Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 104

Feast of St Patrick ~ A love note from your online abbess

Holy Mountain*

I want to climb the holy mountain

ascend over weight of stone

and force of gravity, follow the

rise of a wide and cracked earth

toward eternal sky,

measured steps across the sharp path,

rest often to catch my heavy breath.

I want to hear the silence of stone and stars,

lie back on granite's steep rise

face to silver sky's glittering points

where I can taste the galaxies

on my tongue, communion of fire,

then stand on the summit and

look out at the laboring world.

I want to witness earth's slow turning

with early light brushing over me,

a hundred hues

of grey, pink, gold,

speckles of Jackson Pollock light,

then ribbons of mist floating

like white streamers of surrender.

I want to look back down the trail

as if over my past, forgive a thousand tiny

and tremendous transgressions

because now all that matters

is how small I feel under the sky,

even the sparrowhawk takes no notice of me,

how enlarged I feel by knowing this smallness.

I want to be like St. Patrick,

climb the holy mountain full of

promise and direction and knowing,

forty days of fasting aloft among clouds

until my body no longer hungers

and something inside is satisfied

and my restless heart says here,

no longer dreaming of other peaks.

—Christine Valters Paintner

*This poem first appeared in The Galway Review

Dearest monks and artists,

If you love the wisdom to be found in Celtic spirituality, join us on a yearlong journey in community through the wheel of the year. See this link for details>>

March 17th is the feast of St. Patrick who is the patron saint of Ireland, and the most well-known of all the Irish saints. He was born in 390 near England’s west coast or in Wales. When he was young, about sixteen years old, he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland where he lived as a slave for six years.  He endured many hardships including hunger, thirst, and cold under the rule of a cruel pagan king.

It was during his enslavement, while spending long hours in solitude tending sheep, that he had a spiritual awakening. Through dreams and other voices, Patrick was able to escape and return back home again. He set out for Gaul for many years to learn theology and prepare himself for his future ministry. After many years passed, he had another dream where he heard the Irish people calling out to him to return to the land of his enslavement. Patrick’s name actually means “one who frees hostages,” and when he returns he is very vocal in his opposition to slavery, including women.

He returned to Ireland in 432 and spent the rest of his life preaching the message of Christianity and helping to establish the Christian church in Ireland. There is a great deal of evidence that Patrick was not the one to bring Christianity to Ireland, that it had already begun to flower, but certainly he was instrumental in this role.

I find his story intriguing. Here was a man enslaved, who escaped by divine intervention, and then hears the call to return to the land of his slavery and he goes willingly. He must have experienced more than his share of discomfort at the thought.

There are churches founded by Patrick in the area around Galway as well. One of my favorite sites is Inchgoaill island on Lough Corrib, just a few miles north of us. Legend tells us that Patrick was banished here for a time by local druids. The name of the place means “island of the stranger.” The island is now uninhabited, but there is a stone church at the site where Patrick’s 5th century wooden church would have been, as well as a marker stone where his nephew and navigator is buried, one of the oldest Christian markers we have. There is a later 12th century church nearby as well. We bring our pilgrims here for a morning of silence and solitude and you can hear the wisdom in those ancient astones.

Seeking out this “strangeness” and “exile” was at the heart of the monastic call. In going to the places which make us feel uncomfortable and staying with our experience, rather than running away, they cracked themselves open to receive the Spirit in new ways.

How are you being called in your life to stay with what is uncomfortable and to perhaps even return to a place where you did not feel free, in the service of freedom?

You can find Part Three of A Different Kind of Fast for Lent on Embracing Trust here>> 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Three – Embrace Trust

Dearest monks and artists,

My word for this year is surplus. It is a word which has been working on me for some time now. A couple of summers ago I was pondering how to make the work I love so much sustainable both energetically and financially. Even with work that arises out of passion, we bump up against our limits of what we can give and how much renewal we need.

As a contemplative and a strong introvert, my needs for quiet times are high and I am grateful for our seasonal rhythms which allow for extended times of restoration. But there is, of course, always the anxiety around money and being able to earn enough to live.

Then last summer my pondering shifted to consider something even more generous than merely sustainable: surplus. I am not just thinking about how to have enough energy and resources to meet the needs of this flourishing community, but to have more than enough, a surplus, an excess of reserves.

