Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 11

Gratitude Blessing + The Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle Day 7~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Gratitude Blessing*

Spirit of Generosity,
we come to you with hearts
overflowing with gratitude
for your abundant creation.
As we awaken each morning,
help us to remember
this day is a gift,
this breath is grace,
this life a wonder.
Remind us
with every flower we see,
every act of kindness,
every moment of connection
to something so much bigger
than ourselves,
to whisper thank you.
Cultivate in us a sense of awe
and trust in your lavish grace.
Let each word of thanks
we offer expand our hearts
until delight inhabits us
and we know love
as our sustenance.

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

The 5th century monk and mystic Benedict of Nursia counsels in his Rule for monastic life an attitude of contentment among his community. Whatever the circumstances they find themselves in, they are to find some satisfaction with what is in the moment. In a world of self-entitlement and inflated sense of need, learning to be content with what we have has the potential to be quite revolutionary. It means craving less and being more satisfied with what one has.

One way to encourage this posture of contentment in our lives is gratitude. Gratitude is a way of being in the world that does not assume we are owed anything, and the fact that we have something at all, whether our lives, our breath, families, friends, shelter, laughter, or other simple pleasures, are all causes for celebration. We can cultivate a way of being in the world that treats all these things as gifts, knowing none of us “deserves” particular graces.

We might begin each day simply with an expression of gratitude for the most basic of gifts, life itself. Awakening each morning for another day to live and love, grateful for our breath and a body that allows us to move through our day. Then we can offer gratitude for a home and all the things that are important to us about this place of shelter.

Environmental activist and author Joanna Macy describes gratitude as a revolutionary act “because it counters the thrust of the industrial growth society, or the consumer society, which breeds dissatisfaction. You have to make people dissatisfied with what they have and who they are in order that they keep buying.” Gratitude is a way for us to cultivate a healthy asceticism and reject consumerism.

Gratitude is a practice that can begin with the smallest acknowledgement and be expanded out to every facet of our existence. A simple way to nurture this awareness in our lives is to end each day with a gratitude list. You might write 5-10 things for which you feel grateful each day, lifting up both the large and small moments of grace. It is a way to end the day by honoring the gifts we have received rather than dwelling on where life came up short for us. 

Consider saving these grateful noticings together somewhere, and after a season of time reading back over the things that made your heart expand and notice what patterns you find there.

Gratitude has a way of transforming our approach to life into one that is more open-hearted, generous, and joyful. Rather than moving through our day feeling cynical or burdened, we can consciously choose our thoughts. 

This doesn’t mean that we have to offer gratitude for injustices or abuse, we are always called to resist those. But it does mean we might be able to tap into greater joy to replenish us for those moments when we do need to fight for dignity and kindness. Gratitude overflows into joy and makes us feel connected to something bigger than ourselves.

Gratitude is a powerful practice intimately connected to a spirituality of blessing. My heart overflows with gratitude for this beautiful community we have created together. I delight daily in knowing there are dancing monks all over the world.

Join us for the season of Advent when we will explore what it means to live a life of blessing and gratitude. I will be joined by many wonderful guest teachers to offer daily practices rooted in wonder.

Today we release the final installment of our video podcast for The Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle. Day 7 morning prayer takes the theme of Ancestral Earth & Deep Time and evening prayer is The Love of Thousands. I’d like to thank my longtime friends and teaching partners Simon de Voil for his voice work and audio magic, and Betsey Beckman for compiling and producing the video podcasts. Special thanks to all of the artists, musicians, and contemplatives who contributed to this prayer cycle.The following prayer of concern was written by my Lift Every Voice Book Club conversation partner Claudia Love Mair. 

God in and of All, a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay says, “I can push the grass apart, and lay my finger on thy heart.” How beautiful it is to find you both in the dark earth, and in the dark matter of the universe. How excellent to know that you are in all things, and I am in you. I praise you for your magnificence, on earth and in the heavens.

The prayer cycle is a free offering. It takes a good deal of resources to produce as we believe in paying a living wage to the artists who make the prayer cycle spirit-filled and engaging. If you have the means to do so, we gratefully accept donations to support the prayer cycle. 

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

*Blessing written by Christine for a book of blessings (due to be published in spring 2026) 

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Janeen Adil

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

Home. In any language, it’s among the most evocative of words. My own memories and associations of home are deeply positive; for others, alas, they are breathtakingly sad. In either case, the word has a universal pull. I see that tug at the heartstrings, for what home was or could be or should be, as leading us all into a contemplation of our yearnings. While home will naturally look different for each person, as one who lives as a monk in the world, I can recognize the longings of home. I see it as a place of earthly reality that, at its best, reflects the eternal one that awaits us, where in love we are invited in: “Welcome home.”

To Bless Your Home

May your home always shelter you,
and may you find peace within its walls.

