Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 24

Decolonizing Contemplative Practice + Prayer Cycle Day 2 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims, 

Today we release Day 2 of our Love of Thousands prayer cycle. Our theme for morning prayer is wrestling with angels, inspired by the ancient biblical story of Jacob who wrestled with a powerful being all night and then demanded a blessing in the morning. I imagine, many of us have had those kinds of seasons of our lives where we walk away wounded but also with new gifts to carry forward. 

The theme for evening prayer is we are all called to be saints. St. Paul wrote that we are all “called to be holy” and theologian Karl Rahner wrote that “The Christian of the future will be a mystic, or (they) will not exist at all.” Our journey in this life is to live into the fullness of who we were created to be and to grow in our love and compassion for others and the world. 

This Friday, I am joined by Claudia Love Mair, my dear friend and conversation partner on our monthly Lift Every Voice book club podcast. We will be leading a mini-retreat together inspired by the three years of our work together, reading wonderful books by writers of color and speaking with the authors to expand the voices that shape us in the Christian mystical tradition. We have read and discussed 30 books so far and each one has been an invitation to deeper awareness of the systems we are ensnared by and a call to transformation. 

While our retreat is called Decolonizing Contemplative Practice: Cultivating a Loving, Liberating Presence in the World, I recently saw a comment on social media about how we might consider de-centering colonization and use the term “re-indigenization” instead. Language matters, who we listen to matters, deepening our awareness of the ways we are tangled in systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism matters. 

Our hope with this retreat is to weave together some threads that we have been discovering through our work together and also looking at contemplative practices that can help us to see more clearly and cultivate our presence in the world as lovers and a commitment to liberation for all people and beings. 

As a white, cis-gender woman myself, I approach this work with great humility, I feel a tremendous sense of privilege at being able to have these conversations with so many wisdom teachers and allowing them to shape who I am becoming. 

Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt describes contemplation as “a long loving look at the real.” The real includes both the beauty as well as the oppression and terror we experience as human beings. A commitment to justice and welcoming all to the table to feast is at the heart of the gospels. One of the things that draws me most to Jesus as a wisdom teacher is precisely his prioritizing the company of those who live on the edges of society. He seeks out those who are rejected and breaks bread with them. 

Humility means I not only know I don’t have the answers, but I also seek out the support of those who can help to build a better world. It is disorienting to question everything you have been taught, the assumptions you make about the world, and the privileges which you have benefitted from. 

As the great mystic and activist Howard Thurman writes, 

“The sound of the genuine is flowing through you. Don’t be deceived and thrown off by all the noises that are a part even of your dreams, your ambitions, so that you don’t hear the sound of the genuine in you, because that is the only true guide that you will ever have, and if you don’t have that you don’t have a thing.”

But this sound of the genuine is not an individualistic goal. It is an unfolding that happens when we are enriched by conversations with those who can help us to expand our perspectives and see where our imagination has become narrow. 

Join us this Friday to expand your imagination, become curious about the places of oppression you participate in unknowingly, and how contemplation can be an integral part of your journey toward liberation for all. Even if you have never listened to a single episode of our podcast you are most welcome. 

The deadline to register for the October 30th Samhain ritual online is 12pm Eastern this Friday, October 27th! 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

PS I’m honored to share this beautiful review by Jon M. Sweeney at Spirituality and Practice of my latest book The Love of Thousands. Click here to read the review.

Image: Paid license with Canva

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The Love of Thousands Reviewed by Spirituality & Practice

I’m honored to share this beautiful review by Jon M. Sweeney at Spirituality and Practice of my latest book The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk With Us Toward Holiness.

Here is an excerpt:

Christine Valters Paintner is one of our favorite spiritual writers, winner of several of our “Spiritual Book Awards,” and a member of our Living Spiritual Teachers Project.

Her latest book is wonderful. Particularly if you find yourself lonely or losing hope, her words of support and encouragement from angels, saints, mystics, and other friends along the spiritual path will buoy your spirits. This is a book of friendship that crosses the divide or, perhaps, shows how the divide is not real.

Read the full review here.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Shelley Ferro

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post from the community. Read on for Shelley Ferro’s reflection on contemplative photography and view the accompanying images.

