NEW EVERY MOMENT

Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, June 1, 2023

It is 4:30 a.m. and the music is rising outside. Why do the birds sing with such abandon every morning? Is it because they are so fully alive in the present moment that every dawn is truly new to them? Not living in the memory of yesterday or in anticipation of tomorrow, this moment is what they have and it is utterly unprecedented. Imagine being born anew every morning to creatiton’s wonders!

What if we could live with that kind of presence, in which each point of time offered a fresh and new experience? It had never been before, offering the thrill of every “first time,” and it would never come again, immediately conferring upon it the sense of being precious. Watching in wonder the miracles unfolding around us, would we too be moved to sing our praise? Or would we be taken into a deep and silent hush?

Perhaps this kind of awareness is available to the saints and mystics among us (and they are among us!) who seek the presence of God in every breath they take. Breathing in the spirit of love and recreation, every moment and all things become sacred. And precious.

Although I long to live with this kind of consciousness, I am aware of the pain it can open a heart to. For as I may rise to birdsong, others are rising to bombs falling down on their city, to a stomach gnawing in hunger, to a harrowing existence of pain and fear. Every moment of this also new. Each point of time with its own unique suffering.

It is not possible to know one kind of awareness without the other. For as our love grows, the whole world comes spilling in. I don’t think it means we stop singing, but our song becomes more nuanced. No less beautiful, but touched by minor chords of sadness, longing, and understanding moving us to address the suffering we can and at the same time hold on to the healing grace of joy. I do not know if birds know suffering, but we can not be saints or mystics, or fully human, by keeping it at arms length. We cannot be fully present to the moment or to this world until we avail ourselves to it all.

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Author: Dwelling in Presence

Striving to live in the present where Spirit is found, I get (t)here most often by writing. It keeps me grounded in both the silence and in my senses. So, welcome to my journal. With a home on mid coast Maine, I have recently retired from 18 years as copastor of The First Church in Belfast, United Church of Christ, with my spouse, Joel Krueger. My spiritual formation has been nurtured by the sensual and sacramental faith of the Roman Catholic church, the heady intellectualism of Yale Divinity School and doctoral studies at Northwestern University, and the justice activism of the United Church of Christ in which I am ordained. Yale Divinity gave me the opportunity to study with pastoral theologian Henri Nouwen who I continue to think of as spiritual mentor these many years later. I have begun this blog to be certain to reach out in a time of great transition and chaos. We are suffering a worldwide pandemic, a global climate crisis, a war-damaged world and great upheaval in the church. With these reflections, I want to share what gives me joy and that which gives me pause. I look forward to hearing yours comments.

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