Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 107
February 4, 2017
Feast of St. Gobnait – Patron of Bees ~ A love note from your online abbess
St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection*
On the tiny limestone island
an angel buzzes to Gobnait
in a dream, disrupts her plans,
sends her in search of nine white deer.
She wanders for miles across
sea and land until at last
they appear and rather than
running toward them
she falls gently to wet ground,
sits in silence as light crawls across sky,
lets their long legs approach
and their soft, curious noses surround her.
Breathing slowly, she slides back
onto grass and clover and knows
nothing surpasses this moment,
a heaven of hooves and dew.
Is there a place for each of us,
where we no longer yearn to be elsewhere?
Where our work is to simply soften,
wait, and pay close attention?
She smiles as bees gather eagerly
around her too, wings humming softly
as they collect essence of wildflowers,
transmuting labor into gold.
—Christine Valters Paintner
*First appeared in Headstuff online journal
Dearest monks and artists,
Gobnait is perhaps one of my favorite of the Irish saints. She is a 5th-6th century monk who fled her home in County Clare and headed first for the island of Insheer, one of the three Aran Islands off the coast of Connemara. It is not clear why she fled, only that she was seeking refuge. There is a beautiful church ruin there on the island still dedicated to her where we bring our pilgrims.
There is a deep and rich tradition among the Irish monks to seek out the place of one’s resurrection. This was often done through the practice of peregrinatio, a setting sail without oar or rudder to let the currents of love carry them.
The story tells us that an angel appeared to her to instruct her to go on a journey to the place where nine white deer would be grazing. Only there would she would find her true place of resurrection. She wandered through the counties of Waterford, Cork, and Kerry in search. At first she saw three white deer in Clondrohid and followed them to Ballymakeera where she saw six more.
Finally, when she arrived to Ballyvourney in County Cork, where there was a small rise overlooking the River Sullane, that Gobnait saw nine white deer grazing all together just as the angel had promised, so she settled there and founded her monastic community. I have been to her holy site there as well and it is also a very special place with still much reverence for her witness.
I love the stories of the Irish monks and their wandering. I know that sense of feeling called somewhere, only to be called to move again long after I thought I had settled for good.
Have you found the place of your own resurrection? The place that brings you alive and where your gifts can thrive?
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Dancing monk icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)
January 31, 2017
Monk in the World Guest Post: Pat Butler
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Pat Butler's reflection on entitled Abba Ice.
“Out of whose womb came the ice?”—Job 38:29
January
A monastery forms in this plane of all places, over New Jersey, as I fly north in the dead of a Northeast winter, in the grip of an historic deep freeze. I am returning home from a short trip South, contemplating the icy lunar landscape below, pocked by crows, bridges, and ice-encased riggings. I’m startled to discover how much I’ve missed this purgatory, how eager I am to return to it.
A monastic silence fills the fuselage. In this carrier cum library, laptops, iPads, and Kindles are out. Movement is restricted: we swipe our scroll screens. Our Rule of Life is simple: eat, sleep, read, watch media. Our cloister walk is to the toilets, where we wait in line, listen to the engines’ drone, the flight crew’s chatter, or peer out the window at cloud formations.
Traveling alone in a community of strangers, I study the news: a near drowning; two boys stranded on a rock in a river; a truck driving across the frozen bay.
Now we are over New York. The harbor is frozen; occasionally an ice floe breaks off, revealing darker patches of blue. I travel in this trinity of bay, clouds and ice, a triune community of water. Abba Ice slips around the mouth of the harbor, and visits me in my cell—Seat 20C.
“I like this winter,” he comments. “It has personality.”
I have missed discussing this winter with him. When I arrive home, I drive to the bay, to check the ice and resume our conversation: how do I live as a monk in this frozen world?
My spiritual practice expands to include this daily pilgrimage to the bay, to see if it will freeze entirely, and to hear how he might answer my question.
