Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 112

Feast of St. Hildegard: Greening Our Lives and Spirits ~ A love note from your online abbess

St. Hildegard Strolls through the Garden

Luminous morning, Hildegard gazes at

the array of blooms, holding in her heart

the young boy with a mysterious rash, the woman

reaching menopause, the newly minted widower,

and the black Abbey cat with digestive issues who wandered

in one night and stayed.  New complaints arrive each day.

She gathers bunches of dandelions, their yellow

profusion a welcome sight in the monastery garden,

red clover, nettle, fennel, sprigs of parsley to boil later in wine.

She glances to make sure none of her sisters are

peering around pillars, slips off her worn leather shoes

to relish the freshness between her toes,

face upturned to the rising sun, she sings lucida materia,

matrix of light, words to the Virgin, makes a mental

note to return to the scriptorium to write that image down.

  When the church bells ring for Lauds, she hesitates just a

moment, knowing her morning praise has already begun,

wanting to linger in this space where the dew still clings.

At the end of her life, she met with a terrible obstinacy,

from the hierarchy came a ban on receiving

bread and wine and her cherished singing.

She now clips a single rose, medicine for a broken heart,

which she will sip slowly in tea, along with her favorite spelt

biscuits, and offer some to the widower

grieving for his own lost beloved,

they smile together softly at this act of holy communion

and the music rising among blades of grass.

— Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

I have now had the great privilege of leading a pilgrimage twice to the landscape of Hildegard of Bingen with my dear teaching partner Betsey Beckman. Immersing myself in this lush landscape of the Rhine Valley in German, I discovered viriditas in a new way. Viriditas was Hildegard’s term for the greening power of God, sustaining life each moment, bringing newness to birth. It is a marvelous image of the divine power continuously at work in the world, juicy and fecund.

While I expected to see this greening power alive in the vineyards draping the hills, in the beauty of the Rhine river flowing through the valley like a glorious vein of life, and in the forested hill of Disibodenberg where Hildegard spent much of her early life, what I received as gift was the greening that came alive for me in the community gathered.

There is something so powerful about walking in the places that our great mystics and visionaries dwelled, and to feel the wisdom of their teaching in a fully embodied way. However, to do that with an intentional community of fellow pilgrims, each arriving with their own longing and particular love of Hildegard, was a beauty beyond my expectations.

On our pilgrimage, we created a community of modern monks. In my own work, I use the image of being a monk in the world to invite folks into an experience of integrating contemplative practice into the daily tasks of living. The beauty of the monastic mindset, of which Hildegard was deeply shaped and formed, is that it asks us to see the holy in all things, all people, and in the unfolding of time.

We would gather together in the mornings for praying the psalms, in the great monastic tradition of praying the Hours. We entered the psalms through contemporary songs which carried us into their poetry and danced.  I am certain Hildegard would have approved! Throughout our days spent back at the hotel gathering space, which we fondly dubbed our chapel and cloister, we created together through poetry, photography, mandala drawing, and dance.  We would both laugh and weep together as we touched into the wonder of our experience.

On our outings, we received the gifts of these holy sites. We listened in the silence, the way the monks of old would and the way Hildegard surely would have, for the shimmering voice within that so often goes unheard.

Kindred spirits are a gift beyond measure. When we find our tribe, we can feel like we have come home again. We experience the viriditas in our souls, which Hildegard counseled. In that safe space of being met by other pilgrims who also have a love of contemplative practice and creative expression, we are able to start to drop down to a deeper place and let a part of ourselves come alive that we may keep hidden in daily life. We can welcome in the moistening of our souls. This is the greening power of God at work. We find ourselves vital, fertile, alive and saying yes in new ways, affirmed by our fellow companions.

(We will be leading another pilgrimage to the land of Hildegard in September 2018 to coincide with her feast day, email us to be notified when registration opens!)

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall at Rabbit Room Arts

Monk in the Word Guest Post: Laurie Klein

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Laurie Klein's reflection on using playful gestures for prayer.

I wanted to play more. Ultimately, a childhood diversion beckoned.

'Busy hands are happy hands,' my mother always said.

