Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 36

Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – December Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition. 

Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation. 

Click here to view or listen to the full conversation along with questions for reflection.

This month’s selection is Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All by Kirk Byron Jones.

“Though your soul may be more mystery to you than familiar reality, you are not a stranger to soul moments. When you smile for no reason, know something for sure without having learned it, or feel peace amid broken pieces, your soul is manifesting itself. Your soul is your pool of deep wisdom, peace, and joy within. Your soul is the part of you God held last as God released your free flight into the world.” ~ from Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All.

Too often, the most difficult person to speak with honestly and deeply is yourself. And yet, if you are to live your finest, freshest, and fullest life, it is essential to maintain an empowering inner dialogue. Soul Talk presents 7 enlivening steps for creating and continuing soulfully satisfying self-communication:1. Be Still.2. Lay Burdens Down.3. Listen Deeply.4. Don’t Run Away.5. Be Honest.6. Be Gentle.7. Welcome New Truth.To Connect With Your Soul is to take Advantage of the Supreme Empowerment Opportunity of a Lifetime.

Join our Lift Every Voice Facebook Group for more engagement and discussion.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Paula Frazier

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Paula Frazier’s reflection “Savoring the And Ten.”

Hospitality is a family legacy. There was always room for one more at the table. There was always space for someone who needed a place. My aunts reminisced about my grandfather feeding potato pancakes to all the neighborhood children. When I married, my husband and I continued to open our home to others. We hosted weekly fellowships with food and music. We housed friends in need. Our doors were always open.

But I had never considered showing hospitality to myself. There were parts of me that were not always welcome. The creative parts were not given enough freedom because I considered them frivolous. Creativity was limited to cooking and some crafting. Then I celebrated my sixtieth birthday.

Somehow the quarter century and half century marks were greeted with enthusiasm, but not much intention. At sixty I realized that I was now entering the ‘And Ten’ of Psalm 90’s three score and ten. My three score was past. I may have another, but what would I do with the And Ten? What would be my legacy?  Memento mori took on a new significance. I needed to make time to welcome all of me, especially the parts that longed to create. As I thought more about my own death and how it would affect those I love, the more I realized I must live more intentionally. As I endeavor to be present in the Now, Death has become my friend. 

Death challenges me to be the person God created me to be. To welcome all of me, to be courageous in living. I make time for the projects I had set aside for Someday. Now, everyday is Someday. Finally, I knitted the sweater from a pattern I found forty years ago. I make the new recipe instead of filing it. I use, and sometimes break, my grandmother’s glassware. I enjoy the beautiful blessings I am given. I face my fears and try new things. 

At the halfway point of my And Ten, I have done some significant firsts. Overcoming a fear of water, I have gone outrigger canoeing and kayaking in the Pacific Ocean. They may have been man made rocks, but I jumped off of them into a pool. I failed at surfing, but had a delightfully tiring time bonding with my great nephew. I rode a mechanical bull. I slithered down a Slip and Slide. I have learned that I serve a God who likes to have fun.

The most significant part of these firsts are the memories and bonds I am creating with the next generation. I am given an opportunity to speak into their lives. To show them that a life well lived goes deeper than things and experiences. That all of these good gifts come from a generous Creator who longs for us to enjoy them, and for us to enjoy the depths of Creative Presence. It is a joy to recognize together the gifts we have been given in simple everyday experiences.

Our Creator delights with my great niece and I as we contemplate the beauty of an apple. Together we savor the fragrance of the fruit mixed with sugar and spices. Our creativity is expressed in crust. Everyone enjoys the our masterpiece. It tastes as magnificent as it looks. We honor Creator, creation, family and friends with our gift. Someday she will share that baking a pie is more than just making dessert. When we put our hearts into the preparation, we are sharing more than food.

