Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” February 9, 2024
A shooting star greeted me as I opened the back door to the deck this very early morning. First, I took in a quick breath of surprise and wonder. Taken unawares, I experienced beauty and blessing. Second, when my brain started to engage, I realized that in that flash of a moment with the tiny trail of light, I actually accomplished what makes me, and all of us, most human. Out of this random encounter, I made meaning.
Think about it. I don’t know where the light came from or what it actually was. It could have been a tiny speck flung from a meteor across the galaxy. It could also have been a piece of space junk falling down to earth, entering our atmosphere. But what do we commonly call these things? Falling stars, shooting stars, signs of good luck. Some of us make wishes on them, feeling an unusual power in the sighting. Some simply stare in awe, waiting for another touch of heaven to descend. In any case, this is an event that does not go unnoticed and unmarked, but somehow changes us at the same time that we make our own meaning of it.
As for me, I felt my heart fill with light and gratitude. It was a sign of something that I’ve learned more surely as I have written this blog in my first year of retirement. Staying present, or “dwelling in presence,” brings not only meaning, but joy to our nights and days, dawns and twilights. To know blessing, we must be ready to receive it, open and aware, even in the midst of triple bypasses and pain. Every bit of life is precious. In every second is meaning to be found. We only need to open doors to the darkness, feel the cold air on our skin, and catch the falling star. Amen.
Note: This is the last post for “Dwelling in Presence.”I will seek another way to connect with myself and you!Thank you for taking this year-long journey with me.
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” February 8, 2024
Why is it that I feel free to write almost anything personal, sensitive, and embarrasing about most things except when it comes to my spiritual life? Why do I think that somehow that must be kept secret? As if somehow I am violating God or myself if I go there? But, wait a minute, my hope is that my spiritual life spills out all over the page whenever I write!. It certainly is not separate from my everyday world. Everything I experience is shaped by that wide and deep horizon.
So what do I keep to myself? Uh oh…here I go…challenging myself, so here it is. It is about my prayer life, or to be more specific, my attempts at a Centering Prayer life. For those who don’t know, centering prayer is a Christian version of meditation meant to lead to contemplation written extensively about by Father Thomas Keating, Cynthia Bourgeault, and Martin Laird among others in contemporary times. I say Christian version because every recognized major religion has a practice that is meant to lead to some kind of union with what is understood as ultimate reality. And honestly, I haven’t gotten there.
Yes, I have tried different methods of meditation, and I might even make a passable Buddhist. But at the moment, I am following the sage advice of the Dalai Lama who advises that instead of jumping from one path to another trying to find what “works” for you, it is best to return to one’s own tradition and commit deeply to it. There is already some kind of foundation for one there. I remember my beloved New Testament professor at Yale Divinity School, Luke Timothy Johnson, saying close to the same thing adding. ”We all meet at the same center.” And I trust these two implicitly. So for about eight months I have returned (I admit I’ve been here before) to the practice of Centering Prayer.
Let me tell you what I think the problem is. I have the quiet, the open time, and the supportive environment to delve into the silence. My phone provides the timer, complete with Tibetan bells, to get me started. But then I am tripped up in the very simple, one would think simple, centering prayer word. The practice teaches us to choose a word or a brief phrase to return to if your mind cannot quiet down and gives you too many thoughts or images to truly center oneself in silence.
Many choose the Jesus prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”) or the simple name, “Jesus”, or another word like “grace” or even “help.” The word itself is less important than its function as a way to return oneself to the silence. I would hate to tell you how many words and phrases I have chosen to help me silence my mind. It can take only ten seconds into my twenty minute session when my mind starts questioning, then fighting, with my prayer word.
I am supposed to simply note my thoughts, but not engage or converse with them, and let them go. Return to the prayer word. Use it to keep my mind busy until the silence returns. But as soon as I return to the prayer word itself, the cycle continues… ”Why this word? It doesn’t feel right. I can’t synchronize it with my breath. Is there a better word for me?” I can see Father Keating shaking his head from beyond! Certainly I settle down in the session, but decide to try a different word, or phrase, next time.
I know there are people who use the same word for years and years. Cynthia Bourgeault said she does in one of her books on Centering Prayer. I have wondered if there are others like me who struggle with it. Perhaps it has to do with my life-long love of words and the desire to use the right one at the right time. I’ve considered asking someone else to just give me a word. But who am I kidding? The same process would begin and I would berate myself again. What does all this tell me about myself? That I do not trust the practice? That I am a self-defeating perfectionist or a control freak? That I might want to go back to the breath or substitute an image, a candle flame for example, for the word? But I seem to do best with my eyes closed. See, I am fighting already!