One small patch of blue remains open, big enough for a skiff, in which three fishermen huddle, working their lines. How did they even get there? Whatever trail they forged through the ice, the sub-zero cold has erased it.
How long will the cold last? Will it succeed in closing that blue patch? I want to see the bay freeze over, something I’ve only witnessed twice.
Will we see it, Abba Ice?
Are you prepared for the winter it takes to do so?
February
Abba Ice inches across the bay, into the sound, coves, rivers, salt marshes and kettle ponds along the coast, into our minds and hearts, which thaw incrementally as he freezes the waters, testing us.
What is in your heart?
The ice crawls past Center Island, pulling pilings down. We are weight-lifting with snow blowers, shovels, and battery chargers. The cold becomes the hub around which our lives revolve. If weather can be said to transcend itself, this is that weather. Temps hover near or below zero for months, teaching me what extremes the climate must take to freeze a bay.
A Coast Guard cutter cuts a channel through the ice, emptying the tongue-tied silence of the cold. Its goal: a half-submerged dingy, its engine tilted up to the sun, rakish and blue. Two fisherman are missing: gas can, cooler, buckets, and clamming rake recuperated by the cutter, half a mile from Peacock Point.
This winter lays us waste, and takes lives.
Abba Ice speaks again: Wait. There is more.
A wandering snowflake announces the arrival of the next blizzard. A frenzy of food shopping erupts, before the hunkering down in spite of accidents, the cat missing, and the conundrum of management not closing the office when the state closes the roads. Thankful for heat holding up, toilet paper holding out, sufficient water and food, internet raving on.
March
Black silhouettes at attention.
Shivering in the beautiful danger we stand in, eyes running, lips chattering, we stare at the sun transcribing its message on the ice. Abba Ice summons us to look as long as it takes to see; for some intuition, some spiritual download or upgrade to complete. Hoping it will do so while the coat is still keeping me warm.
I mark the sun’s herculean effort to set slowly enough to match our dimmed wits; watch its controlled descent, with power to incinerate the naked trees, the bare bay, and us—none of which it does. Instead, it restores us to our senses. Power made perfect in beauty.
Watch. Wait. Look.
Chronos becomes Kairos. Abba Ice lays down a path of pearls bought at great price—ice formations illuminated by a winter sun that knows how to take its time.
Do you know how to take your time?
We scramble back to our cars, photos secured, turn on the heat and our music. Vespers includes the Hallelujah chorus, arias coaxing frozen tides to remember how to hold a note, how to have a wooden leg for the inebriation of sunset. Melted by beauty and silence, our red-nosed faces stun-drunk, we witness a theophany the soprano’s voice salutes.
And then it is finished. The sun sets. The bay is completely frozen.
This is the Hope of Ice.
I take notes…
Where everything can be transformed, so can I.
If the sun can move that slowly, so can I.
If that’s what it takes, I’ll endure it.
In a winter where we can no longer walk on water, the water turns to ice.
Pat Butler, poet and writer, has three chapbooks published through Finishing Line Press, and poems in literary and online journals. A native New Yorker, Pat currently resides in Florida, where she enjoys being a recent first-time home buyer, all things French, and anything in, near, or on the ocean.
Website: The Literary Boatyard
Blogs:
January 28, 2017
Honoring Imbolc and the Feast of St Brigid ~ A love note from your online abbess
Dearest monks and artists,
I share with you a brief excerpt from our online self-study retreat Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year.
February 1st-2nd marks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day!
Imbolc is a Celtic feast that is cross-quarter day, meaning it is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. The sun marks the four Quarter Days of the year (the Solstices and Equinoxes) and the midpoints are the cross-quarter days. In some cultures February 2nd is the official beginning of spring.
As the days slowly lengthen in the northern hemisphere and the sun makes her way higher in the sky, the ground beneath our feet begins to thaw. The earth softens and the seeds deep below stir in the darkness. The word “imbolc” means “in the belly.” The earth’s belly is beginning to awaken, new life is stirring, seeds are sprouting forth.
