Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 119

Community Lectio Divina: Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

We are returning this month to our weekly invitations to community contemplation and creativity. The season of Lent begins next Wednesday, so we invite you into a lectio divina practice with the words from the first reading for Ash Wednesday from the prophet Joel:

Even now, says the LORD,

return to me with your whole heart,

with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;

Rend your hearts, not your garments,

and return to the LORD, your God. —Joel 2:12-13

How  Community Lectio Divina  works:

Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and music).

How amazing it would be to discern together the movements of the Spirit at work in the hearts of monks around the world.

I invite you to set aside some time this week to pray with the text below. Here is a handout with a brief overview (feel free to reproduce this handout and share with others as long as you leave in the attribution at the bottom – thank you!)

Lean into silence, pray the text, listen to what shimmers, allow the images and memories to unfold, tend to the invitation, and then sit in stillness. The text for prayer is above.

After you have prayed with the text (and feel free to pray with it more than once – St. Ignatius wrote about the deep value of repetition in prayer, especially when something feels particularly rich) spend some time journaling what insights arise for you.

How is this text calling to your dancing monk heart in this moment of your life?

What does this text have to offer to your discernment journey of listening moment by moment to the invitation from the Holy?

What wisdom emerged that may be just for you, but may also be for the wider community?

SHARING YOUR RESPONSES

Please share the fruits of your lectio divina practice in the comments below (at the bottom of the page) or at our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group which you can join here. There are over 4000 members and it is a wonderful place to find connection and community with others on this path.

You might share the word or phrase that shimmered, the invitation that arose from your prayer, or artwork you created in response. There is something powerful about naming your experience in community and then seeing what threads are woven between all of our responses.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

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Monk in the World guest post: Judith King

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Judith King's reflection on a soulful entry into the day:

Soul Breakfast

Preparation time: 1 Good Night’s Sleep

Cooking Time: 45 mins-1hour

(For best results try 3-5 times per week)

Ingredients

1 Gratitude statement per foot on the floor first thing

1 Mindful Minute at back door or best view window

I Lemon Cleanse (glass of hot water, good squeeze of fresh lemon and 2-3tbsps cider vinegar)

1x The-Way-of-the-Three-Steps (Sr Jose Hobday, Plains Tribe Prayer) *

10-15 mins of Body Pleasing (Tai Chi/Yoga/Dance/Betsey Body Prayer)

1 verse of a Poem/Psalm proclaimed aloud (a personal preference Mary Oliver’s ‘Good Morning’ from Blue Horses) or a sung chant

15-20 mins of Silent Meditation

1 round of remaining Morning Prayers (personal favourites John O’ Donohue’s Morning Offering.  Macrina Wiederkehr’s The Awakening Hour prayers from Seven Sacred Pauses, Thomas Keating’s Welcome Prayer, Our Father, Charles De Foucauld Prayer of Abandonment)

1 hot, aromatic shower

Serving Suggestion: Follow the above with fruit, porridge and a cup of hot tea or whatever might be the culturally appropriate body breakfast where you are!

As often as I can, I attempt to make a slow, soulful entry into my day.  I trace this need back to the millennium.  In the summer of that year I was involved in an accident, literally knocked down by a bus, (yes, the proverbial actually happens to some people!!). Thankfully, none of my injuries were life-threatening but recovery nonetheless took many months.  A few weeks in hospital was followed by a necessary return to my family-of-origin home to be cared for.  At first, even when doing simple tasks like showering or making a cup of tea, I required help.  Gradually I recovered my independence and began to track each little milestone with quiet cheers and deep gratitude.   It was humbling to realize how much I had taken for granted.  I was in my mid thirties, I was on a particular trajectory with work and life, busy with all kinds of commitments and suddenly it was like I just fell off the side of the world! As I hobbled about awkwardly on crutches, I used to watch people walking and truly marveled at their ease and grace.

Eventually, I was strong enough to consider a return to work.  I began part-time at first, mostly because it took me so long to get ready in the mornings!  The limitations posed by my injuries and pain at first meant that my morning rituals were a long-drawn out affair.  As my strength recovered I continued to take my time in the mornings and it was more than a year later before I realized that what was once an involuntary necessity had gradually become a desired practice and so I began to guard zealously the day’s precious beginnings and daily prepared myself a soul breakfast.

