"Do one thing each day that scares you..."

"...Close your eyes and visualize
Nothing is impossible for those who try
Just dream to fly as eagles fly across the sky
I know we can...

Hold on when all hope is gone
The race may not be given to the swift or strong
It's given to The ones who can endure flaws
I know we can...

See the rainbow around us all
Hear the angels when they call
Find a way to reach Inside
Just dare to dream…."
-     John Legend

I am learning that, for me, the real goal is not in getting it right, but in facing my fears of failing…of falling on my face, of being seen as ridiculous, foolish, silly, not good enough.

But when you've already fallen on your face, when you, without meaning to, find that you have failed in the eyes of others, you discover that you survive it.  You look up and realize that the fall wasn't as far as it had seemed from the self-centered pedestal you had put yourself on.  And that if falling wasn't all that bad, you might as well try being courageous about things that mattered to you...the things you dream to do, but have never dared.

This is not a post about facing down lions on the African savanna or marching into battle with an opponent. This is a little story about facing a demon within. 

Eleanor Roosevelt once suggested that you, "do one thing each day that scares you."  My friend Randall Williams lives this axiom…actually, so do many of my friends, now that I think about it.  But it was Randall who turned me on to this concept and I am trying, to the best of my ability, to do it.  There are a lot of things that scare me.  I'm whittling away at that list day by day.  Last Sunday was one of those days. 

Saturday night my husband was rehearsing for the Sunday service.  Our "regular" musicians were all out of town and he was on deck.  He asked me if I had any suggestion for the mid-service song, and I recommended one of my favorites…an adaptation of the classic folk hymn "The River is Wide".  He asked me if I would sing it with him and it occurred to me that this would be a great time to face another fear.  We had sung in public before, but never in a congregational circle where all of the eyes would be on us…and especially in an intimate family-like group where our regular soloist has a gloriously beautiful voice and is much-loved for her inspiring vocals.   If singing in public was something I feared, being compared to others was something that terrified me.  So, this would be an opportunity to face two fears, all while serving my worship community.  We practiced the song in a key that worked for me and by 2AM I was feeling a bit more willing to give it a try. 

But by morning God made it clear that He had other things in mind.  I woke up early with the same melody we had practiced the night before singing through my head, but with a whole different set of lyrics.  And these lyrics, were amazing.  They were so perfectly suited to the theme of our worship service.  They felt like a prayer in song from a Poet God.  I got up, headed for my computer, typed them into a blank document, asked my husband to take a look at them, and I then I was stuck.  We were going to be singing the new lyrics.  Only they needed to be tweaked.  I had eight verses, we needed no more than five.  Consolidating eight stanzas into five was going to take some time, but I still needed a shower.  Thank goodness for laptops.

I was in and out of the shower in less than three minutes, grabbed the laptop...and the girls...and we were all in the car and headed to church in less than ten minutes. 

But that meant that I only had the fifteen minute drive to make the changes and there would be no time to practice.  But there was also no time to think about it all...this was a gift of sorts, in and of itself.

The service started, I opened my laptop so that we could read the new lyrics, and before long it was time for us to sing.  My stomach was in a knot, I started to sweat and the one thought I had was "do one thing each day that scares you."  "Okay God," I thought, "I love this little congregation and the fellowship I feel here, so let's go."  I looked across the circle into the warm encouraging smile of a friend and mouthed the word, "pray."  He nodded.   Jeff, with his beautiful tenor voice launched into the first verse and when it was time for me to sing the second verse, I bombed.  I mean I really tanked.  Not only could I not find the note in my key, I couldn't find the note or my key.  I was all over the map, musically, within the first line. 

My heart…and stomach…started to twist, and a voice inside my head said, "you don't have to do this, just let Jeff take if from here."  But in the same moment another voice said, "This isn't about you.  It's about the message.  It's about defeating fear…not your fear…just fear.  Go for it.  You don't have to get it right to have conquered fear, you just have to sing."  So I sang.

I'm glad I did. 

After the service I was concerned that my less than stellar performance interrupted the pure flow of the service.  That's when Jeff asked me a question.  He said, "During the service one of the readers lost his place and had to search for the next Bible citation.  How did that make you feel at the moment?"  I thought about it for a few minutes then answered, "well, it made me feel compassion for him, it made me love our sweet congregation where everyone is just doing their best to contribute in whatever way they can, I felt like we were a family just supporting one another."  "Exactly," he said, "and that's what you gave everyone else, the opportunity to feel compassion, to support you, to feel a sense of family caregiving."  I got it. 

And in that safe space of family, they gave me the opportunity to face down one more fear. 

Daring to dream, daring to face our fears, daring to fail, to expose ourselves in the company of family…and friends…is living a life full of opportunity, full of desire for growth in grace, full of prayer...not failure. 

with Love,
Kate

"Easy to be hard..."

"How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no…"
- MacDermot, Rado, Ragni

Today, I woke up with this song rattling around in me.  It was an anthem of promise in 1969. In those days my friends and I clutched it to our hearts like folded flags of social protest. We pledged that this song would never let us forget that the collective demise of individual responsibility for the greater good was something to mourn. We were the "all you need is love" generation. We imagined a world free of greed and self-interest. It was a dream worthy of our young hopes.  Today, this song does not resonate with sweetness. I don't find examining the breadth of my own contribution to fighting social injustice and economic inequity, 39 years later, easy. We are in the midst of a severe economic crisis. I somehow deluded myself into thinking that I was still actively protesting a haves and have-not society with most of my economic choices. But lately I am glaringly aware that I have tolerated chapters in my life when I thought I deserved the privilege of giving my children opportunities and things that I didn't demand for my urban neighbors. This is weighing heavily on my heart this morning. 