My word is inspired by a quote I read a couple of years ago by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson in his book The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: “Nothing happens, which is enough to frighten any modern person.  But that kind of nothingness is the accumulation or storing of healing energy. . . to have a store of energy accumulated is to have power in back of one.  We live with our psychic energy in modern times much as we do with our money—mortgaged into the next decade.  Most modern people are exhausted nearly all the time and never catch up to an equilibrium of energy, let alone have a store of energy behind them. With no energy in store, one cannot meet any new opportunity.”  Those words have stayed with me ever since I read them, because I have recognized the contemplative call in them.

What makes this path so counter-cultural is the active resistance against living a life of busyness and exhaustion, of not making that a badge of pride, of having an abundance of time to ponder and live life more slowly and attentively. How many of us feel our energy is mortgaged into the next decade? How many of us can never catch up with the rest we so desperately need much less feel like we have a “store of energy” behind us? I think many of us live in the tension of “what is enough?” Enough time, enough money, enough love.

We are surrounded by messages of scarcity and so our anxiety gets fueled. I think one of the most profound practices to resist anxiety, to fast from its hold on me, is the practice of Sabbath. Walter Brueggeman, in his wonderful book Sabbath as Resistance, writes that the practice of Sabbath emerges from the Exo­dus story, where the Israelites are freed from the relentless labor and productivity of the Pharaoh-system in which the people are enslaved and full of the anxiety that deprivation brings.

Yahweh enters in and liberates them from this exhaustion, commanding that they take rest each week. We essentially live in this self-made, insatiable Pharaoh-system again. So weary are we, so burdened by consumer debt, working long hours with very little time off. So many take pride in wearing the badge of “busy.” So many are stretched thin to the very edges of their resources.

When we practice Sabbath, we are making a visible statement that our lives are not defined by this perpetual anxiety. It requires a community to support us.  At the heart of this relationship is a God who celebrates the gift of rest. Brueggemann says we are so beholden to “accomplish­ing and achieving and possessing” that we refuse the gift given to us.

The Israelites, and we ourselves, must leave Egypt and our en­slavement to be able to dance and sing in freedom. Dance is a cel­ebratory act which is not “productive” but restorative. When we don’t allow ourselves the gift of Sabbath rest, we deny the foun­dational joy that is our birthright as children of God. To dance in freedom is a prophetic act.

We are called to regularly cease, to trust the world will contin­ue on without us, and to know this embodiment of grace and gift as a revolutionary act. Nothing else needs to be done.

In the coming days, as part of my Lenten practice, I will fast from anxiety and the endless torrent of thoughts which rise up in my mind to paralyze me with fear of the future.

I will reclaim the Sabbath, making a commitment to rest and to lay aside work and worry. I will give myself the gift of things that are truly restorative—some time spent in silence, a beautiful meal shared with a friend, a long walk in a beautiful place. Sabbath-keeping is an embodiment of our faith that there is something deeper at work in the world than the machinations of the power structure. It is a way for us to embody this profound trust and enter into the radical abundance at the heart of things.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Monk in the World Guest Post: Abigail Carroll

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Abigail Carroll's reflection Poetry as Sabbath.

Sundays in my family as a child were for church, waffles and maple syrup, and enjoying the outdoors or helping out with house projects. In short, celebrating the Sabbath was about worship, food, nature, and family. Today, Sabbath continues to mean each of these things to me, but more recently, it has come to mean something else, too: poetry.

When God rested on the seventh day after creating the world, I think he was doing something much more profound than simply catching his breath. Indeed, I chuckle at the thought of the One from whom all energy flows suddenly low on fuel. More likely, to my mind, He was taking time to enjoy his creation. And that stepping back for the sake of enjoying creation is, for me, the underlying mandate of Sabbath: to practice delight.

I started intentionally practicing delight as a way to honor the Sabbath the year, as a doctoral student, I was pulling my hair out preparing for my comprehensive exams. My pace of reading was intense, and my mind was operating at high speed with no break. Watching television or taking in a movie, our society’s go-to fix when it comes to relaxation, proved useless as a doorway into rest. If I took a walk or jog, my brain kept rehearsing the information I was feeding it, and prayer, instead of helping me transcend my studies in order to focus on God, inadvertently became about asking God to help me survive my dreaded exams.

The solution was counterintuitive. I realized that in order to put my mind to rest, I needed to actively engage it in something else. And then the answer came: music. I had studied piano growing up but had long desired to try my hand at another instrument. So I took up the hammered dulcimer, and for the first few days after my dulcimer arrived, the delicate harmonies of its strings so enraptured me that I could hardly think of my studies. (Whoever originated the idea of heaven as full of harps clearly had not heard a dulcimer!) I had stumbled on pure delight, which both solved my problem and created a new problem. All I wanted to do was play music. Thankfully, there was one day a week when I absolutely could—Sunday!

