Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 162

Wisdom Council: Guest Post from Ronna Detrick

I am thrilled to continue this weekly series of summer guest posts from each of the Wisdom Council members, with their reflections on what being a monk in the world and an artist in everyday life means for them, in the context of their own work and ministries.

I first met Ronna Detrick in person as I was in the throes of selling my home in Seattle a year ago and preparing for this great life adventure I am on now.  I had seen Ronna's work and felt a kinship to her spirit, so I am grateful for our chance to talk in-the-flesh, even in the midst of so much transition, because her passion and our conversation inspired me to ask her very soon after to co-create the Women on the Threshold program with me and two other fabulous women.  Ronna's yes was the start of a deepening dance of friendship and collaboration for which I am grateful.  Here is some of her wonderful wisdom about the contemplative and creative life:

Christine graciously asked me to speak about how to be a monk in the world and an artist of everyday life. Here’s my honest answer:

I have no idea!

Making things even more complicated, particular images flood my mind at their mere mention:

The monk: a man in a hooded robe who takes vows of silence, poverty, and then some. Deliberate choices, actions, behaviors, and beliefs that enable him to give his life entirely to God. Devotion and selflessness in spades. And somehow, in the chosen sacrifice, becoming more holy, more pure, more God-like.

The artist: a tortured soul in front of a canvas who rarely engages with polite society. Brooding, dark, and possessed in some way. At the mercy of his/her craft and living in poverty until discovered. Every-once-in-a-while the muse shows up and inspiration strikes…until the inevitable return to lonely solitude.

Of course, there are more romantic notions: The monk who sits in quiet contemplation for hours, able to capture the very voice of God, and drafting sentences and sonnets, poems and prose that enable us to hear the same. The artist who sees beauty at every turn and then, in unencumbered and inspired freedom, makes that accessible to the rest of us.

Whether I go with the first or second set of caricatures, I am hard-pressed to see myself in either. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to understand and experience such; to live my life completely immersed in my spirituality and my craft; to somehow hear God speak through my discipline and devotion and enable others to hear/see the same through my art.

Here’s the thing: as long as I see either the monk or the artist as someone even slightly out of reach then, in effect, I conveniently shield myself from what it takes to become such. And as long as I can find reasons to not practice the disciplines of the monk or the habits of the artist, I can idealize them both and maybe even pout a little (albeit, humbly) about how the same isn’t true for me; a privilege apparently saved only for the special few.

It doesn’t take very sophisticated reasoning skills to realize that this may, in fact, be why there are so few monks and artists in our world. It is not easy. It can be grueling. It is often thankless, anonymous, and unrewarded. And it’s a life-long vocation, commitment, and way of being.

I realize that for me, more important than the question of how, is that of the why. Why would I want to be a monk in the world and an artist of everyday life? Why would I want to take on the disciplines and practices and day-in, day-out requirements for such a life?

Because being a monk in the world and an artist of everyday life is the closest I can get to God.

Ultimately, even when I feel resistant to admitting it, this is what I most want, long for, and endlessly search for. So if there are ways in which I can more consistently and closely hear God’s voice, I want them. If there are ways in which I can feel the very Spirit of God work through me in creative acts, I want them. And if, in the doing of these things I somehow have the privilege of inviting others closer to the God that they desire then that is gift and grace beyond compare.

And from the why comes the how:

Being a monk in the world and an artist of everyday life happens when I boldly and blatantly acknowledge my desire for God.

I can’t sort-of want to be a monk or an artist, nor can I sort-of want God. This desire is enflamed, alive, and hot. The desire pursues and compels. This desire requires commitment and conviction when ambivalence rears its head; when there are more days than not in which I’d rather choose lukewarm interest over on-fire passion. This desire means that I tirelessly seek new ways of understanding the Divine when well-known creeds, time-worn hymns, and dogged textual interpretation though comfortable, no longer challenge. This desire means that I speak and create in truth-filled, unedited, no-holding-back ways. All of these far easier said than done. No sort-of allowed.

Which takes me right back to where I started. To be a monk and/or an artist is not the glamorous or easy choice. It is one that is impassioned and intentional; made over and over and over again. The why is what matters most.