I am someone who does can about strangers, I care about "evil and social injustice"…I care about the bleeding crowd.  But am I there for a needing friend?  I don't know.  I don't know if I am there when those who really need help…really need help.  I pray that I am.  I pray today that I am not so caught up in wrestling with the implications of a $700 billion bailout….parsing the details, agonizing over the long term fallout, praying for clarity of thought, wisdom, and discretion on the part of our executive and legislative leaders…that I lose sight of a "needing friend."  I pray that I am awake to the needs of those nearest and dearest to me.  I am asking myself, "does my good friend need a Starbucks visit filled with laughter" more than I need to stay abreast of breaking news on MSNBC, does my mother need a phone call, does my "sister" need a loan, a message of encouragement, a shoulder to cry on?

I pray that I do not lose sight of the one small sapling sitting next to me withering in a drought, as I fuss over a forest of economic woes, global warming, and war.

For me, Three Dog Night's "Easy to be Hard" was always an anthem of protest against the heartlessness of "society's" greed and self-indulgence.  It was always something very far removed from the ideological tendencies of my socialist heart. 

But today I wonder…am I really all that different from the man in the near-armoured Hummer next to me in traffic? Do I hide behind my cell phone waving off the man offering to wash my windows for spare change at a stoplight?  Do I stop and actually speak with the woman at the intersection who is holding a sign that says "will work for food," or do I only roll down my window and hand her a dollar bill before the traffic light changes?  Do I congratulate myself on walking away from a department store bargain on last season's shoes, only to spend it at the grocery store on high-end out-of-season produce our family doesn't need, instead of taking canned goods to the local food bank? Do I live my social principles without self-indulgence?

The world is presenting us with images of poverty, want and despair so alarming that it is "easy to be hard."  Not only easy, but for some of us that hardness may seem critical to navigating this moment in history without falling apart emotionally. For many, the "hardness" is a protective veneer…it keeps poverty, loss, and disaster "out there," and if we can convince ourselves that it hasn't penetrated into the lives of those closest to us, it must not be standing on our doorstep or knocking at the portal of our own lives.

But I am discovering that the most immediate relief from fear of lost assets, is an abundance of love.   Fear of lack is smitten when we engage in a radical love for giving.  Fear of pain…destroyed when our love for extending comfort and gentleness is indulged.  Fear of loss…eradicated by a love for generosity and sharing our extensive spiritual gifts with others.  Fear of hatred…exterminated by a deep and penetrating love for our right to extend kindness…unconditionally.  And the closer the "here" of our giving and the nearness to the "now" of our loving...the better. Don't wait for a big project to present itself. Don't think you have to find the right charity or have a large block of time to serve in that soup kitchen. Those are great goals, but don't wait for those to surface to begin your charitable giving...your protest of social injustice and greed.  Do it right now with those who are most immediately present in your life.  Let the power of that great love within you reach out concentrically touching more, and more…and more with every pebble-like drop in the pool of family, friendship...humanity.

Try it. It feels so good!! And you will feel richer for it...right away.
Kate

"Helplessly hoping..."

"…Wordlessly watching,
she waits by the window
And wonders,
at the empty place inside…"
-     Stephen Stills

I will write this ever so briefly, because once your hopes of healing are realized…after a long siege…you want to tell the world to never stop hoping.

Over twenty-five years.  For over twenty-five years I have watched at the window of my soul for a sign of healing, redemption, peace…a reason for my hope.

Over the years there were glimpses and glimmers of promise, a flickering of "perhaps" but I'd be swallowed up in darkness before I could see clearly. But today it came.  It came from out of the blue…like a flash of lightning across the night sky…lighting up the darkest places in my heart, and revealing all the good locked up inside like a widow's storage unit found full of redeemable treasures, just when the power was about to be turned off.

Over twenty-five years of hoping there was an answer…a reason for it all.  

And in one moment's flash of Bible-based inspiration I was healed, whole, restored, completely free…

Of all the healings I have ever had...this one means more...more than I can even say in words...

Someday I will feel ready to say more.  This isn't a post about "the healing", but a song of rejoicing, a ink-stained tear of gratitude, a psalm of encouragement to others who feel like "strangers on a barren shore, laboring long and lone…"(Mary Baker Eddy).

God does know us…He knows our hearts, and in His time we will know His reasons for it all. Never give up. Never give up on your self...and never give up on God.

Could I be silent?  Ah, never…

With gratitude, love and great peace,
Kate

"Work like you don't need the money..."

"Work like you don't need the money,
love like you've never been hurt,
dance like noone is watching
live like it's heaven on earth."
-     Clark/Leigh

Last week my Bible study took me on a wonderful journey….it meandered through childhood premises held too long, up and over mountains of self-doubt and weariness, and shed new light on vistas reached in the darkness of wandering along by feel…not by sight.

I remember hearing grown-ups talking about how they would work hard, make money, spend wisely, save lots, and retire…and then they would be happy, having fun, living the dream.  Everything was geared towards that goal.  Hard work (i.e. a salary) was the path to nirvana…retirement.

I started my adult life with this goal.  Graduate from high school with honors, get a scholarship to the best university, go on to graduate school, post graduate studies in a field I loved, get a teaching job, save lots of money, retire and write….in between these steps I would have romances, get married, travel, dance, have children, be a super-mom (translate: teach college, campaign for public office, bake cookies, dance and write poetry…all while tan, trim and wearing tastefully attractive lingerie to keep my husband's interest in me alive...I did say this WAS my fantasy superwoman life...didn't I? One that girls and women have been sold for decades...but that's "a whole 'nuther" story girlfriend..snap, snap, snap, wave...). Back to today's train of thought... 

Well…my plan got hi-jacked early on.  I graduated from high school with honors and got that full-ride scholarship to my choice of universities but when dad passed on that same year I skipped a few steps and went straight into a combination of work hard, be a full-time surrogate mom (with my mom…I had seven younger brothers and sisters), go to school part-time, and earn money…but in this plan there was nothing left over for savings…retirement was out of the question.  So we worked.