Prior to that ‘turnaround’ summer I had dabbled in meditation and journaling practices now and again but the drag of habit and routine meant that many weeks might pass between these bouts.  Equally, I made intermittent, enthusiastic attempts to do some yoga classes or tai chi or 5Rhythms but I never managed to commit to any of them enough to weave them into my daily life.  After the accident, however, when my whole being began to thirst for ways to lift and regulate my energy levels and my spirit longed to integrate the meaning of this eruption into my life, I returned to these body and soul practices with a completely new mindset.  It was almost easy to commit to a daily routine because my need for their healing power was so great, like the deer that yearns for running streams.

The first springtime after my accident I was introduced to the practice of keeping a gratitude journal – recording, just before sleep, the five things you are most grateful for in the day gone by.  A soul supper, if you like! Fifteen years later I have a shelf full of such journals and can attest to the transformative power of this practice! It is extraordinary to me how this simple practice has since received such global attention in the intervening years.

The street on which I was knocked down was called Exchange Street and I have often thought what an exchange indeed came to pass.  An instant on that fateful July day, 2000, became the seedling for an inner transformation, by the end of which I had exchanged my previous life of ego-striving, petty anxieties and completely taken-for-granted physical vigour and energy, for a new life of consciously and daily attending to gratitude, humility and mindful embodiment.  I know in my body and bones that we are soul pilgrims on a journey and the quality of that journey and the interactions with those whom we meet on the way is just about all that truly matters.  The gifts I have received in the intervening years have been abundant and manifold.  Among them I include finding this community of other monks in the world with whom to share this pilgrim road, guided as we are by our dear Abbess who writes us love notes, for God’s sake! As an Irish person it is especially meaningful to me that we are working together to embody these eight ancient and new practices into our daily lives – a fitting and living tribute to the hundreds of beautiful monastic ruins that dot our landscape.  These days, all that is within me rails against the kind of mornings where I am in a rushed grasping for food, transport and last minute work preparations.  Some days, unless I rise extremely early – and sometimes I do – I have to settle for the Feet on the floor pause for gratitude, the Mindful Minute and the Way-of-the-Three-Steps Prayer – a mini soul breakfast, as it were.  But Ah! The full breakfast is as satisfying to me as “the full Irish” might be to my fellow citizens.

Judith is a psychotherapist, teacher and group facilitator, living and working on the east coast of Ireland.  She has also begun to write more publicly in the past year, thereby attending to a long-seeded desire to do so.   She finds the Abbey of Arts and its resident Holy Disorder of Monks a most inspirational source of companionship and creativity.

 

 

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Feast of St Brigid + Free Mini-Retreat ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Brigid, one of the most beloved saints in Ireland.

In late April I have a new book being released titled Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics in which I explore 12 monks and mystics through the lens of archetypes, those great universal patterns we all contain within us. Brigid is featured inviting us to consider our own inner Healer. Here is an excerpt (and see below for a free mini-retreat to explore her feast day further):

Most of what we know about St. Brigid comes from the Life of Brigid written by the monk Cogitosis in the second half of the seventh century. The Life emphasizes her healings, her kinship with animals, her profound sense of hospitality and generosity, and her concern for those oppressed. These stories of the saints are not meant to be literal or historical, but spiritual, mythical, archetypal, and psychological, resonating with the deepest parts of our souls.

Her feast day is February 1 which in the Celtic calendar is also the feast of Imbolc and the very beginning of springtime. It is the time when the ewes begin to give birth and give forth their milk, and heralds the coming of longer and warmer days. She is the first sign of life after the long dark nights of winter. She breathes into the landscape so that it begins to awaken. Snowdrops, the first flowers of spring are one of her symbols.

On the eve of January 31 it is traditional to leave a piece of cloth or ribbon outside the house. It was believed that St Brigid’s spirit traveled across the land and left her curative powers in the brat Bride (Brigid’s Mantle or cloth). It was then used throughout the year as a healing from sickness and protection from harm.

