as the seniors entered the gym.  It begins:

"In heavenly love abiding
No change my heart shall fear
For safe is such confiding
For nothing changes here…"
- Waring

This is the part where I usually cry.  But this year I didn't.  I know these young men and women.  I know their hearts, their dreams, their concerns and their hopes.  They were ready.  I wasn't ready for them to switch their tassels and launch out far beyond the coffeehouse I often run into them at, but they are more than ready to change the world they live in through service to others and ethical choices.

There were inspirational readings and speeches, more songs and the distribution of diplomas…but it was this statement, from one of the members of the Class of 2007, that I scribbled (I learned a long time ago, that when kids talk…have a pen ready) onto my blue and gold embossed program:

"The only failure is not taking the risk to serve."

This axiom from Zachary Lee Barron (make note of this name, I am certain that you will see it again) symbolized, for me, the heart of this generation.  It is a message that they bring to the table for each of us…young, and those with more calendar days under our belts…to chew on, digest, and hopefully assimilate into our very being.  It is this message that they breathe into the atmosphere of their future and I intend to inhale deeply.

Zach went on to quote Nelson Mandela (a man who didn't join a peace movement..but IS one) in his riveting remarks and, for me, time stood still.  This young man is the offspring of my generation, the "make love, not war" children of the 70s…but with an added grace and a fire in his belly for reform that is tempered by wisdom.  I know Zach and his friends…they will make a difference.  They give me great hope that it is possible to turn the tide of self-indulgent consumerism and bad boy/girl-based celebrity around.  They'll make service to others, the ethical use of resources, and personal integrity a tsunami-like catalyst for change.

"…And you of tender years
Can't know the fears
That your elders grew by
And so please help Them
with your youth
They seek the truth…"

So, as I walked out of McCalmont Gymnasium on June 5, 2007, the future looked brighter.  I clutched my program with Zach's statement scribbled on it, to my heart…it was 1972 and 2007 all at once. No, they can never fully know what fears we have faced down in getting from there to here…but perhaps we have provided them with waymarks, a rallying cry, and some very strange costumes along the road towards their own peace movement.  And maybe, just maybe…if we leave our bell bottoms and love beads in the attic…they will let us join them…shoulder to shoulder as they lead the way.  If their code is "The only failure is not taking the risk to serve", I want a to march with them all along the way.

"...Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you..."

Thanks Zach…and to the Class of 2007 – wherever you are around the world - please ,

"Feed us on your dreams…"

with love, hope, and expectation,
Kate