May those you love enter freely, drawn here
by the broad grace of your welcome.

May all visitors and guests, the worker and the stranger,
and all creatures in whom you take delight
receive the blessings of your home.

And as you step into the circle of your day, may you know
the God who walks with you into the light
will also and always see you again
safely home.

Janeen R. Adil is a spiritual director, writer, and teacher; within the United Church of Christ, she is Commissioned Minister of Christian Spirituality. She lives in eastern PA, in a farmhouse built by English/Welsh Quakers over 200 years ago. Her direction profile can be found at Spiritual Directors International, sdicompanions.org.

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Spirituality of Blessings and The Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle Day 6 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Blessing for Creativity*

Spirit of Holy Imagination,
we ask you to bless our vision
with the wisdom to see what is possible.
Help us trust our desire to create
through color, word, shape, gesture, and song.
When our fingers tremble
at picking up a pen or marker,
connect us to the joy of playing
on the white page, drawing,
doodling, dabbling, dreaming,
letting our lives
be a canvas for expression.
When judgments arise
and the inner critic yells,
guide us to hear our intuitions
whispering the way ahead
with quiet confidence.
When our feet feel restless,
inspire us to play music
and dance freely
until peace descends again.
Connect us to the freedom
of making something
for the love of it.
Speak to us in dreams
of what you desire
to create together with us,
making the world
a great work of art.

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” —Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Blessings can be like warm bread for the hungry, a cold drink for those who thirst.

Blessings offer hope and encouragement, steep us in gratitude, nurture our courage.

They bring us present to the grace of each moment. The word comes from the Latin, benedicere, which means to speak well of. Blessings help to remind us of the love and beauty of the Holy One in our lives and assist us to take nothing for granted. They act as maps to navigate our human experience, orienting us back to gratefulness and praise.

They sustain us in bringing reverence to all of life from the most ordinary of tasks to the great thresholds of our lives. They immerse us in the holy rhythms of the sacred which are not of our making. In a world obsessed with the scarcity of time, blessings help us to expand each moment like a flower opening her petals on a sunny day. They invite us to breathe more deeply, enlarge our vision, and give honor to our experiences. Blessings help us to touch eternity here and now.

A blessing is an acknowledgment of the gifts and graces already present. All of the mundane activities of the day became opportunities to witness grace at work. They become meditations and remembrances.

When my calendar and to do lists become misplaced holy grails in my life, speaking a blessing is a way to put things back into perspective. When my heart aches and grieves over loss, a blessing is a sanctuary space within which I am held and met by the divine.

St. Benedict wrote in the Prologue to his Rule, “Let us then at last arouse ourselves, even as Scripture incites us in the words, ‘Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep.’ Let us then, open our eyes to the divine light, and hear with our ears the divine voice as it cries out to us daily. ‘Today if you hear God’s voice, do not harden your hearts,’ and again, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.’” (RB Pro:8-11).

The image of awakening calls us to shake off the slumber which creates a veil between reality and our perception. The act of blessing helps us to awaken and see more clearly. When we remember to bless, we consecrate life whether we are in the kitchen, the office, in church, or standing in a forest.

In both Jewish and Celtic traditions, a central practice is to bless the unfolding of the day, each activity, each turning point. Everything becomes worthy of blessing. The Talmud calls for 100 blessings each day and through this practice we can shape ourselves into beings who pay close attention and who remember from whom all of life flows.

I love this time of year as the nights grow longer. Here in Ireland, there is even more darkness than when I lived in Seattle because of the higher latitude. 

We live in a culture that celebrates the flowering and fruitful energy of spring and summer, with a focus on productivity and output. And yet our bodies and spirits also crave the grace of autumn and winter to rest, reflect and replenish. In the rush up to Christmas, we often illuminate everything to push back the darkness and busy ourselves with gift-buying and preparations.

However, Advent and the preparation time before, at least in the northern hemisphere, is a season of descent into the expanding darkness. It is a time when we are called to ponder the mystery that is growing in the womb-space. It is also a time when we often experience the grief of our losses more acutely but push it away through busyness and distraction.

Join us for a holy pause before Advent begins to center yourself and listen for the gifts and invitations the darkness can bring to our lives. Whether or not we have birthed physically, we are all called to holy birthing in this time of deep rest and incubation. I am leading an online mini-retreat for Mercy by the Sea called A Midwinter God: Advent Preparation Retreat on this Friday, November 22nd. Registration closes Tuesday, November 19th at 12 noon Eastern.

And for Advent itself we will be offering a 25-day community retreat to celebrate the gift of blessing as a spiritual practice and way of being in the world. I am honored and delighted to be joined by several wonderful guest teachers who will offer practices of blessing. We will be launching with a two-hour live retreat to begin our journey on Monday, December 2nd where I will be joined by Sybil MacBeth who is the author of the very popular book Praying in Color. 