Art, any art, helps us to stay present.  Each day (weather permitting) I walk along the shore of a nearby lake as part of my intent to live as a monk in the world.  I show up without expectation and ready for unfoldment.  I delight in the creativity and beauty of the nature and of all life.  My camera becomes a portal, and this practice invites me to slowdown enough to notice what is not noticed in the world of business…the tiny ant on the wildflower petal… the unique colors of the shoreline birds and the vast changing colors of each day as well as each season.  I fill my lungs with fresh air and feel the rays of sunshine on my skin. I become absorbed in the oneness of this scene, yet aware of the motions of the fish beneath the water line, the birds resting on the shore and the clouds that slowly drift while changing shape and color. Many times, I utter the words thank you because I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for all that is provided.

While my walks move me in a linear fashion, I embrace that this is an illusion because life moves in a circle.  I am always returning…always returning.

In her spare time, Shelley Ferro is a contemplative photographer, musician, songwriter gardener and licensed interfaith minister. Her ancestors come from ancient soil that is touched by the Mediterranean sun and surrounded by waters that ebb and flow. Her roots are grounded in the sights and sounds of nature.  Now in her 6th decade Shelley has come to understand we never go far because life is a circle and we keep returning…always returning.

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The Love of Thousands Prayer Cycle, Book, and Album Launch ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

“Walking, I can almost hear the redwoods beating. And the oceans are above me here, rolling clouds, heavy and dark. It is winter and there is smoke from the fires. It is a world of elemental attention, of all things working together, listening to what speaks in the blood. Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods, and they love and eat one another. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”

―Linda Hogan, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This quote by Chicksaw poet and writer Linda Hogan is one that has guided my journey more deeply into the world of angels, saints, and ancestors for many years.

At its foundation, it is a journey of opening our hearts to the love of all those sacred beings who dwell in spiritual form across the veil. Our western minds may tell us that what we see is all there is, but the religious and mystical imagination knows a deeper truth.

Various religious traditions have taught about the existence of angels, saints, and ancestors for millennia. The God I believe in is a God of Love. A divine being from whom all of creation erupted out of this foundation of Love.

In a world so filled with struggles, discord, and violence, I know I can use as many reminders of the Love that undergirds and infuses all of life. Those beings who dwell in the light of the divine presence extend themselves toward us in loving care and compassion. They are resources to help sustain and inspire us. All we need to do is look with eyes of the heart. All we need to do is open ourselves to an encounter.  

Thresholds are potent doorways between the old and the new. When we step onto a threshold in our lives we release an old identity or old patterns and we await the new birthing. It can be uncomfortable at times to rest in this space of waiting, of not knowing what things will look like. But an essential aspect of retreat time is that we cultivate our capacity to breathe deeply and stay present to what is unfolding within us. 

To connect with the Otherworld—the world beyond the veil of appearances—means developing our intuitive skills and vision. It means trusting the messages from our heart and gut, rather than only what the mind shows us and our culture tells us is valuable. It means listening to daydreams and night dreams and paying attention to synchronicities – when a symbol or image starts to show up in multiple ways and places. It means spending time in the natural world and letting feather, fur, and fin reveal dimensions of our longing to us. It means listening for leaf erupting from branch and blossom emerging from stem without trying to figure things out. It means cultivating the capacity to let things be organic and emerge slowly. 

For some it might mean suspending disbelief in the possibility of this kind of love and connection long enough for messages to be revealed. As Mark’s gospel tells us,

“The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.” (Mark 1:12-13, NRSV)

And this version from The Message by Eugene Peterson:

“At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.”

This is our starting place: going out into the wilderness of our lives, the threshold space where we release the old and anticipate the new, and in this liminal place we know that angels and other spiritual beings surround us and attend to us. 

We are thrilled to be launching several beautiful new resources tomorrow! My book The Love of Thousands was recently published and is the culmination of many years of pilgrimage and spiritual practice. We have a brand new album of 21 songs to companion the book and help support your own journey of connecting across the veil to those waiting for you to attune your seeing. 

Finally, we are releasing our fifth prayer cycle on this theme as well. Day 1 morning and evening prayer is available at the link above and we will be releasing all 7 days over the next several weeks during this season of remembrance when the veil is said to be thin between worlds. 

Tomorrow, I am joined by some wonderful musician friends – Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Betsey Beckman, Simon de Voil, Soyinka Rahim, and Te Martin – for a free event to launch these new resources together in community. We hope you will join us!