We share ourselves. We welcome ourselves and those we love. As I begin the second half of my And Ten, I am retired from my profession as a Pediatric Practice Manager. I intend to continue to live in the present with the Eternal Now as my guide. I will journey with my friend Death until we make that final crossing. I will welcome everything that comes into my world as a gift from my Generous Creator. I will live fully doing all I can to leave a legacy of wisdom and wonder.

This offering is another first. I have always loved words, both reading and writing them. I have written devotionals for small groups, poetry for myself, but this is the first time I have had the courage to submit something to a virtually unknown audience. Published or not, it is another way that I am living my commitment to honoring all the gifts I have been given.

Paula Frazier is a follower of Jesus Christ, who lives by the beach with her husband and dog. She spends her days worshipping her Creator, honoring the gifts she is blessed with through loving and serving creation.

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Advent Begins! + Prayer Cycle Day 4 ~ 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 4 morning and evening prayer are being released today on the theme of Making the Way by Walking! 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.) 

Advent begins today, this holy season that honors the growing darkness in the northern hemisphere as we move toward the return of the light. In addition to our prayer cycle gift above, we have another gift for you. The video at the top of this email is Simon de Voil’s beautiful song Circle Me – an adaptation of St. Patrick’s breastplate prayer. Simon created a version for Advent with four refrains and I created a meditation video to companion it. Pour a cup of tea and sit for three and a half minutes to savor the start of this sacred time of year. 

To honor this season in community we are offering a 4-week online retreat on Birthing the Holy: Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine inspired by my recent book (the book is recommended, but not required to participate). 

In a weekly Zoom webinar I will be focusing on four of Mary’s names and titles: Queen of Angels, Star of the Sea, Our Lady of the Underworld, and Theotokos: God-Bearer. I am delighted to be joined by my husband John who will be sharing scripture reflections, Betsey Beckman who will be offering new dance prayers, Polly who will invite us into creative ways of praying with the rosary, and Jill Geoffrion who lives part of the year in Chartres, France where she leads inspired tours of the cathedral and will be sharing some wonderful artwork of Mary from Chartres. 

I met Jill when I was in Chartres for the first time in May 2019 leading a retreat for the wonderful people at Veriditas. That trip was also when I first encountered one of the Black Madonnas called Our Lady of the Underworld, or Notre Dame Sous-Terre as she is known in French. 

Scattered across Europe and other continents are a series of medieval paintings and statues known as Black Madonnas who have dark or black features. Many are well-known pilgrimage shrines such as Our Lady of the Hermits in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, Our Lady of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland, and Our Lady of Montserrat, Spain. 

Christian feminist theology sees the Black Madonna as revealing aspects of the sacred feminine that are generally not represented in traditional images of Mary. These dark representations of Our Lady expand Mary’s image beyond her usual depiction as a white docile woman. The Black Madonna roots Mary in the struggle of her Black and Brown sisters for justice. Even more than a connection through skin color, the Black Madonna reveals a dimension of the sacred feminine that is fiercer and able to stay present with us through our own times of darkness.  

Mary in her blackness offers us a fierce love in which she unequivocally claims that every oppressed person should be nourished, cherished, and welcomed. She compels us to act for justice out of this witness of expansive love. 

You find Our Lady of the Underworld at Chartres by entering a door on the north side of the cathedral and descending a flight of stone stairs from street level into the crypt. 

The Veriditas organization focuses on reclaiming the labyrinth for the world today and a highlight is the Wednesday night pilgrimage walk down into the crypt and along its candlelit passageway, then finally up into the cathedral itself with a community labyrinth walk just for our group. 

Mary sits there in a small chapel where they hold mass each day at midday, a dark Madonna with child carved from wood. As part of our group ritual we sat together before her in silence as part of our preparation. Then Lauren Artress, the founder of Veriditas announces “it is time.” Suddenly voices begin to sing from behind the screen where Mary sits summoning us to follow. It is a very powerful experience. 

