Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 104

Monk in the World Guest Post: Monette Chilson

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Monette Chilson's reflection Back to the Garden.

Illustration by Arna Baartz

I’d like to take you back to the garden. Back to Eden. There’s someone there you need to meet. Someone who has something to teach us all.

Her name is Lilith. I tell her story, in her own words, in my new book, , but I want to introduce her here. Why? Because her time has come. This world needs her now. We need to remember that the first God-created spark of womanhood—of femininity—was not an afterthought—was not meant simply to keep man company, to make his life easier, or to be his helpmate.

Let’s start at the very beginning—with Genesis, the sacred source of Judaism and Christianity  and home to the foundational creation story for all of us in the West. Regardless of our religious inclinations, our identities as men and women have been formed through a cultural lens that places Adam and Eve at the helm of humanity.

Illustration by Arna Baartz

We first learn that humans were created in God’s own image—“Humankind was created as God’s reflection: in the divine image God created them; female and male, God made them.” (Genesis 1:27, The Inclusive Bible). Later, in Genesis 2, we hear another version of humanity’s origins, one in which man is created alone and is later joined by a woman, fashioned from his rib as a suitable helper for him.

Sit with the two versions. They elicit very different feelings and archetypal understandings of our origins. The first lends a feel of unification, of a cohesive humanity. The second a divisive, hierarchical understanding, the root of what will grow into patriarchy, a system that values maleness above femaleness and designates gender-based roles.

Ancient rabbinical writings meant to illuminate scripture through commentary (known as midrash), reconciled the two disparate versions, saying that there was a woman created before Eve, and that this woman—Lilith—fled the garden rather than sacrifice her God-created self to another.

The legend of Lilith grew, but not as a paragon of feminine strength or an example of remaining true to one’s core goodness. Instead, Lilith was demonized, very literally painted as a demon who stole the souls of babies. And for what? For daring to say “no” to subjugating herself, her gifts and the fullness of her humanity to another.

I’d like to reclaim her story here. And in that reclaiming, walk us through a contemplative exercise that will help us reconnect with lost parts of ourselves. People often ask me, “Is Lilith real? Is her story true?” And I answer, she’s real and it’s true in every way they need to be. She is an archetype—as is Eve—which, by definition, affects us in ways that go far beyond the intellectual realm. Rather than teaching us about something outside ourselves, they speak to who we are, molding us as we absorb them.

So, walk with me back into the garden paradise that was once our home. Breathe deeply and imagine yourself newly formed from clay, still marveling at this human body of yours. You feel yourself emerging. You take in sensations from all around you—the scent of new blossoms, the sounds of animals talking in a cacaphony of unfamiliar languages, the feel of the earth, now distinct from this human skin of yours. You are marveling at the discovery of all that is you and all that surrounds you. Everything is a novelty, including you.

You realize that you, unlike the animals, seem to have an intellectual ability. Neurons fire, and your brain awakens. You start formulating ideas and making plans to fulfill the purpose God placed you here to fulfill. You are excited to share them with your partner whose brain is also awakening and bubbling with activity.

When you run up excitedly to your partner, words spilling out, matching the speed of your whirring mind, your excitement is not matched. It is, in fact, doused—lovingly so, but doused all the same. Your partner doesn’t want to hear your ideas because he is under the impression that you are there as his assistant. He thinks you are here to do his bidding.

A pit forms in your stomach. It feels as though all of your enthusiasm has settled there, for it has nowhere to go now. You keep trying, day after day, but you get the same dismissive response. It feels as though who you are—who God created you to be—is being rejected, over and over again.

I wish this was an ancient tale that had no corollary to our experience as women today. But it is archetypal for a reason, because it reaches across time and space to touch us now with its wisdom. What I want you to hold onto is not the feeling as hopelessness, but one of hopefulness.

For God gave Lilith an ineffable word, one that was hers and hers alone. She was to use it if she needed God’s help. And, eventually, she was brave enough to utter it. She found her voice and she called out to God. It didn’t matter if the word she spoke made no sense to anyone else. She spoke her truth, and she was set free.

Are there places in your life where you are stuck? Places where you feel silenced? Carry this story of Lilith with you today. Not as a story that divides us—male against female—but as one that unites us and brings us comfort knowing God always gives us a way. A way to be the truest expression of ourselves and, in that, to reflect a bit of the divine back to the world.

