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,” January 30, 2024
The half moon gives a gentle luminessence to the snow outside my window this morning. As it flows through the branches of the crab apple tree, it appears to etch dark roots on the ground. The tree appears whole to my eyes – roots, trunk, branches. I think moonlight is good for seeing things whole, helping me to remember that my life is grounded in so much more than I can see in the moment. My own shadow in the moonlight always takes me unawares, as do some of my most deeply buried memories. In the moonlight, they appear as roots.
Today I am grateful for these roots, my mother Ann and my father Jack, whose spirits run through me as sure as their blood. My mother’s surfaces as joy, humor, and heart; my father’s as achievement, responsibility, and soul. How I would love to have this conversation with them, but perhaps in this mystical moonlight, I am.
As I go now to make another cup of coffee, I am reminded that I share many of these root spirits with my sisters, coffee lovers all. Sue even made up a great little song she sings to us sometimes – “Oh yes, it’s coffee time! It’s really coffee time!” (Think “Ta ra ra Boom de ay!) I’m not the only song writer!
Other roots spring to mind. My earliest childhood friends: Marie, with whom I wanted to become a nun and enter the convent, Ernie, my first boyfriend who started my trend away from that idea, and Katherine, who lived two doors down, but whose home was like my own. I see Stella, her mother’s face, in my mind, and feel the love shining from it. I was a happy, if somewhat serious child. Then there was Sister Joseph from Holy Family School, who I was fortunate to have as teacher in both second and fifth grades, the First Communion and Confirmation years. I can still feel the warmth of her habit as she wrapped her cloak around me against the cold at a church festival. I felt special and blessed.
The Catholic church was really a tale of opposite environments for me. One of exclusion and rejection as a girl/woman, one of affirmation and encouragement as a student/child of faith. It awakened in me both a passionate love and a deep despair. Kind of similar, I surmise, to an abusive marriage relationship. I understand why wounded women don’t get out sooner. Such a mix of emotions. As far as the church is concerned, it took me just over forty years.
While the institution was such a conundrum for me, a root that both fed me and withheld its nourishment, some of my most healthy connections were with people I encountered whose roots were planted within it as well. Father Richard Schoenherr who after one of the sermons I preached in Madison just looked into my eyes and said “You are priest,” and his wife, Judith, said “You are friend.” Both had a powerful healing effect on my soul.
Father Henri Nouwen, renowned spiritual teacher and writer, both helped me find my vocation when I read his Out of Solitude as a junior in college and continued to inspire me as teacher at Yale Divinity School, but also confirmed for me in subtle ways that it would not be as a Catholic yearning for approval as a spiritual woman. In hindsight, I think he was struggling with demands on his time as well as his sexual identity (which he has since written about) which I took as a discomfort with women, meaning me, and was hurt by it. However, I will always be grateful for the fire he lit inside me for ministry and solitude. One of my deepest roots for sure, he died in 1996, but I still can hear his wonderful Dutch accent when I read his work!
I am also grateful to Henri because thanks to my strugle with him, I had some wonderful encounters with my advisor at the seminiary, Sr. Dr. Margaret Farley, RSM. She helped me through some tumultuous feelings as well as giving me a vision of what women could become even in the Catholic church if they trusted their gifts. She was the most brilliant woman I had ever met as well as one of the most loving. An Ethicist by calling, Margaret was instrumental in helping me dismantle the male God in my head, the one I had projected onto certain flesh and blood men in my life. She planted in me the desire to facilitate that for other women.
Well, this is enough for today. I know I will write again soon because as of February 11th this blog will cease to be. I cannot sustain it on our retirement income. But I am going to try to find another way to connect, perhaps a Facebook page. This blog has gotten me through a pretty challenging year and I’m grateful for it. One of the branches springing from the roots!
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” January 26, 2024
Tiny snowflakes are flying gently by on this Friday morning. They are almost too small to see. But they are a harbinger of more to come, at least according to the forecast. I begin the day with a sense of deep peace. This is my favorite kind of day. Nothing on my calendar and a lovely snowfall to enjoy outside my window as I burrow under blankets with books to read and time to write. And there’s Joel in the next room getting ready to feed his birds. I hope he keeps on his big brown hooded terry robe. It suggests that our St. Francis statue in the garden has come to life. Sometimes Joel does seem like St. Francis reincarnated. That is until he watches a Green Bay Packers game. Then we both allow ourselves to get a little loud and crazy. But not today. Today is a day for joyful silence.
It may have been a blessing that I was unable to begin my retirement with three months of silence as I had planned. Imposed silence (even if by myself) might have skewed my relationship with it. As it is now, on a day like today the silence feels like my true home. It doesn’t have to be continuous. In fact, there is something delicious about being able to return to it after a day has been too scheduled and noisy. Then I feel embraced by the silence, even as I am challenged to learn the mysteries and the wisdom within it. There is just an endless depth to silence that I am constantly drawn to. I’m learning more and more what Meister Eckhart meant when he claimed that nothing is “so much like God as silence.”