When I choose – in naming my deepest desire – to be a monk and artist – I am open to any and all ways in which God might show up, might speak, might be made manifest and revealed and real. When I choose – in naming my deepest desire – I can create from a raw and unedited place, less concerned with what others think and completely consumed by the Spirit within who longs to come forth. When I choose – in naming my deepest desire – I remain hungry and thirsty for God.

This is the why. This is the how. This is the challenge. This is the call. And all of these, at least for me, are impossible to ignore (even if I wanted to). Long robes, difficult vows, and tortured souls aside (more likely, included). I press on and fail and re-engage. I doubt and question and wrestle. I swoon and gush and laugh. I listen to and for God. I create because I can’t not.

How to be a monk in the world and an artist of everyday life? Say that you want to. Lead with your longing. And know that wherever desire dwells, God shows up. Ask any monk or artist: that’s what they’re looking and longing for, too. Just like me. And probably just like you.

May it be so.

To learn more about Ronna's wonderful work click here>>

How to Feel the Sap Rising (a love note from your online Abbess)

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How to Feel the Sap Rising

(a poem for summer)

Walk as slowly as possible,

all the while imagining

yourself moving through

pools of honey and dancing with

snails, turtles, and caterpillars.

Turn your body in a clockwise direction

to inspire your dreams to flow upward.

Imagine the trees are your own

wise ancestors offering their emerald

leaves to you as a sacred text.

Lay yourself down across earth

and stones.  Feel the vibration of

dirt and moss, sparking a tiny

(or tremendous)

revolution in your heart

with their own great longing.

Close your eyes and forget this

border of skin.  Imagine the

breeze blowing through your hair

is the breath of the forest and

your own breath joined, rising and

falling in ancient rhythms.

Open your eyes again and see it

is true, that there is no "me" and "tree"

but only One great pulsing of life,

one sap which nourishes and

enlivens all, one great nectar

bestowing trust and wonder.

Open your eyes and see that there

are no more words like beautiful,

and ugly, good and bad,

but only the shimmering presence of your

own attention to life.

Only one great miracle unfolding and

only one sacred word which is

yes.

—Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest monks and artists,

The days in the northern hemisphere are stretching out long and wide. Galway, Ireland where I live, now has only a few short hours of darkness each night as we approach the summer solstice.  As days warm up there is a sense of ease and lightness.

Last weekend I was in London for a workshop and I spent some time in Regent's Park on a contemplative walk (the kind I write so often about).  I was paying attention to what was shimmering for me that summery morning, when I came across the fountain in the photo above.  I sat down on the bench opposite and let my prayer be guided by the sound of rushing water and the visual delight of droplets dancing and diving.  I breathed deeply into the

sense of life's overflowing.  I welcomed in the knowledge that this fountain exists within me, within you, at the heart of every creature.  I knew this fountain would become a symbol for me as I move into some summer sabbatical time.

Summer is a season of ripening and fullness, when the blossoms of springtime turn to fruit.  Peaches grow heavy on the branch, full of juice. Berries plump, expanding into brilliant shades of crimson and blue. Having worked in academic life for many years, I still love the rhythm of the school calendar when summer signals a move outdoors, picnics on the beach, more time

spent playing in the sunshine and eating ice cream, swimming in the sea, a return to childhood pleasures. Even if you work all summer the days of endless night beckon you out of doors in the evenings.

This is an essential aspect of becoming a monk in the world: Paying attention to the invitation of the seasons.  Listening for how the world around us is shimmering forth with her call to a new way of being and moving in the world.  Spring invites us to our own blossoming, while autumn calls us to release and surrender slowly into winter's stillness.

But summer is a celebration of our ripeness, of pondering the places in our lives that have come to such fullness they are ready to fall from the vine, laden with sweetness, and shared with others.  Of pondering the ways the fountain in our own hearts is rushing forth with freshness.

In St. Benedict's Rule, he writes about the principle of contentment, which means to be satisfied with what we have rather than always longing for something more or different.  Yoga philosophy has a similar principle called santosha, or contentment.  This isn't a kind of resigned feeling to being happy with what you have, but a vibrant, even ecstatic joy at the abundant grace of life.  To feel gratitude and awe that we have anything at all, much less a

home, work, food, health, and friendship, knowing that any one of those is grace enough.

