Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 112

Monk in the World Guest Post: Rich Lewis

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Rich Lewis' reflection on being nudged by God.

Is God Nudging You?

What are you doing with the questions you are asked by others? Are these questions God nudging you to take a specific action?

Let me share two questions that I was asked that I believe were God nudging me to take further action upon.

Before I share my first question, let me provide some background information.  In early 2014, I began reading Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity's Mystic Roots by Amos Smith. While reading Amos' book, I began emailing Amos questions about his book. What is the Jesus Paradox?  Why should I care?  Am I also a divine being?  What is this centering prayer?  To my surprise Amos responded and we began an email dialogue.  We continued to dialogue as I continued to read his book.

During May of 2014, Amos Smith asked me to co-author a book with him. Amos suggested that I write a book about what the Jesus Paradox means to me. (Amos defined the Jesus Paradox as, Jesus is “at once God and human”.  I spoke with my wife and within one week, I agreed.  Since June 2014, I have been taking time once a week for two to three hours at a local coffee shop to write my journey. My book chapters include topics related to:  prayer, centering prayer, the fruits of centering prayer, non-dual thinking, paradox, my inner divinity, the humanity of Jesus, the Cosmic Christ and the historical Jesus.

The point I want to make is that my response to this question sent me on an incredible journey into the Jesus Paradox.  I now wanted to learn more about this Jesus who was at once both human and God. If I had not been asked this question, I am not certain I would ever have begun this amazing journey which included becoming a daily centering prayer practitioner, exploring other contemplative practices, and learning more about both the historical Jesus and the Jesus of my faith.

Let's move onto the second question that I was asked. In June of 2015, a friend at church asked me to teach an introduction to contemplative prayer class at the adult forum at her church. She had recently finished seminary and was now Director of Education at this church. She knew I was a centering prayer practitioner. Initially I was nervous but I still agreed to take her up on this offer. Over about one week, I put together a one hour session that included a short video and left room for thirty minutes of questions.

In August of 2015, I taught this class.  Twelve people attended.  To my surprise, it went well!  There was much interest in silence as a new way to pray.  After this class, I thought to myself, why not take this on the road so to speak. I created an email and began contacting churches within a 30 mile vicinity of my house. I offered to teach a 45-60 minute introduction to centering prayer/contemplative prayer session at one of their adult forum settings. To my surprise, a few churches responded. Since August of 2015, I have taught at three more churches and I am coordinating with two other churches to come in and meet with them. I am also coordinating with another church to help them start up a centering prayer group for the local community.  This group will begin in the fall.

Recently, I also began contacting local colleges and universities and hope to meet with young adults. There seems to be much interest in contemplative prayer because soon I will be meeting with the campus minister at a local university to discuss how I can share contemplative prayer on the campus for students.  I believe that God was and is continuing to nudge me to share silent prayer with the community.

We are constantly being asked questions. I am not suggesting that we say YES to all these questions. However, I am suggesting that we slow down, be silent, pray and discern which questions are God nudging you to take action upon. God asked me two vital questions:  Do you want to write a book and do you want to teach a contemplative prayer class?  God was nudging me to share the Jesus Paradox and centering prayer with others. I pray that I continue to be open to God's future questions. I pray that you too are open to questions God is asking you. And more importantly, I pray that you take action upon them."

Rich Lewis is daily practitioner of centering prayer since June 1, 2014. Rich teaches contemplative prayer in his local community at churches, colleges and universities. Rich co-leads the RCMR team (www.RCMR5.org) and is currently writing a book with Amos Smith, author of Healing the Divide.

 

Ancestral Pilgrimage as Spiritual Practice ~ 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):

As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives. They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys. Parents, spouses, children, and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died. Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life. Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship. ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

I stood there at the edge of the Baltic Sea, on the beach at Jurmala in Latvia, and I felt a deep kinship to this place, which I had never been to before. Perhaps it was standing at this borderland place where forest meets the sea, the same kind of landscape I had inexplicably fallen in love with in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. Thousands of miles away I had met this place of wildness and fallen in love. As I stood in this ancestral land, I felt a connection, a kind of deep knowing.

