Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 108

Give Me a Word 2017 Drawing Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our 2017 Give Me a Word invitation! We had almost 1000 participants take the online retreat to help a word choose you. Above is a word cloud made from all the words submitted by January 6th. Please note some appear larger when they were submitted more frequently. Some are quite tiny but are there in the spaces between.

We have done our random drawing and are delighted to announce the winners:

One space in our upcoming New Year's online retreat – Spiraling Inward: Seven Celtic Spiritual Practices – Carol Moyle (Openings)
One signed copy each of Illuminating the Way ,  Soul of a Pilgrim , Eyes of the Heart , The Artist's Rule , and Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire  – Karen Moore Smith (Abide), Ally Markotich (listen), Richard Kennel (contentment), Betsy Retallack (open), Beata Rydeen (incorrigible)
One space in our online program Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year – Evelynne Thompson (solitude)
4 people will win their choice of our self-study online retreats – Kate Munson (transformation), Mary Coffey (speak peace), Susan Strouse (intention), Cara Stultz Costello (honor)

If your name is listed above please contact us to claim your prize. If it involves a physical product like a book, please make your choice from the list and provide your snail mail address as well.

You are welcome to still share your word at this post>>

Feast of Epiphany – Follow the Star

The Feast of Epiphany is celebrated today. It is one of my favorite scripture stories as it offers us a series of powerful invitations.

The last few lines of the gospel text, offer us a template for an archetypal journey, that is, one we are all invited to make. We can find ourselves in the text if we have ever longed to follow an inkling into the long night knowing there were gifts awaiting us.

Follow the star to where it leads

The story begins with the magi calling upon the grace of night vision.  Navigation in ancient times was largely by stars and constellations. Travelers had to know the night sky and trust the path through darkness and unknowing. As you cross this threshold into the New Year, what is the star beckoning you in the night? As you stand under a black sky of unknowing which star is shimmering? The star might be a particular practice, which when you commit to following it, will guide you in a holy direction. It might be a word to guide you for the year.

Embark on the journey, however long or difficult

Herod gathers all his chief priests and scribes to find out more about this holy birth. Instead of searching out for himself, he sends the magi on his behalf. While Herod seeks outside advice and send others, the magi make the journey for themselves. Where are you tempted to trust others to make the journey for you, perhaps in reading books about the spiritual journey but never practicing yourself? How might you own your journey more deeply in the coming year?

Open yourself to wonder along the way

The scriptures tell us the magi were “overjoyed at seeing the star.” I like to imagine them practicing this kind of divine wonderment all along the journey there. Moments which spoke to the sacred call. When we lose our sense of wonder our hearts become hardened and cynical, we forget to believe in magical possibilities. As you enter into a new cycle of the earth’s turning, how might you embrace the gift of wonder? What practices open your heart.

Bow down at the holy encounters in messy places

When the magi enter the messy, earthy place of the manger, it says they bow down and prostrate themselves. Prostration is an act of humility and honor, as well as full-body connection with the earth. As you encounter the sacred in the most ordinary of places, how might you express this embodied appreciation and honor?

Carry your treasures and give them away freely

The magi reveal the gifts they have brought of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold represents the honor brought to a King, frankincense is a connection to the divine by raising our prayers heavenward, and myrrh a holy oil of anointing.  What are the treasures you carry with you into the New Year? How might you offer them even more generously to others in the months to come?

Listen to the wisdom of dreams

The magi are warned in a dream not to return to Herod and they listen to this night wisdom. The scriptures are filled with stories of dreams delivering important messages and facilitating discernment. Our own night dreams arrive unbidden laden with mystery and meaning. In the new year, how might you honor these stories which emerge from the darkness and surrender of sleep?

Go home by another way

After receiving the gift of the dream, they choose another way home. In truth, after any journey of significance, there is no going back the same way as before. We always return with new awareness if we have been paying attention.  What is the usual path you have traveled which has become suffocating? How this year call forth new directions in your own life? Is there something symbolic of the new way home which you could carry with you like a talisman?

