Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 144

Monk in the World guest post: Patricia Kowal

This week in our Monk in the World guest post series we have a beautiful poem from fellow monk Patricia Kowal who lives in Spokane, WA. Read on for her wisdom:

Mystic Within

Compassion, Compass, Passion

Contained in the Mystic-Within

Connected to Love, guided with Love, directed in Love

Flowing through one to another.

The mystic—once hidden under the rubble of past hurts

Covered in costume to protect the vulnerable heart

Now guided in Pure Love and Purpose.

 The summons is clear:

Come with me.

See beyond the protective dress

Nestle close to the tender heart of Mystery.

COMPASSION, COMPASSion, comPASSION!

I am the Mystic Within.

I offer spiritual direction and embrace and support walking the spiritual path.  I am a published author of fiction and non-fiction and write poetry to offer balm to the soul. I free-lance counseling skills as a group leader for Onsite Workshops in Tennessee which fosters growth and recovery from painful life experiences and am a retired Registered Nurse.

Click here to read all the guest posts in the Monk in the World series>>

Invitation to Poetry: Harvesting the Inner Garden

Welcome to Poetry Party #79!

I select an image (the photo above is by Christine Valters Paintner) and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

We began this month with a  Community Lectio Divina practice with a parable from the Gospel of Mark and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of the "harvesting the inner garden." (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month. What are continuing to discover about your own inner harvesting?

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 2200 members!) and post there.

*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.

Monk in the World guest post: James Sargent

This week in our Monk in the World guest post series we have a reflection from fellow monk James Sargent. Read on for his wisdom:

I was brought up in a Christian home.  For that I have always been truly thankful. To the age of about 40, I considered myself a committed believer, attending church spasmodically. As the years went by religion slipped out of my life until by the age of about 65, my attitude had hardened into radical atheism. 
Now at 84, I’m picking up the spiritual threads of my earlier years.  Two gifted and loving wives – now both passed on, have been blissful partners in my life's journey. Looking inwardly, now at a not so spritely 84 years, I live comfortably in a bachelor flat. Three months on from Christine's wonderful Lenten Pilgrimage, I confess to a rather ragged personal prayer life, plenty of silence (solitude) with patchy meditation, struggles with short term memory, regular eucharists, periods of doubt, plentiful magical moments, holding the tensions between.  My end of term report might say – ’Some progress; you need to be more focussed!…. but go gently…you can always begin again. (Christine!)'   Looking outwardly – life in the world. Mine is a low-level spirituality, but I try to keep myself open to receiving and reflecting God’s grace, breathing in the sustaining air of the Divine Presence in which we all live. This means a Brother Lawrence approach, simply expressed by George Herbert – 'Teach me, my God and King, / In all things Thee to see, / And what I do in anything / To do it as for Thee.’

I have played a conflict resolution role in our resident's association, and fallen into leading an arts development group for the enhancement of our shared spaces, based on images I have ‘received' from our immediate neighbourhood. I walk with camera at the ready, expecting the unexpected……….I spotted this pearl of wisdom yesterday from a sports shop window –  I go to weekly watercolour classes, enjoying also the social aspect of being in a group.  I'm experiencing what an enlivening thing it is to mine the rich seams of spiritual insights that practising the arts can hold for me. Letting go – allowing a line to take me for a walk, instead of controlling all the time.  Taking risks – releasing the watercolour to find its own way often surprises and excites me.   Working/playing on the edge is often where the true beauty is to be found. Sometimes I experience a feeling of being taken over by a greater power.  Not only are these valid spiritual experiences in themselves, but they point me towards the deeper  manifestations of God’s Grace that enter my life when I practice meditation – relaxing, letting go, and allowing The Spirit to inform me.   Just as the stroke of a loaded brush embodies the creative impulse of the painter, so a well turned vocal or instrumental phrase can embody, as well as re-create, the musical thought of the composer.  Have you ever watched a flute player?   My parting shot in active choral singing was in Bach’s St Matthew Passion last Easter.  It was a forceful reminder of the towering spirituality of Bach’s work, and how deeply it can penetrate my innermost being.

