"God gave me you…"

"God gave you
for the ups and downs.
God gave you
for the days of doubt.

For when I think
I've lost my way,
there are no words
here left to say,

It's true,
God gave me you..."

It's been wonderful living on the periphery -- witnessing, from a gentle distance -- a blessed wedding that will take place this weekend. Seeing dear friends gather to celebrate a couple's love for one another and their hope for the future -- well, I can't imagine a more beautiful view.

Thinking about marriage, and what it takes to open the door of our hearts and our lives so completely to another human being, takes my breath away. There is something so sacred about this holy space that Love carves out in us. And today, it's Blake Shelton's "God Gave Me You." that speaks to what I believe about marriage -- with all my being.

It's no secret that I've been divorced and remarried. And I've discovered that, generally, people think that I must have considered my earlier marriage a "mistake."

But that's not true. Not at all true. I believe that every marriage -- every relationship -- is blessed, sacred, and holy. I was deeply blessed by my earlier marriage. However I've come to learn that for me -- and I can only speak for myself -- relationships evolve.  They don't end. My children's dad and I -- with our current spouses -- are devoted parenting partners. I continue to be blessed by what we are learning together. It's just that now, we have expanded that circle to include more love.

I am learning that we never really end any relationship. We continue to think about the people who have been in our lives. And that act of "thinking about" them is always in done the present. We don't actually think in the past. So, how we think of them - in any given "present" moment is our truth. And how we treat them -- in our thoughts, even as memory -- is all that matters.

This is what defines us -- our capacity to love without the permission of roles or reasons. We just continue to love -- honestly, appropriately, trustingly. It doesn't end, it just changes, or evolves.

I won't lie. To believe that my former spouse and I had once made a mistake -- and that we had now corrected it by "moving on," would romantically tie up all my loose ends up in a neat little bow. I could say, "whew, I got it wrong, and then, I got it right. Thank you God. Now I can be happy."

But that would put happiness on a personal, rather than a spiritual, basis. And it would also mean that at some point we had been separated from God's guidance, care, direction, and wisdom. It would mean that at some juncture, our omnipotent God either ceased to have all power in our lives, or He did have all-power, but He really didn't love us all that much. Otherwise, wouldn't He/She have intervened on our behalf and saved us from our mistakes?

Nope, I can't afford the luxury of that thinking. It would send a fissure through every holy place in my heart, shattering my trust in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who is impartial and universal Love.

The alternative is so much better.:

"God gave me you..."  

And not just the "you" I married, but all the yous in my life. Family members, neighbors, friends, fellow parents at school -- everyone.

Every person in my life, for whatever reason, is God-appointed, God-annointed, and God-sent as a blessing. Or as Blake sings, we are all part of "a divine conspiracy" designed for our spiritual awakening.

As I learn to let love unfold itself in my heart, within the context of each relationship I am learning something new about my capacity to reflect the divine Source of that love. I discover that "Love is reflected in love" -- unconditional love, impartial love -- in me, through me, as me. No exceptions.

But, I haven't always seen it this way. In fact, there was a time when I thought I had the privilege of choosing whether to love, how to love, and when to love the people in my life. I doled love out like a commodity -- and hoped it would return in kind. When it didn't, I judged the relationship as either good, or "not so good," and adjusted my affection, and expectations, accordingly.

But this never worked. I was always on the edge, waiting for something to improve -- or to end. If someone hurt me, I had the right to expect an apology. If I hurt someone else, I deserved to feel regret, sorrow, and hope for their forgiveness.

It was all in our hands. We determined the success or failure of our relationships. And God help us, if we were doomed from the outset by a poor initial choice.

Then one day I actually realized that I was dishonoring God with this thinking. It was unholy. It left God out of His own creation.

So, you may ask, if this is the case, how could I possibly allow myself to even entertain the concept of "divorce." To be honest, I never did. I was completely intractable when it came to my commitment of "making it work."

But then one day, there was an inbreaking of the heart -- and from that space of surrender, grace began to flow. Where once, I was rigid about what a "spiritual outcome" had to look like, there was a new gentleness and humility.

Something shifted, and I felt led towards a kinder version of myself. I was willing to let God unfold a more authentic relationship with my former spouse. An honest relationship that was/is filled with fresh hope and a more radical trust in God's plan for each of us -- individually and collectively. A relationship based on God's love for him, for our children, and yes, for me.

The other day, as I was thinking about marriage, and the beauty of weddings -- first weddings, second weddings -- and in some cases third or fourth marriages. And I was reminded of Mary Baker Eddy's wedding blessing from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"May Christ, Truth,
be present at every bridal altar
to turn the water into wine
and to give to human life
an inspiration by which
man's spiritual and
eternal existence may be discerned."  

Every bridal altar. What promise!