I wonder if this romance began in my childhood when I would go alone into our big city church and the heavy wooden doors closed behind me. Space and time were transfigured as wax, incense smells, and filtered light combined with the sudden hush from the traffic outside to create a truly mystical sanctuary. I’m sure I didn’t know the word “mystical” then, but I knew the experience. In that space, I felt an inexplicable presence that I could rest in.
I know a lot of people have rejected the Roman Catholocism they were born into. But I know I was also given great gifts by that tradition. It truly nurtured in me a “felt” sense of God. I grew up with a bodily sense of the holy, a sacramental view of life and creation, and all the joy it conferred over my lifetime. And, of course, it nurtured my love for silence. I am finding that silence loves me back.
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” January 6, 2024
A pretty quarter moon hovers over me as I write this morning. It is a waning moon, raising the question: What things are waning in my life these days? When I write this blog, I tend to focus on growth and addition, not contraction and diminishment. Perhaps that word, diminishment, is part of the problem. It hints at a lessening, a negative event, when maybe there are many ways that our lives enhanced by becoming somehow less, smaller, more circumscribed.
I am finding that growing older is an experience of waning, at least for me. The most obvious evidence of this is in comparing my appointment calendar of 2022 to the one of 2023. Now the first year of retirement is bound to have fewer engagements than the one before, having little to do with the reality of aging. Also, having major surgery in a year is bound to slow one down. But I did spend whole weeks without seeing anyone at all, except Joel of course. To be honest, that slower pace, having many periods of wide open days, seemed to suit me. It may be that growing older is allowing me to settle into my introverted nature a bit more, withhout an ounce of guilt! I could have been more actively engaged with others, but chose not to.
Accompanying the longer stretches of solitude, came more mindfulness in conversation, and thus the waning of idle chatter, perhaps a more judicious use of words. I have experienced conversation to be more intentional, with a larger purpose than just “talk”. It may be as we age we are less likely to want to stay on the surface with people. Teenage gabfests with friends were very enjoyable as were grad school “debates” about anything, but I really have no interest in repeating them. I feel a deeper urgency to get to the heart of things, to the heart of myself and others, and this seems to require less verbiage and more silences. Does this mean my social self is waning while something else is waxing? I don’t really know.
What else is waning thse days? I wish I could say it is my need to “please” people, but sady that seems to be hanging on. All wrapped up with caring about what others think of me, I’m afraid these will be two of my last ego traits to fall! But the good news is the more I can observe my thought patterns in the silence and solitude, the more I recognize it when these habits take over. I can, if I will it, stop!
One thing that has surprised me as I turn sixty-eight this week is that I have lost none of my drive to grow and perhaps have even increased in my ability to make personal changes. I am learning that the older I become, the less adamant I am to hold on to the old ways I used to think. Growing up I heard a lot about old people supposedly “stuck in their ways.” In my pastoral work I have found this to be more true of the young and the middle-aged than it is of their elders. Now, I am ready to learn new ways of being and thinking, my insistence on former ways is waning. Growing older is much more exciting than I thought!
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” January 2, 2024
We have skylights in our house, two in the dining room and one in the kitchen. Aside from the brightness they add, my favorite thing about them is walking in the darkness before dawn into the the kitchen when my eyes are suddenly flooded with moonlight. I didn’t know how powerful the light of the moon was until it came laser-like through the ceiling the first night I slept in this house. That time it was a full moon taking me totally off-guard. This morning it is a half moon shining in the window of my hermitage room bright enough to help me write in my journal.
Dwelling in presence as I am wont to do, especially in the early morning hours, the world outside tends to whisper to me. Sometimes it is just the whisper of silence. I bow to 16th century priest and mystic John of the Cross who said that “Silence is God’s first language.” It is deep, unfathomable, and full of mystery. It can also be soft, comforting, and full of peace. On days of inner turmoil, silence seems to cover me like a calming blanket.
This morning, the winter birds break that silence with familiar voices. First it was the cardinals, who seem to get up almost as early as I do. Now it is the doves, the finches, and chickadees. Often the crows arrive by about now, but they must be sleeping in. That’s okay with me for their whispers are not nearly as pleasant, often sounding like a big rambunctious family in the middle of a squabble.
Then there is the distinct whisper of the air. No matter how cold it is, I always crack my window open to meet the day. It makes me feel closer to my outdoor kin, even though my right shoulder freezes a little bit. Sometimes the air blows in with a “whoosh” and other times it creeps in silently, caressing me with the lightest of touches. It feels like a quiet blessing, that silent God speaking.
The moonlight has just been overtaken by the sun rising on the opposite side of the house. With it, the squirrels have come to pester the birds on the apple tree feeder. The mourning doves, nine of them in all, are unmoved and continue their breakfast activity beneath. I notice that with the sun, there is a different quantity and quality of sound outside. Two seagulls are flying over calling to one another and the doves just took off as one with their particular noisy flap of feathers. Less whisper now. Ah, and here come the crows!