I worked to have money so that we, as a family, could have what we needed to live….I worked so that we could live…in a home, not hungry, clothed, with lights and water.  Eventually we all worked so that we all could live, go to school, reach our potential, succeed.  Thanks to our socialist upbringing, I now believe we were hard-wired to accept the philosophy that "nobody wins until (and unless) everybody wins."  I actually think it is part of our DNA…a little motto inscribed on some xy chromosone that forms and defines the cellular memory of each molecule in our hearts. 

But I digress…(that was for you Clifford!) last week's Bible study led me to question the formula for success that defines life as:

Work = salary (money)
Money = having what you need + some for savings
Savings money = retirement
Retirement = no work
No work = success in life

Well, I conceded early on that it was unlikely I would ever be on this success track.  With a mom, seven brothers/sisters to partner with, and as a career educator my earning would, quite probably, never reach the point where all the family's needs were all met and I had some left over.  I was grateful to be in a profession that if I worked hard as a teacher and eventually as a professor, and published as an academic, retirement might never be required.   This became my goal. But even this left me still feeling like somewhat of a failure because I didn't know how I would ever get "there"...wherever "there" was. I had accepted my path, but it didn't feel like success. 

Then in walked God, in a real and life-defining way, and my plans were scattered like dust in a whirlwind.  Without as much as a side-long glance, I left my career as an educator and started serving Him.  I began working for my church in whatever way it needed me, while making myself publicly available 24/7 as a spiritual healer.   That was over 20 years ago and I've never looked back...although I have to admit that there have been times (especially in the beginning) when fear of poverty, an old car on its last legs, another night of rice and peas, and a stack of bills made me long for the security of a salaried job and a regular paycheck. 

Last week I realized that what I had done, without ever even realizing it until last week, was accept a new paradigm.  One that is defined in II Corinthians:

"…ye, having all sufficiency in all things
may abound to every good work."

I had given up the:

Work in order to have,
Have in order to retire,
Retire in order to not work

equation for success.

And accepted a new one:

I have all sufficiency from God
So that I can work..forever!

Work is my goal, my love, my success…I love my work!

I am no longer working so that I can eventually have something, save for retirement, and stop working.   I have all that I need each moment...from God (sometimes in the most surprising, charitable, and remarkable ways)...so that I will never have to stop working. God had, by sending me on this rather circuitous...and rugged...journey, wrested from my vise-like grip a singular strategy for reaching what I thought was the only acceptable model of success. 

Yea!!  I've discovered that it really is true, as Eddy says in Science and Health:

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

God's love for me...expressed as an abiding sense of love for, and responsibility to my family, and eventually my unwavering love for God...led me on a journey of discovery more wonderful and enduring than any other success plan I might have come up with. God leads each of us on a path that reveals more and more of His omnipotent love...for some that may very well look like the work, have, save for eventual retirement model...so that they can pursue "work" that they love, or whatever they desire.  I am just so grateful that He has given me work that I love today, since I plan to do it now...and forever...

with Love,
Kate

"Oh, nothing could change what you mean to me..."

"...Oh, once in your life you find someone
Who will turn your world around
Bring you up when you're feeling down...

Oh, nothing could change what you mean to me
Oh there's a lot that I could say
But just hold me now
Cause our love will light the way..."
-     Bryan Adams

I think I'm losing it…but in a very peaceful kind of way.  I was on my way up to "the college" this morning, listening to The Diane Rehm Show and a discussion of terrorism when they broke for station identification.  When it comes to car radio listening habits, my love for pop music is second only to NPR (National Public Radio), but just barely. 

Perhaps this time-evolved preferential hierarchy has something to do with my insatiable hunger to hear my sister, NPR reporter Nancy Mullane's voice leading listeners through one of her riveting stories on social reform or urban responsibility.  Nancy's pieces can be found scattered randomly throughout NPR's program offernings and we never know when they will appear...so we listen, and listen, and listen. And in the process, we become informed global citizens.  But no matter how much I love public radio, I am always secretly thrilled for the opportunity to push preset-button #2 and enter the world of soft rock/folk/adult acoustic radio.  I don't worry that I will miss anything by changing stations, since I already know and appreciate the philanthropy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and their support of "this and other public radio programs."

I switch stations and within a heartbeat, I am bathed in Yanou's clear, sweet remix of Bryan Adams' beautiful "Oh, thinking about all my younger years..." immersed in her version "Heaven" and thrown back to thinking about my own younger years…but only for the briefest moment because suddenly I find myself deep in thought about my spiritual life today.  And today this song, like many love songs of late, speaks to me about my love for Jesus Christ...the impact of his life on my life, and his timeless message in my heart. 

There is something so peace-deepening about my relationship with Christ.  Knowing that I cannot find myself alone, flailing aimlessly as I figure out this human journey.  I love feeling that no matter where my thoughts may seem to be wandering, or how "far astray I roam" in my interests…politics, art, international justice, pop music…the Christ is there to claim me as God's own.  Christ-love asserts itself in my life, redeeming even a sentimental Bryan Adams song for His... God's...purpose.  The invariable presence of Christ is always here…reminding me of that one true Love in my life.  It is that one true Love which all other relationships pale in the light of. But it is also this one, true Love that blesses and stretches me with relationships in which I can prove and celebrate that I am, in fact, more generous, patient, kind, courageous than I ever imagined I could be.

So this morning, from my office high above the Mississippi, at this beautiful college campus perched on the edge of these dramatic granite bluffs…over which eagles soar and pelicans feed…I am celebrating the relentlessness, the persistence, the unfailing insistence and unyielding assertiveness of that one true Love…the Christ,

"the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men,
speaking to human consciousness"
- Mary Baker Eddy

…in our hearts. 

Nothing can take that away from me…or you...
Kate

"We ask that life be kind..."