Okay, if anyone can relate, I’d love to hear from you. As for now, I will just let my embarrassment be. I am still longing deeply for God. It is what and who I am. That’s got to count for something, doesn’t it? By the way, near the end of today’s meditation, I somehow tripped over a word. I don’t know where it came from. It could be heaven sent, for with it, my mind went silent. Have I found my word? Please pray for me tomorrow!
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” November 29, 2023
I wasn’t planning on writing this morning but I am so taken by something I’m reading that my heart is fluttering. This used to happen to me once in a while when I was studying as something would strike me in a way that I knew my sight had been widened and my thinking changed. I could barely sit still, wanting to dance around the library stalls, the dorm room, or the nearby field.
Okay, what is it today? The book is Aging with Wisdom: Reflections, Stories and Teachings by Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle. (Kathleen B., if you are reading this, perhaps this is the book we should read together!) A short two page chapter begins with a quote from Eihei Dogen, the 13th century founder of the Soto School of Buddhism: “You can comprehend all of Buddhism, but you cannot go beyond your abilities and your intelligence unless you have robai-shin, grandmother mind, the mind of great compassion.” Hobitzelle goes on to write that in “East Asian languages, mind and heart are designated by the same word, shin. The grandmother’s heart has been broken open and healed countless times through the hard knocks of life. In through the cracks of disappointment and pain come compasson and loving-kindness.” (p. 27)
For many years I struggled on my spiritual journey when my former images of God just broke down and fell apart. Then about thirty years ago, I began to imagine and relate to God as the “great broken heart of the universe” (now, “cosmos”). The totally open Presence that pours love, forgiveness, and compassion upon all who/that suffer.
This way of thinking rose for me soon after I went through a guided meditation on a retreat. The meditation began by walking through a deep, dark forest, coming upon a cabin, entering, and finding someone there. Anyone. In my heart/mind, I immediately saw an old woman sitting in front of a fireplace knitting. I didn’t want to disturb her. But she looked up and her face was shining, ancient and kind. She took what she had been working on and put it on me – a purple sweater. I somehow knew that it was made just for me. I felt a deep warmth and the meditation ended.
This experience touched me on many levels. As someone who has always had a hard time receiving love, feeling unworthy of it, this generous gift, given with such joy, totally filled my heart. I know I had received a moment of deep healing. The ancient woman herself gave me the first experience of being totally comfortable with a feminine God image. She was love and compassion, tenderness and shelter, safety, and, for me, hope. From her, the broken open God-heart evolved, the heart of an ancient grandmother who was not a stranger to pain, loneliness, or sorrow. A great healer.
In a stunning incidence of serendipity, the week following the retreat I was at an Arts Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. I came across an image that took my breath away. It was a tiny purple sweater mounted on hand-made paper and framed – for what reason I don’t know. Well, maybe I do. It was God’s love delivered straight to me. And yes, I took it home.
I now have to find that work of art in the boxes of my as yet unfinished hermitage room, share it with you, and put it up on my newly painted wall. Why is my heart still beating so fast? I realize I may have finally found a name for my God image – Robai-Shin. And it makes me want to dance!
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” November 14, 2023
I have about an hour before I’m off to cardiac rehab. Why I ever chose the early morning session is beyond me, except that I’ve always thought of myself as a morning person. And that is true, however good mornings are for writing, reading, praying, not, I have learned, for sweating on the stepper and the elliptical followed by stretching. I know this is good for me, but I now think it would be just as good at 3 p.m. as at 7:15 a.m. I have been very faithful to rehab, but I must admit some frustration. I have not felt the surge of energy everyone told me I would get following surgery and exercise. I am tired much of the time. Fortunately (I think), it has been discovered that I have some kind of chronic anemia. No explanation for it yet. But I am getting iron infusions and that seems to help.
I am doing what I can to stay awake and hopeful. Recently I decided to begin a meditation practice I have engaged in occasionally on and off for many years. I’d been drawn by the Centering Prayer method made accessible some time ago by the late Fr. Thomas Keating. He advised two twenty minute silent sessions a day, aided by a “sacred word” to keep one from fully engaging in the thoughts that incessantly pop up when unbidden. Honestly, I’ve never been very good at it. I find that I have a penchant for arguing with the sacred word, never mind the unending thoughts! If I could only find the right one that doesn’t rile me in some way!
