Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 32

First Friday Tea with the Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

It was a true delight to join you for tea, centering, and conversation. We have a number of resources to support you in your contemplative journey including:

February Lift Every Voice Book Club –Then They Came for Mine: Healing from Racial Trauma and Violence by Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts

Christine’s forthcoming collection – Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty

Abbey of the Arts Prayer Cycles – a free resource

Calendar of Upcoming Events

Warmest blessings,

Christine

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Monk in the World: Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful selection to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Michael Moore’s reflection “Finding Hope on the Threshold.”

When I was asked to contribute a Monk in the World guest post, I was not exactly sure what direction the post would take. I looked back at some of my earlier posts for the Abbey and was noticed how what was going on in my life at the time when I was writing informed my post. The last post that I wrote was written in the middle of 2020 amidst the isolation created by the global COVID-19 Pandemic. 

It is now nearly three years since (almost to the month) the shutdown and a lot has happened. My wife Denise and I moved from the church in Estes Park, Colorado to a new call in Carrollton, Georgia. During the late summer and early fall of 2021, we crisscrossed the country (from Carrollton to Austin, Minnesota, to Florence, Alabama, to Mobile, Alabama) caring for my dad, Denise’s dad (in Florence), and her former mother-in-law (in Mobile) who was still a very dear friend and grandmother to Denise’s two sons. 

We somehow managed all of that driving and work while at the same time I was pastoring a church and working with them in-person and via Zoom, emails, and phone calls as they tried to figure out how to come out of the pandemic and re-imagine what church could be post-pandemic. During that time, Denise’s dad, and her boys’ grandmother both died. My dad (in Austin) finally made it out of the hospital, but his cognitive decline was increasing. 

On December 26, 2021, I contracted COVID-19 and was laid up for about ten days. I continued to suffer from the impact of long-COVID and had to resign from the church for health reasons on February 6, 2022. Now we find ourselves on the Gulf Coast of Alabama where I am serving a church as their Interim/Transitional Minister.

As I look back at these last few years, I am slowly realizing that we had a lot of traumatic thresholds that we were able to walk through thanks to the grace of Godde and the prayers, support, and encouragement of dear friends who are family. It was through Christine’s guided meditation at a recent Wisdom Council retreat that I had time to reflect prayerfully on these thresholds. The word that came to my heart was Hope. Whether I realized it or not, during the most traumatic times of transition, hope was present even though I didn’t realize it at the time. Hope was standing on the threshold with us and was guiding us in Love.

Over the past seven years I have spent a lot of time studying and reflecting on the writings of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Sadly, he died on December 10th, 1968, which was 27 years to the day after he entered the monastery. His writings have had and continue to have a profound influence on my own life and spiritual journey.

During the Wisdom Council retreat, a prayer of Thomas Merton’s which has played a significant role in my own spiritual journey came to mind. My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 79)

Hope stands on the various thresholds of life and Hope is accompanied by Love. As I walk with the congregation that I am currently serving through the process of transformation as they seek to call a new pastor, Merton and thresholds have played a big role in that ministry. Whatever you, dear reader, may be going through in your own journey as you approach your own thresholds, my prayer is that you will sense the presence of Hope and Love with you. May you, like Merton, …not fear, for Godde is ever with you, and Godde will never leave you to face your perils alone.

Michael Moore is a retired USAF Chaplain and pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who currently lives in Carrolton, Georgia with his wife and partner in life and ministry, Denise. His undergraduate degree is in Business Administration (University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire) and he earned his Master of Divinity degree from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (Saint Paul, MN). He served two small yoked Presbyterian Churches in rural Fergus Falls, MN for three years before going on Active Duty with the USAF for 21 years. Following his retirement, he served has served churches in Florida, Colorado, and Georgia. He has a Certificate in Christian Spiritual Formation from Columbia Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA.

A writer and photographer, you can find him blogging at Pastor Michael Moore or at GodSpace as a member of that community.

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Some Updates from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This past Monday our Wisdom Council gathered together online for our semi-annual time of reflection, inspiration, and planning. We are extraordinarily blessed with a group of 14 members who are heart-centered, contemplative leaders committed to helping Abbey of the Arts continue to flourish and serve this community in challenging times. 

We first created the Wisdom Council several years ago when John and I realized we wanted more support for what was emerging, we wanted it to be a truly collaborative vision. While we are not a registered charity or non-profit structure, primarily because we went that path when we first created the Abbey but found that the administrative burden was extraordinarily high, we are committed to being an ethical organization, operated with integrity and accountability, rooted in the principles we teach. 

For the Wisdom Council we gather for three hours together with the first hour dedicated to setting a theme and then doing introductions and checking in around what emerged in our opening time of centering. (We also had the joy this time of welcoming our newest member Dena Ross Jennings). The second hour is facilitated by two or three members with various creative practices like movement, writing, or visual art to deepen the theme further followed by more sharing.

With this immersion in the theme, and embodied experience for each of us, only then do we turn to Abbey programs and begin a conversation that is part practical and part inspiration and exploring possibilities. We come to the planning from a place of aliveness and connection to how Abbey work is touching our own hearts.