Eddy, herself, was a new bride -- three times. And I pray with all my heart that she felt beautiful, pure, hopeful, filled with promise -- each time. I pray that we all do.

Whether the "new" relationship in your life is the birth of a child, the resurrection of a once-stale friendship, a business partnership that excites you, or a first, second, or third walk down the aisle -- may it feel like a miracle. For in each case, it is.  It is a divine gift. A gift of grace.

I know -- because God gave me you. Each of you.

"There are no greater miracles known to earth
than perfection
and an unbroken friendship."  

with great hope, and always with Love,

Kate

"You'll be blessed..."

"And you,
you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky...
I promise you that
I promise you that..."

There are moments in life that, as they are happening, you know they are being etched into your heart forever.  You begin cataloguing sounds, images, feelings...capturing them for eternity.   Each memory a puzzle piece that contributes to an exquisite photograph held in the heart.

Saturday, my nephew Sasch, married his bride Stephanie.  It was such a lovely day...bright blue Colorado skies above a pine and aspen blanketed mountain, a pristine lake high in the Rockies...and love...so much love.

I think I held it together pretty well...that is, until Sascha's mother-son dance with my sister, Lila.  From the first strain's of Elton John's "You'll Be Blessed," I was a goner.  But then so were the rest of my sisters and my mom.  

We know the depth of her love for this son.  We have witnessed the devotion, strength, and grace that she has shown as a mother.  We've had front row seats to their mutual respect, shared joys, and deep admiration for eachother. 

Watching my sister's face was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.  It was like watching a beautiful sunset wash across the sky.  Twenty-two years of mother-love passed through her eyes during that dance. 

I felt so privileged to be there.  Mary Baker Eddy's poem, "Mother's Evening Prayer," seems to capture the depth and breadth of feeling we witnessed.  And all were blessed.

"O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye
Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall:
His habitation high is here, and nigh,
His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear,
For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain!
Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear
No ill, — since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
"Lo, I am with you alway," — watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain;
No night drops down upon the troubled breast,
When heaven's aftersmile earth's tear-drops gain,
And mother finds her home and heav'nly rest."

I saw my sister's heart find rest in her son's happiness that afternoon...and felt so blessed to be a witness.


such love,

Kate

"...touching the web of transcendence..."

"Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a soul like me
I once was lost
But now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see..."

Our daughter,  Loren, is a filmmaker.  Her lens is primarily focused on the exquisitely beautiful, gloriously wonderful world of dance.  As a talented dancer herself, the "eye" she brings to the transcendent relationship between space, body, and movement is extraordinary.  So when she posted a wedding video on her Facebook page, I was mystified.  It seemed almost, well...pedestrian.  Fascinated as I always am with the lives and interests of our children, I opened the link immediately.  Was I ever wrong!  There was nothing benign about its message for me.  I was moved...deeply.

What Loren has captured in 6 minutes, is amazing.  As one wedding guest guilelessly admits, in the film:

"They've taken all the cynicism out of me...all of it."

Well, even though I have no cynicism about marriage, watching this film took something out of me too. It took away the inner tension I've felt for a long time at not having "the right words" on an issue that I care deeply about.  And Loren's film has given voice to, what I feel is, a vital message about the basic human right to marry, to unite with another as loving lifepartners in a faithful, monogamous, committed relationship.  

As a spiritual thinker, I see our individual and collective desire to marry...to give up self-interest for a life-partnership with another person...as evidence of the divine, as proof that hope is transcendent .   But knowing how to say all of this, have it come out right, and make a difference, without sounding like you are on some kind of soapbox...especially when the social conversation about marriage has become so steeped in gender bias, political rhethoric, and religious relativism...is not only difficult, it often feels impossible.

Yet, in this short film Carrie, Jessica, their friends, and family...with the help of Loren's care, wisdom, and deftness as a filmmaker, interviewer, and editor...have been able to actually "dance" a definition of marriage that, I think, is universal and deeply authentic.  And at the same time, in this brief 6 minutes, they've been able to communicate a living, moving, breathing, deeply felt answer to the question: "why do you want/need to marry..." that is heartbreakingly honest and real. 

This film takes my breath away, and in light of the national debate about whether some marriages should even be legalized, it reminds me that I have lived a privileged life as a person who is able to act on my hopes and dreams...and marry freely.

I will let the message of Carrie and Jessica's wedding stand on its own merit through Loren's short, but powerful, film: "The Wedding of Jessica Robinson Love and Carrie Baum Love": 

In their celebration, Carrie and Jessica quote Daphne Rose Kingma:

"Marriage is love in the round.  Marriage is loving in every direction. 

"We marry not only to be loved, to be consoled through the miracle of company, to feel secure, to have a person and a place to whom we can come home to have our own needs met, we marry also to come into the presence of our own capacity to love...to nurture, to heal, to give, and to forgive.

