Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 13

Monk in the World Guest Post: Jodi Blazek Gehr

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jodi Blazek Gehr’s reflection on her word for the year.

Choosing a word to focus on each year has become a nourishing, soulful ritual. I love participating in an ancient practice of contemplation recommended by Christine Valters Painter: “This tradition (for desert mothers and fathers) of asking for a word was a way of seeking something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime…A word was meant to be wrestled with and slowly grown into.”

I savor the word, that more so chooses me, throughout the year—it brings great joy when in perfect synchronicity, it appears over and again in what I read, hear, and see. I trust that the word, as it settles in my heart, will be a guiding light for months to come—challenging, inspiring, and transforming me.

My 2024 word of the year, FULLY, is a throwback to ten years ago when I birthed and named my first website and creative venture, SoulFully You. I participated in training to become a certified SoulCollage® facilitator, to lead retreats on creativity and spirituality. As a Marketing teacher, creating a brand name felt like the best first step. With my daughter Jessica and her friend Claire (both students of my high school classes) we brainstormed a variety of words, phrases, and combinations, and then it clicked, that “aha moment” of knowing I have come to trust—SoulFully You. I loved what it meant, and still do. 

Being SoulFully You is living with purpose, on purpose; being attentive to the present moment; practicing gratitude; making good choices and having no regrets; living with death daily before your eyes, as St. Benedict writes; and leaving something beautiful from a life well-lived. It is living life to the fullest, using the gifts and talents you have while being open and responsive to opportunities and surprises that come your way.

Being SoulFully You is discovering and becoming all that God has created you to be. Thomas Merton writes, “For me to be a saint means to be myself.” The call to be holy is the call to be more fully myself, just as a tree gives glory to God by being a tree.

All spiritual traditions point us in the direction of becoming more Soulfully You. In Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker Palmer writes, “Biblical faith calls it the image of God in which we are all created. Thomas Merton calls it true self. Quakers call it the inner light, or “that of God” in every person. The humanist tradition calls it identity and integrity. No matter what you call it, it is a pearl of great price.”

To be SoulFully You, one must learn, in the lyrics of Red Molly, how to “hold it all”—to embrace the peaks and valleys of life. Palmer continues, “If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials…we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us.”

Yes, I want to hold it all, to be fully in this life. But then, to let it go—to not cling too tightly. To hold and let go is to embrace the paradox of what it means to live soulfully, to live the dance of life with grace, to honor both the beauty and the heartbreak, the beginnings and endings, knowing that to be SoulFully You is to always begin again.

“There’s a ‘time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance’ (Eccles. 3:4). Henri Nouwen captures this paradox, “Mourning and dancing are part of the same movement of grace. Somehow, in the midst of your tears, a gift of life is given. Somehow, in the midst of your mourning, the first steps of the dance take place. The cries that well up from your losses belong to the song of praise. Those who cannot grieve cannot be joyful. Those who have not been sad cannot be glad.”

To be SoulFully You is to live prayerfully, joyfully, playfully, gratefully, mindfully, and soulfully. I want to hold it all fully—the bittersweet moments and the sweet surprises. This year I stand at a threshold, a turning from one chapter of life to another, from working as a high school teacher to having more time to work on SoulFully You projects—planning and leading retreats, writing more, pursuing creative ventures, and sharing the joy of living fully.

The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. –Julian of Norwich

Listen to Red Molly, “Hold It All”

Jodi Blazek Gehr is a wife and mother, a Benedictine Oblate, a certified SoulCollage® and Boundless Compassion Facilitator. She just retired after 27 years of teaching high school Business, Marketing, and Information Technology. Her passion is writing for her websites, Being Benedictine and SoulFully You, and leading retreats in creativity and spirituality.

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Calling on the Sacred Feminine ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This coming Thursday is the Feast of the Assumption which is a day set aside to honor the archetype of Mary as Queen. She has been given the titles of Queen of Heaven, of Angels, and of Saints and her sovereignty is a gift and inspiration to us all. 

