Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 154

Dancing Monk Icons now available as prints!

If you have loved the dancing monk icon series, you can now order prints directly from artist Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts. The prints are made by a local printer in the town of Erie on archival quality mat board, so your purchase supports the artist, a local printer, and half of the profits go to support the Earth Monastery Project.

Will you choose Mary Mother of God, St. Benedict, St. Hildegard, St. Brigid, or maybe one of each? (Discounts when you buy 2 or all 4!)

Prints are 6 inches wide x 10 inches high and are mounted on an 11 x 14 board.

They are such wonderful reminders of the 8th principle of the Monk Manifesto: to be a dancing monk, cultivating creative joy and letting my body and "heart overflow with the inexpressible delights of love." (from the Rule of Benedict)

You must order by March 17th and all orders will be printed together and shipped out at that time.

Go to this link for more details and to order directly from Marcy>>

(Dancing St. Hildegard pictured here)

Monk in the World guest post: Valerie Hess

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community.  Read on for Valerie's wisdom about signposts and ancient practices:

This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;

ask for the ancient paths,

ask where the good way is, and walk in it,

and you will find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16

I am a signpost. I am called to stand at the crossroads and offer direction and guidance to people. I share what I know of the ancient path to walk on, a good path, a path that leads to rest in their souls that Jeremiah records.

This is not a flashy or “sexy” way to live in the world. While signposts can be in key places of need, they are often rather dull and uninteresting things themselves. People who look at them are also looking past them, seeking to find the road, the directional information they are seeking. The signpost itself is merely functional, pointing to another reality; it is not the reality itself. While they can be iconic, most signposts are not great art, though they often are used to illustrate articles on guidance in life and the like. They can be metaphors for larger realities in the world but for the most part, signposts are there to focus our attention on something else and not on the signpost itself.

I am a signpost. My passion and gifting is teaching the spiritual disciplines to people who have known about God, often for decades, but have had difficulty in knowing God and, therefore, in knowing their true selves. The spiritual disciplines are “hand-holds” on the ladder of life. They can help carry us beyond ourselves, helping us keep our footing in whatever present reality we find ourselves in. They help us navigate rough waters as stars helped ancient mariners find their true course.

Yet, these spiritual disciplines, or holy habits as they are sometimes called, are often hidden or unknown altogether to people of faith. For lots of reasons, mostly due to fear of “works righteousness,” the spiritual disciplines have been neglected since the 1800s  in Protestant circles. Thanks to people like Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, they are being rediscovered. Like a hidden Egyptian tomb, soul archeologists are discovering their treasures and sharing them with others. They are some of the great wonders of the spiritual world: prayer, meditation, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission (a wonderful word that has been horribly misunderstood in modern times), service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration (to quote Richard Foster’s list in his ground-breaking book, “Celebration of Disciplines.”)

I live as a monk in the world as a signpost to these great treasures. I have not unearthed these treasures myself but, like a museum docent, I show them to people, inviting them to embrace them for themselves. I do this through writing, speaking and through teaching graduate students.

Yet, as a signpost, I myself am also in need of being reminded about these practices. I often say, in a semi-joking fashion, that I teach the spiritual disciplines because I, more than anyone in the room, need to be reminded of their power and goodness. I continue to write and speak about them because I am also reminding myself that they are the paving stones on the ancient path and good way that God, through Jeremiah, invites us to.

When I use this Bible verse from Jeremiah to introduce my class to the disciplines, I leave out the last line: “But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” Signposts can be ignored. Stop signs are run, road closure signs are missed, directional signs are ignored. Like you, I see this happen frequently and am guilty of these transgressions myself at times. But just because a signpost is ignored, the value of its message is not negated. The good road is there, whether I choose to walk on it or not.

We need new roads and we need ancient paths. “And Jesus said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.’ (Matt 13:52). Each passageway needs signposts appropriate to its type. Interstate highway signs need to be big, flashy, and multiplied over a number of miles before the exit. Hiking trail signs can be smaller, more rustic and limited in number.