You may ask, why not try something else? After all, there are many fine methods of meditation drawn from Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. The thing is, I would probably bring the same arugumentative me into any single one of them! This time I want to try patience, and to learn something about the person who in the midst of silent prayer finds herself arguing with sacred words! Another form might have me questioning an image or analyzing the breath instead of surrendering to the process. I’ve never been one to accept things as given. So, why go back to this meditation thing at all?
There are a few things I know. Silence reveals. Silence grasps and teaches me all the time. Silence brings me directly into the present moment which is a vast and spacious place. I’ve had the suspicion lately that silence will lead me straight to my heart which is longing for something right now.
So. I am going back to meditation to encounter the silence. As I do, I am rereading Cynthia Bourgeault’s book The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice. Perhaps if I wrestle with the words while reading, I will experience more space inside the meditation. I am kind of excited to learn once again (only now it feels more real to me) that when Cynthia is writing about the heart of centering prayer, she is talking about the actual physical organ, the one that has gone through so much in my body this past year. I know I will be reading and meditating with a new depth of perception. A new modicum of stillness.
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” Auguest 16, 2023
People become obsessed with their ego-driven goals, forgetting that the present moment is the source of well-being and fulfillment.”Kabir Helminski, Living Presence, p. 150
How is it that we can know something deep inside but not until someone articulates it in simple words, unearthing the insight from within, do we acknowledge the truth? It seems to me that a spiritual teacher is a kind of excavator who is able to wrest insight from the depths of our own awareness to make it available for our understanding and growth. I think this is what Jesus did. Not speaking in esoteric terms, he used words that would resonate down to the hearts of people, giving them access to inner wisdom that could transform their lives. Unless, of course, they were not quite ready. Think Nicodemus or the rich young man. On the flip side, think of the woman at the well. Yes, Jesus simply helped her to see what she already knew, but until then, hadn’t been able to trust. But once the light was shone on what was already in her heart, she could no longer contain it. She became the teacher.
Kabir Helminski, author of the book I mentioned a few posts back, seems to be my personal excavator right now. It reminds me of a phrase I heard long ago – “When you are ready, the teacher will come.” What has made me ready to learn at this time? Two things, I think – retirement and heart surgery. To be honest, I was truly dreading my retirement from The First Church in Belfast last January for so many reasons. Relationships would change. I would miss the people, especially the children. I would miss planning and leading worship, a passion of mine. I would miss preaching – I loved the whole process, from preparation and prayer, to the writing, to the sharing. Most of all, I knew I would miss having the identity and purpose of pastor. I had a recognized role to play in the community. I was afforded almost instant intimacy with people at sacred times in their lives – weddings, births, illnesses, and deaths. Being a pastor was all-consuming, and yes, at times, exhausting. But I knew who I was and what I was for.
I immediately discovered after retirement that though it was a major change, it wasn’t enough to make me ready for the next stage of my life. I let go of the church and my role, but not my preoccupations. If I wasn’t a pastor, who was I now? What could I do? How do I use all this education? Who could I perform for now (a powerful habit from childhood)? How can I give purpose to my life? Who was I meant to serve? What does God want of me?
After about eight weeks of this anxious questioning, my chest started to feel tight. I visited a cardiologist and within days I had a stress test, an echocardiogram, a heart catheterization, and was shocked to be told I needed triple bypass surgery. My focus changed to simple survival. The questions took a back seat and all I could do was submit to present need and allow myself to be cared for. Thank God for Joel in this time and for the doctors and skilled medical personnel who knew what they were doing.
Now, nearly four months later, I realize that the surgery was a necessary step in embracing this next phase of life. No, I do not think that the powers that be sent heart disease for this purpose. But I do think that the All Loving One regularly transforms suffering into wisdom and light. In this time, I was shown that the questions preoccupying me following retirement were very much of the ego, the very questions that I had been wrestling with all my life. Now, ego can be a helpful guide in life, but it can also subvert other kinds of growth that are available at this later stage.
So, enter Kabir Helminski, teaming up with my retirement and heart surgery, to guide me away from egoic striving and lead me into the Present. The Present – the very place that was calling me when I first heard in my heart – “Go into the silence.” I know I’ll be writing more about this later. For now, I can only say that the Present has brought me the cool morning breeze, the soothing waters, the call of the owl, the sway of the prairies grasses, blessed time and rest, and the smile of my beloved. In other words, joy.
