Blog Postings; Monthly Musings
August 2023
Two pairs of cardinals made nests in our clematis trellis’ this summer. The kitchen window looks out to the east and the clematis are on either side of the window; there was a nest in each trellis. It was easy to watch the comings and goings of the hundreds of cardinals into and out of the clematis. Oh, wait, there were only four, hard working cardinal parents.
We also had a catbird nest in a pygmy lilac bush outside of the kitchen door next to a small round table on the patio we sit at in the morning. We could easily investigate the nest because the table is at eye level with the top of the pygmy bush. One morning the nest was filled with eggs; two eggs were large and light blue, and three eggs were smaller, white with black spots. Our Audubon source acknowledged cowbirds lay eggs in catbird’s nest and then often the catbird will hatch them. It’s Mayzie all over again from Horton Hatches the Egg.
The catbird nest was on an earlier timeline than the cardinals’ and we noted when two cowbird eggs hatched. For two days, there were only cowbird hatchlings and catbird eggs. As nature will have it, we also caught notice on our security camera of a family of six baby raccoons following mom through our yard around 4 AM. On the third day of our nest watch, all was lost-baby birds and eggs. We guessed-no match for mama raccoon with six babies to feed.
The cardinals built their nest in a safer spot-totally hidden in a clematis with a relatively flimsy trellis-much harder to climb than a pygmy lilac. We could not see the cardinals’ nests; the clematis are mature, and the leaves, branches and flowers of the plant totally obscure the nest, but we could tell the baby cardinals hatched; there was a constant flutter and flurry of activity. If I sat at the table off the kitchen door, a cardinal would soon be close behind me, hopping, clicking, clicking. I didn’t like to disturb them, so I quit sitting there in the morning. The clematis are planted on either side of a long flower bed in the front of the house. I let the weeding go because of the flurry and flutter if I got close to the clematis.
On Friday last week we invited some friends over for dessert and I HAD to weed. I went out and began and soon, lots of flutter, flurry and clicking ensued. I was surprised because I was on the other side of the front door from the clematis. We have a three-foot wide, linear flower bed in front of the house on either side of the front door, the clematis are on the north side. I looked at the cardinal a few feet from me as I knelt in front of the flower bed and said, “You’re going to have to be patient. I am not going to hurt your babies, but I need to get this weeding done.”
She continued her clicking. As I finished weeding the flowers on the south side of the front door, I stood up to look at my next task, the flowers in front of the clematis on the north side of the front door. We also planted two Taylor junipers on either side of the door two years ago and they are now about six feet tall. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small round pile of brown dirt, moving. I slowly advanced toward the front door and there on the ground was a baby cardinal, staring at me, breathing fast.
I considered what to do. I listened to the loud riding lawn mower in my neighbor’s yard, and the leaf blower they use to clear the sidewalk. It could be our same lawn service, and they would be at our house next. “The parents will never get this guy back to the nest once that crew arrives,” I thought. It was about 90 degrees (did I fail to mention this?). I decided to leave the cardinals to their task for now and went to the far end of the flower bed, by the kitchen door, and would work back to the front door from the other side.
A summer rainstorm earlier in the week knocked over the giant zinnias so I walked to the garage to get some stakes to post them up and glanced over at the front door. The baby bird was now up on one of the benches by the door. “Good-making progress,” I thought as I wiped the sweat off my forehead. One of the baby’s parents watched me from the downspout.
I went into the house to take a break. A little while later, I looked out the front door windows. No baby bird on the bench. “Good-back in the nest.” As I finished up the weeding, I decided to water the junipers on either side of the door. I watered the first juniper and went to the next. I watered the base of the tree and started to give it a refreshing shower when something moved. I was eye to eye with the baby bird.
It did not look good. Its little mouth was wide open, its eyes bulged out and I could clearly see its rapid breathing. My heart rate began to match the rate of its breathing. I could still hear the mowers. How soon before they would be here?
My first inclination is, “Leave nature to nature. Do no harm.” I learned earlier this summer through helping to start a purple martin colony at the park near our house that if a baby bird falls out of the nest, pick it up and put it back in. So much for not interfering.
But there were two cardinals’ nests-which one was the baby’s? Did it matter? For the first time this summer, I tried to find the nests in the clematis. With great trepidation, I carefully pulled back a section of the tangled branches, leaves and flowers and peered into the depths of the clematis. In the darkness of the plant, I was startled to see a baby bird, looking at me. I went to the other clematis and followed the same course of action. Another baby bird. To return the escapee, I would need to put my hand through a tangle of leaves, branches, and flowers of the clematis and drop it into a precarious nest. What if I knocked the other baby out?