It is the time when the ewes begin to give birth and give forth their milk, and heralds the coming of longer and warmer days. It is the first sign of life after the long dark nights of winter. Brigid breathes into the landscape so that it begins to awaken. Snowdrops, the first flowers of spring are one of her symbols.
In many places the ground is still frozen or covered with snow, but the call now is tend to those very first signs of movement beneath the fertile ground. What happens when you listen ever so closely in the stillness? What do you hear beginning to emerge?
What new seeds are stirring deep in your belly?
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Dancing monk icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)
January 24, 2017
Monk in the World Guest Post: Elaine Breckenridge
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elaine Breckenridge's reflection on Saint Brigid.
I went to Ireland last year and met Saint Brigid: monastic leader and pastor, protector and companion, soul friend and healer. Oh, I had known about Brigid as there are no shortage of books detailing her life as a person in history and her tradition as a goddess of the land of Ireland. But on this sacred journey, experience expanded knowledge as throughout my two week journey, time and again I met Brigid.
My visit to the Anglican cathedral bearing her name in Kildare was a surprise. Her image in the stain glass window actually took my breath away. There she was–a life-size figure on the same par as Patrick and Comicille (Columba). And what was she holding? A crozier! What looks like a shepherd’s staff is also the primary symbol of the office of Bishop. I knew of legends that described her “accidental” consecration as a Bishop in the church. Stories tell that the Bishop said the wrong prayer over her as she was being set apart as an abbess. But to see what I had considered to be a folktale preserved in the historical record of the church (the window) was amazing. That day, I met Saint Brigid, monastic leader and pastor.
I knew that Brigid was and still is a symbol of hospitality and abundance. Walking through the village of Kildare, that tradition came alive as I saw her image in a fine tile portrait in front of a local pub. A sign advertised a special sale on Brigid’s Ale. Fitting, since among her many occupations, Brigid is the patron saint of beer makers. Just a few doors down the road her cross was displayed lovingly in a shop window. I imagined the owners hung her cross asking for her special prayers of blessing and protection.
There are many accounts about the cross of Brigid being placed in homes and shrines asking for her blessing and companionship. I knew this but I was not prepared to see her large cross guarding this house on Inish Mor in the Aran Islands. In Ireland, the presence of Brigid continues to be a blessing: in the church, the market place and home. In Ireland I met Saint Brigid, protector and companion.
No pilgrimage to Kildare could be complete without a visit to the famous well there that bears her name. While countless wells and shrines in Ireland bear her name, this particular one includes a statue of her holding the likeness of a flaming torch, reminding visitors of her association with both fire and water. Passing through the threshold into the outdoor sanctuary was passage into a world of contemplation and beauty. I walked the pilgrims way to the well led by six stones and stopped to listen at each one. At each rock, I was given a word. Presence. Healing. Inspiration. Discernment. Love. Surrender. These words guided my retreat with the Abbey of the Arts that month. Well known for her ministry of spiritual direction, at the well, I met Saint Brigid, my Anam Cara or soul friend.
Brigid followed me home, from Ireland to Lodi, California. She has appeared in my dreams and in my prayers. Part of the Brigid tradition places her at the birth of Jesus and as a companion to the Holy Family. One night I had a special dream. As I awoke, I realized that she had done for me what she had done for Jesus and his parents. When I was an infant, I was hospitalized for many weeks. Yet, she had been a special presence, a companion when I thought I was alone.
I have carried the memory of being both abandoned and trapped in my mind and in my body, kept as I was in crib with only custodial care. But now I realize that I was not trapped but sheltered and protected under the holy mantle of Saint Brigid. She was there, the healer and had been present to me just as she had been present to the Holy family and to the many women in childbirth who called upon her name. In my home in California, I met Saint Brigid, my healer.
And so a new chapter of my spiritual journey begins. The wounds of childhood have left me with a fear of scarcity—whether it be around time, money, food or affection. What better practice than to team up with Saint Brigid not only the healer, but the patron of hospitality, abundance and generosity?