Join us this Wednesday, November 20th for Centering Prayer with Therese Taylor-Stinson.

Today we also offer you another gift – Day 6 of our video podcasts for the Love of Thousands prayer cycle. This day’s themes are cosmology, myth, and song in the morning and becoming wise and well ancestors in the evening. 

I leave you with a prayer for Day 6 morning written by our program coordinator Melinda Thomas:

Godde of Sorrow and Joy, our collective inheritance is filled with toxic patterns affected by war, famine, plague, racism, and the everyday slights that wear us down. And yet there is hope. Our collective memory is also filled with song and dance, laughter and love. Give us the courage to face the ancestral trauma unwillingly housed in our bodies so that as we do this work, we are empowered to disrupt toxic cycles and become a healing balm for this generation and generations to come.

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

*Blessing written by Christine Valters Paintner for her book The Love of Thousands and appears in Day 6 morning podcast of our prayer cycle. 

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Michael Moore’s reflection on Sabbath and Silence.

I am thankful to Christine and the Abbey community for this opportunity to pause and reflect on our Monk Manifesto and its intersection with my spiritual life and work. Sabbath and Silence have been a part of my life and work for many years now, but they have both been revealing fresh insights as I enter this next stage of life. It’s been just over a year now since I retired from active ministry in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and just over thirteen years since I retired from the US Air Force Chaplain Corps. Transitioning from full time, active ministry to retirement has been an adjustment and a blessing. 

Last week my wife Denise and I were walking along one of our favorite routes where we hear lots of bird song and see various creatures including herons, an alligator, and lots of turtles. I was listening, watching, and enjoying the sights and sounds as we walked in silence. Even though it was past dawn this experience reminded me of a reflection that the Trappist Monk and Mystic, Thomas Merton wrote in his book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. 

“So they wake: first the catbirds and cardinals and some that I do not know. Later the song sparrows and wrens. Last of all the doves and crows… Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. It is wide open… we are off ‘one to his farm and another to his merchandise.’ Lights on. Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static. ‘Wisdom,’ cries the dawn deacon, but we do not attend.” (Conjectures, p. 126)

The wisdom found in the birdsong. The wisdom found in the glory of nature. The wisdom that I so often missed in the rush and the hurry of ministry.

In the Chaplaincy it was rush, rush, rush, go, go, go 24/7. We kept statistics to show the higher ups that we were keeping busy. We called it bean counting. Unfortunately, there was one category that was not listed nor tracked. We didn’t identify times of silence & sabbath rest. Yet those rare moments when I did slow down were moments of healing. Going back into the parish after 21 years in uniform I found out that I was able to slow down and simply be still in the midst of God’s creation. 

In fact, the church I served in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado expected me to take that time to breathe and soak it all in, especially through the lens of my camera. One parishioner joked that they tried for two years to get the interim minister to dress more casually. Perhaps exchange his penny loafers for hiking shoes? It didn’t work. Yet soon after I arrived parishioners would find me dressed casually in the office, ready to go for a walk or a hike. My pictures appeared on the front cover of the church bulletin each week and people loved the fact that Denise and I had fallen in love with the Rocky Mountain National Park and our community.

Those moments were sabbath gifts to us in the midst of our very busy and sometimes hectic life in the church and the community. These were moments that sustained us in the busyness of ministry which included lots of hospital calls, comforting those who were dying, and walking with so many families and church members through the valley of the shadow of grief. It was during those moments of sabbath rest and silent contemplation that I felt my soul being nourished.

Now that I am retired, Denise and I are trying to be intentional about taking the time to simply be still. When I look back on the years of ministry in and out of uniform, I am humbled that I was able to be a part of so many lives. Sometimes I feel a twinge of sadness for the lost opportunities to truly enjoy the wonders of the world around me. But then I remember the wonderful moments when I did make time to slow down and to be still and silent. Do I wish that I had learned these lessons earlier in my ministry? Of course! Do I celebrate the moments of wonder and awe that I did experience back them? Absolutely! While it can sometimes be a challenge to be “Monk in the World,” the journey isn’t about attaining perfection. We are a work in progress, and I believe that one of the big lessons that the Abbey of the Arts teaches is to be gentle with ourselves on this journey. My prayer is that each of you, dear reader, will find and embrace those opportunities to be still and know that you are loved.

Michael Moore is a retired USAF Chaplain and a retired pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who currently lives in Mobile, Alabama with his wife and partner in life and ministry, Denise. His undergraduate degree is in Business Administration (University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire) and he earned his Master of Divinity degree from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (Saint Paul, MN). He served two small, yoked Presbyterian Churches in rural Fergus Falls, MN for three years before going on Active Duty with the USAF for 21 years. Following his retirement from the Air Force, he served churches in Florida, Colorado, Georgia, and Alabama. He has a Certificate in Christian Spiritual Formation from Columbia Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA.