Monette Chilson is an award-winning writer who speaks, writes and blogs about the feminine in God and God in the feminine. , released last month by The Girl God, is her richly illustrated reimagining of the world’s first woman.

Her first book, Sophia Rising: Awakening Your Sacred Wisdom Through Yoga (Bright Sky Press, 2013), garnered numerous awards including the Illumination Book Award (gold medal in the spirituality category), as well as the Hoffer Small Press and First Horizon Awards. She has written for Yoga Journal, Integral Yoga Magazine, Elephant Journal, Om Times and Progressive Christianity.

Connect on Twitter and Instagram (@MonetteChilson) or explore her work at www.SophiaRisingYoga.com.

Practicing the Resurrection of the Body for Easter ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Lent is a powerful season of transformation. Forty days in the desert, stripped of our comforts, and buoyed by our commitment to daily practice so that we might arrive at the celebration of Easter deepened and renewed.

But often, we arrive at the glorious season of resurrection and celebrate for that one day, forgetting it is a span of 50 days, even longer than the Lenten season through which we just traveled.  Easter is not just the day when the tomb was discovered empty, but a span of time when days grow longer in the northern hemisphere, blossoms burst forth, and we are called to consider how we might practice this resurrection in our daily lives.

The soul's journey through Lent is like a pilgrimage exploring inner desert places, landscapes, thresholds, and the experience of exile. Ultimately, pilgrimage always leads us back home again with renewed vision. Resurrection is about discovering the home within each one of us, remembering that we are called to be at home in the world, even as we experience ourselves exiled again and again.

And perhaps there is no place of greater exile than what many of us experience in relationship to our bodies in this fast-paced consumer culture. We spend money on products to make ourselves more beautiful. We diet and fast and often go to extremes to try to mold ourselves to an external model of bodily "perfection." We seek out quick fixes through a variety of medications. Over and over again, we are sold a thousand ways to be unhappy with our physical beings.

The Gospel readings during the Easter season are about the resurrection appearances of Jesus, and many of them have to do with the life of the body: Thomas doubts and needs to touch Jesus' wounds; the nets are pulled ashore overflowing with fish; the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread; Jesus breathes on them the gift of the Spirit; and of course there is the celebration of breath and fire at Pentecost. In all of these stories, there is a sense of generosity and abundance, of caring for physical needs, and of finding solace and assurance in the wounds.

Beyond bunnies, baskets, chocolate, and jelly beans, Easter calls us to the profound practice of resurrection of the body. Lent calls us to the simplicity of ascetic practices like fasting with holy purpose. Easter calls us to the generous celebration of these bodies, which are such faithful companions.

Resurrection is about entering the fire of our passion and letting it burn brightly. It is about what enlivens us and makes us feel vital—releasing fear and anxiety over what is to come, and embracing this moment here and now. Resurrection calls us to experience the full weight and lightness of our physical being, to claim the beauty of our embodied selves, and to let gratitude for these vessels of aliveness overflow.

Imagine if, during the Easter season, we each took on practices like these:

Make a commitment to move slowly through the world, resisting the demand for speed and productivity that is tearing our bodies apart and wearing them down to exhaustion.
Reject compulsive "busyness" as a badge of pride and see it for what it is—a way of staying asleep to your own deep longings and those of the world around you.
Pause regularly. Breathe deeply. Reject multitasking. Savor one thing in this moment right now. Discover a portal into joy and delight in your body through fragrance, texture, shimmering light, song, or sweetness.
Let yourself experience grief for the vulnerabilities of your body. Be exquisitely tender with yourself and all of the aches and pains and limitations of embodied life. Make a space within to welcome in the sorrow of difficult memories.
Any time you begin to hear the old voices of judgment rise up about your body—whether self-consciousness or criticism or denial—pause and breathe. Then stand firm against those voices, as the desert elders counseled us to do, and tell them you will not offer them sanctuary anymore.
Play some music you love, and dance. Be present to the body's desires in response. Perhaps just a finger tapping at first. Then slowly let the impulse travel up your arm and across your chest, taking root in your heart, so that your dance might emerge from this place. Even just imagining yourself dancing can bring you alive.
Roll around on the grass, the way dogs do with abandon. Release worries about getting muddy or cold or looking foolish. The body isn't concerned with keeping things neat and tidy. Don't hold yourself back.
Every day, at least once, say thank you for the gift of being alive. Every day, at least once, remember the One who crafted you and exclaimed, "That is so very good."
Allow a day to follow the rhythms of your body. Notice when you are tired, and sleep.  When you are hungry, eat. When your energy feels stagnant, go for a long walk. In truth, it often takes several days to sink into this kind of attunement, but begin to consider how you might invite this awareness into your daily life.
Be present to the earth-body, which is the matrix of our own being. The earth offers herself so generously for nourishment. Remember that earth-cherishing is intimately connected to cherishing your own embodied being.