"Marriage is an invitation to transcend the human condition.  For in stepping beyond the self-focus of wanting to have only our own needs met, in schooling ourselves in the experience of putting another human being, and his or her needs, in a position of equal value to our own, we touch the web of transcendence, the presence of the divine. "

I love this definition of marriage. It so closely aligns with my understanding of "why" we marry.  I believe that it is in the context of marriage...in this "us-ness" of committing ourselves to one another...that we begin to dissolve the skin-based boundaries of the "personal," and start to discover what it means to live out from the space of an un-selfed, better self.  And, sometimes this expansion of the "id" continues, and we begin to think, live, and love out from not only our partner, but our children.  First one, then two, three...eight...a family, a village. And like a balloon that stretches to a new form and can never go back to it former shape...we can never go back to living lives of self-centeredness and isolation. We are forever changed. 

The biological outlines that define us in terms of, "me" and "thee" begin to dissolve.  We are now larger, more inclusive, more expansive in our loving than we ever even imagined possible.  The "we" begins to include stepchildren, birthparents, grandparents, in-laws, the new spouses of former spouses....and on, and on.   We are no longer making decisions based on "me, me, me, or my and mine..."  But begin to think, speak, act our from a more expansive "us, our, we..."  We are no longer defined by our physiology, but by the size of our hearts, the reach of our spiritual and emotional bodies.

And this way of being in relationship, of being in the world, can only work if we truly love...generously, selflessly, purely.  Marriage, parenting, blended and expanding families must start with this kind of love. The love that Carrie and Jessica are talking about...the kind of love that lays down a limited, and limiting sense of identity for the opportunity to live for others. 

I have to ask myself, "Why would I ever want to stifle that kind of love?  Why would I want to compartmentalize it, sort it, and name it?  Why would I ever want to trivialize love by categorizing it as right love and wrong love?"  And I continue to ask myself, "Does Love know colors, genders, dogmas, creeds, body parts, or ethnicities?"  I have come to believe, that to Love, there really is,  

"...neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female:
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
- Galatians

I believe, that to God, the source of all good, love is love.  And anyone who has enough courage to say that they want to work at a loving relationship...devotedly, persistently, committedly...through the institution of marriage, has my prayers. I trust that God, in His omnipotent grace and gentle wisdom, is guiding us all in the path of His appointing. It is not mine to judge anyone else's journey, only to watch what fills my own heart, since my heart is all that I can ever really keep watch over anyway.

As Carrie's aunt says in the film:

"To me love is still the most precious thing in the world,
and maybe the hardest to achieve. 
I wish them love, always."

As I watch this, yet again, I am struck by Carrie and Jessica's inclusion of "Amazing Grace" as part of their sacred celebration.  It makes sense to me tonight.  "Amazing Grace" was written in 1773, by John Newton, captain of a, then legally sanctioned, slave transport ship.  One night a terrible storm battered his vessel so severely that he became frightened enough to call out to God for mercy, a moment that marked the beginning of his spiritual conversion. This was his heart's song of repentance pouring out in notes, and words, and gratitude for  grace...amazing grace.   A grace that eventually spread...with the help of his ministry, his friends, and this song...through a society, a country, the civilized world.  And because of his heart's penitent awakening, today, slavery is abolished.  And men, and women, of color are free. 

Freedom still burns as a hunger in the hearts of men and women.  The freedom to love whom we love, and make promises to them, before God...without fear of judgment and persecution.  I believe that it is this longing to free ourselves from self-absorption, and the right to live immersed in devotion and affection, that urges us towards greater compassion and grace.

I believe that when we unite with another, we free ourselves from boundaries of the ego, and move more largely and expansively in the world.  We give wings to our hopes, hopes that we might just be more than isolated physical bodies, and we become defined. more closely, with the ways we yield self for the greater good of the "us."  We cease to be lost in ourselves and discover that we have found our own brilliance, in celebrating another's good...their dreams, hopes, talents, and interests.

I wish us, all of us, love...always...unending love, amazing grace,

Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

a friend sent this quote to me tonight:

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
- Anais Nin

Namaste my friend, k.

"I loved her first..."

"...I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at me
I knew the love of a father runs deep
And I prayed that she'd find you someday
But it still hard to give her away
I loved her first..."
- Heartland

As a lyricist, primarily known for writing (and loving) wedding songs, how did this one, "I Loved Her First," (click on the title to hear the song) get by me...and more bafflingly, why didn't I write it???

There are a few songs in this world that from the very first time I hear the "hook," I wish I could start the moment over...and listen to it for the first time...again, and again, and again.  My own musical version of the film "Ground Hog Day."  This song was no different.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Early Sunday morning I scooted through a security checkpoint at St. Louis Lambert Airport, to board a flight for Los Angeles, where my friend Dick Davenport would pick me up and whisk me off to Palos Verdes for his daughter Beth's wedding. 

