Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 35

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kirk Byron Jones

We are delighted to offer this post by Kirk Byron Jones, author of the Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All and Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose. Soul Talk is our featured book this December in our Lift Every Voice Book Club. Listen to our conversation with Kirk here. 

We’d like to offer this poem by Kirk as an invitation into the holy pause of the season. It was originally published on his Facebook page Yes to Grace.

Nothing is SomethingGoing,going,going.Slowing,slowing,slowing.Stop. Being at easeis healingandrestorative.Nothingin emptyspacesis something.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the second son to the late Frederick and Ora Mae Jones, Kirk Byron Jones is a graduate of Loyola University and Andover Newton Theological School, and holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Emory University and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Drew University.

Dr. Jones began preaching at age 12, and has served as a pastor for over thirty years. He was the founding minister of Beacon Light Baptist Church in New Orleans, and Senior Minister at Calvary Baptist Church, Chester, PA; Ebenezer Baptist Church, Boston, MA; and the First Baptist Churches of Randolph and Tewksbury MA. He presently serves as Senior Pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Lynn, Massachusetts. Throughout his pastoral ministry, Rev. Jones has served on various religious and civic committees at the local and national level.

Dr. Jones is the author of many books for clergy, and all persons seeking spiritual growth in a changing and challenging world including Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All. Visit Kirk online at KirkBJones.com

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Coming Home + Prayer Cycle Day 7

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In November and December, we have been releasing our brand new 7-day prayer cycle of morning and evening prayers on the theme of The Soul of a Pilgrim. The audio podcasts for Day 7 morning and evening prayer (the final day!) are being released today on the theme of Coming Home. This is one of the many free resources we offer to our community to help support your contemplative practice and prayer. (If you are able to support this work financially in any way, we gratefully accept contributions at this link.) 

This reflection on the practice of coming home is excerpted and adapted from my book The Soul of a Pilgrim:

The point of traveling is notto arrive but to return homeladen with pollen you shall work upinto honey the mind feeds on.–R.S. Thomas

Ultimately the pilgrimage leads us back home again.  We always return bearing gifts for the community.  We are always called back to share what we have been given with others.  This will look different for each of us.  

We all long for home.  Certainly The Wizard of Oz, that great archetypal film, invited us to remember that the power to go home is always with us.  And while some physical places and landscapes feel more like home to us, it is always in service to us discovering the primal home within each one of us. 

What would it be like to move through the world, and no matter where you found yourself, you recognized yourself as fully at home?

As you continue forward, remember your companions along the way.  Remember those pilgrims who have traveled alongside of you, as well as the thousands of souls who have traveled ahead of you and those still to come.  

Consider how you might stay with a caravan of kindred spirits to support you in the ongoing pilgrimage of life, whether a wise spiritual guide or a small faith community or making it a practice to regularly call upon your spiritual and blood ancestors.

As R.S. Thomas writes, the point of all this traveling is not to “arrive.” The moment we think we have arrived somewhere in this lifetime is the moment we have fallen deep into the wilderness of self-delusion.  

Return home in these coming days carrying this image of the pollen you have received during your pilgrimage that you can transform into honey. Especially in these final days of Advent, as we await the gift of the holy birth into our lives. 

What is the sweet nectar that will continue to sustain you?  What are the practices which you commit yourself to in the days ahead as we celebrate God becoming flesh?

Our featured book this month is Soul Talk by Rev Kirk Byron Jones. We had such a lovely conversation with him. He describes the soul as “God’s everlasting laughter in you. Your soul is God’s Spirit in your spirit, filled to overflowing with lavish love, grace, and outrageous joy. More than anything else, your soul wants you to know how much you are madly adored by God in the mad hope that you will live from acceptance and not foracceptance.” What a beautiful and inspiring description. Kirk also says that God is “always and forever dreaming your joy” and describes soul pleasure as holy. 