My birthday is in a week (and John's is the day after mine, so much celebrating in the Abbey!)  This kicks off a summer when I have time to ponder and dream and play, which is just as essential for the nourishment of the Abbey (and my own being) as the very hard work I do keeping everything going, and thriving.  I enter this summer space of rest with a feeling of deep contentment, of knowing the incredible gift it is to have a community of monks

and artists with whom to dance and ponder.  I seek the kind of deep restoration that comes with prolonged periods of silence, listening for another voice to speak.

As we near the summer solstice, consider how it is with your own soul:

Where are you experiencing the juicy ripeness of your own gifts?

What has become so heavy with sweetness that it demands to be shared and offered freely?

Where do you deny yourself this kind of generosity?  And how might you shift this pattern?

Please hold us in your prayers.  There continues to be much ripening in my own soul.  I am going to sit down to the feast.  I am going to drink from the fountain.  I am going to feel the sap rising.

Will you join me?

With great and growing love. . .

Christine

How to Feel the Sap Rising

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

How to Feel the Sap Rising

(a poem for summer)

Walk as slowly as possible,

all the while imagining

yourself moving through

pools of honey and dancing with

snails, turtles, and caterpillars.

Turn your body in a clockwise direction

to inspire your dreams to flow upward.

Imagine the trees are your own

wise ancestors offering their emerald

leaves to you as a sacred text.

Lay yourself down across earth

and stones.  Feel the vibration of

dirt and moss, sparking a tiny

(or tremendous)

revolution in your heart

with their own great longing.

Close your eyes and forget this

border of skin.  Imagine the

breeze blowing through your hair

is the breath of the forest and

your own breath joined, rising and

falling in ancient rhythms.

Open your eyes again and see it

is true, that there is no "me" and "tree"

but only One great pulsing of life,

one sap which nourishes and

enlivens all, one great nectar

bestowing trust and wonder.

Open your eyes and see that there

are no more words like beautiful,

and ugly, good and bad,

but only the shimmering presence of your

own attention to life.

Only one great miracle unfolding and

only one sacred word which is

yes.

—Christine Valters Paintner

Dearest monks and artists,

The days in the northern hemisphere are stretching out long and wide. Galway, Ireland where I live, now has only a few short hours of darkness each night as we approach the summer solstice.  As days warm up there is a sense of ease and lightness.

Last weekend I was in London for a workshop and I spent some time in Regent's Park on a contemplative walk (the kind I write so often about).  I was paying attention to what was shimmering for me that summery morning, when I came across the fountain in the photo above.  I sat down on the bench opposite and let my prayer be guided by the sound of rushing water and the visual delight of droplets dancing and diving.  I breathed deeply into the

sense of life's overflowing.  I welcomed in the knowledge that this fountain exists within me, within you, at the heart of every creature.  I knew this fountain would become a symbol for me as I move into some summer sabbatical time.

Summer is a season of ripening and fullness, when the blossoms of springtime turn to fruit.  Peaches grow heavy on the branch, full of juice. Berries plump, expanding into brilliant shades of crimson and blue. Having worked in academic life for many years, I still love the rhythm of the school calendar when summer signals a move outdoors, picnics on the beach, more time

spent playing in the sunshine and eating ice cream, swimming in the sea, a return to childhood pleasures. Even if you work all summer the days of endless night beckon you out of doors in the evenings.

This is an essential aspect of becoming a monk in the world: Paying attention to the invitation of the seasons.  Listening for how the world around us is shimmering forth with her call to a new way of being and moving in the world.  Spring invites us to our own blossoming, while autumn calls us to release and surrender slowly into winter's stillness.

But summer is a celebration of our ripeness, of pondering the places in our lives that have come to such fullness they are ready to fall from the vine, laden with sweetness, and shared with others.  Of pondering the ways the fountain in our own hearts is rushing forth with freshness.