I will be leading a mini-retreat with singer and retreat leader Nóirín Ní Riain on calling on the sacred feminine in times of unravelling. We will explore Mary as Mother of the Keen, an Irish tradition of imagining Mary as the one who gifted the Irish people with that ancient song of lament. We will also call on Mary as Untier of Knots and as Queen of Heaven.

Here is a short reflection on Mary as Untier of Knots from my book Birthing the Holy:

Untier of Knots: She Who Loosens Constriction

The knots which Mary can untie include any struggles or challenges in our lives for which we are at an impasse and have no solution. These might be knots in our communication with loves ones, addiction, illness, fear over loss of security, and more. 

It is said that Mary unties the knot of sin. We tend to resist the language of sin in modern culture. Perhaps we might think of it as the places which bind us to unhealthy patterns, habits, and ways of being it might help illuminate how we participate in its power. 

Knots are problems or struggles we have which don’t seem to have any solution. You know when you try to unknot a thread or a cord of some kind, and you only make it worse. 

These might be relationship or work challenges, addiction issues, mental health challenges, anxiety over life and the state of the world. Anything which constricts us and our capacity for joyfulness. 

These might be the places in our lives where we know we need to make a hard decision because we are deeply unhappy, but we can’t see the way out. 

The more we knot things, the harder they become to undo them. It is like when we tell a lie to cover something up, and then have to tell a whole series of lies to sustain the original one, it becomes harder and harder to return to the truth. 

This aspect of Mary reveals her as healer who helps us to overcome inner divisions of body, mind, soul, heart, and spirit. Healing does not necessarily mean curing. We might have an illness which does not get better, but through our process of healing, we discover some wisdom and grace in the experience which allows us to have some peace and ease in the midst of unknowing and pain. Often it is through a mature acceptance of our wounds that we become healers of others ourselves. 

The Wounded Healer, which Henri Nouwen writes beautifully about, points to the way that our own inner Healer is broken open through our woundedness. We each carry the great wounds of life, but some of us will become victimized by them and let them ultimately tear us apart. While some of us will slowly find empowerment and a call to be in service to others. We may resist our wounds, but the ancient stories tell us the wound is where the jewels are hidden. Wounding can become a process of initiation into a way of being which honors the wounds of human life and approaches with reverence and gentleness, creates spaces where the wounds are made welcome. 

We often seek outside sources for our healing journeys. Ultimately we must turn within and ask for support. We can call upon the wisdom of Mary, the Untier of Knots.

Join Nóirín Ní Riain and me for our retreat this Thursday, Calling on the Sacred Feminine for Times of Unravelling. You are also invited to join us for Tea with the Abbess on Friday, August 16th. This will be a free, informal gathering here we will begin with some centering and meditation, then we will look at the upcoming programs and resources, followed by time for sharing and questions.

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

P.S. In honor of St Clare of Assisi’s feast day today, August 11th, we posted a short reflection with creative inspiration and a prayer. Join our Sustainers Circle at the lowest tier and receive posts like this several times per month in addition to joining our monthly centering prayer and contemplative prayer services.

Mary Icon Block Print by Kreg Yingst

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Dancing Monk Feast Day: St Clare of Assisi

Sunday August 11th is the feast of St Clare of Assisi (1194-1253). We are pleased to offer a reflection, creative prompt, and prayer to guide your celebration of this remarkable saint.

We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. 

Clare was born and raised in Assisi, where she lived her entire life. She was the oldest daughter of a local nobleman but gave up her wealth and position to follow a life dedicated to prayer and service. While Clare is often known as a friend of Saint Francis, she was a spiritual force all her own. She started the Order of Poor Ladies (later renamed the Order of Poor Clares in her honor). While she was a gentle soul who often struggled with illness, she stayed true to her vision of a new religious order, even in the face of opposition from Church authorities. 

Clare invites you to consider: 

What commitments are so strong in your heart you are willing to fight for them?