What does it mean for us to not just say we believe in a resurrected life, but to truly practice resurrection?

Do you breathe in the gift of the Spirit? What will your practices of resurrected life be?

Discover more ways to practice the resurrection of the body in my newest book The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Barb Morris

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Barb Morris' reflection emptiness.

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.” So says the Chinese prophet Lao Tzu, writing 500 years before Jesus.

Maybe it’s my advancing middle age, but the spiritual practice of welcoming emptiness has become more and more necessary to me. As Lao Tzu prescribes, I find myself, after decades of adding things to my life, subtracting in order to find Wisdom.

I’m especially drawn to emptiness this Advent – this season of waiting. Emptiness feels particularly necessary during these holy-daze. I could fill up every day and every night with Christmas-ish activity. My to-do list could be as long as my arm.

Since it’s likely not Advent when you read this, let me assure you that the spiritual practice of welcoming emptiness can be fruitful all year round. Each commitment of the Monk Manifesto is furthered by the spiritual practice of welcoming emptiness.

Welcoming emptiness is, at its core, a willingness to come face to face with our deepest selves.

Virtually from the time we’re born, we’re given disguises and personas to wear. At first, we wear them because we’re dependent on our caregivers and we know in our tiny baby selves that life will just go better if we become who our parents want or need us to be. Most of us, eventually, like fish oblivious to water, forget that our identities were ever assumed. We’ve become our disguises.

Here’s where emptiness comes in. After four or five decades of living from our shells, we begin to wear out. This wearing out often comes in the form of aimlessness and depression – that almost-predictable midlife malaise that calls us to pay attention to who we really are.

Here I am – trying to explain emptiness. That’s sort of the opposite of what I’m suggesting! So, here are some forms that emptiness might take in our embodied lives:

Emptiness might take the form of dispensing with pretending and disguises. We might just get back in touch with our souls and let ourselves be who we are. We might just decide that taking the risk of authenticity is worth the payoff of real relationships, with ourselves and with others.


Emptiness might take the form of forgiveness. We might choose to release our identity as victims of someone or something else, and see what’s left.


Emptiness might take the form of allowing ourselves to feel anger, fear, and sadness. Rather than filling ourselves with food or booze or shopping or reading or something else that distracts us, we can simply give our feelings space to exist.


Emptiness might take the form of white space on our to-do lists and calendars.Giving ourselves the gift of time to do nothing – empty time – is necessary for new life and new creations to emerge.


Emptiness might be physical. Emptiness might mean freeing ourselves from the actual things that bind us. Emptiness might take the form of empty space on our bookshelves, in our closets and garages, or on our plates.

Welcoming emptiness is paradoxical. How can we welcome something that doesn’t exist? How can we cultivate nothingness?

My answer to this paradox is that emptiness isn’t really empty. It’s in emptiness that God can speak to us, and we can finally hear. It’s in emptiness that we become aware of and moved by holy intuition, guidance, and inspiration. It’s in emptiness that we know ourselves to be deeply and irrevocably connected with our divine Source.

Welcoming emptiness takes courage and faith.

(Going beyond welcoming emptiness to actively cultivating emptiness takes even more courage and faith.)

Here’s more Lao Tzu for inspiration:

“We join spokes together in a wheel,

but it is the center hole

that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,

but it is the emptiness inside

that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,

but it is the inner space

that makes it livable.

We work with being,

but non-being is what we use.”

I invite us to stop. Let’s notice what’s going on inside ourselves. Notice when we’re filling our fertile emptiness with identities, expectations, or busy-ness. Notice when we push away an unwelcome feeling and distract ourselves. Notice when we blame others for our choices. Notice when we’re so attached to our agendas that we fail to see God’s agenda.