Beth had been in my Sunday School class for three years, I'd been her sponsor for a stunning Senior project on liturgical dance, and we've become very close friends over the last seven years.  Beth and her family have never been less than kind, compassionate, generous and embracing.  Dad Dick, mom Jerri, sisters Amanda and Natalie, and brother Brian are as dear to me as my own family.

When Beth and Ricahrd asked me to co-officiate their wedding, I was honored by the invitation, and humbled by their recognition of, and enduring trust in, my commitment to the sacrament of marriage.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect.  I was home from camp, the girls were on holiday in Maine, Jeff would be at work in Boston, and Mollie would get to have a playdate with her new puppy-friends - Izzie and Kaylie and their family, the Dooracks.  Saying yes was a joy.

I had met Beth's fiancé the first week they started dating. It was the beginning of their freshman year of college, and she brought him to Sunday School with her.  I knew he was "the one" by the way he loved what was most important in this world to her with as much devotion as she did...her family. 

The Davenport family makes a person feel like they have found something rare and beautiful in this world when they take you in, and care for your heart.  And Richard, Beth's fiancé was taken into their hearts and home with complete, pervasive, and unconditional love. And he fit right it. He laughed at all the right spots in movies like Stripes and Anchorman with Brian. He became another big brother (along with Amanda's, then fiance'...now husband, Ben) to Natalie, and he was every bit a part of Davenport family gatherings...talking, playing games, helping with whatever projects needed an extra pair of hands.

And he "got" Bethany. He loved her, as much as her parents and siblings did. I have always loved the way Beth shares every bit of her life with her family.  They laugh, cry, pray, and work together.  And Richard joined her in that sharing.  I have watched them grow as a couple, and as an integral part of the Davenport family tapestry of living and giving...and it is a beautiful fabric...without seam or rent.

However, as much as I have loved watching the tender relationship Beth has with her siblings and mom, having spent my post high school years without a dad, it was her relationship with Dick that has been most endearing and instructive to me.

Jerri and Dick have beautiful relationships with each of their children, but Beth and Dick have a relationship that can best be described as "choreography".  It is more beautiful than a ballet and more remarkable than the synchronization of hundreds of aspen leaves turning towards the sun on a bright Colorado morning.  There is an ease of movement...light one moment, strong and sure the next...that characterizes the beauty of what I have witnessed over the years. And it is this same sense of choreographed beauty that was tangible at the reception when the DJ announced that they would be taking the dance floor for their daddy-daughter dance. Dick and Bethany taught ballroom and swing dancing together at her high school, and there was an almost weightless sense of movement through space between them. It speaks to the nature of their relationship as father and daughter...a burdenless joy, a trust-filled peace.

I have written wedding songs just for the purpose of daddy-daughter dances, and so my heart was momentarily suspended in air while I waited for the first chords to resonate through the room so that I could identify a familiar love song.  But when the music started, I didn't recognize it...at all. Since I love wedding songs...and lyrics...I listened closely to each word...hanging on phrases that caught me off guard.

And when I heard Heartland's swell - a growing crescendo of parental love - towards the line, "...but I loved her first, and I held her first..." there was an immediate catch in my throat, tears burst from my eyes and heart, and a sob leapt from my chest without warning.

To see Dick waltzing Beth around the dance floor was breath-taking in light of these lyrics.  I can't imagine there was a dry eye in the house, but I will never know because soon I couldn't see for the sting of my own tears.

It was the highlight of my day. I felt as if I had waited seven years to see that one dance. I had to leave the reception soon after their dance, to catch a red-eye flight back to St. Louis so that I could welcome the girls back from Maine, but I spent the next 11 hours from there to here, thinking about that song...about Beth, Richard, Dick and Jerri, and their families, looking for a spiritual lesson...and benediction...in that deeply moving moment.

What I began to wrestle with, first, in the wee small hours of the morning high over Colorado or Kansas, was my own sadness. Sorrow that, because of my dad's untimely passing, I had never known a daddy-daughter dance. I felt deep sorrow that so many young men and women, for whatever reason, might never experience the kind of relationship with their parents...or step-parents...that I saw reflected in Dick and Beth's faces as they waltzed around and around, Dick leading her lightly over the the gleaming wood of the dance floor. They might never know the look of love and joy on a mother's face, the way Jerri's face looked as she watched them sweep and dip, laugh and twirl together in time with the music.. 

I prayed deeply for all of us. Then it dawned on me, I do have that kind of a relationship with my divine Parent...with my Father-Mother God...we all do.  He/She "loved us first".  Or as John promises in I John:

"We love him, because he first loved us."

