Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 15

Soul of a Pilgrim Video Podcast Day 2

Blessing for Packing Lightly*

Winnowing God,
you ask us to release, let go,
surrender, and yield all that we can
in service of making space for what is most essential.
The more we set aside
that which burdens us and takes up too much space
the more room opens within us
for wonder and gratitude to flourish,
the more we find the freedom
to see the world as enchanted.
Sustain us on the path of simplifying our lives
and traveling on this Earth more lightly
so that we no longer live beyond what can be sustained.
As we continue on the pilgrim’s path,
unencumbered by so many things,
may you open our hearts
to delight in the simple beauty of the world.

Dearest monks and artists,

Today we share with you the Day 2 video podcasts for our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle. The theme for Morning and Evening prayer is The Practice of Packing Lightly. When we say yes to the journey, we then have to decide what to carry with us and what to leave behind. What we release are not just physical items but old ideas as well. 

Here are a few suggestions from my book Soul of a Pilgrim: 

Letting go of things

Consider what are the things in your life you could do without? If there are things in your home that are never used, might they go to a good home? There is such freedom in clearing out space.

Letting go of commitments

Consider also the commitments of time you make that no longer enliven you. Perhaps you are part of a committee and it is time to let someone else take on the responsibilities. Look through your calendar and see if there are things that are not essential that could free up more space for you to breathe deeply and sit in stillness.

Letting go of relationships

This invitation is trickier and requires more care and consideration. Are there people in your life who drain you of energy? Maybe you have discovered your doctor or dentist aren’t a good fit for you anymore, so you might try seeking out someone new. Or perhaps there is someone in your life you get together with purely out of a sense of obligation. Or an old friend who complains and criticizes all the time. Consider how you might free yourself a bit from this sense of responsibility to allow yourself more space and time for what is essential.

Letting go of beliefs and ideas

What are the beliefs and expectations you hold about the world that could be released? Perhaps it is a sense of cynicism about people’s motivations, or a sense of your own limitations based on old wounds. This is perhaps the most challenging of the calls, because they are more subtle, more deeply ingrained. But the other layers of letting go eventually bring you to deeper awareness of how much baggage you are still carrying in other ways.

Consider What to Carry With You

One traditional symbol for the pilgrim’s journey is the scallop shell.  The grooves on the shell represent the different journeys we take as pilgrims, all meeting at the same place.  Ultimately the journey of pilgrimage is about returning home with new awareness and new insight, or discovering what home really means.  The shell is also carried in the sea by the waves to shore, much like we are carried on our journeys.  It also served as a practical tool for drinking water or a makeshift bowl.  So consider if you might be able to find a scallop shell to keep as a symbol for this time.

Another symbol pilgrims carried with them is the pilgrim’s staff, a walking stick offers support for the journey.  You might already have a walking stick you could set beside your prayer chair, or you might look for a large stick in the woods. 

What other things feel essential to pack for your journey? 

We are offering a discount on our Soul of a Pilgrim self-study retreat which is a companion to my book. It is a wonderful resource to deepen into the pilgrimage of daily life. Use coupon code PILGRIM20 for 20% off. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

*Blessing for Packing Lightly is by Christine Valters Paintner and can be found in the Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle. 

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Camille Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Camille Thomas’s reflection Sitting in Paradise.

“Sit in your cell as in paradise,” St. Romuald says in his brief rule for Camaldolese monks. My desk may be the closest thing I have to a monastic cell.

I loved it from the beginning, the ample size and solid feel of it, the sensuous, curved corner that saves it from being stodgy or businesslike. In a concession to technology a discreet hole in the top allows power cords to pass through, but it is otherwise entirely organic. Waves and whorls in the grain of the cherry wood surface hint at a tree’s life story. Water stains tell of use, twenty years of a writer working (and eating and drinking) on this silky surface.

My ex-husband, an amateur woodworker, built it for me when I got tired of writing at the kitchen table. If I couldn’t have a room of my own in the apartment we shared, I wanted at least a desk of my own, and he designed it to my specifications: 66 inches wide and 32 inches deep with two drawers and built-in shelves. Since he was a self-taught furniture maker, he had to think through each step as he went, and the way he figured out to make the desk stand up was to build it into a corner, screwed to the walls to form two of its sides and give it stability.