Raised to work hard at everything, I’ve been productive over the years but often at great personal cost. Excessive intensity wears a girl down.

Other people seem to delight in each step toward their goals, a pleasure I find inspiring. And contagious. As a fellow monk in this dangerous, everyday-falling-around-our-ears-world, I want to step lightly. I long to filter the gravitas of purposeful work through generous handfuls of joy. Spontaneity. Childlike vision.

So, I’m trying to bring play into my work.

Tapping the spritely energy of play generates something more alive—in my process, the end product, and in me.

Brother David Steindl-Rast reminds me that play 'works' because it’s meaningful. And for me, it unknots something within, loosens those self-imposed seams I construct to protect myself.

Play not only frees, it heals. In response to one of Christine’s writing prompts, I wrote these lines to remind myself how I want to view life:

How to Live Like a Backyard Psalmist

Wear shoes with soles like meringue

and pale blue stitching so that

every day you feel ten years old.

Befriend what crawls.

Drink rain, hatless, laughing.

Sit on your heels before anything plush

or vaguely kinetic:

hazel-green kneelers of moss

waving their little parcels

of spores, on hair-trigger stems.

Hushed as St. Kevin cradling the egg,

new-laid, in an upturned palm,

tiptoe past a red-winged blackbird’s nest.

Ponder the strange,

the charged, the dangerous:

taffeta rustle of cottonwood skirts,

Orion’s owl, cruising at dusk,

thunderhead rumble. Bone-deep,

scrimshaw each day’s secret.

Now, lighting the sandalwood candle,

gather each strand you recall

and the blue pen, like a needle.

Suture what you can.

***

I find that absorbing regular doses of wonder equips me to better mend this hurting world. Which makes me wonder: What if work and play are kissing cousins, rather than twins separated at birth? Maybe they’re meant to play tag. Even hold hands, at times.

Whatever the task, I want to kneel often, and marry the moment with the abandon of that hatless, laughing kid in the rain.

Can I bring play into prayer?

My mother used to calm my fears with a fingerplay.

'When you’re afraid,' we spoke in unison. Then, from pinkies to thumbs, each of us touched our fingertips together, pair by pair, adding one word for each motion: “Put – your – trust – in – God.” The fingerplay soothed and refocused me.

A childish diversion? Sure. But I still use it when late-night anxiety assaults my thoughts.

One day my body decided to take Mom’s anodyne further.

My personal theme for last year was “Extend Your Orbit.” Intending to prop penned reminders of this around the house, I wrote the phrase on numerous 3×5 cards. Afterward, my hands cramped. With no plan in mind, I interlaced my fingers over my heart, palms facing inward, then turned my linked hands outward, lifted and circled them over my head—a good stretch. (Try it right now?)

If you’re playing along, now expand the gesture, allowing the movement to come from your waist, gently swinging your raised, interlocked fingers in a larger circle.

Feel anything loosening?

I like to think that what arose spontaneously for me that day stems from my mother's gift to me, all those years ago. It certainly distilled “Extend Your Orbit” into a wonderfully repeatable, wordless prayer. Now I begin most mornings this way.

'Some love best with their hands,' Annie Dillard once said.

Perhaps you’d like to try some of these universal gestures as a fresh means of prayer, with or without words:

Use the French Voila! fingertips kiss, to acclaim the beautiful
Brush palms past each other several times, to honor completion, or a boundary
Salute the heavens as a pledge of obedience
Blow a kiss skyward as a silent “I Love You”
Applaud, audibly or silently
Tenderly lift your chin with an index finger, and raise your eyes
Tap your watch, then open your hand and lift it to God

Spontaneous movement waits within, ready to bubble up and surprise us.

You might also consider exploring sign language to find more motions that speak for you. Words like please, thank you, life, grow, joy, forgiveness, love, friend, Jesus, and compassion are easily learned, eloquent movements.

