Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 114

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.

The post Monk in the World Guest Post: The Rev. Dr. Gil Stafford appeared first on Abbey of the Arts.

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

The post Celebrate the Summer Solstice ~ A love note from your online abbess appeared first on Abbey of the Arts.

Monk in the World guest post: Isaura Barrera

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Isaura Barrera's reflection on praying the hours to connect with Infinite Light and Love.

When I decided to explore submitting a guest blog, I looked up the word “monk” on Wikipedia and found the following quote from St. John Klimakos: “Angels are a light for monks, monks are a light for laymen.” These words echoed my belief that being a monk in the world is about light—finding it, reclaiming it, sustaining it, sharing it—not in contradiction to darkness but as a reality intimately intertwined with it.

I believe everyone receives Infinite Light and Love at conception, incarnate in the human light and love we are given to cultivate, safeguard, enjoy, and share. As a child, I had a strong sense of that light. That sense slowly lessened as I encountered “adult” reality I could not reconcile with it. About 10 years ago, haunted by memories of my childhood’s sure sense of Light and Love and inspired by a deep friendship that revived that sense, I started to journal my journey to reawaken it fully once again. It was a private search and a private journal, shared with only one or two close friends. Gradually, though, I’ve came to the realization that I need to share my journey more openly. The first step in that direction was the publication of my journal as an eBook. This blog submission is my second step. I’ve taken both steps with trepidation. Being a monk in the world when one is basically an introvert and private person is not easy. Even so, I keep feeling called to share my inner “monk self” more publically. My hope is that such sharing will help others and myself to trust the presence of Infinite Light and Love more consistently; that it will help me as well as others be more faithful through the ups and downs of our sensing of it.

For many years, I believed it was Infinite Light and Love itself rather than my sense of it that waxed and waned. Now I am learning differently. Inspired by Steinal-Rast and Lebell’s The Music of Silence and Wiederkehr’s Seven Sacred Pauses, I’ve started a simple practice.

Using the framework of the liturgical hours as a metaphor for the changing facets of my sense of Infinite Light and Love, I’ve developed a series of reflections in which each “hour” marks the degree to which I am sensing of Infinite Light and Love at a given time. It is a practice that helps me both attend to and cultivate the living out of Infinite Light and Love in my daily life. At times, it reminds me that when my sense of Infinite Light and Love is strong I should not cling to it, even as one cannot cling to the sun’s bright light at noon. At other times, it reminds me that I need not grieve its passing, for it will once again be strong and even darkness offers unexpected gifts.

Typically, after discerning which “hour” most closely corresponds to my sense of Infinite Light and Love at a given time, I reflect on that time—what it looks like, what feelings it evokes, its colors and sounds—and on discerning its invitation. If, for example, I do not fully sense Infinite Light and Love (a good time to turn to the reflections) yet I can intuit its presence “just around the corner,” I imagine a pre-dawn scene. If, on the other hand, my sense of Infinite Light and Love seems to be fading rather than emerging, I imagine a mid-afternoon scene.

REFLECTIONS

Still-hidden Light (Pre-dawn)

Am I filled with a growing sense of Infinite Light and Love gently nudging my darkness aside, giving off glimmers that herald its coming fullness like early birdsong heralds a coming dawn? INVITATION: Go forth to the very edges of your longing to receive what waits, wrapped and hidden from sight.

Light on the Horizon (Dawn)

Is my sense of Infinite Light and Love breaking over the horizon of my longing, sending streams of forgotten colors to announce its reawakening? INVITATION: Attend to what is being revealed and released from shadow.

Full Light (Mid-morning)

Is my sense of Infinite Light and Love clear, clothing my world with bright colors and ringing sounds? INVITATION: Embrace and give thanks for miracles revealed, reclaimed, and re-membered.

Luminous Light (Noon)

Am I filled with a sense of the transcending presence and strength of Infinite Light and Love? (May be a time of wonder or, at times, one that overwhelms, challenging my sense of security and control.) INVITATION: Celebrate eternity palpable in finite time and space.

Waning Light and Growing Shadows (Mid-afternoon)

Is my sense of the strength and presence of Infinite Light and Love fading, invaded by growing shadows of shifting feelings, memories, perceptions, and experience? INVITATION: Listen intently to the continuation of Light’s inner music, which never stops even as it becomes less audible, and its dance, which never ends even as it becomes less visible.