The image of the women who sit at the foot of the cross, waiting in the midst of the terrible mystery of suffering and death and face this evil in nonviolent ways are the image of sacred initiation of our egos being stripped of their securities into a much more mature and wiser way of being. When we pray to the Black Madonna in her fierce aspect, we pray for the strength to endure our own underworld journeys and not to avoid them. 

Mary is more than the Mother of God.  She is one of the feminine archetypes who can help us to rediscover our own power and wholeness in the face of disorientation and disintegration.  She points the way toward the fullness of our own becoming. 

Please join us on a pilgrimage through Advent where we encounter various faces of the sacred feminine through images of Mary and reflect on how they can nourish and support us. We begin tomorrow. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Video credit: Song by Simon de Voil (from his album Canticle of Creation) and Video by Christine

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Richard Bruxvoort Colligan

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member and long time Abbey contributor Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s reflection Work and Presence.

Show of hands: Who else slows down in winter time?

I used to resist it. Maybe I felt like integrity meant being productive all the time. Maybe good, responsible grown-ups should push through anything, including Midwestern blizzard season! 

During the pandemic lockdown, I noticed I was learning a thing I thought I had learned before: to notice my body, notice the pace of my mind, pay attention to my inner life. My life works best when I live out of this good and unique information. 

For Pete’s sake. I have learned and relearned this so many times. (I trust you have things like this for yourself, too). What a relief to understand one’s resistance to an area of life we feel dumb about. We can finally surrender the expectation that we’ll get it right for some imagined standard, and instead make the energy of that resistance an ongoing practice toward our wholeness.

Enter Winter. For many of us, it’s a time to slow down. It might even be a season to design our days to be less productive.

Is it just me, or is there a part of your mind that runs a delusional program when you’re vulnerable? My particular program sternly looks across the desk of my mind and tells me I really should be productive in order to feel good about myself. We’re good students of the culture we’re immersed in, and I was trained from a young age that work equals value and power. Part of me thinks Doing More is inherently better; putting in More Work Hours makes me more valuable. Yeah, but another part of me knows that’s not the Tao, the Way, the Dharma, the Gospel, the Path.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about work and presence. 

Work is our effort toward influence. Feeding your family, teaching colleagues your insights, performing a concert.

Presence is our influence that needs no effort. You walk into a room, and you’re golden. You’re being you is how the world works best.

Work, according to a physics definition, is the application of energy to an object so it moves. Your imagination fills a blank page that you fill with ideas from your unique imagination. You wheelbarrow the leaves from the front yard to the compost pile. In these activities, you feel the energy displacement in your muscles and in your mind, and you are doing something. Is there any better feeling at the end of the day than feeling pleasantly weary having poured yourself out in meaningful ways?

Presence, the other side of the coin, is a state of being. Be-ing. No application of energy to move anything. In certain cultures– hello, USA– this is somehow more difficult than work. 

To state it like my mentor Fred Rogers would, being a monk in the world means simply existing as your full, honest, kick-ass self which, when we’re at our best, requires zero effort. It also means the doing of things that, as Howard Thurman wrote, makes us come alive and gives life to the world. Being and doing. Your natural presence is gift. Your instinct to contribute work is gift.

One of my favorite Denise Levertov poems goes:

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

©1984 Denise Levertov,  New Directions Publishing Corp.

What words in Denise’s poem are significant to you today?

Every time I encounter it, I’m nudged by her last two lines. Six years ago, in an act of resistance against my well-trained American work ethic, I wrote myself a post-it note that remains in view of my desk: Try less hard. These three words quietly take a wrecking ball to my fear of deficiency. What would today look like if you tried less hard? Please appreciate the dimensions of you that are just naturally wonderful.

I invite you right now to look out the window for ten seconds and consider the nature of your presence and your work. 

Thank you for your presence and work that are saving the world.

Richard Bruxvoort Colligan is a freelance psalmist and cantor of the Olive Branch Community (ELCA) in Rochester, MN. He’s contributed songs for several Abbey of the Arts projects and hopes to do an Ireland pilgrimage in person sometime soon. Faves: purple, autumn, laughter, the Beatles, movies, and a good mango lassi. He lives in Strawberry Point, Iowa with his wife Trish, son Sam and Winnie the dog.