As I celebrate her feast day this year, the day after Imbolc, the first day of spring on the Celtic calendar, I look forward to a new birthing taking place in my soul. I know that whatever comes forth, Brigid, saint, leader, and my Anam Cara, protector, companion and healer will be with me.
Elaine Breckenridge is a dancing monk and an Episcopal priest currently serving St. John the Baptist Church in Lodi, California. Her passions include incorporating Celtic and Creation Spirituality into traditional liturgical forms, the music of Kristopher E. Lindquist (Kelmusic.com), yoga and living the Abbey of the Arts Monk Manifesto.
Monk in the World Guest Post: Elaine Breckinridge
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elaine Breckinridge's reflection on Saint Brigid.
I went to Ireland last year and met Saint Brigid: monastic leader and pastor, protector and companion, soul friend and healer. Oh, I had known about Brigid as there are no shortage of books detailing her life as a person in history and her tradition as a goddess of the land of Ireland. But on this sacred journey, experience expanded knowledge as throughout my two week journey, time and again I met Brigid.
I knew that Brigid was and still is a symbol of hospitality and abundance. Walking through the village of Kildare, that tradition came alive as I saw her image in a fine tile portrait in front of a local pub. A sign advertised a special sale on Brigid’s Ale. Fitting, since among her many occupations, Brigid is the patron saint of beer makers. Just a few doors down the road her cross was displayed lovingly in a shop window. I imagined the owners hung her cross asking for her special prayers of blessing and protection.
There are many accounts about the cross of Brigid being placed in homes and shrines asking for her blessing and companionship. I knew this but I was not prepared to see her large cross guarding this house on Inish Mor in the Aran Islands. In Ireland, the presence of Brigid continues to be a blessing: in the church, the market place and home. In Ireland I met Saint Brigid, protector and companion.
Brigid followed me home, from Ireland to Lodi, California. She has appeared in my dreams and in my prayers. Part of the Brigid tradition places her at the birth of Jesus and as a companion to the Holy Family. One night I had a special dream. As I awoke, I realized that she had done for me what she had done for Jesus and his parents. When I was an infant, I was hospitalized for many weeks. Yet, she had been a special presence, a companion when I thought I was alone.
And so a new chapter of my spiritual journey begins. The wounds of childhood have left me with a fear of scarcity—whether it be around time, money, food or affection. What better practice than to team up with Saint Brigid not only the healer, but the patron of hospitality, abundance and generosity?
As I celebrate her feast day this year, the day after Imbolc, the first day of spring on the Celtic calendar, I look forward to a new birthing taking place in my soul. I know that whatever comes forth, Brigid, saint, leader, and my Anam Cara, protector, companion and healer will be with me.
Elaine Breckenridge is a dancing monk and an Episcopal priest currently serving St. John the Baptist Church in Lodi, California. Her passions include incorporating Celtic and Creation Spirituality into traditional liturgical forms, the music of Kristopher E. Lindquist (Kelmusic.com), yoga and living the Abbey of the Arts Monk Manifesto.
January 21, 2017
Dance with Miriam on the Shores of Freedom ~ A love note from your online abbess
Miriam on the Shores
“All the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.” – Exodus 15:20
Her skirt hangs heavy with seawater,
staccato breath after running from death.
She can still feel soldiers reaching out
to seize her blouse before the waves caved in.
Collapsing on dry earth for a moment,
the impulse to dance begins in her feet,
spreads slowly upwards like a flock of starlings
rising toward a dawn-lit sky.
So many dances in secret before,
night-stolen movements after exhausting days
heaving stones and harvest.
She finds herself now upright, weeping.
To stand here, face to the sun,
feeling an irrepressible desire to
spin
tumble
sashay
turn
shake
twirl
Savoring freedom with her limbs
as if it were a physical presence
like a fierce wind or the breath of labor,
shackles slipping off slowly.