This is the call of this season of sacred anticipation too: To return home to that great Dreamer of our holy and outrageous joy.

Join Simon de Voil tomorrow for Taize-Inspired Sacred Chant and on Tuesday we are hosting the Scottish poet Kenneth Steven for a Winter Solstice Poetry Reading.

We will be taking a break from the weekly newsletters next Sunday for the Feast of Christmas so wish you an abundance of blessings for holy birthing!

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image © Christine Valters Paintner

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Spiritual Wanderlust Podcast Interview

Christine Valters Paintner was interview by Kelly Deutsch on the Spiritual Wanderlust podcast.

Together we dive into:

Why Mary has so many names
Christine’s favorite name of Mary at this season in her life (it may surprise you!)
How Christine ended up the abbess of an online monastery
How her love for Jungian thought intersects with her Catholic spirituality
How the passing of her own mother birthed a book on Mary
Mary as warrior (an image in stark contrast to the placid woman in blue we usually see!)
What was Hildegard’s favorite name for Mary, and what it has to do with the divine spark!

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Hildy Tail: The Birth of the Messiah (Matthew 1:18-25)

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. 

Nollaig Shona! 

I’m Hildy (Abbey of the Arts’s monk-ey mascot) and that opening phrase is Irish for “Happy Christmas” (Merry Christmas, for Americans) . . . which is appropriate as you’re about to read my take on a Biblical story that is central to the Christmas story. 

I love the Biblical stories about baby Jesus, partially because I love the Christmas seasons so much, but also because the stories are so well known that most of us don’t think about too often . . . or at least not too deeply . . . and so, ironically, are not very well know after all. If you’re like me, you tend to just accept it and get on with our holiday preparations. But not this year!

Today, I’m going to talk about Matthew’s version of the Infancy Narrative (the one with the magi and the star, not Luke’s version with the shepherds). Don’t panic! I’m going to skip over the long genealogy. (I said it was a bit too boring for one of my essays here and John got a bit defensive and went into a long explanation as to why its important . . . No disrespect to the Holy Family Tree, but we’re skipping it today. Besides, all that family stuff was last month’s theme and were moving on.)

Right. So the story starts off simply enough: a woman is engaged to a man. All very traditional and straight forward and . . . sorry to say . . . dull. But then PLOT TWIST: the woman is pregnant “by the Holy Spirit.” The man tries to call the whole thing off quietly, not for his own sake but for hers. It’s a (and I’m sorry if this sounds blasphemous) bizarre situation that Joseph finds himself in (doubly so for poor Mary) and his very calm and compassionate response is equally bizarre . . . and beautiful. 

What’s weird, isn’t that the marriage didn’t go according to the norms of the day (that happens all the time, all throughout history). And it’s not weird that Joseph tried to do the right thing and not expose Mary to public scorn (people tend to try to do the right thing and Joseph is described as being “a righteous man” so of course he isn’t vengeful or mean about any of this). No, what’s weird is *how* Joseph is informed about what’s going on, with the Holy Spirit and all the Messiah stuff.

An angel tells Joseph that the child in Mary’s womb is special, by way of a dream. The Annunciation and Mary being told that she’s pregnant gets a lot of press (and rightly so), but Joseph’s encounter with an angel . . . crickets. He’s regulated to being an extra (or “background performer” as they’re now called) in a story where he otherwise would’ve been the leading male. He doesn’t even get any lines! It’s not like he was unable to speak; there’s a few people in scripture who can’t speak and that’s pointed out. Here . . . nope.

I mean . . . obviously Mary’s vision of the angel Gabriel is the one that starts the whole ball rolling and is therefore more significant. And Mary does carry the Christ child for nine months. And it’s Mary that goes through labour. And, let’s face it, Mary’s role in all this is WAY bigger than little auld Joey’s. But still . . . it’s not insignificant. 