I bolted straight up in bed last night, awakened by the distinct sound of a barred owl just outside the window. Joel asked, “Do you hear something?” My first thought was how could he not hear it? But then I remembered two things – first, his fairly serious hearing loss, and second, I think my hearing is especially tuned in to this particular sound from this particular bird. After all, this is the way my mother has communicated with me since her death in 2016.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that we were serenaded last night. Yesterday was full of disappointment. I was packed and emotionally ready to head toward Portland tomorrow for my pre-op appointment before Friday’s surgery. Yes, I know you must be as tired hearing about this as I am writing about it. Well, I got a call in the late afternoon from Kim, my surgeon’s nurse. She told me that they are postponing my surgery for another two weeks to May 4th because of too many other urgent cases they need to handle. My immediate response was “But, I’m ready! Waiting is hard!” But then I fully took in her words and realzed that I am blessed not to be one of those urgent cases. Now, my cardiologist in Belfast told me not to wait too long, but he isn’t handling the surgical schedule at Maine Med.
Both Joel and I felt quite deflated. It has been over a month now that we have known of the need for this bypass. We haven’t spent these days a lot differently than we otherwise would have, though I do notice him asking how I am doing more frequently. There is a deeper awareness in the day-to-day of what we mean to one another. Another blessing.
Now there is also the owl. Actually, I think there were two or three owls surrounding our house last night. Mom brought some friends. They did sing to us, even loud enough for Joel to hear. For those who haven’t heard my owl story, I will just share that ever since my father had a heart attack, a barred owl took to watching over my mother from the woods that surrounded her home in Conneticut. It showed up whenever there was a need. One time when I visited them from Wisconsin, I went out to the deck and whispered a thanks into the trees, asking the owl if I could see her. Within seconds, she flew down to the branch closest to me (I exaggerate not) and stared at me with her beautiful brown eyes. I was awed. There is much more to this story, but I’ll end with saying that I hadn’t heard a barred owl’s call after moving to Maine until the morning of my mother’s birthday the year that she died. I cried happy tears.
So, of course, we were serenaded last night. My mom sensed a need, and sent her angels to fill it. In this case, her angel is an owl. And now, it is mine as well.
I stepped out onto the deck just before four this morning to a deep and blessed silence. The traffic we often hear from the nearby highway had not yet begun. Not a single bird was singing, though I knew it wouldn’t be long. The sky held a just-beyond-full moon, with a smattering of stars. Nothing was moving. Yesterday’s winds had died. It felt like a vacuum.
I waited and I listened. Then I remembered. It is Holy Saturday. The day in between. A day of true liminality, filling the space between life and death. Or in this case, death and life. For me, it is a most mysterious day of the Christian year. The tomb is not empty. What do we do with that?
Honestly, I think that we who have followed and planned for the liturgical year have missed the boat on this one. Putting all our energy into a stirring Palm Sunday, a rich Maundy Thursday, an often excruciating Good Friday, and a trimphant Easter Sunday, Saturday has often gone by unnoted and unnoticed.
I can almost hear my clergy colleagues moan – “What does she want us to do, another over the top liturgy to plan and execute?” Isn’t there enough exhaustion at the end of these days? My baby sister who is married to an Episcopal priest calls this time “Holy Hell Week,” and though some may be scandalized, most of us understand. As I wrote on Thursday, we are moving through the rapids with little down time to float.
So, how have we missed the boat on this day? We have missed honoring the profound truths of the tomb on Holy Saturday. That death is real and a part of the Christian, the human, story. That silence is not to be avoided. That the deep and the dark can be the most fertile place for our our spirits to grow. That a rising not only takes a dying, but a resting in the unknown. The tomb involves the ultimate letting go, there is nothing more to do, but there is still a power that can be working on our transformation. But to get there, everything that is familiar to us must die. All that we love needs to be let go. The tomb is the cold, hard reality that all of us must enter before having any glimpse of new light.
I have spent a good deal of my life running away from various tombs, various endings, never realizing that they were invitations to deep rest, silence, and transformation. The three months of silence that I was planning for in retirement before my health issues appeared may have been an attempt to reverse this – to run toward the silent and tansforming tomb instead of away. But perhaps it is the job of life to take us to them, our job to receive when our time is at hand.
This year, I will practice Holy Saturday as a day for receiving the dark mysterious and unknown. Perhaps I will take a walk in Grove Cemetary in communion with all the spirits I have loved there. I will try not to run away from the death that feeds so much of life. For indeed, we do have a God of both.
It is Thursday of Holy Week, in the middle of what I used to call the “rapids” or the “whitewater” of the river of time that is the Christian liturgical year. It has always been a bumpy ride from the ecstatic jubilation of Palm Sunday, to the astounding power of sharing a simple table with one’s community on this day, to the utter desolation and grief on Friday, to gathering to prepare the setting for an open grave on Saturday, to the flowers and trumpets of Easter Sunday. For over thirty years, my job was to guide the craft through the thrilling and dangerous waters.
