"Why..."

It seem like, every couple of years, I need to be reminded why I ever started posting to this blog. At the deepest level, the original reason is never far from my heart...but it's easy to lose sight of at times. Thank you, dear S., for your email suggesting that I revisit this post from 2007:

"You are not alone..."

"…you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
you are not alone…"
- Jackson

Someone asked me the other day, "why do you write these posts twice weekly?". 

Was I trying to teach readers something new about spirituality? No, the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy...as well as countless other inspirational books, magazine articles, blogs and websites are lovingly dedicated to this kind of pedagogy. 

Was I trying to get my writing seen by blog surfing publishers? No.  Did I have an irrepressible urge to write? Yes, but this is not the reason I blog. 

I have been writing and journaling, at least two hours daily, for many, many years…I write a lot.  I didn't need another focus for my writing life. 

So, as I sat in front of this computer screen and really pondered her question: "Why do you blog?"

Then, the AOL icon at the bottom of my screen started bouncing, up-and-down, alerting me to a new email.  I shook myself from the deep reverie of self-examination to check the message...just in case there was an urgent need for attention.

This was the email that greeted me (shared with permission…all personal and identifying information deleted):

Dear Kate,

I had a difficult day and then read your web-log ("Sunrise, sunset") and nearly burst into tears. Of all the many things I have wanted to ask you is how you bear this very thing … this changing and growing and going. I feel it as sadness and loss. I can't seem to find joy there. My little girl, the world's very best baby, is turning (age deleted). I love to see what she is becoming, but I miss the girl she was even last year.

I have more birthday preparations and it's late. I want to thank you again for your writing and the healings on your website. I turn to it so frequently during the day.

Love...

In reading her message I remembered with such clarity why I post on this blog each Tuesday and Thursday…it is not to share my insights or inspirations, it is not to see my words self-published on the internet, it is not to receive notes of praise…it is for one reason…and for me, there is just one message:

"You are not alone."

Just before I sit down at my computer,  to write a piece for posting, I try to become very quiet and listen for a silent cry that speaks to my heart. I am listening for the tears of those who feel -  that in the darkness of their own private sadness or confusion – they are alone.  That somehow, they are the only ones who have every felt this frightened, angry, hungry for compassion or kindness. 

And then I listen for my own heart.  What in me is reaching out, from the posture of "experience," to try and offer understanding, compassion, comfort, and be a beacon of faint light in that darkness.  What can I share that will assure them that someone else has been there and that there is a way out. 

I am, in each posting,  trying to say…"I will sing this song, of God's amazing grace, loudly, so that you can know that you are not alone in the darkness. To remind you that God is there…right there in your own heart… impelling you forward.

"...Just the other night
I thought I heard you cry
Asking me to come
And hold you in my arms
I can hear your prayers
Your burdens I will bear
But first I need your hand..."

To know that we are not alone...that God is there at every juncture to take our hand and lead us into our own light...is a message so powerful to me.  To know also that God has appointed angels of kindness in our lives...friends, sisters, mothers, brothers...to be the hand we feel, the song we listen for...this makes me weep with gratitude.

Here is my reply to my friend's email (with some minor editing):

Dear...

I burst into tears sometimes too when I later read the raw nakedness of what I have felt about something and posted to the blog.  These issues of motherhood and of journeying towards evolving as a spiritual  woman in a world that is constantly inviting us to want, want, want...more, more, more...are such powerful catalysts for my own spiritual development (de-envelop-ment).  They strip me clean day after day of all pride and ambition and leave me childlike in my need for a divine Parent's embrace and care.

I often find that the ideas I have shared are so new to me when I finally read them. It is almost as if I wrote them without even thinking of them...as if they poured out of my fingertips without passing through the medium of this false mind that would like to call itself sovereign in my life….memory, speculation, imagination.  That they come from a more silent space – the heart.

But as for your question - I am realizing that the best thing I can give my daughters is HONESTY about the journey.  Allowing them to think that I have it even one bit more "figured out" than I really do, is cruel and sets them up for failure by comparison.  So...I am staying focused on integrity in parenting my children...integrity of heart, mind, spirit, actions, words...emotions.

It is sometimes very messy and organic...but it is true...and I like truth...alot...

love,
Kate

This is my truth.  I don't write from a longing to be heard, I don't write from a need to say something profound or pithy....but I do write from a deep desire to answer the call of  someone crying in the dark, to let them know that they are not alone. That their divine Father-Mother is there to comfort them, as She has been there to comfort me on so many long journeys through the wilderness.

"I speak from experience."
- Mary Baker Eddy

Here is a Youtube clip of Michael Jackson's"You are Not Alone":