It’s Joseph’s family tree (yes, the one I insisted on skipping over earlier) that’s the reason the Holy Family goes to Bethlehem where Jesus is born in accordance to the prophecy. And it’s the messages received AND BELIEVED by Joseph that help the Holy Family escape to Egypt before they are killed by the jealous King Herod. 

And it’s Joseph’s trust in the messages he receives that I want to focus on here. He had every reason to leave Mary, who was pregnant by someone (or in this case something) other than by him. And even when he believes the angel in his dream, he still would have had reason to step away. If God was involved with creating the child, surely a lone man wasn’t needed to raise or care for the child. And what about the sheer magnitude of the responsibility of raising such a special child? I think I can honestly say that I’d at least think about running as far away from all that as possible. And yet, Joseph’s “yes” to God’s calling is lost, overshadowed (rightly or wrongly?) by Mary’s “yes.”

But as far as the story is concerned, Joseph (much like Mary) doesn’t balk at the challenge . . . no, invitation . . . to be part of something so great. Sure, Joseph is a descendant of King David and can trace his lineage all the way back to Abraham (Alright, John! You were right, the family tree thing is important), but Joseph is so far removed from all that royal blood to be insignificant. He’s just a carpenter, a simple man, humble and righteous. 

He just wants a family of his own. And when that family turns out to be different from what’s expected, from what’s considered “traditional” . . . he accepts it all, with grace and dignity.

How has your family, your life, turned out differently (and perhaps far better) than you planned or expected?

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Janeen Adil

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Janeen Adil’s reflection on the holiness of food.

Farmland surrounded the small Midwestern towns where my parents grew up. Families there typically had a vegetable garden, including the Victory Gardens of the Second World War era. When my parents married, moved to Connecticut, and began raising a family, a large garden out back became a permanent fixture. Dad tended the plot, Mom tended what it produced, and we kids helped when and where needed. We were living in a farming community that had been established over 250 years ago, and having one’s hands in the soil was simply a way of life.

Now, as an adult, I remain grateful to my parents for my own hands-on experiences of nature’s growth cycles. I’ve felt comfortable in my knowledge of where my food comes from: seed to harvest, production to table. My knowledge was comfortable, that is, until I took part in a spiritual exercise centered on that most universal and necessary of activities: eating.

One Sunday, our then-pastor invited us into a unique time of worship. Referring to it as an experience of mindful eating, he had—with some good help—transformed a small, basement church fellowship hall into new life. We were greeted by tables carefully set with nice plates and small bowls of enticing foods. Strings of lights brightened the space; a curated playlist of reflective tunes softened the background.

The pastor led us through nearly an hour of encounter with our food. Grounded in holiness, we contemplated the morsels set before us. Where had they come from? What had been the interactions between nature and humans to produce this bounty?

Before that morning, I had studied and participated in various Christian spiritual practices regarding food, from fasting to feasting, from mindfulness to contemplation. There was also the “slow food” movement, which invited people to pay attention to their food, as did the call to “eat locally.” Overarching all the focus on food, I saw, was gratitude. In consuming what was offered, we presented grateful hearts to God; for me, this harkened back to a daily, familial grace we took turns praying at the dinner table.

This time, though, in the church basement, something happened. I was caught unawares: In a moment of crystallized recognition, I saw the utter miracle of something as commonplace as bread. Words cannot properly frame the insight I was granted. Suffice to say that in my mind’s eye and on an intimate level, I followed the progression through a grain of wheat’s germination to its maturity. Each step involved the long work of transformation, as innumerable cells reproduced and grew to fulfillment.

Then came the harvest and the milling of flour, mixing of ingredients, baking, and the distribution of the finished products to local grocery shelves. All along the way, the processes of nature and the work of many, many human hands combined to make this bread—a food both simple and wondrous—possible. Yes, there was holiness here, and mystery.