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Mary, Keeper of Thresholds + Prayer Cycle Day 3 ~ 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 3 morning and evening prayer are being released today on the theme of Crossing the Threshold! 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.) 

A week from today we begin the sacred season of Advent and the start of a new liturgical year. This represents a threshold in the wheel of the year and is an opportunity for us to reflect on our own places of transition, endings, and new beginnings. 

One of Mary’s titles is Gate of Heaven. A gate is a kind of portal or threshold. Thresholds are important symbols in the mythic imagination. They are places where the old has been released and the new has not yet come into being. In the Celtic imagination they are considered to be thin places, where the veil between heaven and earth is especially permeable. We are likely all familiar with particular places that feel especially holy, as if the sacred were somehow closer, more accessible. This might be a church, a forest, or even a garden bench where you love to sit and be present. 

Of course, if we believe in the incarnation, then we also believe that all places are holy and all have the potential to open a doorway onto the sacred. As Thomas Merton wrote in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, “The gate of heaven is everywhere.”

Thresholds are the space between, when we move from one time to another as in the threshold of dawn to day or of dusk to dark; one space to another as in times of inner or outer journeying or pilgrimage; one awareness to another as in times when our old structures start to fall away and we begin to build something new. 

We encounter thresholds each day through the movement across the hinges of time. Early morning and evening’s turning were thought to be especially graced times of day, when the otherworld was near. 

Philip Sheldrake, in his book Living Between Worlds: Place and Journey in Celtic Spirituality, writes that the Celtic peoples had “a fascination for the spiritual quality of boundary places. Living on physical boundaries also symbolised a state of liminality – of living literally and spiritually on the margins or between worlds, the material one and the spiritual one.” The monks were drawn to edge places, inspired by the monks who had fled to the desert. They found their way to edge places. 

Thresholds are liminal times when the past season has come to a close, but there is a profound unknowing of what will come next. Thresholds are challenging because they demand that we step into the “in-between” place of letting go of what has been, while awaiting what is still to come. This is very much the space of holy birthing. With Mary’s yes to the angel, she steps onto a threshold, welcoming in a pregnancy that brings with it many unknowns. When we are able to fully release our need to control the outcome, thresholds become rich and graced places of transformation. We can only become something new when we have released the old faces we have been wearing, even if it means not knowing quite who we are in the space between. 

As spiritual seekers we are called to live with one foot in the world of earthy, everyday experience and the other foot is in the transcendent realm where the divine breaks through our ordinary consciousness. To hold this kind of imaginal awareness is to recognize heaven on earth and the kingdom breaking through in each moment. 

It means keeping an eye attuned to the ways that the holy touches us through experience. We can cultivate the capacity to see another layer of reality at work. We can listen for symbols and encounters with this numinosity because it happens within the very deepest recesses of our souls. A gate is a passageway into a new life or new way of being, one that is marked by grace. 

Please join us for our online Advent retreat exploring Mary’s wisdom for us during this time of threshold. Our 4-week Birthing the Holy journey begins Monday, November 29th. There will be weekly live Zoom sessions (always recorded for those who can’t make it), dance prayers from Betsey Beckman, creative ways to pray the rosary from Polly Paton-Brown, and wonderful explorations of the art in Chartres Cathedral from Jill Geoffrion who spends part of her year guiding pilgrims there. 

Simon is leading his Taize-inspired sacred chant service tomorrow!

For our U.S.-based friends we wish you a most blessed Thanksgiving. We are so grateful for this community. (Here is a reflection from our archives on the practice of gratitude and contentment.) 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image © Christine Valters Paintner

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Hildy Tail: Parents and Children

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. 