I thought of Emily Dickinson, “If I can help just one fainting robin into its nest again, I shall not live in vain.” I hesitated. The parent cardinal was hopping around, clicking. The baby had made it from the ground by the front door, to the bench, to the top of the juniper. It wasn’t far to the nest. I prayed. Yes, I did. I did not know what to do. With much uncertainty and inner anxiety, I decided to leave the situation to the parents and God. They, I trust, know how to handle this.
With more anxiety than I like to admit, over the next hour I watched the baby off and on from inside the house. The lawn service next door was not ours. They left. Another hour went by. I went out and the baby was gone from the juniper.
On Sunday, I went to collect some basil from the flower garden and noticed the silence. No flurry, no fluttering, no clicking. I didn’t check; I knew the nests were empty. The cardinals had left. On to the rest of their lives.
Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God
But only she who sees takes off her shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
PostScript: I discovered, much to my surprise, that the experience I had is quite common. Thousands of people find baby birds on the ground and agonize over what to do (See Google). The consensus: If the baby is a nestling, put the baby back; if the baby is a fledgling, leave the baby to its own resources. I felt encouraged to realize there are so many people unsure of how to help a baby bird and how many who want to do the right thing.
-Anne Colloton
April 2023
Centering prayer helps me to know the divine presence of God within me. Through sitting down and quieting myself two times a day, for twenty minutes, I have come to know myself better and I have come to understand my basic goodness, my center, which is of the Spirit. I’m sure there are other ways to realize this; I am just grateful I found a way.
The Rosary is also a prayer I say to keep in touch with the Spirit; it helps me to stay calm when I feel anxious. I like the title of the newest mysteries of the Rosary given to us by Pope John Paul 11, the Luminous Mysteries. The Luminous Mysteries, or the Mysteries of Light, are to illustrate to us Christ’s Divinity. I thought about the Fourth Mystery of Light-the Transfiguration of Our Lord- after reading a description of this mystery in Thomas Keating’s book Open Mind Open Heart. Father Keating describes the changes Peter goes through as he witnesses the transformation of Jesus. First, he is afraid and overwhelmed, then awed, comforted and finally, ecstatic. Keating says, “The voice from heaven awakened their consciousness to the presence of the Spirit who had always been speaking within them, but whom until then they had never been able to hear. Their interior openness was filled with the luminous presence of the divine” (17). Peter sees the Divine-Jesus- transformed before his eyes into blinding light.
According to the University of Dayton website, “All About Mary”, Father Johan Roten writes, “The Transfiguration of Our Lord is the mystery of light par excellence. It announces Christ's Resurrection, the final victory of light over darkness, life over death. We see in the glory of God shining forth from the face of Christ the promise of our own resurrection and eternal life.” In other words, this mystery helps us to “See the Light.”
Peter sees the Light during the Transfiguration but Father Keating’s description of him startled me. Prior to the Transfiguration, Peter has been with Jesus and witnessed multiple miracles of healing; he has seen thousands eat when no food was available, people on stretchers get up and walk, the blind see, and people freed of their demons. And then, at the Transfiguration, Peter is given the ultimate mountain top experience AND according to the gospel of Matthew, he hears God, “This is my Son, whom I love.”
Forty days later (there are lots of ‘forty days’ time periods in the Bible), Jesus is arrested. Peter follows the guards and gets inside the courtyard of where the Sanhedrin is meeting (John 18:15-18 NIV), where Jesus is taken. It is dark and we can guess what he might be feeling-disoriented, full of fear, kind of like, “I can’t believe this is happening (to me).” It’s amazing we can relate to how the people in the stories of the Bible are feeling, 2000 years later. We’re all still just human. When a tragic event happens to someone else, we find ourselves thinking about how it affects Me. We try not to, we try to concentrate on how the other person is feeling, we try and be there for him/her, and we are there for them, but we still think about how it is affecting us because that is who we think about, in our minds and hearts, ourselves. Father Keating calls this the False Self, part of the Human Condition.
Back to Peter. He is standing in the courtyard; some stories have him by a fire. He warms himself, listens to others talk about what just happened-a criminal has been arrested, mercilessly hauled through the gates by armed guards, now in front of the Sanhedrin. And then someone points at Peter, a servant girl, and she says, “You know that man, Jesus. You were with him.” Peter is caught off guard, his first impulse, and the one he goes with, is to deny he knows Jesus, “I don’t know Him.”
And it doesn’t stop there. Now he has time to think about what he is saying. Here’s his chance to pause, reflect, and ask himself, “What am I saying?” But instead, he thinks, “They might go for me,” according to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, so when identified again, “No, you’re a Galilean. You are with him,” Peter responds, “No, not me” and as we all know, and I’m kind of cringing right now as I write this, he finally triples down and says, “I don’t know him.”