Lamp-lighting Time (Evening)

Is my sense of the absence of Infinite Light and Love increasing, erasing the boundaries between light and dark while, paradoxically, simultaneously offering bright splashes of color that pierce the growing darkness? INVITATION: Fill your spirit with splashes of color, distilled like honey from the pollen of all that’s blossomed in the day.

Darkness (Night)

Is my sense of Infinite Light and Love enveloped in darkness, challenged by the mystery of absence? INVITATION: Return the gift of presence to Presence, guided by “no other light than that which burns in your heart” (St. John of the Cross).

Vigil- Keeping Time (Midnight)

Has my sense of the absence of Infinite Light and Love deepened to where even heart’s light is having difficulty detecting piercing the darkness? INVITATION: Seek intimacy even in absence; tune in to the beloved melody of Infinite Light and Love, waiting like unsung notes to be given voice once again."

A lifelong spiritual explorer, Isaura Barrera lives in San Antonio, Texas. She has lived in Buffalo, NY, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Educational Research and Evaluation as well as in Albuquerque, NM where she spent 20 years as faculty in the Special Education department at the University of New Mexico. She recently retired as professor emerita from that university and is now following her bliss and pursuing a Master’s degree in Spirituality from the Oblate School of Theology. She has co-published three books focused on Skilled Dialogue, an approach she developed for crafting respectful, reciprocal and responsive interactions across diverse perspectives and values. Though these book indirectly reflected her spirituality it is only this year that she has published her first book with an explicitly spiritual focus, Beloved’s Gift: Reflections on Following Soul’s Song into Love, Hope and Faith.

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Do you hear your inner monk and artist calling? ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

The heart of human identity is the capacity and desire for birthing.

To be is to become creative and bring forth the beautiful.

– John O’Donohue

Discovering the monastic way has been one of the great joys of my life.  Years ago I thought the life of monks had nothing substantial to offer me in the world beyond the monastery walls.  Ironically, while growing up in New York City, one of my favorite museums was The Cloisters which is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the north end of Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River.  It was created from elements of five different medieval French monasteries. I loved wandering the cool stone hallways, gazing at the pages of illuminated manuscripts, admiring the unicorn tapestries, sitting in the peace and refreshment of the medieval garden.  I was not aware of it consciously at the time, but the aesthetic dimension of monasticism had captured my heart long before I knew about the contemplative wisdom and rhythms of prayer that would one day become my spiritual home.

While I was in graduate school I became enamored with Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th century Benedictine abbess who was an artist, visionary, musician, theologian, preacher, spiritual director, and healer. I was captivated by her sheer creative breadth.  I felt a kinship to her expansive spirit.  She could be a wisdom guide for me across time. I grew curious about the context of her life and what supported her creative flourishing.  As the Abbess of a Benedictine community, she was of course deeply immersed in monastic life and practices and so this became the doorway into my own passion for Benedictine spirituality.

Through Hildegard’s guidance, I discovered that the way of the monk is deeply connected to my path as an artist and writer.  Monks have been the great preservers of literary tradition, saving many sacred texts from destruction and loss during the dark ages and illuminating manuscripts with gorgeous art.  They have offered their gifts in the service of creating beautiful spaces of sanctuary.  Monasticism has given us the great tradition of chant to immerse us in the continuous cascade of praying the hours.  These ways of being in the world have been cultivated over hundreds of years of practice and offer us tremendous wisdom about what it means to live a meaningful, vital, and creative life.

When my husband and I moved to Seattle after graduate school, I made the journey toward becoming a Benedictine Oblate. I have a deep love of Benedictine tradition, as well as the gifts of Celtic and desert monasticism.  The monastic way is my primary path through the world and the foundation of my work in spiritual formation, direction, and teaching.

You may arrive to the Abbey as an artist or writer seeking spiritual practices to help ground and support your creative expression. Or you may be someone who is already familiar with the treasures of monastic tradition, but looking for another window onto this way of life. Perhaps you have intuitively known the connections between contemplative practice and creative expressions and this book will feel like coming home.

You are most welcome here.

To dive more deeply into the Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist, join us for our 12-week online journey in community which begins tomorrow!

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner at Corcomroe Abbey

The post Do you hear your inner monk and artist calling? ~ A love note from your online abbess appeared first on Abbey of the Arts.