These stories carry ancient treasures for us: guidance and wisdom along the way. Ultimately we turn inward to discover our own call, our own treasures to share, the dreams emerging in silent spaces.

I invite you to find a window of time in these next few days to ponder this story and these questions in your heart and see what insights they awaken for you.

Monk in the World Guest Post: Teresa Blythe

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Teresa Blythe's reflection on finding God in desire.

Desire is not something I was brought up to respect.

To insist on fulfilling one’s own desires was seen as selfish, petty and certainly not Christian. Still somewhere deep within me from the earliest of times I can recall I knew that if I operated out of desire, I was joyful, and if I did something because someone made me or pressured me—I was miserable.

This is important information for spiritual discernment, but I didn’t learn that until, in my early thirties, I was taught the basic elements of discernment in spiritual direction. My relationship with desire came to consciousness as I related a story from my childhood to a spiritual director.

I was raised to be a fundamentalist Christian in the deep South, where my church entertained, on a regular basis, energetic itinerant youth ministers who would breeze into town for revivals leaving a wave of stunned teenagers in their wake. One of these preachers insisted that all Christian teenagers should carry their Bibles to school every day “as a witness to their faith in Christ.” It was the last thing I wanted to do, and didn’t do it.

What I did was spend the next four years or so feeling guilty that I was not a good enough Christian to carry my Bible to school.

The reality was I didn’t want to be associated with fundamentalists because—at heart—I wasn’t really one of them. I had doubts about their manipulative methods for getting people to pledge allegiance to Christ and felt they were many times motivated more by meanness than love. These were not attitudes I was comfortable sharing with my church “family,” but they were real for me. Carrying a Bible to school would brand me as something I wasn’t.

The guilt persisted.

So, I did the only thing I felt right doing. I prayed that if God wanted me to carry that Bible to school, God would give me the desire to do so. I prayed this honestly and waited. No desire. I prayed some more. Still no desire. I knew that if I did this Bible-toting out of guilt I would be a big hypocrite so I stuck with my prayer and kept my Bible at home.

Then one day several years later I was walking across the campus of the University of Alabama Huntsville where I was doing my undergraduate work and saw a guy coming straight toward me and – oh my God!—it looked like he had a Bible with him. I wanted to run in the other direction because the last thing I needed was someone hounding me to do what they deemed necessary for me to “get saved.” The guy approached. I held my breath. “Which way is the library?” he asked with a polite smile. I gulped and pointed him in the right direction. No Bible in his hand. No talk of salvation. Just a guy who needed directions.

As I stood in the middle of the familiar campus, everything in my spiritual life shifted.

In some ways, I suppose, I actually was saved at that moment. I felt the light of the living God shining within me, providing a clarity that I had not before experienced. I knew then, in the deepest part of my soul, that I had done the right thing following my desire not to tote the Bible around like a salvation salesman. I knew that to do that would not just be hypocritical but would be frightening for people who had been figuratively beaten over the head with it there in the Bible Belt. I would end up repelling the very people I might want to connect with—other seekers with open minds.

In that moment, I began an honest, active spiritual relationship with desire. It would be another twenty years before I would understand the theological and historical “rightness” of associating God with our innate and deep desires.

The Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction program at San Francisco Theological Seminary that trained me to be a spiritual director requires first-year students to read Phillip Sheldrake’s Befriending Our Desires, a book which makes a persuasive case for paying attention to our desires. The book caused quite a stir that year because a few of the more conservative ordained-types felt there was a danger in indulging our desires. “How do we know what is our desire and what is God’s?” they asked. The idea of finding God in desire flew in the face of their own call Jonah-like narratives, which usually went like this:

“I knew God was calling me to the ministry and I fought Him all the way. I ran and ran but God wouldn’t let me go. Finally, I had nowhere to run to and I gave in to God even though I still didn’t want to become a minister. It was the best thing I ever did.”

If they had followed their desires, they wondered, where would they be?

Where would they be, indeed? That’s the question. And it’s one I frequently ask people to come to me seeking spiritual direction. Many of them, especially women, are silenced by the question since no one, at least in a long time, has asked them what they want or need out of life. No one has cared much about their desire.

