Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 121

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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Embracing a Surplus – A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Last year my word was “dwell” – an invitation to root myself even more in this place I call home. I keep falling more in love with Ireland, the landscape, the stories, the people, the seasons. It was a wonderful year of deepening friendships and widening community, and even more of a sense of how I am truly called here to this place where I thrive.

A couple of summers ago I was pondering quite a bit how to make this work I love so much sustainable energetically. Even with work that arises out of passion, we bump up against our limits of what we can give and how much renewal we need. As a contemplative and a strong introvert, my needs for quiet times are high and I am grateful for our seasonal rhythms which allow for extended times of restoration.

Then last summer my pondering shifted to consider something even more generous than merely sustainable: surplus. I am not just thinking about how to have enough energy and resources to meet the needs of this flourishing community, but to have more than enough, a surplus, an excess of reserves.

My word is inspired by a quote I read a couple of years ago by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson in his book The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden:

“Nothing happens, which is enough to frighten any modern person.  But that kind of nothingness is the accumulation or storing of healing  energy.  . . to have a store of energy accumulated is to have power in back of one.  We live with our psychic energy in modern times much as we do with our money—mortgaged into the next decade.  Most modern people are exhausted nearly all the time and never catch up to  an equilibrium  of energy, let alone have a store of energy behind them. With no energy in store, one cannot meet any new opportunity.” 

Those words have stayed with me ever since I read them, because I have recognized the call of the monk in them. What makes this monastic path so counter-cultural is the active resistance against living a life of busyness and exhaustion, of not making that a badge of pride, of having an abundance of time to ponder and live life more slowly and attentively.

How many of us feel our energy is mortgaged into the next decade? How many of us can never catch up with the rest we so desperately need much less feel like we have a "store of energy" behind us?

There are, of course, seasons of life which sometimes demand more from us energetically. It has been three and a half years since John and I embarked on our life pilgrimage which uprooted us from our long-time beloved home in Seattle and sent us to Vienna, Austria for six months and then on to Galway, Ireland where we have now been for three full years. So much moving and transition over time demanded a lot of inner resources. This past year with my invitation to “dwell” I found an inner shift, where I no longer had to tend so much to the energy of transition. In some ways, I feel as if my body finally trusts that I am not going to make it uproot and move countries again for a very long while.

I am deepening into this new season of life, not one marked by so much change and wandering, but one committed to stability for the long season ahead. One where I fall back in love with the sacred ordinary details of daily life: cherishing old and new friendships, shopping at the market and cooking for nourishment, celebrating the vibrant creative community we have here, enjoying long walks along Galway bay and noticing something new each time, showing up to my computer each day to write from my heart, swimming, dancing, swooning over life’s moments.

I am looking forward to discovering how surplus is inviting me into a deep kind of trust that there will be enough, more than enough, time, money, love.

I am delighted to have a poem published this week on the wonderful website Headstuff, click here to take a look at “This is How the World is Saved.”

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Painter

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This is How the World is Saved (poem by Christine)

I am so delighted to have my poem "This is How the World is Saved" featured this week at the wonderful website Headstuff and to launch their Revolution NOW series for 2016! It is a poem about the grace of the ordinary.

Click to head on over and read it>>

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Winners of Give Me a Word 2016 Random Drawing and Word Cloud

Thank you to everyone who participated in our annual Give Me a Word! We had over 1700 in the mini-retreat and over 650 leave their words at our blog post here.

Above is a word cloud composed of our community words. If you don't see your word visible, please trust that it dwells in the spaces as an essential element to the whole.

We are delighted to announce the random drawing winners:

One signed copy of either  Soul of a Pilgrim ,  Eyes of the Heart ,  The Artist's Rule , and Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire (winner's choice!): Judy (Hope), Alison (Spaciousness), Kristen Vincent (Trust), Kate (Trust)


One space in Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year: Mary T. Migliorelli (Completion)


4 people will win their choice of self-study online classes from the following:  Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert: A Self-Study Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen ,  Soul of a Pilgrim: An Online Art Retreat ,  Seasons of the Soul ,  Lectio Divina : The Sacred Art of Reading the World , or Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Contemplative Practice: Donna Herzfeldt-Kamprath (Grounded), Maureen (Balance), Rosemary Palmer Hall (Authentic), Valerie Hess (Restore)

I have sent out an email to the winners, so if your name appears above look for those instructions in your in-box.

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