A writer and photographer, you can find him blogging at Pastor Michael Moore’s Blog or at Godspace as a member of that community.

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What I Know + Love of Thousands Video Prayer Cycle Day 5 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks,

There is much uncertainty and unknown right now. Many of us are in deep grief and I encourage you to bestow lavish hospitality on all of your feelings – let your rage, sadness, despair, confusion, and more have space in you. Move your body, let her speak its wisdom, and give yourself the gift of as much rest as possible. 

What I do know is that our commitment to a contemplative path does make a difference. Keep showing up with presence to what is real and true. Cherish what is beautiful and kind. Commit to the slowness and centeredness that is its own kind of resistance and from which deep change arises. Know that the ground is Love and we are each radiant sparks of the divine. And act on behalf of the liberation of all beings from these touchstones. 

What I also know is that our commitment to creativity is vital. We must continue to cultivate our wild imaginings. Dance and write poems and songs that help us to lament and hope, to make space to dream and be, to let our visions of what is possible take even deeper root in our hearts. This is our life force at work in partnership with Spirit to bring about a more beautiful world. 

And the third thing I know is that community is key to all of this. Reach out to a soul friend; gather in small groups to grieve and laugh. Extend the most exquisite kindness to the people you encounter in public spaces, especially those you experience as“other.” Ask for the blessings of your ancestors who endured their own suffering and struggles. Stand in a grove of trees or on the banks of a river and feel your kinship with all creation. And of course, gather with your fellow dancing monks in our programs when possible. To know yourself as not alone, but intimately connected to the delicate and intricate web of all living beings is to claim your power and to live in hope. 

This Advent, join us for a retreat in which we cultivate a spirituality of blessing. Together we will nurture gratitude, joy, hope, and delight in the beauty of our lives in the midst of a hurting world. We won’t be denying or bypassing that woundedness but resourcing ourselves with a sense of abundance at the heart of things. We will resist a culture that strives to wear us down and leave us feeling hopeless.

We are also releasing the video podcasts today for Day 5 of The Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle. Morning prayer is on the theme of Grieving Our Losses and evening prayer is Ancestral Pilgrimage. We offer this Prayer of Concern written by Claudia Love Mair:

Comforting One, grief often feels too heavy a burden to shoulder alone. Be our Simon of Cyrene and help us bear the heavy crosses of our losses. We know we are not alone in our mourning, but sometimes it feels like we are. You sent your Spirit like a dove to Jesus at his baptism. It feels as though we’ve been baptized in a river of our tears. Please send your Spirit of Love and Comfort to console us, and even in our pain we will remember to thank you. 

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Sharon Fabriz

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sharon Fabriz’s reflection “A Jigsaw of Light: Hildegard’s Gift.”

Spirit of Mercy and Grace,
born from the infinite womb of creation
teach this vessel its song… (1)

With the help of my psycho-spiritual companion and my own intuition and path, a two-month pilgrimage in place came into view as a vehicle for personal contemplation as I approached my sixty-sixth birthday. Winter had been long and dark, wet and cold. February promised more of the same. A pilgrimage in place would coincide with the coming of spring, longer days, sproutings and migrations, a time ripe for me to say yes to such a planting. The Abbey of the Arts Hildegard of Bingen retreat course became my guide for the journey and a frame from which I could divine the viriditas that many decades had drawn me toward.

A song introduced in an early lesson opened my heart. “May the breath of God flow through your being”[2] became an intention, a part of my pilgrimage in place, that which had led me more deeply into the forest, to a sit spot in the manzanita grove perched on bedrock covered in green moss, above the creek now spilling with stair-stepping waterfalls that would meet with river a hundred feet down. 

I visited the place of contemplation daily, becoming more and more aware of its aliveness. “May the breath of God flow through your being” became the prayer for the breath that was in me, that was me,  that I recognized was the fuel for every single thing in the world, even the damp camp chair on which I now sat under a sky that held a shining visible and welcome with joy after so many cloud-filled days. 

While listening to variations of Hildegard of Bingen’s musical compositions, a song of invitation, discovery, and direction arrived in me. Altered versions appeared  each morning, shifting and rising until the final beginning, middle and end landed with such peace, I knew my Portal Song was complete. There is a portal has been found / patient in its waiting / for the ready pilgrim / ripe for the returning / joining heart and journey / wakefulness and blooming.[3]

With my sit spot settled and a song opening the way, my practice organized itself with morning singing, reading, writing, and afternoon sitting. But the most palpable moments of my pilgrimage came in the rendering, how viriditas awakened in me as I lived my day. 