The theme we were exploring this time was hospitality, one of my favorite of the Monk Manifesto principles and a foundation of all monastic traditions. We live in a world of such division, radical hospitality where we welcome the stranger as the very face of Christ, has such transformative potential. This stranger may be someone outside of us but may also be aspects of ourselves that have gone rejected, resisted, or abandoned for various reasons, often self-protection or messages of our unacceptability from others.

We invited in hospitality this time because we are looking at ways to better welcome people into this community of dancing monks and orient them to all we have to offer.

I always feel an incredible amount of joy when I am gathered in this way, because I have such love for Abbey of the Arts, for our holy disorder, for dancing monks, for each of you. And even though our cultural and global times can feel quite dark and foreboding, my conviction that the way of the monk and path of the artist is necessary and transformative never wanes. To live in such a way that cultivates the rest and spaciousness to be present to the beauty and sorrow of the world opens up the creative imagination and new possibilities. It does not happen in our rushed and productive mindset, it is thwarted when we focus on achievement, doing, and striving. We are living into a whole new way of being that is also very ancient, and witnesses to the possibility of a new world.

One thing I especially love about these online gathering with our wisdom council is allowing space for new things to emerge. For the third part of our time I always have a loose agenda of things we can discuss, but also love to leave room for how the energy is moving in response to our creative explorations. It is an awe-inspiring thing to witness Spirit at work moving between and within us to help create something bigger than any one of us could alone. And inevitably some new ideas arose that we will be exploring further. 

Even though my health has been quite challenged in the last several months, my joy and commitment to this work has not wavered. I awaken with gratitude each morning for it and ask the Beloved and the saints and ancestors to help guide me. Because we have a wonderful team of people working together, it means I do not have to hold it all on my own. I can make time to rest and restore, I can show up as I am and that is more than enough.

One last update is that each year in December we donate some of our funds to local charities in Ireland as a way of giving thanks for welcoming us to this land (our living in Ireland has such an impact on what we offer and how we do it) and it is one way we can support those in need. These include organizations like Galway SPCA where we adopted our sweet Sourney and have fostered several of their dogs in the past, Galway Simon and St. Vincent de Paul who work tirelessly to serve the homeless and vulnerable in our communities, and in 2022 we partnered formally with Hometree, an organization based in County Clare dedicated to reforesting and rewilding Ireland, including created a renewed rainforest ecosystem in Connemara, a place we love dearly.

The Earth Monastery work we do is so close to my heart and so necessary right now. We have my book, a companion retreat, and a prayer cycle as resources to help you cultivate an earth-cherishing consciousness with more programs and resources coming in the future. Working with HomeTree is one very practical way of contributing to the flourishing of Earth systems. 

Hope means acting for an unknown future, it means having conviction that you must do something even without seeing the full impact. As a contemplative organization we do this in the way we know how, through nourishment and support from ancient wisdom and in the case of our Lift Every Voice book club, we do it by centering contemporary contemplative writers of color to help expand our understanding of Christian mystical tradition.

Join me on Friday, February 3rd for our very first First Friday Tea with the Abbess. This will be a free informal event with a brief meditation and centering to begin and then I will share some of our upcoming programs for the month (see our list below). There will be time for questions and input from the community as well. You can register here. If you miss it there will be a recording posted on our website.

This week brings the Celtic feast of Imbolc and the feast of Brigid when the land begins to rumble deep beneath the surface and the very first signs of spring emerge here like snowdrops and sheep bellies growing heavier with lambs. Even though I adore autumn and winter energies, I do also love this threshold time of awaiting the holy moments of blossoming starting to emerge. I feel the spring energy flowing through the Abbey as well.

In Ireland, Monday, February 6th will be the first time we have a dedicated holiday for Brigid’s Day. We have long had March 17th for St. Patrick’s Day here off to celebrate. It is wonderful to see so many local events happening to honor this exciting new time. Simon and I will be offering our monthly contemplative prayer service on Monday as well to welcome you into the celebration wherever in the world you may be. 

If you’d like to journey through the Celtic Virtual Pilgrimage we led last year starting with the feast of Brigid, you can register here for the on-demand/self-study version. We are offering a discount of 20% to celebrate Imbolc! Use code IMBOLC 20.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon by Marcy Hall (prints available on Etsy)

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Melinda Emily Thomas

I am delighted so share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post from the community. Read on for Abbey Assistant Melinda Thomas‘ reflection on statio is adapted from her book Sacred Balance: Aligning Body and Spirit Through Yoga and the Benedictine Way.

In the days before my son was born, my centering routine looked very different than it does today. I would rise early, read a daily meditation for lectio divina, journal, spend an hour or so in asana, and then move about my day. I’d stop working around four o’clock in the afternoon, walk the dog, meditate for thirty minutes, and then make dinner. 