Stop. Welcome emptiness, and welcome God’s deep love beneath and around emptiness. Cultivate the emptiness that allows Love to grow. When we empty ourselves of all that isn’t God, we allow God to expand within us and overflow into a hurting world.

Emptiness is unpredictable. Emptiness makes room for grace and surprise. Emptiness makes us useful as Christ’s body in the world, in ways that are inevitably surprising.

Above all, emptiness trusts that we are much, much more than our identities and our grudges and our fears and our things – we are God’s love embodied. We are God’s hands working for peace and justice and the dignity of every human being.

May we welcome and cultivate emptiness in order to become more fully ourselves.

Barb Morris is a writer, teacher, and artist living in Bend, Oregon with her Episcopal priest husband. More of her blogging, writing, and art are at www.barbmorris.com.

Easter Blessings: Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Happy Easter dear monks! How will you celebrate these 50 days of resurrection? We invite you to consider joining us for Eyes of the Heart, an online retreat on the contemplative practice of photography which starts tomorrow.

The season of Easter spans 50 days of celebrating the resurrection and culminating in Pentecost.  Yet, for many of us, Easter Sunday comes and goes and we forget this call to practice resurrection in an ongoing way.  We, perhaps, aren’t sure how to bring resurrection into daily life.

The stories we hear during the Easter season highlight the resurrected life of the body – Thomas touching Jesus’ physical wounds, the nets being cast out from the boat to draw in an abundance of food, the disciples walking along the road to Emmaus with Jesus and breaking bread with him.  In this last story we read that their “eyes were prevented from recognizing him.”

When Jesus returns in resurrected form, he is fully embodied, yet hard for us to recognize.  The disciples do not expect their dear friend to be among them again and so they miss this truth with their limited vision.

To me, this speaks of an invitation to see the world in a different way.  Practicing resurrection is, in part, about becoming aware of how we see the world.  When we rush from thing to thing, never pausing, never allowing space, we see only what we expect to find.  We see to grasp at the information we need. We see the stereotypes embedded in our minds. We miss the opportunity to see beyond what we want. We walk by a thousand ordinary revelations in our busyness and preoccupation.

We find a similar emphasis on vision in the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration.  The burning light that once appeared to Moses in the bush now radiates from Jesus himself: “His face shone like the sun” (Matthew 17:2). For the ancient writer Gregory Palamas, it was the disciples who changed at the Transfiguration, not Christ. Christ was transfigured “not by the addition of something he was not, but by the manifestation to his disciples of what he really was. He opened their eyes so that instead of being blind they could see.” Because their perception grew sharper, they were able to behold Christ as he truly is.

Consider celebrating resurrection this Easter season with a commitment to deeper vision.  This kind of seeing takes time.  We have to slow down and wait.  We have to release wanting to see something in particular, so that we can be open to what is being offered in the moment. This is the heart of contemplation – to see what really is, rather than what we would expect.

For me, the creative practice of photography can be a powerful doorway into transformed seeing.  When we open ourselves to receiving photos, rather than taking them, we are offered a gift.  By bringing the camera to the eye and allowing an encounter with the holy to open our hearts, we might be transformed.

It can be any kind of camera.  Look through the lens and imagine that it is a portal to a new way of seeing. Let the focus of the frame bring your gaze to the quality of light in this moment or the vibrancy of colors. Even five minutes can shift your gaze to a deepened quality of attentiveness.  No need to capture everything you see, but simply an invitation to breathe in the beauty of this moment.

Let yourself be willing to see the world differently, so that what others miss in the rush of life, becomes transfigured through your openness and intention. Practicing resurrection means walking along the road and paying close attention, making space to receive the gift of bread, the nourishment of conversation, and a vision of the sacred.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Janeen Adil

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Janeen Adil's reflection on blessings.

I suspect that one of my earliest exposures to the concept of blessing came not via some holy and spiritual source — but rather, from a sneeze! As a child I learned that the sound of an Achoo! should quickly be followed by the response of "God bless you." Just as "thank you" was followed by "you're welcome," saying the word "bless" after a sneeze did not require critical thinking — it was simply the proper and polite thing to do!

I heard more about blessings at church, since my parents faithfully brought us there every Sunday. Familiar passages around this concept included, for example, the Beatitudes' list of those who are blessed, as well as the comforting image of Jesus blessing the little children. "Bless" and "blessings" popped up in other Bible verses as well, in the hymns we sang, and in the prayers we prayed. Although I had a general idea of what these terms signified, at that young age I saw it to be "church talk."