Influences have been (and are) – Brother Lawrence, David Steindl-Rast, whose book ‘Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer’ somehow gave me a praying voice, Richard Rohr’s ‘The Naked Now’ that opened new doors about living in the present, despite his idiosyncratic style! And I like the directness and simplicity of 'Quaker Faith and Practice'.  My mentor and friend feeds me on strong meat, suggesting – TS Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ and Richard Holloway’s bracing ‘Crossfire’. Two poems that have been with me for many years are Francis Thomson’s  ‘The Hound of Heaven', and Donne’s  ‘Batter my heart three person’d God’

For the record, I founded the East Cornwall Bach Choir (1965), and Cornwall Youth Orchestra (1970).  Since retiring I’ve led the formation of two charitable trusts – Music & Dance Education (1989), Arts for Health Cornwall & Isles of Scilly (2000) This charity aims to improve health and well being through creativity.   It gives me considerable satisfaction to know that they are all currently thriving, are providing inspirational creative experiences, are developing spiritual awareness, and are potential channels of grace for receptive participants. I retain strong links with them.  For everything, I’m deeply grateful!

James Sargent was born in the East of England in 1929 and taught Secondary School class music there for 10 years. A move in 1964 brought him westwards to Truro in Cornwall as County Education Adviser for Music. Dance and Drama were added to his brief from 1987.  He retired in 1992 and still lives in Truro.

Click here to read all the guest posts in the Monk in the World series>>

Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen (a love note from your online Abbess)

In honor of the Feast of St. Hildegard I share a reprise of a poem I wrote in her honor (and a new reflection below):

St. Hildegard Strolls through the Garden

Luminous morning, Hildegard gazes at

the array of blooms, holding in her heart

the young boy with a mysterious rash, the woman

reaching menopause, the newly minted widower,

and the black Abbey cat with digestive issues who wandered

in one night and stayed.  New complaints arrive each day.

She gathers bunches of dandelions, their yellow

profusion a welcome sight in the monastery garden,

red clover, nettle, fennel, sprigs of parsley to boil later in wine.

She glances to make sure none of her sisters are

peering around pillars, slips off her worn leather shoes

to relish the freshness between her toes,

face upturned to the rising sun, she sings lucida materia,

matrix of light, words to the Virgin, makes a mental

note to return to the scriptorium to write that image down.

When the church bells ring for Lauds, she hesitates just a

moment, knowing her morning praise has already begun,

wanting to linger in this space where the dew still clings.

At the end of her life, she met with a terrible obstinacy,

from the hierarchy came a ban on receiving

bread and wine and her cherished singing.

She now clips a single rose, medicine for a broken heart,

which she will sip slowly in tea, along with her favorite spelt

biscuits, and offer some to the widower

grieving for his own lost beloved,

they smile together softly at this act of holy communion

and the music rising among blades of grass.

—Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In early autumn 2013, I had the great privilege of leading a pilgrimage to the landscape of Hildegard of Bingen with my dear teaching partner Betsey Beckman and the wonderful folks at Spiritual Directors International.

I had been to this place of lush greenness once before the previous autumn, and on that pilgrimage I discovered viriditas in a new way. Viriditas was Hildegard’s term for the greening power of God, sustaining life each moment, bringing newness to birth. It is a marvelous image of the divine power continuously at work in the world, juicy and fecund.

While I expected to see this greening power alive in the vineyards draping the hills, in the beauty of the Rhine river flowing through the valley like a glorious vein of life, and in the forested hill of Disibodenberg where Hildegard spent much of her early life, what I received as gift was the greening that came alive for me in the community gathered.

There is something so powerful about walking in the places that our great mystics and visionaries dwelled, and to feel the wisdom of their teaching in a fully embodied way. However, to do that with an intentional community of fellow pilgrims, each arriving with their own longing and particular love of Hildegard, was a beauty beyond my expectations.