Now I am a single mom and don’t have long, open spaces of time to devote to extended practice. What I do have is a commitment to what is essential for keeping me oriented toward a life of wellness, love, and integrity. I still rise early to practice asana and sit in prayer. My lectio practice is haphazard, though I always create just a few minutes to read something of Spirit. Sometimes I journal. My meditation practice is short. I still do my best to walk outside for at least a few minutes each day to breathe fresh air and reorient my mind and spirit. . . . My steadfast commitment to these simple practices brings an equanimity to my life that I miss during periods in which I give them up to busyness and overexertion. Like a tree firmly planted in the earth, they grant me the steadiness out of which to grow. 

Because balance is a dynamic conversation between stability and movement, our practices need to evolve and adapt to our life’s circumstance. Through humility and the deep listening of obedience, we begin to recognize where and how we remain rooted. Yet there is one practice we can wholeheartedly embrace, regardless of the season and circumstances of life, and that is statio. 

Statio is the monastic practice of pausing at the end of one task before beginning another. It’s as simple and forgettable as that. In pausing, we open the smallest of spaces within for the largesse of Presence to be revealed. In that holy pause, we reconnect with our roots, which extend into the Ground of Being. In that space, we can grow alongside the Grace that carries us forward. 

It is so easy to just move from one activity or task to the next, without taking the time to slow down for a moment and pay attention to where we are and what we are doing. I am guilty of this. What helps is to begin by attaching an intentional statio to a repetitive task. Pause before making a phone call or sending an email or text. Pause and breathe for a few minutes in the car before going to work or picking up your child from school. Pause before a meal and give thanks for the food you are to receive and the many hands that brought it to your table. 

In our asana, we cultivate our capacity for statio by linking movement with breath. We pause, breathe, and then move. When we hold a pose and focus on the rhythms of breath, we invite ourselves to settle into the pause between inhale and exhale, exhale and inhale. Through statio, we tap into the dynamic stillpoint between steadiness and motion, stability and conversion, rajas and tamas. 

Statio is also crucial in our efforts to be loving members of any community. We can pause before speaking. We can make a habit of stopping the busywork and engaging with our family, colleagues, children. We can take a deep breath and read the news so we become aware of the world around us and pray for how we may respond to the needs of our society. We can look away from our screens and up at the sky to marvel at God’s creation. Each pause, then, becomes an acceptance of the invitation to a life growing in grace.

When can you practice statio—intentional pause—throughout your day?

Melinda Emily Thomas is the Executive Assistant for Abbey of the Arts providing program, logistical and mentoring support as well as offering monthly yoga classes. She has been studying and practicing yoga for more than twenty years, and teaching for over fifteen. In each of her classes and workshops Melinda weaves spiritual and contemplative themes into accessible, alignment based movement practice. Melinda is a writer and the author of Sacred Balance: Aligning Body and Spirit Through Yoga and the Benedictine Way. She lives in North Carolina with her son whose room is often littered with LEGOs and who still wants to cuddle. Visit her website >>

Image © Melinda Emily Thomas

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Hildy Tails: The Wise Guys ~ A Love Note from Your Abbey Mascot

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This week we are featuring one of our Hildy Tails. This series of essays were composed last year for our Sustainers Circle. They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized, humorous perspective on some biblical passages and stories of the saints. 

The Wise Guys (Matthew 2:1-12)

Hello and welcome back! It’s Hildy, your Abbey of the Arts mascot, with another instalment of weird and wild stories from the Bible. Today’s story has an added weirdness factor in that I’ll be discussing the magi well after the Feast of Epiphany. (Originally, this was to go out before the feast day. But then we realised that we kinda front loaded the month with a lot of content, so have spread things out a bit. But I wasn’t about to not talk about these folks with the gifts. Who doesn’t love gifts, am I right? Besides, the magi arrived late to the birth, so it’s seems appropriate to talk about them a bit late, too.)

The story even begins oddly. A bunch of foreign dignitaries show up at King Herod’s palace and ask to see (essentially) the king’s replacement. (It’d be like if someone new showed up and work and said that you’re supposed to train them in your job. A heck of a way to find out you’re getting fired, is it not?) 

Now after checking with his advisers (aka – the people who actually know stuff), Herod gives the magi instructions to go find the new king and then come back and tell him exactly where the kid is . . . so he can go pay tribute to the new king, too (wink, wink). At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the magi didn’t need an angel whispering in their dreams to tell them that this Herod guy was up to no good, what with not knowing about the new king and then not knowing where to find the child AND asking them to tell him where to his replacement is.

Needless to say, the “wise men*” go home by a route that totally avoids having to deal with King Herod. A smart move on several levels.

Now some of you may have noticed the quotation marks and asterisk in the previous paragraph. And some of the more observant of ye may have even noticed that I have specifically avoided the use of the number 3 in reference to the magi. That’s because we’re not sure, according to the text, how many magi there were OR if they were all men. 

We tend to assume there’s three of them because that’s the number of gifts they brought (more on that later) and because of later musical and literary additions to the story of the magi. There’s nothing in the text to indicate they were kings (or royalty, necessarily). But still, we all know that Christmas carol (it’s a cracker, for sure). But that’s not Gospel . . . literally. 

