Eleanor Rouse » love

Because it’s important

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:07:05 +0000

I was sad to learn about the recent passing of Mr. Beverly W. “Booty” Armstrong, one of the first people I met in Richmond and someone who made a lasting impact on me. During my rounds of informational interviews, a potential employer suggested that I speak with Booty about his work with the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation – at the time, the Foundation was raising capital to renovate and expand a historic downtown theater. I asked what motivated him to become involved with the project. He replied, “Honestly, I would rather be at a football game than watching a performance, but I do this because it is important for Richmond.”

I’ll never forget that straight-shooting and honest statement about why he was doing what he was doing. As I came to know my adopted city, I found Mr. Armstrong to be among a generation of Virginia gentlemen who cared deeply about the community in which they built businesses and raised their children, and who hoped it would continue to be a city in which their grandchildren would want to live and work. (I mention the men because at the time, they were more visible in corporate leadership than equally- involved and -philanthropic women.)

While meeting with this slightly intimidating yet humor-filled man, he also said to me, “You’re quite comfortable talking with wealthy people, aren’t you?” I was taken aback, and hoped I had not been so informal as to be disrespectful. I had just moved from Aspen, where people of different socioeconomic levels mixed on a daily basis, mostly on a recreational level. Friendly, real interaction with people of wealth who cared about their community as I did had been integral to my eight years of non-profit fundraising in that town. However, there is always deference involved when asking someone to invest their hard-earned money in the common good. Even while I firmly believe that it takes many people playing different roles to create good change in the world – those who ask for funding, those who provide it, and the experts and participants who use it to make change happen – I still find it humbling when donors say yes.

I only spoke with Booty a handful of times after that exceptional first meeting, and I hadn’t seen him for several years. However, he continues to be a role model for me in his commitment to issues he considered critical for the health of this city. I suspect we had different political views, but I’ve been repeatedly surprised by the ways that we in this town can come together to work for what is important.

I do my work primarily because I care about creating equal opportunities for people who do not have them. I also do it because I feel affection for this old, traditional, southern city: a city with injuries so deep they will always be felt, and at the same time a city with promise so great it has yet to be fully realized.

Richmond, along with many other high-poverty urban areas, has problems that are too large for us to solve on our own, either as individuals or as small groups. I think these are problems that require God’s help to solve. But I also believe God wants us to give it our best shot, and at least try before depending on divine intervention to cure our ills.

During my workday, while driving from meeting to meeting, I’ve begun asking for knowledge of God’s will for our community and for God to grant us the power to carry it out. While sitting at a table with colleagues who are working towards a common goal, I sometimes ask the Holy Spirit to come into the room with us. I’m not sure it works, but I sense that my own will relaxes and I become open to our creating something greater than any of us can envision on our own.

I will miss Mr. Armstrong’s presence in this city. Though I didn’t know him well, I believe his big spirit and his example will live on as the rest of us continue to care for this place we love.

On Becoming a “We”

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:12:22 +0000

“The mystery which unites two beings is great; without it the world would not exist.” -The Gospel of Philip, Analogue 40, as translated by Jean-Yves Leloup

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to get married, to become a “we.” It’s already starting to happen. I am still an “I” and I am also now part of a “we.”

Recently I faced having to make a four-figure repair to my 11-year-old car. Upon hearing the shop’s estimate, I wanted to retreat to my room, shed some financial-worry tears, and figure out – on my own – how I was going to pay for it. But sitting on my couch was the man who loves me, waiting and willing to be there for me. I felt so strongly the urge to turn and leave, to be alone in my fear. Instead, I walked toward him, and he reached out his arms and held me. Then he helped me reason things out so I could make the best decision for me and for us.

I’ve spent many years thinking about “I.” Who am I in a family of five sisters? What’s best for me in my career? How do I take care of myself – mind, body and soul – on a daily basis? There is a tradition in some 12-step programs that reads, “Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.” My understanding is that we all win when we put the “we” first. My fiancé’s 100-year-old grandpa gave us similar advice for our marriage, based on his 68-year experience of shared life with the one he loved. He said that after we say our vows, everything that affects one will also affect the other. I feel myself becoming more careful.

I’m not losing myself or discounting my own needs, rather I’m gratefully discovering what it is like to hold our union as precious. I feel self-full and a little more selfless at the same time. I’ve also decided to add my beloved’s name to mine after we marry. For me, the symbolism is powerful. “I” and “we.”

There is a mysterious connection growing stronger and more fluid between us. We’re growing a “we” and it is a deliberate and beautiful process. I hope this contemplation and practice of “we” in my relationship will also inform how I am in my family, at work, and in the world.