On our pilgrimage, we created a community of modern monks. In my own work, I use the image of being a monk in the world to invite folks into an experience of integrating contemplative practice into the daily tasks of living. The beauty of the monastic mindset, of which Hildegard was deeply shaped and formed, is that it asks us to see the holy in all things, all people, and in the unfolding of time.

We would gather together in the mornings for praying the psalms, in the great monastic tradition of praying the Hours. We entered the psalms through contemporary songs which carried us into their poetry and danced.  I am certain Hildegard would have approved! Throughout our days spent back at the hotel gathering space, which we fondly dubbed our chapel and cloister, we created together through poetry, photography, mandala drawing, and dance.  We would both laugh and weep together as we touched into the wonder of our experience.

On our outings, we received the gifts of these holy sites. We listened in the silence, the way the monks of old would and the way Hildegard surely would have, for the shimmering voice within that so often goes unheard.

Kindred spirits are a gift beyond measure. When we find our tribe, we can feel like we have come home again. We experience the viriditas in our souls, which Hildegard counseled. In that safe space of being met by other pilgrims who also have a love of contemplative practice and creative expression, we are able to start to drop down to a deeper place and let a part of ourselves come alive that we may keep hidden in daily life. We can welcome in the moistening of our souls. This is the greening power of God at work. We find ourselves vital, fertile, alive and saying yes in new ways, affirmed by our fellow companions.

Previous reflections on Holy Hildegard:

Holy Hildegard: A Spiritual Directors Across Time (guest post at the Spiritual Directors International blog)

Hildegard of Bingen (guest post at the Spiritual Directors International blog)

From the Abbey blog

Betsey Beckman and I are beginning plans for a Hildegard pilgrimage in 2016 (probably spring, but dates yet to be determined) – let me know if you are interested!

We also have a self-study retreat with Hildegard of Bingen. Register by September 30th with coupon code Hildegard10 and receive $10 off as a special Feast Day celebration!

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

www.AbbeyoftheArts.com

Photo: Dancing Monk Icon by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts (all 12 icons will be available for sale as prints soon!)

 

Guest Post on Hildegard of Bingen: Megan Hoyt

Megan Hoyt has recently published, Hildegard’s Gift, a children's book about Hildegard of Bingen (whose feast day is September 17th and is, of course, one of our dancing monks!) Here Megan offers a few reflections on the impact of Hildegard for her:

I first "met" St. Hildegard of Bingen when a friend shared her chants with me over a quiet cup of tea, during a lull in our conversation. I was a lover of all things Medieval, and my friend knew this about me. She must have known the lilting tones and haunting melody would catch me off guard. I held my breath for a moment. I tend to get emotionally involved with the composers I study, having been raised by symphony musicians and on a steady diet of classical music. But this was different. Hildegard's melodies were sad and humble and maybe even a little vulnerable. Who was this nun and mystic named Hildegard? I had to know.

My search began online and moved to books, music cds and youtube videos. It was a somewhat sacred quest. I knew almost immediately that I wanted to write about this saintly woman who connected with God so easily. Some seemed to believe she wasn't really "in tune" with God, that she was only reacting to migraines and seizures. Was she epileptic or did she really see visions from God? I don't have a clear answer on that, but when we dig in and research her life and body of work it seems clear that whatever the reason, she was tuned in spiritually in ways I had not yet experienced in my own life, in ways I WANTED to experience.

Hildegard believed God spoke to her directly, through visions and voices. And He spoke to her regularly, sharing His view of the world around her — prompting her to stand against a multitude of wrongs being committed by popes and priests, to create beautiful images and music, to come up with complex herbal remedies for ailments that previously had no cure. What a truly remarkable woman. When I think of her, I’m drawn to this verse:

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28-29)

Hildegard of Bingen believed wholeheartedly in this vision of God as an all-consuming fire, whether it was because of her childhood spent in isolation as an anchoress in Germany or the hours upon hours she spent in prayer. She was definitely consumed by God as one is fully and completely immersed in the Holy Spirit and utterly overwhelmed by Spirit itself. May we all endeavor to see Christ as she did, as the lover of our souls, the Creator of the Universe, the fulfillment of all that is worthwhile in life.