Maybe the felt connection was because of the photos I have of my father playing on these same sands, the carefree days of his childhood long before the burdens of adulthood settled into his bones and the deep grooves formed on his forehead.

Whatever the source, walking this ancestral landscape brought me a sense of understanding and peace. My father had fled this country as a boy when the Russians invaded. He became a refugee, never to return home again in his entire life. I was making this journey in part on his behalf, to restore something that had been broken.

One of my primary spiritual practices these last several years is ancestral pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a journey of meaning to a sacred site, in this case, a place that was significant for my ancestors. I trace my genetic lineage back through England, Austria, and Latvia and have traveled to each of these places, some multiple times, as a part of my personal journey.

These journeys have changed me and brought much healing to my life and called forth even more from me. In the summer of 2012 I made an even more radical choice. After several of these ancestral pilgrimages, my husband and I moved to Vienna, the city where my father grew up after leaving Latvia and is now buried, as a deeper commitment to continuing this ancestral journey.

A pilgrimage is a special kind of journey, one taken to a holy place with the hope for an encounter with the sacred and the intention of being changed by what happens there and along the way. We don't go on pilgrimages to return the same person.

I believe we are profoundly connected to the land and culture and stories of our ancestors in ways we don't fully realize. Their experiences, their sorrows and joys are knit into our bones, woven into the fabric of our very bodies. The impulse to discover one's story often leads you to reach far back into history. We can't fully understand the impact of these connections until we stand on the land and speak the language of those who came before us and gave us the gift of life through our ancestors.

When I stood on the shores of the Baltic Sea in Latvia and imagined my father playing as a child in the sand and the waves, I connected to this experience of longing. I understood him in new ways. I saw the innocence of a young boy before the war came and shattered everything he knew. May Sarton wrote in one of her poems: "Now the dead move through all of us still glowing . . . What has been plaited cannot be unplaited . . . and memory makes kings and queens of us." Remembering what has been already woven into us is the task.

Each time I prepare for these journeys with excitement and anticipation, as well as fear and trembling, knowing I will have to confront the shadow sides of my family system. But it is in facing the dark depths that I no longer have to live in fear of them.

"If your journey is indeed a pilgrimage, a soulful journey, it will be rigorous. Ancient wisdom suggests if you aren't trembling as you approach the sacred, it isn't the real thing. The sacred, in its various guises as holy ground, art, or knowledge, evokes emotion and commotion," writes Phil Cousineau, in his book The Art of Pilgrimage.

I believe, along with psychologist Carl Jung, that the stories of our ancestors run through our blood and the unhealed wounds and unfulfilled longings continue to propel us forward or keep us stuck in old patterns. The stories of our grandmothers and grandfathers are our stories and we can help to heal the wounds of the past and in the process heal ourselves by telling those stories again, giving voice to the voiceless, unnamed secrets and to the celebrations, insights, and wisdom gathered over time.

Jung introduced us to the concept of the collective unconscious, that vast pool of ancestral memory within each of us. It is a kind of deposit of ancestral experience. He believed it comprises the psychic life of our ancestors right back to the earliest beginnings. Nothing is lost; all of the stories, struggles, and wisdom are available to us. Each of us is an unconscious carrier of this ancestral experience and part of our journey is to bring this to consciousness in our lives. "I became aware of the fateful links between me and my ancestors. I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete or unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors," he wrote. 

Consider making a pilgrimage to walk in the footsteps of your own ancestors, those everyday saints who struggled with life's heartaches and suffering. Spend time in the places that shaped their imaginations and their dreams; speak the language with which they whispered their most private secrets to one another, the words they used to express their aching sorrow and profound joy. It doesn't matter if you know nothing of the details. Walking, being, listening, and noticing the impact of trees, rivers, mountains, and sky on your own spirit is enough.