For illustrated ideas, click here >>

Does this idea beckon to you? I hope you’ll share your ideas for using gesture as prayer. I’d love to hear them! "

Laurie Klein plays with words as well as her hands to see what they’ll say next. She blogs at lauriekleinscribe.com, and her debut poetry collection, endorsed by Christine, is titled Where the Sky Opens. A past winner of the Thomas Merton Sacred Poetry Prize, she lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Feast of St Ciaran: Cherishing Animals, Honoring Dreams ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

September 9th is the Feast of Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, one of the great Irish saints. He lived in the 6th century and is one of the great monastic founders called the “Twelve Apostles of Ireland.” Ciaran had a kinship with animals. There are stories of him befriending a fox who would carry his Psalter back and forth to his teacher so he could learn. He had a cow which gave milk to all of the Abbey. The cow was so revered that when she died, her hide became a kind of relic and it was said to offer healing, and whoever laid on it would go to heaven. Ciaran would also put his books on the antlers of a stag, as a kind of book rest. It was also said that a boar became his first monk.

There is a story that Ciaran goes out to the island of Inismor to visit with the great Abbott Enda. There they both have a dream of great fruitful trees growing beside a stream in the middle of Ireland. In the vision they could see the tree protecting the entire island with abundant fruit provided.

Enda told Ciaran: "The great tree is you, Ciaran, for you are great in the eyes of God and all people. All of Ireland will be sheltered by the grace in you, and many will be nourished by your fasting and prayers. Go to the center of Ireland, and found your church on the banks of a stream."

I love this great and flourishing tree as symbol of Ciaran’s call in life. He was moving toward his own soul’s ripening. The dream pointed the way.

He founded his monastery at the intersection of the river Shannon running north to south, and the esker, a system of ridges forming a natural roadway, which runs across Ireland from east to west. Clonmacnoise became one of the largest and most significant monasteries of the entire Irish church as a center of learning.

What dreams are calling to you as summer begins to turn to autumn (or winter into spring if you are in the southern hemisphere)?

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall at Rabbit Room Arts

Monk in the World Guest Post: Naomi Kelly

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Rev. Naomi Kelly's reflection on finding God's grace in the non-anxious practice of visio divina.

Most mornings, when I get up to walk the dog, I take my smartphone with me, keeping the camera poised to snap pictures. What a blessing to have been exposed to the idea of visio divina from Christine and Abbey of the Arts. Everything we pass—trees, rocks, creatures—offers a feeling, a whisper, a message from the Divine.  It’s so much as looking for God to speak to me as it is being present and letting the picture come to you.

Even a short walk around my neighborhood reveals so many gifts of nature. The deer are watching, hoping to receive a hand out. There are drops of water, glistening on the pine needles like diamonds. The promise of spring abounds in the buds, the running water, and in the air itself.

I feel I am one with the earth, human/humus. When I am in the forest, or by a stream, or overlooking a meadow, I feel as though I am part of it—it is home, it is belonging. A gust of wind will get my attention and I can feel the earth breathing with me; I am in awe and at the same time a component of the awe. A drop of dew on a flower petal holds my reflection and the mystery of all reflections.  Just stepping outdoors and breathing in the air of ‘almost spring’ reminds me that I am alive and it energizes me.

There is a story John Philip Newell tells about a dog who went into a church sanctuary, sniffed around and left because there was nothing there that would interest a dog. And what interests a dog? Natural smells – my dog is interested in so many things as the snow recedes, as if there are new found friends being born out of melting ice. That powerful story made me think about our churches: What do our churches offer that the people need? Is a sterile building giving substance to our people to awaken and open our hearts?  Many of Newell’s writings have helped me to reconcile my love of nature with Christianity. Of course, reading the stories of Jesus, we find he is always walking off in the wilderness, meditating outside, telling stories about the weather, or food. He was an outdoors sort of guy.

Because  of the visio divina, I decided to share some of my pictures, so I began to post a picture with a short caption almost everyday on Facebook. I would see a sun rise and the beauty would be breathtaking, and posting it would prompt questions like: ‘Where do you see beauty today?’ The questions helped to focus me. Later, I began to have a theme. One week in particular revolved around a small fern-like plant called lycopodium. We have four species in our area, and while it was fun, I found myself beginning to determine the content instead of letting the content capture me. Later, I decided to follow the lectionary so that my Facebook posts could be related to what I was going to discuss during Sunday morning worship. For a while I felt very confined. ‘Oh no,’ I thought, ‘What if I don’t find a picture that goes along with the lectionary?’ When we try and control the outcome we can get ourselves in some anxious situations. But visio divina is not an anxious practice, it is freeing and surprising. I learned more about the graciousness of God and how, if I make a commitment to show up for this practice, there will be a picture and there will be a question. It is like writing, the more we write, the more we are able to write. This is true with most any practice.