Creative Invitation:

Set a timer for 5 minutes and free write about who or what you love and the ways you commit to the strength of this love in your heart. Then, chose a word that best reflects this beloved and write an acrostic poem with each line beginning with each letter of the word. For example:

Kinship:

Kindness flows to all beings who
Inhabit this earth we share.
Nature's wisdom guides our loving and
Surety that our connections matter.
Heart centered prayer helps us
Inhabit a realm of
Peace in the heart.

Prayer:

Beloved One, we thank you for the wisdom of St Clare whose dedication to her loving vision for the world inspired her contemplation and action. In our life of prayer help us discern what is most essential, what we love with all our heart so that knowing may strip us of artifice and distraction. May our one pointed focus inspire our living and may we dedicate whatever merit rises from our being in offering to Love.

Join our Sustainers Circle at the lowest tier and receive posts like this several times a month in addition to joining our monthly centering prayer and contemplative prayer services. 

(Reflection by Christine & John Valters Paintner. Creative Invitation and Prayer by Melinda Thomas.)

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Sarah Pickering

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sarah Pickering’s reflection Creating a way through. Creating, a way through.(because punctuation matters).

Spring is happening all around me, the trees are exploding with the limiest of greens and I want to move with the season, I would love to bloom into spring, but I live in winter. I was born on the winter solstice and on the first full day of my life there was a snow storm that brought London to a standstill. I understand my grandfather walked for miles across the city through the snow to meet me. Perhaps this was a sign of what would come along for me down the road with an energy limiting chronic illness. I was born for winter.

Ten years ago I had an unknown virus that made me sick, and although the initial virus passed, the after effects of it lingered and I am still unwell. It manifests as constant crushing fatigue – imagine a hangover after an overnight flight following the day you ran a marathon – and an exacerbation of multiple symptoms. The fatigue is always, and the exacerbation of symptoms happens after exertion of any kind. Hibernation would be ideal for my body, but even after the longest sleep imaginable I would still wake up tired. 

As Spring ripens all around me I feel like I am left behind in winter but I am not alone. There are many, many who suffer with life-limiting chronic illnesses, some with debilitating pain, others with a chronic energy shortage, and symptoms that take the feet out from under us. I have found many others like me online and we have a community of sorts, although you will never find us together, because who among us could manage such a meeting?

When I was first sick I tried to keep working. I tried very hard to keep doing all my normal things but I soon realized that this was not sustainable. I needed to enter into a time of ‘aggressive rest therapy’, which is what my doctor calls the three D’s of stopping: delete what you can, delegate what you are able to, and delay everything else. But the initials to aggressive rest therapy, is A.R.T. and aggressive rest, as he describes it, was part of the answer to help me survive, but art and creativity would become my way through to blooming, like the Spring I long to live in.

I have created things all my life, from tunes on the recorder when I first learnt to torture my family with that instrument, to constructing from junk, to painting, mosaics, murals, stained glass, printing, weaving, other fibre arts, drawing, calligraphy, poetry, and storytelling. I have tried it all and I am ever exploring all the mediums. Art is what I needed, it was going to become my way through but I was exhausted. I had nothing left at the end of the day to create anything as all I could do was collapse on a sofa or into my bed and I found that time of collapse getting earlier and earlier in the day as I lost more and more usable hours. 

I had to reorient my day to nourish my soul and to feed myself through creativity. I never wake refreshed but I get up early anyway, it won’t help to sleep longer so I might as well use that time when the house is quiet and before the acts of daily living really need my attention.  

I need to create first, so every morning I sit at my art desk and for much of the year I start in the dark and watch the sun come up and cover the sky with the pink hues of dawn. I find that I can paint my pain and express my despair in colour and line where I struggle to find words for it. 

I started writing morning pages (thank you Julia Cameron) and found I was using so much paper journalling words that needed to get out of my body that I had to find a way to turn them into something beautiful. So I began the process of filling a page with my thoughts and my pain and disappointments and over time they slowly became acceptance. 

I don’t need to go back and read these thoughts again, all I needed was to get them out of me. Aware of how many trees were involved in this process I came up with a way to use less paper. I poured my heart on a page and then turned it upside down and wrote down the page again, rotating it 90º I wrote over and then turned back again the other way until my words became illegible. Then I could turn this illegible mess into something beautiful by painting over the top. Turning the illegible into beauty is the process of acceptance of my chronic illness. 