"...We ask that life be kind
And watch us from above
We hope each soul will find
Another soul to love

Let this be our prayer
Just like every child

Needs to find a place,
Guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe..."
-     Josh Groban (The Prayer)

Sam sent an email earlier today.  She is going to University in London and "posts" me a daily update on her activities so that I won't be shocked when she returns next summer and is all "pip, pip," "cheerio," and ordering "chips" at Kay's instead of French fries.  I love hearing all about her life in "the big city" and her adventures through the looking glass of dollars to pounds and yards to meters.

Today's email included a midday shopping trip and the bus ride home:

"We took the bus back and all the school kids were on there in
their blazers and skirts and amazing accents.  This one little
kid was really sad and she was telling us how all her friends
had their back to her.  I felt bad."

I read it and burst into tears.  I was that little girl so much of my childhood.  I would have given anything to have some "big girls" take an interest in me on the bus, notice my aloneness, and show compassion by talking with me.

So this is a post celebrating all the big girls (and boys) who take notice, who are aware, who remember that being a child can sometimes be lonely and confusing, and who stop, for a moment, to make a difference.

Jesus celebrates the kindness of a traveling foreigner on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, in the story of The Good Samaritan…I have my own Good Samantha story now.

Sam and her friends may never see that little girl again.  The color of her school uniform, the length of her hair, the town she was from will fade from their memory, but I can almost promise you that the sound of their voices, the kindness in their eyes, the hope they inspired...will never fade from hers.

As Mother Teresa once said, "There are no great things to be done, only small things done with great love."

I am very proud of you Sam…I know your mom is too.

Love,
M- Kate

"She loved me like a rock..."

"When I was a little boy
And the Devil would call my name
I'd say "Now who do,
Who do you think you're fooling?"
I'm a consecrated boy
I'm a singer in a Sunday choir

Oh my mama loves me, she loves me
She get down on her knees and hug me
She loves me like a rock
She rocks me like the rock of ages
And loves me
She love me, love me, love me, love me..."
- Paul Simon

Okay, it may seem like a stretch, but this afternoon while driving to an appointment, I turned on the radio and Paul Simon's "Loves Me Like a Rock" started playing.  Immediately I found myself thinking about Jesus and his mother. 

She loved him. Oh, she loved him.  She got down on her knees, and hugged him.  It made me cry.

Last weekend I met some moms and dads who love their teens...deeply.  They'd volunteered for a conference focused on nurturing the spiritual lives of teen thought-leaders.  These moms, dads, and adult mentors gathered on a college campus in the heartland to celebrate spiritual leadership and its  promise of peace, health, and collective prosperity in an ever-expanding global community.  It wasn't hard to see how much they loved them.   I could imagine each one of those teens...with an adoring adult on his/her knees hugging them, loving them, believing in their gifts, celebrating the remarkable thinkers they are...knowing that they can accomplish all good, because they are all good. 

I could see each of these adults at the wedding in Cana encouraging a young healer's friends to have faith that the water would become wine.  I could imagine each of these precious parents, adult friends and mentors as silent invisible "women" ministering unto their teen's mission and purpose with prayers, and hymns, and spiritual songs all along a dusty road...sometimes steep, often winding, rocky, and rugged.  I could hear their calls of encouragement, their whispered prayers for protection and guidance.  It wasn't hard to see Jesus' mother encouraging each adult to not lose sight of the vision, to remember what they'ev always known...God is with them...the kingdom of heaven is within every child.

As I drove home from the conference my route took me from the meandering beauty of the River Road ...sailboats gliding lazily, water skiiers laughing as they sliced through the water leaving a wake behind them...to the heart of our city's streets - miles of concrete, hot with Labor Day's humidity and humanity.  The "get down on her knees and hug me" kind of love for teens wasn't as easy to see, but it was palpably there in urban neighborhoods.  Moms, aunts and grandmas sat on cement stoops braiding hair, drinking sweet tea, and encouraging their sons, daughters, and neighbors to "be safe", help one another, and do something good for someone else.   Dads, uncles and grandpas grilled, washed cars, mowed lawns and by example taught their children that family matters, your neighbors deserve your respect, and your word is your pledge.  I've lived in this neighborhood, these were my neighbors, their children were, and are, dear to me. 

As we get down on our knees and hug our children...of all ages...this week, sending them off to school for the first day of sixth grade...or grad school, I pray we see the world as a place full of children with hopes and dreams...and parents who dream with them in kabbutzes, villages, and cities...in burkas, suits, or sarongs.   As we recall our own first dreams for our children's future, their first hopes to become president, physicist, inventor, fireman, or mom...I pray we can stretch our mental arms even further until they reach around all the children of the world...of all ages.  Just like our Father-Mother God who asked a unwed teenage mother over 2,000 years ago to believe an angel, walk with dignity, trust a promise, and never lose sight of a grand vision for His child.

I hope you have a wonder-filled weekend and that we can all find a moment to get down on our knees and hug a child's dream...any...and every...child's dream.  It's never too late to love them, love them, love them...

with Love,
Kate

"In the arms of the angel..."

"…In the arms of the angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you feel
you are pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you're in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort here…"
-     Sarah McLaughlin

This song always makes me feel like there is Someone out there who is awake with me in the middle of the night when thoughts of "what if" and "how could I have" haunt my every effort to twist and turn away from the sleeplessness of self-examination and reformation.

It is in these moments of "silent reverie", when the body-of-the-past feels like a dark, cold hotel room…not a well-loved farmhouse where the homefires burn…that I am really most certain that there is a God.

I recently had a couple of those nights.  Having been invited to facilitate a series of workshops for teens and adults at a conference, I lay awake in the dark asking God to show me what I could possibly have to give, in light of my own fathomless hunger for His hand in my life and my choices. 

And His angels, over and over again, swooped in with messages of grace. Mary Baker Eddy defines Angels as: "God's thoughts passing to man, spiritual intuitions pure and perfect..."  