Joy!

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 01:46:58 +0000

I’ve recently come to trust, without a doubt, that God cares about my immense joy. I believed that God would care for my heart with solace, healing, and happiness. What I didn’t quite get, until now, was that God could and would blow my mind with totally unearned levels of grace.

Last Saturday, my beloved boyfriend bent down on one knee and with tears in his eyes, asked me to marry him. And of course I said YES! To know that the man I adore loves me enough to want to spend his life with me… well, it is a profound feeling. When I look at his sweet, handsome face, I am so hopeful about our life together.

I owe God my humility and a huge dose gratitude for bringing into my life someone who fit my soul. I love being alone, yet he has become an integral part of my life and with him, I feel more joy and more peace than I’ve ever known on my own.

As some of you are well aware, I am almost always late, and at the same time, not terribly patient. I believe that despite my periodic emotional questioning as to when my turn would come, God knew that waiting would be oh so good for me. I’ve grown in my capacity to love. I’ve become more whole, whole enough to now merge with another.

I’m convinced that God orchestrated this waiting for just the right man, just the right me and just the right time. I want to say thank you to the Big Powerful Heart for loving me that much.

And thank you too for being with me on my journey through this blog, and for being out there in the world, vulnerable in your own way.

When I look at my ring, I feel our love has been there all along. I believe we are meant for each other and that is why it feels so good and so easy to be with him. He is kind to me, even when I send him seven emails about our wedding after he’s worked a 36-hour shift.

Word has it that marriage is hard and the statistics aren’t good. I hope, though, that ours will be filled with wonder and laughter. Now more than ever before, I understand the yearning of same sex couples to marry. This feeling of saying “yes” to formally and reverently binding my life with that of my beloved… anyone who loves another should be able to take this step.

Twelve months ago on my 41^st birthday, I declared it would be the Year of Love. Indeed it was, and with more to come! My sweet man’s proposal proved to me that sometimes good things, the things I want more dearly than anything else, really do happen.

Choosing Love

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 02:13:31 +0000

I find it so easy to hate from a “righteous” place. I’ve done it a lot. I do it still. Just the other morning at 7-11, I felt it looking at a Time Magazine cover photo of a young woman whose nose and ears had been cut off by decree of the Taliban.

I hate the Taliban, what I know of the Taliban at least. When I indulge in my fury, it gives me a little high to feel so strongly about something; then I crash with frustration at the realization that fury alone won’t change anything. Upon hearing about a crime against humanity such as the butchering of the Afghan woman, I feel hate grip my mind, body and heart.

Many people who work to right social injustices find their fuel in anger, yet at what cost and to what end when that anger boils over?

Hate against hate does nothing for the world. Hate doesn’t conquer inequality. Hate won’t change the minds of those I disagree with. Hate will do nothing except burn me from the inside.

Constant rage is not sustainable in a human being. It seems to me that hate-filled bodies are more susceptible to disease of the same “angry” nature. Similarly, I think the degree of fervent hate in the world and our own country is growing to a level that is unsustainable. Just like a 105 degree summer day with 90% humidity is often broken by a massive thunderstorm; at some point, hate will crash.

What will we have left? I imagine the shredded, burned remnants of what it once meant to live in community. Maybe though, after the crash, we’ll be able to start again. If one person can remember what it is to love.

One of my heroes, Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, knows a lot about hate, having fought legal battles against white supremacist groups for more than 40 years. The SPLC has documented 932 known hate groups currently operating in the United States; 22 of them in Virginia.

I received an email from the SPLC that ends: “People of goodwill can make a difference in the fight to expose organized racism and hate in our country. Remember to be an advocate for justice and speak out against hate wherever and whenever you see it.”

I added my name as a “voice for tolerance” on the SPLC’s “Stand Strong Against Hate” map. What will it do? I think it is a small, public way to speak out for a different world – one moved by care for each other.

Rob Bell writes in Velvet Elvis, “The goal here isn’t simply to not sin. Our purpose is to increase the shalom in this world.” He defines shalom as God’s goodness. I believe that goodness is expressed as love.

A few days ago I lay on the floor under the ceiling fan trying to get cool. My boyfriend was sitting across from me. As he spoke, I wasn’t really paying attention to his words; instead, I was watching the crinkle of his eyes when he smiled and thinking how happy I am with him in my life. Lately, I feel filled with love, and while I feel blessed to experience it, I believe love is also a choice.