Benedictine monk Br. David Steindl-Rast has discussed these layers of connections around our food. In a 2015 interview with Krista Tippett for her “On Being” radio show, he shared this:

I remember, the grace that Buddhists pray before a meal starts with the words “Innumerable beings brought us this food. We should know how it comes to us.” And when you put that into practice and look at what’s there at your table, on your plate, there is no end to connectedness.

Since that day, I’ve tried to carry this heightened awareness forward. I’ve always been drawn to food’s colors—say, the sunset hues of a blood orange, or the green shadings in a single leaf of romaine. Now, though, I also seek to remember the intricate dance that brought my food into being: to remember, to wonder at the utter miracle of it all, and to rejoice with thanks.

I’ve been helped in this by a pastor friend who recently taught me a simple contemplation for eating, one I share now with my fellow monks in the world.

As you take your first bite, linger… ask God to feed your spirit, just as your body is now being fed.

And as you take your last bite, linger… give God thanks for the blessing of the earth, soil and sun, for the labor that brought the food to you, and for the blessing of the food itself.

It’s far too easy to take our food for granted. May we instead acknowledge the works of nature and the works of human hands that supply “our daily bread” and in so doing, offer gratitude for the grace of the miracles involved.

Janeen R. Adil is a spiritual director, writer, and teacher; within the United Church of Christ, she is a Commissioned Minister of Christian Spirituality. Through her freelance business Hungry Soul Ministries, she offers workshops, retreats, and direction. She lives in eastern PA, in a farmhouse built by English/Welsh Quakers over 200 years ago.

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Give Me a Word 2023 + Prayer Cycle Day 6

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In November and December, we are releasing our brand new 7-day prayer cycle of morning and evening prayers on the theme of Soul of a Pilgrim. The audio podcasts for Day 6 morning and evening prayer are being released today on the theme of Beginning Again! This is one of the many free resources we offer to our community to help support your contemplative practice and prayer. (If you are able to support this work financially in any way, we gratefully accept contributions at this link.)

In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered.

Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word or phrase would be something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. This practice is connected to lectio divina, where we approach the sacred texts with the same request – “give me a word” we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into. The word which chooses us has the potential to transform us.

What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?

As in past years, we are offering all Abbey newsletter subscribers a gift: a free 12-day online mini-retreat with a suggested practice for each day to help your word choose you and to deepen into your word once it has found you. Even if you participated last year, you are more than welcome to register again.

Subscribe to our email newsletter and you will receive a link to start your mini-retreat today. Your information will never be shared or sold. (If you are already subscribed to the newsletter, look for the link in the Sunday, December 11th email and at the bottom of each Sunday following).

Share your word in the comments section here by January 5, 2023 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing.

One person wins a space in our Lent retreat on A Different Kind of FastThree people win a space each in their choice of self-study retreatsFive people win their choice of one of our digital albumsSeven people win one of our Dancing Monk Medallions

Share the love with others and invite them to participate by subscribing to the newsletter. Then stay tuned – on January 8th we will announce the prize winners!

Please join Therese for Centering Prayer on Wednesday to embrace the stillness of the season and Melinda on Thursday for a yoga nidra practice inspired by the season’s invitation to slow down and rest. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Kathleen Deyer Bolduc

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kathleen Deyer Bolduc’s reflection “Mary’s Message: Say Yes to Breaking Open.”

I sit in my study, depleted. I have no energy to write or pray or meditate. I light a candle that sits next to an image of Mary I keep close, knowing she understands what it is like, as a mother, to experience a broken heart. 

I take a few deep breaths and simply sit in her presence.

She stands, eyes cast down, face thin and pale. Mother Mary, who cradled the Son of God in her arms. The fear! The joy! The expectancy! The submissive spirit, casting reputation to the wind!

Nine months to wonder—who will he look like? What kind of personality will he have? What will his mission be? 

Eighteen years of boyhood—skinned knees. Tears. Games of tag and hide’n’seek. Building forts in olive trees. Learning woodwork at Joseph’s knee. 