Brigid’s feast day is also connected to the Christian liturgical year, followed by the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus on February 2. The day invites us to remember Mary and Joseph’s visit to the Temple to present their child Jesus on the fortieth day following his birth, as Jewish law required, and for Mary to undergo the postpartum rites of cleansing. Luke’s Gospel tells us that the prophets Anna and Simeon immediately recognize and welcome Jesus. Taking the child into his arms, Simeon turns his voice toward God and offers praise for the “light for revelation” that has come into the world.

Inspired by Simeon’s words, some churches began to mark the day with a celebration of light: the Candle Mass, during which priests would bless the candles to be used in the year to come. Coinciding with the turn toward spring and lengthening of light in the Northern Hemisphere, Candlemas offers a liturgical celebration of the renewing of light and life that comes to us both in the story of Jesus and in the natural world. As we emerge from the deep of winter, the feast reminds us of the perpetual presence of Christ our Light in every season.

In Ireland Brigid is even called Mary of the Gaels and was said to be present as a midwife to Mary at the birth of Jesus. She crosses thresholds of time and space and these stories often break the boundaries of linearity. It is said that she was born as her mother crossed the threshold of a doorway. Women giving birth often stand on the threshold of a doorway and call out her name.

Brigid was a powerful leader and one of the founders of monasticism in Ireland. She was an abbess, healer, soul-friend, prophet, and more. Many miracles are connected to her, especially related to milk. She had a white cow who could give as much milk as needed. A small amount of her butter miraculously feeds many guests. There is a sense of lavish hospitality and generosity connected to the spirit of Brigid. Many of the stories connected to her, reflect the dignity of the ordinary tasks, especially in the home. No more divisions between what is worthy of grace and beyond the scope.

To celebrate the feast of Imbolc, which in the Celtic calendar is the very early beginnings of spring, we have a gift of a free mini-retreat which is a part of our Sacred Seasons self-study journey through the Celtic wheel of the year. Go to this link and scroll down to the heading Seasonal Themes and you will see the first retreat offered there to try for yourself. Reflections by John Valters Paintner and myself, invitations to meditation and creative practice, a song about Brigid, and a dance led by Betsey Beckman are some of the treats waiting for you there.

I am returning to my regular contributions to the Patheos website, this time with a blog titled The Sacred Art of Living. You can read my intro article here>>

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing monk icon of St. Brigid © Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts (you can order prints from her Etsy shop).

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Monk in the World guest post: Louise Crossgrove

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Louise Crossgrove's reflection on contemplative writing for social media:

Being a Monk in the World – Does Facebook Count?

This may seem odd as a practice, but I write and respond contemplatively to posts on Facebook. Until recently, my writing had all but stopped. I used to write on a daily basis in my journal. When family issues became more than consuming, the first thing to go was my creative energy. I had retired from full time nursing, though I did return as a casual employee. A niece and her blind daughter moved closer and most days were spent in supporting her and driving the hour to her place and back.

When I retired, I had expected to have more time to devote to writing and pulling from previous writings and poems, the contents for a book or two. I had expected to bring to the world, my words of wisdom to a larger group of people than my weekly emails could reach. I had also amassed an enormous collection of other people’s poems and quotes that spoke to my heart and I considered them lessons from the Masters. Each day, a new quote would be perused, read carefully and I would consider how I could incorporate each message into my life.

In the midst of the family turmoil, I looked forward to Monday afternoons when I attended a regular meditation circle. I started to guide in this circle once a month. My preparation consisted of reviewing the aforementioned quotes and poems and using them as the foundation of my guided meditations. Spending time to put together the bits and pieces of a meditation seemed like a kind of meditation all on its own. Looking at quotes to decide which ones spoke to me and how I could use it, became a practice that I looked forward to. Deciding on a recurring theme in my choices for the meditation, took a deepening into myself – to understand the quotes on a different level than if I just read them once. What to put on the focus table took discernment and silence; to decide what figures, objects, cloths and colours I would use for the meditation. During the times I contemplate which quotes to use, which objects for the focus table, which music for the first 10 minutes of the meditation time, I am required to open and expand myself in order to discover all the messages each medium has to give. It is as if, during the preparation, I enter the meditation – to seek the layers and the depths of each quote, or accompanying questions that I pair with the materials. I end with a blessing or prayer I either borrow or create myself. That Monday Meditation Circle continues to today.