She couldn’t help but dance.
The story says she picked up her tambourine,
which means she had packed it among the essentials.
In fleeing for her life, she knew this would be necessary.
How many of us still live enslaved in Egypt, beholden and weary?
Do you have the courage to run across the sea parted just now for you?
Will you carry your musical instrument and dance right there on the shores?
—Christine Valters Paintner
Dearest monks and artists,
On January 29th will be our next monthly live video seminar following my book Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics. Our theme is Miriam and the archetype of the Prophet.
You might imagine this scene from the poem above and feel it viscerally. Imagine yourself running for your life with your community, knowing that if you slow down you will be sent back to slavery or perhaps even death. And while the celebration of God killing the Egyptian soldiers may feel repellant, we can look at the story from an archetypal perspective and see the divine presence at work here in favor of freedom rather than slavery, doing what is necessary to allow freedom to thrive.
Arriving on the shores of the other side, it is written that Miriam takes out her tambourine and leads the women in a public celebration and worship of this God of liberation. In the midrashic texts, the ancient rabbis give great praise to Miriam for her tremendous trust in God reflected by the very fact that she was carrying her tambourine with her, in anticipation of the celebration. We can imagine her forethought, in the act of packing whatever she could bring in that hurried exit from Egypt, her tambourine felt like an essential. It is reflective of the depth of her trust that they would be liberated and there would be cause for music and dancing.
In that moment of unbridled joy, they are on a threshold as a People. As we know, the story says they continue wandering for forty years in the wilderness trying to reach the Promised Land. They will grumble many times over their hunger and discomfort and even reflect longingly on their time back in Egypt when they at least had food and shelter guaranteed. But none of that matters in this pause to celebrate the gifts so generously given. They will return to their human ways soon, but in that moment they touch the divine grace in a fully embodied way.
I love that in the limited texts we actually have about Miriam, this is one of the most significant. It is believed that this Canticle of Miriam may be the oldest, written portion of the Hebrew Scripture. And here she is clearly a leader in the community and enacts a ritual to mark the importance of the occasion. Her tools are music and dance to unleash the joy that this moment deserves in response. With her given title in the scriptures as “prophet,” we can savor this role of the prophet – to name the divine liberation and invite the community into a ritual which helps them to experience this more fully.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)
January 17, 2017
Monk in the World Guest Post: Erin Marie Clark
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Erin Marie Clark's reflection on conversing with the wisdom of the tarot.
It was towards the end of my time training to be ordained as an Anglican priest that I was tackled by a mischievous and confounding spiritual practice: namely, reading the images and stories in tarot.
Five months before I was due to be ordained, I stumbled on a blog post written by a tarot card reader. The warm, generous, pastoral tone of the post surprised me. It echoed the tone of posts and emails and conversations I had had with spiritual directors, mentors and prayer partners — those who had supported me in my journey of faith. It was, in short, the sort of wise speech I want to develop in my own pastoral work.
But…tarot? I didn’t (and still don’t) think one can or should try to predict anyone’s future. Taking randomly shuffled cards and using them in a process of discernment seemed as foolish to me as opening a Bible to a random page, shutting my eyes, picking a verse and taking it as some kind of sign — a Gideon’s-fleece-style foolishness, not a spiritual practice for sensible contemplatives, trying to live in their own real world monasteries of the heart.
Tarot’s system of imagery kept confronting me, however, as I researched the history, meaning and composition of the cards, discovering the immense riches of creativity of deck-making artists, the deep affirmation of life in its materiality and intangibility. I stumbled across traditional images that depicted chalices and wafers, feasts and famines, royalty and commoners, doves and lambs: so many of the symbols central to my faith. Exploring the tarot, I felt like I was pulling apart an accordion to see how it produced such beguiling music.