Not long after the desk was finished, I put away the loosely autobiographical novel I’d written about navigating infertility as an expat in the Netherlands and started an adventure love story that I hoped might actually be publishable. When we divorced, I got to keep the desk and luckily the apartment of which it had become part and parcel. When my new sweetheart and I bought a house together ten years ago, I didn’t see how I could bring the desk with me, but he carefully detached it, marveling at the ingenuity of its construction, and brought it to the corner where I’m writing today at a window looking out on the garden.

In a marriage of the quotidian with the sublime, my laptop and to-do list sit surrounded by candles and icons, feathers and stones, succulents in a handmade ceramic vase. A turkey feather lies atop the letters my grandfather wrote home from World War II, the addresses he scrawled in pencil unfaded after seventy years though the once-white envelopes are ivory now. Behind them are two black-and-white photos of my parents when they were small, and on opposite ends of the desk are photos of me with my sisters and my sweetheart. A painted wooden owl reminds me of my writing teacher and the other beloved women who gathered for a ritual to celebrate my fiftieth birthday.

My desk, I see, has become a sort of altar. Like Joan Didion,”I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means,” and this piece of furniture is a home for that thinking and meaning making. I sit here as in paradise.

 At home on the California coast, Mary Camille Thomas uses writing as a tool to navigate our crazy consumer culture. How do we balance the competing demands in our lives and touch the peace in the cave of our hearts? She explores possibilities on her blog The Kingdom of Enough.

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Soul of a Pilgrim Video Prayer Cycle Day 1 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Blessing for Our Yes to the Journey*

Holy Traveller,
bless our sacred yes to the call
you have whispered to us,
whether a call to new adventure
or the call that arises out of loss,
we know you journey with us,
guiding us on the way of imagination to new paths.
May we travel with intention,
being conscious of encountering you in each step,
in each stranger, in each moment of disorientation.
We ask you to bless our feet,
that they carry us forward in this season to new possibilities.
Bless our hands,
that they might help us give form to our creative visions.
Bless our hearts,
that we stay open to wonder and numinous moments
Bless our throats,
that we gain courage to speak truth.
Bless our lips,
that we take in what is most nourishing.
Bless our third eyes,
that our intuition and the wisdom of dreams
be close companions on the way,
guiding us through the darkness.

Dearest monks and artists,

We are delighted to be releasing the video podcasts for our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle! Huge gratitude to Betsey Beckman for putting these together and for sharing her gift of dance and invitation into gentle movement. Many of the songs have body prayers included so you can let the prayers inhabit you more fully. Today we release Day 1 Morning and Evening prayers on Hearing the Call and Responding. 

The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are filled with journeys: Adam and Eve sent forth from Paradise into the world, Abraham and Sarah are called away from the land which was familiar, Moses and Miriam lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, Mary and Joseph seek a place to give birth, Jesus and the Samaritan woman journey to the well, the Prodigal Child leaves home and returns, Jesus makes his final journey to Jerusalem accompanied by his disciples, and the encounter on the road to Emmaus is part of a journey.

Journeys are movements from one place to another, often to a place that is unfamiliar, foreign, and strange. In fact, the Latin root of the word pilgrimage, peregrini, means strange or stranger. Becoming a pilgrim essentially means becoming a stranger in the service of transformation. 

A pilgrimage is an intentional journey into this experience of unknowing and discomfort for the sake of stripping away preconceived ideas and expectations and grow closer to the God beyond our own imagination. 

Sometimes I describe pilgrimage as a journey where we court holy disruption.

In recent years there has been a great reclaiming of the practice of pilgrimage, which flourished in the Middle Ages. There are many sites of significance from walking the Camino, making the long journey out to Iona, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, to Marian sites like Lourdes and Medjugorje. All religious traditions have some form of pilgrimage. Muslims make the holy journey to Mecca. Hindus journey to Kumbh Mela, one of their holiest festivals. 

In the spring of 2012, my husband John, and I embarked on our own great journey and pilgrimage.  For several years we had traveled to Europe on ancestral pilgrimages to Ireland and England, the land of our mothers’ ancestors, and to Germany and Austria, the land of our fathers’ ancestors. These were journeys to reconnect with the landscapes and cultures that shaped the imagination of those who walked before us and whose blood beat in our veins. 