Acceptance is something I hold in one hand, but in the other I hold onto hope. 

I painted my hands holding hope and acceptance in the form of rocks to remind me of this tension and balance. Hope is problematic if it involves an end to this, a cure, or any particular outcome. My illness has no end date and no treatment beyond managing symptoms. If hope is about a medical cure then there is little hope. If hope is about a miracle then I believe Godde could heal me,  but They may not, and if it does happen for me then what about everyone else? It’s not that I have no hope in either of those things, I do have a little in both but I cannot sink all my hopes into those things or any particular outcome. I have to hold hope very lightly and loosely and at the same time hold acceptance. I cannot have hope without acceptance and I cannot have acceptance without hope. I need both. 

I have to accept that this is how it is until it isn’t and also hope that it could change until it does.

My hope is not in a particular outcome that I desire but instead it is in the One who loves me most in the middle of it and is with me as I live each day and I think this maybe how I bloom, even in the winter.

Sarah Pickering thrives on creativity in all its forms. She lives in beautiful BC, Canada and moved here from the UK in 2005. She co-pastors a small non-denominational church and lives with an energy limiting chronic illness which has restricted her life while also focusing her on what really matters.

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2024-2025 Programs ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,

We hope you have had a restful summer. We always cherish this time of quiet reflection and dreaming into the new academic year of programs. I have savored having some time to simply be and deepen into the sacred rhythms of life. 

Some of my time this summer has been spent working on a book about seven medieval women mystics. It is a tremendous gift to have some expanses of time to savor their visions and listen for their wisdom to us. 

Out of this wellspring of rest, flows forth our calendar for the coming months which you can find here. Most of the year’s programs have been posted there with special thanks to our amazing program coordinator Melinda for her wonderful work putting that together. So much happens at the Abbey due to her efforts. 

I am excited for the variety of programs we will be offering including more work with archetypes, writing as a spiritual practice, Celtic feasts, a spirituality of blessing, and more.

My book A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness will be published in September and is available for pre-order now. We will have a companion retreat in community for the book in January. I’ve been teaching versions of this material for many years and hold our journeys of descent as sacred times of surrender and grief and letting go so that something new might eventually enter into us.

You may notice that our pricing scale for certain events has increased slightly which has become necessary due to operating cost increases across the board. Please rest assured that we continue to offer a scholarship rate and additional scholarship support if needed. Read our Financial Access philosophy and if you have the resources to help support the participation of those with less means through donations, we are deeply grateful. U.S.-based supporters have a tax-deductible option as well.

We also have our Sustainers Circle again which starts now and carries through June 2025. This is an opportunity each year for those of you who want to support us in an ongoing way and who love to avail of our many wonderful programs.

This month I am joined by the wonderful singer Nóirín Ní Riain to lead a mini-retreat on Mary with me on August 15th, for the Feast of the Assumption. Our theme is calling on the sacred feminine for times of unraveling and we will look at Mary as Mother of the Keen, Untier of Knots, and Queen of Heaven as resources to sustain us.

We are also offering a 4-week Writing as a Spiritual Practice retreat which starts with a two-hour online session Monday, August 19th followed by 27 days of pre-recorded writing explorations that integrate breath prayer, lectio divina, inspiration from my poems and the poetry of others, and listening for the words that want to come and unfold on the page. These daily practices are designed to take 20 minutes or less and each day there are also two bonus prompts for those who have more time.

The richest part of this work for me is conversation and collaboration. While much of our contemplative journey unfolds in the solitude of the caves of our hearts, just as essential are the dialogues we have with one another. Listening and letting ourselves be changed, shaped, transformed by the images another person carries in their inner sanctuary is the gift of community. True contemplation always leads us into deeper intimacy with others, it always sparks a growing love for the world. I am blessed by the wisdom of our many guest teachers and by all of you who show up and participate in our programs in various ways, offering your insights and care to one another.