This summer it will be a whole year of this practice. What could I possibly see that will be new? Haven’t I explored my neighborhood enough? Maybe I should move out and see what else the world has to offer. That is the kind of thinking that stops an artist, that stops spiritual growth, too. Better questions for me will be, what does today have to offer? What is drawing my eyes this morning? As we say in our yoga meditation, ‘I am awake, I am alert, I am practicing.’

As I continue to be in the world of nature and let it teach me, I think that my awareness (consciousness) of it will increase my ability to find more wholeness, unity and peace. "

Rev. Naomi Kelly is a pastor, Spiritual Director and retreat leader.

 

 

Dorothy Day and the Archetype of the Orphan – join us tomorrow! ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Dorothy Day, the 20th century founder of the Catholic Worker movement and a Benedictine oblate, was very much committed to those who were “outcasts” and on the fringes of society.  She loved the widow and the orphan. She was passionate about the corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, sheltering those without homes, providing clothes for the naked. She was always trying to see Christ in “the poor lost ones, the abandoned ones, the sick, the crazed, the solitary human beings whom Christ so loved, in whom I see, with a terrible anguish, the body of this death.”

The fundamental experience of the Orphan is abandonment, feeling like an exile, and longing for an experience of being at home. The Orphan archetype in each of us is activated by all the experiences in which the child in us feels abandoned, betrayed, victimized, neglected, or disillusioned. We are all orphaned in one way or another simply because we are raised by parents with their own wounds and somewhere along the way they have orphaned us – we each have an inner orphan.

While our first instinct may be to run when our inner feelings of need and loneliness arise, the central task of the Orphan is to feel this pain of unmothered child. Ideally we do this hard work from a place of strength and feeling good rather than waiting until we feel awful. We are invited to face our experiences of pain and disillusionment. The Orphan calls us to wake up, let go of our illusions, and face painful realities. We all have losses and catastrophes, we all carry grief that has gone unmourned, that has been pushed away.

The Orphan can also help to crack open our intuition and empathy. Those who suffer much in conscious ways are often able to offer that as gift back to the community. The Orphan also invites us into an interdependence with others as we realize that we are all wounded in some way.

We live in a world rife with abandonment. What a gift we offer when we do not turn away this part of ourselves but welcome her or him to the inner door with open arms.

Join me tomorrow as I discuss the archetype of the Orphan in our free live video seminar. You can register here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall at Rabbit Room Arts

Abbey Fall 2016 online programs now open for registration

We are excited to bring you some wonderful online retreat programs this fall!

See below for our special combined registration offer and get the writing retreat free!

Writing as a Spiritual Practice Online Mini-Retreat

Thursday, September 15, 2016

This is a mini-retreat with two 1.5 hour live video sessions (recorded for later listening) where you will be invited into contemplative practices and guided writing exercises to explore writing as process and spiritual practice.

Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: Praying with the Elements

September 26-October 30, 2016

This is a 5-week online retreat based on Christine Valters Paintner's book Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire including extra written reflections from Christine, SoulCollage explorations with Kayce Hughlett and movement invitations with Betsey Beckman.

Honoring Saints and Ancestors: An Online Retreat for the Season of Remembrance

October 30-November 19, 2016

This is a 3-week online retreat to honor the month of November, a time to remember those who walked before us and receive their wisdom and guidance in our lives. Includes written reflections from Christine Valters Paintner, a guided meditation, an invitation to create an ancestors' shrine, and movement invitations with Betsey Beckman.

Birthing the Holy: Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine

November 27-December 24, 2016

This is a 4-week online retreat to honor the season of Advent, a time of holy birthing and tending to what whats to come to life within us. Mary will be our guide and Christine and John Valters Paintner will offer reflections on Mary's names and titles as well as gospel stories about her life, as well as movement invitations with Betsey Beckman.