TWO

A dog barks in the distance. Then movement far above. Wingspans, black and powerful, four crows, one landing in the tallest fir on the slide down to the river and three who fly on. The signal’s been given. Pause. The dogs stand alert. My heart goes quiet, my mind blank. Me, gone. Among the trees in a flash, the moment becomes still life, found poem, reunion. 

How many ways can I say that I’m not going to write about old stories anymore, that I’m living for the life I have left from here on out, that the stairsteps to heaven have been folded up and stowed in a bunkhouse behind some broken down boxes that I still need to haul to the dump where they likely won’t get recycled and I don’t want that to be true but it probably is. 

It’s not that I don’t have stories to tell, ones of betrayal (but was that was it was or was that just the story I have been telling myself), ones of loyalty (but was it that or a practical matter, the ease of a compartment that felt secure and known), ones of exhaustion (but those tales succeed only at being exhausting), of blind trust and silent fury (and what was the lesson there?)…A big sigh leaves a cumulus hovering over the flashing red neon of Who Cares?

What I’m fit to do now is submit those journals and drawings and songs to the library of the wind, ash that might settle onto some ground where the soil needs amending, where the particles of yesteryear can do some good. You can’t do that! I hear the fifteen-year-old in me say. That’s how you’ve made it this far! And I have to remove her from the driver’s seat (she often ignores the exits) and replace her with the sensible one who knows full well that it wasn’t the writing that got us through. It was a story much bigger than we are, all of those selvings that keep hanging around.  All their stories, imaginings, adaptations, rants, lamentations, fairy tales, unsent letters, remembered dreams, scribbles in the margins, half-assed promises, pious prayers, slumped worries, starred entries…they will do us no good now. 

What we need to know is all around us. Pay attention, says the crow, that big-winged creature who silhouettes the sky. It’s all dream and flight and landings and hold on and one for the money, two for the show, and watching from the heights where the seeing is everything.

THREE

I grant myself permission to find my own ways and words from these teachings, graftings from centuries before. Hildegard’s hand guiding me, light from her container spilling into me from outside space and time. Words arrive as the teachings root, rise, and blossom in me. The greening of all things is made manifest in the very language rising from my own voice. 

mirrors of all heaven’s fragrant graces,
garden of surpassing sweetness,
behold the gracious source,
its image in your eyes,
the blossom in your heart… (4)

from her secret chamber
the Song of Source came forth
a flower sprang in her womb
sweet as the buds of spring (5)

With each breath
a beginning and an end
the simple remedy
for fear and struggle
With each breath
a beginning and an end
blessed portal
joining earth and heaven. (6)

Meld with the Source of All Unfolding and sing within the Beckoning Whole… (7)

Sharon Fabriz publishes weekly on Medium at sharonhopefabriz.medium.com. Her spiritual memoir Circling Toward Home (2021) is her first book. She is part of the Sisters of the Pen writing group and works with Ann Randolph’s Unmute online writing community. She lives in the mountains of northern California with her two dogs.

[1] Song of the Virgin to Her Son excerpt, personal adaptation

[2] “Blessing the Breath of God” lyrics by Denise Pyles

[3] Portal Song recording link

[4] Antiphon for Virgins, personal adaptation

[5] found poem from “O quam preciosa”

[6] Ave Generosa (Hymn to the Virgin) excerpt, personal adaptation

[7] Scivias III 13.15; personal adaptation

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Hospitality + The Love of Thousands Video Prayer Cycle Day 4 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Hospitality*

Holy Presence of God,
you shimmer in every stranger I encounter
whether in the world or in my heart.
When you came in human form
you sat at table with all those who walked the edges
of life and knew their presence as sacred.
Create in me a space to welcome in
all that is hard and disorienting,
those moments when I feel lost, angry,
heartbroken, overwhelmed, ashamed,
joyful, grieving, or in love with life.
Help me to honor the guests who arrive at the door,
to usher in the grace that newness offers
and find Christ’s compassionate presence there.
May your infinite compassion grow in me
the way sunlight spills across a field,
and include everyone in that loving embrace.

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Tomorrow, November 4th, I will be joined by Simon de Voil and our guest musician Dena Jennings for this month’s Contemplative Prayer Service. This year we are exploring the principles of the Monk Manifesto. Our theme for tomorrow is hospitality. 

Here is an excerpt on hospitality from our Monk in the World self-study program.

Monk Manifesto  Principle 2: Hospitality

I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others.

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for him himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
-Rule of St. Benedict 53:1

This is one of my favorite lines from Benedict’s Rule. He is saying that which feels most strange, makes us the most uncomfortable, or that which I most want to reject, is the very place of encounter with the divine. 

I also believe that Benedict meant to extend this hospitality within ourselves and seek out the stranger who knocks within on our hearts – the parts of ourselves that have been neglected or shut out. This inner and outer act of hospitality are intimately connected. 