Each week after church, I made a point to devote the lingering hours of the afternoon to courting beauty in sound. I looked forward to this time so much that I often turned down social invitations to protect it. When my head hit the pillow on Sunday nights, my mind was fully rested. This was my routine for several years. While I no longer religiously devote Sunday afternoons to my dulcimer, I still take that time to engage in the practice of delight, and my new Sabbath practice is poetry.

Poetry is its own kind of music, and what I love about writing poetry is where it takes me—both physically and spiritually. In pursuit of words, I find myself meandering woodland trails, gazing for extended periods of time at clouds, and examining the dance of reeds at the edge of the lake. For me, poetry has become a way to notice, and noticing, I have discovered, holds profound implications for the soul. The more I notice, the greater my capacity for gratitude, and the greater my capacity for gratitude, the deeper my experience of joy.

In truth, I have written poetry since childhood, but only recently have I come to see it as more than just an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Alongside prayer, scripture reading, fasting, and solitude, writing poems has become, for me, a way to actively engage the disciplines of my faith. Poetry does not replace the traditional spiritual disciplines, but rather serves as a particularly attractive doorway into them. Often, a poem is birthed out of a scripture that catches my attention during study, and I engage my love of words as a vehicle for meditating on the Word. When it comes to prayer, I find that the poet inside me often manages the courage to articulate in verse what I otherwise lack the audacity to pray aloud. As a poet, I need solitude to do my work. I have come to find, however, that solitude is not only necessary for writing poetry, but a tremendous byproduct of it, too. And that leads to fasting, which, for me, is surprisingly inherent to the act of writing. When creating a poem, I am fasting from the steady diet of distractions this world continuously feeds me, and by fasting from distraction, I find myself becoming more attentive to what matters.

If writing poetry can be a doorway into the spiritual disciplines, the spiritual discipline that poetry most helps me engage is rest. For me, poem-making is not just an exercise I do on the Sabbath; it is Sabbath. Perhaps this is because engaging in delight affords me a deeper sense of renewal than the act of merely ceasing from my work. Delight may very well be the deepest form of rest. I’m thankful that the Creator set an example of delight when he called his creation “good,” stepping back to take it all in. And I’m thankful that, by inviting us to celebrate Sabbath, He furnishes us with the time and space to engage in the restful and restorative practice of delight as a way to honor him.

Abigail Carroll, author of A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-Day Pilgrim (Eerdmans), serves as pastor of arts and spiritual formation at Church at the Well in Burlington, Vermont. She enjoys writing, photographing nature, and a well-brewed cup of hot tea. Click here to visit her online>>

Embracing the Wisdom of the Body ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

I am so delighted that my newest book is now available – The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women – is a labor of much love and the work of years of learning to love my body as wise guide and companion, even in the midst of chronic illness and pain. Here is a brief excerpt from the introduction:

We carry a terrible wound: alienation from our embodied life.

Your flesh shall become a great poem.

—Walt Whitman

Welcome to this journey. I want to keep saying that again and again. Welcome and more welcome. Know yourself – all of yourself – all your doubts and resistance, your body and soul, your joy and your grief are all welcome. My deepest hope for this time is that after journeying through all ten chapters, that you might discover yourself welcoming in even more of your beautiful being, and that places of resistance might begin to soften.

Two of the things I like to teach over and over are this kind of radical hospitality (which takes a lifetime of practice) and gentleness with yourself (probably because I need both of these so much myself).

Our bodies have this unfortunate tendency to carry with them a lifetime of criticism, analysis, scrupulous dissection, anger, betrayal, and more. It requires that we begin to remember ourselves, created out of such love. When one of my teaching partners, Betsey Beckman, offers up her Story Dance of the creation story from Genesis, she embodies God as creator, and with each act of creation she says “that’s good” with unbridled enthusiasm. Not in a distanced and unaffected way, but in a delighted and deeply celebratory way. Can we remember this? Can we imagine the divine uttering those words over every nook of our own creation?

The root of the word re-member means to make whole again, to bring the parts back together. We have been waging a war on ourselves for too long, tearing ourselves apart. As Walt Whitman writes, this alienation from our embodied life is a great wound we are each carrying.

What might it mean for you to allow your flesh to become a great poem?