A pilgrimage doesn't have to be a long journey overseas. It might be to a nearby cemetery or a phone call with a living relative to ask about stories you have never heard before.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Gracia Sears

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Gracia Sears' reflection on art and service.

I sit in  the living room of our condo; I can see the Gulf of Mexico from where I sit. I savor this space.  It is my “cell” for three months of the year.  I read, I walk, and do small watercolors in my attempts to capture the essence of this seascape with its western view, its sunsets.  I have long savored sunsets and like many people seek them in the many places we have called  home. Now as I enter the last stage of my life I find them more appealing. Day is done they say but also there will be a tomorrow. I believe that.

My journey as a monk in the world began 6o years ago when bored while on vacation with my parents and siblings I wandered into town from our camp site and bought a beginners oil paint set. For the next two weeks I immersed myself in the world of color and smell of pigments. I was no longer  bored, I was enthralled.  This began my quest, though many of obligations such as marriage and motherhood intervened, I carried this little set and dreamed of the day I would return to it Finally I did find the time and Art became my religion. I believe the artist Emily Carr coined the phrase but it resonated for me.

For years I felt my obsession with painting was separate from my involvement in churches as we moved around the country. Slowly I came to realize the healing of wounds I had incurred along the way found their way into paintings. Where I may not have had words I had images that helped me resolve some of this pain.  People found their way to my studio with their wounds and through painting seemed to find peace. It was during this time that I really felt that art was my religion.  Like the root of the word religion I was re-connecting with the source. My life was fulfilled by being a midwife to others who were on similar quests.

I know how precarious life is and I practice living in the moment. Sitting in my cell,  I practice being a monk in the world by loving unabashedly all who have come before and those who will follow.

About 15 years ago I saw an ad in a hospital newsletter seeking pastoral visitors. I felt a nudge and even though I felt being a Unitarian/Universalist that my approach would be too secular, I applied.  There was a lot of serendipity in this move. I thought I was about to leave my artist life behind but the managing chaplain had other ideas. She thought I could and should integrate the two. During the past 15 years I have worked to enrich the lives of staff and patients with doses of art and I have gone from secular to a much more  spiritual life.

I have enjoyed the many offerings from the Abbey for the Arts.  I generally take a course during the winter months when I am separated from my colleagues in the Spiritual Care Department of the Medical Center where I spend my time when I am back up North. These courses continue to fill a deep craving I have for the spiritual life.  I met Hildegard of Bingen through one of these retreats and continue to find more and more about her from the Abbey and other people who have been similarly inspired.

For many years I have turned to creating Mandalas in my quest for deeper insights so when the Abbey included them in retreats I enjoyed sharing and seeing what others did. I found it another way to communicate as I did with the poetry and photography offerings.

My horizons continue to expand and I turn to nature to fulfill this quest. I read reflections by  Rev. Richard Ruhr and Thomas Merton and find my need for a community by worshiping at a Congregational church when back up north. This is part of the United Church of Christ or UCC. I have been told the UCC stands for Unitarians considering Christ. I guess that is where I am these days. For now I am going to soak up as much of nature as I can and worship in this cathedral of the universe.

As I sit here writing I can see a cairn I assembled from a walk on the beach. It is a stack of shells I carefully assembled. Life is like this little marker. It could be toppled in a moment but like the sunsets it could also be created again."

Garcia Sears is a nurse and also has a BFA degree in select studies. She combines skill from each to act as a "midwife" to others. She has been married  for 57 years to a wonderful supportive man. They have 4 sons, 2 daughters in law and 6 grandchildren whose presence enriches their lives.

 

Dancing Monk Icons Cards now available for purchase!

We are delighted to offer for sale a limited number of sets of the dancing monk icon cards

All 18 designs included – the original 12 dancing monks plus an additional 6 we added from the Irish Celtic monastic tradition (see list of names below).