Here now I sit with my candle, coffee, and journal, a different kind of Holy Week. More reflective than roiling, thinking of Maundy Thursdays past. It was this day’s celebration that called me to be ordained in the church at all. My desire was not really to preach or to lead a congregation, but I longed to have the privilege and the joy of gathering the beloveds around the common table to experience the presence of God – in the bread and the wine, the elements of earth, and in one another. I wanted to be able to look the gathered straight into the eyes and reflect back their goodness as Jesus willed to do in his life. I desired to do my part in weaving together the tender and beautiful body of Christ as we celebrated in true communion. It is this whole body that is the sacrament – the miraculous life of God in the ordinary.
Even in retirement, I retain this calling. This blog, Dwelling in Presence, is my attempt at finding and naming the sacred in all aspects of our lives. In our joys, disapppointments, in our pain, fears, even in our physicality. As at the table on Maundy Thursday, brokenness is blessed. Feet are washed. Wounds are healed. The goodness of God is tasted. Life and death, joy and grief, loom together in one dance. In it all, Christ is present.
And, of course, the mandate (the origin of the word “Maundy”) is received. “Love one another as I have loved you.” What better sign of the sacred in the world, how clear a sacrament, is a community rooted and growing in love. The love that can’t help itself from reaching out, spreading, as it dwells and moves as God’s presence in the world. I may not be taken up by the whitewater today, but I am feeling pulled down into the depths of what this week, this faith, is all about.
The sky is filled with brilliant stars this morning. The coffee in my mug is hot and strong. I have a whole day open ahead of me with nothing on my calendar. This is my favorite kind of morning. Open space, nothing planned. A day to simply receive – not to make happen.
Is it possible to still do that in adulthood? Receive the day? After all, isn’t each day a gift, something we’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve? All I need to do is breathe, and I don’t even need to be conscious of it! My body has the wisdom to act on its own behalf. It totally cooperates in the process.
The sun has just risen over the horizon. In other words, the earth has spun into place for sunrise viewing. They needed nothing from me, except perhaps for my attention. No, they don’t even need that, but it is me who benefits. The golden orb matches the flame on my candle. Perhaps I will let it burn all the way down and enjoy an extended dawn.
Today the first bird I hear through the closed window (it is 20 degrees outside) is the crazed gobble of a turkey. Without looking, I can imagine his feathers fully flared out as he struts before the hens. They seem to vocalize when they’re in the mood for love. And the hens just ignore them! It makes me laugh every time. Spring must be exhausting for these toms. But then, they don’t have to go running after the babies all summer!
I hear my beloved husband stirring in the bedroom. Now I have to make a decision. Do I rise, go in there, and demand my fifteen minutes of cuddling? Or do I let him join me first and kiss me as he always does? I am so blessed. I let the kiss come to me. After all, I have decided to receive the day. All day. So far, its magic.
The golden orb of the sun, just a shade darker than the flame on my Lenten candle, is rising through the trees. Light has been at the center of my morning silence. I began early today, around 3:30, with a timed twenty minute meditation often called Centering Prayer in the Christian tradition. The beautiful book I’ve been reading for the third time, Martin Laird’s Into the Silent Land, inspired me to try again. I’ve begun this practice many times before but found myself frustrated and giving up after a month or two. I was not too excited to begin again, but I have a stubborn streak!
I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I have a love/hate relationship with words and usually end up fighting with them. Although the meaning of the prayer word or phrase in this practice is not supposed to matter, I would inevitably wind up wrestling with it. Not helpful!
Today’s meditation was different. I began by lighting the candle and watching the flame for a few minutes. When the Tibetan bell rang on the timer, I closed my eyes. By then, the flame had been literally taken inside, as the image of a light that is stared at for a time seems to fix itself on the inside of your eyelids. At that point, this image of flame became my “prayer word” as I stayed with it and returned to it should a thought begin to distract me.
I imagined the light sinking down from my head into my heart, as advised by my teacher of long ago, Henri Nouwen. For the first time, this made sense to me, even physical sense. At this point, I felt the light grow, lighting and warming my whole chest cavity, shining outward as well as inward. Yes, I have a strong imagination, but I also believe in an indwelling God. Was this a gracious hint of that truth? I stayed with this sensation as long as I could, just a few minutes.
My prayer this morning is that I can walk through this day attending to, feeding, and shedding this light in places that need it. Like the Quakers, I do believe that we all hold the light inside, the flame which I understand as the warm love of God. Let’s build a benevolent conflagration!
Dwelling in Presence 