As we grow in compassion for the places within which challenge us, we can extend that compassion toward others. The more we grow intimate with our own places of weakness or unlived longings, the more we can accept these in others. 

Sadly, many churches have used religion as a way of excluding those they don’t identify with or feel fearful of. Rejecting the stranger is completely counter to the contemplative way. James Baldwin wrote that “If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving.” The path of deepened intimacy with the divine leads us to more compassion and more inclusivity, never less.

We are also pleased to release the video podcasts for Day 4 of our Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle. November is a month dedicated to honoring our ancestors and ancestral wisdom. The theme for morning prayer is Blessings of Our Ancestors and evening prayer is Healing the Wounds of Generations. Working with our ancestral legacies is a way to deepen our intimacy with the divine and offer hospitality to ourselves and all who have come before. 

Join us tomorrow, November 4th , for our Contemplative Prayer Service honoring the gifts of hospitality.

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

*Blessing written by Christine for a book of blessings (due to be published in spring 2026) 

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Camille Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Camille Thomas’s reflection “Beholding God’s Sanctuary.”

My Grandma Sammie knew many psalms by heart and could quote them chapter and verse. Maybe she’s the one who inspired me one day almost twenty years ago to learn Psalm 63, or maybe I was drawn to the exquisite yearning in its opening: O God, you are my God. I seek you, I thirst for you, my flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where no water is.

What’s the best way to memorize a poem? Repetition is key of course, but I found it best to start with a gentle lingering on the lines, internalizing the imagery to absorb the meaning. When I came to the second verse, so I have seen you in your sanctuary, I tried to picture a sanctuary, and my brain produced the one closest to hand: my place of worship, Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz, with its high ceiling and sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows. 

Then my imagination suddenly swept out of the building and two hundred miles away into Yosemite Valley. I visualized myself walking among the trees along the Merced River, Ponderosa pine and incense cedar, willows and cottonwoods, when I emerged into an open meadow. Granite walls rose up golden in the morning light, all around me crags and crenellations, spires and domes. There was the towering height of El Capitan and the distinct curve of Half Dome. The leap from Holy Cross to Yosemite surprised me, but maybe it shouldn’t have. Isn’t nature as much the home of the Divine as a church? John Muir called the Sierra Nevada the range of light, and I visited those mountains every summer. Of course my mind would latch onto Yosemite as the sanctuary of the Holy One. In fact, the very psalm I was trying to learn set me up to conflate God with the earth: my body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water. 

“If you have just come to the monastery,” St. Romuald writes in his brief rule, “and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind.” I returned to the mental exercise of memorizing the psalm while trying to keep my heart engaged. My soul shall be filled as with a banquet … 

Now another image came to mind, the morning of December 22, 1999, the last winter solstice of the millennium. I went out before dawn for a walk along the ocean cliffs in Santa Cruz. The biggest, brightest full moon in a hundred years was setting in the west, swathed in swirling mist. For the next forty-five minutes it was my beacon and companion, and I walked in awe. Finally, just as I reached my turning point, it dipped below the horizon. Show’s over, I thought sadly and turned around to start for home. What I saw then nearly took my breath away: a gorgeous sunrise had stolen up behind my back and was now in full pink and golden bloom across Monterey Bay. Here was the generosity of the Beloved on full display, sun and moon playing with the earth in a wild dance that seemed to be a secret shared between them and at the same time a wanton display for all us creatures to see. I had only to turn around to see fresh beauty on the horizon, a banquet indeed.

Before King David composed the psalms, we were given nature as a scripture. Praying Psalm 63 is a way for me to celebrate the written Bible and the book of creation at the same time. Both help me find my way into the cave of my heart. In a time of turmoil when I no longer take water or clean air or democracy for granted, this is no small thing. Retreating to this cave might seem like escapism, and yes, it is a respite, like a walk on the beach is, but my intention, with both formal prayer and time in nature, is to return to the world with a hope and compassion I don’t find on my own. After drinking from the well, I want to give voice to that hope, heart and hands to that compassion.

At home on the California coast, Mary Camille Thomas uses writing as a tool to navigate our crazy consumer culture. How do we balance the competing demands in our lives and touch the peace in the cave of our hearts? She explores possibilities in her blog The Kingdom of Enough.

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Samhain Retreat + Love of Thousands Video Prayer Cycle Day 3 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Blessing of the Saints*

May the communion of saints
shower you with blessings,
may you seek their guidance
in moments of illness, confusion, gratitude.
We remember their own struggles,
living their humanity, enfleshed and tender.
We ask those across the threshold to pray for us
knowing what it is to be wounded.
Call on the canonized saints,
Benedict, Francis, Ignatius, Hildegard,
Thea Bowman, Oscar Romero,
and the saints of spirit,
Howard Thurman, Dorothy Day,
and thousands of others
who witnessed to another way of being,
who helped to build a community of love.
Let them tether us to their earthiness,
and remind us of the holiness
of bone and blood, the grace of our bodies
in bringing love to the world
and the presence of heaven here and now.

Feel them stretching themselves
back across the veil toward us,
in sacred friendship
eyes shining, hearts radiant,
wisdom pouring like rainfall,
after months of drought,
coming with a reminder
that you are never alone,
never forsaken
and you dance in those life-giving
showers, celebrate Love as a visible
and invisible force, animating the world.

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Today we continue our release of the video podcasts of our Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle. The theme for Day 3 morning prayer is Embodied Love and evening is Saints & Pilgrimage. Here is one of the prayers of concern for morning prayer written by Wisdom Council member and my Lift Every Voice book club conversation partner Claudia Love Mair.

Lover of our soul, how often we get in a frenzy doing too much. We take on more than is necessary, and fail to rest and replenish our bodies, minds, and spirits. Sometimes we act as if everything is all on us. When we show up in this way, bring to mind Sister Thea Bowman, who was content to do her little bit. She said that if each one would light a candle, we’d have a tremendous light. Remind us that all we need to do is light our candle. Sister Thea, pray for us. Help us to understand that doing our little bit is an act of humility, and to give thanks for it.

This Friday, November 1st, I will be joined by Simon de Voil, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, and Nóirín Ní Riain to Honor The Love of Thousands on the feast of All Saints and the Celtic feast of Samhain. We’ll pause together and honor our beloved ancestors and all the wise and well ones who have passed through the veil. Through ritual, song, teaching, meditation, and sharing we will weave a container together to hold our prayers and longings, and receive the gifts the saints and ancestors have to offer us for the season ahead. Join us!

I am also excited to share that we have a new dancing monk icon of Mary Magdalene by Marcy Hall! View the icon and order prints here.

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

P.S. My latest book, A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness, has been reviewed by Jon M. Sweeney at Spirituality & Practice. Click here to read the review.

* Blessing by Christine Valters Paintner from The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Therese Taylor-Stinson

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member and Centering Prayer leader Therese Taylor-Stinson’s reflection Silence and the Oppressed. This article was originally published on NextChurch.net and is reprinted with permission from the author.

People of color have engaged in contemplation since the beginning of time, though the term used in a broad sense for spiritual practice is relatively new. The Desert Ammas and Abbas were people of color from the Middle East who fled to the deserts to escape the empire and are not only known as among the first contemplatives but also the first psychologists, as they tested the limits of their human condition in the desert. Contemplation is defined as deep, prolonged thoughtfulness. A contemplative, then, is one whose life is devoted primarily to prayerful pondering, and there are two broad forms of contemplative prayer — apophatic and kataphatic.

Apophatic prayer — noted as a higher form of communion with God by a 14th century anonymous monk called “the cloud” for his foundational book entitled The Cloud of Unknowing — is a willing surrender into mystery: that which cannot be fully known and is closer to the true nature of God. It means emptying the mind of words and ideas and simply resting in the presence of the unknown. Apophatic prayer has no content but is full of intention, such as with a practice called centering prayer.

Fourth century Roman Catholic Bishop Gregory of Nyssa wrote about “apophatic” ways of being. Gregory was born in Cappadocia (present day Turkey) and held his bishop’s dominion in Nyssa — both in the Middle East. So, Gregory was likely a brown person as well, whose central argument is that God as an infinite being cannot actually be comprehended by us finite humans. God is not a white dude with a long white beard who sits on a cloud and grants wishes, and wants your sports team to win. God is something transcendent and alien whose thoughts we cannot properly grasp or explain.

Kataphatic prayer, on the other hand, has content; it uses words, images, symbols, and ideas. Ignatian prayer, such as lectio divina, the daily examen, and the Ignatian process for discernment is mostly kataphatic. Other forms of kataphatic prayer may be writing, music, dance, and other art forms.

Medieval Spanish priest (now saint, as was Gregory) Ignatius of Loyola, a spiritual director, was a prominent figure in the Roman Catholic “counter-reformation,” during the same period or starting a little before the Protestant reformation. His most influential work was Spiritual Exercises, still used by many today. His prayer was “Soul of Christ, make me holy.” And he wrote of himself in Spiritual Exercises, “Without seeing any vision, he understood and knew many things, as well spiritual things as things of the faith.” So, Ignatius too knew apophatic ways of being with God, but his Spiritual Exercises was full of kataphatic prayer forms to assist in ushering oneself, as well as others, into the presence of mystery.