He first loved us...from even before "the first breath we breathed" or first smiled at our moms, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents or friends...we knew the love of a Father that runs deep.  And we have always known how it feels to have a Father-Mother who never  has to give us away...but shares us with eachother so that we can show Him that we have learned the lessons of loving unconditionally He has so generously, patiently, and wisely taught us.

Whether you are a bride like Beth in a diaphanous white gown, an Indian princess in a brightly colored sari, a young mom alone in an apartment hoping for love, and cherishing the qualities of husband (and father) you long to bring into your child's life, a shy Iraqi bride in a burka, a fifty (or seventy) something bride standing face-to-face with the love of her life...again, a couple on the steps of a San Francisco courthouse, or a teen bride exchanging vows with your young groom just before he ships out for a desert base in the Mid East on his first tour of duty...you have a Father who loved you first.  And you have a Mother who cherishes the strength of that relationship, and the tenderness with which you are held in his arms as He dances you through life...one stanza at a time.

Beth's wedding was a gift to me.  Not only did I have the privilege of standing with her, and Richard, as they pledged themselves to one another, before their family and friends.  But I was reminded, in the dark afterglow of a beautiful wedding, while flying through a clear moonlit sky, that I have a Father "who loved me first"...we all do.

Congratulations Beth and Richard...may your hearts grow together in faith, hope, trust, grace...and love...never forgetting that He loved you first.

always, 
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

[photo credit: Darcey Snyder 2009]

"...I know that it's time for a cool change.."

"If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
There's lots of those friendly people
Showin' me ways to go
And I never want to lose their inspiration

But, it's time for
a cool change...
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life
is so pre-arranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change..."
"Cool Change"
- The Bellamy Brothers
(click on the title above to hear the song)

Changes are in the air...and they are cool...and wonderful.  Graduations, weddings, new jobs, promotions, babies, travel.  Cool changes. 

Someone recently asked me, "If you could give only one gift, the same one to each person making a life transition this month, what would it be?"

It was easy.  The space to be alone, to be still, and to listen in that silence for the voice of the Divine, God, Allah, Jah, Supreme Being...or whatever you call Her.

This is the most valuable part of any day for me.  It is the "one thing" I cannot live without.  I can do without food, water (for a time), conversation, friends, books (this one is hard...but not impossible), the company of my loved ones (even harder)...but I cannot live without the space to commune with God.

It is a change of direction that I seek throughout my days when everything points towards tasks, deadlines, timetables, and schedules...outcomes and accomplishments, to stop and turn away from that momentum and be still.

It is a cool change.  It is refreshing, invigorating, soothing, and inspiring.  It feeds me and cleanses my palate all at the same time.  It is wonderfully simple and deeply complex.  It is richly sumptuous and pure light coincidentally.  It is what gives me the kind of joy that none can take away.

Whether it is your wedding day or your first day of work at the most wonderful new job you could imagine...the birth of your first child or the launching of your catamaran out to sea after retiring from a long illustrous career...it will never be more glorious than hearing the voice of God in the silence of your own heart...inspiring you, giving you encouragement, direction, guidance, solace.

It has taken me many years to more fully develop a practice of silence and deep listening that sustains me.  And the more I practice it, the more I hunger for it.  And that silence doesn't require a closet, a church, or a sanctuary...boat alone on the sea, or a chapel in the woods.  It can be practiced in the midst of a concentration camp (as proven in the lives of thought luminaries like Corrie TanBoom and "Jeremy"), a prison cell (think of Paul, Ghandi, Mandela), a war-torn desert, a large family, a high school cafeteria, a wedding reception, or even a rock concert.  As the word practice implies, it takes practice...but that's the fun of it. 

Start out with silent places (church, your bedroom, a garden) and work up to carving out silence spaces...within yourself...in the midst of more stimulating places -- it .  

I wish I could give each of you one hour a day alone within the sanctuary of your own consciousness...the province governed by the divine.  But this is not a gift anyone can give you...it is a gift you must give yourself.  But it is not a selfish gift.  It is a gift that, when practiced, can't help but bless others in ever-widening circles of love and inner peace.

When you walk away from a confrontation, an event...even a joyous one, the demands of a busy schedule, and re-calibrate yourself in alignment with the Source of your divine nature and purpose, everyone is blessed and benefited.