Then, several shifts happened in our lives to open the way for a more radical journey. We experienced a call to sell everything we owned – home, car, furniture, books, belongings – and board a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean.  

My own father remained an Austrian citizen his whole life, even though he worked in New York City for all of his adulthood where I was born.  Two years prior to this midlife journey, I finally sought out the necessary paperwork to reclaim my own citizenship in Austria which opened the door for this great adventure.

We had been drawn to the idea of living overseas for some time. We knew there was a different culture in Europe, which was distinct from country to country, one where people seemed to rush less and enjoy their lives more.  There was less shopping in big box stores, and more local markets. We were drawn to becoming strangers in these places, not just for a few weeks of summer travel, but to live and see what we might discover about ourselves as our own assumptions and expectations were challenged.

John had been teaching high school for twelve years and was feeling ready for a break, even though he loved the Hebrew Scriptures he was mainly teaching.  Then there were big changes in the curriculum, instituted by the Catholic bishops of the U.S.  It seemed time to consider the change that had been calling to us. 

Now we have lived in Ireland for over 11 years and the pilgrimage continues, as it does for all of us. We keep discovering new layers to our calling. 

I believe very much in taking physical pilgrimages to faraway places. I know the value of stepping into foreign cultures and illuminating all the expectations I hold about how life should work. 

But I also believe that pilgrimage is very much an inner journey and experience. There are those who can travel long distances, but never see the place they visit except through the lens of a tourist, clicking the camera in an attempt to capture as much as possible but never being present.  

And there are those who may not travel very far outward distances, but the inward distance is long and arduous, and ultimately deeply transformative and rewarding. We can cultivate the soul of a pilgrim when we stay open to a way of life that is always open to newness. 

Ultimately pilgrimage is an outer journey in the service of this inner transformation. 

I love the horizon-broadening adventure of travel and the invitation of pilgrimage to go to unexplored places within me. 

The purpose of these voyages, however, is always to return home again carrying the new insight back to everyday life. 

Our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle is meant to companion you on your own pilgrimages, whether a journey you make at home in daily life, or on a trip to somewhere far away. 

We are also featuring our Soul of a Pilgrim self-study retreat which is an online companion program to my book, which means we are offering a discount until the end of the month. Use code PILGRIM20 to take 20% off the registration fee.

Simon and I will be joined by Soyinka Rahim for our contemplative prayer service tomorrow on the theme of Mary, Mirror of Justice.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

P.S. On May 2nd we celebrated the 18th anniversary of the founding of the Abbey! Read my reflection on this milestone here.

* A Blessing for Our Yes to the Journey is by Christine Valters Paintner from our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle (Day 1)  

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Abbey of the Arts Celebrates 18 Years!

Today we celebrate 18 years since Abbey of the Arts was created. In its first year it was a blog called The Sacred Art of Living where I was retraining myself to write for a broader audience after my highly academic training. A few months in and I realized what I was writing my way toward was a virtual monastery. 

In those first few years I was teaching theology at Seattle University and also served as Program Coordinator for the Ignatian Spirituality Center in Seattle, and while I did love that work, my heart was longing for something different. I kept following the green thread luring me forward as the Abbey grew and eventually became my full-time ministry and place of service. It was an act of trust in what was unfolding, always surprising me with its gifts and invitations. 

I am thinking a lot about steadiness of presence these days. John and I will celebrate 30 years of marriage in September and I am grateful for these two pillars of relationship and work which have endured over the long haul. 

Yesterday we completed our 9-day Celtic virtual pilgrimage for the feast of Bealtaine and May Day. There is something so wonderfully intimate about gathering together each day for shared prayer, even via Zoom. Even though we had been preparing this material for over a year, having filmed our wonderful local guides last April and May, stepping into the shared journey with our wondrous community was such a sacred gift. Each morning I’d pray with the materials for several hours, listening for what needed to be said later in the live session and how the meditations might unfold. And each day I would listen for Spirit, for the Irish saints and ancestors, for the wisdom of the land and our guides, and for the wisdom of our pilgrims as it emerged each day. 