You can find Part Two of A Different Kind of Fast for Lent on Embracing Vulnerability here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Book Cover

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Two – Embrace Vulnerability

Dearest monks and artists,

In 2003 my mother became seriously ill quite suddenly and died a few days later in the ICU. I was only 33 at the time, she was my second parent to die and I had no siblings. I was left with a profound aloneness, even with my beloved husband’s faithful companionship. I coped at first in the way that had always served me well. By being strong and holding everything together, keeping busy when I could so that I could distract myself from the tremendous grief.

Western culture rewards us greatly for being able to pull ourselves together and carry on with life. Speed, productivity, and a denial of difficult emotions are the hallmark of our times. In our rush to get things done we armor ourselves even more.

The problem was that I became ill. It was a number of vague things like fatigue, headaches, depression, skin rashes. During this time I discovered a practice called yin yoga in which seated or lying postures are held for 3-5 minutes with the aim of softening the connective tissues. I grew to love this time of sitting with my body and paying attention to the places of holding, of physical armoring, of tightness and tension. Breathing into these places with loving attention brought a great softening to my body. And in the midst of that softening other things began to loosen their grip – the self-critical thoughts which plagued me, my heart opened to the river of mourning and demanded my attention. Tears arose without bidding and I learned to welcome them in.

I also had a wonderful spiritual director to help guide me through this territory of savage grief. I took long contemplative walks and let the turning of the seasons become a scripture text for me which spoke of the necessity of autumn’s release and winter’s rest alongside of spring’s blossoming and summer’s fruitfulness.

In the early Christian desert tradition, tears were considered a gift. Softening was the fruit of committed prayer and practice. Tears were shed over our grief at loss but also at the places in our lives which had become hardened, the ways we had turned away from God.

Penthos are tears of compunction, a puncturing of the hard shell of the heart, which pierces to our core, reminding us of who we most deeply are. This “gift of tears,” as they are sometimes referred to, reveals to us the misguided perfectionism, games, and manipulations we struggle to achieve, as well as the stories we tell ourselves. These tears free us from lying and any form of pretense that takes over when we feel anxious.

Orthodox theologian and author John Chryssavgis writes: “Tears and weeping indicate a significant frontier in the way of the desert. They bespeak a promise. In fact, they are the only way into the heart.”This frontier is the boundary between our old way of seeing and believing and the wide new expansiveness into which contemplative prayer calls us. Compunction awakens us to all the ways we have been false to our own deepest self and to the profound longing that is kindled when we pay attention to the heart.

A story about Abba Arsenics says that he “had a hollow in his chest channeled out by the tears which fell from his eyes all his life while he sat at his manual work.

The “gift of tears” written about by the desert elders also is celebrated several centuries later by Spanish mystic St. Ignatius of Loyola. They are not about finding meaning in our pain and suffering. They do not give answers but instead call us to a deep attentiveness to the longings of our heart. They continue to flow until we drop our masks and self-deception and return to the source of our lives and longing. They are a sign that we have crossed a threshold into a profound sense of humility.

In the New Testament we find Jesus weeping over the death of his friend Lazarus, and over the city of Jerusalem. Certainly his final hours were a profound witness to the call of radical vulnerability as a portal to divine grace.

God is felt in the places of pain and sorrow, in the places of paradox and contradiction. Our tears reveal our deepest joys when we acknowledge that we cannot possess anything, neither the spring blossoming nor our partner in life. We learn to love without holding on. The times my marriage has bloomed even further have often been the times of shared vulnerability, when we allow ourselves to reveal our soft underbellies to one another.

My fast this Lent is taking different forms. I am being reminded again of the seductiveness of strength, of pretending that everything feels fine when I am struggling inside. I remember that the places of the greatest disruptions in my life have also been the occasions of the most profound gifts.

My Lenten discipline is to allow a great softening this season, and in the fertile earth of my heart, to see what begins to sprout there that never had a chance in the hardened soil.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Jamie Marich

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jamie Marich's reflection Dancing Mindfully with the Elements.

The invitation to pray and meditate with the elements is fully awakened in my life. I credit much of this awakening to Christine and learning from her sacred work with Abbey of the Arts. Diving in to the various exercises in Christine’s books and retreats has heightened my attunement to the elements in the various places that I travel. My own mindful journey and contemplative practices in mindfulness traditions assists in this deepening of attunement. For me, attunement is the glorious practice of noticing what resonates when you consciously decide to live in the present moment. A beautiful synchronicity can arise between you and the moment, you and your surroundings, you and your sacred purpose. Like the sweet sounds gleaming from an instrument when all of the parts and mechanisms are in their proper place, attunement helps me to dance with the lessons that earth, fire, wind, and water wish to teach.