And then, seemingly overnight, her little boy is a man. She wants to keep him close but he’s ready to move on, move out, lean into his destiny. It’s so hard to let him go, having to live the mystery of what God has in store for him.  

Did Mary know of the suffering ahead? Would she have said “yes” if she did? Would she have agreed to stand beneath that cross?

Hand on heart, without a word, Mary relays a message to me:

I know it’s hard, living with adult sons with autism, chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. I know there are days you feel like giving up. Listen to me, Kathy. Keep on saying yes when you want to scream no. 

Your heart, like mine, is large enough to contain a universe of joy and tears. Remember the gift my Son sent to live within your heart—the Holy Spirit, Breath of God—who brooded over the chaos as God considered his artist’s palette before the work of creation.

Yes, Mary whispers. I weep. You weep. God weeps. Jesus weeps. Spirit weeps. We weep over wrong turns and bad choices; rejection and unkind words; mental and physical illness; autism and the need for full-time caregivers; caregivers who become a part of your family and bring their own personalities, trials and tribulations to the table.

Yes  means not only accepting the suffering that comes with deep love; it also means opening your heart to the effervescent joy that erupts in perceiving ALL that God has wrought—woodpeckers pounding, rivers rushing, birds serenading, squirrels chattering, rain running in rivulets down the road, leaves letting go—God’s creative power all around you and within you—in this heart that breaks open again and again.

Reach down and pick up an acorn, Kathy. Know that it’s only with the breaking open that seeds break forth in green shoots tenacious enough to form a mighty oak!

In my imagination I walk under the oak trees that line Cove Creek, my favorite vacation spot. Leaves crunch under my feet as I walk, and I bend down to pick up a single acorn. Holding it gently in my palm, I turn it this way and that, meditating on the world it holds within itself. I listen again to Mary’s quiet voice. 

Know that it’s only with the breaking open that seeds break forth in green shoots tenacious enough to form a mighty oak!

A poem arises, unbidden, and I open my eyes to copy it in my journal before it’s lost:

Standing on TiptoeAll creation waits with eager longing Waiting to witness Each unique and glorious creation come to wholeness, complete as God envisioned Tightly enclosed seeds gradually opened Borne on wind, carried by waters Planted, rooted, greening Unfurled flags unveiled Nothing is, that wasn’t first imagined in the mind of God Nothing is, that wasn’t first seen, created and called by name Nothing is, without love first pouring Itself Out

Break me open, Lord. Let me trust, like Mary, that you are there in the midst of ALL of it—the mud and the mire, the dying to self, the cracked relationships. As I meditate on the acorn that Mary pointed me toward this morning, let me walk forward as a bearer of your greening power, tender shoots growing out of the wounds I’ve struggled to understand and accept. Let me trust that you are working within my family members, each one unique and beautiful and called by name, a universe unfolding, unfurling, all in your precious time. 

Kathleen Deyer Bolduc is a spiritual director, author, and founder of Cloudland, a contemplative retreat center. Her books, including The Spiritual Art of Raising Children with Disabilities, contain faith lessons learned parenting a son with autism, and finding healing and restoration through the spiritual disciplines. KathleenBolduc.com

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Give Me a Word 2023

In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered.

Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word or phrase would be something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. This practice is connected to lectio divina, where we approach the sacred texts with the same request – “give me a word” we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into. The word which chooses us has the potential to transform us.

What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?

Share your word in the comments section below by January 5, 2023 and you are automatically entered for the prize drawing (prizes listed below).

A FREE 12-DAY ONLINE MINI-RETREAT TO HELP YOUR WORD CHOOSE YOU. . .

As in past years, we are offering all Abbey newsletter subscribers a gift: a free 12-day online mini-retreat with a suggested practice for each day to help your word choose you and to deepen into your word once it has found you. Even if you participated last year, you are more than welcome to register again.