“But wait,” some of you are saying, “don’t we know their names?”

Yes and no. Yes, there’s the legend of their names: Melchoir, Caspar, & Balthazar (spellings may vary, depending on your region and language of origin). No, these great (like, if I ever had triplets . . . great) names are not mentioned in the Bible. They come from poems and songs and legends written well after the fact. And speaking of legends, there’s the one about how part of Jesus’ missing years (between thirteen and thirty), he travels east to reconnect with the magi and learn from them. Great story; not Biblical. So rather than get sucked into that rabbit hole of Midrash gold, let’s just get back to what’s in the original story . . . as it’s weird enough as it is.

Speaking of weird, what’s with those gifts? Why not, as one recent satirical site wondered, a stuffed camel and wooden rattle for the baby . . . and perhaps a nice skin of wine for the new parents? Who brings a new-born gold, frankincense, and myrrh?!? 

OK. Gold, I get. It’s like the ancient world’s version of a gift card . . . only shinier and way better. 

But frankincense? I suppose a nice incense wouldn’t go amiss around an infant, what with the stinky diapers and all. But still . . . this is fancy incense, like something you’d use in a special ceremony. Which was the point, I guess. The magi just weren’t there to gawk at any auld baby. They came to pay their respect and homage to a very special child, the Son of God. (It’s still weird, right? Particularly for a baby?)

And what about myrrh? I mean how many people today even know what myrrh is? I certainly had to look it up. Even John had to double-check and you better believe we’re asking Christine to triple-check this one. I mean . . . myrrh? Myrrh?!? For a baby!?!

It’s an embalming oil.

Way to bring down the joyous mood of a first-born child. #Creepy . . . am I right? 

Alright, it can also be used as an anointing oil . . . and not just at death. But that’s what it was used for back then. And that’s clearly what the magi were hinting at. They were (in their own weird way) offering tribute to not just the child they saw before them, but the king and messiah *and martyr* that the child would become. Props for thinking ahead. But still morbid. 

“But there were three gifts?” you ask. “So doesn’t that mean three magi?” It’s a logical guess, but still a guess. There may have been as few as two magi (it is a plural term, so we know it was more than one). And three people, each giving one gift, is a reasonable assumption. But don’t act like you’ve never witnessed someone showing up empty handed to a party and asking you to let them put their name on the card and take some of the credit for your gift. (I’m sure NONE of you have ever been that person. But you know that person.)

At least they didn’t show up and start playing the drums for a sleeping infant and exhausted new mother. (Whoever came up with that song never spent any time around a newborn, that’s for sure.)

What gifts do you bring to the Christ Child in those you meet?

Join Melinda this Thursday for a yoga practice!

With great and growing love,

Christine, John, and Hildy

Christine, John, and Hildy 

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE , John Valters Paintner, MTS

Image © Christine Valters Paintner

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Laurel Ralston

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Laurel Ralston’s reflection on swimming as contemplative practice.

It wasn’t my idea to go swimming first thing in the morning.

I was in the middle of my evening routine, such as it is, minding my own business, when the thought occurred to me, silent yet surprisingly loud: You should go to The Pond tomorrow. Find your bathing suit. You should go to The Pond tomorrow.

I grew up in a house about ten minutes’ walk from a small but magical conservation area, a forest, wetland and lake alive with wildlife, an oasis in Canada’s national capital city, Ottawa. I remember exploring the trails in my youth, occasionally playing guide to friends from other neighbourhoods and visiting cousins from out west. I remember one year in high school I decorated the sandy area at the edge of the swimming hole for my best friend’s birthday and brought her there for a little celebratory picnic. 

But I was never a swimmer. My body is neither well-insulated nor buoyant, and although my parents sent me to swimming lessons as a child, water never really felt welcoming. Plus, I’m a wimp.

My mother, on the other hand, found heaven there. Despite being petite, Mom was the brawny one in my immediate family. She had grown up swimming in frigid outdoor municipal pools in central Alberta in the 1950s and 1960s. She was confident and exuberant in the water.

I don’t remember when Mom started making a habit of going to The Pond first thing in the morning. I know it was well established by my early twenties, because I still lived at home, and the morning after my first date with my first love—we’d attended a chamber music concert the previous evening, then walked and talked all night and watched the sunrise from the banks of the Ottawa River before finally ending up at my house—as he and I were having breakfast, she wandered in the back door post-swim, dripping wet in her swimsuit, sandals and a towel, squinted at him (she hadn’t worn her glasses), asked, ‘Are you the guy we met at the jazz festival last week?,’ and when he answered in the affirmative, said, ‘Nice to see you again,’ before disappearing into the hallway. We were a little mortified. She was not.

No matter what the weather, and no matter what was going on beyond The Pond, my mother always returned from her morning swim beaming. Swimming in that little lake, surrounded by trees, red winged blackbirds conversing nearby, was her daily meditation. Eventually Mom decided that the season was too short and bought herself a wetsuit to extend it a little on either end. I thought she had lost her mind. I was impressed, a few years later, when she agreed to be the designated swimmer on a triathlon team with me and my love’s father, flying out to the small town in British Columbia where I lived then and diving into a mountain lake with hundreds of others for the first leg of our race.