I recently had the privileged of taking a journey to the country of Iceland with my husband David. Iceland was one of those “bucket list” destinations; a place I always wanted to see yet traveling there never seemed practical. This summer, a dear friend of mine passed away tragically, unexpectedly, and much too young. Working through my own grief connected to his death has inspired me to live my life more fearlessly—to take the leap of faith and experience more of those “bucket list” wishes. Iceland is a place that demanded my attention, my attunement to all four elements. Although sometimes my attention was drawn to one element specifically, I generally experienced their grace and glory in their fusion. For instance, heat rose up from the earth causing a hot spring to bubble, and the wind carried the steam from this natural phenomenon to my face and body. I was able to breathe in the warmth and savor the wonder of that natural fusion.

I noticed that spending a week in this place of elemental fusion with conscious intention to deepen my spiritual practice elicited a wellspring of creative expressions from my heart and soul. I am happy to share with you in this blog a poem that I wrote while on this journey and a video of a dance practice that I created while in Iceland. For me, the greater challenge is to continue to move in the beauty of this elemental fusion that so impressed me in Iceland within my daily life here in Youngstown, Ohio. It seems that traveling to beautiful places can inspire me, yet the real challenge is to access the power of these places in my regular life without judging my regular life as boring or ugly. In the video you will see, it pleases me that I was able to film the first part of it in Iceland where the dance came to me, and the second part (the dance along) right in my back yard in Warren, OH. There is a lesson in this transition for me—how can I meditate and pray with the elements every place I go, in every day that I live? How can dancing mindfully with the elements help you to connect to your true purpose today?

ELEMENTS

When my yoga meets the water,

Encountering the clean

Scent of eucalyptus

My entire being floats

In the balm of nature's renewing force.

When my meditation touches the earth,

Sensing the sureness of

Rock beneath my pilgrim feet,

My mind takes comfort

In the security of Mother Earth's assurance.

When my dance moves with the wind,

Gliding with Divine Mother's

Holy breath on my body,

My soul is both exhilarated and terrified

In the uncertainty of how this force will beckon.

When my song greets the fire,

Rejoicing with the pure beauty

Manifest before me,

My heart is warmed by the creative force

Of my human ancestors immortalized in flame.

Jamie Marich, Ph.D., LPCC-S, LICDC-CS, REAT, RMT travels internationally speaking on topics related to EMDR therapy, trauma, addiction, expressive arts and mindfulness while maintaining a private practice in her home base of Warren, OH. She is the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness practice (www.dancingmindfulness.com). Jamie is the author of four books, including the popular EMDR Made Simple. She is currently working on her latest book (in collaboration with Dr. Stephen Dansiger) EMDR Therapy and Mindfulness for Trauma Focused Care (due out with Springer Publishing in 2017).

A Different Kind of Fast – Ash Wednesday Blessings & Lenten Resources

Dearest monks and artists,

I wanted to share with you some reflections as we begin the holy season of Lent as well as some resources to support your journey. We are offering our own online retreat on the practice of lectio divina which starts today, but I will also be sharing this series from our archives below each week on a different kind of fasting.

This week we enter the long desert of the Lenten season. If you participate in a liturgical service, most likely you will be marked with the sign of ashes and the words “from dust you came and to dust you shall return” will echo through the sanctuary space again and again.

St. Benedict writes in his Rule to “keep death daily before your eyes” and Amma Sarah, one of the desert mothers said, “I put my foot out to ascend the ladder, and I place death before my eyes before going up it.”

The word for desert in Greek is eremos and literally means “abandonment” and is the term from which we derive the word “hermit.”  The desert was a place of coming face to face with loneliness and death.  Your very existence is threatened in the desert. You can only face up to yourself and to your temptations in life which distract you from a wide-hearted focus on the presence of the sacred in the world.

Death of any kind is rarely a welcome experience.  Even when we witness the mysteries of nature year after year reveal the glories of springtime which emerge from winter’s fallow landscape.  We resist death, we try to numb ourselves from life’s inevitable stripping away of our “secure” frameworks.  We spend so much energy and money on staying young. But when we turn to face death wide-eyed and fully present, when we feel the fullness of the grief it brings, we also slowly begin to discover the new life awaiting us.