Imagine you are in the middle of your wedding reception and you step away for a moment or two...into the garden, in the stairwell, behind the curtain...to center your heart on God's hand in your life, your new marriage, your purpose, to give thanks, to ask, "How can I most serve You in this moment?" and then listen for the answer.  Imagine the look of peace that you will radiate from your entire being when you return to the festivities.  Imagine the tone you will set...much like a tuning fork sets the perfect pitch in tuning a piano.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege and joy of attending a James Taylor concert in a small concert hall with a generous friend.  Time and again during the concert (an event I had waited since 1970 to experience...JT up close and personal...oh my goodness!!!) I was called away by my phone for a conversation and then to pray...or to pray during the conversation.  It was my favorite part of the night...to realize that as much as I loved JT's voice, his songs, his lyrics...I loved the voice of God even more!!  I never once felt "interrupted" by a call, but it felt as if the calls were making the concert more wonderful, more rich, more sacred.  Each call was a reminder that God's voice was my favorite voice. 

So, as we all enter this season of cool changes, I pray that we each love ourselves enough to give the bride...the new mom, the recent graduate, the concert-goer, the healer...within ourselves, the gift of silent spaces with God. 

"...If there's one thing in my life that's missing
It's the time that I spend alone
Sailing on the cool and bright clear waters
It's kind of a special feeling
When you're out on the sea alone
Staring at the full moon like a lover

Time for
a cool change...
I know that it's time
for a cool change
Now that my life is so prearranged
I know that it's time
for a cool change..."

dearest love...hopes, and dreams fulfilled...to each of you,
Kate
Kate Robertson, CS

"White lace and promises..."

"We've only just begun to live,
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we're on our way.
And yes, We've just begun.

Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.

And when the evening comes we smile,
So much of life ahead
We'll find a place where there's room to grow,
And yes, We've just begun..."
-     Paul Williams/Roger Nichols

I didn't know her well...yet.  My friend's mother was a retired widow with a generous heart. When she learned that I had been through a devastating heartbreak, she offered her home as a quiet sanctuary where I could rest, pray, and begin to heal.

I was grateful for her hospitality…and more than a little bit shy.  I had visited her home before, but always in the company of her children.  This time I was there alone.  I arrived late one evening, emotionally and physically exhausted, falling into bed after a brief, warm greeting and being shown to the room I would stay in.  The next morning I tiptoed down the stairs just after dawn hoping to make myself a cup of tea and retreat back to my room before she stirred.  But as I rounded the bottom of the stairs, I was surprised to discover that she was already up, and sitting on the sofa in front of an open photo album.  

After polite "good mornings", I asked if she would mind if I made myself a cup of tea and excused myself to the kitchen with her permission.  Minutes later I returned, tea in hand and found her sitting exactly as I had left her…this time a faded black and white photograph in hand, and a faraway look on her face.

I asked her if it was a lovely memory and she smiled and patted the cushion next to her. 

As I joined her on the blue plaid sofa, she passed the photo to me and told me that it was her wedding picture.  I was not surprised to see a younger version of the kind and gentle woman sitting next to me...smiling, from within the circle of a lanky, grinning young man's embrace, for the photographer.  She was in a simple outfit and her expression was peaceful. 

I asked her about her wedding.  She explained that she and her groom had chosen a simple ceremony with just a few guests.  I was surprised.  It was curious to me...as a rather romantic young woman who had cut her teeth dreaming through the dog-eared pages of Bride magazine...that someone would actually choose to not have a big beautiful wedding if they possibly could, and asked her why she hadn't. 

Her story was simple.  But I have never forgotten it. 

She told me that she had met her future husband in church one Sunday just after he had begun exploring spirituality and attending her place of worship.  They fell in love and he proposed.  She said that she thought about a big, fancy wedding, but that planning one would take time.  She knew that her groom's spiritual integrity was the most important thing to him…and to her.  She also knew that "waiting" through a long engagement, in order to carry out extensive wedding plans, might be difficult for him.  So she decided that she would rather have a husband who felt the deep inner strength of his spiritual integrity and courage, than have a big wedding.  So she suggested that they get married right away in a simple, modest wedding. 

She smiled sweetly when she said that she gave up a fancy wedding and a big beautiful dress for a wonderful man.  She went on to say that she never regretted that decision.

This story touched me deeply.  My admiration and love for this new friend was forged...and galvanized...by this story.  I have never forgotten it…or her.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says, "Marriage should improve the human species, becoming a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to man, and a centre for the affections. This, however, in a majority of cases, is not its present tendency, and why? Because the education of the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations, - passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment, display, and pride, - occupy thought."

Over the years I have been amazed at the wisdom and spiritual maturity this, then, very young woman displayed at a time when women were given little credit for making wise choices and thoughtful decisions.   What a blessed young man she married.  What a blessing she was to me.  Her example of true bridal beauty and grace continues to give me pause. 

Humbly, 
Kate

Two Weddings and a Manger

It was early December and there were still so many details needing attention.  Not only was it Christmas and for the first time in years I would be deeply embosomed in the heart of my large family, but I was in the middle of planning my wedding as well as helping my younger sister plan hers.  Our weddings would take place five days apart with Christmas Day sandwiched right in the middle to take advantage of having friends and family there for the holiday week.