I found God in my desire and now I am on a journey that is about fighting cynicism, fear and anxiety, not about fighting a God that is stalking us like some deranged lover. The relationship is one of partnership and trust.

A relationship built on desire. And that is how I live as a monk in the world.

Teresa Blythe is a Phoenix, AZ based writer and spiritual director who runs the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction in Tucson. An ordained United Church of Christ minister (UCC), Teresa founded the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction at First UCC Phoenix. Find out more about spiritual direction as a practice or spiritual direction formation and training by contacting Teresa or visit www.phoenixspiritualdirection.com.

New Year Blessings! What is your word for the year? ~ A love note from your online abbess

To the New Year

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

—W. S. Merwin

Dearest monks and artists,

I offer you a reprise of my reflection on Embracing Mystery in the New Year: Ten Essential Practices.

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.

-Henri-Frederic Amiel

Who doesn't love the promise of new beginning the New Year offers? St. Benedict described his Rule as a Rule for beginners, reminding us to always begin again. In Buddhism, an essential practice is beginner's mind. When we think we have become an expert at things, especially the spiritual life, we are in trouble.

Living into the mystery of things helps us to release our hold on needing to know the answers. One of the things the monk and artist have in common is a love of mystery, a willingness to sit in the place of tension and paradox until it ripens forth.

New Year's resolutions often come from a place of lack, or of thinking we know how to "fix" ourselves. Unfortunately, they are often fueled by a consumer culture that is eager to have us buy more and more things to improve ourselves. Embracing mystery, on the other hand, honors our profound giftedness and depth and acknowledges that coming to know ourselves and God is a lifetime exploration.

So my invitation to you, dear monks and artists, is to shift your thinking this year. Welcome in ambiguity. Learn to love the holy darkness of mystery. Dance on the fertile edges of life.  Let what you love ripen forth.

Breathe deeply – our breath is our most immediate and vital connection to the life force which sustains us moment by moment. Let yourself be filled with awe and wonder at the marvels of this intimate gift.  Sit for three minutes savoring that you are breathed into.


Embrace night wisdom – one of the great gifts of dreams is that they upend our desire for logic and immerse us in a narrative which reveals the shadows we must wrestle with and the joys which call to us, whether or not they make sense to the waking world.


Dance freely – we live so disconnected from our bodies. Dance has been part of human culture for thousands of years as a way to experience union with ourselves, one another, and the divine. Each day put on one piece of music that you love, close the door, and dance. Pay attention to what rises up in the process. If you resist, even better – dance with your resistance!


Follow the thread – each of us has a unique unfolding story and call in this world. We don't "figure this out" but rather we allow the story to emerge in its own time, tending the symbols and synchronicities which guide us along.


Trust in what you love – following the thread is essentially about cultivating a deep trust in what you love. What are the things that make your heart beat loudly, no matter how at odds they feel with your current life (and perhaps especially so)? Make some room this year to honor what brings you alive.


Let the rhythms of nature guide you – we live our lives in a constant state of stimulation and productivity. We are often exhausted and overwhelmed. When we turn to the natural world we find with each day, each moon cycle, and each season a rhythm of rise and fall, fullness and emptiness. Trying to live all the time in rising or fullness is exhausting. Make some time to embrace the falling and emptiness of life which immerses us in an experience of mystery.


Release what is no longer necessary – we accumulate so many things in our days, perhaps you have discovered at Christmas that you have a new pile of stuff which now requires energy to maintain or worry about. Reflect on what is most essential. Then ask yourself, what are the thoughts, attitudes, or expectations about life which keep you from freedom?  How do you try to control the direction of your life rather the yielding to grace?


Remember that you will die – St. Benedict writes in his Rule to "keep death daily before your eyes." This is never an act of morbid obsession, but a reminder of life's incredible gift. Any of us who have brushed near death, or had loved ones pass away, know this wisdom in profound ways. This is another paradox of the spiritual life: a vibrant relationship to our mortality is essential to a vibrant relationship to life.