I had a thought this morning that I don’t fully understand. As I read and reflect more about aging these days, I am feeling a stronger connection with the moon. Something about being struck by the moonlight on the way to morning coffee feels different than being jarred awake by the sun. Aging has a very different kind of radiance than the growing up years. If anyone has any thoughts about this, I’d love to read them. Until then I’ll be writing every morning in my journal by the moon, listening to creation’s whispers.
Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, “Dwelling in Presence,” December 29, 2023
I woke up thinking about my mother this morning During our daily phone call during her retirement, she would usually tell me what she had done that day. ”I cleared out the drawer underneath my desk,” or “I emptied out the closet in dad’s old office.” She said it with a satisfied sense of accomplishment, often adding “I have to do at least one thing a day, then I can rest.” I never really understood why she couldn’t rest to begin with, after all she was retired.
I’m starting to get it. One of the challenging things I have found in this stage of life is that after so many years of a packed calendar, I now have a lot of empty spaces. As someone who has always longed for more solitude and silence in her life, you would think that this is a good thing. At first, it was glorious (minus the detour for heart surgery), but after a while, I realized something. Although I was still basking in the silence of the mornings, meditating, reading, and writing, by noon I began to feel restless, and even, dare I say it, bored!
Yes, I know, there are many things I can be doing, good work to volunteer for, justice to advocate for, peace to demonstrate for, democracy to protect. And yes, I know I am not done with all of that, but I do not want to simply redo an earlier phase of life without knowing what this one is for. I could easily once again get caught up in a whirlwind before I ever find my ground. Neither do I want to float through half of my days wondering what I’m still here for. This is not restful, it is disorienting.
So, back to Ann, my mother. I think mom firgured out a key to a successful transition to retirement. After days filled with service in her occupation as director of volunteers in a large nursing home/assisted living facility, she may have felt unmoored as I do in open time. There is something, however, that can stem that feeling whatever you are, or are not, currently engaged in. Livng withintention. Each day she seemed to set an intention for her day, whether it be to clear out a drawer or a closet, visit a friend, anything that raised her motivation and feeling of accomplishment when done.
This is different than just “keeping busy.” Setting an intention raises one’s focus and engages the will. Why is this important? My recent experiences of restlessness and boredom feel like having lost not only the energy, but the will, to do or be anything. I may have a number of admirable goals, but somehow have lost the ability to reach toward them. I am living much of my day without a sense of intention, without making a firm decision, to change my circumstances or anyone else’s.
Mom, I understand now why you couldn’t rest until you got something done, until you accomplished your intended goal. It fed your desire to be of use, to be of service, without which you would always be restless and a little bored. You knew you still had it in you to accomplish what you set out to do. And you always did do wonderful things with your life, inspiring your friends and family.
So now, it is my turn. In this retirement phase, I need to return to living with intention. I can start small – such as handling one of the piles of folders in my hermitage, filing or recycling as need be, not expecting to get everything done at once. I may feel accomplished enough to take on another tomorrow. But only if I start my day with intention. I wish I had my mother to call and talk about it. But it will feel good to exercise the will in small ways, because I feel bigger challenges coming. I want to be able to say “yes” with all my heart.
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 27, 2023
As the wind howls and the rain pounds upon the already saturated ground, I watch the season evolve outside my window. The very last leaves are being blown off trees and I realize that the next storm may bring a carpet of white to cover them. Not long ago, I wrote about November melancholy. I think this storm is clearing the way for December longing. My heart is gearing up, and I’m beginning to feel its urgency.
Last year this time, I was preparing for the Advent season at The First Church. The most meaningful season as far as I am concerned. The church talks about it as a time of getting ready for the coming of Christ into the world, both at the end of time and as a baby in the manger in Bethlehem. As such, it is a four week period of waiting and hope. But Advent really came alive for me when I began to understand it as a season of longing. A time when we should not only really listen to what we are yearning for deep inside, but when we should talk about these longings with one another.
There is a huge difference between asking someone “What do you want for Christmas?” and “What do you long for at this time?” Our personal wants are too small for this season, while our longings may stretch as wide as the world and as high as the heavens. Lighting the Advent wreath of four candles is a meaningful ritual for naming these longings, often summed up in the words hope, peace, joy and love.
We short circuit this communal spiritual practice however by simply lighting a candle, singing a song, and moving on to the next one. My desire is to find ways to lean into these longings together and flesh them out. We can break open our hearts with one another, risk baring our souls, and then act as the beloved community finding ways to respond to these yearnings for the sake of the world and each other. The result would be incarnation – God breaking into the world through our flesh and blood.
Is it possible to create beloved community on line? Is anyone interested in lighting the candles and sharing your longings? Yes, it would be a challenge. But the world needs our heart’s longing and the will to embrace the earth with all our love.
Dwelling in Presence 