My first real hint of some deeper understanding around blessings came later, as a high school student. One summer I participated in an overseas exchange program. It was there that I heard an Irish woman exclaim in admiration, as she watched a highly skilled craftsman at work, "God bless the work of your hands!"

Never within my New England mainline Protestant upbringing had I heard anyone talk like this. I was intrigued! In that moment, I found that my view of offering a blessing began to shift. To bless had been taken beyond the church walls and out into the world — it was active. It was alive!

It wasn't until decades later, however, that this shift became one of more seismic proportions. I responded to God's call to ministry within my denomination and at that point, a whole new world cracked open for me. The books I now read and the courses I took offered me a world of wonders. Up to that point on my faith journey, I had had next to no exposure to our rich Christian spiritual traditions. Now I was learning about and participating in disciplines from centering prayer to hospitality to discernment to lectio divina, and many more.

It was within this time (rather recently, in fact!) that I was introduced to John O'Donohue's book, To Bless the Space Between Us. His words fell into my open heart — thanks in part, I believe, to my own Celtic background and sensibilities. I shared many of his blessings with friends, especially when I found a blessing to match a particular situation in their life.

I also studied and absorbed the additional material he offered within his book, To Retrieve the Lost Art of Blessing. He wrote: "I believe each of us can bless. When a blessing is invoked, it changes the atmosphere. Some of the plenitude flows into our hearts from the invisible neighborhood of loving kindness. In the light and reverence of blessing, a person or situation becomes illuminated in a completely new way."

Blessings, it seemed, were both holy and "everyday" — an interweaving that was reflecting my spirituality. I came to describe the act of blessing as invoking love.

As I unfolded into a contemplative life,  I was drawn first to working with a spiritual director and then to pursuing the path to enter this ministry myself, which became a great complement to my previous training. This part of my journey brought its own deepening, in ways that were often profound and unexpected. I noticed that many fronts and barriers between my own self and others were softened to the point, now and then, of being granted to see another person with "Jesus eyes."

And so I began to use the words of blessing more and more, as in exclaiming "I was so blessed!" Or, "Blessings on your day" to my husband, as he heads to work. Or, "May you experience God today" at the end of an email. Or, looking the Salvation Army bell-ringer in the eyes and saying "Bless your work!" as I put a donation in the kettle. One especially profound experience came as I was privileged to offer both anointing and words of blessing to a dozen mission workers of my congregation, as they were about to step out with hammers and paint brushes into our community. "Blessings on the work of your hands and the work of your heart," I said with great intention to each person in turn.

Today I find that offering a blessing has become a contemplative practice, a freeing and natural response to Spirit's ongoing work. My new and recent invitation has been to start writing blessings of my own. I am grateful to John O'Donohue, that unknown woman from Ireland, and to so many others for leading the way!

Janeen R. Adil is a writer, spiritual director, and Minister of Christian Spirituality within the UCC. Through her Hungry Soul Ministries she offers workshops, retreats, and direction. A book manuscript is underway, designed for those new to spiritual practices. She lives in  eastern PA, in a farmhouse built by English/Welsh Quakers over 200 years ago!

Thomas Merton and the archetype of the Monk ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Our final webinar in the Illuminating the Way series will be happening on Monday, April 17th on Thomas Merton and the archetype of the monk. See details below for how to register. All the previous webinars are available by recording.

For me, one of the gifts of contemplative practice is the reminder that my own grasping at what I think is most essential is so often not. Being a monk is, of course, one of the archetypes with which I most deeply identify, I think because I need it so much. My desire to always live ten steps ahead of myself or my active mind always trying to figure things out. Merton has been an incredible gift in making much of monastic teaching and the contemplative life accessible to modern ears. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk living in the twentieth century. His great gift for writing broke open the treasures of monastic tradition for a whole generation and those who followed. The Trappist are part of the Benedictine family tree, essentially a reform movement that began in the 17th century when the Abbott of La Trappe monastery in France felt the Cistercians were becoming too liberal (and the Cistercians were a reform movement several centuries earlier when they felt the Benedictines were doing the same thing). It is an order of returning to simplicity.