One of these angel messages came, in height of summer,  from a traditional Christmas song, that  I love and have written about, on this blog, "In the Bleak Midwinter" (my favorite version of this song is by James Tayor, but since there is no Youtube performance of it I am including this link to Corinne May's performance...the words are a bit different, but I think you will get the poignancy of this song):

"What then can I give him
empty as I am
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would know my part
What then can I give him
I must give my heart…"

It was enough to give me peace…and the tools to walk with His hand in mine, into those workshops the first day.  I could and would give my heart.  I would give my love for those dear teens and I would bring my own experiences of God's merciful kindness, His ever-present care, His unflagging guidance and direction.

The next night was harder.  Who was I to facilitate an adult workshop on "relating to teens and their issues"…hour after hour I worked to quiet self-doubt and silence the Garth-like "I am not worthy" that argued in the courtroom of my consciousness while darkness hovered like a pall and dawn threatened from the edges of the eastern horizon.  Finally the quieter voices of angels prevailed. 

Another song found it's way like a lullaby through the cacophony of demons:

"I do not need to see the distant scene
One step enough for me…"
- CS Hymnal #169

I was asked to facilitate this workshop.  Did I think that God had fallen asleep and that some over zealous, ill-informed-of my-failings-and-weaknesses Conference Director had intervened and mistakenly asked me to serve in this way.  No!  What an insult to God.  I had to trust that the Conference Director was praying through each invitation to speak, facilitate, chaperone and serve, as well as each "staff" assignment, and that God had directed her all along the way.  God was in charge here.  We were all well-equipped to answer His call with the wisdom, grace, humility and love necessary to do what we were being asked.

"Here am I, send me.." 

from Isaiah, became my mantra each step forward.  Here am I at the threshold of the conference, send me to say hello to someone who needs to feel appreciated and loved.  Here am I in the dining room, send me to ask help from someone who needs to feel needed.  Here am I on the lawn, send me to embrace someone who needs to feel that they are recognized and known.

And, oh yes, here am I in a circle of parents, teen mentors, and adult volunteers. Have You sent me to help them remember how well-equipped with experience, wisdom…and most importantly love…they already are to respond to the teens in their lives?  

What then could I bring? I could be honest about my experiences. I could be humble about my moments of wisdom…and not so wise moments. And I could share my love for teens…and for them. 

I hope it was enough. 

I am so grateful that in those dark wrestling moments of an endless, sleepless night I can trust that God will send His angels and turn what feels like a "dark cold hotel room" within me, into a warm, cozy home where my heart finds all that it needs to rest upon…and proceed from…Love.
Kate

"A Heart of Gold..."

"…Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true…"
-     Neil Young

The other night we were on our way home from Trader Joe's, after some mid-week grocery shopping, listening to the radio, which is permanently tuned into NPR, and we caught a special segment on songs that have had an impact on the lives of listeners. 

I was somewhat surprised when the first strains of Neil Young's "Old Man" floated lightly up and around one young woman's story.  She told us about entering a New York City subway station soon after September 11, 2001 with hundreds of other commuters.  A street musician, who was playing his guitar and singing for spare change, began Young's classic and without hesitation most everyone in the Subway station started singing with him.  For a few brief moments, while they waited for their train, they were not NYTimes-absorbed business commuters on their way to somewhere else.  Nor were they the shaken victims of a heinous attack on their city and their sense of security.

For that moment she felt that they shared a common link through this song.  They were the same...united...in their desire to love and be loved, to feel safe, and to want security for their families and loved ones. 

As I listened to her story I found myself wishing that I could have been there, singing right along with them.  Then I remembered that, in fact, I too had experienced my own moments of solidarity through music during those unsettling days following 9/11.  Moments when, while driving our daughters to school, we would all find ourselves singing the words from the same favorite Bible verse set to music.  Evenings in church when the hymns, we sang together as a congregation, united our voices…and our hearts…in an affirmation of God's presence and cementing the bonds of community among us.

In those days following 9/11 it was often music that reminded my daughters and me that nothing had changed…that we were still the same silly girls that loved Mickey Mouse's version of "Living La Vida Mickey" and shared the same childlike love of, and need for, our regular series of lullabies before bedtime…the same ones, in the same order, my mother had sung to me every night of my childhood.

As I listened to that young woman share her story, and  pondered the power of music to unite us, I was also reminded of a time when this very Neil Young song, made me feel like I belonged to a larger community of hearts.

My husband and I were out walking late one evening and as we passed the old art deco Tivoli Theatre near our home, we noticed that there was a midnight showing of a new biopic on the life and music of Neil Young called "Harvest Gold".  We both grew up with, and shared a love for, the music of Neil Young so it wasn't hard to convince one another that we should come back later that night. 

When we arrived the theatre was almost full…and, for the most part, it was full of people "like us"…men and women who seemed to be about our age, rather hippie-ish, and friendly.  We looked around, smiled, and if we were part of a couple, held hands.  The lights dimmed and soon we were bathed in the golden light and music of someone else with long graying hair and an even more gravelled, but familiar, voice. 

The music was one part reminiscent of a time past, and two parts reminder of how brilliant a song-smith Young was…and is.  It was rich with political pokes and deep emotional longing. 

He sang old songs…and we sang along.  A theatre full of folkies who spontaneously joined voices in a way that years ago we had joined hands at sit-ins and marches, rallies and demonstrations. 

He sang new songs and we were as inspired as ever by his call to action, his boldness in opposing imperialism, his deep longing for peace.

There was a feeling of church to this random gathering of folkies.  There was fellowship, singing, unity in our love for Young's message of peace and brotherhood.  We were smiling at one another as we filed out of the dark theatre, through the softly lit old lobby and into the night air.  The streets of the city seemed more full of promise, there was a glint of hope smiling down on us from a cloudless starlit sky. I wondered, as we walked hand in hand, how often we go about our lives in community with others, barely realizing that there is a silent song of longing, a wordless hymn of love, playing just below the surface of our busyness. A song we are all either humming along to, singing full-voice with, dancing to the beat of, or just swaying unconsciously with...the way a mother moves whenever a baby is in her arms, or even when she is just watching another woman hold a child. It is a song played by a loving Father who wants to set the rhythm of His universe to a song of grace.

Jeff and I walked along silently for about ten minutes before he asked me what my favorite moment of the film was.  I told him it was in a series of moments throughout the film where Young's wife, Pegi joins him on stage, with Emmylou Harris, as a backup singer.  There was such tenderness and appreciation for her from this musical giant.  We agreed that it touched us both deeply to see how his - and our - hunger to love…and be loved…knows no bounds. Neither age, race, socio-economic category, celebrity give us immunity to the call of love.  Love always shines larger and brighter than anything else "on stage".

The following week I was talking to a college-age friend who had wandered into the same theatre one night and seen "Harvest Gold".  His assessment was simple, "Boy that old guy sure loves his wife."  "How did you know it was his wife?" I asked him.  "By the way he looked at her and heck, they were old, of course they would be married."   It made me chuckle.  Here was probably one of the most out-of-the-box thinkers of my generation.  He would have gotten a kick out of that I think. 

Here's the 2006 version of "Old Man" (his beautiful wife Pegi is the singer with blonde hair on the far right in the blue dress)for those who want to see musical gold sung from a depths of a "Heart of God" (Im including the 1971 version of this classic also...for those of you who really want to remember....

don't you just love watching Love sing itself in, and as,  us...
Kate

"Deliver us..."

"...With the sting of the whip on my shoulder
With the salt of my sweat on my brow
Elohim, God on high
Can you hear your people cry:
Help us now
This dark hour....

Deliver us…

Hear our call
Deliver us
Lord of all
Remember us,
here in this burning sand
Deliver us
There's a land you promised us
Deliver us to the promised land..." Stephen Schwartz

After Tuesday's post, and my obsession with singing "When you believe…" for the last few days, our family just had to watch "Prince of Egypt" again.  So, fair warning,  you may see a host of pieces in the coming weeks inspired by Prince of Egypt lyrics.  The music from that movie and the Moses-related stories behind them have a way of weaving through my prayers once I start singing them as I go about my day doing laundry, taking calls, and listening for the voice of God.

Clara asked a question the other night during a rather difficult scene towards the beginning of the movie where the Egyptian taskmasters are whipping the shoulders of a "grandpa" Hebrew slave.  I don't remember the exact way she put it, but it boiled down to how he could pray to God in the middle of being beaten.  

I smiled…

I have had the privilege of learning something about praying in the midst of great pain.  And I really do mean that it has become a privilege, because it has sent me deeper and deeper into the kingdom of heaven and away from being informed by the senses about what I am capable of doing or thinking at any given moment. It has taught me that there is nothing that can stop me from…well, simply being me.

Whether the pain has been the physical agony of cancer, the emotional ache of a failed relationship, the social anguish of rumors and gossip, or the economic torture of a shattered economy, I have learned that I am capable of finding peace, hearing God's whispered assurance right in the midst of pain's screaming.

Some time ago I wrote a post called "Screaming Has No Authority" about a critical moment of awakening for me regarding the impotent and inarticulate voice of pain. But today I am cherishing my childhood and how it gave me a mental model for finding deep inner peace in the midst of pain's persistent doggedness.

Most readers know that I am the oldest child in a family of ten.  Growing up was a noisy affair.  By the time I reached high school all eight children had been born and we were living in a small carriage house on a large estate.  There were ten of us in 1,100 square feet of living space. Excluding our one small bathroom and the laundry room on the unheated back porch, we were sharing about 850 square feet.   If you do the math you can see that, at any given time, we each had no more than 85 square feet of space to call our own.  That translates into a rectangle the size of an 8-1/2 by 10 foot king-size bed….for everything…eating, sleeping, playing the piano, doing homework.  Thank goodness we loved each other…a lot.

This was all fine and good when we were sitting at the kitchen table at dinner time and all engaged in the same activity. But when it was time to do homework, read a book, or write a paper, it was impossible to find a quiet corner to accomplish critical tasks.

I remember being in junior high school and crying bitterly in my mother's arms.  I hated being me.  I wanted a new family that was smaller and quiet.  I wanted to be a good student and it was impossible to study in the noisy, chaotic space we called home.  My brothers were playing with Tonka trucks on the kitchen floor, my sister was practicing a dance routine with the record player blaring, another sister was talking on the telephone, and the baby was banging wooden spoons on empty pots and pans. 

My mom smiled and told me that getting a new family probably wasn't going to happen.  This was the family I had been given and if I was going to be a good student I would have to figure out how to do it right in the middle of our home.  I don't think I surrendered to anything like giving up my dream of a quiet family and a spacious house that night.  I probably just went to my bedroom, crawled into my bottom bunk and sulked.  I knew I wouldn't even find any quiet there, since another sister was probably already in the other bunk practicing outloud for a spelling test.

But I did stop thinking that a magic escape hatch would suddenly appear, or that somehow we'd get a bigger house where I'd have my own bedroom and desk.  I realized it was going to be me at the kitchen table in the midst of a noisy family….or bust.  And bust wasn't an option if I wanted to go to college.

By high school I had mastered using the chaos and noise as a way of going deeper and deeper into place of focused concentration.  The louder it got, the better I got at zeroing in on the task at hand where I would exist in a bubble of inner silence, displacing the distractions of noise and activity with a transfixed focus that was unassailable.  

This rolled over into my spiritual practices.  The noisier the environment, the more focused my thoughts and the deeper my prayers.  I have been able to find the inner stillness I needed to pray in the middle of a Paul McCartney and Wings concert in Boulder's Folsom Field packed with 50,000 screaming fans, and in the midst of a hurricane-like storm while sailing the shipping channels off the Chesapeake Bay on a motor-less 42 foot schooner…sheets screaming and halyards banging.

For years I wondered why God didn't just send me a quiet family to live with, or a quiet space to study and pray.  But I've stopped that questioning.  The first time I experienced unrelenting chronic pain, I knew what a treasured childhood I'd had and how it had taught me to find peace.  I could go deeper. I could leave the screaming of agony outside the bubble of my inner silence and focus on the feelings of love, joy, gratitude, and peace that were so much deeper...more grounded...within my heart.  I could appreciate those feelings, nurture them and watch them grow larger and larger in me until they burst through the thin film-like membrane of pain and all that was left in me…and around me…was the power and presence of peace asserting itself, the only truth of my being.

So this is why, when Clara asked me about the Hebrew grandpa who was being beaten and yet could still sing out his prayer to God, I smiled.  Perhaps it is part of our spiritual DNA as members of the tribe of humanity - the "Children of Israel" -something practiced and spiritually evolved in us through years of slavery in Egypt, that allowed Elijah to hear the still, small voice of God in the midst of the earthquake, wind and fire...that allowed Jesus to sleep soundly in the middle of stormy seas and refuse the vinegar and gall from the summit of the cross...and that sustained Stephen, Peter, Paul, Matthew, Ghandi, Elie Wiesel, Corrie Ten Boom, and  Mandela as prisoners of war, oppression, torture, and deprivation.

Perhaps there is an inherent awareness in each of us of a place...a land.. so "vast, calm and measureless" pulling us deeper and deeper toward a core tranquility when the senses scream. It calls to our hearts, piercing the darkness like a lighthouse, drawing us to a safe harbor in the midst of a storm.  Perhaps it is this deep inner serenity, our consciousness of good, an awareness of love...the unassailable certainty that we are more than the screaming voice of pain, materialism, doubt, self, and fear says we are...that really is the eternal story of our lives.  

Perhaps we are giving birth to this deeper self in those moments of pain and discomfort...giving birth to an understanding of a self that cannot be separated from God, a self that cannot be imprisoned, tortured or oppressed by Pharoah, or fear, or fire, or Pharisees. Perhaps we are ever, and only, the self that sings:

"…Deliver us
There's a land you promised us,
Deliver us
to the promised land…"

...within!


with Love...
Kate

"When You Believe..."

"Many nights we've prayed
With no proof anyone could hear
In our hearts a hopeful song
We barely understood..."

I was sitting at my desk earlier this week when my daughters came in and one asked, "Mom, why are you watching a cartoon movie?"  "Because, " I countered,  "Mrs. Eddy (Mary Baker Eddy, author of "Science & Health") says, 'Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love -- be it song, sermon or Science - blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty.'  And today it's all about this song for me," I replied.  "Cool," she said, "so this is how you work?"  "Yup," says I.  "I want to work with you," she said, and sat down in my lap to listen.  Her sister joined us.  So, there we were.  Three spiritual thinkers listening to a cartoon Miriam singing to her cartoon brother Moses about hope, and faith, and miracles.

We listened to it over and over again.  Calls came in from those needing help. I took the calls, we listened...and prayed with the spirit of that song.  It was a precious window on my "office" for these daughters who are usually quite willing to read Scripture with me and pray for their friends who are hurt or sad.

It was also a sweet moment of things "coming full circle."  When the girls were just wee ones, I was in a particularly dark place emotionally.  I felt like I was, as Eddy says, "…walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes…" and not even close to anticipating the promised joy, much less finding it, when DreamWorks released "Prince of Egypt."  Our older daughter and I went to see it in the theatre and I had to excuse myself halfway through Tzipporah's singing of "When You Believe."  As I stood in the hallway of the theatre…just outside the screening room…trying to settle my uncontrollable sobbing, I realized that this was what I wanted more than anything else....her unassailable kind of faith.  I wanted to be just like an animated Miriam striving to let hope be more powerful to me than the looming emptiness of the human landscape.  It didn't matter whether that landscape threatened to be an endless emotional, physical, or economic wilderness. The shifting sands of specificity were nothing to a woman with an unshakeble faith in her God who is All-in-all to her. 

For weeks after leaving the theatre I would find myself aching to hear that song again, and finally went out and bought the soundtrack…and later the DVD when it came out.  But there were very scary scenes depicting the plagues on the DVD…scenes that left our older daughter unsettled and shaken. So the DVD was put away and the soundtrack started accompanying me in the Jeep wherever I went.  Clara & Emma from their carseats behind me, quickly learned the Hebrew chorus phonetically and would sing along in full voice.  Some days, when I was feeling particularly in need of its message of encouragement, I would bundle us all into the car, roll the windows down, turn the volume up and we would drive through the Colorado sunshine singing and crying and praying with our whole hearts, and souls, and voices…for a miracle.

And miracles came.

A healed heart, an answered prayer, a cry heard in the darkest wilderness by a loving Father-Mother God.   These were the simple reminders of His ever-present care, sweet moments when Her guiding hand was felt at the small of my back.

Sitting in my office that morning with the girls…singing this beautiful hymn of hope, and joy, and praise…lifting our hearts, hands, and lives in praise to Him, I could almost hear the voices of my babies singing words in Hebrew they didn't even know they knew, speaking and singing "in tongues." They may not have known the meaning of the words, but they knew the spirit of its message in the depths of their being. Something ancient and eternal speaking to, and singing out from, them.

Today it's all about this song…but then it's always about a song with God and me.

Below are the full lyrics and a link to a video of Michelle Pfeiffer and Sally Dworsky's version of "When You Believe" with Hebrew by Ofra Haza.