I’ve heard many times the expression that “hurt people hurt.” I would reason then that the moment-to-moment choice to fill myself with love or hate has a direct impact on the world and others around me. In the face of so many social issues that get my ire up (way up!), I pray that I may choose my response carefully lest I add to the problem instead of help to alleviate it.

Love in His Way

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:22:29 +0000

I’ll be on vacation the next two Sundays, including Father’s Day, so I’d like to take a moment to honor my Dad who died eighteen months and one day ago.

What I want to say is that I loved him and I miss him. I remember the slightly southern and humble yet strong sound of his voice on the telephone. When I spot older men with silver white hair who dress like he did–in khakis, short-sleeved shirt and white tennis shoes–my heart skips a beat. Then I remember he’s no longer here.

He walked with a limp he acquired from a hip injury when he was young. Deciphering just how it happened was a favorite past time for me and my four sisters–football injury! falling from a tree! tumbling down a ravine! No matter how many times he told the real story, we always forgot it. After one of his several surgeries, my older sisters made me up to look like I was 13 in a yellow jumpsuit, heels, and eye shadow, because 9-year-olds were not allowed to visit the hospital. For years, we played with the weighty, silver ball and joint device that was removed from his hip. It seemed like part of my Dad.

I first came to Christianity at 21 because, after several years of distance and fighting with my own father, I needed a loving Father figure and I found one. (Now I yearn to hear “Our Mother” as well, but that’s a theological discussion for another day.) I needed a Father who forgave me for not being perfect–or so I thought. It took years to realize that perfection isn’t the point of being here nor was it what my own Dad, or God, expected.

I learned that perfection is not the point of parenthood either. I came to understand that parents are simply human. I hear so many people talking disappointedly about their mom or dad not being all they wanted or needed. I did that. I held back love from my imperfect, human father. And I regret it.

Dad, I forgive you for not being perfect. Please forgive me for expecting you to be.

I’ve come to respect that my Dad loved in his way. That was all he could do and it was enough. Even when he wasn’t “there”, maybe I needed it that way so I could become what I was supposed to become. Maybe, I can love God as He or She or It is too, instead of needing God to be exactly a form that I understand and “approve” of in any given moment.

I pray that when I am a parent, my children will forgive all that I don’t fulfill for them. I trust that God and others will fill in where I come up short and my children will grow into their own.

God, since he’s with you up there or out there or somewhere, would you please thank my Dad for me? For his frustration at my ill-heeding his guidance. For giving so much of his life to us. For his loneliness, heartache, and worry. For his piano playing, Redskins watching, and commitment to his growth as a man that led to all of this for me. Please thank him for his love.

Dad, I love you. Happy Father’s Day.

What Our Hearts Know

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:55:43 +0000

Like many people wanting a mate, I’ve made lists upon lists of attributes I desired in a partner. I created collages envisioning what he would look like, do for a living, drive (I admit my shallowness), wear (ditto), read and be. Mental constructs of my ideal guy. My visualization seemed to “work” – many times, the descriptions I outlined came to be. Years ago, I even met one of the men I had cut out of a magazine and pasted into a collage. Yet often what looked good on the outside was missing something crucial on the inside.

Several editions into my collage, a wise friend gave me great advice. “Create a collage about how you want your life to feel, rather than look, with or without a man.” I took her advice. That collage led me to move home to Virginia from San Francisco, and it lives on my wall today. When faced with decisions, I go to it as a reference point for my heart. It contains images that represent feelings of home, centeredness, sexiness, inspiration, fullness, love, joy, friendship, strength and devotion.

Yesterday, I felt all of that combined, as I snuggled against my man on a rainy Saturday, after a great yoga class and fun pedicure conversation with a good friend. Looking out my window at bright green trees, here was the feeling I’d been walking toward for a long, long time: pure, open-hearted contentment.

You see, I think I’ve become reasonably whole (with much earthly and heavenly assistance). During the years of wanting, and not experiencing, a relationship of length and depth, I practiced cultivating a sense of joy and contentment within myself (sometimes kicking and screaming along the way). If I wanted to live a full life – no matter what – I had no other choice.

It is upon that foundation of love for myself, my winding path, and God, that I now find myself experiencing love for and from someone else.

There is a line from an Eva Cassidy song that describes the mechanism by which I recognize this relationship as deeply good: ‘Cause I know you by heart. Sure, my guy is amazing on paper; he’s handsome, smart, funny, directed, strong, kind, does good in the world, and all sorts of other things that have appeared on my lists. However, it is the feeling in my heart when I am with him that is startlingly different from the past.