I didn’t get to celebrate with my mother at the end of that triathlon. While I was out running my 10 km portion of the race, she’d experienced extreme pain in her eye, and my dad had taken her to the nearest hospital. We learned that she had macular degeneration. Over the next couple years, she experienced one debilitating symptom after another. She kept on swimming. In early fall of 2010 she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. She passed away the following July.

I’ve been back in Ottawa for several years now, and thanks to an unexpected but miraculous move in late 2021, I’m once again within walking distance of The Pond. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised when the idea occurred to me, that evening in early May, before the leaves had fully emerged on the trees, when the overnight temperatures were still only a few degrees above freezing. I located my bathing suit in a storage bin and put it where I’d be able to find it in the bleary-eyed moments after waking.

I resisted, the next morning, for about 20 minutes before accepting the inevitable. I bundled up over my bathing suit and brought a thermos of tea that I hoped would help me thaw post-swim. I shivered and cursed as I stood, pre-submersion, knee-deep in the water where my mom found heaven nearly every day of the spring, summer and fall. ‘Seriously, Mom?,’ I said out loud.

Predictably, the experience, once I surrendered and dove in properly, was pure bliss. I swam, floated, gasped, and thrashed for fifteen glorious minutes, or maybe eternity. Hard to tell. Afterward, I gulped down my tea and hustled back toward my apartment, trying to regain sensation in my frozen extremities. About two blocks from home, something colourful on the ground caught my eye. It was a small, circular greeting card. It read, ‘I love you Mom.’

Since then, I have been swimming in The Pond most mornings, without resistance. After the first time I swam a lap around it instead of just splashing about, my shoulders were in agony for three days. I went back and did it again anyway. My technique is terrible, but technique is not the point. These daily pilgrimages have become my contemplative practice, connecting me not only to my mother, but to the miracle and mystery of creative, transcendent love. I grin shamelessly every moment in the water, moments so full that they last forever, time outside of time. When I turn on my back and relax my gaze, I can see an almost complete oval of trees rustling in my peripheral vision, and birds crossing from one side to the other. Once, another lady there swam the way I remember my mother swimming: slowly, contentedly, gently blowing bubbles with every stroke.

Last week, suddenly, I sensed the water’s welcome. My own strokes slowed. I felt strangely powerful. Floating face up to the sky, I felt the water lifting me, holding me up like my mother must have done, years ago, when I was still too young to remember.

Holding me up like my mother still does, every day.

Laurel Ralston is a musician and PhD student living on the traditional, unceded territories of the Algonquin nation. She performs with Ottawa-based neo-soul band Slack Bridges  and her research concerns hospitality in the aesthetics and practice of musical improvisation. She does her best thinking while wandering outside and is not so slowly turning into her mother.

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Community and A Change to Gather In Person ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

On Saturday, March 11th we will be hosting a live hybrid retreat (in-person in Ohio or via online streaming.) Our theme is Monk in the World: A Day of Contemplation, Creativity, and Connection. Many of you have asked when we might be hosting opportunities to gather in person again and this is our first attempt in a very long time to give you the chance to be with other dancing monks and kindred spirits. 

An online community is a strange and remarkable thing. We connect with fellow contemplatives and artists from all over the world and gather in virtual sanctuary spaces. This is an essential part of cultivating a way of life that is more present and attentive to the holy in each moment. 

Theologian Edward Sellner writes, in his book Finding the Monk Within:

“To be a monk today or someone seeking to incorporate monastic values into his or her own life presumes being a part of a community of friends, people with whom a person can share the counsels of the heart and speak a language of the heart to one another.”

Traditional monasteries are built around the heart of shared community life. People would become monks as a way to live in an environment of support for contemplative living. In our modern world we often feel isolated from one another, and it can be challenging to find meaningful relationships centered around the spiritual life.

In the Celtic monastic tradition the soul friend was considered to be an essential companion on the spiritual path. A soul friend is someone with whom you can share deeply about your struggles for meaning and your longings for how to shape your life. Henri Nouwen describes such a friend as one “who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing.” Soul friends offer us unconditional presence to whatever we may be experiencing. When we have this kind of relationship in our lives, it becomes easier for us to extend compassion to ourselves and others.

The spiritual life is meant to be lived in communion with one another, so as monks in the world, we have to create community in a variety of ways. Accountability and mutual encouragement is vital to sustaining contemplative and compassionate ways of being.

Many of us have multiple communities – I consider my primary community to be my marriage. This is the place of my most intimate encounters with another person.  My husband supports me wholeheartedly and we also wrestle with one another at times, as we bump up against each other’s edges.  I have a few very close friends with whom I can share my deepest struggles, who hold me lovingly in that space and witness my own unfolding.  These are anam caras who support me in the realization of my dreams and challenge me in life-giving ways.  I meet regularly with a spiritual director, a wise older man who has taught me much about being present to my dream life, my inner doubts and struggles, and the wisdom of my ancestors. The natural world is my community as well and often a place that meets me fully as I am. 