In the desert tradition, death is a friend and companion along the journey.  St Francis of Assisi referred to death as “sister” in his famous poem Canticle of Creation.  Rather than a presence only at the end of our lives, death can become a companion along each step, heightening our awareness of life’s beauty and calling us toward living more fully. Living with Sister Death calls us to greater freedom and responsibility.

Alan Jones describes the desert relationship to death in this way:  “Facing death gives our loving force, clarity, and focus. . . even our despair is to be given up and seen as the ego-grasping device that it really is.  Despair about ourselves and our world is, perhaps, the ego’s last and, therefore, greatest attachment.”

I have been sitting with Jones’ words and the invitation to fast during Lent, one of the central practices we are called to take on. The first reading for Ash Wednesday is from the prophet Joel summons us to “return to God with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.”

The kind of fast drawing me this season isn’t leaving behind of treats like chocolate or other pleasures. This season I am being invited to fast from things like “ego-grasping” and noticing when I so desperately want to be in control, and then yielding myself to a greater wisdom than my own.

I am called to fast from being strong and always trying to hold it all together, and instead embrace the profound grace that comes through my vulnerability and tenderness, to allow a great softening this season.

I am called to fast from anxiety and the endless torrent of thoughts which rise up in my mind to paralyze me with fear of the future, and enter into the radical trust in the abundance at the heart of things, rather than scarcity.

I am called to fast from speed and rushing through my life, causing me to miss the grace shimmering right here in this holy pause.

I am called to fast from multitasking and the destructive energy of inattentiveness to any one thing, so that I get many things done, but none of them well, and none of them nourishing to me. Instead my practice will become a beholding of each thing, each person, each moment.

I am called to fast from endless list-making and too many deadlines, and enter into the quiet and listen for what is ripening and unfolding, what is ready to be born.

I am called to fast from certainty and trust in the great mystery of things.

And then perhaps, I will arrive at Easter and realize those things from which I have fasted I no longer need to take back on again. I will experience a different kind of rising.

*This is the first of a seven-part series on other ways of fasting for the season of Lent.

Here are some books for your to consider as well (the first two are available on Kindle). John and I are planning to read through Brueggeman's book of daily reflections. With the current political climate we are hungering for a prophetic voice like his. I also love Paula Huston's work as well as the book of poems for the season.

A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent by Walter Brueggeman

Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit by Paula Huston

The Heart's Time: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter by Janet Morley

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

**Please note the Amazon links above are affiliate links which means the Abbey receives a small percentage of your purchase price at no additional cost to you. These funds support our scholarships.

A Lenten Lectio Divina Online Retreat (starts today!)

Lectio divina is a practice of being present to each moment in a heart-centered way. We are often taught in churches to think through our prayers – reciting words and formulas which are valuable elements of our shared traditions, but only one window into God’s presence. In lectio we invite God to speak to us in an unmediated way. Our memories, images, and feelings become an important context for experiencing God’s voice active in us and we discover it when we pray in a heart-centered way. Those words moving through us break open God’s invitation to us in this moment of our lives and calls us to respond in some way.

Are you longing for a transformative journey to deeper intimacy with God through an ancient practice? Would you like to cultivate a more contemplative way of being with scripture and the world? Would you like to have a guide for the season of Lent supporting you through regular reflections and guided meditation practices?

Click here for more details and registration>>

Rainer Maria Rilke and the Archetype of the Artist ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

If you haven’t yet made a commitment for the season of Lent, I invite you to join our online retreat experience on the practice of lectio divina. The retreat begins Wednesday and includes live webinars and a community forum. More details at this link>>

Our next session in our Illuminating the Way series is tomorrow and will be on the great German poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the archetype of the artist. Registration details below.

Rilke is, perhaps, an unlikely candidate at first glance to join our circle of monks and mystics. He was undeniably opposed to the institutional church, rejected dogma and what he considered to be second-hand experience of God. On his first visit to a Russian monastery in his twenties, however, he fell in love with the spirituality there, the atmosphere, the reverence, which led him to write one of his first books of poetry, The Book of Hours, inspired by monastic tradition.

His poems in that book reflect the longings of an imagined monk. But even beyond that initial book, Rilke’s poems continued to be suffused with a desire to grow in intimacy with the sacred dimension of the world. He also took his life as poet and artist very seriously, and especially through some of his 11,000 letters, as well as several books of poems, we have a window into great wisdom for the creative life. He believed in art as a “cosmic, creative, transforming force” and invited us to consider it no less than this.

In Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes:

"There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple 'I must,' then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.” 

Rilke is addressing this to a writer, defining what is needed for full commitment to the creative life. You could substitute the word "write" with create, paint, dance, garden, cook, love well, or any other creative endeavor and then read the words again and see what they stir. Strong words, with perhaps a hint of the Warrior at play setting those boundaries. You might pause here for a moment and reflect with Rilke. Must you create? Do you experience a compelling need to express your deep desires? If so, how do you build your life in such a way as to support this?

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing monk icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)

Monk in the World Guest Post: Joan DiStefano

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Joan DiStefano's reflection on lessons learned at Abbey of Gethsemani.

June 6, 2006 the Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, Kentucky.

Thomas Merton’s grave. I remember that first early afternoon when I was told by a monk to walk near the first tree and find him between two fox’s.

Huh?

The tree was easy, it was up a tiny incline of grass, but the two fox’s turned out to be the Abbott Fox buried to the  left, Merton in the middle, and a monk Fox on the right. I gazed down at the marker cross with someone’s peace symbol hanging on a chain, and decided to add my Tau. I wanted to return someday and would hope to see it again.  Little did I know that day, just how soon I would be back!

Visiting Merton’s grave only happened because his Abbey is located an hour from where I had attended a stained glass conference in Louisville.  Fifty years ago it was his book, No Man Is an Island, which I purchased while on a lunch break working at Macy’s, my first job post high school. Though  I couldn’t comprehend most of it, it secretly hid within me for decades.

So,now, to be starting a five day silent retreat here at his monastery, was the beginning of awakened spiritual hunger.

I was eager to try the monk’s day which began with Vigil at 3:15am, and ended at 7:30pm Compline, with the Abbot’s blessing and the chant: Have a restful night and a peaceful death.

My second day there, I was shocked to find during my walk along the retreatant's garden path, something sparkling that caught my attention. It was shards, fragments and remnants of stained glass windows leaning against the window panes of an old building beyond the exterior stone walls. I asked a monk about it. By Vespers, another monk found me and took me to the  Abbot, who requested me to come to the Abbey as much as possible and do what I could to reassemble the original stained glass from Germany that was part of the church until the early 60’s.

My conversion into “real life” versus “false sense of what life is” began that day.

By November, I was back. I relished the silence, the work, the prayers, the time of personal reflection. This was a radical departure from how the bulk of my adult life had been spent. Riding Harleys around the US, working in topless night clubs, making art, teaching in a prison, raising my son, and being part of violent, volatile relationships. The Abbey was an atmosphere alien to me, because here was a haven of peace..

Early Christmas week,  I needed some supplies, so br. Simeon, took me to the large chain store located twelve miles away. Upon entering the hectic, noisy store, several televisions each playing violent movies, including violent cartoons, were situated at the entrance. Passing by and walking toward the Happy Holidays department, were Christmas ornaments, decorations, wrapping paper, and ribbons thrown all over the floor with people both stepping over and on the merchandise. I asked a clerk where a Nativity scene might be. She didn’t know what I was talking about. “What is that?” she asked me. Then answered that there might be some crosses I could buy.

I turned to br. Simeon, and said, "this here is supposed to be real life?  And the monastery is not? This place looks like Hell to me!  This is the manmade life filled with garbage, misplaced aspirations, anxiety, shallow distractions, willfulness and violence."

His reply when we returned to the car was this: "You on the outside are the saints. You have the sick child, the unemployed husband, the leaking roof on your house, the eviction notice, the broken down car, and yet you keep your faith, you rise above the trials and persevere. You come here for spiritual rest instead of taking a nice vacation. We monks don’t have your challenges but we have our inner battles day to day. Calm is easy on the surface."

Ten  years from that Christmas have passed. Changes arrived  with the new Abbot, and changes had rooted within me.  Though I start my day later than 3am, what the Abbey rhythm changed within me is my lifestyle, praying, thinking and compassion . . . from turbulence to contemplation.

My studio is situated on the edge of the Bay overlooking San Francisco. Influenced by the welcoming generosity of the monks, led to my creating a peaceful spot with a table and chairs, plants and books for folks who walk by and need to sit and rest.

In one of my large picture windows, I have installed a stained glass window from the Abbey, of Mary, baby Jesus, and St. Bernard.  Each day folks knock on my door to look at it, and then want to talk about where God is or has not been in their life.