Megan Hoyt is the author of Hildegard’s Gift, a vibrant, colorful picture book for children of all ages, available now through Paraclete Press.

Invitation to Photography: Harvesting the Inner Garden

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 harvest in the Parable from the Gospel of Mark.

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 canresize 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.

Monk in the World guest post: Carol Studenka

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Carol Studenka's wisdom on living as a monk in the world:

Can I really call myself a monk in the world? Surprisingly the answer is yes?

Over the last few years, I have had many changes in my life. Among them has been finding my way to including meditation practice in my daily life. What began seven years ago as a ten minute a day practice, has now become a practice that is integrally woven into every thing I do, including writing this essay.

The question of How do I live as a monk in the world is an intriguing one. I would never have defined myself as a monk in anyway. I am quite worldly as a matter a fact. I drink. I smoke on occasion. I love sloth. In general I indulge in what the world has to offer. The world itself is a moveable feast as Hemingway once put it.

Recently though while being involved in a Meditation Teacher Training Program at the McLean Meditation Institute, I was required to read a book by Marsha Sinetar, Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics. My first thoughts on seeing the title of the book was that I would in no way qualify for either of these parts. My life was not dedicated to God or a Divine Source, but was dedicated to finding the best of my self, feeling at home in my own skin. In no way could I see how these two ideas might be connected.

In her book Sinetar defines the Universal Monk as “one who learns to listen to internal voice of discontent…their newly structured lives force them into intimate and growing relationships with their inner voice…listening is not usually possible in a distracting world.”

As I read this, I realized meditation practice had put me in this exact position. So did daily meditation make me a monk? I wasn't quite ready yet to say yes.

Further on in the book Sinetar brings up the idea of a secular monk. This seemed more in line with my visions. She states the secular monk is driven by an inner call. One that leads to a life that endeavors to penetrate the inner truths of life. These questions were already a part of my meditation practice…who am I, why am I here, what is my heart's desire, how can I serve.

These questions, these truths began to show themselves more frequently in my daily life.

Who am I? I see the beautiful scenery in which I am fortunate to live. How can I not see God in the mountains or the moody way the clouds can settle in to their nook and crannies? I am a part of this world. I am a part of the divine. I am infused with love. And I am grateful.

And so it goes. Why am I here? I go to the grocery store and let the woman who is holding a few groceries, but has worked all day to go in front of me. I am retired and have the gift of time. I am a monk in the world.

I answer an email to one of our Meditation Teachers in Training. I have listened to her. She has shared a joy or a sorrow with me. I am here to be her connection. I am a monk in the world.

Can I prove this in any way? Not really.

Can I tell you how obstacles in my life now melt away? Can I tell you I ask and receive? I can. Still it is not stories of magical happenings, it's really all little things. I have a thought about needing money. As in meditation, I let go of the desire and just connect with the love, with the Divine. Suddenly a few days later, a check in the mail.

What is my heart's desire? To know at my deepest core that I am divine love radiating in the world.

How can I serve? To be love and joy and a source of light in the world.

Too much…Maybe…But for me, it has given me a way. I am a monk living an ordinary life in my own quiet way..which is of course why I so much love the title of the group here too..Life is a holy disorder and I go out into my daily ordinary life sprinkling a little of the connections, sharing my love of meditation with anyone who will listen, and always, always dancing with the Divine Love and Joy found within my soul.

My life-long passion is teaching people to find the key to unlock their own door. For me meditation is that key. After 30 years of teaching in Detroit, I now live and work in Sedona, AZ for the McLean Meditation Institute as a program assistant for the Meditation Teacher Training Program.