I returned to tarot-reading bloggers, trying to figure out their technique. I rolled my eyes when I found what seemed to be blatant nonsense or baseless divination. I nodded at the times where I felt the readers had really caught the spirit of an archetype, of the complexities of a situation, and when their suggestions of action were filled with wisdom. I enjoyed the puzzle of reading and discovering, of thinking about how different images drew on the wisdom of human experience, of religious tradition and of navigating life with intention.
Spending Holy Week in Canterbury that year, I snuck to a shop on the high street which sold tarot cards, feeling highly deviant the whole time for buying a deck in between services at the cathedral. Voices from my childhood hissed, ‘Paganism!’ in my head as I curled up with the deck after the Good Friday liturgy. And yet, when I studied the cards, daring to shuffle them and bringing a question from my life to them, asking, ‘What if these images had something to say to me?’, I felt unencumbered by fear or shame. I was only asking questions, the answers to which were as important, and elusive, as answers gleaned from conversations with holy texts or spiritual teachers.
I keep on reading the cards. Alongside the daily work and joy of prayer and study, leading a church in its word and sacrament, connecting with my parish and all its inhabitants, I read the tarot. I journal about how its symbols appear within my own faith tradition and in the people I meet with their complex needs. Continuing to ask ‘What if…’ of each card that turns up, without relying on them to tell me the future or how to solve my problems, I use them as a tool to more carefully consider my choices and my personal history. I sieve my experiences through the tarot’s symbols, seeking to connect with archetypes in ordinary changes and challenges.
Obviously there is potential conflict between my practice of tarot and my vocation to priesthood, and I have not reached a good way of reconciling the two. Starting up a ‘tea and tarot’ group wouldn’t work in my parish, needless to say! I read for my partner and for close friends whom I trust to ask good questions and call me out when my readings come from rote adherence to symbol rather than intuition and good listening — this is the same calling-out I’d hope I’d get for any shoddy preaching or pastoral work.
As someone whose attempts to live contemplatively and creatively in a fast-paced city, I have found tarot invaluable for its insistence on slowing down, and ‘testing the spirits’: asking what other perspectives there could be on our lived questions. The tradition of card-reading encourages people to create symbolic codes to aid their own spiritual exploration (some of the best examples include the Byzantine Tarot, the Dancing Monk Icon cards, Rebekah Erev’s cards, from Christian- and Jewish-informed perspectives, for example). Traditions which give rise to such deeply psychological and deeply faithful creativity have, in my book, the mark of the monk about them.
Erin Clark is a happily uprooted Michigander living in central London, UK. She love to write, run, listen, laugh and travel, and she works as a trainee priest in the Church of England. You can find her on Twitter at @e_m_clark.
January 14, 2017
St. Ita and What is Most Essential ~ A love note from your online abbess
Dearest monks and artists,
Today is the feast of Saint Ita. She was a 6th century Irish saint and is the second most significant woman saint in Ireland after Brigid. Her hagiographer even called her a “second Brigid” and her name Ita means thirst. She established a church in Limerick called Killeedy, which means Church of Ita.
When she was young she received a dream in which she was gifted three precious stones. She was unsure as to its meaning and pondered it. Later, in another visitation, it was revealed to her that throughout her life she would receive many dreams and visions, and the three stones represent the gifts of the Trinity coming to her. “Always in your sleep and vigils the angels of God and holy visions will come to you, for you are a temple of God, in body and soul.” I love this affirmation of the multitude which God is as well.
When she is older she prays for a place to found her monastery and is again shown her direction in a dream. She is told to leave her native land and come to a new place at the foot of a hill.
At the monastery she founded, many young people are sent her way for education and she becomes teacher to St. Brendan, who will later go on his great voyage. She tells her students to follow the “Rule of the Saints of Ireland” because she felt strongly about the Celtic value of soul friends, and saw those across the veil as guides as well.
St. Brendan once asked Ita what were the three things most pleasing and displeasing to God. She replied that what pleases God were “true faith in God with a pure heart, a simple life with a grateful spirit, and generosity inspired by charity.” What is most displeasing is “a mouth that hates people, a heart harboring resentments, and confidence in wealth.”