Being a part of Abbey of the Arts means having a group of fellow pilgrims who are also seeking ways to live a meaningful life in a complex world through ancient practices, who don’t have easy answers, and who are willing to be alongside one another in my doubts and questions. 

In Chapter Three of Benedict’s Rule he writes that when any important decision is to be made in the monastery, the whole community is gathered because God “often reveals what is better to the younger.” (RB 3:3)   Sometimes our vision is clouded by our own expectations. Benedict invites us to welcome in the wisdom of everyone in our community.  Often others can see aspects of ourselves that we cannot.  You might ask someone you trust deeply to reflect back to you how they see your gifts at work in the world and the places where you seem to hold yourself back.  Receive these words with reverence and humility, welcome in what they might have to teach you about your own creative journey.

In the desert, Celtic, and Benedictine traditions, it was also considered essential to have some kind of soul-level relationship with another person who was further along the path in conscious awareness and spiritual practice.  Many of you are probably familiar with the Gaelic term anam cara which means soul friend. 

In the 4th-5th centuries, St. Cassian went to the Egyptian desert to learn about the importance of an elder: “a wise, holy, and experienced person who can act as a teacher and guide for an individual or community.”  Of the many graces of their spiritual lives, the desert monks believed that an experienced guide was the greatest gift. Abba was the term for male wisdom bearer and amma for female wisdom bearer. Cassian firmly believed that God’s guidance and wisdom comes most often through human mediation and the encounter with the desert elders.  Age does not guarantee this kind of wisdom, but through a person who has been formed themselves in apprenticeship to another wise one. 

An essential element of cultivating our capacity to listen is seeking out wise elders and mentors in our lives.  Consider if there is someone in your life who lives with creative vitality and contemplative presence.  Invite them into conversation about the ways in which they sustain themselves and nurture their way of being in the world.

Gather together with us in March as we nurture community with one another. You can choose to join us in person in Ohio (with Jamie Marich, Simon de Voil, and Melinda Thomas hosting live and I will be joining via Zoom from Ireland). Register by February 5th if you want to join us in-person so we know if we have enough numbers to go ahead.

Join Simon tomorrow for his Taize-Inspired Sacred Chant and Therese on Wednesday for Centering Prayer.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image: Paid License with Canva

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Carmen Acevedo Butcher

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for acclaimed translator Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s reflection “Translatio Divina: Transformative Soul-Body-Self-Mind Practice.” Her book Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation is our featured book for June in the Lift Every Voice Book Club.

Contemplative practices like lectio, scriptio, and visio divina help us slow down and, as Mary Oliver says, “Pay attention.” To these I’d like to add translatio divina or embodied mindfulness in translating. Recently translatio divina steeped me in the joyful spirituality of the soup-stirring, dish-washing, and sandal-mending contemplative I call the friar of amour: Brother Lawrence.

Born Nicolas Herman in 1614, he started in last place, the Third Estate, a traumatized 98% of peasants and wage laborers. With no chance for formal education, at 19 Nicolas joined the army. In the Thirty Years’ War he suffered a disabling leg injury, limping painfully all his days. Entering a Parisian Discalced (Shoeless) Carmelite monastery in 1640, he spent decades assigned to a job he hated—kitchen duties. 

Brother Lawrence needed profound healing. He told his friend Joseph of Beaufort that he suffered psychological pain, reliving “in his mind the dangers of his days in military service”—“meditating on the disorders of his youth” caused him “horror.”

During his dark night of the soul from 26 to 36, he began “a brief lifting up of the heart [or] awareness of God,” even when busiest in the kitchen flipping omelettes. These repeated “inner acts of affection” developed his habit of Love-homecoming. Returning to Love as often as possible, he grew the spiritual muscles of his calmness. He learned to pray constantly, living in and from this inner peace for forty years, until his death on February 12, 1691.

Like all contemplative practices, translatio divina begins in community. Meeting with my editor-and-friend Lil on Zoom, we discussed a slew of translation ideas. Right before we signed off, she threw out, “Oh, and maybe Brother Lawrence, Practice of the Presence.” I felt a pull within. The word PRESENCE stayed lit inside me. My soul sensed the friar’s calmness would be good for me. And others. 

Growing up, I suffered undiagnosed dyslexia, difficulties reading, and childhood trauma. As an adult I found healing in therapy. While learning how to listen to my true self, I had to open up, making a self-compassionate space for my vulnerable truths. Mindfulness in translation is also a willingness to open up, making room for listening from deep within to the true self of another and the truth of that person’s work. 

To bring Brother Lawrence’s simple, portable presence practice into modern English, the translation process involves revisiting his words endlessly, creating dialogue between us. Translatio divina is communion. Translating and being translated by his wisdom, I began resting more deeply in my already-existing union with Love. 