I am also thinking a lot about harvest. I turn 54 in June, so am pretty sure I am more than halfway through my life. It is hard to express the fullness of joy I feel at all I have gained over these last many years showing up to do this work of contemplative presence, creative practice, and community building. I am far from done with my work in the world. So many creative ideas and longings continue to bubble up, despite my physical limitations. I keep learning more about slowing down and how the harvest sustains me in that place of spaciousness and letting go of hopes for any particular outcome. 

Each day wonder, gratitude, joy, curiosity, beauty, love, and community sustain me, inspire me, galvanize me. 

Every morning I enter my time of meditation with prayers of gratitude for you my dear dancing monks. What a witness to a hurting world of the power of love and creativity to transform. 

What is blossoming forth in your hearts as we cross this threshold of the sacred turning of the year? 

What are the things/people/ideas you have remained committed to over the long haul? 

What is the harvest this has brought? 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Starr Regan DiCiurcio

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Starr Regan DiCiurcio’s reflection and inspiration for writing your own prayer.

Over the years I have spent considerable time in monasteries, primarily Buddhist and Benedictine ones.  The rhythm of the days, the beauty of chant, the resonance with ancestors, the faith held in community and the deep solitude all nourish me.  But the day to leave always comes with the challenge of translating the monastic experience into my daily life.  As an Interfaith Minister my work includes spiritual direction, retreats, and meditation instruction.  My creative pursuits are writing and art, particularly nature journaling.  The Abbey of the Arts has offered me a wellspring of ideas to support my role as an everyday, everywhere monk.  Christine was way ahead of the times in recognizing the potential of online community.  I am grateful.  The prayer below is from my book Divine Sparks.  The work offers many prayers and meditations, but I chose this example as an encouragement to you, the reader, to write your own.  Tradition offers us irreplaceable words that resonate deeply, but there is great value in finding our own words to express our hearts.  Our prayers are an outpouring of praise and intention, but also a coming home to ourselves.  Your prayer is a perfect prayer.  The Divine Mystery awaits you.

Starr’s Prayer

Make of my life a prayer –
a prayer of praise, reverence, and wonder.
Let me move through each day mindfully –
mindful steps, mindful words, mindful thoughts.
Help me understand the power of lovingkindness
and show me how to infuse myself and others with its grace.
Let me not miss a moment of beauty’s light --
illuminating, healing, and strengthening.
May all before me be recognized as holy –
each blade of grass, each being, each stepping stone.
May my soul fill with gratitude for all before me, big and small,
so I become a wellspring of generosity.
May I bow deeply at dawn and dusk
anticipating each threshold with courage and curiosity.
May I touch the source of joy that bubbles deep within my heart
and may I be released into perfect freedom.

Starr Regan DiCiurcio is an artist, writer and interfaith minister living in Upstate New York.  She is also ordained in the Order of Interbeing of Thich Nhat Hanh.  Her most recent book is Divine Sparks: Interfaith Wisdom for a Postmodern World.  www.StarrRegan.com

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Blessing of the Elements ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Blessing of the Elements*

Wild Elemental One,
bless us through your gifts of wind, fire, water, and earth.
May we awaken to new life each dawn
and feel your holy breath sustaining us.
Let the breezes whisper their secrets
and the winds strip away what is no longer needed.
May we bless the sky with our reaching,
the clouds a witness to our becoming.
May we feel the living flame of love
burning in our hearts.
Let the sun warm and illumine us
and may the ash that remains
from the fire bring us new clarity.
May we bless the fire with our passion
letting all that sparks and blazes within
warm this world.
May we know the sea as our holy source
and the rivers and lakes carry us
on currents of love.
Let the holy water of the wells
heal our broken places,
bringing us back to wholeness again.
May we bless the water of life,
yielding to its flow, carrying us home.
May we bless Earth with our gratitude,
for the sweetness of every sip and bite.
Let the trees root us, let the mountains lift us.
May we endure like stone,
may we nourish like bread.
May the elements guide us on the way
to live more fully, to breathe deeply,
to ignite our longings, to follow the flow,
to create something which persists.

Dearest monks and artists,

Our featured self-study retreat this month is Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea, and Stone: A Creative Retreat with the Elements which includes writing practice, nature journaling, and movement invitations. 

Perhaps one of the most beautiful celebrations of the elements in the Christian tradition is The Canticle of the Creatures written by St. Francis late in his life. It is such a rich cosmological vision which sees all of creation nourishing and supporting us. (We commissioned Simon de Voil to write a song based on this prayer which you can listen to here.) 