This brings me back to the kind of writing I do now. Facebook originally baffled me. Why would people choose to use a public social platform when there are emails and phone conversations which are more private? After about three years of being an observer, I started to do more than press the “like” button. I began to respond to other people’s writings. These “friends” of mine began to express their opinions and talk about their own journeys with illness, deaths, seeing the struggles of the poor and cruelty to animals. They wrote comments about what they thought of these worthy and thought-provoking topics. They asked the readers to consider getting involved with some cause or other. I saw that women were writing in a way that supported women’s issues and their different take on relationships. I started hesitantly and gradually I became an avid responder. When I feel deeply and passionately about something that was posted on Facebook, I find myself really thinking profoundly about the topic or solution. I have been able to bring my deeply held understandings of human nature and medical issues that are close to my heart to Facebook. I am a serious writer. I had worried that perhaps I would not ever write again. Yet, as I began to post my thoughts to specific pages, ideas that were plumbed from deep inside me demanded that I continue the practice. The careful and considerate responses or original compositions occurred because I took myself aside in time, went deep inside of myself and trusted that my inner wisdom would surface. I trusted that what I had to say was meant to be broadcast in this way. I also felt that whatever channel I opened in the act of writing a commentary or my own considered thoughts would contain a higher level of poetic wisdom. I do not, as yet, write on Facebook every day from my centre. It could be said I am still figuring out how I want to use Facebook in ways that are optimistic, positive by nature and will be helpful to others.

Is any of this a credible description of a Monk of the World practice? For me, the act of writing is a contemplative one. I am a seeker of wisdoms and I also want to reach out to people through my writing. I am only one voice on Social Media. I do want that voice to matter and bring a reverence for life and beauty to the attention of those who seek a way of living with wonder in their eyes and heart. With my practice of occasionally writing from a place of empowerment and love on Facebook, I do feel that my life has become enriched. This is only one of the ways I am living as a monk. It is, however, beginning to count for more.

Louise is a retired Occupational Health Nurse, who still uses her nursing skills to teach and empower people to take charge of their own health needs. She is married to a retired Naval Officer and resides in Victoria, on Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

 

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Creativity and Social Transformation

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Last week I shared that 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of Abbey of the Arts’ existence as a virtual monastery. I will be reflecting back on some of my reflections from the Archives and tracing the development of the Abbey this year.  From the beginning, my heart has been sparked by the conversation between contemplative practice and creative expression and how it might be a force for transformation in the world.

Here is a reflection I wrote in the first month of creating the blog on Creativity and Social Transformation:

If in the Judeo-Christian tradition we believe that we were created in the image of God, a God who is continually at work bringing to birth the Universe and the God who “makes all things new” then why isn’t creativity something that gets more attention in our church communities?

I think, in part, it is because creativity is threatening to institutions and to the status quo. Also, from working extensively with persons in ministry, church culture can be just as consumed with busyness as the rest of the culture (sometimes even more so) and creativity takes time and space to nurture and nourish.  It requires a real commitment to cultivate.

“Creativity” is also one of those words that can conjure up images of self-help books or seem self-indulgent when there is just so much other work to be done.  Creativity itself is also a neutral term, essentially meaning to make something new.  It can be a tremendous force for good or for bad—even things like nuclear energy and war technology are brought into being through the insights of the creative process.

Precisely because of this spectrum of creative acts do we need ways of bringing creativity into a communal context, into conversation about the promise (or potential detriment) of the new ideas being born within us.  We need places where we can hold the new things emerging in the context of discernment.  Creativity also requires practices like Sabbath-keeping, humility, dream-tending, ways of freeing the imagination, and making space (and many others) to be nurtured in healthy ways, practices about which our religious traditions have great wisdom and which I will continue to explore in more depth here and in my own life.

We live in a time that so desperately needs new visions and ideas, new ways of being and doing in the world.  How do we negotiate peacefulness and alternatives to war and hunger and the ravages of illness?   How do we make our communities places where we can all thrive together?

We may begin creating for ourselves, delighting in the joys of self-expression, claiming ourselves as artists of our own lives—an often difficult, and necessary, step and why books on creativity are often bestsellers.