I love the way nature was for Merton a profound teacher and wisdom guide. He experienced all of creation as pointing the way toward our True Selves, which is who we were created to be at heart by the divine creative force, and not who we imagine ourselves to be with all of our agendas and goals and strivings. He saw the lakes, the sea, the mountains, trees and animals as all saints because they are so intrinsically themselves. To be a saint means to be fully oneself. These elements of creation do not spin stories which take them away from their true nature. There is so much grace for us to discover in witnessing them, letting their wisdom into our lives. We get to choose whether to be true or false, real or unreal.

Merton writes: “Forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same silent language, reminding the monk that he is here to develop like the things that grow all around him.” The elements of earth, wind, water, and fire all help the monk cultivate organically, which means not forced. I am reminded here of the poet Rilke’s line “no forcing and no holding back.” Merton would find in creation the very source of his prayer, describing that as he seeks silence and solitude he discovers that everything he touches is turned into prayer: “where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all.” It is this profound insight of God in all that is the central revelation of the contemplative life. Practice awakens us to this reality slowly and allows love to seize us, rather than fear or worry.

You can find Part Seven of A Different Kind of Fast for Lent on Embracing Mystery 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 Seven – Embrace Mystery

Dearest monks and artists,

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God.

— from Amiel’s Journal, translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward

John Cassian, one of the ancient desert fathers, describes three renunciations he says are required of all of us on the spiritual journey. The first is our former way of life as we move closer to our heart’s deep desires. The second is the inner practice of asceticism and letting go of our mindless thoughts. The third renunciation is to let go of our images of God—the idols we cling to so tightly—and to recognize that any image or pronouncement we can ever make about God is much to small to contain the divine. Even the word “God” is problematic because it carries with it so many interpretations and limits based on our cultural understandings.

We live in an age when fundamentalism has emerged as an overwhelming force in religious consciousness. In times that are chaotic and uncertain, our human minds grasp for a sense of control. One of the ways we try to make sense of things is to engage in black and white thinking. Establishing clear rules for how the world works, and who is inside and outside of God’s sphere, is a way of coping with this felt loss of an anchor or shared cultural sense of meaning.

The via negativa or apophatic way in Christian tradition, which means the way of unknowing, demands that we talk about God only in terms of negatives, or what God is not. It helps to cleanse us of our idols. Alan Jones, in his book Soul-Making, writes, “We can only say that God is both unknowable and inexhaustible.” Humility is required. We are so attached to our ideas of who God is and how God works in the world. Ultimately, what the desert journey demands is that we let go of even this false idol and open ourselves to the God who is far more expansive than we can behold or imagine.

Letting go of our images of God can be terrifying. It is often the result of an experience of suffering in our lives, when our previous understanding is no longer adequate to give meaning to what has happened to us. When my mother died suddenly in my early thirties, I was thrust into the desert. All of my certainties about God and life were stripped away and I was left raw and frightened. Many people offered trite words and shallow comfort in my grief, they were not willing to sit with me in the darkness, but only hoped to rush me through to a place of light.

This is the mystical experience of the “dark night of the soul,” when old convictions and conformities dissolve into nothingness and we are called to stand naked to the terror of the unknown. We must let the process move through us—one which is much greater than we can comprehend. We can never force our way back to the light. It is only in this place of absolute surrender that the new possibility can emerge. We don’t just have one dark night in our lives, but again and again, as we are called to continue releasing the images we cling to so tightly.

Sheri Hostetler is a Mennonite poet whose poem “Instructions” begins, “Give up the world; give up self; finally, give up God.” Her choice of words is certainly provocative and when I have read this poem in classes and on retreats, I encounter a wide range of reactions from a visible sigh of relief to the anxious confusion over whether I am proposing a kind of atheism.

In some ways I am, at least in the way that Christian mystic Simone Weil speaks about it. She tells us that “there are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.” This is the call of the desert elders: to let go, let go, let go, and let go some more, on every level of our lives, to everything we cling to, including, or especially our ideas about God. As soon as our human minds begin to fashion categories, we risk making idols of them.

We let go of who we are certain God to be and cultivate an openness to the One who is far beyond the horizons of our imagining. In the Book of Job, God challenges Job’s desire for understanding and asks “where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” God is never a set of concepts to be understood and grasped, but a relationship to encounter and engage. In this way, the spiritual life is always a journey and in process. We do not let go once and for all, but move through the layers of clinging in our lives until we are living more from our hearts than our minds. We do not arrive, but travel toward the horizon, realizing that it is always receding from our view.