I was standing on College Avenue in Fort Collins ready to hit one more used/vintage/nearly new clothing store in search of something special to wear as a bride with no budget.  It was  a bright, snowy day with temperatures in the 20’s.  But the Colorado sun, a mile closer to the earth, warmed my face to the point of feeling the first tingle of a sunburn.  I had instinctively turned towards the sun as I closed my eyes in prayer for guidance and direction while time and resources were waning.  Immediately the title of a recently published inspirational article,  "Maintaining the Manger Attitude" by Marian English* came to thought.   That morning I had grabbed the new issue of the Christian Science Sentinel on my way out the door to do errands.  I had noticed the title thinking I would read the article as I was waiting in line at the grocery store or at the long stoplights on streets busy with holiday shoppers.

I felt a bit blue that day in spite of my mission and the beautiful setting.   There was so much to do.  The burden of getting it all done in a short period of time was weighing heavily that morning on College Avenue.  How would I find something "bridal" to wear for less than $10, decorate the large lodge on a shoestring as well as graciously host the more than two hundred people that would be converging in Colorado for both weddings.  Talk about no room in the Inn..."we don't even have a manger" I thought as I felt tears of frustration form in the corners of my eyes. 

My "also a bride" sister, Lila,  had offered to meet me that morning as I searched yet one more Goodwill-type store for something that I could creatively customize into bridal attire.  As I waited for her to arrive I prayed with just the title of that article since I had left the magazine on the seat of the car parked five blocks away.  What would the "manger attitude" look, feel, and sound  like?  Hmm...all I could imagine was peace...peace filling the rafters of that modest structure, peace descending on the straw, peace laying its mantle on a mother's heavy heart and on a father's furrowed brow, peace in the cattle's "lowing", peace in the coo of a dove.  Peace, as the old Christmas carol that I had loved as a child, said:

"How silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heaven."
-O Little Town of Bethlehem

The wondrous gift wasn't going to be in finding the $1,000 we needed to pay for the food for our modest reception, or even in figuring out how we would help our 100+ guests find lodging in a remote mountain town.  The wondrous gift would be given to me each moment I found

"Peace on earth, goodwill to men"

throughout the moments of my days filled with errands, purchases, decisions and waiting, waiting, waiting...for R.S.V.P. cards, promised callbacks from vendors and suppliers, traffic lights to change and solutions to reveal themselves like the light from a star in the quiet stillness of my manger heart.

Something settled deeply in my heart as I stood there.  Lila arrived and I was no longer on a hunt for bridal wear, candles, options or bargains.  I was moving through moments of revelation abiding in a manger and taking it with me everywhere I went.   We walked into the nearly new shoppe where I had been standing.  Within moments I found an old cream-colored wool sweater for 50 cents.  I would later boil and cut it down to create an Austrian-styled boiled wool jacket exactly like the one  I had seen for over $200 at a local mountain wear shoppe.  Further back in that little store we found an antique petticoat that would serve as a skirt once I dyed it in a large pot of weak tea to give it an aging that would match the jacket.  Cowboy boots were purchased for $2 and painted cream for another $1.79.  A gross of candles were offered by a supplier at bargain basement prices because the wax had bubbles in it.   Within hours, details I thought would take weeks to tick off my list were resolved without a hitch. 

My focus became:

"Let every heart prepare Him room..."

I was no longer a bride putting on a wedding...I was a shepherd preparing a place for my lambs, a mother finding a quiet space for my child, a dove sweeping the cobwebs from the rafters of the stable for a King.  Each guest was the Christ child coming to rest in the embrace of this "bridal feast."  I was a host serving "the Lord of hosts" who loved his servant and provided her with all she needed for preparing this feast of Soul.

As you can see, Christmas carols became prayers and provided my heart with the food it needed for its own daily feast.  I stopped worrying about how we would pay for the food.  I just needed to appreciate the table that was being set before me each hour. 

Later that week, the camp that had offered us the use of their lodge and kitchen for our wedding and reception decided to also offer over 150 of our guests free lodging in gratitude for our previous pro bono work when their budgets were tight.   They even provided staffing for our event as well as the chef for our reception fare.  The staff had already been hired and were on hand to care for their own guests later that week.  All that was left to cover was the actual cost of the food which came to the same amount as the cash we received as wedding gifts.   One guest even carried in boughs of holly from her Massachusetts home to cover the broad fireplace mantle.  The large Christmas tree in the lodge had given up enough branches at its trunk to wrap the lodge beams in pine.  Fifty yards of water-damaged, cream-colored, satin ribbon was given to us by a local fabric store for draping through the greenery.  Just before the wedding a friend arrived with antique snowshoes to place on the hearth and finish the "altar" with "something old."