These are printed on high quality cardstock, plastic-coated, with rounded corners, and in vibrant colors. Reverse side of all cards is the same design (see image to the right).

Size is standard European A6 size (74×105 mm).

Place your order by July 23rd and the packages will be mailed direct from Ireland in the beginning of August. Please allow another two weeks beyond that for shipping time.

To order outside the EU:

$25 per set when you order 1 or 2 sets

$20 per set when you order 3 or more (maximum of 10 sets)

$5 flat rate shipping (no matter how many sets you order)*

*After you add your item to the cart below you must select your country and zip/postal code and click "update cart" for shipping charges to appear.* (If you have no postal code, enter 0000)

*Please keep in mind that we do have to include customs forms for packages outside the EU and you are responsible for any customs duty charged on your parcel.

NON-EU: To order one or two sets use this button – 

NON-EU: To order three or more sets use this button – 

 

To order within the EU:

€25 per set when you order 1 or 2 sets

€20 per set when you order 3 or more (maximum of 10 sets)

€5 flat rate shipping (no matter how many sets you order)*

*After you add your item to the cart below you must select your country and zip/postal code and click "update cart" for shipping charges to appear.* (If you have no postal code, enter 0000)

VAT is included in the EU price.

EU ORDERS: To order one or two sets use this button –  

EU ORDERS: To order three or more sets use this button – 

 

*If you would like to order 10 or more sets please be in contact with us first.

 

Designs include the following monks and mystics from our series:

Hildegard of Bingen: I am a feather on the breath of God.

Benedict of Nursia: Let our hearts overflow with the inexpressible delight of love.

Mary, Mother of God: My soul proclaims the greatness of our God, my spirit rejoices in God.

Francis of Assisi: The world is my monastery.

Dorothy Day: Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet too.

Rainer Maria Rilke: May what I do flow from me like a river.

Amma Syncletica: We must kindle the divine fire within ourselves.

King David: David danced before God with all his might.

Prophet Miriam: And the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.

Thomas Merton: Join in the joy of the cosmic dance.

Brigid of Kildare: Christ dwells in every creature.

Brendan the Navigator: Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown.*

Ita of Kileedy: I thirst for divine love.

Gobnait of Ballyvourney: Go seek the place of your resurrection.

Columcille of Iona: Alone with none but you my God, I journey on my way.*

Kevin of Glendalough: He finds himself linked into a network of eternal life.

Ciaran of Clonmacnoise: Circle me God, keep fear without, keep joy within.

Patrick of Armagh: Christ within me and all around me, in everyone I meet.*

*Due to a lack of contrast in the colors for the quote above the icons, these three quotes are difficult to read, the rest of the icon itself appears beautifully.

Practice of the Holy Pause ~ 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):

Modern life seems to move at full speed and many of us can hardly catch our breath between the demands of earning a living, nurturing family and friendships, and the hundreds of small daily details like paying our bills, cleaning, grocery shopping. More and more we feel stretched thin by commitments and lament our busyness, but without a clear sense of the alternative. There is no space left to consider other options and the idea of heading off on a retreat to ponder new possibilities may be beyond our reach.

But there are opportunities for breathing spaces within our days. The monastic tradition invites us into the practice of stopping one thing before beginning another. It is the acknowledgment that in the space of transition and threshold is a sacred dimension, a holy pause full of possibility. What might it be like to allow just a ten-minute window to sit in silence between appointments? Or after finishing a phone call or checking your email to take just five long, slow, deep breaths before pushing on to the next thing?

We often think of these in-between times as wasted moments and inconveniences, rather than opportunities to return again and again, to awaken to the gifts right here, not the ones we imagine waiting for us beyond the next door. But what if we built in these thresholds between our daily activities, just for a few minutes to intentionally savor silence and breath?

When we pause between activities or moments in our day, we open ourselves to the possibility of discovering a new kind of presence to the "in-between times." When we rush from one thing to another, we skim over the surface of life losing that sacred attentiveness that brings forth revelations in the most ordinary of moments.