Translatio divina is dynamically embodied work. To find the best rhythms for my translation, I took manuscript pages on my marsh walks, reading them aloud and revising. I put my hands into the friar’s words, immersing myself in first-edition French books. Typing them to feel his voice in my fingertips, I found an original “en foy” (“in faith”) that in modern editions mistakenly reads “en soi” (“in itself”). I wanted my translation to faithfully embody the friar’s work, so mine reads “in faith.” It is also the first complete offering of Brother Lawrence, called by Martin Laird “the new standard.” 

Translatio divina also hears and respects the binary-surpassing threeness at the center of the friar’s embodied theology. It’s one reason the representation of God in my translation has a home in pronouns “they/themself/theirs.” These signify the friar’s leitmotif—the trinitarian mystery of Love. They limn the image of the Trinity’s community, or perichoresis, which theologian Anne Hunt calls “the active, mutual, equal relations, without subordination” among God’s three Persons. To mirror the friar’s inclusive spirit, my translation embraces God the Parent, Jesus, and Spirit, a community the friar knew intimately as “inclusive of everyone and everything,” as Hunt reminds.

The pronouns “they/themself/theirs” also respect the good kind news inherent in the gospel: All are welcome. Reading them, I can breathe. I hope they do the same for others, opening space for every person and for Mystery. Mindful of the friar’s kind Trinity, and those marginalized by the binary’s divisive power, my translation questions the philosophy underpinning the notion of translation purity in such a spiritual text, and gently moves beyond it, accurately.

Previous translations routinely superimposed on the friar’s teaching a binary of saint-versus-sinner and good-versus-evil. But he teaches we “stumble” and “harm others,” kind God forgives, and our friendship with Divinity helps us do better, becoming over time, he says, “the wisest lovers of God in this life.” 

Past translations sometimes extended the convention of dualism by inserting masculine nouns for “tous” for “all [people].” When Beaufort eulogizes the friar’s kindness, I translate: “He became everything to everyone [tous] to bring all to God,” while traditional versions render it: “He became everything to all men [tous] to bring them all to God.”

Beloved by people of all faiths, wisdom traditions, and diverse backgrounds, the friar’s Practice of the Presence models everyday mysticism. His teaching is down-to-earth—to know peace, on any day, at any time, anyone can return in micro-moments to God, Kindness, Love, True Self, or however you regard Mystery.

An encouraging teacher, kind Brother Lawrence reminds all of us that his practice is for everyone: “In the middle of your tasks you can comfort yourself with Love as often as you can. . . . Everyone is capable of these familiar conversations with God.” 

“Let’s begin.”

Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Ph.D., author, poet, Carnegie Professor of the Year, and acclaimed translator, has made accessible Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence, the award-winning Cloud of Unknowing, and Hildegard of Bingen, among others. Her dynamic work has garnered interest from the BBC and NPR’s Morning Edition. Acevedo Butcher teaches full-time at the University of California, Berkeley, in the College Writing Programs. Visit her online at CarmenButcher.com and Linktr.ee/carmenacevedobutcher.

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Desert Wisdom and the Practice of Love ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Next Saturday we continue our pilgrimage through the mystics when I will be leading a retreat on desert father St. Anthony the Great and desert wisdom.

St. Anthony, also known as Anthony the Great, is considered to be the founder of the Christian monastic movement.  He moved into the desert at the end of the third century to seek solitude and by the end of his life thousands had followed him there to imitate his way of life of extreme asceticism.  

Paul of Thebes is recorded as the actual first monk in Christian tradition to live in the desert, but Anthony’s example and story ignited a movement.   This was a period of great transition in the church.  During the first and second centuries, to be Christian was illegal, and many were martyred for their faith.  In 313 Christianity became tolerated, and soon after became the state religion of the empire.  People continued to flee to the desert to find a place where they could live a holy life free of the perversions of the culture they lived in.  In Listen to the Desert, Gregory Mayers writes:

“When they began to wake from this shared trance, when they suspected they were more slaves than free, the men and women of the desert sayings fled their culture to escape the disguises and distractions it perpetrated on their human spirits. It is no small act of courage to face squarely the fictions in our life and the troubling sense that something isn’t quite right about our life.”

Those who went to the desert came from all walks of life, some living a wealthy life in the city, some were poor farmers.  Some had education and others had little.  This coming together of disparate people and experiences into living for a common goal was a living example of what Christian community was supposed to be with no distinctions between disciples.  This has had an significant impact on monastic tradition that follows.  St. Benedict was careful to include principles in his Rule to help the monks in his community not differentiate from one another based on past wealth or resources.  Everyone who became a monk arrived as equals.

Those who dedicated themselves to the life of the desert sought out a spiritual elder.  Their lives were centered on a commitment to continual prayer, freeing themselves from the tyranny of thoughts, keeping their lives simple so as to focus on God, and memorizing scripture so they had sacred wisdom within easy access as books were very rare at the time.

These desert monastics are fiercely uncompromising in their advice for fellow pilgrims traveling the interior geography of the human heart.  This fierceness is refreshing, it takes our woundedness seriously, but always points back to our beauty as creatures of God.  Their wisdom is in the service of healing and love rather than theological systematization of ideas or doctrine.