Then there is Thomas Merton who offers us this powerful vision:

How necessary it is for monks to work in the fields, in the rain, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters. They form our contemplation. They instill us with virtue.  They make us as stable as the land we live in. (from The Sign of Jonas)

Merton is referring here to monks, but he is essentially speaking to all of us who yearn for a closer relationship to God.  The wind and rain, sun and mud are representations of the four elements of air, fire, water, and earth.  As Merton indicates, they can act as spiritual directors or guides to help us along the sacred journey.  The qualities of these elements offer an invitation to us to pray with them, so that we might come to know what they reveal about the nature of God and our own spiritual unfolding.

Christian tradition tells us that we have received two books of divine revelation: the book of scripture and the book of nature.  

Creation itself is a sacred text through which the presence of God is revealed to us.

There is a story about the hermit Antony who lived in the desert of Egypt in the third to fourth centuries.  When he was asked once by a philosopher what he would do if one day he could no longer read scripture, Antony replied simply: “My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is always on hand when I wish to read it.”  In this brief exchange we witness the essential role of the natural world in forming Christian awareness and practice from ancient times.

Celtic Christian tradition especially has developed this understanding of the natural world as a window onto the divine; nature is considered to be an essential source of revelation about God. This is in large part why Celtic Christian practices and wisdom are being reclaimed with great enthusiasm in our contemporary world. People are hungry for ways to reconnect with creation in meaningful and prayerful ways.

This primary connection to creation is rooted in the example of Jesus himself who expressed many of his teachings through parables, those profound stories that reveal to us the nature of God and God’s Reign.  

Much of the language Jesus used is earth-based, rooted in metaphors of seed, fruit, and harvest with which his listeners would have identified. His ministry also centers around elemental places such as feasting at the table on the gifts of the earth, his appearance on the mountain as a place of transfiguration, his encounters at the well, and his own baptism in the river Jordan as just a few examples.

Both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are filled with images of God rooted in the elements of the natural world. The Psalms especially use the language of earth, water, fire, and wind to describe the nature of the divine, give insight into the multiplicity of God’s qualities, and celebrate a God who can be found within the matrix of creation.  

This is the last chance to register for the Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea, and Stone self-study retreat at a discount SACREDRHYTHMS20.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image © Christine Valters Paintner

*Blessing of the Elements is by Christine Valters Paintner and from a forthcoming book of blessings (due to be published in spring 2026).

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Diana Turner-Forte

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Diana Turner-Forte’s reflection Healing and Mercy.

The ordinariness of the elongated single story building belies everything that happens inside. The originally crafted sign in earth tones of green and tan ceramic tiles makes a bold statement: Monarch Gallery. . . where dreams take flight. The sign was designed by a young man who talks incessantly while punching the elements on his cell phone. Earle interrupts conversations and ignores most people, only conversing with a select few. He also creates pencil drawings in a few strokes (well many) from a photograph of your house. 

When available, the front door is opened by Dylon, a handsome young man with a quiet demeanor. With economy of movement, one hand on the door the other behind his back he resists eye contact. Even so, I smile as I say “Thank you,” and wait for his slow and articulate response: “You are welcome.”

Once inside the embrace of solidarity and gentleness of the human spirit envelops you. A subdued vitality permeates the building. It’s a kind of blessing, really. At the same time a celebratory attitude exudes with in-house decorations depending on the nearest holiday: Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day or Easter. If a visitor were to arrive around lunchtime, the intoxicating aroma from the kitchen might lead to an inquiry of the specialty dish for the day prepared by the cooking class and an invitation to join in the meal.

Hobbling toward me, Annie’s a woman in her 50s who inquires of my availability to observe a dance she’s been practicing. Previously, we had worked together on other dances she had created before an accident left her in physical therapy and using a walker for several weeks. Surprised to see her up and about, I encourage her to consider a chair dance and let her know I’ll eagerly await her next piece of choreography.

Sierra notices me and greets me with a nod of her head and curtsy. I respond in like manner. I have no idea where she learned the refined gestures. She displays them well. Anyway, that has been the extent of our connection. We’ve never talked or even officially met, but that doesn’t matter. She knows me as the dance/movement, stretching instructor and acknowledges my presence in her unique way interrupting my rushing mode and pulling me the present moment and into her presence without words. 