We are continually crossing thresholds in our lives, both the literal kind when moving through doorways, leaving the building, or going to another room, as well as the metaphorical thresholds, when time becomes a transition space of waiting and tending. We hope for news about a friend struggling with illness, we are longing for clarity about our own deepest dreams. This place between is a place of stillness, where we let go of what came before and prepare ourselves to enter fully into what comes next.

The holy pause calls us to a sense of reverence for slowness, for mindfulness, and for the fertile dark spaces between our goals where we can pause and center ourselves, and listen. We can open up a space within for God to work. We can become fully conscious of what we are about to do rather than mindlessly completing another task.

The holy pause can also be the space of integration and healing. How often do we rush through our lives, not allowing the time to gather the pieces of ourselves, to allow our fragmented selves the space of coming together again? When we allow rest, we awaken to the broken places that often push us to keep doing and producing and striving.

Pause right now and give yourself over to deepening your breath for five full cycles and just notice how you feel after a minute of practice. Could you offer yourself this gift of pausing before each new activity for the span of a day and just notice what happens? What do you discover when you simply stop and enter into your own experience? When we create these tiny windows and opportunities for recognition, we are able to see grace more easily moving through our lives.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Survey on Online Monasteries – Please reply

I have recently had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Br. Bernard, a Benedictine monk with the community in Rome at Sant'Anselmo. He has much interest in the phenomenon of new ways monasticism is being spread through things such as online communities like Abbey of the Arts and also hopes that we might collaborate in the future.

Would you be willing to help him with a project? He has a survey he would greatly appreciate your filling out to contribute to the research he is doing. I will be very interested to see the results as well!

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kathie Hempel

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kathie Hempel's reflection on being a monk at the grocery store.

What is your intention when you go to the grocery store?

Years ago I heard a popular television Bible teacher say God had taught her a lot about excellence at the grocery store.  Simple things like taking the cart back or putting things she had decided not to buy back in the spot they came from.

Ouch! How do we actually represent our beliefs throughout our day? How do we really walk as the mystics, saints and Jesus modeled for us? To me it has to be more than grand gestures, as crazy as that may sound. What can be more, mean more, than the grand gestures?

I will probably never go on a large mission trip. I do not have the money to finance a hospital wing or even make a sizable donation to my local church. How do I answer God’s call to serve as a monk in this world?

For a time, I worked as a child’s photographer and studio manager in a major department store. I had grown up in a very disturbed home, but I realized that I had the opportunity in that job to make sure that every child brought to my studio felt like they were smart, beautiful and valuable, at least for the time they were with me. I asked the same of my staff. Over and over there was tangible evidence that, that simple mindset, made a difference.

Many years later while standing in line at my local grocery store, there was a young mother unloading her cart to check out before me. She had refused her toddler his demand to grab one of the many check-out temptations and he was letting her know, very loudly, that she was not a ‘good Mommy.’

I moved to front of my cart and began to do my best ‘motor boat’ imitation. It had always gotten young one’s attention at the studio. The shrieking stopped. With a snivel the little boy looked at the strange old lady now standing directly in front of him. Mom looked up and then returned to quickly unload the groceries.

After exchanging a few of our best ugly faces the little boy and I were having a lot of laughs. Mom paid her bill and was ready to leave. She gave me a grateful look and a whispered thank you. I held her gaze and said, “You are a very good Mom. He is so lucky to have a Mommy who loves him enough to say no.” There were tears in her eyes as she nodded and continued on her way.

“God,” I prayed, “please don’t let me be the only one telling her that she is a good Mom.”  What if I were?

Since that day I have often acted out in grocery lines. And at restaurants and anywhere else I feel ‘the nudge.’ And I return my grocery cart.

Each day there are dozens of opportunities to be a monk in the world of my own backyard. I don’t even have to go outdoors.