As a monk in the world, I am called to be a signpost to the ancient path that leads towards God. I am small and non-descript but no less valuable because of it. Stand! Look! Ask! Walk! There will be signs along the way.

Valerie Hess, wwwvaleriehess.com, is a musician, instructor in Spring Arbor University’s Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation and Leadership (MSFL) program, and an author with three books in print.

She is also the Coordinator of Music Ministries for Trinity Lutheran Church in Boulder, Colorado, where she lives with her husband.

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

Love and Hospitality (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!)

Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims,

A few days ago I received an email from a woman who is writing her dissertation and asked me to respond to the question: "If you had to choose one spiritual practice that is a non-negotiable for spiritual growth in the 21st century, what would it be and why?" My answer was supposed to be short and succinct.

Here was my reply: "I would choose hospitality, both inner and outer, because I believe the welcoming in all of the exiled pieces of ourselves to be essential for the healing of the world." Of course, it is one of the principles of the Monk Manifesto, and feels like a necessary gateway to silence or hesychia, which the ancient desert monks described as a deep inner stillness.

As I was thinking about writing this love note, I realized Friday is Valentine's Day, which for many of us is a holiday which only serves to make us feel inadequate, as all highly commercialized things do. And yet the message of love is worth repeating if we can look beneath the chocolate hearts and flowers and the expectation that we all be in a significant relationship or be lacking.

When I read the question posed above, I did not hesitate in my response, because I find that this is the heart of my work – creating a safe space where monks can begin welcoming back in the stranger within and in the process discover the hidden wholeness of which Thomas Merton wrote. Over the years, I have come to realize, that more than anything else I do, this work of healing is most essential. The Abbey, too, strives to be a safe place where a diversity of people with a wide range of beliefs and convictions can gather. I love that people show up each with their own longings.

Last week I shared that I was feeling under the weather. I pulled back from as much activity as I could and allowed myself some space to cocoon. I trusted my body's longings and in the process I am feeling better physically, but also some important spiritual shifts are happening that needed the space of quiet to unfold. This trust is an act of great love toward myself. Rather than pushing through, I made the choice to welcome and yield.

The same happens when we consider the parts of ourselves that feel less desirable, the parts we resist. Maybe there is a deep loneliness as this holiday of roses and Hallmark approaches. What would it be like to welcome in that lonely part of yourself and to love him, to trust that she has a place in you? Maybe there is self-judgment and criticism that you try to push away. What would it be like to make space to sit with these difficult parts with compassion and listen to what they really want to tell you? This would be a generous act of loving.

This radical hospitality is a lifelong journey. We are always discovering new aspects of our inner world which we reject or resist and need love and care. And in the process of welcoming them in, we perhaps begin to discover that others don't annoy us quite so much. As we grow more intimate with our own places of exile and woundedness, we discover a deep well of compassion for the strangeness of others. As we come to know our own compulsions and places of grasping, we can offer more love to those in our lives struggling with addictions and other places where freedom has been lost.

For the last few months I have signed this love note "With great and growing love" but never explained the choice I made. I started after finding some old letters written by my mother and father to one another in the early days of their marriage. I had forgotten that one of their terms of endearment for one another was "GGL" which stood for "great and growing love." These missives all began and ended with those three letters.

Even though my parents' wounds eventually led them to separation and my father to rejecting much of the love offered to him toward the end of his life, I still treasure this image. I cherish knowing that there was this sense of love abiding between them, growing slowly. Rather than feeling despair or cynicism, I actually feel a great tenderness to know of all the places love plants her seeds.

I love each of you, my dear monks, I don't think the intensity of this work is sustainable without that kind of love. I love your seeking hearts. I love your desire to find a more compassionate way to be in this life and on this earth.

As I continue to offer love to myself through acts of trust in my body's wisdom and welcoming in the less flattering parts of myself, the love grows.