But a commitment to creativity and the practices that help to support it ripples out far beyond our solitary concerns, especially when intentionally brought into the community.  What would happen if our faith communities dedicated themselves to being places of healthy creativity?  What kind of power might we unleash if we gathered together to dream dreams and free our imaginations to discover new possibilities and new ways of being?

Creativity is nothing short of essential to our vitality, our hope, and our future.

I also have an article in the newest issue of Network Ireland on “Earth: The Original Monastery.” If the article resonates with you, you might be interested in joining us for our Lent online retreat.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

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Monk in the World guest post: Amy Livingstone

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Amy Livingstone's reflection on creating beauty in a broken world:

“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.”   – Terry Tempest Williams

Being present to beauty and the sacredness of the creation is the ground of my contemplative and creative life: a cobalt blue, handmade ceramic teacup; rainbows twinkling on a canvas from the crystal hanging in the window on a sunny day; reading poetry under the Sweet Gum tree; or a tiny spider weaving her web on the fading hydrangeas.

Silence, solitude, and stillness are the holy trinity that nurtures my work as a contemporary sacred artist and spiritual activist. Though I live within the boundaries of an urban landscape, I am surrounded by a bountiful amount of trees, a wild garden, and abundant birdsong, and am deeply aware of how blessed I am to inhabit this sanctuary space where I live and work—gratitude for this “one wild and precious life” to borrow from Mary Oliver.

My morning practice begins with silent sitting, reading of a sacred text or poetry, and contemplating the beauty of the creation, followed by art making which is a process of devotion for me. I begin my time in the studio with a ritual of lighting candles and incense as an offering, and I dedicate my work to the healing of all beings and our beloved planet.

Though my work as an artist invites long solitary hours in the studio, as a monk in the world I am called to bring my message out to a wider audience—through what Andrew Harvey defines as sacred activism. Exhibiting my paintings, creating an ineractive installation, leading nature-based ceremonies, speaking, writing, and offering workshops all contribute this calling to serve the healing of our world.

The larger vision for this soul path has been to raise awareness of the ecological crisis that I believe is born of our separateness from each other and the living body of earth. Drawing inspiration from all our religious traditions and from the earth-based wisdom of our ancestors, the intention for my sacred art is to communicate a new cultural narrative that is grounded in our innate interconnectedness in the web of creation and reverences the earth as holy. The overarching message being that no matter what faith we choose or inherit, including science, we are all born of the earth.

Having long been concerned about the plight of endangered species, some of my paintings address this critical issue including my recent painting, “Prayer for the Birds,” that includes some of the North American birds threatened by climate change. This painting is one in a four-part series called “Where I Stand is Holy” and is inspired by illuminated manuscripts.

Like most of us, my life didn’t start out this way. It was an underworld journey through grieving after the death of my brother from AIDS followed by the sudden death of my mother when I was 30 that was my initiation into this new consciousness, though it took a decade before I found the courage to answer the call of my soul. To quote Rumi: “The wailing of broken hearts is the doorway to God.” Though I had been making art in some form since a child, fifteen years ago at the age of 40, I left behind a high-stress, graphic design career to work professionally as an artist and to pursue this spiritual calling.

Once I stepped through this threshold, new pathways appeared that have contributed to my contemplative life of art, spirit, and service. The most significant of these included a training with environmentalist Joanna Macy, completing graduate work in our world’s spiritual traditions, and a pilgrimage to Peru where I learned the ancient ways of the Q’ero who continue to live high in the Andes in deep reciprocity with the natural world, Pachamama (mother earth).

As an introvert, I am most at home in the warm embrace of my sanctuary space and garden, but I am called to step through fear as it emerges and trust that this is what is being asked of me during this lifetime. I believe we each have a gift to offer our world and it is vital to do so during this evolutionary time in our human history. At the heart of all my work is a deep love for the earth and profound grief for all that we are losing with the escalating ecological crisis including climate change. Transmuting my grief by “creating beauty in a broken world” to quote Williams, is my gift and my prayer.