Ask for the wisdom of your ancestors – each of us is the inheritor of generations of stories which beat through our blood. Each of us has mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, who wrestled mightily with living a meaningful life. We can call upon this great "cloud of witnesses" to support us in our own wrestling.  We can listen across the veil between worlds.


Open yourself to receiving a word for the year ahead – in quiet moments what are the desires you hear being whispered from your heart? Is there a word or phrase that shimmers forth, inviting you to dwell with it in the months ahead? Something you can grow into and don't fully understand? (If so, please share it here>> If not, Abbey of the Arts is offering a free 12-day mini-retreat to help you).

Imagine if your New Year's wasn't about fixing or improving, but about deepening and transforming, about embracing the holy mystery at the heart of the world.

What if the year ahead wasn't about growing more certain about things, but about releasing the hold of your thinking mind so something deeper and more fertile could rise up?

What might bloom from such rich soil of your imagination?  How might you create an altar for an unknown God and for the unknown depths of your own beautiful being waiting to be freed?

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Christmas Blessings from Ireland! ~ A love note from your online abbess

The Risk of Birth

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate

And a comet slashing the sky to warn

That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honour & truth were trampled by scorn-

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn-

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

—Madeleine L'Engle

Dearest monks and artists,

All of us at Abbey of the Arts want to wish you the most joyful of Christmas blessings. As the 17th century German mystic Angelus Silesius wrote: "“I must be the Virgin and give birth to God.”

The heart of the Christian tradition is the incarnation, the belief that God dwells in tender flesh and continues to be birthed again and again.

With this feast we celebrate the risk of birth arising from the impulse of love. In the midst of so much sorrow and suffering in the world, to bring forth our own deepest dreams takes courage. To believe that when we follow the leadings of the Spirit that we can contribute to a world of deeper peace and reconciliation requires hope. To bring forth the vision, the seed of new possibility, demands great love.

May you find yourself inspired by courage, infused with hope, and embraced by love.

(*Please note: We will be taking a break from the daily emails this week and will be back on New Year’s Day.)

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Winter Solstice and the longest night ~ A love note from your online abbess

A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons . . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring.

—Linda Leonard, The Call to Create

Dearest monks and artists,

This reflection is excerpted from our Sacred Seasons online retreat for the Celtic Wheel of the Year:

The Winter Solstice is another profound moment of pause and turning in the great cycle of the year. In Galway our apartment windows face east and south, so one of the great gifts I experience through the seasons is watching the sun make her pilgrimage across the horizon from summer solstice to winter solstice. It is quite a long journey, and on December 21st she will rest at her point furthest south, appearing to stand still for three days before making the return journey again in the long walk toward summer.  It is a rhythm of journey, pause, and return, again and again. It reminds me a great deal of walking a labyrinth and the way I follow the path inward, pause and receive the gifts at the center, and then begin to move more fully out into the world carrying the light that is growing.

I love winter, especially Irish winters which are so rainy and grey, so conducive to lighting candles and making a cup of tea.  I adore the bare branches that reach up to the sky, their stark beauty, the way they reveal the basics.  I love the quietness of winter, fewer people outside.

Linda Leonard’s quote above speaks right to the heart of the gift of honoring the seasons. When we recognize that spring and summer always lead to autumn and winter, in our own lives we will perhaps resist the times of releasing and resting that come to us.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

—Wendell Berry

This poem speaks to me most pointedly about what embracing the darkness means. It does not mean carrying a light into the dark, it means walking right into the darkness and exploring its landscape so that our other senses become heightened and attuned to the sound of seeds jostling deep beneath the black soil, to hear the slow in and out breath of animals in hibernation, to feel our own heartbeats and the heartbeats of those we love, to experience the pulsing of womb-sounds within us just before the water gets ready to break.