My beloved John will often say "I love you more," and I respond by asking "More than what?" And his reply is "more than yesterday." We have been blessed with 20 years of growing love.

My invitation to you, as Valentine's Day approaches, is to consider whether your love for your own beautiful self grows each day, knowing that there will be days of such self-disdain it might not be possible, and then you welcome in that small and wounded place and discover a hidden fountain of love beneath. Once we begin welcoming in the places we resist, we find that the deep peace of silence can be ours.

This week, let your prayer be "welcome" to every stranger arriving at the inner door and an act of trust in the wholeness that you are.

And know of my love for you, which is always growing.

Do check out our Invitation to Photography for this month on the theme of soul friend and our latest Monk in the World guest post by fellow monk Patricia Turner.

Please consider joining the Abbey for our soulful journey through Lent, guided by the heart of the pilgrim. I have also added a brand new self-study course on Celtic spirituality (a revised version of our program from Advent, now available for any time of year).

With great and growing love,

Christine

Photo: Kristin Noelle's art for the second principle of the Monk Manifesto on hospitality (you can see a video with all 8 of her delightful images here)

Invitation to Photography: Soul Friend

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 wisdom from St. Brigid.  As I prayed with this passage, I was moved by how essential Brigid considers the role of companions on the journey. She urges us to make finding those with whom we can share a deep kinship of the heart's longings.

With our overall theme of the year at the Abbey as discernment, I love the idea of listening for how we might build a soulful community to support us in living as a monk in the world (which also reflects the third principle of the Monk Manifesto).

I invite you for this month's Photo Party to play with this idea as you go out in the world to receive images in response. As you walk hold this image of soul friend and be ready to see what is revealed to you.

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) or you can 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 "Soul Friend" 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: Patricia Turner

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Patricia Turner's wisdom:

My Practice of Being a Monk in the World: Photo Lectio - The Image as Icon

Already I am being brought into a world where significant things are shown as images, and insight comes from shapes and patterns, from the visual rather than from the written word.   – Esther de Waal

   To live as a monk in the world for me begins with spending as much time as possible in silent and solitary reflection.  I carve out not only precious time but a scared space to wrap myself in contemplative thought…usually with my resident philosopher “”Emerson” on my lap.

This thought practice most often involves what I call Photo Lectio – a responsive reading of my photographic images to draw out the wisdom contained in the landscapes I encounter.  They serve as my icons of the experience for me.

At the very basis of this contemplative practice is the Jungian notion that the soul speaks to us through images.  We are naturally and intuitively drawn to photograph places and objects that hold special and hidden meaning for us.  These are represented by the photographs I am gifted by a world which, for me, is threaded through with divine presence and revelatory metaphors.

Lectio Divina is a monastic practice of contemplating sacred texts.  Icons served the same purpose but as a visual reference rather than a literary one.  They were vehicles to focus prayer and contemplation.

My Photo Lectio – based on the monastic practice of Lectio Divina – uses the four steps outlined in Christine Valtner Paintner’s book Lectio Devina.  Instead of written text, however, I’ve modified the four steps to read my photographs instead.

I.                                            READ (LECTIO)

Look carefully at your image.  What are the essential visual elements that draw your attention?  This is the basic vocabulary of your photograph.  Continue to read over your words until a single word or phrase resonates with you.  This is the first message from your image but by no means the only one.  These are the words and phrases I read in my image above.

The open window space…the rough stone work…Nature and the Man-made…the plants growing on the stone…the beautiful sky…the trees in the distance

II.                  REFLECT (MEDITATIO)

Take one element or a combination of elements to focus on.  You can always come back to the image for other reflections so try not to be too broad in your reflective scope.  For this example I’ve chosen the word Nature.  I then simply write in response to what I see in the “nature element” of the image and let the words flow spontaneously.

Nature in the image above is represented by the green

                     foliage.  It seems to grown out of the man-made structure,

trying to emulate the trees outside the window opening.

Nature will always return to reclaim Man’s constructions

for it is more powerful than any of his grand designs.

III.                RESPOND (Oratio)

This is the time to personalize your observations and reflections.  This can take any number of directions…from relating the reflection to something in your life or something you see in the world around you.  You can respond by writing more in your journal or creating a poem.  Like the reflection above, I try to let the words simply flow from my pen without concern for writing a polished piece of writing.

We must make room for Nature…in our lives and in

                 our communities.  Gardens, green spaces, a pot of

herbs on the window sill…we lose an essential part of

                our soul when we become detached from the natural world.

IV.                  Rest (Contemplatio)

After I’ve conclude my reflection on the image I created, I just let it rest quietly on the table next to where I sit each morning.  I look back on it from time to time before I put it away to see if anything else reveals itself to me.  Resting with the image is an acknowledgement of your efforts and the landscape’s wisdom you were able to record in your photograph.  Remember, this is a dialogue and not a monologue!  If you bring the image out again months later, it will still speak to you, perhaps in all new ways.

I’ve sometimes made small books of my images and reflections so that I can look back on my thoughts.  They become, to carry the monastic analogy a bit further, my illuminated manuscripts.  I also include quotations and poetry if I find some that seem appropriate.

For me the process of Photo Lectio is never really done.  As I grow and change, so do my reflections.  The message gifted to me originally may not be the same one a year later.   Photo Lectio is an organic, evolving process.

Contemplative photography is my primary spiritual practice – the way I journey with my monks searching soul.  You can follow along in this pilgrimage of spirit through my blog, A Photographic Sage which combines photography with Taoist principles.

My continued practice of being a monk in the world through Photo Lectio embraces my daily conversion, my turning round to a new way of looking at the world through the images I am gifted.

Allowing the world to offer me small bits of wisdom through the images I gather makes the entire process one of wonderment and delight.  It is a co-conspiracy of sorts since the landscape is an equal partner with me in the process.  I’ve come to learn that I will always journey to where I need to be if I follow my hearts GPS and the images I need to receive will always be there to greet me.

Majoring in photography and film making in the late 70’s, I then worked as an art teacher for 35 years before retiring in 2010 and dedicating my effort and time to contemplative photography.  I now live in Maine when I’m not traveling the world.

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

Praying the Heart (a love note from your online Abbess)

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Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims,

I have been feeling a bit weary these last few days, fighting something off I think, and offering myself generous hospitality by resting and nourishing myself well with good food and the gift of herbs. I think it might be the transition of seasons, but I am listening in for the invitation and being gentle with my body and soul.

I received a book of poems in the mail today, Small Bird by Elizabeth Cunningham, and the poem below was on the first page. Her words shimmered brightly for me, and perhaps for you as well. My heart is feeling tender and quiet right now, trying to force words of wisdom feels untrue, and because I only want to offer what feels true, I offer you this week a prayer of poetry and an invitation into the great silence.

Praying the heart

You can only pray what's in your heart.

So if your heart is being ripped from your chest

pray the tearing

if your heart is full of bitterness

pray it to the last dreg

if your heart is a river gone wild

pray the torrent

or a lava flow scorching the mountain

pray the fire

pray the scream in your heart

the fanning bellows

pray the rage,

the murder and

the mourning

pray your heart into the great quiet hands that can hold it

like the small bird it is.

—Elizabeth Cunningham, from her book of poems Small Bird

Pray what is true for you right now, whatever it feels like. You do not have to feel any other way. You are held just as you are.

Do check out our Community Lectio Divina invitation for this month with the words of St. Brigid, and our latest Monk in the World guest post by fellow monk David Norling. If you are a soul care practitioner or longing for a live retreat experience with the Abbey, there is lots of goodness below plus other news.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Photo: Kristin Noelle's art for the first principle of the Monk Manifesto (you can see a video with all 8 of her delightful images here)

Community Lectio Divina: Wisdom from St. Brigid

With February comes a new invitation for contemplation. This month I invite you into a lectio divina practice with words attributed to St. Brigid on the wisdom of having a soul friend. We just passed the Celtic feast of Imbolc and the feast day of St. Brigid on February 1st.

How Community Lectio Divina works:

Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and music).

For the year I am choosing an overarching theme of discernment. I feel like the Abbey is in the midst of some wonderful transition, movement, and expansion.

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.

Go forth and eat nothing until you get a soul-friend, for anyone without a soul-friend is like a body without a head; is like the water of a polluted lake, neither good for drinking nor for washing. That is the person without a soul-friend.

—words attributed to Brigid of Kildare

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 1200 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.

You can see the full winter/spring 2014 calendar of invitations here>>

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

Munkemanifestet (Monk Manifesto) now in Norwegian!

One of the things I love most about having a global community is the intersection of languages and cultures. It was my great joy last November to visit Norway for the first time, at the invitation to lead a retreat. I fell in love with the country and the people and am even planning another return trip to do more teaching.

Thea Elisabeth Haavet, who coordinated my retreat there last fall, was gracious enough to translate the Monk Manifesto into the Norwegian language.  Now we have Spanish, German, and Norwegian translations. If you speak another language and would like to translate the Monk Manifesto to share the vision further, I would be most grateful.

Here is the PDF version to download: Munkemanifestet

Munkemanifestet

Munk: kommer av det greske ordet monachos som betyr singel eller alene. En munk i verden lever ikke tilbaketrukket, men tar del i hverdagen med et fokusert og udelt nærvær, og strever alltid etter større helhet og integritet.

Manifest: fra det latinske ordet for klart, betyr en offentlig erklæring av prinsipper og hensikter.

Munkemanifest: Et offentlig uttrykk for at du forplikter deg til å leve et barmhjertig, kontemplativt og kreativt liv.

1. Jeg forplikter meg til å sette av tid hver dag til stillhet og å være alene, både for å skape rom for at en annen stemme kan bli hørt og for å stå i mot en kultur med støy og konstant stimulering.

2. Jeg forplikter meg til radikal gjestfrihet gjennom å ønske den fremmede velkommen både i det ytre og det indre. Jeg anerkjenner at når jeg skaper rom i mitt hjerte for de delene av meg selv jeg ikke kjenner, så dyrker jeg fram barmhjertighet og evnen til å akseptere disse delene hos andre.

3. Jeg forplikter meg til å kultivere fellesskap ved å finne beslektede sjeler langs livsveien, sjelevenner som jeg kan dele mine dypeste lengsler med og mentorer som kan gi meg veiledning og visdom på reisen.

4. Jeg forplikter meg til å kultivere bevisstheten om mitt slektskap med skapelsen og til en sunn askese gjennom å være bevisst på min bruk av energi og ting, og gi slipp på det som ikke hjelper naturen til å blomstre.

5. Jeg forplikter meg til å gi meg selv fullstendig til arbeidet jeg gjør, betalt eller ikke, med takknemlighet for evnen til å uttrykke mine gaver i verden på en meningsfull måte.

6. Jeg forplikter meg til en rytme med hvile og fornyelse gjennom å praktisere sabbat (hviledag) jevnlig og stå i mot en travelhets-kultur som måler min verdi gjennom hva jeg gjør.

7. Jeg forplikter meg til en livstid med omvendelse og omforming, og anerkjenner at jeg er alltid på en reise med både gaver og begrensninger.

8. Jeg forplikter meg til å være en dansende munk, å dyrke kreativ glede og la kroppen og hjertet mitt flyte over av kjærlighetens ubeskrivelige glede.

 For å signere Munkemanifestet, besøk www.AbbeyoftheArts.com

Føl deg fri til å dele og distribuere det med krediteringen

© Christine Valters Paintner

 Oversatt til norsk av Thea Elisabeth Haavet

 

Monk in the World guest post: David Norling

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community (you can read the call for submissions here). Read on for David Norling's wisdom about mindfulness and cultivating non-judgmental awareness:

The Second Naïveté

Judgment limits awareness, awareness limits judgment.

