Centering Ritual: Presence

Dr. Elías Ortega and faithing the moment (Week 1)

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An offering for you...For the next three weeks...I would like to share a short centering ritual. Each will center around a theme’...#FaithingForward
— Dr. Elías Ortega @meadville.prez, Instagram, 23 March 2020

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WEEK 1

PRESENCE

 

DAY 1
THE MEANING OF PRESENCE

 
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Day #1 Centering Practice

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“Presence” by Elizabeth Curry, 2001,  Poetry Magazine

“Presence” by Elizabeth Curry, 2001, Poetry Magazine


DAY 2
TO WHOM AM I PRESENT?

 

DAY 3
HOW I AM PRESENT?

 
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Day 3: How I am Present? Opening Thought: The only routine seems to be the lack of one. We no longer time our day by the usual tasks: Getting up and ready to go. Helping others get up and ready to go. Many of us took for granted the clearly demarcated "sacred/secular" spaces of home and work. And now our home-worlds have contracted into a space made smaller by all the things we make fit: work, homework, play, connecting with others, making a home... When you walk around your once familiar home, they might seem strange somehow. Your coffee table and that comfy chair are no longer your happy place; now, they double as a workspace. The table where you shared meals is now also the classroom, and so forth. How are we present in these spaces now? Centering in Ritual: Walk through your surroinding. Take your time to grieve the change. It may take the form of a deep sigh. In other spaces, you may feel your anger rising, or your mind cluttered by the maybe familiar messes that look and feel like new ones. There will be spaces that surprise you as you notice creativity and imagination at work. Laugh, cry, yell if you have to, and then sit, or stand still for a few moments, take a few deep breaths and "shake it off." Ask your self in each familiar yet strange room, first in silence, then out loud, "How I am present in this space?" Closing: Orian Mountain Dreamer, "The Invitation," http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/oriah-mountain-dreamer.html #MLTS1844

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The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.


DAY 4
THE COMPANY I KEEP?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

“Far Company by W.S. Merwin

At times now from some margin of the day
I can hear birds of another country
not the whole song but a brief phrase of it
out of a music that I may have heard
once in a moment I appear to have
forgotten for the most part that full day
no sight of which I can remember now
though it must have been where my eyes were then
that knew it as the present while I thought
of somewhere else without noticing that
singing when it was there and still went on
whether or not I noticed now it falls
silent when I listen and leaves the day
and flies before it to be heard again
somewhere ahead when I have forgotten


DAY 5
IN THE COMPANY OF THE SACRED

 
 

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WEEK 2

WEEK 3

 

 
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Rx: Relief and Remedies

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Sintiendo la ausencia y presencia de Dios en tiempos de crisis