With great and growing love, 

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

P.S. July 31st was the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Read my reflection here on how his wisdom has had a lasting impact on my spiritual journey.

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Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Dearest monks and artists,

Today is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. 

The spirituality of Ignatius has played a huge role in my own unfolding. When I started undergraduate studies at Fordham University in philosophy I was at best agnostic (and the daughter of two agnostics raised in a completely non-religious household).

My required course in Liberation Theology amazed me that I had not heard of this deep commitment to justice in the Catholic Church before. My service work in the South Bronx with at-risk youth and also in environmental restoration led me to want to do a year of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. The four tenets of JVC are community, simplicity, social justice, and spirituality. I laugh because I walked into the Campus Ministry office telling Sister Jean that I felt confident about the first three, but wasn’t so sure about spirituality. “You should come on a retreat” and with that invitation my path into the rich spiritual traditions of Christianity was forged. 

After graduating with my philosophy degree I moved from NYC to Sacramento, California to participate in a year of JVC living with 5 other women. And while my work with “emotionally disturbed youth” was definitely not my calling, JVC’s motto of “ruined for life” held true. The gatherings integrating spirituality and social justice, living a radically simple life in community, these all shaped who I longed to be. 

After JVC I worked in a shelter for homeless women and children for a year before starting work at a Catholic high school where I taught theology and was co-campus minister. This was when I started my graduate studies at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (JSTB as it was known then) and took courses from many fine Jesuits. After my Masters John and I decided to move from Sacramento to the Bay Area so I could pursue my doctorate in Christian Spirituality (a long journey from the 20-year old woman who wasn’t sure spirituality had a place in her life!)

We moved to San Francisco and John and I participated in the Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life at the Mercy Center in Burlingame. Ignatius had designed it to be a four-week experience but recognized that due to life commitments, some might need to extend it over time. Over nine months we journeyed through Ignatius’ call to intimate prayer with the scriptures. It was a powerful practice to weave through the early days of my doctoral studies. 

I fell in love with Ignatius even more during that year of prayer, especially his deep trust of the power of our imagination and our senses to reveal profound truths to us. He developed this form of prayer out his experience of disability, months spent healing in bed from a war wound. He transformed his suffering into beauty and grace. 

After graduate school we moved to Seattle because we had fallen in love with the Pacific Northwest on vacation. I was teaching theology at Seattle University but also developing my work as a spiritual director and retreat facilitator. There I entered into a discernment year for the Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life (SEEL) to be a spiritual director for others, however ultimately discerned it wasn’t my calling. Ignatius cultivated many gifts for learning how to discern, to listen to one’s consolation and desolation, and to make wise choices. 

I also worked for two years in the Ignatian Spirituality Center in Seattle and had the joy of implementing many rich programs, perhaps most rewarding was to create a program bringing together ecological care with Ignatian practices. 

And yes, during all of this time, the heart of a monk beat loudly inside of me as well, and I followed the Benedictine and desert pathways too, weaving a rich tapestry of prayer. 

I celebrate this man, who began his life as a warrior and was transformed into a lover through an experience of profound physical suffering. So much of what I teach about imagination in prayer, discernment, and social justice has been molded by his vision. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk icon by Marcy Hall

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Summer Sabbatical and Self-Study Sale

Blessing for Sabbath*

Sanctifier of holy rest,
on the seventh day you paused,
laying
down
the work
of creation
and entered into sacred stillness.

Let us remember we were freed from slavery
in Egypt and you continue to call us
to be people of liberation.
Kindle in us the strength to say no
to a world of perpetual busyness.
Inspire us to set aside our plans
and goals to receive the lavish gift
of rest for ourselves,
to rediscover the Paradise within.

Let the Sabbath be a time of profound renewal,
a gushing forth of the holy well,
a time of intimate connection with You,
and a rekindling of our sacred desires to be of service.
Sustain in us the desire to simply be
and not succumb to the demands
of productivity and an endless string of achievements.

Let our lives be a loving witness to a world
of restoration and refreshment,
of the profound goodness of joy and delight,
taking pleasure in the generous gift of pausing.