What I do need to do is maintain a constant contact with that still small voice within. To be aware of what is happening around me. It can be the tone of an email from a friend, that triggers a ‘just because’ phone call and leads to an important conversation. What about all those Facebook messages asking for prayer? Do I just click “like” or, when prompted, do I send a private message letting someone I may never meet in person know I care and that they are worth more than a click to me?

When I am out of the house do I walk around looking at my feet avoiding eye contact or will I dare to risk rejection by looking those in my path directly in the eye? If I see pain, I can give the ministry of a smile. If I see a stumble or someone drops a package, I can lend a hand. If someone is short of change, I can share mine. If a child is getting on Mom’s last nerve, I can play motor boat.

I am a big fan of the late Leo Buscaglia. He often spoke of putting love out into the world with his stories of meeting a stranger on his daily walk. “Hello,” Leo smiles.

The stranger barks, “Do I know you?”

Leo says, “No but wouldn’t you like to?” The stranger grunts in the negative and stomps off.

The next day he meets the same man and the same exchange takes place. This time, however, when the man asks if he knows Leo, Leo responds, “Yes. We met yesterday.”

This kind of monk-like being in the world will not suit everyone and that is okay. We are all called to use the gifts granted us in different ways. We need but be aware of that mystical presence of the Divine that is omnipresent.

To me being a monk in this world is not about going out and looking for what good I can do, but it is about recognizing the good I might do, right in front of me. It is about becoming a vessel that can hold both the joyful and the painful equally. It is about not caring whether I am student or teacher knowing that the truth is that I am always both, if I don’t insist on being either/or.

Like the mystics of old, I am privileged to have a few very important mentors. We share life and insights. We make one another better than we are alone.

It has been said that the miracles many seek are too large and the God they rely on is too small. May I never limit my belief and need to be a monk in this world to only the grand projects. May I always know that my life is made up of all those tiny privileges to serve, waiting around every corner and in the next aisle."

A transplanted Canadian, Kathie Hempel is a freelance writer living in Buchanan, Michigan with her beekeeper husband Phil and her Bichon rescue, Bailey. A mother of three grown sons, Kathie developed a presentation for schools and churches, The Story of Bernie, based upon her experience with one son’s struggle with drug addiction and how from the darkest nights in our lives, our greatest lessons in faith and gratitude can emerge. Currently, she is working with her husband on their blossomland.com website and continuing to focus her writing on practical issues of faith.

The post Monk in the World Guest Post: Kathie Hempel appeared first on Abbey of the Arts.

Join us for Illuminating the Way and on Pilgrimage in 2017 ~ A love note from your online abbess

“Ruins are not empty. They are sacred places full of presence . . . The life and passion of a person leaves an imprint on the ether of a place. Love does not remain within the heart, it flows out to build secret tabernacles in a landscape.”  —John O’Donohue

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

The longer we live in this magical landscape, the more we fall in love with the beauty and the stories this place holds. One of our great joys in life is to welcome others here and create an experience of lavish hospitality while we cross the thresholds and into thin places.

Embark on a pilgrimage to discover something new about yourself.  It isn’t so much a choice you make, as a response to a call already whispered to you.  In the experience of encounter with strangeness and unfamiliarity, you are able to move out of your assumptions, expectations, and preconceived ideas, so a new way of seeing yourself and the world can break free.

Join our small band of fellow pilgrims along the wild and sacred west coast of Ireland.  Be just one of twelve visitors to some of the many beautiful monastic ruins near Galway City.  Be inspired to ponder the gifts of monasticism for our own lives.  As John O’Donohue writes, ruins “are sacred places full of presence” and the places we visit will nourish and inspire your inner monk, artist, and pilgrim. We will look for those “secret tabernacles” hidden in the landscape.