This Lent I will fast from the places in my life where I crave certainty and sure outcomes, and release them to the great Mystery. I will celebrate a God who is infinitely larger than my imagination and I will rest in the possibilities that affords.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Monk in the World Guest Post: John Paul Lichon

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for John Paul Lichon's reflection entitled, Discipline.

Let’s be honest, I am not a very disciplined person.  Pulling all-nighters to write papers in college was a regular ritual, it took several unfortunate cavities to convince me it was essential to floss every day, and anyone close to me can tell you that I often have insatiable cravings for McDonald’s double cheeseburgers.  Thankfully, over the years all three of these unhealthy tendencies have drastically declined in frequency, but I think these habits illustrate my enduring inner struggle to cultivate discipline and self-control in many areas of my life.

When it comes to personal prayer, I have always labored to find a regular routine.  Pages upon pages of my journal speak of this constant tension to consistently carve out time and space for personal prayer.  And looking back at the journal entry dates, sometimes there are weeks, if not months, between entries of one of my favorite ways to pray.  Even though I know my body and soul yearns for a steady diet of silent, contemplative prayer, especially through writing, I often find it very hard to do on a consistent basis.

Personally, I love silence.  I remember once driving all the way from Dallas to Houston (over four hours) without ever turning on the radio or talking to anyone on the phone.  I often tell people that the quieter I am around you, the more comfortable I am with you.  In some ways, I think this is simply a sign of my introverted personality.  But on a deeper level, I know that silent contemplation is what grounds my relationship with God.  It’s often in these moments where I can most truly recognize God’s movement in my life, God’s next invitation for me to consider, or simply what I’m feeling as I come before God at that particular moment.  I just find it difficult to maintain a regular practice of physically sitting down and doing it.

My usual excuse is that we live in a world that constantly bombards us.  From family schedules to email inboxes, work expectations to financial worries, our lives are subject to a lot responsibilities, anxieties, and distractions.  Amidst this swirl of life’s concerns, who has time for one more thing?

Often, I get frustrated when I hear the typical suggestions offered to people like me.  “Start with a few minutes a day.  Carve out the same time and place.  Start small and in time you’ll come to master the routine.”  While it certainly sounds so easy, the truth is that it’s hard for me.  It takes work.  It takes discipline.  Commitment.

Looking in the proverbial mirror, I wonder if I have the resolve to live as a monk in the world.  I feel like I am trying, but am I really?  Is this the type of life that I want to live?  That I’m designed to live?

I scribbled this poem in my journal several months ago:

 

“Sleep when you’re dead,”

said the master to his slave.

Yet, rest gives rest,

to give rest, for the rest

of your life. All the days, that are consumed

with life, upon life, over life, filled with life.

Life needs rest, needs peace,

needs breath.

“I wonder if I’ve forgotten to breathe,” I said.

Or rather, should I say, “I can’t breathe.”

I don’t really know,

because life, within the life

of my life, seems lifeless.

Or is it?  Over-Lived – life-full – life-more – a rich life?

Those who give up their life,

are given life.

So whose life am I really living?

 

Every time I go down this vicious cycle of self-absorption, I am reminded of the true focus of prayer.  Prayer is not about me.  It’s not really about what I’m doing or not doing for God.  Rather, prayer is about God and what God has done and will continue to do for me and for us.  So often, I look in the rearview mirror of my prayer, rather than looking forward to the horizon.  Maybe if I focused forward, I could actually see the path that God is laying before me.

John Paul Lichon is the founder of Verso Ministries, a pilgrimage company seeking the path to true fulfillment by encountering and sharing sacred sites and stories of the world.  Learn more at www.VersoMinistries.com.

Eyes of the Heart: Seeing the World Anew ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

We invite you to join us for an online retreat to celebrate the season of resurrection. Learn to see the world with new eyes, by joining our community to learn how photography can become a contemplative practice in Eyes of the Heart (an online retreat for the Easter season)>>

Photography as a spiritual practice combines the active art of image-receiving with the contemplative nature and open-heartedness of prayer. It cultivates what I call sacred seeing or seeing with the “eyes of the heart” (Ephesians 1:18). This kind of seeing is our ability to receive the world around us at a deeper level than surface realities.