Click here to read all the guest posts in the Monk in the World series>>

The Wisdom of Autumn (latest column at Patheos)

Stop by to read my latest Seasons of the Soul column at Patheos on the gifts and wisdom of autumn. If you like this reflection, I would be grateful if you would click the "like" button at the top of the page and share it with your friends via Facebook or Twitter:

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands

infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

— "Autumn" by Rainer Maria Rilke (translation by Robert Bly)

I always find myself extraordinarily energized by the arrival of fall: the crispness of the air, the slowly growing darkness, the simmering of soup on the stove, and the pulling on of wool sweaters.

I love to witness the great turning of the leaves toward radiance and then release. I have much to learn from trees about living brightly and then letting go at the right moment. I imagine what it must be like for the leaf to break free from the branch and flutter gently down to the earth, or sometimes forced off by gusts of wind. In those moments of falling does the leaf know it will be soon be received on the soft earth and be turned into compost and nourishment? And do I remember in my own moments of falling the trajectory of things?

I think of autumn and winter as the seasons of the monk, with their invitations to release and move into stillness. Our modern culture embraces the energies of spring and summer with their emphasis on perpetual blossoming and fruitfulness. But the entire cycle of creation offers us a wise reminder of what is necessary for the fullness of life. Releasing and resting are integral to the spring being able to arrive again.

Click here to continue reading>>

Invitation to Community Lectio Divina: Mark 4:26-29

With September we return to our monthly invitations for contemplation. Our focus for this month is harvest. In the northern hemisphere it is the season for gathering the fruits of our labors. What are you called to harvest in your own spiritual garden?

I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from the Gospel of Mark.

How Community Lectio Divina works:

Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionallyvisio 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.

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”   — Mark 4:26-29

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 2200 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.

Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group here>>

*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.

Abbey Bookshelf: "Prayer in the Cave of the Heart" by Cyprian Consiglio

We are offering the occasional review of some of our favorite books on the contemplative life. This review of Prayer in the Cave of the Heart* by Cyprian Consiglio is written by long-time fellow monk in the world Edith O'Nuallain:

Cyprian Consiglio , a Camaldolese monk, wrote his book Prayer in the Cave of the Heart as an introduction to contemplative prayer. The sub-title says it all,  ‘universal call to contemplation’, a phrase penned by contemplative monk, Fr Bede Griffith, whose life’s work bore witness to the belief that contemplation is available to everyone, not just cloistered monastics. Consiglio believes that eastern traditions can help to invigorate and illuminate aspects of our own spirituality.

Two guiding principles inform the entire book – that the Spirit is already and always indwelling, and that the path to the Spirit is through ‘prayer in the cave of the heart’. We practice meditation and contemplation with the intention of removing all obstacles placed between ourselves and the Divine, who is eternally present to us even when we are not aware.

There are many forms of meditation and contemplative prayer. Consiglio explores a few from Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Orthodox Christianity. The author himself completed his book while staying in a Christian ashram near the Ganges in northern India. Here the monks and nuns base their practice of the Liturgy of the Hours and ‘lectio divina’ around Hindu traditions, including four hour-long periods of silent meditation. Many of the outer elements of their practice are based upon gestures, symbols and chants from Indian spirituality, resulting in a seamless marriage between Christian and Hindu contemplative practice, without either ever collapsing into the other.

While we can never know exactly how Jesus himself prayed, we can deduce that his was an interior form of prayer, evidence for which is suggested by his instructions in Matthew 6:6: “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” In other words, “when you pray, go into your heart.”  Prayer is the way we access the power of the Spirit. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us. The Spirit which flows through us, pours out of us in service and love of others.