Oh my gosh. Ugh. Yech. That terrible sinking feeling when I’ve said the wrong thing, times one million. This is a fine example of The Human Condition.
This is why I was struck by the description of Peter by Keating during the Transfiguration-my immediate thought was-and yet, he betrays Jesus in a few short weeks. And of course, then, I think about myself. How do I have a chance? Peter knows Jesus personally, he experiences His Love, is present for all the miracles, AND the Transfiguration, and then denies he knows Him. How can I remember I know Jesus, His love, when I am caught off guard, when I am afraid, or overwhelmingly want to do something better left undone, or say something better left unsaid?
I think about this. And then I remember that in a few weeks, a bit later in the story, the disciples will all be together in a room closed off from others, and a flame will light above their heads. And Jesus will appear and transfer His Spirit into each of theirs. They each receive that Divine Light, it becomes a part of them and will always be there, always available living within them and they know immediately how to access it. And it helps them lead their lives from then on.
With this powerful Divine Light Peter goes on to perform miracles. He leads his life with this Light as his guide. His fear is squelched, and we know he doesn’t run away and fulfills his promises and becomes the cornerstone of the Christian church. This Glorious Mystery, the Holy Spirit descends, is given to him, and Most Importantly, to ALL OF US.
And this is what Centering Prayer helps me know. As I build my relationship with the Divine by consenting to God’s Presence and Action within each day, I am relieved of my false self, little by little and my faith in the Ultimate Presence increases. I know Centering Prayer is healing me; I am a different person than when I began. And to know the Divine Presence was within me, all along. And my healing allows me to understand and know this Love within me, to know the Love for me is present and it is real. And that is a miracle.
-Anne Colloton
March 2023
An Introduction to Centering Prayer Workshop Experience
On a glorious autumn Saturday in Central Illinois, Toni and John Petersen and myself, along with our tech support, Ed Colloton, present an all-day Introduction to Centering Prayer Workshop at East Bay Camp. We have a lovely, holy experience in a beautiful setting. The room is a large rectangle, surrounded by windows and we feel the embrace of trees with leaves of yellow, red, orange, and brown, and sunshine that lights up the room and our interactions with each other. No one needs a reminder of the presence of God “within and without us, lowly and meek, yet all powerful.”
We have 11 people join us from Normal First United Methodist Church. Pastor Kathy King-Nobles was intrigued by Kris Isted’s description of the transformation she experienced after participating in a centering prayer group for a few years. Kris asked me about a possible workshop for Pastor Kathy and some of the others at the church and as luck would have it (or the Spirit acting quickly), I met Pastor Kathy the next Monday. We talked a bit about Centering Prayer, she asked me some questions, I gave her the links to Contemplative Outreach and to our Central Illinois Contemplative Outreach website and she and I emailed back and forth and soon, the workshop was on. Pastor Kathy wanted the workshop to be a whole day, a day apart, for the participants. She contacted Cassie Lietzen, the Camp Manager at East Bay Camp, and rented the space for the day with lunch included. Toni, John and I usually give a full morning presentation that lasts from 8:30 to 12:30 and felt a few trepidations about developing the presentation for a full day.
I previously participated in a full day Introductory Workshop with Cynthia Fore in 2017. Cynthia visited from Greenville, South Carolina to present to a group she connected with from Eastview Christian Church. She emailed our chapter and asked if anyone from our group would like to join her in an Introductory Workshop she was giving at Broadview Mansion in Bloomington. No one else was available and I listened to the big stretch God offered me and said, “yes.” I met a spiritual group of people, and it ultimately gave me confidence for the all-day presentation at East Bay Camp.
We open the Introductory Workshop with a prayer and an introduction of the presenters and the participants. Many of the group from Normal First United Methodist Church have previous experience with some form of silent prayer or meditation. This results in excellent questions as the workshop progresses which helps everyone’s understanding of the concepts we present. The group is attentive and joyful and intent on learning all they can about Centering Prayer.
We next discuss the organization and brief history of Contemplative Outreach. The first session is Prayer as Relationship, how centering prayer enriches one’s relationship with God, followed by The Method of Centering Prayer. This answers the question, how do we do this prayer? And then we pray in silence for twenty minutes, followed by time for questions about the method.
We take an hour break for lunch, have time for a walk among the rustling leaves, the sun softening a slight breeze and resume our presentations. After lunch the first session is Thoughts and Use of the Sacred Word, another “how to” session and again we pray. After, we discuss everyone’s experience and answer any more questions that arise.