Dearest monks and artists,

Every summer we try to step back from this wonderful work and take a bit of time off for planning, dreaming, and resting. Sabbath is one of the profound gifts of a generous and abundant divine presence who says that work is good and rest is necessary. 

It is an essential part of contributing to a more just and beautiful world. 

We are so grateful for all the ways this community supports our work in the world and we are eager to listen more deeply in the coming weeks to what new things want to be birthed through the Abbey in the coming year.

We will be taking a break from our weekly love notes and daily quotes and questions starting tomorrow and will return on Sunday, August 4th with more Abbey goodness. You are still welcome to email us (or register for programs) we might just be a bit slower to respond than usual.

Theologian Walter Brueggemann has a brilliant little book titled Sabbath as Resistance. He describes the origins of the practice of Sabbath in the story of the Exodus in which the Israelites are freed from endless productivity and relentless labor into a way of being where rest is essential, and we reject our slavery to perpetual doing.  

The God who is revealed in this story is completely unlike any they have known before, a God committed to relationship and rest. 

It is worth imagining for a moment the revolutionary power of this revelation and how strange the Israelites seemed to other cultures in their radical commitment to a day of rest each week as an act of resistance to the endless systems of anxiety. Everyone rested, no matter what gender or social class, because God saw that as very good. 

It is worth further imagining the ways that each of us is enslaved in our own way by the current culture and system of perpetual overwork and exhaustion, of busyness and relentless doing. 

We may have our freedom on some levels, but how many of us choose to exercise that in favor of our own nourishment and replenishment? 

We invite you into your own Sabbath moments in the coming days. 

We are also sharing above our newest dancing monk icon with you – Margery Kempe – a 14th-15th century English mystic and pilgrim. Margery had at least 14 children and suffered with serious post-partum depression after the birth of her first child. She also had many powerful visions that eventually led her to write the first autobiography in English and years later to go off on several pilgrimages to places like Jerusalem, Rome, and Germany, at a time when as a woman this would have been quite difficult to do. She is one of the seven mystics who has asked to be part of my next book project, and she will be my companion during this Sabbath rest time and writing pilgrimage. 

It also happens to be my birthday today and John’s is tomorrow (yes, we were born a day apart, same year). I am reflecting a lot these days on the harvest of my work and relationships and feeling enormous gratitude for the richness of my life which is in large part because of each of you. I will be carrying these reflections into my Sabbath time. 

If you would like ongoing spiritual support this summer, consider our rich catalogue of self-study programs which are now on sale through June 30th. (Use code SUMMER20 to take 20% off.) With lifetime access to the materials you can take your time and allow your journey to be slow. 

Wishing you a season of resting and dancing dearest monks.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

*Blessing for Sabbath is by Christine Valters Paintner (from a forthcoming book of blessings due spring 2026) 

Dancing Monk icon by | Prints available at Redbubble

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Summer Solstice Blessing

Summer Solstice Blessing*

Radiant One,
creator of the cosmos
and the luminaries which light our way,
bless this day of longest light
and the gift of the sun
to bring warmth to our lives
and abundance of growth,
sweetness of blueberries,
refreshment of lemons,
nourishment of kale
and a thousand other kinds of food.
We sing in gratitude
along with the sparrows and robins
rising each morning
to celebrate another day.
Help us remember
the universe came into being
14 billion years ago,
with ancient skies unfurling,
stars spilling across the heavens,
and manifesting in every living thing.
Light is our inheritance,
calling us to be bearers of radiance,
bringing new life
from the fertile darkness.

*written by Christine Valters Paintner from a future book of blessings

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Sharon Clymer Landis

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sharon Clymer Landis’s reflection on the wisdom and love of a foster dog.

I’m fostering a dog named Ladybug. She was caught on a property after her owners abandoned her. The county condemned and burned the house on the property since it was a health hazard. She lived on the land there with another dog, also abandoned, and scavenging for food. As a result, Ladybug was severely under-socialized around humans. I wrote this on day 39 of my fostering journey with her. 