I feel authentic, happy, seen, honored, adored, admiring, in love, and grateful. My breath is deep and full in my belly; my body is completely relaxed; and a mighty flower opens in the center of my heart. I believe this is how God intends for me to feel.

Last night, looking at my boyfriend while he studied for exams, I heard the words of a favorite Clay Walker song:

All I know is what I see when I look at you.
And all I see is what I’m feeling down inside.
And all I’m feeling is the feeling that I finally got it right.

I finally learned that it is the feeling – not the list – that makes something right.

What is your heart telling you? I’d love to know.

The Energy Between Us

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:34:21 +0000

A young woman recently told me she believes God is the energy between two people. Such wisdom and awareness! I appreciated the reminder that I must take responsibility for the energy I give to another.

It isn’t easy. I quite regularly catch myself holding back or feeling competitive when interacting with someone new, as if the person across from me must prove herself trustworthy, before I will “love my neighbor as myself.”

The instruction, “So glorify God in your body,” (1 Corinthians 6:20) helps me in my quest to remain open-hearted in my interactions. When I allow God to course through my whole being – heart, mind, strength, and soul – I am much more able to extend “God-like” energy to others.

The yogi Paramahansa Yogananda writes in his mind-opening book, The Yoga of Jesus, “When one actually perceives the Divine Presence in his own soul, he is inspired with love for his neighbor – Jew and Christian, Muslim and Hindu – in the consciousness that one’s true Self and the Selves of all others are equally soul-reflections of the one infinitely lovable God.” (pg. 99)

Can I recognize God in another? Would I even try to see God in my enemy? What kind of energy would I create with her if I did? I find it hard enough to be conscious about my energy with those I love – to love them as completely as I would like to love myself. Therein lies the problem. If I love myself conditionally, I will love others the same way. Similarly, the judgment I feel toward others often reflects hostility within me toward myself.

In interpreting the gospel writer John’s account of Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman (which a Jewish man at the time would not have done), contemplative priest Cynthia Bourgeault illustrates beautifully what can happen when two people recognize each other as Divine:

“Something he sees in her gives him the confidence to be so nakedly vulnerable; and something she sees in him gives her the confidence to follow his lead, to go higher and higher and deeper and deeper in herself, knowing far beyond what she could know from ordinary knowingness, knowing fully in the immediacy of her own heart. This quality of awareness is not something that comes from outside the moment. Rather, it grows up in the moment itself through the quality and energy of the heart connection.” (The Wisdom Jesus, pg. 11)

May we all give to each other and experience that kind of God energy.

A Mother’s Love

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:01:29 +0000

“In the earthly realm, what kind of trust most approximates your trust in God?” That was a question put to me this week. My answer was that I have never once doubted my mother’s love.

It has astounded me that through all the hard work of raising my four sisters and me, and all the grief we gave her (she raised five opinionated girls!), my Mom’s love for us remains, at its core, unwavering and limitless. My trust in the steadfastness of her love grew over time and repeated experience. By my adolescence, I was sure that it would always be there no matter what. I believe that if a child receives nothing else from a parent, trustworthy love is a rock upon which she can build a life.

When I ask teenage girls from challenging circumstances to name the most important person in their lives, almost all of them answer, “My Mom. Because she takes care of me.”

Their calm and grateful trust in their mothers’ care and my own experience illuminate my understanding of God’s motherly love – a constant, deep, and forgiving love that can be trusted despite my disappointing Her, turning my back on Her, judging Her, telling Her what to do, or rudely asserting my independence from Her.

My Mom recently wrote me about her experience as a young mother of five girls and how the women’s movement saved her. “I finally felt I had a right to my own life, and I redoubled my efforts to raise each of you girls to understand that you were as deserving of your place on earth as anyone, to have a backbone, and to have a sense of your own innate worth and strength.”

I believe that is what Mother God wants for all of Her daughters as well – to know that each of us is deserving of our place on Earth and to trust our innate worth and strength.

Even as an adult, my mother’s hug is still enormously comforting to me. Her embrace creates a feeling that is aptly described by the words of Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century mystic known for her theology of God as Mother:

“But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

To be able to trust in that kind of love, whether from God or one’s own mother, is what I wish for everyone.

Joy Returns!

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:17:14 +0000

Many of you are aware of the sorry state I was in at Christmastime. I was down in heart, to be sure. I deemed it blessed then, only to realize later just how true that label was.

Yesterday, during a retreat at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Brother Curtis Almquist from the Society of St. John the Evangelist reaffirmed for me that when our hearts are broken – broken open – God can come in. Usually, God has been patiently waiting for a welcoming of His ever-available and powerful love.