I hand whoever would like one, Thomas Merton’s prayer for knowing God’s Will.

My studio workday is spent in silence, with breaks for spiritual reading. The music in the background is usually Gregorian chants.

I thank dear Thomas Merton who unknowingly beckoned me to a new way of being.  Each day is a new beginning, a daily conversion.

It is possible to be “a monk in the world."

Joan DiStefano from Oakland CA, had the childhood desire to be an actress. Her high school drama teacher told her to go and get real adventures and then later in life become a character actress. With that advice, she proceeded to have experiences both good and not so good! One day, while stranded on the side of the freeway with a broken down motorcycle, she prayed to God asking his will for her life. That surrender took her to where she is now. Not an actress, but a liturgical artist for varied faith traditions, and a professed Secular Franciscan.

The Sacred Art of Reading the World – Lectio Divina as a Life Practice ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Lent will be upon us very soon and we are very excited to be offering an online retreat on lectio divina, the sacred art of reading the world which includes seven live sessions with me. While we first take up lectio to listen for the holy speaking through the scriptures, slowly we see the whole world as a sacred text.

When I first was introduced to the practice of lectio divina many years ago I felt an opening inside of me, as if I was being met right where I was. I discovered in this ancient way of praying a mirror of my own inner movements and longing for contemplative depth. I felt supported in a way of savoring life and listening deeply for the voice of Spirit moving through sacred texts and the world.

Lectio divina has four movements or stages to it which invite us into a place of savoring life and our experience and to discover God’s invitation to us in the midst of our experience. These four movements overflow into the whole of our lives.

Shimmering

The first movement is to read the sacred text and listen for a word that shimmers or catches my attention. I do this as I sit to pray each morning with my scripture reading, but also as I move through the day I find that there are moments that shimmer forth: a friend offers me an unexpected insight, I gaze upon my sweetly sleeping dog, I go for a long walk and find the gathering of crows cawing stirs something in my heart, my husband reaches for my hand and in that moment I feel so deeply loved. We all have these shimmering moments calling to us each day if we pay attention. Through lectio I cultivate the capacity to notice these and honor them as important, as sacred.

Savoring

The second movement is reflection which involves taking what shimmers into my heart and allowing it to unfold in my imagination. I savor the images, feelings, and memories which arise. Our lives are so rushed, that savoring can become a counter-cultural practice. In my morning prayer I make space to just notice what experience is rising up in me, and in my daily life I become attentive to those experiences which stir strong feelings or trigger an unexpected memory. Perhaps I am driving in my car and a song comes on the radio which carries me back in time to a moment from my past and I am filled with emotion. Lectio cultivates my ability to make space to allow the fullness of my experience. Rather than holding back my tears and judging them, I let them flow and in the process discover a moment of healing and grace.

Summoning

The third movement is about responding to our prayer and listening for God’s invitation in this moment. In my morning practice I sit and wait as the word that shimmers and the images, feelings, and memories which have unfolded in my prayer begin to yield a sense of God’s longing for my life. In my daily life I notice when my heart is touched by an encounter and I sense that God is summoning me into something new through this very moment. I can’t know what that new thing is just yet, it is often more of an intuition. Sometimes it happens after I teach a class and I have expressed something in a new way and I surprise myself by my own words or a student asks a probing question which breaks open the subject in ways I hadn’t considered. These are moments of divine invitation and lectio helps me to respond.

Stilling

The fourth movement is about going more deeply into a space of rest and stillness. In my morning prayer I simply sit in silence for several minutes, basking in the experience of being rather than doing and feeling full of gratitude for this gift. As I move through my day I am touched by the moments of stillness I find in the midst of life’s busyness. I go for a walk and come upon a radiant dahlia blooming and I am stopped in my tracks, breathing in for just a moment the beauty of dahlias. I am sitting with someone who is sharing her deepest struggles and both of our eyes become wet with tears and we simply pause for a few moments to rest into the silence which holds us both. I pause for Sabbath moments.

Lectio and Life

After more than twenty years of practicing lectio divina, I see the world differently. Each moment and thing has the potential to become a vehicle for revelation. Lectio divina has changed my life. Instead of being something I practice for twenty minutes each morning it has become a way I experience and move through the world. Instead of feeling bound to a particular structure and sequence of steps, I discover that each movement of lectio has its own gift and rhythm and I open my heart to when it will be revealed in my day. The practice of a spiritual discipline is about more than the minutes we spend doing it, but how it overflows into the whole of life.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner