Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 120

Feast of St Gobnait and a Celebration of Love ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

On the 11th of February this past week was the Feast of St. Gobnait.  I only learned about St. Gobnait after moving to Ireland. She is a 5th-6th century monk who fled her home in County Clare and headed first for the island of Insheer. It is not clear why she fled, only that she was seeking refuge on the Aran Islands. Click here to read my reflection on her at Patheos>>

I am delighted to have a poem about St. Gobnait published in the online journal Headstuff here. 

Gobnait features in our upcoming online retreat The Soul’s Slow Ripening: Celtic Wisdom for Discernment (April 4-May 29, 2016).  Consider joining us to soak in the wisdom of those ancient Irish monks and entering into the practices which guided them to new thresholds.

I am also continuing my 7-part Lenten series at Patheos on A Different Kind of Fast. This week I explore fasting from the need to always be strong and allow a great softening. You can read that here>>

And last, but not least, Happy Valentine’s Day dear monks! Here are two reflections from the Abbey Archives on alternative ways to experience this day: Body Words of Love and Love and Hospitality

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

St. Gobnait dancing monk icon © Marcy Hall at Rabbit Room Arts

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Call for Submissions: Monk in the World Guest Post Series

We welcome you to submit your reflection for possible publication in our Monk in the World guest post series. It is a gift to read how ordinary people are living lives of depth and meaning in the midst of the challenges of real life.

There are so many talented writers and artists in this Abbey community, so this is a chance to share your perspective. The reflection will be included in our weekly newsletter which goes out to more than 10,000 subscribers.

Please follow these instructions carefully:

Details:

Please click this link to read a selection of the posts and get a feel for the tone and quality.
Submit your own post of 750-1000 words on the general theme of "How do I live as a monk in the world? How do I bring contemplative presence to my work and/or family?" It works best if you focus your reflection on one aspect of your life or a practice you have, or you might reflect on how someone from the monastic tradition has inspired you. We invite reflections on the  practice  of living contemplatively.
Please include a head shot and brief bio (50 words max). You are welcome to include 1-2 additional images if they help to illustrate your reflection in meaningful ways.  All images should be your own.  Please make sure the file size of each the images is smaller than 1MB. You can resize your image for free here – choose the "small size" option and a maximum width of 500).
We will be accepting submissions between now and March 21st for publication sometime in the spring/summer of 2016.  We reserve the right to make edits to the content as needed (or to request you to make edits) and submitting your reflection does not guarantee publication on the Abbey blog, but we will do our best to include as many of you as possible.
Email Christine by March 21st with your submission and include the reflection pasted into the body of your email and attach your photo(s).
We will be back in touch with you by the middle of April to let you know if your post is accepted, if edits are needed, and/or when we have scheduled your post to appear.

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Invitation to Photography: Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

Welcome to this month's Abbey Photo Party!

I select a theme and invite you to respond with images.

We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with our reflection on the first reading for Ash Wednesday.

I invite you for this month's Photo Party to hold these words in your heart as you go out in the world to receive images in response. As you walk be ready to see what is revealed to you as a visual expression of your prayer.

You can share images you already have which illuminate the theme, but I encourage you also to go for a walk with the theme in mind and see what you discover.

You are also welcome to post photos of any other art you create inspired by the theme.  See what stirs your imagination!

How to participate:

You can post your photo either in the comment section below* (there is now an option to upload a file with your comment – your file size must be smaller than 1MB – you can re-size your image for free here – choose the "small size" option and a maximum width of 500).

You can also join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there. Feel free to share a few words about the process of receiving this image and how it speaks of the harvest for you.

*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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Invitation to Photography: Return to me with your whole heart

Welcome to this month's Abbey Photo Party!

I select a theme and invite you to respond with images.

We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with our reflection on the first reading for Ash Wednesday.

I invite you for this month's Photo Party to hold these words in your heart as you go out in the world to receive images in response. As you walk be ready to see what is revealed to you as a visual expression of your prayer.

You can share images you already have which illuminate the theme, but I encourage you also to go for a walk with the theme in mind and see what you discover.

You are also welcome to post photos of any other art you create inspired by the theme.  See what stirs your imagination!

How to participate:

You can post your photo either in the comment section below* (there is now an option to upload a file with your comment – your file size must be smaller than 1MB – you can re-size your image for free here – choose the "small size" option and a maximum width of 500).

You can also join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there. Feel free to share a few words about the process of receiving this image and how it speaks of the harvest for you.

*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: Jenneth Graser

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jenneth Graser's reflection the unfolding process:

The deep down longing of my heart in this life for the longest time has been to know God and be known by God.  Over the past 8 or so years, this has taken on a completely different flavour as our family has grown.  Going back in time to around 2002, my life twisted in an unexpected way when I came back home to South Africa after attending a Ministry School in Toronto, only to have a break down from a traumatic relationship I had whilst there.  And then within a few months of my return, my brother died leaving my family reeling in shock and disbelief.  From thinking that I would be entering full time ministry in Canada, I found myself rather learning the deepest relationship with God I had ever experienced was going to be in the school of (largely) isolation from others, grief, pain and in-depth counseling sessions.  A year into being home, I began working for an Anglican lay minister and was introduced to new ways of being with and experiencing God.

This began a journey of searching for God in different expressions, slowly, gently and then over the last few years, with increasing fascination as I have felt invited into ever increasing prayer explorations .  The break down I had, taught me to embrace process.  So living as a monk in the world as my family has grown with each new addition, has been a process of adaptation.  I have welcomed mentors in books, both Saints and mystics among other wonderful people.  I have heard for the first time what makes my heart ring: The Cloud of Unknowing, Practicing the presence of God, soaking music, Ignatian contemplation, Lectio Divina, on and on . . .

Until the day Karl and I felt called to start a contemplative group and call it Free Flow.  We wanted to foster and encourage a place where anyone could come and just be in the presence of God without judgement or expectation.  A place to laugh, chat, receive prayer, commune in silence with God while listening to music, and to allow much space to follow the nudges of Holy Spirit.  So our gatherings have these various elements in them, but each time looks different as God does something unique.  We want to approach these times as children, hungry to learn, hungry to grow and to share our growing times with whoever wants to come along for the ride.  Out of these times, I began recording some contemplative, mostly spontaneous songs and recently started sharing them on a podcast.  This has become part of my prayer adventure, as well as Mystic Prayers on Facebook, a prayer community I started to express my visual prayer journey with God and others, as I take the quotes of mystics, scripture and saints and put them together with photographs which convey my feelings.

Life is greatly busy as a Mom.  I feel expended some of the time in such a way that I feel tempted to go on a long term retreat in an Abbey somewhere, by myself that is!  This not being a possibility has forced me to live as a monk in this season in a largely flexible way.  The wonderfully appealing consistent, dependable rhythm of the day in a monastery needs to look different for me, as I go about my day to day doings, comings and goings.  My vigils are more about learning to love myself as I am in this space, that prayer is not systematic but rather organic – a practicing of the presence as I draw myself towards myself while hanging washing on the line, or in the times of recovering from the tiredness of meeting the continuous needs of others while listening to the Pray as you Go podcast.  Sporadic journaling to catch up with my heart, or trying to be more aware of my night time dreams in order to listen to their messages.  Snippets of time collected in art appreciation, a photograph, a quote and a phrase, playing the piano and singing what flows.  I write poetry, I breathe, I observe, I forgive myself.  I am learning to be.  To listen.  To humble myself and find the glory in the ordinary.  To lean back into grace with each mistake I make and receive prayer in the birds and springtime wakening of the garden.

I am trying to slow down and live in the moment and embrace the creation of each new day, whatever it looks like.  Including what is shaped in me as I meet the reality of being molded as a wife and mother.  I am trying to suspend my feelings of what life should have looked like by now, now that I am turning 40 in January, and still holding onto un-realised dreams and desires.  I am learning that Free Flow begins at home, in the temple of my heart, and as I orientate myself to the grounding of that home of God inside of me, the vast expanse of timeless space that is there will begin to outwork itself in, not a mid-life crisis, but rather, a deepening awareness of being loved, receiving love, giving love.  Learning the grace of contemplative life does not have to look the “out-of-my-grasp” kind of way, but rather a “let’s find out where this goes today God and let me learn who you are today”, in the sun shining through a leaf, or the whispers of God in my thoughts, or the smiles and cries of the family I love so much that it pains my heart.  I will continue to figure out what it looks like for me to live as a monk in this world, and that is what makes it such a joy.  The very un-definable discovery of myself in prayer with God in the adventure of what life holds for me, is happening in the here and now.

Jenneth Suzanne Graser has just approached her 40th year, wife to Karl Graser and mother to three girls, Abigail (7), Sophia (4) & Joelle (3).  She lives in Cape Town, South Africa where she has lived for most of her life, other than North Vancouver, British Columbia when her family immigrated there in the 80’s and also Toronto, Canada.  Jenneth has a degree in Library and Information Studies, and is currently a stay home Mom who has started homeschooling her daughters this year.  She and her husband facilitate a contemplative soaking prayer group called Free Flow.  Jenneth is the author of “Catching the Light: a Devotional”.

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Grow in intimacy with the Earth Monastery this Lent ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

The season of Lent begins this Wednesday and we are offering an online retreat experience for this holy time which extends through the first week of Easter. We invite you into a contemplation of the Earth as Original Monastery and to nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness. Jesus begins his own ministry with a time out in the wilderness, seeking the ways that creation can challenge us and nourish us and reveal new directions. Imagine spending 40 days yourself listening for the wisdom of wilderness.

The monk here and now is supposed to be living the life of the new creation in which the right relation to all the rest of God's creatures is fully restored. Hence Desert Father stories about tame lions and all that jazz."

–Thomas Merton

At the Abbey our focus is on contemplative practice in the midst of daily life. To be a monk in the world means to live in a way that is deeply attentive and present to life’s unfolding. Merton’s quote is a keen reminder of our call as monks, to live the new creation now, not later at another time. As monks we nurture our capacity to see the holy active right here in this moment. We discover that the “kin-dom” is among us now and we live as if this were true.

The Canadian Catholic Bishops wrote a beautiful letter about our relationship to the environment and they expressed three primary responses we should cultivate:

When we engage the contemplative response we gaze upon the world with eyes of wonder and love rather than with an imperialist, utilitarian stare. We allow ourselves to be astonished by nature and stand in awe of the mystery of both life and death. The contemplative gaze sees the world as sacramental. Sacramental theology has always taught that simple earthy things—bread, wine, water, oil, the embodied sexual relationship of marriage—can be bearers of divine grace. This is because the earth is the primordial sacrament.

When we engage the ascetic response we practice discipline in using the things of Earth. A healthy asceticism has always been a call to conversion and about removing what gets in the way of awareness of God’s movements in our lives. Recovering our relationship with the earth means embracing both the gifts of radical simplicity and celebrating the wisdom of our bodies together in one practice as an earth-sensuous asceticism. We live in a rampantly consumer culture, so this journey requires that we examine our patterns closely.

When we engage a prophetic response we are moved to action on behalf of justice for the earth. Because the earth is sacramental, we recognize that our destruction of earth’s systems is an act of sinfulness and wounding which demands repentance and reconciliation. We must measure our individual and collective choices in terms of the sustainability for the whole earth community.

In our time together exploring Earth as Original Monastery we will focus primarily on the contemplative dimension, because I believe that when we begin by cultivating our contemplative response to life and the world it infuses our prophetic and ascetic responses and grounds them from a place of relationship and intimacy.

This month we also return to our weekly invitations to contemplation and creativity. We begin with Community Lectio Divina with the first reading for Ash Wednesday from the Prophet Joel. We invite you to pray with the text (see details at this link)and share your responses with our community.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

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The Soul of a Pilgrim is named one of the best spiritual books of 2015!

The wonderful folks at the Spirituality and Practice website have named Christine Valters Paintner’s book The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within a best spiritual book of 2015!

From the book: "Pilgrimage calls us to be attentive to the divine at work in our lives through deep listening, patience, opening ourselves to the gifts that arise in the midst of discomfort, and going out to our own inner wild edges to explore new frontiers."

Click here to see the list of all 50 best spiritual books>>

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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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