In addition, Therese Taylor Stinson will be offering her Centering Prayer session this Wednesday. Join her for a time to pray and reflect together in community. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

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Monk in the World Guest Post: June Mears Driedger

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for June Mears Driedger’s reflection Yielding to Emerging Life.

I learned the story of Celtic Saint Kevin of Glendalough, the founder of the ancient Glendalough monastery, while on a Celtic pilgrimage with Abbey of the Arts in 2016. As the story is told, St. Kevin was praying with his arms outstretched in his monastery cell which was so small his right arm extended through the window. As he prayed, a blackbird nestled in his hand then began to build a nest. When the nest was complete, the blackbird laid an egg and not wanting to disturb the bird St. Kevin left his hand outstretched.  With the nest and egg in his hand, St. Kevin chose not to move until the egg had hatched and the fledgling had flown away. 

This story holds two invitations for me: the first invitation is to find love in hard places, a feature of Celtic spirituality. The second invitation is to yield to the emerging life that may be unfolding. 

Once home, I found a small wooden sculpture of hands to which I added a small nest with a fabric bird. I placed this sculpture on our home altar and passed it several times a day for months. With each passing, consciously and subconsciously, I recalled the legend of St. Kevin and his decision to yield to the life that was emerging in his hand. I held him as an example of yielding what needed surrendering for new life to emerge in me. Over time, I understood that God’s invitation had birthed itself into my heart as a deeper desire to allow God’s transforming Love. This birth, my yielding, has unfolded within me through contemplative prayer.

Silent prayer does not come easily to me. I grew up in a church that believed intercessory prayer was the only form of prayer and I continue to pray for others. But it is not the only way to pray. My shift in prayer has evolved as I have practiced contemplative prayer. In this form of prayer, I am not telling God how I think God should move and act in my life or around the globe. For me, contemplative prayer is a way of surrendering my will, of declaring “…not my will but your will be done.” I am gradually understanding I can offer my concerns and then yield my preferred outcomes to God.

Contemplative prayer also means releasing my impulse to make God into my own image and instead, allow God to transform me into God’s image. I surrender my limited vision for God’s boundless vision. Silent prayer enables me to release my ego—the desire to be in charge, to be the ruler of my life, to be a little dictator—which is not easy. Surrendering my ego is a daily (hourly) practice to not insist on having my own way. The struggle is deep and challenging! My ego finds a myriad of creative and clever ways to reclaim control. Yet, as Benedict wrote: “Always we begin again.” When I recognize my resistance to God’s transforming Love, I return to yielding control of my life to God’s ever-merciful, ever-loving will. My life becomes a continual prayerful practice of yielding, submitting, surrendering to God for God’s Love to emerge and grow in me.

When I return to contemplative prayer, I focus on Love, which is the essence of God. I yield my mind and soul routinely to Love while offering Love more space in my heart to transform my heart.  In contemplative prayer I become aware of the places where I cling to an inner hardness of heart that I am unwilling to surrender to God’s touch. When I resist yielding my heart to God, I am unable to wholeheartedly love God, which in the innermost depths of my heart, truly is my desire. And it is in contemplation that I admit this. In silence, my heart is most open. I’m not keeping God at arms-length but instead, allowing God to come near. It is in silence that I gaze at God as God gazes me (to use Julian of Norwich’s description of prayer). In contemplative prayer I cradle vulnerable life as it gestates into new and transformed life. 

June Mears Driedger is a new immigrant to the Canadian prairies of Manitoba with her spouse Kevin Driedger. Previously, they were on staff at The Hermitage Community retreat center in southwest Michigan. She is a writer, spiritual director, and retreat leader. She can be found at www.junemearsdriedger.ca, and Instagram and Facebook.

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Blindness, Beauty, and Spiritual Sight ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Tomorrow we will begin a completely revised and updated version of an online companion retreat to my book Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Christian Contemplative Practice. We are very excited for this new gathering of teachers to help you deepen into this creative way. 

I am sharing an excerpt here to invite you to consider how your senses can help you to see the divine more deeply in the world: 

There is a long mystical tradition of understanding that our five physical senses have five parallel mystical senses which operate in similar ways. Spiritual seeing simply receives the present moment without judgment or trying to figure it out.