I’ve grown accustomed to the one word communications of Stewart. In spite of limited speech, this guy is a master of precision. He can finish 1000 piece puzzles in a few hours and keeps the studio clock in alignment with the twice a year time change. That I can count on! 

Always carrying a countenance of joy and cheer, Leila greets me with “Good to see you.” She has a part-time job at a local bakery. 

It would be hard for even a casual observer to ignore the art on the hall walls. Without knowledge of the complex backgrounds of the originators of the 4” x 6” art pieces, one might assume a budding van Gogh, Durer, Klee or perhaps O’Keeffe were in the building. Though mostly unnoticed, the creative spirit is alive and flourishing as displayed in the brilliantly colored and unusual works lining the walls.

Once I’ve deposited my dance bag at the studio door, I usually meander a little further toward the end of the hallway. In this tranquil space the art of pottery-making is conscientiously pursued. Clay is formed into mugs, vases, turned vessels as modeled by the master teacher who carefully observes his student’s works. His one of a kind masterpieces are displayed on shelves and throughout the building. After the original clay pieces are placed in the kiln and finished with a glaze, they are sold to the public in the Gallery. 

Properly initiated into my day I return to the dance studio. Opening the blinds natural light flows in to complement the pale green walls where peacefulness is affirmed. My work on any day is to invite a population not accustomed to exploratory movement—the people that Monarch serves— to a time of embodied discovery: bending, gentle stretching, and twisting. Some participants choose to sit in a chair and revel in the sound of classical music. 

Identifying ways to shift societal labels to possibilities through basic movement enlivens me. The unknowable history of each participant lends itself to limitless creativity. In most cases, just providing a safe space for the exploration of movement, no matter how limited, and to suggest potential where none was considered before is healing. Some participants learn to love their bodies regardless of the congenital condition. Uncomplicated goals, but a studious curiosity of the human form with bite-size gains even if only temporarily is encouraging. No seduction into grandiosity, here, but something much more refined — the unique movement potential of each participant. 

As a monk in the world encountering the community that Monarch serves I treasure the uniqueness that each shares. It is humility that sustains me and keeps me truthful in the work that I must do. Even after many years of entering the building, I’m awed by the grace I receive. I accept both the extravagance and utter simplicity of my days in this holy setting. And humbly receive the constant outpouring of love in its many manifestations. At the deepest level when hearts connect there are no differences.

Diana Turner-Forte is a Dancer/Teaching Artist and Writer. As a professional artist she performed throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico City. An injury led to studies in the healing arts: brain-body integration, core strengthening/Pilates-based, meditation, and prayer. She resides in North Carolina with her husband and four-legged creature, Pierre.

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St Patrick and Answering the Call ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Blessing for Coming Home*

Godde of Homecomings,
our lives are a pilgrimage journey
seeking the discovery of home in the world.
We travel, not in straight lines,
but in circles and spirals, revisiting old patterns
and ways of being that need healing,
trusting in life’s unfinished nature,
but also our deep desires of the heart calling us
to re-orient ourselves again and again.
Magnify our vision
so that each journey we make leads
to expanded growth and wisdom.
Help us to continue to dive into
the refreshing river of life,
allowing the current to carry us closer to you.
Carve out in us a space for both grief and joy,
so we may meet life with eyes and heart wide open.
Remind us of the ancient pilgrims we travel with,
seeking an experience of you beyond boundaries
drawing us closer to our own wild edges.
Those moments when we do arrive home,
give us the deep rest we desire,
where we remember your presence in all that we do.

Dearest monks and artists,

Starting Tuesday, Simon de Voil and I will begin a 9-day virtual Celtic pilgrimage for the feast of Beltaine (May 1st) honoring Saints Colman, Sourney, and Patrick. 

Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and the most well-known of all the Irish saints. He was born in 390 either near England’s west coast or in Wales. When he was about sixteen years old, he was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland, where he lived as a slave for six years. He endured many hardships, including hunger, thirst, and cold under the rule of a cruel pagan king. 

It was during his enslavement, while spending long hours in solitude tending sheep, that he had a spiritual awakening. Through the prompting of dreams and other voices, Patrick was able to escape and return back home again. He set out for Gaul to learn theology and prepare himself for his future ministry. After many years passed, he had another dream in which he heard the Irish people calling out to him to return to the land of his enslavement. 