I also find that when my heart is vulnerable, it is more sensitive to the slightest healing grace. Similarly, when my own will has repeatedly brought me to a dead end, I become far more attuned to the subtlest of Divine leadings.

So here we are eight weeks post-Christmas meltdown. And I’m deeply well. You see, after I placed my love life in the hands of God (with a touch of resignation), to my surprise, God delivered immediately. Now, I know that God often delivers in ways I don’t recognize. Yet this time, the gift came in clear-as-day and in such a form that I knew it, or rather he, must be from God.

A dear girlfriend once spoke of the comfort of being “well loved” in her long-term marriage even through its tests and trials. She wished for me the same feeling. I knew deep down that despite having been in a few romantic relationships in recent years, I had not been well loved in quite a while. Nor had I loved particularly well.

Perhaps I had to understand just how well I am loved by God before I could really experience that on a human level? Perhaps God wants me to know Him now through a man’s love? I will say that I’m amazed by the experience.

I heard a few lines of Psalm 30 yesterday that perfectly capture my gratitude for this gift I’ve received:

“O Lord my God, I cried to thee for help,
and thou has healed me…
Weeping may tarry for this night,
but joy comes with the morning.”

Joy did return, and boy, is it a good feeling! When I start to fear that this too shall pass, I take comfort knowing that joy and weeping are ongoing parts of life. I’ve come to trust that God will use each to deepen my relationship with Him.

In the meantime, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy this.

Wow, what a sight!

Eleanor R. Kootsey — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:14:05 +0000

This weekend I had the immense pleasure of participating in WomanKind, an interfaith exploration of women’s spirituality hosted by the visionary St. James’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. It would not do the experience justice to recount all of the nuances here (such as the gorgeous Botticelli-inspired décor). However, I will share the most memorable moment for me.

It happened at the beginning of Saturday afternoon’s healing service. As I watched a parade of women, old and young, black and white, clergy and attendants make their way up the center aisle to the front of an estrogen-filled church; my eyes grew big as did my smile. Soon, the altar filled with women ministers and priests. I swallowed hard in disbelief and tears filled my eyes at the sight. There it was – ancient wisdom in feminine form.

After years of wondering if I would find a resonant place in a tradition about a man, a doctrine historically dictated by men and churches led predominantly by male clergy, the altar scene yesterday was startling and life-changing. I have been greatly inspired by masculine messengers and interpreters of God, including a recent embrace of the Ultimate Messenger. Nothing, however, has ever moved me more than this scene of my own kind – woman kind – delivering spiritual guidance in Christ’s name.

I know it sounds predictable coming from me to want to see women clergy. I wonder what it was like for the other 399 or so women in attendance – many of whom seemed to be followers of the Christian tradition. I believe that few would deny the lack of feminine spiritual role models held up for us to learn from, respect, and revere. The dearth of women spoken about in the Christian church was a major stumbling block for me in surrendering to this path, until I realized that Christ himself is the embodiment of what I consider most gorgeously feminine: care, love, compassion, service and community.

It isn’t that I don’t value what men bring to relationship, leadership and spiritual practice – I do, very much. Yet to surrender my heart, body and will to God is such a personal, vulnerable experience. If I am to do it within a particular tradition, I need to trust that I and all women are considered as valuable and valid as men in the eyes of the church. I’ve no doubt that we are equal in the heart and mind of Jesus, yet much of what has been built in His name has called into question the institution’s reverence for women.

Nothing can adequately convey the heart-opening power of seeing wise, white-haired female ministers with their warm smiles and distinguished voices sitting amongst an interracial mix of intellectually fabulous, young priestesses. Garbed in white robes with beautiful stoles, these women shared delivery of the Gospel and God’s spiritual food. The first prayer began, “O God, Mother of endless generations” – that alone would have sold me. The service went on to speak of “God in the midst of her” in Psalm 46 and to analyze the unconditional, deeply intuitive understanding of Christ’s power by a very poor, very sick woman as written in Mark 5:25-34. (Thanks to the flawlessly crafted and moving sermon of Dr. Linda Powell Pruitt.)

I had the intimate joy of witnessing this with my mother, an early 70′s feminist, who raised my four sisters and me to believe that something different from what she had lived as a young woman of the 50′s was possible for us. We both wondered how much more welcoming church might have felt to her as a girl and to independent young women today were this service their first experience of Christianity.

Even when the Christian church develops more balance of spiritual leadership, I will never forget my first time – yesterday at WomanKind – realizing what is possible and being sure that I belong.