Parents & Children (Genesis 33:1-3)

Hello, everyone! It’s me: Hildy, your friendly monastery mascot. And today we’re talking about families. In particular, we’re talking about some of the family dysfunction that’s runs through the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Biblical Faith. (And if you’re like me, you might recognize some similarities with your own family.)

I know. It’s not often you read somebody whinging about heroes of faith, but I’m a monkey and I’ve got some things to get off me hairy wee chest. (My many siblings and cousins know what I’m talking about.)

Let’s just jump straight into this because I’m going multi-generational today. The passage that I’m using as a jumping-off point, before swinging my way down the generations, describes the reunion of twin brothers Jacob and Esau after years and years apart, with no communication. (I know. I thought that MY family could hold a grudge!) It’s hard to understand the full family drama from just this wee passage, as it doesn’t seem like much, but trust me . . . As Esau approaches, Jacob arranges his family and bows respectfully before his slightly older brother. But there’s a LONG story of what led to all this . . . and I’d say it starts with their grandparents.

Abraham & Sarah were desperate for a child of their own. (To be fair God was taking a long time to fulfil the promise of an heir and they were both getting well old.) So Sarah gets a wee bit impatient and gets the idea to have one of her servants be a surrogate mother. (I’ll let you discuss the efficacy of that amongst yourselves later; we don’t have time for that now.) Hagar does as she’s asked (and one could make the argument that she may not have had much of a choice) and bore Abraham a son, Ishmael. Now Sarah almost immediately becomes jealous. (Raise your paw if you saw *that one* coming a mile off.) Sarah insists that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. And Abraham goes along with this change of plans. (Not their finest moment. Quite arguably their worst, really.) But Sarah has finally given birth to Isaac and Abraham clearly picks a favourite son, literally sending one of them off into the wilderness. (It’s a heart-breaking episode and should be seen as a cautionary tale of how not to treat family, but there it is in all its sad details.)

Isaac grows up and marries Rebekah, who has twin boys: Esau and Jacob. As the story goes, they fought each other (as so many of us unfortunately do with our siblings) in the womb to get out first and be declared the oldest, with all the power and privilege that went with that. In the end, Esau emerges first, with Jacob clutching his brother’s heel. And because unresolved family dysfunction tends to be passed on to the next generation, Isaac & Rebekah each (VERY unapologetically) have a favourite twin son. Isaac loves Esau best, Rebekah loves Jacob best, and EVERYBODY in the family/tribe knows it. Believing she’s following a prophecy from God, Rebekah plots to have Jacob become the head of the family when Isaac eventually dies. She even takes advantage of her husband’s failing eyesight. (I try to find comfort in knowing that even great people aren’t always great and to learn from their mistakes; but it’s still tough to read, particularly when stories like these hit so close to home.) Jacob goes along with all this, having already tricked Esau out of part of his inheritance. To say that Isaac and Esau aren’t happy about Jacob stealing God’s blessing would be an understatement of (please pardon the pun) biblical proportions. This particular chapter in family dysfunction ends with Jacob fleeing for his life, possibly never to return.

While he’s away, Jacob falls in love with Rachel and wants to marry her. But in a bit of turn-around, Rachel’s father tricks Jacob into marrying Rachel’s older sister. (This is why grooms lift the bride’s veil in a traditional marriage ceremony. But back to the story.) So Jacob does what any man would do (just kidding, this is a weird solution to a weird situation and the two weirds don’t cancel each other out) and ends up marring both sisters. To make matters worse, it’s clear that Jacob loves Rachel more than he loves Leah. This sets up a rather unhealthy competition between the sisters/wives as they each attempt to bear the most children for Jacob, going so far as to use more surrogates. (Why learn from Sarah’s mistake, am I right?) When Rachel finally has a son of her own, that boy (Joseph) instantly and openly becomes Jacob’s favourite. (The only thing I can say in their defence is that all this takes place WAY before the advent of psychology and family counselling. But still . . . you’d hope people would learn from their own mistakes or the ones those around them have made.)