Amy Livingstone, MA, and founder of Sacred Art Studio in Portland, Oregon is an award-winning contemporary sacred artist and spiritual activist. In addition to creating art on commission, her work has been exhibited widely around the Pacific Northwest, resides in many private collections, and has been featured in numerous publications.

www.sacredartstudio.net

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Earth: The Original Monastery (new article in Network Ireland)

When I long to go on retreat, it is most often the sea or the forest which call to me. Everything in nature can become a catalyst for my deepened self-understanding. The forest asks me to embrace my truth once again. The hummingbird invites me to sip holy nectar, the egret to stretch out my wings, the sparrows to remember my flock.

Each pine cone contains an epiphany; each smooth stone offers a revelation. I watch and witness as the sun slowly makes its long arc across the sky and discover my own rising and falling. The moon will sing of quiet miracles, like those which reveal and conceal the world every day right before our eyes.

In our spiritual and religious traditions we categorize our experience in a variety of ways but often forget that the earth is the primary source of these categories.

Click here to read the entire article at Network Ireland>>

If this article resonates with you and you want to explore further, consider joining us for our online retreat for Lent on Earth as Original Monastery.

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3 Spaces Left in our Vienna Pilgrimage

Join Christine & John Valters Paintner and an intimate community of dancing monks November 12-20, 2016 in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria where we will stay in a Benedictine monastery guesthouse right in the heart of the old city. Imagine days spent reflecting and immersed in contemplative practice, visiting other gorgeous monasteries in the area, and wandering the city illuminated by the glow of Christmas markets.

Just 3 spaces left!  Click here for more details>>

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Abbey of the Arts celebrates 10 years in 2016 ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

I have been savoring some time of reflection over these midwinter days. Now is an especially ripe opportunity for looking back and forward because in 2016 Abbey of the Arts celebrates its 10th anniversary of ministry and service. In many ways the Abbey began years before 2006, as the seeds were planted in my years of teaching high school and working as a campus minister, then going on to pursue my PhD in Christian spirituality, study spiritual direction and expressive arts, and my early years living in Seattle listening for how to bring the things I loved most together.

Our existence as a virtual monastery and global community, however, began as a blog called The Sacred Art of Living dedicated to being “a place for conversation around the intersection and integration of spirituality, creativity, and the arts.” That conversation has continued over time, although the name changed to Abbey of the Arts about a year later and a community was born.

My desire in first creating a blog was essentially to retrain myself to write for everyday people. I had finished a PhD in 2003 and had spent years immersed in academic jargon and research. But my desire was always to reach a wider audience than just those we find in universities.

As part of this anniversary, I am going to take the opportunity each month to reflect on each of our past years of history. So starting next week I will look at 2006-2007, the old blog posts, the movements of the Abbey, and share some of the highlights as a way to track the unfolding of what has been created. In February I will move on to the following year, and so on. Many of you have asked me at different times how the Abbey came into being, and this is one way I can begin to track this evolution more clearly.

To be sure, when I began this adventure, I never imagined I would be living in Ireland leading pilgrimages all these years later with nine books written. There have been so many wondrous surprises as well as struggles along the way.

This year we are also returning to our monthly opportunities for contemplation and creativity in community. Starting in February each week we will be posting an invitation to lectio divina, poetry, photo, and dance parties based on monthly themes.

I am full of anticipation over this chance to pause and reflect and see where the Abbey is going in the next 10 years.

Thank you for all the ways you support this work in the world.

Registration is open for our Lent & Easter online retreat on Earth as Original Monastery. I would love for you to join us and deepen our intimacy with all of creation.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

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Monk in the World guest post: Mary Anne Dorner

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Anne Dorner's reflection on aging with grace:

Dyeing to be young . . . Reflections on turning 70 . . .

I tell myself I am not like other women…I don’t spend endless hours prissing and preening myself in front of a mirror…nor do I spend countless hours at a gym working out on exercise machines, or doing jazzersize routines to pulsating music, or spinning for a time on a static bicycle.

No…I would rather spend my morning hours mindfully losing myself in contemplative prayer, and then writing my reflections in my spiritual journal, and topping off my sacred time by going for a quiet walk and engaging the natural world around me with contemplative photography.

I am not like other women.  I do not jog down the walking path, or ensconce myself in hot yoga (which would be easy to do in my own back yard in the heat of the Florida summer).

My mornings are devoted to monastic silence, both at home caught up in prayer and Mystery and then outdoors for more awakening with Mother Nature.

Several times a week, if not too hot, I quietly close the door behind me on my way to visit my beloved water lilies.  This makes it officially a social visit, not exercise.

As I leave the house I listen to the soft cooing of doves that nest outside my office window.  I pause to say a silent prayer at each of the eight stepping stones that I have made over the years with each of my grandchildren.

Then there is often the squawking of an old crow waiting across the street for me to walk down Ancient Oaks Boulevard with her.  Sometimes we chat away.  Other times she hides up in the trees or circles overhead.

I pass the ponds just as dawn breaks.  I see the beauty of the trees nestled around and reflected in the tranquil water.  That is where I look for deer who are taking a quick sip of water before going back into their hiding in the woods as civilization approaches.

There are cars whizzing by on Ancient Oaks, but I am walking.  I am not like those people in their cars, already chatting away on their cell phones or texting their friends while on their way to work or to drop the kids off at school or day care.

I am different.  I stop to take in the beauty all around me.  Good morning Sand Hill Cranes.  Hello Bird of Paradise.  How are you today?  My precious water lilies…how was your night?  What tales do you have to tell?

Once a month, I do make just one small concession to prissing and preening.  I visit the beauty shop.  That is where I meet my beautician.  I put on a smock and then she begins to work her magic. She starts dabbing a little liquid gold to my graying roots.  I sit there while the chemicals cover up my aging roots.  All this has worked perfectly for years.  But something has changed.

Last month, after a car accident, I went to have this magic performed and it set off a terrific headache and muscle spasms in my neck.  Just the act of leaning my head back against the bowl of the sink must have “pinched a nerve” as they say.  Won’t do that again, I thought.

But yesterday found me back at the magic shop for my monthly dose of liquid gold.  No leaning back over the bowl for me!  This time I leaned my head forward with a towel plastered to my eyes while my beautician rinsed my poor aching head.  So far, so good.  Then she started cutting and trimming my hair, and blowing it dry.  With every pull of the brush I started to feel my head starting to spin again.  “Stop” I said.  No more prissing and preening.  But it was too late.  My head was already starting to throb and I knew that I would have a headache and muscle spasms as a result of my vanity.

I am like other women.  I do want to look beautiful.  And my one concession is dyeing to look young.

As I turn 70, it gives me pause to reflect on life and how I want to be viewed by the world.  When I tell people that I am turning 70, I often hear them say: “You cannot be 70.  You look too young.”  That’s what hair color can do for you…give you back a few of the years, back to the time you really did have color in your hair.

I read somewhere that women look younger these days because they color their hair.  Not as many old gray crones as there used to be.  That may be the case, but I have to admit that dyeing to be young certainly triggered some powerful physical and emotional reflections in me this month, and I am still recovering from my recent dye jobs.  I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet.  I need to ease into this thing called old age.  I’m already planning my return to the beauty shop, but next time just the dye job.  I’ll do my own more gentle hair pulling as it dries, or maybe I’ll just let it dry naturally.

I’m an extroverted monastic theologian and church historian who loves to party and host Camp Grandma and Grandpa for my eight grandchildren when not off traveling the world with my husband of over 50 years.  After raising a family as an active Roman Catholic, I switched gears and went to college and seminary and made it through the grueling process to be ordained an Episcopal Priest in 1991.  I served churches in DE, PA and FL before retiring from parish ministry in 2006.  Since then I have taught a few college classes, volunteered as a hospital chaplain, and lead retreats and worship services at various local congregations.  I’m an avid reader and participate in two book clubs.  In 2013, one of our book club choices was Ink and Honey by Sibyl Dana Reynolds.  My reading of this original, mystical and historical novel about the thirteenth century Sisters of Belle Coeur, and subsequent participation at a retreat led by the author later that year, led me to embrace “The Way of Belle Coeur.” Also, since “retirement,” I have followed my passion for writing and have begun sharing personal stories and articles for publication.  For support, I gathered together several women and we began a writing group which has affectionately come to be known as the “Scribbling Seniors.”  In order to update my skills, I participated in an intensive interfaith spiritual writing conference, “Beyond Walls,” at Kenyon College in July 2015 which focused on spiritual writing for print and social media.  This experience gave me the courage to start writing a blog: everydayblessingsplus.wordpress.com.  Check it out!

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