In St. Benedict's Rule, he writes about the principle of contentment, which means to be satisfied with what we have rather than always longing for something more or different.  Yoga philosophy has a similar principle called santosha, or contentment.  This isn't a kind of resigned feeling to being happy with what you have, but a vibrant, even ecstatic joy at the abundant grace of life.  To feel gratitude and awe that we have anything at all, much less a

home, work, food, health, and friendship, knowing that any one of those is grace enough.

My birthday is in a week (and John's is the day after mine, so much celebrating in the Abbey!)  This kicks off a summer when I have time to ponder and dream and play, which is just as essential for the nourishment of the Abbey (and my own being) as the very hard work I do keeping everything going, and thriving.  I enter this summer space of rest with a feeling of deep contentment, of knowing the incredible gift it is to have a community of monks

and artists with whom to dance and ponder.  I seek the kind of deep restoration that comes with prolonged periods of silence, listening for another voice to speak.

As we near the summer solstice, consider how it is with your own soul:

Where are you experiencing the juicy ripeness of your own gifts?

What has become so heavy with sweetness that it demands to be shared and offered freely?

Where do you deny yourself this kind of generosity?  And how might you shift this pattern?

Please hold us in your prayers.  There continues to be much ripening in my own soul.  I am going to sit down to the feast.  I am going to drink from the fountain.  I am going to feel the sap rising.

Will you join me?

With great and growing love. . .

Christine

Wisdom Council: Guest Post from Dana Reynolds of Sacred Life Arts

I am so delighted to be starting a weekly series of guest posts from each of the Wisdom Council members, with their reflections on what being a monk in the world and an artist in everyday life means for them, in the context of their own work and ministries.

It is with great pleasure that I host Dana Reynolds of Sacred Life Arts for our first installment.  I have worked with Dana as both a participant in Abbey retreats, as well as a collaborator and co-creator of Abbey programs (she helped to create the Advent 2011 retreat and the wonderful Women on the Threshold program.  Dana's work shares so much heart and soul with my own, and so I share her wise reflections here with you:

Twenty years ago I was blessed to discover a fragment of ancient wisdom, while reading about my girlhood heroine, Jeanne d’Arc. My accidental encounter with her testimony recorded during the Middle Ages inspired my understanding of the relationship between human creativity and divine inspiration. Her simple statement eventually contributed to the impetus and formation of Sacred Life-Arts, an online sanctuary, classroom, and resource center devoted to bringing creative inspiration and spiritual illumination to women.

Here is the text depicting a potent and portent momentary interaction between young Jeanne d’Arc and her inquisitor during her trial for heresy.

One of Jeanne’s many inquisitors accuses…“You say God speaks to you, but it’s only your imagination.”

Without reservation she responds…. “How else would God speak to me, if not through my imagination?”

Jeanne’s clear and uncomplicated statement succinctly defined the deepest possible meaning of the human imagination in relationship to divine inspiration. Her statement continues to hold relevance centuries later.

The imagination is sacred territory. The cultivation and exploration of the sacred imagination’s landscape is at the center of my work as a monk in the world, a spiritual director, and contemplative sacred life-artisan.

I believe the potential to engage and inhabit the wild and mysterious terrain of the sacred imagination, as a co-creator with God is not a phantasmal, numinous occurrence reserved only for saints and mystics of long ago. Rather, it’s a very real gift knitted into each of us before birth, as a faculty of inner vision, and conduit to the divine. The sacred imagination, as I imagine it, is the place where our inner creative gifts merge with intuitive inspiration from the Source.

When creative longing takes hold and we are open to receiving inspiration, our sacred imaginations fuse with the Source of unlimited potential for creative expression. We are inspirited with the fire of possibility and provided with a new lens through which our initial visions becomes clear and within tangible reach. If intuition and inspiration are the voice of the soul, the sacred imagination and creative expression are the hands of the soul.

For me, the experience of living life as a monk in the world offers many opportunities to practice the sacred life-arts. By my definition, a sacred life-artisan is a contemplative spiritual practitioner, who brings her sacred imagination and conscious awareness to everyday, ordinary moments. She is a purveyor of beauty and a seeker of opportunities for authentic, personal and collective transformation through creative expression and sacred intention. It is the work of the sacred life-artisan to be in conscious and continual relationship with the Source (God’s creative and generative presence within) through prayer and spiritual practice.