Combined Registration Bonus:

Register for our three fall online series and receive the writing retreat free

Sign up for all three of our fall series online retreats:

Register here for Water, Wind, Earth & Fire ›

Register here for Honoring Saints and Ancestors ›

Register here for Birthing the Holy ›

then email the Abbey for free access to the Writing as a Spiritual Practice Online Retreat

Lughnasa and the Harvest of Our Lives ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

During July we are sharing some reflections from the Abbey Archives (and in August we will be taking a break from our daily and weekly newsletters for a summer sabbatical):

Lughnasa (pronounced Loo-nassah) is one of the ancient Celtic feasts celebrated on August 1st marking the time of the beginning of the harvest and the gathering in. It is said to honor the Celtic sun-god Lugh who was an ally to the farmer in the struggle for food. With the Summer Solstice six weeks before, you can start to really feel the shortening of the days in August in Ireland. There is a subtle shift in the light and the air that leans towards autumn’s crispness and cooler days.  The energy in the world is changing.

Autumn and winter are my favorite seasons so I love this time of just beginning to really feel the darkness growing. The doorway to mystery is beginning to open. In the mystical tradition of Christianity, darkness is seen as a rich time of incubation and rest. The fullness of summer’s growth has reached its peak and is now starting to wane and you can just begin to see the signs of nature moving toward her own storing up of energies for the journey inward the seasons ahead will invite.

Lughnasa is a time to gather in and to reap what has been sown. The other side of the wheel from Lughnasa is Imbolc, February 1st, when the very first signs of spring started to rumble awake on the earth. In these last six months, we have seen a cycle of flourishing and fecundity, both around us and perhaps also within.

It is sometimes thought of as the time of “first fruits” and is when the grain is gathered in. One of the central rituals for this feast is cutting the first corn and making it into a loaf for the Mass at church on August 1st or 2nd. In the Hebrides in Scotland, it is recorded that families would celebrate Lughnasa on August 15th in connection with the feast of the Assumption of Mary. Each family member would take a piece of the bread and walk sunwise around the festival fire and sing a song to Mary.

There is also an ancient tradition at this time of year in Ireland to go on pilgrimage, especially to climb the sacred mountains. The weather made for good traveling and sleeping under starlight. A pilgrimage is, of course, not a vacation, but an immersion in a landscape and a courting of holy disruption along the way.

This was an excerpt from our online self-study retreat Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year. The retreat includes invitations to reflection, contemplation, and creativity all rooting you in the call of this season.

We are taking a summer sabbatical from our daily and weekly posts starting tomorrow. We will be back on Sunday, August 28th!

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Earth Monastery Project ~ Litany for the Wayside

I am pleased to share another beautiful project created with the Earth Monastery Grant. Read on for Philip Wood's Litany for the Wayside. 

Phil Wood, Epping Forest, Essex

Description

Litany for the Wayside is a liturgical and poetic sequence with visual and musical responses.  It is rooted in a shared practice of attentive walking.  The primary vehicle of the Litany is journeying and the main location is the road, but elements of the sequence (poems, prayers, reflection, art and music) may stand alone or combine with others, whether in recital, protest, performance, exhibition or lament.

The Journey So Far

This Litany for the Wayside has developed around a call and response pattern.  I have been working on poems, prose-poems, nature writing and liturgy for around a year now, drawing on existing material from Walking Church.  I have also approached visual artists who have offered responses to my writing and have sometimes walked with me. Altogether, I planned eight walks, though I incorporated an earlier Richmond

'Herbalist, Edwina Hodkinson on Spice Path walk', Springwater Park, Bury

‘Walking Church’ walk and later added a tenth in St. Bees where we scattered my mum’s ashes.  In no particular order:

Springwater Park, Bury
Ramsbottom and Edenfield
The Spinney, Elton, Bury
Heaton Park, Bury/Manchester
Nine Pins, Leek
The Roaches to Buxton, Leek
The Ness of Brodgar, Orkney
Bees, Cumbria
Richmond, London
Grimston’s Oak, Epping Forest, London

Presently, I have three artistic collaborators:

Artist, Julie Foley
Architect and Illustrator, Ian Pentney
Film-maker, Nas Malik

Julie and I walked Springwater Park together in April 2016. The Springwater Park site is reclaimed land, having been a municipal refuse dump, heavily contaminated with waste from a local dye works. From the Park it is possible to see the source of the Irwell river in the distance, threaded between a complex horizon of hills.  It is a place where water is evident, both as a natural and a post-industrial presence.

I have so far written two poems and a liturgy which were inspired by the Springwater Park walks.  Julie Foley took the following poem as inspiration for her painting, 'The Sludge Beds from the Bleach Works in Springwater Park':

Julie Foley, 'The Sludge Beds from the Bleach Works in Springwater Park'

Springwater Park

On the close walk is something happening

not the news or P.M.Q.’s –

like a murmuring

between the stoop and Yarrow,

arousing wild memory

of a young river; a Roman road,

through the wide hills.  There are pools

in a mosaic, elliptical,

that learned the language

of birds and lines smoothed

under a wind-worked charm

of the forgiving grass, sinuously curving

while an army is marching nowhere.

I also did a second solo Bury walk in Elton, where I grew up.  Just off Dow Lane, a cobbled back-route between Elton and Walshaw, there is a remnant of the farmland that once existed between Bury and Tottington.  My uncle, a talented amateur artist, made sketches of green space and views of Holcombe Hill that I remember, but have now been lost to residential development. I have no idea of its proper name but we called it the Spinney. Generations of intrepid children, including myself, risked life and limb in search of newts and Sticklebacks.  When the housing estate was built the Spinney was destroyed, no doubt in a well-intentioned though risk averse attempt to tidy up the place.  This is an excerpt from the long poem, Spinney:

The Spinney, Elton, Bury

Fragments

A child dreams in the man:

Deep-drowned footings,

Ink-shadowed walls,

Oil slipping over stone.

Gone now!  The sodden wise earth,

Bestows her tenancies,

On whom she will.

The Flooded Cellar

Never again the pantry chatter,

Or Pond Skaters’ patter

On a smothered hearth.

The boy dreams, now the man,

Of Sticklebacks, unseen.

Those deepening, dark pools.

Both Spinney and Springwater Park touch on a theme that crops up many times in the Litany, the idea of natural and human succession, a dance of vulnerability and restoration.  Even against the backdrop of the ecological crisis there is a note of hope – a renewal of tenure, the unintended fertility of sludge beds that can learn the language of birds or the linearity of empire softened under the forgiveness of grass.

Tramway, Heaton Park, Bury & Manchester

Looking Ahead

The remainder of the Litany is currently under wraps and copyright but related themes – inefficiency, backwaters, nature mysticism, land rights, resistance and contemplation, etc – come together in the work.  As it stands we offered a taster of the Litany at the launch of our new quarterly poetry recitals, ‘Poetry by the Park’, at the Studio on the 9th May, 2016.

We will unveil much more of the Litany at the Stuidio on the 24th September, 2016.  That event will take the form of a reflective walk around Heaton Park, accompanied by liturgy, poems and visual art.  We intend to mark the place (which runs through the park) where pro-Brexit Bury meets pro-Remain Manchester.  Nas Malik is planning a photo mosaic which involves our walkers using their mobile phone cameras, before editing to form a mosaic. After the 24th we intend to take the Litany on the road beginning with London in November, where we will be joined by Axel Büker and a group of German Social Workers researching ‘Fresh Expressions of Church’.  It is a reminder to us that the focal point of the Litany isn’t art or even poetry, but walking.

 

 

 

 

Here are some more images taken from the walks.

Dead Thrushes, Springwater Park, Bury

Wayward Tree, Springwater Park, Bury

St Ann's Well, Buxton

'Which way now', Ramsbottom

'Writing the Litany in a Prestwich coffee shop', Bury

Rachel Mann, Veronica Zundel and Phil Wood at 'Poetry by the Park', the Studio, Prestwich, Bury

Earth Monastery Project ~ The Girl with a Gift

I am pleased to share another one of the beautiful projects created with the Earth Monastery Grant. Read on to learn about Monica McDowell, MDiv's The Girl with a Gift “Mustard Seed” Project.

The Girl with a Gift project was a creative and contemplative project used as “mustard seed” to multiply “earth as our monastery” awareness. The creative aspect of my project was my book, The Girl with a Gift, an eco-fiction, coming-of-age novel appropriate for ages 13 and up. It features climate change, spirituality, and earth care as background and foreground in the plot. The contemplative aspect of my project was the book discussion questions at the end of the book that groups read and discussed. The “mustard seed” aspect was offering my books to church/spirituality groups to read the book, discuss the questions at the end of the book, come up with their own earth projects as inspired by the book, and to share their projects with their larger communities.

The grant was used to purchase seventy copies of The Girl with a Gift which was distributed, read, and discussed at multiple churches and book clubs. After the discussions books were passed along to individuals and libraries.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal (SAE)

SAE distributed the books to three groups in their church: Women’s Friendship Circle, Sacred Grounds, and Creation Keepers, as well as to staff. They planted a plum tree to provide additional fruit for their food ministry and burgeoning organic gardens on site.

St. Paul United Church of Christ (SPUCC)

SPUCC has a Book Bunch that chose TGWAG as their selection for February and they discussed the book with me over Skype on March 22nd.  As their Earth Care Project, members pledged to:

Remember to use recyclable or cloth shopping bags, instead of plastic and invite others to do the same.
On a short term and to increase public awareness: On Earth Day/Earth Week, in April, we will request St Paul to publish on the church marquee, these words of the Vietnamese Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh: “Real Change will only happen when we fall in love with the earth”.
On a longer term and to invite St Paul to join us in this concern: we will request our church to publish one action item to care for the earth, every Sunday in the worship bulletin for 50 Sundays.
One time: One day this summer, one of our members will invite Book Bunch and others to get out and clean up a “road”.
Long term: Book Bunch will adopt a road as a “Book Bunch Road” to care for. We will invite others to join us.
Very long term, in participation with a church-wide dream: we will join in this dream to convert one of the church parking lots that is seldom used into “raised-vegetable garden to provide fresh produce for Martha’s Kitchen-Mary’s Heart and local food pantries”.                                                                                  

Others who read the book but who couldn’t attend the discussion also added suggestions such as stop using Styrofoam, and bring in Fair Trade to church.

Book club of St. Matthews Teachers/Retired Teachers (SMBC):

The SMBC members created an Earth Care Project in honor of Mary, one of their members who had recently died. They beautified the earth by donating a St. Francis statue that holds birdseed to her private garden and planted flowers around it. They memorialized this earth project with a ceremony and ritual, which was written about by another of their members here.

Salon Cerchio Book Club (SCBC):

The Salon Cerchio Book Club put up a bird feeder (pine cones with peanut butter and seeds) outside their offices. Next week they will be planting a tree in Lincoln Park in Seattle, WA.

What I learned:

This project was both meaningful and fun for me. I was able to publish TGWAG, writing group discussion questions for it with “Earth as Monastery” in mind. Participating in the book discussion with three of the groups was fascinating. This being my first fiction, I had no idea what to expect as to readers’ interactions. The questions at the end of the book that I provided and the questions they came up with themselves provided very stimulating discussions on earth care and spirituality.

What was most meaningful for me were the earth actions that the groups took and are taking, the commitments they made, and seeing how intentional they were about caring for the earth. The book and the group aspect created a nexus whereby they could come up with ideas and have the group support and accountability to do more.

Monk in the World Guest Post: Dianne Morris Jones

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Dianne Morris Jones' reflection titled “They Ruined Our Trail. . . .”

There are so many things fundamentally wrong with that statement!  However, it WAS the statement traipsing through our minds as Roger and I recently slipped and slid our way through the muddy “new” terrain of a favorite hiking trail.

We’ve hiked this trail often—through the icy cold of winter, watching the deer explore the frozen pond; through the budding beauty of spring, listening to the symphony of birds; through the heat of summer, consistently amazed at the green and the growth; and of course, through the changing lens of fall, absorbing the palette of fall colors as they unfold.

Yes, the trail WAS perfect—wide enough for the two of us to walk alongside each other and have Sterling, our silver lab, frolicking along just ahead of us. One of her favorite games was to run up ahead, just far enough to get out of sight . . . then turn and wait patiently for us. As soon as she spotted us she’d rush back to us, and then she was off again to repeat her game. Sterling always out-hikes—no, out-runs—us twice the distance!

But on this particular Saturday, we found the trail in ruins—or at least that’s how it looked to us. A bulldozer had chewed up our cherished path, tearing down adjacent trees and shrubs and doubling the width of the trail. Deep ruts marred the path, and as the snow had only recently melted, we found ourselves looking at a wide expanse of deep, sloshy brown mud. We were not prepared for this. Any of it! How could they ruin our trail?!

Let’s pause right there. What is it that made that trail ours? Of course, it didn’t actually belong to us. The trail is public property, a section of Maffitt Reservoir Park. If anything made it “ours,” it’s the memories we created there: the times we’ve enjoyed a hike with others, the hundreds of photographs we’ve shot, the thousands of steps we’ve taken—whether with hiking boots, running shoes, or snow shoes. The conversations this trail has witnessed are deep and rich—it’s there we’ve asked each other difficult questions, and listened for the answers. It’s there we’ve held space for silence as we walked along, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes one in front of the other. Roger and I are intentional about times of solitude amidst our full schedules of career, family, and travel, and it’s on this trail that we experience solitude together. We worship the Almighty along this trail—it is so natural to worship in His Sanctuary of the seasons, the trees, the geese, the flowers, the snowflakes, the sunsets, the water.

It’s all of this—the memories, the conversations, the shared solitude, the spontaneous worship that arises from being in creation—that creates the illusion of the trail being “ours.” I’m certain I’m not the only one who feels this way. One day we encountered a fellow snow-shoer who told us he’d walked the trail daily for 10 years. “I used to run it,” he proclaimed with pride. “Now I’m slower, but I’m here every day.” Surely the trail belonged to him as much as it belonged to us. Surely it belonged to all of us. . . .

Back on the day we discovered it in ruins, Roger and I looked at the trail in dismay. “Why are they ruining it?” I couldn’t help but cry out. “It was perfect the way it was!”  “Must be some sort of maintenance project,” Roger said as we began to stumble along the uneven path. The cuts in the earth were fresh, the “maintenance project” in its earliest, messiest stages. We clambered over felled trees and made our way around piles of brush, and tried to avoid the deepest ruts.

Early that morning I had read a reflection by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, and suddenly a line came back to me: “New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.”

All I’d seen on the trail was the dying: the place I’d known and cherished for so long was gone, and I was already grieving its loss. But there was another chapter to this story: with this “death” something entirely new would come to life. What would it be?  What was the master plan here? We’d only know in time.

The same holds true for life, doesn’t it? New beginnings arrive when old things are allowed to die.

Is this process happening anywhere in your life right now? What changes are you experiencing that signal a new beginning? What are the old things that might need to die so new life will have room to grow?

Just as in the trail project, we may have little idea of the master plan—and the “not knowing” can sometimes be as difficult as the grief that accompanies loss.

And what about the many interrupted paths that are bound to occur at some point or another? What if we’re on a path with little clue where it goes or even how we got there? Such trails come in myriad forms. Aging parents. Uncertainty regarding upcoming elections. The loss of a relationship. The fear of what comes next. Health struggles—our own or a loved one’s. A decision regarding education or career. A pregnancy—planned or unexpected. The difficult conversation that needs to happen. The mounting credit card bill.

Can we be still and hold the known with the unknown? Can we cultivate greater patience with not knowing?

“New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.”

Ask yourself what you need to let go of, what can be allowed to die. Whatever you’re going through, on whatever trail you find yourself, how can this experience be a moment of new beginnings? In the very midst of the mud, can you look for the signs of new life, just waiting to be born?"

Dianne Morris Jones is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator and Consultant (CDWF-C), a Certified Laughter Yoga Instructor, and is the author of STOP BREATHE BELIEVE:  Mindful Living One Thought At A Time and I’m Fine, a real feelings journal.  Dianne practices at Family Legacy Counseling in Des Moines, Iowa. www.diannemorrisjones.com