Winter invites me to rest and contemplation, to making time for quiet walks in the few hours of light.  The God of winter invites me into a healing rhythm of rest and renewal, of deep listening in the midst of stillness, of trusting the seeds sprouting deep within that have been planted.  There is a harshness to this winter God as well, winter speaks to me of loss, it is the landscape of my grief in all its beauty and sorrow.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Melinda Emily

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Melinda Emily's reflection In Protest.

It’s been a difficult year. And not just for me. Too many friends and family have been put through the ringer. Marriages crumbled. People moved. Children got sick. Addictions took over. Dreams were shattered. A mother died. A sister died. A baby died.

These are just the personal tragedies I am privy to. To say nothing of the state of the nation, the wars of the world, the thousands displaced, and the too many abused.

The world is on fire.

Sometimes I think my body forgets that the trauma and stress of the first nine months of the year has passed. I left my husband. My son and I moved into a beautiful, humble town-home surrounded by towering oaks which dropped their acorns with such gusto the week we moved in that I had to keep reminding myself “it’s just acorns, no one is trying to break in.”

Sometimes I am still gripped by anxiety. I have to root around in my brain to pinpoint the monster that provoked the shaking and the fear and ask if it is true, then give it a little hug and send it on its way. Sometimes I get this sudden feeling that I am about to be swallowed by a hideous void. My ribcage swings inward, collapsing my breath. I stare wide-eyed at the black and terrifying unknown. But for the most part, I am breathing better now. For the most part my ribcage swings outward and the wings beneath my shoulder blades unfurl. Shake off dew. Get ready to fly.

In church on Sunday, the rector told a story about a man in the 1960’s who sat outside the White House everyday and lit a candle in protest of the war and violence in Vietnam. One day a man came up and asked, “Do you really think sitting here like this day after day is going to change the world?”

The man replied, “I don’t sit here to change the world. I sit so the world won’t change me.”

When I was a girl I did not understand how once bright and smiling young people could grow old and bitter and mean. I did not believe that the world was broken.

And then I grew up.

Compared to the displaced, the abused, the trafficked, my personal struggles have been very first world. But they have been significant. They have been mine. And they have broken me. Still, I don’t want to be bullied by the cynicism and bitterness I often feel when I look back on the things that didn’t work out and see them as predictors of future failure.

I’ve been fighting to keep mySelf alive ever since the day I graduated High School full of hope and optimism and as much self knowledge and esteem as an eighteen year old can muster. Each time I put on a scarf, or cut my hair, or read fiction I am sending my fist up in defiance against the onslaught of forces bent on beating it out of me. Writing time becomes a statement to my Soul that I will not abandon her.

There are lessons to be learned from this world. The oak and maple and pine around my home speak slow and deep, telling me not to worry. The world is held in an embrace and I am part of that world.

Blessings abound.

My soon to be ex-husband and I remain on good terms. The friend who lost her seven month old baby to cancer is on a healing month in New Zealand – a trip funded by an outpouring of support. The Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota won a temporary stay on the construction of an oil pipeline that would run under their water supply and along their sacred ground. Our church welcomed and helped settle three refugee families this year. My son’s godmother just sent me a picture of her newborn riding home from the hospital in our old carseat.

The rain falls. The sky remains. The trees hold down the earth, keep it from blowing away.

Last night I set my alarm. This morning I got up and practiced asana, moving my body into shape after shape with only the vaguest agenda. I breathed. I lit my candle. I sat.

A monk of the world in protest.

Of cynicism and bitterness and fear.

This world is going to change me. But I am going to choose how.

Melinda Emily lives in North Carolina where she is mommy to an exuberant two year old, a yoga instructor, and a novelist seeking to break into publishing. She also formats the Abbey Newsletter, Daily Nourishment E-mails, and Monk in the World Guest Posts, a role which she is deeply honored to play. You can visit her blog archives at TheHouseHoldersPath.com.

Monk in the World Guest Post: Melinda Thomas Hansen

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Melinda Thomas Hansen's reflection In Protest.

It’s been a difficult year. And not just for me. Too many friends and family have been put through the ringer. Marriages crumbled. People moved. Children got sick. Addictions took over. Dreams were shattered. A mother died. A sister died. A baby died.