In co-creation with the Source, the sacred life-artisan discovers pathways to alter seeming routine tasks, and challenging situations into opportunities of learning, blessing, and beauty.

As a monk in the world, and a contemplative by nature, I draw inspiration for my daily life from my passion for medieval monasticism and the themes of prayer, prophecy, and pilgrimage. I believe there is great value in looking to the wisdom of the past to inform life in the present. I carry the bone deep belief that ancient feminine wisdom is hidden away in various places in the world, awaiting uncovering, and the reclaiming by the women of today.

How might the unearthing of this long forgotten knowledge, the age-old stories of women and their communities, inspire and transform our spiritual and creative understanding?

The particular wisdom I’m referring to isn’t the educated thought of well-known scholars.

Rather, these were women who lived by their wits and their prayers while they navigated the challenges and dangers of their patriarchal world.

My fascination and quest to discover and reclaim ancient feminine wisdom inspired the story that became my first novel, Ink and Honey, a depiction of a radically independent spiritual sisterhood of women, the sisters of Belle Coeur. They were midwives, visionaries, herbalists, prophets, and sacred life-artisans. They were sacred life-artisans who forged beauty in everyday moments, and through selfless service, in the midst of chaos and challenge.

While writing Ink and Honey I sensed a thinning of the veil, and an invitation from the spirits of our ancestors. Perhaps they are calling us to begin an inner and outer pilgrimage to explore, gather, and reclaim the inspiration and beauty of ancient forms of expression, crafts, prayers, rituals, and wisdom to inform and reinvigorate our lives today.

The call from women for spiritual and creative community is growing louder. In autumn, 2013, I will gather with twelve women in Colorado to co-create the formation of the first Belle Cœur sisterhood, a contemporary spiritual/creative order, inspired by the example of the way of Belle Cœur, as depicted in Ink and Honey. A companion guidebook for Ink and Honey, The Way of Belle Cœur: Soul, Sacrament, Sisterhood, and Service, will be released later this year.

I invite you to contemplate your creative spirit, as a sacred life-artisan. The landscape of your sacred imagination awaits your exploration with the invitation to become a co-creator with the divine. If you doubt such things are possible for you, I remind you to reflect on the words spoken with faith and conviction by young Jeanne d’Arc. Perhaps, you too one day will embody her truth and say…“How else would God speak to me, if not through my imagination?”

To learn more about Dana's wonderful work click here>>

Wisdom Council: The Illumination of Words

About a month ago I was inspired to invite several friends and long-time supporters and participants in the Abbey to join me in forming a Wisdom Council.   To my great delight, all 12 of those I invited offered me an enthusiastic yes in response.  I am looking forward to drawing on their wisdom and insight as the Abbey continues to grow and thrive, and to have others with whom to reflect on the best ways to sustainably serve this community.

I asked each of them to send me three words that came to them spontaneously when they thought of the Abbey's work.  I had the great delight of gathering those words and creating a Wordle image (to the right) which offers me a visual reminder of the many gifts Abbey of the Arts has to offer the world.  I will be holding this in my prayer throughout the summer months.

Virtual Book Tour: Spring Roundup!

Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice was published in April by Ave Maria Press, and I have been so grateful for the wonderful reception!

I embarked on an almost two-month long Virtual Book Tour (ah, the wonders of the internet!) and am so grateful to everyone who participated, wrote reviews, hosted guest posts, and conducted interviews.  I am really in awe at the generous response.

I have compiled the whole tour below broken down by category so it is easier now to find what you might be looking for.  Several guest posts from me on the contemplative life, as well as interviews (and even two you can listen to), a webinar, and several amazing reviews.

The main part of the Virtual Book Tour is complete, but there will still be a few reviews and interviews over the summer.  And if you would still like to participate, just send me an email!