This is a different kind of journey; it is a pilgrimage, not just a tour.  You won't be spending each night in a different city and then moving on. You won’t be rushing from site to site to get it all in.  You will be rooted in a particular place.  Galway is a wonderful city for monks and artists – a medieval city with many beautiful and inspiring monastic ruins within an hour drive and a rich and fabulous creative arts tradition.  Music pours off the streets and out of the pubs. Becoming a monk in the world doesn’t mean removing yourself from life, but immersing yourself in the vibrant pulse of the world with practices to keep you centered. Come not to take, but receive. Don't be a tourist, be a pilgrim.

Until June 30th we have a special offer for early registration for our 2017 pilgrimages to Ireland which includes a signed copy of my book Soul of a Pilgrim, a set of dancing monk icon cards, and a special gift from the landscape all mailed to you. There are even discounts for those of you who have participated on a pilgrimage with us before.  Find out more here>>

We also have our FREE ongoing monthly series of calls exploring my newest book Illuminating the Way. See below for details. Next call is tomorrow on King David and the archetype of the Sovereign.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

The post Join us for Illuminating the Way and on Pilgrimage in 2017 ~ A love note from your online abbess appeared first on Abbey of the Arts.

Monk in the World Guest Post: The Rev. Dr. Gil Stafford

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Gil Stafford's reflection on walking the many paths of pilgrimage.

I have walked Ireland, coast-to-coast. Alone. I’ve walked the Wicklow Way with several pilgrim groups. I have also walked a pilgrimage with my sister through the physical and mental handicaps of Prader-Willi Syndrome. I’ve walked to death’s doorway with my mom. I’ve walked the failed pilgrimage of being the president of a university. I walked the mid-life career change. Pilgrimages take many forms. Traipsing through the forest of life. Climbing over the mountains of adversity. Enduring the climate of challenge. Over the course of countless miles and numerous days, the desire for living life as a pilgrim is to gain enough wisdom to live life as monk in the world.

A pilgrimage, whether literal or metaphoric, is a journey with the purpose of deepening one’s physical, mental, and spiritual wisdom. Each step of the quest carries the potential for an interior awakening. A wisdom walker observes everything that’s happening to her with the eyes of an owl, seeing light in the darkness—anticipating a profound internal transformation that is about to appear. To go wisdom walking is to be aware of the 360 degree experience that bombards the senses, stretches the thoughts, evokes the feelings, and expands the imagination. Complete awareness fuels the process of integrating the pilgrimage experience into the mind, body, soul, and spirit where the gold of wisdom is found.

For years, I thought my mentors were wise simply because they were uniquely gifted and had lived longer and had more experience than I did. I assumed their wisdom came easily. These wise sagas assured me this is not the case. While age and experience gave them the opportunity to become wiser, they told me without the hard work of fully embracing their journeys, both good and bad, successes and failures, they would have little counsel to offer. You have to walk the miles to gain the wisdom. One of my mentors guided me into the world of Carl Jung, alchemy, and archetypes. Archetypes are the universal symbols and images of the unconscious shared by all cultures—father/mother, king/queen, warrior/shaman, countless others. Alchemy, in psychological terms, is the ancient art of exploring those unconscious symbols in order to expand consciousness, soul gold.

Jung was a soul pilgrim, a world-traveler. He was seeking to learn about the universality of cultural archetypes. Simultaneously, he was confronting his own unconscious, the anima, the soul. Jung has provided me with a framework to understand what has happened to my mind, body, soul, and spirit while on multiple pilgrimages. I see all of life as a pilgrimage—walking in the world as a monk.

My sister Dinah and I were having lunch three months after our mother had died. Dinah has Prader-Willi Syndrome, complicated by infant brain damage caused by high fever. She has a profoundly limited vocabulary. Despite her limitations she is a wise crone, connected to God like a mystical saint.

Conversations with Dinah are haltingly slow. She asks about the children. Cryptically naming them. She wants to hear every detail of their lives. Dinah is most interested in our grandsons—and my dog, Jesus Jameson.