It is my prayer of hope for each of us,
Kate
[and if you really want to experience this song "in tongues," treat yourself to this video of "When you Believe" being sung in 28 languages at once...it is so remarkable and feels like a virtual moment of "pentecostal glory"]

"When you Believe"
Many nights we've prayed
With no proof anyone could hear
In our hearts a hopeful song
We barely understood
Now we are not afraid
Although we know there's much to fear
We were moving mountains long
Before we knew we could

There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
You will when you believe

In this time of fear
When prayer so often proved in vain
Hope seemed like the summer birds
Too swiftly flown away
And now I am standing here
With heart so full I can't explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I'd say

There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
You will when you believe

Ashira l'adonai ki gaoh ga-ah
Ashira l'adonai ki gaoh ga-ah
Mi chamocha baelim adonai
Mi kamocha nedar bakodesh

Nachita v'chas-d'cha am zu ga-alta
Nachita v'chas-d'cha am zu ga-alta
Ashira ashira ashira

Ashira l'adonai ki gaoh ga-ah
Ashira l'adonai ki gaoh ga-ah
Mi chamocha baelim adonai
Mi kamocha nedar bakodesh

Nachita v'chas-d'cha am zu ga-alta
Nachita v'chas-d'cha am zu ga-alta
Ashira ashira ashira

There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
Now you will
You will when you believe..."
- Stephen Schwartz

"All around me are familiar faces..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm still listening,
Kate

"I had a garden once..."

"I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear,
falling on my ear
is the voice of God…and discloses…

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known

I'd stay in the garden with Him
'Tho the night around me be falling
But He bids me go;
through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling

And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known..."
-     Anne Murray "In the Garden"

I had a garden once
Her lavender bushes
fat with fragrance
splayed willowy limbs
beyond their beds
And spilled
silver leaves and
redolent spikes
Along
a meandering
slate
pathway

Armloads of
pale pink
"Baby Blanket"
roses
threw themselves
across the
top of
our butter
yellow picket fence
and trailed slender fingers full of
tiny perfectly formed
blossoms
towards
the sidewalk
where
lovers walking
hand -in-hand
would
brush against her tiny gifts
breathing in
her aire.

Just after dawn,
morning glories would
uncurl themselves
from sleep and
open their
pale purple
throats
to catch each
drop of
dew
that
fell from heart-shaped leaves
and slaked
a nightlong thirst

I would arrive
tea pot, cup, saucer
and books in
hand
to join them
on our wide
porch
for
My own first
cup of
Water dripping from
leaves…
each page
a cup of refreshment
My version of
a morning glory's
awakening.

One by one…
marigolds,
dusty miller,
sweet peas,
hydrangea
and
hollyhocks
Shake
the dawn and
begin their
daily
pilgrimage
following the
Sun

from east to
west
their heads
turn so
slowly
I am reminded
of Tibetan
nuns
on temple pillows
made of
green
silk

By evening
The white garden
is ready to
unfurl her
quiet
elegant
display
of reflected light

From
beneath the arbor
I can see
delicate
Moonflower,
creamy Campanula,
diaphanous Heath Aster, and
the patient
Impatient
waiting all day
for her moment
to shine

Even the hearty
Daisy looks
like a slip of
lace against
the blue light of
dusk

I had a garden once
Sweet Peas
And tomatoes
sat side by side
tendrils
reaching for one another
through the
picket fence that
held
our summer's bounty
like a disciple's basket…
dinner for
five
And more than enough to
share

Rich soil
stained
my fingernails
Lavender oil stained
my linen apron
Beads of
perspiration
stained my nightgown when
weeding
came before
breakfast
and by noon
small streams...
salty rivulets...
carved pale paths
down
dusty shoulders
and across
a sun-kissed back

There the bees
were my
friends, my colleagues...and I
waged a
miniature war
with aphids and potato mites and
grasshoppers
who thought
my garden
was
a banquet
a feast
a table of plenty

I had a garden once
that
filled my heart
with color
and beauty and
oh, so many firsts
First crop of perennials in their
second season
First warm tomato my
dad hadn't handed me
fresh from the vine
First bundle of lavender from my
own plants
First summer spent weeding before
swimming
First harvest and
canning in my own kitchen…

I returned in secret
one summer...
long after
we had moved on
to other gardens
other arbors and
picket fences
trailing roses

I could barely find her…
but she was there
I had planted her well
and deep
I could see
dry, hard, darkening
rosehips
formed at the
fingertips of
once supple vines on the
other side of
a peeling picket fence
still, but only just, butter yellow
a fence loved so
much that a child
spent
summers nestled with her
best friend
in
the far corner where their worlds
met and
the roots from
an old cottonwood
made a
natural
CrazyCreek for
her to read in.

I could almost
see
Lavender spires
deep purply-blue and
fragrant
springing from the
out-stretched tips of
scraggly gray-green
bushes leaning
frail and un-anchored
along the clapboard
above the stone foundation
just beyond the
porch lattice

I dared to
walk back
and forth in
front of the trellised gate
now free of the weight
of antique roses and
English Ivy
searching for the
scent of
hyacinth I
knew lived
just beneath
the dusty
dry earth at
the
sidewalk's edge

I keened
my ears
for the sound
of butterfly wings
hovering over
hollycocks
once profuse against the
wall of the garden shed
in pinks and
reds and
whites that
shimmered in the
hazy velvet darkness of a
midsummer's twilight

I ached to feel
the rich black soil I
knew was waiting
just inside the
garden gate
where heirloom
tomatoes once
dripped their
rare seeds
at summer's zenith

I had a
garden once
she surrounded a
yellow cottage with
a wide front porch
where I would rock my
daughter to sleep on
summer evenings that buzzed with
Cicadids
hummed with
tree frogs and sparkled with
fireflies
singing lullabies about
a moon that saw us
and the mother we couldn't
see who
sat under an African sun

I had a garden once that
I later visited and
saw what lay beneath the soil but
was invisible to others

I
walked away
clutching a fistful of
her deep
brown
earth
soil stolen from
just inside the
garden gate
filled with
heirloom seeds
and memories of
summers filled
with she and I…and
A chocolate dog with
deep brown eyes
on a wide porch
dripping morning glories
before dawn.
Kate

"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