We live in a product-oriented culture, where much of what we do is focused on an end goal or product to share. When we approach art in this way, we become distracted by trying to produce a beautiful image. When we focus on the process of art-making, rather than the product, we can immerse ourselves in the creative journey and discover the ways God is moving through our lives and how we are being invited to respond. We release our own plans and expectations and pay attention to what is actually unfolding within us.

The process of art-making or prayer becomes a journey of discovery, where we open ourselves to what is being revealed moment by moment, rather than what we hope or expect to see. This book offers an invitation to transform photography into a spiritual practice by attending to the process, and thereby deepening our relationship to God, to the world around us, and to ourselves.

Mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade says the word “moment” comes from the Latin root momentus, which means to move. We are moved when we touch the eternal and timeless. There is a sense of spaciousness in moments. We linger and feel lifted above the daily concerns of chronos time and dwell in kairos time. Both of these words come from Greek and help us differentiate the different qualities of time we experience. Chronos time is the sequential time of schedules and moving through the tasks of everyday life, the time we are aware of when we watch the clock waiting for the workday to be done. Kairos time has an altogether different quality. It is not sequential or linear. Kairos refers to the fullness of a given moment, a moment when something special happens, something unexpected. We can never plan kairos time, but we can make ourselves available to being seized by it through cultivating contemplative practice.

Giving ourselves over to the act of art-making is one way we find this moment of eternity, or even better, how we allow the moment to find us. There are many moments waiting for us each day, prodding at our consciousness, inviting us to abandon our carefully constructed plans and defenses and open our hearts to what is before us. The task of the artist is to cultivate the ability to see these eternal moments again and again. In this way, we are all invited to become artists.

You can find Part Six of A Different Kind of Fast for Lent on Embracing Organic Unfolding here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Six – Embrace Organic Unfolding

Dearest monks and artists,

It was said of Abba Agathon that for three years he lived with a stone in his mouth, until he had learnt to keep silence. (Agathon 15)

The silence of the desert elders is called hesychia, which means stillness, silence, inner quiet. However, it is much deeper than just an external quiet. A person can live alone and still experience much noise within and a person can live in the midst of a crowd and have a true sense of stillness in their heart.

There is always a shadow side to silence—the kind of silence that keeps hidden secrets and abuses. This is not the life-giving silence the desert elders seek. Silence can be poisonous, as when someone’s voice is being silenced or when we silence ourselves out of resentment or anger. Think of times when you have engaged silence as a weapon in a relationship. There is also the silence of hopelessness or giving up, feeling overwhelmed by life. Or silence that comes when we feel another has all the answers and our voice doesn’t matter.

The desert monks are talking about silence that is life-giving. They urge us to seek a particular quality of silence that is attentive and emerges from a place of calm and peace. Our freedom to be silent in this way indicates our freedom from resentment and its power over us. Authentic silence is very challenging to achieve.

Meister Eckhart wrote, “There is nothing so much like God as silence.” When we experience moments when we find ourselves releasing words and simply entering into an experience of wonder and beholding, this is the silence of God, moments when we are arrested by life’s beauty.

Silence is challenging. We create all kinds of distractions and noise in our lives so we can avoid it. Thomas Merton writes about people who go to church and lead good lives but struggle with quiet:

Interior solitude is impossible for them. They fear it. They do everything they can to escape it. What is worse, they try to draw everyone else into activities as senseless and as devouring as their own. They are great promoters of useless work. They love to organize meetings and banquets and conferences and lectures. They print circulars, write letters, talk for hours on the telephone in order that they may gather a hundred people together in a large room where they will all fill the air with smoke and make a great deal of noise and roar at one another and clap their hands and stagger home at last patting one another on the back with the assurance that they have all done great things to spread the Kingdom of God.

Merton is fierce in his critique of all the ways we cling to words to feel productive, while never making space to surrender into the unknowing of silence and experience silence as beyond all of our good words and intentions. Silence is what makes our actions meaningful, not the other way around.

Silence encourages us to release our desire to control the outcomes of everything and enter into the organic stillness from which new fruit can arise. When we rush and spread ourselves between too many commitments, and saturate our lives with noise, it becomes impossible to truly hear.

When I am immersed in planning my life, writing list after list of things to do, and always trying to meet the next deadline, I am called to pause from these things. For Lent I will fast for a while from my endless desire to control the direction of my life. I will open myself to the grace of silence, in which beauty comes alive and there are things already ripening and unfolding. From this space a garden can flourish.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner