Author: Dwelling in Presence

Rev. Dr. Kate Winters

Okay, there is no moose in my backyard. At least, not yet. That doesn’t mean that I am not waiting in anticipation for a sighting. We have woods surrounding the west side of our two acres and you never know what is going to emerge. We have had deer, fox, mink, many turkey, a fisher cat, and what I swear was a wolf. Joel insists it must have been a coyote, but he didn’t see it! Luckily the morning I saw the bobcat walk past the house, he was able to catch its little bobbed tail before it disappeared into the trees. He might have questioned this sighting as well.

I know that many people visit our state hoping for a moose sighting. My dear sisters are among them, and they have yet to have their encounter. Until they do, I am going to have to put up with their ribbing declaration to me “There are no moose in Maine.” It doesn’t matter that we have seen many, have ph0tos to prove it, nearly collided with one in the car (which no one ever wants to do), and caught another running down a neighbor’s driveway right in the middle of town one early morning.

I get it. Until you’ve had your own enounter, it is hard to believe that such a majestic, some would say strange, creature exists. It is the same with God, isn’t it? You can hear all the reports, been told the awesome stories, but until you recognize anything you acknowledge as divine yourself, it all seems unbelievable.

However, there is always that moose in your backyard. The one that keeps you alert and hoping. The one that stirs your imagination, invites your keen attention, and fuels your search. I love that moose already, and although I haven’t yet seen him/her, its promise keeps my heart open and fuels my soul. Daily.

My hope is to write a book someday entitled The Moose in My Backyard: Spiritual Life in Maine. I’ve had so many images for God in my lifetime, but moose? Proof that the divine shows up in many shapes and sizes, keeping the fire burning in the soul.

Rev. Dr. Kate Winters

Having risen later than usual, I have company as I write. I can see Joel in the kitchen gathering ingredients for a pot roast stew we will share tonight with Julie, a friend coming to visit from Wisconsin. He whistles as he gathers the onions and goes to the refrigerator for the carrots. Everyone can tell when Joel arrives to a place by that ever-present whistle. He brings with it a spirit that is light and kind. The atmosphere is changed when he walks into a room. Yes, I have a bias towards my husband, but there aren’t too many people who would disagree with me. Except, perhaps, for those who have a problem with joy.

The friend flying in from Wisconsin also has a very particular presence. A nurse, health and wellness instructor, and spiritual director, Julie’s face is one of deep compassion. She has a way of stilling turbulent hearts. It was to her house I needed to go after my mother suddenly died. I was beside myself with anxiety and grief. She brought me back to myself where I could begin to face this new reality. Once her pastor, she now encourages my spirit to grow and expand in new ways. Her presence is one of healing.

The book I am currently reading is by Howard Thurman, theologian, pastor, and mystic of the 20th century. A man of his time, the language of his book Meditations of the Heart is heavily masculine, particularly in references to God. But for some reason I am not as disturbed by it as I usually am. His spirit feels wide and inclusive. I am finding that he names some things that I have felt in my experience lately that give me peace. He writes: “A ground of calm underlies experiences whatever may be the tempestuous character of events. This calm is the manifestation in life of the active, dynamic presence of God.” (p. 29)

In the hospital, just after my heart catheterization and being told I needed triple bypass surgery, I found in the midst of it a deep calm flooding through me. A kind of comforting silence. Yes, I am afraid, but there is something in me deeper than my fear. With Rev. Thurman I can only attribute this to the “actve, dynamic presence of God.”

On this snowy morning, God has come to me in three faces. The face of my beloved, whistling Joel, the face of my dear friend, Julie, and the face of a deceased author who somehow shares my experience. Joy, healing, and peace are mine in this moment. With what face does the presence of God come to you?

Rev. Dr. Kate Winters

You may have heard the saying “We make plans and God laughs.” It is a blunt way of saying how little control we ultimately have over our lives. I’ve never liked the phrase. I think God has more respect for the plans, the hopes, and the dreams we build for ourselves. The one who created us would not laugh as we use the gifts we have been given to chart our life’s course. I don’t think God was laughing at me when I planned to go into silence for three months at the beginning of my retirement. But perhaps my plan was too much like those I have set up before – relying on myself, my willpower and determination to achieve something. Surviving a divorce. Earning a Ph.D. Going back to seminary to become ordained in the United Church of Christ. No, I never really did these things by myself, but the initial plans were mine. I was determined to make them happen. And they did.

Perhaps God was aware that I would learn nothing by shouldering through three months of silence. That was not going to be my path to growth. That was not going to bring me to wholeness/holiness/union. At least not until I learned to “let go.” Let go of my plan. Let go of my tendency to accomplish things by myself. To put myself in the hands of others, in the hands of sweet compassion.

No, I don’t believe God “gave” me heart disease to teach me a lesson. That is not the work of love, and the God I believe in is infinite love. My challenge now is not to shoulder on, but to let go into that love.

Letting go into love has never been easy for me. I have never felt worthy of it, thus I consistently tried to deserve it, to prove my worth. Why? Perhaps it was reading all those Catholic saint books when I was a child. Or the Monseigneur handing out report cards at Holy Family School telling me my dad is going to “love me” after seeing the straight A’s. I can still feel his hand on my head! I don’t know, perhaps it is just a frustrating part of my personality. It doesn’t really matter why. I only know that after reading the booklet I was given at the hospital about bypass surgery, what struck me most was how completely I had to give myself over to another’s care…and for how long. How I will need to rely on the skill, plans, and goodness of others without doing a thing to deserve it!

I don’t think that God is laughing here. The voice of the Spirit is soothing as it whispers “Let go, dear Kate. Let go. Let yourself be held.” Here is my growing edge.

Rev. Dr. Kate Winters

Even though retirement is not going as planned, I thought I would be steeped in silence by now, it is taking some kind of shape. One pleasant surprise is my growing desire to write. About three years ago I made a fledgling attempt to blog at the beginning of the pandemic quarantine. I finished perhaps two posts. My perfectionist self appeared and would not let me go beyond that until I had everything set up the way I wanted it to be. I struggled with the way I wanted to be perceived and with accepting help. My desire to make some kind of impression eclipsed my desire to write.

This time is different. I haven’t yet figured out a number of things about the site, such as how I can arrange it to get responses from readers which I would like, or how to change the font on my post, or even how to get people to read the blog! But every day or two I feel compelled to write. The desire seems to come from some unconscious place in my body, not my thinking brain. In fact, many mornings I have my journal open on my lapdesk and pen in hand before having any idea of what I want to write about! But then I call to mind the name of my blog, Dwelling in Presence, and realize that if I just stay present, aware of my surroundings, my feelings, my connection to Spirit, my heart beating, the pen will soon become engaged, and I will surmise my subject! Usually it is about something I need to learn. I’d love to hear how it works for others.

Yesterday I learned that the silence I am seeking begins somewhere in my body. In a place wider and deeper than my ever active brain. To be sure, I am not clear what this means, but I will keep exploring it now that my body has gotten my attention…but did it have to do so in such a dramatic way? Heart disease? Perhaps so. It is healing a life-long pattern.

Initially I named this blog Dwelling in Presence to refer to a quality of mindfulness, a function of the mind’s attention. While I think this is key to the journey I am on, the ability to focus and rest my mind on the presence in the present, the indwelling of God, my heart has already made it known that it has been ignored and taken for granted along with the rest of my body. I am literally heart-broken. I pray to be restored to wholeness.

Rev. Kate Winters

If I didn’t wake up in a hotel room in Portland this morning, I would have thought I was rousing from a bad dream. But no, here I am with a large compression type bandage on my right wrist. Fortunately, writing doesn’t require any heavy lifting, at least of the physical kind.

Actually, nothing really has changed since yesterday. The heart disease I now know I have was already present…I am just newly aware of it. Aware that it is serious enough to warrant bypass surgery in the next month or so. This awareness is blessing though the fear it has elicited is not. Truth be told, and truth is my main endeavor, I do not feel fear this morning. My mind is as quiet as when the resonant bell rings to begin my meditation, but without all the necessary intention. There is a clear and open space waiting to be filled, but it is staying blessedly empty.

This is a surprise. Though perahps it should not be. I feel as if I am no longer in my own hands. It is not fully up to me to fill the seconds, the minutues, the hours ahead. My rational, fixit brain has come to a halt. My body is telling me that now I am in its realm and it is time to listen to its rhythms and needs. This is new for me.

So here I am writing, letting my body take center stage. I am grateful to my embodied self that it continues to feel this writing as a desire, almost a need. Writing has always been a physical process for me, connecting outside and inside through the dance of my fingers around the pen. There seems to be something of incarnation in this – though in reverse. Turning body into word.

Right now, my body is at peace.

I am realizing that nothing steals my inner silence more than a continual stream of doctor appointments. I feel like I’ve had more blood taken out of me than I have in me right now! Yes, there is anxiety about the catheterization coming up Thursday, but even more than that is a frustration, even resentment, about how this retirement experience is shaping up so far. I was hoping for peace and open spaces. Instead, I have a calendar full of tests, labs, and procedures.

On the other hand, I have been the recipient of great kindness. A new cardiologist who takes time and listens, actually seeming to care about what happens to me. My first visit to a hematologist in an oncology lab brought me to a place of great suffering, but there was a sense of calm and joy in that office. Both the doctor and the nurse, used to dealing with fear, both looked me straight in the eyes and seemed determined to help me. I felt I could rest in that care. Skill certainly helps to heal the body, but it is surely kindness that heals the spirit.

The day after tomorrow, I will have the main event, the heart catheterization at Maine Med in Portland. After these few weeks, my hopes and expectations have changed a bit. Yes, I expect to have doctors and nurses who are skilled and will practice that skill on me. But my fervent hope is that I will find a place where I can sink into kindness. That will certainly bring calm and blessing to my heart long before my arteries are explored!

It is anaesthesia that allows us to totally let go our bodies into another’s hands, but it is kindness that allows us to go there in trust. And that is where the healing begins.

The sky is a soft peach hue in the east this morning with a deep aqua edging that fades into ice blue. I think of my mother Ann, who spent her young life in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn, moving later in life to Wilton and then Simsbury, Connecticut surrounded by tall trees instead of city lights and buildings. She always longed to be able to look out and see the whole sky. Her happy place was the ocean’s edge when visiting Maine where she could see an endless vista of sky and sea. And, of course, many little grandchildren frolicking in the foreground.

I admired my mother who knew what she wanted and what she loved, especially her sweetheart from high school, my father Jack. When he returned from war in Korea, together they began from a cold water flat in the city to make their dreams a reality. They did a spectacular job.

I sit here in a house I own under the peach to blue sky in large part because of their industriousness and love. They gave us the financial cushion to make it possible. I am sure this was one of their goals – the security of their five kids, eleven grandchildrren, and seven and counting greatgrands. We are all housed, fed, and comfortable.

I often wonder what they would think about their eldest daughter now, retired from a career in ministry (more a vocation than a career, but can one retire from a calling?), and planning an extended foray into silence. I expect my mom would work to understand it, we’d have a few long conversations, likely beginning with the questions – “But what is this going to do to Joel?” “How is it going to affect your relationship?” She’d relax a little when I tell her that he is looking forward to it, that it will give him some time to do his own soul-searching.

Now my dad, he would likely shake his head. But at this point, he would be used to this child who always chose to take a path he did not understand. Or agree with. Why get three advanced degrees in religious studies and ministry and then choose to pastor in small country and coastal churches, instead of having a respectable academic career? I am fortunate to be able to say that though he did not often understand me, he always loved me, and I him.

In reality, it was my father’s encouragement to attend college, even the Jesuit one that he blamed for “ruining” me, that fostered my desire to explore the life of the Spirit. To seek the riches of silence and live a contemplative life. Perhaps, had we begun our marriage in a cold water flat, having just endured a war, Joel’s and my path would have been different, shaped by other dreams and needs.

But I don’t know. I seem to have been haunted by God since childhood. Sh/he, they, it won’t let me go. Perhaps it began with attending to the skies in the morning.

Sunrise in Belfast