Ladybug unleashed a torrent of writing in me when my desire to write had evaporated. I didn’t think I was blocked; I had no angst over not writing. I just figured I no longer needed to write to process life or as an outlet for creativity. That said, I knew there was a lot of grief in my life last year, plus heaviness on so many fronts: personal, family, extended family, crazy politics, our hopelessly divided country, and the hideous wars. I was experiencing and feeling a lot, just not the desire to write. 

And then came Ladybug and suddenly I’m writing like I always have, joyfully, hopefully, as if making music without instruments or singing without vocal folds. I confess to being slightly bewildered by how the story of Ladybug has taken on a life of its own and by the love and support expressed by her social media followers to meas her foster mom and her storyteller. Maybe it’s because I share my own journey too. Often while out at night with Ladybug, since her feral inner clock was oriented toward night wakefulness, my contemplative leanings drew me towards moon and star gazing. I’d snap photos, spell bound with wonder, and later write about the love that is available to us if only we look, listen, and take it in. And I share those musings on Ladybug’s online updates.

One night after the moon set behind the mountains and Ladybug tired of playing with wild abandon, we went inside I wrote this and a Rumi poem on my blog: “As I say to Ladybug, she says to me, and the Spirit of Love says to all of us…

"When I say to you,
‘You are lovely’,
you do not believe me,
because of the blemishes
you know so intimately;
but those blemishes are the scars
of your sufferings
and they shine out of your soul,
radiating beauty,
the way the daisies do
in the long summer grasses.
So when I say to you.
‘Even with closed eyes,
I still see how beautiful you are’
it is true.
Believe it.
Believe it.” ~ Rumi

The day, then, was quiet for Ladybug. Yesterday was so full. Ladybug wanted to be on the sofa with Ronan the dachshund and me, but she feared the ramp that helps his legs navigate getting on and off the sofa. She went up without thinking, but coming down, the ramp moved under her weight and triggered panic. It took an hour and a few trails of treats enticing her one foot down as practice and then when I thought I’d have to carry her down, she did it! Only a few hours compared to the days it took for her to go in and out of our back porch door. Everything about doorways frightens her. Perhaps, humans popped out of doors with brooms or guns to shoo her away from their garbage cans or yards. Later, in the afternoon when Tiktok and I came home from doing dog therapy work, she was so excited to see us she jumped on the tension gate across the doorway of her room and crashed it down. I hadn’t tightened it enough. That scared her so much that our wooden floor had claw marks where she scrabbled to get away. 

The best thing for her overwhelmed nervous system is to take a long, quiet break from her stressors. So today, she’s holing up in her den room and taking a breather. She helps me remember to take breaks, turn off the news and social media to walk along the creek, or sit on the swing in the woods for some forest bathing. This is true of my nervous system too! 

I sit and ponder why Ladybug’s story moves me so, along with so many others. Did we need a feel-good story, something, or someone to expand our hearts and souls? A story that takes us from fear to courage, pain to joy, a story of overcoming, unconditional love, patience, and a little lost soul finding her way with collaborative help from so many? Not only do we love happy ‘becoming’ stories, but we also long for stories of love and coming together. The opposite of how we are experiencing the world right now. And that little soul sure received love! This all touches me deeply, how she soaked up all that love, despite her trauma and raging fears, and was willing to take those difficult steps to become braver. Isn’t this another lovely invitation for all of us? May we all soak up love so we can heal and face this difficult world.  

Sharon Clymer Landis is a writer, poet, spiritual director, retreat leader, and a Virginia Master Naturalist in the Headwaters chapter. She is known for her simplicity, gentle wisdom, compassion, love of birds, stars, earth, and nature. Also, an avid reader, learner, seeker of Spirit, Sharon is drawn to contemplative spirituality, expressive arts, nature, children, and dogs. Her certified therapy dog, Tiktok, is usually close by her side. She lives with her partner, Jay, on their beautiful farm, Starry Meadows, where they grow wildflowers in pollinator fields and host retreatants, birders, and writers. 