She tells me her stories—one word, silence, then another, more silence. I ask a question. More silence. She ponders the next word. Somewhere in the little strands of conversation she told me she had washed her hair that day.

“Do you wash your hair every day,” I asked.

She nodded an affirmative yes, as if to yes, idiot brother, don’t you.

I suffered the older brother chagrin. “Do you style your own hair? It looks nice.” I was struggling to recover.

“No, Joey,” she said referencing her beloved caregiver.

“You have beautiful silver hair Dinah,” I said in truth.

She said without hesitation, “My momma’s hair.”

I wanted to cry, but stuffed my emotions.

Then she said to no one in particular except herself, “My momma’s hair.”

Long silence.

Then she said, “Momma no more.”

I looked away. Our mother was no more. We sat in pristine silence. It was as if the entire restaurant, the outside world, and God herself had stopped breathing in communal grief waiting to hear what Dinah would say next.

Then she shook her head as if to drive the thought of our mother being dead out of her memory. She looked at me and changed the subject back to the dog. Time to move on to our new reality.

Living life as a monk in the world is walking whatever pilgrimage you must face. For me, this kind of life is Wisdom Walking, the alchemical four-stage spiral process of pilgrimage. In my own experience, wisdom seems to come through life’s trials. Typically, during those rough circumstances, I’ve sensed that something keeps turning up my psychic heat. Indeed, something is. The energy created by the daily grind of living through trials, suffering, and grief creates a fragile and unstable phase of risky opportunity. I have struggled to know if this was something positive or something that I should run away from in fear. Jung equated the experience of rising heat during a painful experience, with alchemy. For Jung, the alchemist’s chemical work of trying to turn lead into gold is a metaphor for the maturation process, individuation, which is most often initiated by life’s struggles. He believed that to become a fully mature person, we must integrate all the elements of our life, all the pairs of opposites, the good and bad, light and dark, pain and joy, failure and success, male and female. This is where the gold of alchemy will be discovered. The process of psychological alchemy utilizes the heat in our life to create psychic gold—a lifetime of healthy deep personal reflection, exercising our imagination, in order to uncover a new and individuated, mature, way of living with our pain.

Whether we’re walking through a forest, waiting for treatment in a hospital, or processing our grief, by imagining life as a pilgrimage, I believe we can live life as monks walking in the world."

The Rev. Dr. Gil Stafford is the Canon Theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona; previously the president of Grand Canyon University, as well the university’s baseball coach, winning three national titles. Stafford’s publications include his latest book, When Leadership and Spiritual Direction Meet: Reflections and Stories for Congregational Life.

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Celebrate the Summer Solstice ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In the northern hemisphere we approach the celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day.

The seasons are connected to the different cardinal directions, as well as the four elements. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century Benedictine Abbess, allied the direction of the south and the season of summer with the element of fire. We find a similar connection in the Native American Cherokee tradition.

We might think of summer as the season of fire and stoking our passions. It is the season of coming to fullness connected to the Hour of noon and midday, when the sun reaches its peak in the sky. It is the time of fruitfulness, when blossom gives way to sweet abundance of berries and peaches, delicate lettuces and gorgeous tomatoes.

While Beltane on May 1st invited us to tend to the very first fruits of summer’s arrival, the Summer Solstice announces the time for full fruits and an extravagance of color and sweetness in the world around us.

To honor the coming of summer in ritual, consider facing the direction of the south and taking some deep breaths. Let your breath draw your awareness down to your heart center, the place where the mystics tell us the living flame of love dwells within us. You might place a candle on your altar to remember the fire alive within you and the world.

Spend some time in meditation on what your own passions are. What would you like to kindle? Where have been the sparks of joy in your life? What is coming to full fruitfulness? How might you welcome in your own growing fullness?

To enter more deeply into the gifts of the Summer Solstice and the Feast of John the Baptist, consider registering for our yearlong Sacred Seasons program with a mini-retreat for each of the eight turning points of the Celtic wheel of the year.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

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