The Christian scriptures say that we can only see “through a glass darkly” (Corinthians 13:12).  In the book of Exodus (33:18-23), even Moses who comes face to face with God when asked to see God’s glory is granted only a glimpse of God’s backside.  In the gospels, blindness is used as a metaphor for being unable to see truth.  St. Augustine wrestles with this idea in his work City of God where he describes the vision we are to have one day – visio dei, or the clear sight of God. 

Spiritual tradition says that as humans, our vision is limited and part of the spiritual journey is learning how to see, not with our physical eyes, but with our spiritual eyes.  

Beauty’s presence in the world is an invitation to a new way of seeing; it offers graced vision. The graced eye can glimpse beauty everywhere, seeing the divine at work in the hidden depths of things. It is so easy to let our senses be dulled and to settle for the ordinary. Often, life seems to be just what it offers on the surface; as Ecclesiastes puts it, ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. The technology, speed, and busyness so prized by our Western culture fosters a habit of blindness. For all the bustle, a dreary sameness comes to mark the places where we live. We forget that there is a vast depth beneath the apparent surfaces of things.

The eye of aesthetic spirituality sees more than other eyes. Art helps to facilitate this awakening by granting us epiphanies through its transfigurations of the ordinary. We come to know more than what appears to us.

Some, like Augustine, have used ‘beauty’ as a name for God, a usage which expresses something about the divine nature. Beauty has long been considered one of the great means through which God is revealed to us.  To experience beauty is to have your life enlarged––an aesthetic spirituality is about seeing the beauty of God in more and more places. We begin to see all of life as what the Celts called a ‘thin place’.  When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. What we see is determined by how we see, and each of us is responsible for how we see. 

We often use the word “take” to describe our relationship with photography.  Our culture emphasizes taking time, taking what’s mine, taking a break.  What we are endeavoring to do in photography as a contemplative practice, however, is to receive (rather than take) the gifts around us, be present enough so that when the photographic moment arrives, we are able to receive it fully, with our whole hearts.  It is a way to consider what reframing our language might break open in terms of new awareness.  

You do not need to be a “photographer” to join us, if you have a camera on your phone that is more than enough, and a heart open to new ways of seeing the world. Please join us for Eyes of the Heart, a companion retreat to my book, which starts tomorrow. I am joined by some wonderful guest teachers and will be leading weekly live sessions online. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

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Awakening the Creative Spirit In-Person Retreat

Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)

April 21-26, 2024 – St. Andrew’s Retreat Center in Union, WA

with Kayce Stevens Hughlett and Betsey Beckman

We are excited to announce our only in-person retreat for 2024! Join Kayce Stevens Hughlett and Betsey Beckman for this five-day experiential intensive exploring tools for integrating the arts and imagination into spiritual direction and other healing ministries. This retreat is designed for those who are ready to explore the arts for yourself, for your work with others, and for the world. 

Anyone called to the practices of soul care (mentorship, spiritual companion, chaplaincy, pastor, educator, counseling, etc.) may register.  If you wonder whether this program is a fit for you, please contact us to discuss whether this might be the right program for you. 

Absolutely no previous art experience necessary — only a willingness to awaken to the creative spirit within!

Details and registration

Read a reflection on the program from Anne Buck

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Jill Ore

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jill Ore’s reflection and poem on the contemplative practice of restoring a lighthouse.

An offshore lighthouse provides the perfect place, space, and atmosphere for cultivating a contemplative practice. Set apart from the world, this century-old structure echoes timeless monasterial themes. Silence and solitude supply the fertile ground for exploring and tending the light within. Daily housekeeping chores and the physical labor of restoration work, accomplished by climbing endless flights of endless stairs, could be viewed as drudgery. Instead, these duties offer a glimpse into divinity and holy service when in community with like-minded restorationists and preservationists. Our kinship with creation is fostered in our aim to reuse, repurpose, and recycle resources on station while also exploring the use of solar and wind power in an off-grid setting. While reflecting and writing about my own journey from pharmacist to pharologist and head lighthouse keeper, I discovered not only was I living like a monk in the world, but that a lighthouse, standing in its purpose while also concealing hidden stories, was an apt metaphor for my life. This discovery inspired these words revealing our shared image and identity.

A lighthouse keeps watch in the middle of northern Lake Michigan.Empty. Isolated. Abandoned. Neglected.Yet she stands.Weathering. Waning. Aging. Fading.The outside getting inside.Yet still she stands.Stalwart. Dependable. Resilient. Guiding. Warning. Welcoming. Encouraging.She stands in her purpose.Built to be seen and sometimes heard. Yielding to restoration.What is contained inside and what lies beneathare hidden and remain unknown to most.The lighthouse and I are one.The lighthouse is me.I stand in the storms and shine my light.