Webinar

Cultivating Contemplation in Your Parish through Photography through Ave Maria Press

Guest Posts

" Tending the Moments " hosted at June Mears Driedger
" Quieting the Mind through Contemplative Photography " hosted at A Photographic Sage
" Contemplative Photography in a Time-Obsessed Culture " hosted at Expressive Prayer
" Planning a Personal Retreat " hosted at A Sacred Journey
" Bless the World with Your Eyes " hosted at Consecrate the Day
" Learning to Trust What Shimmers " hosted at Holy Ordinary
" Seeing Ourselves with Eyes of the Heart " hosted at Ronna Detrick
" Practicing Resurrection through the Eyes of the Heart " hosted at Anam Cara

Audio Interviews with Christine

@ Sacred Life Arts  with Dana Reynolds
@ A Congruent Life  with Andy Gray

Written Interviews with Christine

Seeing With Eyes of the Heart: A Q&A at Patheos (as part of the Patheos Book Club)
@ A Year of Rejoicing  hosted by Louise Gallagher
@ Anam Cara  hosted by Tara Owens


@ Faith Squared  hosted by Liz Rasmussen
@ Idealawg hosted by Stephanie West Allen
@ Always We Begin Again  hosted by Judy Smoot and Michael Landon
@ Catherine Anderson Studio  hosted by Catherine Anderson

Book Reviews

@ Spirituality and Practice
@ Image Journal of Religion and the Arts
@ Doc Hollywood by Craig Detweiler (as part of the Patheos Book Club)
@ Living a Holy Adventure by Bruce Epperly (as part of the Patheos Book Club)
@ A Musing Amma by Elizabeth Nordquist (as part of the Patheos Book Club)
@ This Ordinary Adventure  by Adam Jeske (as part of the Patheos Book Club)
@ Profoundly Superficial by Annie Wright
@ Find Hope by Mary Benton
@ Shot at Ten Paces by Kate Kennington Steer
@ GodSpace by Christine Sine
@ A Photographic Sage by Patricia Turner
@ Sense of the Faithful by Peg Conway
@ Holy Ordinary with Brent Bill
@ Melanged Magic with Evelyn Jackson
@ Provoking Beauty by Leanne Shawler

The winner of this week's drawing is. . .

. . . Beckie Boger!  Beckie, email me with your snail mail address and I will get a signed copy of Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice directly from me in Ireland!

Such a delight, as always, to savor the poems from this past week's Poetry Party on the wisdom of creatures.  Pour a cup of tea and linger a while.  My heart is full of gratitude for all of our Abbey poets!

Being a Monk in the World Through Wilderness Rites of Passage (Guest Post)

I am delighted to share this guest post from Nancy Wiens about being a monk in the world through wilderness rites of passage.  Nancy and I were in the doctoral program at the Graduate Theological Union together many years ago and shared much kinship in our passions then, as well as now.  Back when I was studying Hildegard of Bingen and viriditas, Nancy was exploring discernment within the context of the natural world.  Read on for more of her insights:

I am not a monk in the classical sense and thus do not live in a traditional monastery.  But very often I find myself describing my watershed as the reason I live in Marin Country, California, and the physical place that holds me in close communion with God.  Nature acts as my monastery and my most common sanctuary.  Heat inland of Mount Tamalpais draws the fog from the Pacific up its green slopes of serpentine and granite rock to support one of the most biodiverse watersheds in the continental United States.  To watch the hawks play on the air currents while I gaze out over the Headlands toward the Golden Gate Bridge invites me into my deepest human nature and moves me toward my hope of integrating love of God and neighbor, that is, all those who make up this marvelously expanding universe.

The Psalms and the Eucharistic liturgy point toward meaning in such awe-filled inspirations. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness there of . . . .  Heaven and Earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest!  Ours is a God of self-revelation writ large.  Incarnation tickles God pink.  Glory is bursting out of every seam.  Nature mirrors the divine to us in inexhaustible ways that our senses encounter intimately.  And almost without exception, those encounters include death and decay.  For Nature is cruciform in its radical, ongoing transformation of death into unanticipated new life.

One dimension of living as a monk in the world is to know ourselves as part of Nature.  I do not know how to begin that process of awakening to my kinship with creation without many and repeated journeys into non-human nature, both local and wilderness, in order to listen in a way that shows me my true identity over and over.