Monk in the World guest post: Nancy Agneberg

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy Agneberg's reflection Mindful Moments. Sometimes.

I would have preferred to sleep a bit later this Sunday morning, but I am one of the presenters at the Adult Forum between services at our church, and we will attend the early service first. I have prepared my brief talk, a quick three-minute one, and am not nervous, but nonetheless, that is on my mind as I head to the lower level of our house to take a shower. I walk through our teeny-tiny kitchen and down the stairs. I take my shower and dress and, walking through the teeny-tiny kitchen again, I proceed to the first floor bathroom where I put on my make-up. 

Great, I think, when I am ready for the day, I have time for a bowl of cereal before we need to leave for church. It is then, only then, I notice something new in the kitchen, which I have walked through twice already this morning. It is Valentine's Day and on the window sill over the sink are four small red pots filled with fluffy, fresh herbs, a present from my forever Valentine husband. How could I have missed them?

Mindful? Not so much.

Another story. 

The next day I get in the car to drive to a friend's apartment. We are meeting to plan a talk on mindfulness, of all things, which we have been asked to give at church. I drive the familiar route along the Mississippi River dividing St Paul, Minnesota, where I live, from Minneapolis. I cross the river on the Ford Parkway Bridge and note how there seem to be a few small areas of open water on this bright winter day. I look for the soaring of a bald eagle, who frequents this area. No sign of him today, but just recalling other times when I have spotted him swooping close to the water is a gift of spirit. I make the turn to drive through Minnehaha Park, a route I always take to visit my elderly father in a nearby suburb. I congratulate myself for making such a mindful decision, choosing a longer route, but a less-traveled one, lined with gracious old homes and trails for walking and biking along the winding creek. Yes, a mindful decision, until I realize today my destination is not my father's apartment, but Ruth's apartment. I should have taken a left in the park, instead of a right, and now I will be late for our appointment.

Mindful? Nope.

I laugh at myself and remember St Benedict's kind, true, and apt words, “Always, we begin again.” I wasn't mindful. I wasn't present to the moment at hand, but I have yet another chance to begin again and to practice awareness. To wake up and be mindful. I know all to well that mindfulness is not something I can achieve. I can't cross it off my bucket or life list and announce, “Got it! I am now mindful.”

Some days I remember to be more attentive to the rhythm of the day, to my own breath and the quickening of my heart. Some days I remember to pause for a breath break at the end of one task before starting another. Some days I remember to give thanks before sitting at my desk to write a new post for my blog and work on a chapter for a much longer project. Some days I realize what I most need to do is choose a pretty note card from my stash and write to a friend who has had surgery recently or another friend, who needs to know someone is thinking of her right here, right now. 

Some days I am more mindful, but over time I have learned being mindful is more possible on the days I have started my day with an “on-cushion” practice. On-cushion practice refers to Buddhist formal meditation practices, but in my case it means devoting an hour or more to studying a sacred book, writing in my journal, praying and sitting in silence for twenty minutes or more, noticing my breath and the thoughts interrupting the stillness. Rev. Jane Vennard in her book Fully Awake and Truly Alive, Spiritual Practices to Nurture Your Soul says “the purpose of meditation practice is to take what is learned on cushion into everyday life.” Off-cushion. 

Off-cushion I give thanks for the morning light as I raise the living and dining room blinds. Off-cushion I make the bed and give thanks for a good night's rest. Off-cushion I notice signs of changes in the seasons as I walk our neighborhood. Off-cushion I watch young children frolic as they head to school, and I pray our children and grandchildren have a good day. I attempt to move through the day open to off-cushion opportunities and have learned the more I attend to them the more there are to discover. My heart yearns towards such fullness. 

Yes, I am mindful – until the next mindless moment, but even that mindless moment offers a gift. Now every time I walk into our kitchen, I smile at the cheery green herbs in their red pots, and I think about the considerate, loving nature of my Valentine. And the next time I drive the familiar route along the river and through the park, I suspect I will pay more attention to where I am going and what I am seeing. That is my prayer."

Nancy L. Agneberg is a spiritual director whose joy is helping others discover the richness of contemplative practices. After 20 years of living in other states, she and her husband have happily returned "home" to Minnesota. Currently, Nancy is writing a spiritual memoir, as well as frequent posts on her blog, Clearing the Space, One Woman's Journey.

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