The final session is Deepening our Relationship with God. In this session, Toni, John and I get to share the benefits of the prayer, the “fruits of the spirit” that people who center come to experience. We share how the prayer has changed us-I see these changes in myself, and in others I know through the practice of centering prayer.
Each time I participate in an introductory workshop I hear something new. On this day I hear how our spiritual faculties are not well developed and we need to sit in silence and allow them to grow before we can truly understand all that God has to share with us. What happens during Centering Prayer is beyond our human faculties to understand, reminiscent of Romans, 12:2, “Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the Renewal of Your Mind.”
The day ends with a prayer. We leave feeling full of the Spirit and everyone is signed up for the four follow up video sessions presented by Father Keating and more time to pray together. From Open Mind Open Heart, by Thomas Keating, ““The purpose of Centering Prayer is not to experience peace but to evacuate the unconscious obstacles to the permanent abiding state of union with God. Not contemplative prayer but the contemplative state is the purpose of our practice; not experiences, however exotic or reassuring, but the permanent and abiding awareness of God that comes through the mysterious restructuring of consciousness.”
We next offer an Introduction to Centering Prayer Workshop on Saturday, June 3rd, from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM at East Bay Camp. Please contact me at acolloto@gmail for more information. We’ll soon have the flyer posted on the CICO website. If you have a group who would like to participate in a workshop at another time or place, let me know and we’ll try and make that work.
-Anne Colloton
February 2023
A Group Lectio Divina Experience: This blog entry is a sharing of a group lectio divina experience. I share what others in the group heard as they listened to the scripture quote followed by additional comments from me.
Revelations 3:20: “So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me . . .Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the people.”
First Response: “I heard, ‘I will eat with that person and they with me.’ Accept what God is giving you-take it and give back to God the enjoyment of it.’
My Comment: Wow. Give back to God the enjoyment of the gift. I hear that I am to let God know I enjoy the gift. Because that is God’s enjoyment? That I appreciate what I am given. And I can appreciate the gift through my thoughts and words. When I truly appreciate what I interpret as a gift from God (and what is not a gift from God?) my enjoyment occurs most often if I am in the present moment. I am aware of what it is I am doing at the time I am doing it or what it is I am feeling or thinking at the time of that feeling and that thought. And if my mind is on a conversation from yesterday while I am in conversation with someone today, I am not giving to God the enjoyment of the gift the Lord is cherishing me with in that moment.
Second Response: “I was struck by the importance of hearing. Do you hear what I hear? Listening to the still small voice, always present, omnipresent.”
My Comment: The awareness of God, ever present in our lives. The awareness that if I quiet myself, even in a crowd, the Voice is with me. Centering prayer has helped me to be a better listener. I feel grateful for this gift.
Third Response: “Sitting at table with others is the great equalizer. Everyone is the same, everyone at the same level with no hierarchy.”
My Comment: We all are given gifts to share, and each is of value and the gifts are all necessary in the house of God. We are all one, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle and the puzzle is incomplete if only one small piece is missing. We are called to show up with our gifts.
Fourth Response: “Food is sustenance at the most basic; eating is important to us. It is a basic need. The presence of God is with us at our most basic level.”
My Comment: Food is so important to us, and God’s word here acknowledges that importance. We think about food, talk about food, and often organize our day around food. Our religious services are centered around the sharing of bread. Let us sit at the table with our Lord with food as our reminder of that Presence. Father Keating writes that God is closer to us than breathing. It is a closeness we cannot fathom or totally understand. Food provides us with an opportunity of awareness, of “yes, God is here.”
Fifth Response: “Here I am! Always present to us, yet we must open the door, we must hear ‘my voice’ and open the door.”
My Comment: This reminded me of one day while I was driving, listening to a Thich Nat Hahn, Buddhist monk, audio book. I was surrounded by fields recently harvested, the tall corn and thick, stubby soybeans fields now leveled. The ground was flat, a beautiful amber, the sky, a cloudless blue that reached down to caress the bare fields. The air was morning fresh and I heard Thich Nat Hahn say, “The door is wide open!” and I felt the desire to enter the door, to see the wide-open-door, to know what is on the other side of the door. Today I realize I entered the door. Why? Because I was aware of the beauty that surrounded me and the yearning in my heart to go through the wide open door.
Today I am grateful for the richness of sharing in lectio divina, or visio divina, or audio divina. What a gift to hear my own response and to listen to how each individual hears her/his response to the word of God. This expands and develops my understanding of what is present in God’s word. Centering Prayer is what prepares me for contemplative living and the fruits and gifts of the prayer prepare me for greater understanding in my divina experiences. I pray for myself and for all of us to have the awareness of the presence of God in our lives, the knowledge that the door is wide open to us at all times, for the awareness of the gifts we are given, the gifts we can share with others and the gift we give to our Lord when we receive with appreciation. Thank you Lord.