Subscribe to our email newsletter and you will receive a link to start your mini-retreat today. Your information will never be shared or sold. (If you are already subscribed to the newsletter, look for the link in the Sunday, December 11th email and at the bottom of each Sunday following).

WIN A PRIZE – RANDOM DRAWING GIVEAWAY ENTER BY JANUARY 6th!One person wins a space in our Lent retreat on A Different Kind of FastThree people win a space each in their choice of self-study retreatsFive people win their choice of one of our digital albumsSeven people win one of our Dancing Monk MedallionsPlease share your word with us in the comments below

(and it would be wonderful if you included a sentence about what it means for you)

Subscribe to the Abbey of the Arts newsletter to receive ongoing inspiration in your in-box. You can choose daily, weekly, or monthly. Share the love with others and invite them to participate. Then stay tuned – on January 8th we will announce the prize winners!

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Thomas Merton + Prayer Cycle Day 5 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In November and December, we are releasing our brand new 7-day prayer cycle of morning and evening prayers on the theme of Soul of a Pilgrim. The audio podcasts for Day 5 morning and evening prayer are being released today on the theme of Being Uncomfortable and Embracing Mystery! This is one of the many free resources we offer to our community to help support your contemplative practice and prayer. (If you are able to support this work financially in any way, we gratefully accept contributions at this link.) 

We continue our pilgrimage through the mystics next Saturday when we welcome Sophfronia Scott to lead an online retreat on Thomas Merton and the Transformative Power of Love. 

Sophfronia wrote the beautiful book The Seeker and the Monk and this is an excerpt:

How do we escape the whirl of the marketplace? Turn off the app. Take off the armor. To love is to be vulnerable. You have to be willing to fall, and such willingness takes intention. Merton reflected that love is not something that just happens to you. He writes, “Our English expression ‘to fall in love’ suggests an unforeseen mishap that may or may not be fatal. . . . It reflects a peculiar attitude toward love and toward life itself – a mixture of fear, awe, fascination, and confusion.”

But so many people try to be cool and collected and not fall in love – or at least not admit it first. They play love as a big game of “Gotcha!” and are unwilling to say the words “I love you” just in case the sentiment isn’t returned. Most of them can’t win, though, because, as Merton writes, “the [person] who is constantly seeking an object worthy of love and constantly rejecting every object because he still wants to find one that is really worthy is perhaps in the end only pretending to seek and pretending only in order to dissimulate his own complete lack of love. For if one has love in him he will soon find an object worthy of love and will be able to love everyone and everything.”

Love is an expression of who we are within ourselves. This expression has value regardless of how it is received (or not) in the marketplace. Our capacity to love tells us who we really are. Why else would love show up as prominently as it does in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments? If, by Jesus’s commandment to love one another, God is calling us to it, then love must be vital. Merton writes, “He who loves is more alive and more real than he was when he did not love. That is perhaps why love seems dangerous: the lover finds in himself too many new powers, too many new insights. When a person is undergoing that kind of inner cataclysm, anything might happen. And thank God, it does happen. The world would not be worth much if it didn’t!”

(Reprinted with permission from Broadleaf Books)

Join Simon and me tomorrow for our monthly contemplative prayer service and next Saturday join Sophfronia for a retreat and experiential encounter with Thomas Merton. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Dancing Monk Icon by Marcy Hall (Available for purchase on Etsy)

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Abbey of the Arts CD and DVD Buy One Get One Free Sale

In partnership with Wisdom Council Member and Abbey teaching partner Betsey Beckman of The Dancing Word, Abbey of the Arts has produced a series of CD DVD collections as another resource for contemplation, creativity, and movement. From now through January 30th by one CD or DVD and get a second CD or DVD of your choice for free. This sale applies to CDs and DVDs only, not digital albums.

After you purchase your item, please contact us using the link in your order form or by emailing dancingmonk@abbeyofthearts.com and let us know which CD or DVD you’d like as your free gift. 

View our collection of CDs and DVDs here.

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