One remarkable path is a Sacred Quest.  As a wilderness rite of passage, it helps people to awaken this identity and to participate consciously in this mysterious conversion of death and life.  As a caterpillar knows to make a cocoon, a quester goes into the wilderness to listen for the voice of the One who makes all things new.  When transitions arise in our lives, they involve dying to an old way of life in order to allow the new to emerge.  Outer transitions, associated with age and responsibilities, as well as inner ones, associated with growth and healing, offer opportunities for vivid transformation.  In leading a Sacred Quest, I invite people to conscious engagement with what no longer serves them, to claim what is true right now, and to yearn for openness to what may come.  Through a series of preparations in community, people move toward four days of solitude in the wilderness with an opportunity to fast in order to heighten their awareness and facilitate the transformation.

Mt. Tam hosts hundreds of Coastal Redwoods, whose limbs and branches form natural cathedrals.  Their cooling and contemplative presence brings me more deeply into myself and beckons perspective and active hope.  If you have heard the whisper of the divine in nature’s wild places, or you long to hear it, and if you experience transition that you would like to lead to transformation, perhaps you are called to quest.

Brochure for Sacred Quest Wilderness Rites of Passage page 1

Brochure for Sacred Quest Wilderness Rites of Passage page 2

Virtual Book Tour: Review at Image Journal

Image is a journal of religion and the arts.  I love the work they do, as it is in such alignment with my own passion for the monk and artist paths.  I have attended their Glen Workshop with classes in writing and the arts in the past and found it to be really inspiring and enlivening.

So I am thrilled they have chose to review Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice in their latest newsletter:

Eyes of the Heart by Christine Valters Paintner is a little like Madeleine L'Engle's classic Walking on Water, if L'Engle's book had focused on one form of art—photography—and included engaging questions for reflection and photographic exercises for all levels. The author says, "This book will draw on the language of photography—light and shadow, framing, use of color, reflections—in order to see differently, to offer an invitation to our spiritual eyes as well, as light and framing become metaphors for our inner life." This blend of inner and outer vision is useful and inspiring, providing both guided steps forward and big-picture inspiration to help any photographer renew their art by engaging it like a spiritual practice. Each chapter draws from the four steps of lectio divina—read, reflect, respond, and rest—and includes photographic exercises that function like visual prayers. Chapters like "Practices and Tools to Cultivate Vision" or "Seeing the Holy Everywhere" are woven through with wisdom from Rainer Maria Rilke and St. Benedict's Rule, offering tools like contemplative walking, meditation (or visio divina, sacred seeing, as Paintner calls it), and receiving images (rather than "taking" them). One exercise encourages readers to change their perspective in some way, by lying on the floor or climbing a ladder—and then reflect, from that new angle, on how they might see God in unexpected places or ways. Eyes of the Heart will be eye-opening for accomplished professional photographers and casual snapshot-takers alike, modeling for all a balance between outward presence and inward seeking.

Click here to read the review at their website>>

Virtual Book Tour: Guided Meditation and new Review at Patheos Book Club

The Patheos Book Club continues to feature Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice.   New today is a visual guided meditation featured on the main page of the book club.  Click here and scroll down to where it says Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart: A Guided Meditation with Images by Christine Valters Paintner and you can scroll through a series of my photos, with quotes from the book, as well as suggestions for reflection and pondering.

There is also a brand new and wonderful review by Craig Detweiler of Doc Hollywood, who is a professor of film:

Paintner points out how the language we bring to photography reflects skewed values.   In “taking” or “shooting” pictures, we create an odd distance between our selves and the eternal moments around us.   Shouldn’t we adopt an attitude of receiving a photograph as a gift?   While we still polish our technical skills in preparation, when the moment arrives, we are receiving something strange, wonderful, perplexing or beautiful.    To recognize it, to truly see what is happening, we must pause, focus, and frame, all key components of contemplative prayer.   We may want to “capture” a moment, but aren’t we better allowing the moment to capture us?

Christine Valters Paintner challenges us to slow down, to adopt a more sacred approach to life.   Eyes of the Heart is a thin book of thick ideas, meant to be savored rather than consumed.    We are invited to work through each chapter at a measured pace.   She includes practical photography assignments to graft contemplation into our daily routines.   Or perhaps more appropriately, she challenges us to allow contemplation to break or enliven our routines.

Click here to read the entire review>>