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Soul of a Pilgrim Video Prayer Cycle Day 7 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists,

Today we release the final day of the Soul of a Pilgrim video podcasts on the theme of Coming Home. We hope you enjoy these resources which we offer as a free gift to this wondrous community. If you are able to offer financial support so we can continue creating these resources, please click here. We are enormously grateful for all of your support in so many ways. 

I am pondering this pilgrimage theme of coming home in light of our featured book for the Lift Every Voice book club this month, Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness by Liuan Huska. 

It is this journey toward remembering our wholeness her book title references which is the pilgrimage we each make in life, whether we deal with chronic pain and illness, or emotional wounding, or other kinds of suffering and loss, or all of the above. 

Liuan writes: “We must learn to be fully human, not superhuman, by living within our embodied limits, not transcending them. We must make peace with our tenuous existence, susceptible at any moment to devastating illnesses and even death. We must realize that our vulnerability is what opens us to rely on others, and, through these relationships becoming whole.” 

I’ve had an autoimmune illness, chronic pain, and fatigue for over 30 years of my life. Learning to live within the limits of my body’s often changing capacity is an act of profound love for myself and this vessel I have been gifted with. Learning to be deeply vulnerable is an act of love for others, to invite in a circle of nurturance and support, to bear witness to not having to hold everything together myself. 

I know that it is the necessity of my limitations which has been the catalyst for Abbey of the Arts to become such a vibrant collective of wondrous wise souls. I can’t do this work alone, and it is infinitely richer, more satisfying, and more joyful to collaborate. To know each of our gifts are intensified when brought into partnership with kindred spirits. 

The journey to healing is to not reject the very real vulnerabilities of our bodies, minds, souls, and spirits, but to welcome them in as part of our humanity and to stay with them as they reveal themselves. The less we try to run from the realities of aging and illness, the more we open the door to cultivating compassion for ourselves and others. 

Liuan writes: “Jesus identifies himself completely with our vulnerability, taking it into his own nature. He lets himself be utterly destroyed by the consequences. Where our impulse is to escape, to self-protect, to rise above, Jesus chooses to surrender, to give himself up, to descend.”

It is in the aches of our joints, in the fatigue, in the moments of uncertainty, in the fear of loss that we meet the Holy One. God does not cause illness to bestow insight or “lessons,” but the divine presence abides with us, endures with us, steadies us, grieves with us, and in that companionship, we encounter Love’s empowering grace. 

Toward the end of her book, Liuan says: “I ask a lot of whys in my pain, but in the end, the more helpful questions start with how and who. How will I live now? Who is God for me now? Who am I becoming?”

These are questions which begin to point the way home to ourselves. How will I live within my reality and its limits? How do I open myself to the sacred presence in the most ordinary of moments? Am I aligned with my heart’s deep truths? These can all be embraced no matter what our circumstances are. 

Throughout my own life pilgrimage, even in the midst of the strangeness and unknowing, I do have many moments of homecoming, to see this place as holy. Moments of joy and a sense of rightness that I have said a wholehearted “yes” to the invitation to not take my life for granted and to not let opportunities for exploration and adventure pass me by. This is what the pilgrim must learn, not through books or words, but through a radical encounter with the home that dwells within. 

If entered into mindfully and with a whole heart, each encounter on the road has the potential to transform. The pilgrim returns home not with all the answers, but with better questions: questions that bring the pilgrimage experience into daily life and reveal depth in all they see around them.

We always return bearing gifts for the community.  We are always called back to share what we have been given with others.  This will look different for each of us.  

Can you allow yourself to hold both soul-peace and unrest, family and strangers, true home and world-home?  What does each of these invitations mean for you in this season of your life right now?  What are the paradoxes of the spiritual life you are being called to hold in your being?

We celebrate being on the pilgrimage with you. Please enjoy the new Soul of a Pilgrim video podcasts and support this work if you can.

Our summer self-study sale is also going on now. Please use code SUMMER20 for 20% off any of our programs where you can journey at your own pace. We will be taking our usual sabbatical during July, so these are a wonderful way to deepen your practice over the summer and beyond (you have lifetime access to all programs). 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE

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