I went through a phase in college where, in addition to Birkenstocks, I wore very simple clothing: cotton, loose fitting, monochromatic. There was a girl in one of my classes who asked if I was some kind of a monk. Without thinking, I said, "Yes." The idea must have appealed to me. To imagine myself as set apart for a higher calling, free from the trappings of a consumer identity. Even though I was attracted to the girl, I let her believe this about me for the rest of the semester, presumably hindering any chance I might have had with her.

This was during Ronald Reagan's first term and I was transitioning from a Business Administration major to English with a Creative Writing emphasis. Another strategic blunder. Not that I have any regrets, experimenting with ones' identity is inevitable. I'm glad to have gained a sense of self as separate from my professional identity at a relatively early age. Remembering this story makes me smile and wonder, especially now, when I would describe myself without reservation as a contemplative. Perhaps the tender shoots of a new way of being in the world were breaking through what was at that time rather arid soil.

I grew up Evangelical. Looking back, it seems as if the air I breathed was richer with judgment than with oxygen. Of course, we weren't explicitly encouraged to be judgmental. Jesus had clearly discouraged this behavior. Our practices were referred to as rightly dividing the word of God, resisting the devil, and standing up for eternal truth. However it might be defined, the result for me was that I ended up judging everything that I saw. I also painted myself into a corner with a lot of premature conclusions and preferences that became untenable.

I don't blame all of this on my religious heritage. There were cultural and temperament factors, as well. As it turns out, everything is raw material in the hands of the divine artist. When I eventually "stumbled" across Christian contemplative literature, the soil of my soul was thirsty for the nourishment offered from that tradition. But it wasn't until I was introduced to non-judgmental awareness that I found a life-long practice. Mindfulness, and non-dual thinking are other ways of naming the same approach. While these are also attractive it was the emphasis on non-judgment that felt like a prescription specifically designed for someone with my faults.

One of the ways that Richard Rohr describes contemplation is, "meeting as much of reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form, without filters, judgments, and commentaries." This is the vision to which I aspire. That I continually fail matters less and less. Simply desiring the gift of new vision and risking the vulnerability of not knowing changes everything without depending upon the feeble psychic muscle we call willpower. Exercising willpower is all about mastery and victory rather than process. I have been much helped by Simone Weil's idea of the will. She saw its purpose as rather humble, as the steering wheel of our attention. Just as our bodies become what we consume, so it is with our souls. We become like that to which we pay attention.

Ms. Weil also wrote of a "Method for understanding images, symbols, etc. Not to try to interpret [judge] them, but to look at them till the light suddenly dawns." I think of this as the more beautiful way, because when the light dawns the only thing to do is walk in it and rejoice. I would trade a decade of mental certitude for a moment of light.

I was a little suspicious of these ideas at first. They can be difficult concepts. It felt reasonable to think that I must discern right from wrong. It felt as if I would be affirming evil if I didn't call it evil. But, of course, there are problems with naming things, especially when done quickly. I've since come to think of non judgmental awareness as a deeper form of discernment. Deeper and slower. By suspending quick and conditioned judgments, I give God's spirit time to reveal deeper, less obvious truths. Truths that can only be seen with the eyes of love. Only love sees rightly. And with a little reflection I had to admit that it was rare for me to see with the eyes of love.

"One must be so careful with names anyway; it is so often on the name of a misdeed that a life goes to pieces, not the nameless and personal action itself, which was perhaps a perfectly definite necessity of that life and would have been absorbed by it without effort." –Rainer Marie Rilke

I've come to realize that nonjudgmental awareness includes awareness of judgment. I will, inevitably, have superficial preferences and conditioned responses. Noticing them, in what I like to think of as my shared awareness with God, is what allows me to notice myself judging without actually pronouncing or projecting on to others. Just as delayed gratification is a necessary part of maturity, so is delayed judgment a necessary part of mature discernment.