In both Gregory, whom begins with unknowing, and Ignatius, whom engages the mind, I see both an apophatic and kataphatic approach that leads to a fully embodied intention for the Holy. Gregory writes, “We know some things that God is not, but we are incapable of understanding what God is. However, we can observe God’s ‘energies’ projected into the material world by God’s creation of the universe and God’s grace or love entering it. It is just as in human works of art, where the mind can in a sense see the author in the ordered structure that is before it, inasmuch as he has left his artistry in his work. But notice that what we see here is merely the artistic skill that he has impressed in his work, not the substance of the craftsman. So too, when we consider the order of creation, we form an image not of the substance but of the wisdom of Him Who has done all things wisely.”

As an example of a practical application of Gregory’s apophatic theology, he argues that slavery and poverty are unethical. The idea is that humans have a unique value that requires respect, because they alone are made “in the image of” the unknowable and unworldly God. Poverty and slavery are inconsistent with the dignity and respect due the image of God in all people. *[Referenced from an anonymous source.]

So, that brings me to the pervasive idea among white contemplatives who dominate the ideas of modern-day contemplation that for the most part, African Americans and other people of color don’t practice contemplative prayer, which they view as predominantly silence. Silence certainly has its place, but as the writer of Ecclesiastes notes in chapter 3:1, everything has its time: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” One of the few recognized black mystics, Howard Thurman, wrote, “Do not be silent; there is no limit to the power that may be released through you.”

This is an idea the oppressed understand well. In their contemplation, there may be seasons for silence, but there are also seasons and reasons for shouting, dancing, expressive emotion, and even protest, ushering in the presence of God to guide and protect; leaning on that God for constant direction; releasing toxic emotions.

For example, the enslaved taken from Africa across the Middle Passage and brought into chattel slavery were silenced from the time of their capture and separation from all others whom spoke their language and shared their customs. To be silenced is to cause trauma. On the slave ships, they ushered in the presence of God and community through the “moan” — the name given it by the slaveholders. The enslaved became one in their suffering by joining together in their sighs and groans of pain too deep for words. Their separation and silencing continued when they reached land, were warehoused, and sold to slave masters, separated from their children, spouses, and other relatives. Again silenced, they found ways to communicate their suffering and garner support through music, dance, and shouting, as they secretly met in the hush hollows, the abandoned shacks in the woods, and suppressed their sounds by shouting into barrels or pots, and sharing in each others suffering by turning the day’s suffering into song that was joined in a call and response by the others present. They were silenced. Their narrative was not known, but God knew, along with those gathered with them in subversion.

Albert Rabateau tells a story in his book Slave Religion through a third person about the silencing of the enslaved and their knowledge and faith in a Supreme Being. The observer notes how, though the enslaved could not read, they had ways of knowing God, and when they were finally introduced to the Bible, they already knew who God was! The observer also notes that some of the enslaved believed the Bible should not be read until after one has gained that inward knowing.

The oppressed around the world — mostly people of color — have been silenced from control of their own narratives, while the dominate culture dictates a narrative to be both disseminated to the world and absorbed by the oppressed that centers whiteness and devalues the lives and culture of people of color across the globe, leaving them silenced, oppressed, and struggling to know and to value their own heritage.

Silence may be needed in some cases among the dominant culture in order to allow the narrative of the oppressed to emerge; in order for them to come face-to-face with their own complicity in silencing people of color in order to enjoy the privileges of dominance. However, silence is not the only way to encounter God. Silence is not the only way to embrace Mystery. Silence is not the only way to deep pondering and profound prayer. Silence for the oppressed should be embraced on their own terms and their more kataphatic ways of being and prayer embraced more fully by contemplatives of every culture, unless it remains a tool to keep the narrative of the oppressed untold.

Therese Taylor-Stinson is a retired U.S. Federal Senior Program Analyst, formerly an expert in Federal Regulatory Activity, and she remains on the roster of the U.S. Federal Interagency Shared Neutrals Program as a lead mediator for Equal Employment Opportunity disputes. Therese is also a seasoned spiritual director, an award-winning author-editor, and an ordained deacon and ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and served as Moderator for National Capital Presbytery 2014 through 2017. Therese, the organizer, won an award in 2018 as a Collaborative Bridge-Builder presented by Grace and Race, Inc., an Indie Author Legacy Award for her edited work Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Stories of Contemplation and Justice, and a second author award for her most recent authorship Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman: Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter. Therese is also the co-founder and organizer of the Racial Awareness Festival based in Washington DC, which recently closed after its sixth annual event and seventh organizing year. Therese is the Founding Managing Member/President of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, Ltd., now incorporated 10 years after 6 years of organizing. In addition to the above, she is a certified pastoral caregiver and an Emotional Emancipation Circle Facilitator, while remaining on the roster as a lead mediator for Equal Employment Opportunity. Therese is married to Bernard Stinson. They have a daughter and two granddaughters.

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