The multitudes are many. In addition to our own inner communion, God is a multitude of presences. The communion of saints offers us another multitude of wisdom and grace to draw upon. We can seek soul friendship from these guides just beyond the veil.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall (prints available in her Etsy shop)
January 10, 2017
Monk in the World Guest Post: Keren Dibbens-Wyatt
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Keren Dibbens-Wyatt's reflection Shining for God.
I may not be a Catholic, but I have had the honour, once or twice, of adoring the Christ as he is held within the monstrance. One particular time, sitting in the Cloister Chapel at Aylesford Priory, this was quite overwhelming. It was heart-warming and awe-inspiring, and my soul sang inside me even as I kept silence and held gaze with the moon-wafer in the golden sun.
It felt for those precious minutes like everything in the world was pointing to that host, that Christ, whether represented or incarnate there (it didn’t seem to matter to me which, though it felt like both), the very bread of heaven, was the only thing in the universe.
When we gaze at Christ in adoration, lost in wonder, awe and some knowledge of his beauty and grace, we are lost indeed. We are becoming smaller and he greater, and we are also, if we stay long enough, feeling a pull to unity with those equally lost in love within our congregations, our neighbourhoods, and asking what our tiny hearts can do to praise him, to worship him, to point the way to him. We cannot partake of this divine joy without also wishing it for others. This love cannot not be shared, not be lauded, we want it both for ourselves and for everyone. There is no danger of there not being enough to go around, as we might imagine with the love of our own frail hearts, the very idea, once we begin to get to know love, is laughable.
And when we come back down to earth, indeed, when we find our experience of love has made us more part of this earth than we could have dreamt, in solid rootedness, our question of how we can live out that love is answered thus: Love one another. And so to love God and do his bidding, we come together to serve him by serving one another, and in this his own love shines and he becomes and remains the centre of everything.
“Love one another” then is the job of every monk in the world. But it could stand, in the light of day, when we are in the kitchen wondering what we came in for, exasperated by ourselves, our significant other, or the kids or grandkids playing up, some explanation. Because it is easy to imagine that love is some kind of wishy-washy, airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky lovely feeling, something akin to what I felt in the chapel, but you know, watered down, because after all, this is real life.
And if we start to dilute it, this is our first step away from love. For we do not get to give ourselves nor those around us second best, for Jesus said, “. . . Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 ESV) For myself, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to pull myself back to what God means, is to find the Christ in everyone, myself included, and treat them accordingly. I think it is going to take the rest of my life to practise. I think I am going to continue to make some mistakes. I know that there have been and are people in whom my judgemental sight is going to struggle to see anything remotely good, let alone Christ-like. And yet, I also know that I entertain angels unawares, that what I do for the least of these is what I do for him. So, continuing to develop that sight is going to be imperative.
And how does such love play itself out, become real, in the day to day business of life? I think in the end, Blessed Mother Teresa had the best advice. She said that no matter how we were treated in return, we must always be kind. Part of this will be always try to see things from the other person’s perspective. And we must be very, very slow to condemn. So slow that we never get there. Kindness begins in our hearts, or it will not flourish. We cannot mean to be kind from our minds alone, this way we shall make the mistake of meaning well and causing harm. Kindness, sister-kindred of Love, is an attitude that becomes action, a small seed that grows into compassion.
One of the worst mistakes I know I will continue to make as I try to live love, is thinking that everyone is like me, and needs the same kind of loving acts and words that I do. So, birthed in kindness, the first thing I imagine that real love does, is that it listens; it pays attention, and it keeps notes. To love someone we need to take the time to discover how they tick, find out what lifts their heart, what to them is beauty, grace and truth. And we offer them love in a form they can embrace, in a way that can mirror Jesus.