Patrick’s name actually means “one who frees hostages,” and when he returned to Ireland, he was very vocal in his opposition to slavery. 

He returned there in 432 and spent the rest of his life preaching the message of Christianity and helping to establish the Christian Church in Ireland. There is a great deal of evidence that Patrick was not the one to bring Christianity to Ireland, that it had already begun to flower, but certainly he was key in its continued growth.

I find his story intriguing. Here was a man enslaved, who escaped by divine intervention, and then heard the call to return to the land of his slavery—and he went willingly. He must have experienced more than his share of discomfort at the thought. 

There are churches founded by Patrick in the area around Galway. One of my favorite sites is Inchagoill island on Lough Corrib, just a few miles north of us. The name of the place means “island of the stranger.” The island is now uninhabited, but there is a stone church at the site where Patrick’s fifth-century wooden church would have been, as well as a marker stone where his nephew and navigator is buried; it is one of the oldest Christian markers we have. There is a later twelfth-century church nearby as well. We visit this church as part of our virtual pilgrimage. 

Seeking out this “strangeness” and “exile” was at the heart of the monastic call. In going to the places that make us feel uncomfortable and staying with our experience rather than running away, they cracked themselves open to receive the Spirit in new ways. 

But in this seeking out of strangeness and risk, one does long for a sense of protection or safety within the arms of the divine. St. Patrick’s well-known lorica prayer was one type of prayer to invoke this protection and a reminder of the sacred presence always with us already.

If you’d like to dive deeper into the spiritual wisdom of the Celtic saints, please join us for our virtual pilgrimage starting Tuesday! 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall

*Pilgrimage Blessing by Christine Valters Paintner from our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Jennifer Scott Mobley

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jennifer Scott Mobley’s reflection and poem The Work of Healing.

“We are each a multitude of inner voices. Some of these voices are loud, while others may rest hidden in the shadows. When we actively work to cultivate our connection to particular archetypes, we can summon new perspectives and ways of seeing into our lives. They help to illuminate our gifts as well as our blind spots. They appear in dreams, myths, fairy tales, and in our daily lives through synchronicity to empower us to move through the world in more loving and life-giving ways. Developing these capacities within ourselves helps to empower us for greater sovereignty and loving presence in the world.”

–Visionary, Warrior, Healer, Sage: Archetypes to Navigate an Unraveling World, program description

“The Work of Healing” was inspired after participating in the Visionary, Warrior, Healer, Sage: Archetypes to Navigate an Unraveling World retreat. One of our reflective prompts was to consider having the Visionary, Warrior, Healer, and Sage enter into conversation together. What stories do they want to share? What wisdom do they offer to each other? 

As I reflected upon this prompt, the Healer and Warrior emerged as beautiful conversation partners that offered profound wisdom to one another. What I discovered is that the Warrior helps me to protect my boundaries and say no with firmness and conviction, while the Healer helps me to welcome in the stranger, the abandoned and hurting places within myself that need loving attention and care. In this poem, St. Brigid ‘s cloak, is a central image, and a shimmering touchstone for both protection and healing.   

This work with the archetypes has strong resonance with the Internal Family Systems model which I draw upon in my work as a leadership coach. IFS is an evidenced-based psychotherapy that is focused on helping people heal by accessing and healing their protective and wounded inner parts. But it is more than just a therapeutic model, it is a way of understanding that Self is in everyone. It knows how to heal. 

Yet, to be clear, healing is not curing.  Instead healing allows wisdom to come through difficult experiences. 

That’s what was in my heart when I wrote the following poem, with which I leave you, dear reader.

The Work of Healing

There will be times
when you will come to the table
and you’ll feel like no one
wants to pay you any attention.
And there will be other times
when everyone is clamoring for your
attention, all at once.

Let them arrive on their schedule, give them permission
to come and go as they please
to leave early or arrive late, even without good cause.
All you need to do is welcome them in.

It wasn't always this way.
For years, you thought
healing meant
hustle.
You must grasp
You must grind.
You must practice and
perfect these steps
in this particular order.

You thought you were only the part of you
that doesn’t stop to think
before replying to the email,
saying: yes, yes, and yes.