These are just the personal tragedies I am privy to. To say nothing of the state of the nation, the wars of the world, the thousands displaced, and the too many abused.

The world is on fire.

Sometimes I think my body forgets that the trauma and stress of the first nine months of the year has passed. I left my husband. My son and I moved into a beautiful, humble town-home surrounded by towering oaks which dropped their acorns with such gusto the week we moved in that I had to keep reminding myself “it’s just acorns, no one is trying to break in.”

Sometimes I am still gripped by anxiety. I have to root around in my brain to pinpoint the monster that provoked the shaking and the fear and ask if it is true, then give it a little hug and send it on its way. Sometimes I get this sudden feeling that I am about to be swallowed by a hideous void. My ribcage swings inward, collapsing my breath. I stare wide-eyed at the black and terrifying unknown. But for the most part, I am breathing better now. For the most part my ribcage swings outward and the wings beneath my shoulder blades unfurl. Shake off dew. Get ready to fly.

In church on Sunday, the rector told a story about a man in the 1960’s who sat outside the White House everyday and lit a candle in protest of the war and violence in Vietnam. One day a man came up and asked, “Do you really think sitting here like this day after day is going to change the world?”

The man replied, “I don’t sit here to change the world. I sit so the world won’t change me.”

When I was a girl I did not understand how once bright and smiling young people could grow old and bitter and mean. I did not believe that the world was broken.

And then I grew up.

Compared to the displaced, the abused, the trafficked, my personal struggles have been very first world. But they have been significant. They have been mine. And they have broken me. Still, I don’t want to be bullied by the cynicism and bitterness I often feel when I look back on the things that didn’t work out and see them as predictors of future failure.

I’ve been fighting to keep mySelf alive ever since the day I graduated High School full of hope and optimism and as much self knowledge and esteem as an eighteen year old can muster. Each time I put on a scarf, or cut my hair, or read fiction I am sending my fist up in defiance against the onslaught of forces bent on beating it out of me. Writing time becomes a statement to my Soul that I will not abandon her.

There are lessons to be learned from this world. The oak and maple and pine around my home speak slow and deep, telling me not to worry. The world is held in an embrace and I am part of that world.

Blessings abound.

My soon to be ex-husband and I remain on good terms. The friend who lost her seven month old baby to cancer is on a healing month in New Zealand – a trip funded by an outpouring of support. The Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota won a temporary stay on the construction of an oil pipeline that would run under their water supply and along their sacred ground. Our church welcomed and helped settle three refugee families this year. My son’s godmother just sent me a picture of her newborn riding home from the hospital in our old carseat.

The rain falls. The sky remains. The trees hold down the earth, keep it from blowing away.

Last night I set my alarm. This morning I got up and practiced asana, moving my body into shape after shape with only the vaguest agenda. I breathed. I lit my candle. I sat.

A monk of the world in protest.

Of cynicism and bitterness and fear.

This world is going to change me. But I am going to choose how.

Melinda Thomas Hansen lives in North Carolina where she is mommy to an exuberant two year old, a yoga instructor, and a novelist seeking to break into publishing. She also formats the Abbey Newsletter, Daily Nourishment E-mails, and Monk in the World Guest Posts, a role which she is deeply honored to play. You can visit her blog archives at TheHouseHoldersPath.com.

Monk in the World Guest Post: Michele Chung

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Michele Chung's reflection The Art of Processing Feedback.

While a contemplative life is a personal and solitary journey, we are at the same time intended to live in community.  An important part of this relationship is our dialogue with our friends and family.  The feedback we receive, however, can often be a mixed bag of advice ranging from mere personal opinions to wise counsel. It’s often a confusing and messy process to figure out which advice we should listen to.

The good news is that the contemplative practices actually help us better discern the words that others share with us. The more clarity we have about our own journey, the easier it is to learn and benefit from others’ suggestions and input. Here are some key principles that help me process through the feedbacks I get.