What I learned from that Christmas over 20 years ago wasn't about a wedding and having everything work out perfectly because I prayed, thought the right thought, or created a mental environment where it could all become humanly perfect.  We are not, nor will we ever be that creative or that powerful...God is the only Cause and Creator.  What I did learn was already complete that day on College Avenue with the warmth of an early December Colorado sun on my face.  It was the gift of peace....it was the gift of each moment that I was still....a word that doesn't just mean "quiet or calm" but "nevertheless, without interruption"...as in "I am still with thee."

In that moment I discovered that I could either visit the manger or I could abide in it, take it with me, and offer its solace and stillness to those I shared space with throughout my day...

Where meekness will receive him
Still the dear Christ enters in.
- Phillips Brooks

...that even when the busy Inn looks like it has room for me and beckons to me from its well-lit and festive doorway, I can beg off my regrets and, from my heart's home in the manger, wave to those who seem to be rushing about madly to join me there.   There's room for all in the manger.  Let your heart prepare him--the Christ in humanity--and especially in yourself, room.

*(my experience with this Sentinel article was profound and resulted in many opportunties for spiritual growth,   healing, and the discovery of a deep and abiding peace.  Feel free to visit my website and read another article under the "How" section titled "Maintaining the Manger Attitude")

K

A prayer for your wedding....

"May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar
to turn the water into wine and to give to
human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual
and eternal existence may be discerned.
- Mary Baker Eddy

Someone I care for dearly is being married this weekend.  This has inspired me to revisit the above statement from the Chapter "Marriage" in Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and ponder its message, not only in reference to their marriage, but to all marriages -- including my own.

At a time when reality television offers us a peek into the best and the worst of weddings -- through programming as sweet as TLC's A Wedding Story, to the most uncharitable kind of voyeurism through the lens of Lifetime's Bridezilla -- this statement provides a spiritual grounding that brings me peace as I ponder this step for any couple.

Eddy's prayer - and I like to think of this statement as a prayer - asks that Christ be present at every bridal altar.  From simple vows taken and given in a silent chapel, to the elaborate drama of a hollywood gala with helicopters circling.  From one performed in the dust of an African village, to one officiated in a Scottish castle.  From a first marriage with the bride and groom having dated only each other - since middle school, to the fourth marriage of an octogenarian who met her beloved while in a wheelchair aerobics class.  

Each and every bridal altar deserves the benediction of Christ, Truth.  Each bridal altar is an opportunity for Christ to be present --  turning the water into wine.  Turning the purity of new love - which has refreshed hope and cleansed the palate of the past -  into a laboratory for enriching and un-selfing our better selves.  New opportunities to live with another - in communion and cooperation - as husband and wife.   

This week, I have been thinking about what makes every bridal altar so deserving of this prayer.  And my prayer have led me to one word -- hope.   It takes remarkable hope to approach the bridal altar -- at any stage in one's life.  Hope that self can be subdued by love.  Hope that grace will reign in our hearts and  homes.   Hope that our lives will be an inspiration of hope to others who may feel gun-shy or weary.  Those who may have given up on their dreams,  or are protecting tender hearts from another hurt. 

So today, I am celebrating hope.  Not only with this dear couple, but with their  children who hope that their parents have found their "one true love." -- again.   I am celebrating with parents who are hoping and praying that their sons and daughters will be cherished and supported in their dreams and desires.  I am celebrating with the friends and families who hope that their loved ones will be "in love" forever and ever, amen" as Randy Travis sings.

One of my favorite lyricists, Don Henley, sings his prayer in, "For My Wedding,"  It's a song that he wrote for his own marriage.  This song speaks to the hope I pray we all bring to the altar -- as brides, grooms, attendants, officiants, guests, parents, friends, and the children of couples who have found fresh hope.  it has been my prayer -- each day since the first time I heard it on the radio a few years ago:

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day

For my wedding, I don't want violins
Or sentimental songs about thick and thin
I want a moment of silence and a moment of prayer
For the love we'll need to make it in the world out there

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day

I dream, and my dreams are all glory and light
That's what I've wanted for my life
And if it hasn't always been that way
Well, I can dream and I can pray
On my wedding day

So what makes us any different from all the others
Who have tried and failed before us
Maybe nothing, maybe nothing at all
But I pray we're the lucky ones; I pray we never fall

To want what we have
To take what we're given with grace
For these things I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day

 

Dearest ones -- on your wedding day, when you are making a "sanctuary of your heart,"  I pray you are blessed with many things -- great love, profound kindness, deep faith, persistent patience, abiding tenderness, laughter -- but most of all -- hope.

Recently someone share this definition of "hope" with me: 

"to trust an unknown future to a known God"

For this I pray -- on your wedding day.

with all my love,

K