The desert mothers and fathers believed that God is always with us, never absent, even when in the struggle we experience a kind of absence or loss of our comfortable understandings of who God is and how God works in the world.  God loves us and stays with us no matter who we are or what we are doing.  We are loved in the middle of life’s messiness, in the wounded places.

In this place of utter humility and surrender, where we encounter the divine and discover this infinite love embracing us, even in the midst of brokenness, we also discover how to love others.  As we come to accept our own limitations we begin to accept the limitations of others with more grace and compassion.

(Excerpted and adapted from Desert Fathers and Mothers by Christine Valters Paintner) 

Join me next Saturday to have an experiential encounter with desert wisdom. Simon de Voil will be supporting the retreat with his gift of music. Simon and I are also offering our monthly Contemplative Prayer Service tomorrow, January 9th.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

PS – I have created a new album of some of my poems including a few poems from my collection coming out in May Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty. You can find Sound and Stillness II here(only available as a digital download). 

Dancing monk icon from Marcy Hall (available for purchase on Etsy)

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Amy Oden

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Amy Oden’s reflection “Christian Mindfulness Practice.”

It started with the hunger I heard around me for more authentic, rooted, present lives. Seminary students and church folks, directees and retreat participants, all longing to be present in their actual lives instead of rushing from one thing to the next. They were hungry for lives less curated and edited and more authentic and real. I began to trace two thousand years of Christian mindfulness practice as a doorway into present, authentic lives.

What I didn’t expect was that, in the midst of my explorations, my husband would be diagnosed with fronto-temporal dementia, a journey that took us both into living deeply with God in the present moment, because the present was the only moment we had. Especially for me, Christian mindfulness practice became an invitation to see and receive what is in this moment instead of what wasn’t or what I had expected for this season of our lives. As I lost more and more of my husband and the life we’d known together, mindfulness became a way to live the dementia journey deeply and not miss a moment along the way. 

Getting Started: 4 Step Mindfulness Practice

We have everything we need to get started, our breath and our body. Think of this 4 step practice like a recipe, a method to experiment and play with.

Attentive BreathingAttentive EmbodimentAcknowledgementDiscovery

1. Attentive breathing (30 seconds)

First, breathe slowly and deeply. As you breathe, notice your breathing, the feel of your chest as it rises and falls, the sensation of air in your nose and lungs. Take your time to breathe in and out purposefully. Fully experience your body breathing. This first step you already do as a gift God has given you. You do not have to choose each time you take a breath. Your body chooses that for you! You can choose to breathe in an attentive and mindful way. 

2. Embodiment (30 seconds)              

Continue to breathe mindfully and let your breathing fill your whole body. Visualize the oxygen filling your lungs, then your torso, then your arms and legs, providing life-giving oxygen throughout your blood stream from the tip of your head down to your toes. Focus your attention as you continue breathing, noticing what arises in your body – sensations or feelings, perhaps a tightness here or a warm tingle there. Simple noticing is all that is required. Don’t analyze, justify or fix any of these sensations. Christians believe our bodies are blessed, consecrated by God who became flesh to dwell with us. Our en-flesh-ment connects us to God who meets us where we are, in our bodies, right here, right now. 

3. Acknowledgement (30 seconds)

Third, acknowledge whatever arises from your mindful breathing and embodiment. Acknowledge the thoughts, feelings, sensations or attitudes that are in you right now. Whether it is positive or negative, whether you like it or don’t like it, acknowledge what is. We spend a lot of energy every day trying to avoid, deny, repress or reject what is actually happening in our bodies. In this moment acknowledge what is there, arising in your breathing and embodiment. Some call this non-judgmental observing. Others call it prayerful attentiveness. 

This step of mindfulness is an invitation to step out of the cycle of reactivity that often drives thoughts and behaviors. Not only are we prone to reactivity, but the world around us often eggs it on. Instead of reacting to what arises in our breathing and body, the step of acknowledgement allows us to see the truth of what is and hold it before God. 

This is the paying prayerful attention part of Christian mindfulness. We pay prayerful attention to what is with an open heart to discover what God might be up to. We are open to discovery more than judgment, to listening more than speaking. As you hold all that arises before God, let God hold it with you. God is right here, right now, in your breathing and embodiment. As you acknowledge what is, also acknowledge God’s sharing in it with you. 

If you wish, visualize yourself with Jesus, together holding what you have noticed. Experience God’s loving gaze upon it all in this moment. 

4. Discovery (30 seconds)

As you acknowledge whatever arises, holding it within God’s presence, see what you discover. Do thoughts or feelings shift shapes? Increase or diminish? Does a sensation move elsewhere in your body? See what you discover with God. 

So dive in! Step into prayerful acknowledgement of what is right here, right now, with God.

(some sections adapted from Amy’s book, Right Here, Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness, Abingdon Press, 2017)

Born and raised on the prairies of Oklahoma, Amy Oden has found her spiritual home under the wide-open sky. Amy is a seminary professor, retreat leader and spiritual director. Her passion is introducing ancient practices for following Jesus into the world today. For more about Amy, go to amyoden.com.

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