But there is another part
that wants to tell another story of you.
A thirteen-year-old girl in the corner
crying: no, no, and no.
Don’t forget to listen to her too.

Take her hand and see
where she wants to take you,
ask her why she is outside
at 3 am on a February morning.
Wait and listen for her answer.

Receive the gift that she brings,
a cloak that has been left outside is
for you, lean back and let it cover you,
all parts of you, let the touch of dew
and the sound of water, the small drops
spreading, filling, healing—
be our buoyant body.

We bathe now.
We are
such a
beautiful conversation.

Jennifer Scott Mobley, Ph.D. is an executive and leadership coach who draws upon her experience with strengths-based leadership, design thinking, and the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model in her work with clients. Her poetry has been featured in the Penwood Review and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.

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St Colman, Solitude, and Pilgrimage ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Pilgrimage Blessing*
Journeying One,
you help us to navigate the path,
placing one foot in front of the other,
even when the way ahead is not visible.
We set aside our desire for maps, GPS, and guidebooks
and surrender to an inner knowing and direction
sparked by the deepest longings of our hearts.
We know the desire for new life
we feel has been kindled by you.
May we surrender our need to steer the course
and let every step we take carry us into
greater intimacy with you.
Help us to see others as fellow pilgrims on the way
with their own fears and struggles.
Compel us to reach out a hand
in loving compassion and support
and may we recognize all those holy guides
who disrupt our intended paths
as sparking a new direction on our way.

Dearest monks and artists,

On April 23rd, Simon de Voil and I will begin a 9-day virtual Celtic pilgrimage for the feast of Beltaine (May 1st) honoring Saints Colman, Sourney, and Patrick. We have spent many hours over the past year working with our wonderful filmmakers and local guides to bring some more of the sacred sites in the west of Ireland alive for you, our dear community. 

One of the sites dedicated to St. Colman is especially close to my heart. It is a place in the Burren, the limestone landscape across the bay from where I live, which holds a cave, a church ruin, and a holy well, all surrounded by a grove of hazelnut trees. 

Colman was the founder of many monasteries, but at an early point in his life he longed for greater solitude and silence. He went into the forest of the Burren and found a cave where he could settle. When we used to bring pilgrims there, we’d bless ourselves at the well and spend time sitting in silence to listen to the wisdom of wind and stone, of trees and water. 

It is said that Colman also brought three creatures with him—a rooster, a mouse, and a fly. The rooster would wake him for his morning prayers. The mouse would nibble on his ear if he fell back to sleep, and the fly would help him keep his place in his book of prayers. 

Even though Ireland’s landscape and weather are far from desert conditions, because of the impact of the ancient desert ammas and abbas, we still find in Ireland many places with the name dysert (or variations of it) to reflect the wild, solitary places the Irish monks sought out. 

Colman lived in this dysert place for seven years in silent contemplation, allowing the wilderness to teach him. Eventually, through divine intervention, he was called back to community life where he built his monastery, Kilmacduagh (which means “church of Macduagh”) near Gort. It became a large ecclesiastical site that many pilgrims sought out.

Is there a dysert place in your own life? 

Where do you go for a time of retreat? It might be a place in your own home, a retreat center nearby, a beautiful landscape where you go to restore, or a faraway place that has touched your heart with its capacity to reveal the holy. 

Make a commitment to find a day sometime during the next weeks to go away for a time of silence and solitude to simply listen. You can even practice dysert at home for ten minutes each day if that is all that is available to you. Turn off any notifications from your phone or computer, tell others in your house not to disturb you, and give yourself time to sit and listen. 

You may not hear anything at first, or you may hear the birds outside, the whir of car engines going by, the rustle of neighbors on their way out the door. Instead of fighting these as distractions, bring the art of blessing to each of these sounds. Bless the birds, the people in their cars wherever they are headed, the neighbors whose story you may or may not know. 

Consider joining us for our virtual pilgrimage and creating your own desert and wilderness retreat in the midst of your daily life. 

You are also invited to join Therese Taylor Stinson this Wednesday for our monthly Centering Prayer session for another opportunity to practice silence and stillness with kindred spirits.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

*Pilgrimage Blessing by Christine Valters Paintner from our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle

Dancing Monk Icon © Marcy Hall

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