-Anne Colloton
January 2023
I just moved to a new city. I am only going to stay here for the winter so it’s not that dramatic, but I feel anxious about-how it will go, how I will be, if I’ll meet anyone I like here, or anyone here will like me. I’m watching myself, checking in with how it is going.
This morning in my readings, it is suggested to “Think of your life as an adventure, with God as your Guide and Companion. Live in the NOW, concentrating on staying in step with God.” Staying in Step with God in a life of adventure sounds pretty, well, adventurous. I look up ‘adventure’: “An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity . . .especially the exploration of unknown territory” from Oxford Languages and from Merriam-Webster: “An undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks: an exciting or remarkable experience.” Not to overdevelop this point but I also found that adventure is synonymous with experience, exploit, feat, scene, trip, chance, contingency and endangerment. I’m now wondering about, and it is appealing to me more than adventure, how God is found in the everyday, ordinary situations of our everyday, ordinary lives.
I find at https://havefundogood.co/ that an adventure is an “opportunity to grow and learn . . . adventures expand the way we see and interact with the world.” And unbelievably coincidental, another of my morning readings states, “. . . we believe life is for growth, both mental and spiritual.”
I feel inspired at this point. I am in a new place yet grounded in the love I share with my husband, who is also here. And my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. I am not alone, and I want to experience life as an adventure, paying attention to each moment and appreciating it all, even those moments I won’t appreciate, at first. To say yes to the everyday, ordinary and, feeling my anxiety rise here a bit, to say yes to the unknown risks, the exciting or remarkable experiences.
We go to a new church. Episcopalian. Okay, not too risky I admit, but still. I don’t know where to sit, I’m not sure if I will be cold or hot or if everyone will have a mask on. What will the service be like? I’m staying in the NOW, thinking about my expectations as I sit on the soft, cushioned pew with no kneeler in front of me.
I begin to think about my expectations of the Christmas holiday and realize this week my thoughts have caused me some emotional turmoil a couple of times. Well, turmoil might be too strong of a word, but I have needed to exert energy, consciously, to stay in the present moment, to sometimes say the “Welcome Prayer” when I notice myself losing emotional centeredness merely because events are not going the way I expected.
I realize “expectations can be premeditated resentments” resulting from a disappointment when what happened is not what Anne wanted to happen. It’s a week before Christmas so in The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living, a compilation of Father Keating’s writing and talks, in this morning’s reading, Father Keating focuses on Joseph. Father Keating notes that Joseph was given the opportunity to open his mind and heart when contrary to expectations, his betrothed, Mary, was already in the family way. Although we aren’t privy to Joseph’s emotional response to this turn of events, quite a turn of events for a Jewish man right before B.C. changes to A.D., we can, still today, amazingly so if you think about it, get a sense of what he might be feeling. And of course, his response is “Let’s call the whole thing off” which is not only what he probably wanted to do but was also what was probably expected of him.
Expectations are all over this story-events were not going the way Joseph wanted them to go. And then, AN ANGEL appears, and Joseph is supported in his decision to go against all expectations, his and others. Father Keating believes that Joseph allowed the Divine to enter his life. He, Joseph, needed to let go of “the world of what ‘Joseph wants’ and move forward into the world of what ‘God wants.’”
This sounds awfully reminiscent of the word ‘adventure’ to me.
It is, after all, the time of our reminder of Emmanuel, God with Us, and now I’m back to staying in step with God by staying in the present moment. Awareness of my expectations is a good place to start and then acceptance of the events that might not be what ‘Anne wants.’ And if I need the help of an angel, all I need to do is say to myself, “welcome, welcome, welcome” to the presence and action of the Divine Presence within and move forward from the world of what Anne wants into the world of what God wants-let go of Expectations and move into Adventure. As I look down, placing my purse on the floor, I see the kneeler tucked under the pew in front of me.
Wishing you all a Divine New Year.
-Anne Colloton
A Spiritual Journey 2018
The following blog is a summary of the 2018 Spiritual Journey online retreat offered by Contemplative Outreach and Spirituality and Practice. I took the retreat as Education Coordinator of Central Illinois Contemplative Outreach. I summarized the retreat entries as the purpose of this blog.
Spirituality and Practice regularly offers the same yearlong, online retreat. For those interested here is the link to the Spirituality and Practice website: https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com
The summaries remain for those interested in perusing.
Blessings- Anne Colloton