For in the end, we are the monstrances. We are where the living host chooses to make his home, and we are the place the Light of the World shines from, reflecting him into each hungry heart. We each decrease in every way except loving service, egos cracking apart, and as we do so his Body increases and coheres. Praise God!
Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a mystic in the Christian tradition with a passion for prayer and creativity. She writes and paints to encourage others into deeper relationships with the Lord. You can find Keren’s books on Amazon and Lulu or connect with her on these websites:
January 7, 2017
My Word for 2017: Hermit
Dearest monks and artists,
I have been grateful for this last season, a time of descent into the outer darkness and then the stillness that comes during those in-between days from Christmas to Epiphany. There has been a bronchial flu going around Galway which I came down with a couple of weeks ago. It amplified the mood of going inward and just embracing the gift of rest. We had a very full fall with four wonderful groups on pilgrimage, including in our beloved Vienna. Then we bought an apartment in Galway and moved house. Even though it was within the same building, just two doors down, this move felt really significant.
We also have a foster dog over the holidays, a little Jack Russel/Chihuahua mix we have named Sisi (yes, after the former Empress of Austria). In Ireland the pounds all close for two weeks over Christmas and New Year’s so the rescue groups put out a plea for folks to foster during this time to make more room for incoming dogs so they don’t have to be put to sleep. This is our quiet time of year, so two years ago we fostered little Ginger Nut (who was then reunited with her owners), last year was Melba (who found a wonderful new home), and this year is Sisi. Those of you who have animal companions in your life know the gift and grace they offer, the witness to another way of being. They are definitely the original monks. My favorite moments have been her sweet snuggly presence while I journal or nap.
In the midst of all of this, I have been listening for my word for 2017. It almost always arrives slowly for me. I had thought it might be “nest” as being in our own home feels like an important threshold in our journey here in Ireland. A deep rooting down. But it wasn’t landing fully, so I waited. I tried on several other words, including my word from last year, “surplus” which I don’t think is done with me yet, but still didn’t feel like *my* word for the year to come.
Finally it came one afternoon during a long nap, in that place between waking and sleeping, I realized I was savoring my hermit time. When I heard “hermit” in my mind I remembered being at Holy Hill Hermitage in Sligo last fall and how I loved their rhythm of life which allowed for hermit days while also days when they could tend to the demands of life and earning a living. I was inspired by the balance they committed themselves to, and thought that was something I could do. So in this dream space, “hermit” shimmered. I also felt some resistance to the challenges it offers which makes me believe even more strongly it has a lot to teach me in the year to come.
While I feel incredibly privileged to lead the life I do and to live in Ireland and be able to travel for work and lead groups, I am being drawn more and more to a stability of place again. To really commit to this landscape, the stories, the people, the plants. I will still travel to my beloved Austria and Germany, but the balance will be shifting for me. I don’t have any teaching trips planned to the U.S. for the foreseeable future. I am being drawn more deeply home. And like the hermit, to seek time of solitude and silence to simply listen.
I am excited about my word’s arrival and invitations. I already try to keep Sabbath each week with John, but I am being called to a full hermit day each week for time alone as well, as much as possible, and schedule in some longer silent retreats before my time fills up. To make this my first priority again. Time to really enter into the gifts of silence and solitude.
There is a quote I love from Meister Eckhart: “I need to be silent for a while, worlds are forming in my heart.” I have often leaned into these words before when I feel the longing for a retreat rise up.
I am trusting all of this, trusting that it is leading me in a holy direction. I will let you know what I discover.
The vision board for my word of the year above was created by one of our lovely long-time dancing monks Bard Judith. She is a graphic designer and offers this service at a very reasonable cost. Was really lovely to see it interpreted through her eyes and offers me more to ponder and receive.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our Give Me a Word mini-retreat (almost 1000 of you signed up!) and our drawing on the blog. We have picked the winners and have them at this post.
If you missed my reflection on the Feast of Epiphany – Follow the Star click the link.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
www.AbbeyoftheArts.com
Image © Bard Judith at Graphictional Design