However, as with all interior work, we must be careful not to become pre-occupied with the self, but rather to seek the Spirit’s dwelling place. Consiglio writes:

“We are going through ourselves to get beyond ourselves. The journey is through our own experience, through our own souls, through our griefs, joys and pains, but it is decidedly through them, in the belief that there is something on the other side of them if we don’t get caught up in them.” [p36]

Still everything is to be worked through, as we engage with the unconscious through dream and shadow work, as we follow the

“serpentine path into the depths of ourselves.…. if we follow the path right to the end, beyond the merely psychological, we shall finally come to the deepest level of all, the “treasure hidden in the field” of which the gospel speaks – the pure, undifferentiated consciousness, stripped of all that is egoistical and personal, the central core of our nature, where the light of God shines.” [Dom Cyprian Smith, quoted p 37]

This is the same path which is taught by many Hindu and Buddhist traditions, as well as by Christian mystics, a central theme running through this book. He notes that the ‘via negativa’ is a prayer path followed by Zen Buddhists, as well as mystics such as Evagrius of Pontus, the author of the ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, John of the Cross, and Meister Eckhart. The ‘via negativa’ aims straight for our deepest interior spaces, which is where the Divine dwells within us.

Consiglio explores specific forms of devotional practice, beginning with the practice of continual and ceaseless prayer, which is the ultimate aim of all contemplative practices. Ceaseless praying was taken up by the Desert Ammas and Abbas, eventually developing into what became known as the Liturgy of the Hours – set times of daily prayer: matins, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline. But constant prayer is not just found in Christian traditions, as evidenced by the Buddhist recitation of sutras, and the Muslim salaat. In constant prayer we align ourselves with our own deepest centre.

From continual prayer Consiglio moves to ‘pure prayer’, defined as prayer beyond words and images’. It is an apophatic form of prayer, meaning that knowledge of God is impossible; human language can never hope to capture God in its limited concepts. For Consiglio the apophatic tradition

“is the roadmap of the journey on which we set out when we meditate, attempting to leave behind all our thoughts about God, and all our images of God…We hope ….to enter within the secret chamber of divine darkness, leaving outside all that can be grasped by sense or reason.” [p59]

Hence we leave behind our ego, our concepts, our limited thinking.

Muslim scholars speak of the “gradual dissipation of the self so that the self is forgotten and God [is] remembered.” Sufism refers to this as ‘fana’, “the annihilation of the self”. Thomas Merton referred to fana as “the nothingness of all that is not God. My prayer is then a kind of praise rising up out of the center of Nothing and Silence.”  It is precisely in the apophatic approach to prayer, in this interior space beyond language, beyond dogma and doctrine, where we discover resonances with other mystical traditions. Monks and contemplatives from all traditions share similar experiences of meditation and contemplation.

In his final chapter Consiglio describes my favourite contemplative practice – ‘lectio divina’, presenting it in the context of everything we have learned in the preceding chapters, emphasising that in lectio we are listening to God’s word through sacred scripture. Chanting psalms in choir then becomes an exercise in proclaiming God’s word to one another. What a wonderful image to carry into liturgical celebrations!

He describes lectio as like “reading a love letter,,,, savouring every single word …… condensing and simplifying” until we are left with a word or short phrase which serves as a remembrance of our prayer time, like “the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field.” It could become our mantra for that day, “a summary of our intention, a tangible reminder of our moment of intimacy with God, like a wedding ring or an amulet worn around the neck”.

Consiglio concludes that “the real goal of all our meditative techniques and methods [is] the transformation of the body and soul by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.” We reach this nirvana of spiritual enlightenment through the ceaseless practice of unceasing, contemplative prayer. As inheritors of a deeply incarnational religion, Christians are well placed to join their Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim sisters and brothers in contemplative practices which, Consiglio shows, are more often similar than dissimilar in intention and method.

Each chapter concludes with a section on the “Question of Method”, covering such topics as meditation using the breath as a point of focus combined with reciting mantras. Most of the methods presented have their roots in eastern traditions which Consiglio presents from a Christian prespective. In this way he attempts to make real his vision of a new Christianity enlivened by the rich and fertile teachings from other contemplative religions.

Edith Ó Nualláin lives with her family in a small village on the east coast of Ireland, snuggled between the mountains and the sea, where she reads, writes occasional reviews, and spins exotic fibres into yarn. Some day she hopes to learn how to spin straw into the gold.

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