Remember your focus. When you process through any feedback, it’s important to remember what your focus is for this season. If the feedback helps you grow further in your key area, then meditate on it. Otherwise, feel free to put it aside for now. A great advice that’s meant for a different season may end up being a distraction in the now.


The right advice is encouraging and inspiring. The right kind of feedback will be encouraging and inspiring. It should bring clarity and peace to a stressful heart.  Even a word of correction should bring a sense of clarity and hope rather than guilt and despair. The right kind of feedback on a creative project will also bring great synergy and even open unexpected doors.


Examine your response. When a word or suggestion stays on your heart or mind, try to understand what is causing that. Meditate and look deeper. Did it stir up fear or anger? Or a peaceful agreement and acceptance? Or even excitement? Even when there’s an element of fear, it can reveal a part of your heart that you may not be aware of. Sometimes the response of your heart gives more insight than the feedback themselves.


Know your own tendencies. We all have our “button” issues. If you know your triggers, then you won’t be so easily distracted by them when you receive feedback on those areas. I tend to be a people-pleaser and can be easily influenced by others. This has led to much unnecessary confusion and distraction when I felt guilty rejecting feedback from my friends. Once I see my issues, however, I’m more objective throughout the process, and can graciously let go of things that are not helpful, and move forward.


It’s not always about you. Ironically, some comments reflect more about the heart of the speaker rather than about you. What someone sees in your life may trigger their own fears and concerns. Admittedly, this is hard to discern, and I don’t easily jump to this conclusion in my own processing. However, there have been a few times when comments heavily weighed on my heart, and I simply didn’t have much insight. Suddenly, I was reminded of the speaker’s background or history, and then it was clear why they made those comments. Their comments reflected more about their own journey than mine.

Discerning and processing through feedback is more of an art than a science. The key is to keep our hearts connected to the still small voice inside and allow God to guide us. It may seem more expedient to just accept someone’s word or advice because they are a spiritual leader or a trusted friend.  Or it may feel justified to reject a word because we feel offended.  I’ve found, however, that taking the time to seek divine insight and work through my inner responses have kept me away from old assumptions and blind spots, and in the end, gave me the breakthrough I really wanted.  Although it may feel intimidating in the beginning, I hope these principles will help you ease into your own process.

Michele loves reading and learning about all things contemplative.  After a myriad of jobs, she is currently working at a bookstore and pursuing art and blog writing in her spare time. Michele lives in Silicon Valley with her husband and a house full of books. You can find more of her writings at mzchele.wordpress.com.

Give Me a Word 2017: 8th Annual Giveaway

SHARE YOUR WORD FOR 2017

In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner's fire and be stripped down to one's holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered.

Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word –  this word or phrase would be something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. This practice is connected to lectio divina, where we approach the sacred texts with the same request – "give me a word" we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into.  The word which chooses us has the potential to transform us.

What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?

Share your word in the comments section below by January 6, 2017 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).

A FREE 12-DAY ONLINE MINI-RETREAT TO HELP YOUR WORD CHOOSE YOU. . .

As in past years, I am offering all Abbey newsletter subscribers a gift: a free 12-day online mini-retreat with a suggested practice for each day to help your word choose you and to deepen into your word once it has found you. Even if you participated last year, you are more than welcome to register again.

Subscribe to our email newsletter and you will receive a link to start your mini-retreat today. Your information will never be shared or sold. (If you are already subscribed to the newsletter, look for the link in the Sunday email).

WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ON JANUARY 6TH!

We are delighted to offer some wonderful gifts from the Abbey:

One space in our upcoming New Year's online retreat – Spiraling Inward: Seven Celtic Spiritual Practices
One signed copy each of Illuminating the Way ,  Soul of a Pilgrim , Eyes of the Heart , The Artist's Rule , and Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire .
One space in our online program  Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
4 people will win their choice of our  self-study online retreats

So please share your word (and it would be wonderful to include a sentence about what it means for you) with us below.

Subscribe to the Abbey newsletter to receive ongoing inspiration in your in-box. Share the love with others and invite them to participate.  Then stay tuned – on January 6th we will announce the prize winners!