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 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.
Dwelling in Presence 