A natural outflow of this is that the Biblical imperative to "watch and wait" has become my modus operandi. It has also been helpful to receive a new name: He-who-does-not-know. When I live from this identity it's not uncommon for me to see everything as revelation and even as a gift. Every disappointment, every temptation, even confusion and despair, it's all an invitation to a new way of seeing.

Speaking of seeing, my son gave me a book for Christmas titled Contemplative Photography. The subtitle summarizes as well as anything I've seen the heart of my desire: "Seeing with Wonder, Respect, and Humility." God help me…

David has been the owner/operator of a carpet cleaning franchise in Orange County, CA for over twenty years. More recently, he finished the certificate program in spiritual direction though Loyola Marymount. His wife Mary will complete the same program this summer. David blogs about contemplative listening and spiritual direction at awestruckdumbpilgrim.com.

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

Stirring in the Belly (a love note from your online Abbess)

Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims,

I love revealing each of the newest dancing monk icons (created by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts). This week we welcome in Saint Brigid to our dancing circle. She is one of the most revered saints of Ireland, second only to St. Patrick.  Born in the middle of the 5th century, and carrying the name of one of the ancient goddesses, Brigid performed miracles from an early age and was a founder of many monastic communities, the most influential of which was in Kildare (meaning “Church of the Oak”) and was a double monastery for both men and women.

She is known for her extravagant generosity and care for the poor, bringing great dignity to ordinary tasks, a spirit of blessing on the mundane as the place for encounter with the divine.  In her fabulous book In the Sanctuary of Women Jan Richardson has a lush and wondrous chapter on Brigid titled “A Habit of the Wildest Bounty” which comes from a description written about the way Brigid ministered to others.  Many of her miracles have to do with abundant provisions for daily life and festivities, mirroring the miracles of Christ himself who offered generous sustenance for all.

Brigid’s feast day is celebrated this coming Saturday, February 1st. I am delighted to be going to a Brigid Festival this weekend, to honor her mystery and presence among us still. February 1st is also the Celtic feast of Imbolc which is one of the four cross-quarter days that fall between the solstices and equinoxes.

In Ireland, Imbolc is the first herald of spring’s arrival. It means “stirring in the belly” which refers to the pregnancy of the ewes and the stirring of seeds deep beneath the ground. I have long appreciated the Celtic feast days as further ways to mark the great turning of the year, but living here has deepened my appreciation for them. Living at this latitude there is a marked difference in light between winter and summer, and starting this week I can begin to feel the shift of the earth toward the season of illumination.

This Thursday is the New Moon, and Imbolc heralds new beginnings of spring. Our path as monks in the world is about always being willing to begin again. There is a wise story from the desert monks:

Abba Moses asked Abba Silvanus, “Can a man lay a new foundation every day?” The old man said, “If he works hard he can lay a new foundation at every moment.”

Even if we made grand commitments at the New Year which have long been forgotten, even if the rush of life has carried us far from our heart’s desire, even if we have neglected our practice of showing up to the stillness each day to hear God’s voice, every moment is the invitation to a new beginning.

And with the confluence of lunar cycles, the Celtic heralding of spring, and the feast of St. Brigid, one of our monastic ancestors, the call to begin anew shimmers even more brightly.

If you have been loving the dancing monk icon series, Marcy is getting prints ready for sale by the middle of February. I will let you know when you can purchase your own copy of Mother Mary, St. Benedict, St. Hildegard, or St. Brigid (with more monks to come!) and part of the proceeds going to support the Earth Monastery Project.

We have a new Dance Party for you this week, as well as a new Monk in the World guest post from Anneclaire LeRoyer.

If you sign up for the online Lent retreat before February 1st, you will also receive a free mini-retreat on the theme of stirring in the belly, to support you listening into the deep rumblings of new life burgeoning forth within.

May Brigid bless you with lavish generosity,

With great and growing love,

Christine