In 2020, Jill Ore listened to that still small voice and stepped away from a 32-year career as a hospital pharmacist to serve as head lighthouse keeper to support the restoration of an offshore lighthouse in northern Lake Michigan. Her journey is one of navigating the waters from pharmacist to pharologist.

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Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Starting in a week, we will be offering a completely revised and updated version of an online companion retreat to my book Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice. This book and program remains an ongoing favorite of many dancing monks and it felt like time to revisit this material and invite in some wonderful guest teachers to help illuminate the content further. 

I am sharing an excerpt here to invite you to consider how receiving the gift of images might help you cultivate your inner monk and artist: 

My journey with photography began when I was a very young girl.  My maternal grandparents owned a chain of photography stores called Fitts Photo Supply in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire and so I have owned a camera for as long as I can remember.  

It wasn’t until I began to embrace monastic spirituality in my late twenties when I began to experience photography consciously as a contemplative practice.  It has always been a way for me to see more deeply, but my awareness of how this was an experience of prayer and often an encounter with the sacred presence emerged over time.  I began to see photography as a way to slow down and gaze deeply, noticing things I missed in my rushed life.  The camera can provide an encounter with the eternal moment – that place where we suddenly become so present to what we are gazing upon that we lose track of time and we allow eternity to break in.

I began publishing my photos on my website in a prayerful and reflective context. I discovered I was inviting people into a contemplative space with me visually, asking them to pause on a particular moment in time and see an aspect of the holy in that image.

Photography is often seen as a tool to be used for far-flung journeys and the recording of family events.  These are really valuable, but a photographic journey can also be taken right in your own neighborhood – as close as the block you live on – as a way of discovering the everyday places you inhabit in new ways.  

Photography as a spiritual practice combines the active art of image-taking with the contemplative nature and open-heartedness of prayer.  It cultivates what I call sacred seeing or seeing with “the eyes of the heart” (Ephesians 1:18). This kind of seeing is our ability to receive the world around us at a deeper level than surface realities.  

When we focus on the process of art-making, rather than the product, the creative journey can become one of discovering how God is moving through our lives and how we are being invited to respond.  This book offers an invitation to transform photography into a spiritual practice, deepening our relationship to God, to the world around us, and to ourselves. 

Mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade says the word “moment” comes from the Latin root momentus, which means to move.  We are moved when we touch the eternal and timeless.  There is a sense of spaciousness in moments.  Art and spiritual practice are how we find this moment of eternity, or even better, how we allow the moment to find us.  There are many moments waiting for us each day, prodding at our consciousness, inviting us to abandon our carefully constructed plans and defenses.  The task of the artist is to cultivate the ability to see these eternal moments again and again.  In this way, we are all invited to become artists.

Please join us for the Eyes of the Heart 8-week online retreat with guest teachers John Valters Paintner, Claudia Love Mair, Amanda Dillon, and Aisling Richmond. 

Simon and I are delighted to return tomorrow with our monthly prayer services. Our theme will be inspired by Teilhard de Chardin’s quote about “the breathing together of all things” and by the music of our guest musician this month Spencer LaJoye. Spencer will be sharing their powerful Plowshare Prayer as well as a couple of other beautiful songs. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

PS We had a delightful time at our September Tea with the Abbess gathering where we celebrated the Feast of the Archangels with an archangel meditation and movement video, looked at upcoming programs, and had a little Q&A chat. Watch the recording here.

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September Tea with the Abbess

Note: Click CC to turn closed captions on or off.

We had a delightful time at our September Tea with the Abbess gathering where we celebrated the Feast of the Archangels with an archangel meditation and movement video, looked at upcoming programs, and had a little Q&A chat.

Registration for our Sustainers Circle closes Saturday, September 30th. There are several levels of programming to choose from if you have the means to do so. Your support helps us create free offerings such as the Prayer Cycles and book club, and affords us the ability to offer scholarships and financial assistance to keep our offerings accessible.

Join Simon and me for the return of our Contemplative Prayer Service this Monday, October 2nd. Our theme is “The Breathing Together of All Things” and we are delighted to welcome special guest Spencer LaJoye who will share their music with us.

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