Walking contemplative

Submitted by Kathleen Owens (she/her), Manager of Clergy Programming and Communications for the Center for Clergy Renewal at Holy Wisdom Monastery.

Julane Nease told this story to Kathleen after a personal retreat at the end of her recent Sabbatical in August 2025. This is a lightly edited version of the transcript from a Teams meeting on Sept. 25th.

Do you have time for me to tell you my story about when I was there? This doesn’t have to be part of our interview, but I had this really profound thing happen. So, I’ve been reading this book on sabbatical called The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. Because getting older was one of my things on sabbatical that I was processing. I also have this heart valve issue. I need my heart valve replaced. Probably sooner than later. And so that’s a real look at mortality in your face when you realize you’re going to need heart surgery. So anyway, I decided I always bring too many things with me when I go on retreat. I thought I’m only going to bring clothes and other stuff I need to tend to myself. And I’m bringing a journal and one book. I only brought that book.

I got there on a Friday afternoon and I took a nap and took a short walk, took another nap, went to dinner, came back, went to bed early, slept unbelievably great. And the next day did a lot of reading. I went to worship on Sunday and then I felt really agitated because this book is not easy. It’s hard work because you’re looking at difficult things in your life, turning points, which are never easy…Finally, I just thought, “Oh, I can’t read this book anymore. I’ve got to do something else.” I noticed that the light was starting to change outside, and the sun was going to set. So, I went to sit on the balcony off the sunroom.

In this book, she talks a lot about the importance of meditation, which, you know, I’ve never really been trained in meditation, but Centering Prayer is like meditation, so I tried to do that. She always has this little mantra or response, where when you notice when the little thoughts come by, or the feelings or emotions or feelings in your body, you just acknowledge them, but you let them pass on and you say to yourself. “I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness.” But I kept thinking, I don’t really know what that means. What is loving awareness anyway? Cause she doesn’t say that. So, I’m sitting out on the balcony, and it was blasted hot that day. It was when we were having that really bad heat wave. So, I was sitting out there, had my feet up and a hat on because of the sun. And soon I could tell the sun was behind the trees, but it wasn’t getting dark yet. And then all the sudden I could tell that it had set because there were these rays of light shooting up into the sky, absolutely gorgeous golden rays. And then the birds started changing what they were doing. And there were these birds that were almost like they were dancing together. You know, they were swooping in the sky and calling to each other, and I suppose they were catching mosquitoes or something. I’m watching them and I just kept thinking, “I am loving awareness, I am loving awareness, I am loving awareness.” And then down below I could see a little rabbit hopping down the path. “I am loving awareness.” And then suddenly it was cooler. I knew the sun was all the way down. And then those birds shortly after stopped doing the swooping, but I could hear other birds, different birds singing. And then finally it was dark enough that all the birds stopped, but I could hear frogs with a big bass bullfrog singing someplace.

I thought, “Oh, this is great. God gave me this personal show just for myself.” And then I thought, “Well, no, because every night this happens. It’s just that you’re sitting here now noticing it.” And all of a sudden, I thought, “Loving awareness!” I had awareness of the God who was loving me. And it was almost like I was looking at God and God was looking back at me. And it was just this powerful moment of feeling so grateful and so cherished and grateful for that moment and grateful for that place and the space to be able to do it. And yeah, so it was a high point, I would say, of my whole spiritual journey thus far. It was amazing.