Now how do we know Rachel and Joseph are Jacob’s most beloved, you might well ask. Because of today’s passage. The twin brothers are about to reunite and Jacob is reasonably fearful that Esau is still murderously angry. So what is described in the beginning of Genesis 22 is Jacob physically arranging his family in order of most disposable up front – the concubines and their offspring, then Leah and her children, and finally Rachel and Joseph as far away from danger as possible . . . with the rest of the family as a literal human shield. (Don’t Panic! The story has a happy ending, with Esau forgiving his brother and welcoming him and his family back.)

Joseph doesn’t help himself in later years when he lets his father’s blatant favouritism go to his head and becomes an arrogant little . . . brother. I mean, is ANYBODY surprised that Joseph’s siblings tried to kill him before selling him into slavery? (My siblings and I would often “joke” about which one of us would be most likely get voted out of the family by the others. None of us fared well in those discussions.)

Now I’m not trying to say a few bad parenting decisions makes anyone a bad person or that my own family is perfect (or even all that different from these families). But family can be difficult. And this can be a particularly sad or hurtful as we approach the holiday season, a time traditionally chock-o-block with family gatherings.

All this can make that Commandment about “honouring your father and your mother” seem impossible. But there are ways we can honour our families and ourselves, without ignoring the problems that may exist. (It is “honour” and not “obey” your family, after all.) Acknowledging the problems in your family (and let’s face it, ourselves) is a good place to start. And even if you’re the only one in your family willing to do the hard work, at least you can. And like with today’s story that goes from potential massacre to blessed reunion with the loving forgiveness of just one person (Yeah, Esau!), maybe that’s enough.

What can you do to honour your family (and yourself), even if you are estranged from them?

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Roger Butts

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Rev. Roger Butts’ reflection “This Realm of Love.”

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mountain impacts me deeply. His beatitudes bring me fresh inspiration to face the day and find my way. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who mourn. I love the rhythm. I love the aspiration. I love the vision. On a gorgeous, sunny, blue autumn day, I noticed how the sun washed all things in beauty. I thought of all the blessings I encountered. I felt how blessed I felt in the encounter. The words of Jesus came to me and I thought who else is blessed? Who do I think of as blessed in this world, as they bless the world? This writing came to me, out of all that beauty.

Blessed are those who march in the streetsSeeking a better way for all God’s people.Blessed is the single mother, on the bus,Seeking a better way for her kids, above all.Blessed is the monk, in his silent cell,Praying and praying and praying some more.Blessed are the peacemakers,Banging guns into garden tools.Blessed is the man behind the counterAt the neighborhood 7-11, who still says “hey.”Blessed is the artist, and the poet, and the shrink,For they see into the center of things.Blessed is the contemplative and the activist,For nothing separates them, one from the other.Blessed is the little white church down the way,I’ve heard them singing off-key and loving on-point.Blessed are my dog and your cat and the fish in the fishbowl,They love with an unconditional zeal.Blessed are those who get up in the morning,Seeking beauty in a bruised old world.Blessed are the dreamers and the do-ers,Where would we be without them?Blessed are you and blessed am I,Living in the unity of all things,In this realm of love,Whether we know it or not.--As you look around, who do you notice is blessed in this world? And how are they blessing the world? And how in the noticing is the world a bit more beautiful?

Reverend Roger Butts was ordained at the Unitarian Church, Davenport, Iowa 20 years ago. He currently lives in Colorado Springs with his black lab, Gracie, three adolescent children, and his beloved, Marta Fioriti, who is a minister in the United Church of Christ.

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The Wisdom of the Beguines + Prayer Cycle Day 2

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 The Soul of a Pilgrim. The audio podcasts for Day 2 morning and evening prayer are being released today on the theme of Packing Lightly! 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.) 

Our pilgrimage through the wisdom of the mystics continues next Saturday when we welcome Sister Laura Swan to teach about the Beguines, a lay movement of women in medieval Europe. We will be gathering together on the feast of Mechtild of Magdeburg, one of the Beguines who also wrote beautifully of her loving devotion to God. 

The following is an excerpt from the introduction to Sister Laura’s wonderful book The Wisdom of the Beguines: The Forgotten Story of a Medieval Women’s Movement:  

You are time-traveling to the medieval court beguinage in Flanders. You are greeted at the gate by one of the older beguines. Once inside, you see families who must have been spending the night in the spacious courtyard, safe from marauding gangs. Children are chasing chickens and geese, and laundry is drying on lower tree branches. Some of these families might head back to the countryside now that the busy market days are over. You approach the beguine’s home you had visited before and hear the laughter of children inside: your host and her fellow beguines have taken in three orphaned girls, plucked off the wharf and saved from the brothels to be educated and trained in cloth finishing.

After a boisterous meal of lamb and vegetables in honor of Eastertide, you all leave for the beguinage’s church. Other beguines, many accompanied by children, and even a few men, are joining you there. To your surprise, the bell begins to toll. In parish churches, one only hears the tolling of bells from High Mass and significant events like the death of a ruler.

Inside their church, the beguines carry the wooden chairs and desks toward the walls, thus clearing a large space for easy movement. Some elderly beguines sit down on the chairs along the walls; other beguines set up and tune musical instruments.

The music and singing commences; the songs are lively and familiar. You happily join in. The beguines are clapping to the beat of the music and begin a gentle swaying movement. With the third song, you all enter into an informal, gentle dance, moving first toward the left and then toward the right. Feet stamp and hands sway in rhythm to the music. Soon beguines are weaving around one another in a style echoing folk dances. The church is filled with harmonious sound and movement. The children, who had shared in the dancing, at some point tucker out and rest for a while near the elders.

The beguine community enters into song after songs—songs of poetic aspiration and Scripture. The church interior is warm; skin glows. Eventually the activities quiet down and the beguines stand or sit in silence. Some of the elders light candles. The magistra of the beguinage climbs the steps to the pulpit and there seems to be a divine energy flowing among the beguines. Your host excitedly whispers that their leader speaks through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Into the silence the magistra begins:

“If you want faith, pray. If you want hope, pray. If you want kindness, pray. If you want poverty, pray. If you want obedience, pray. If you want integrity, pray. If you want humility, pray. If you want gentleness, pray. If you want strength, pray. If you want any virtue, pray.”

(Excerpt reprinted with permission from BlueBridge Books) 

If this vibrant and creative movement inspires you on your journey, join us for an online mini-retreat next Saturday facilitated by Sister Laura. I am delighted to welcome her to be with us, she is a Benedictine sister and was the Prioress at St. Placid Priory where I am a Benedictine oblate. 

This week we are also hosting Centering Prayer with Therese Taylor Stinson on Wednesday and Yin Yoga with Melinda on Thursday!

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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Monk in the World Guest Post: Rita Simon

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Rita Simon’s reflection, Spaciousness Between Our Branches.

In our community, we are blessed to have a new park along the Chippewa River that has paved paths which allow us to walk our monthly silent peace walk year-round. This month as we walked, the crisp air of late fall was refreshing as darkness rapidly fell. The sun set over the river casting brilliant shades of orange, red, and pink across the rippling waters and creating silhouettes of the huge trees on the riverbank. After our walk, one person shared that he had never before noticed the amazing shapes and structures of the darkening leafless trees as they were backlit by the setting sun, nor all the space between their branches.

I once read a refection where the author expressed that she had always felt sad each year as the fecundity of summer’s leaves fell in autumn leaving the trees appearing bare, barren, and somber. But one day she noticed how, as the leaves fell, the canopy of the trees opened up revealing the amazing, clear spaciousness of the sky between their branches. This struck me so deeply at the time that I began to pay attention. Not only do the spaces between the branches become frames for sky, but also for clouds, sun, moon, and stars. Exposed are the leafy squirrels’ nests swaying in the very tops of the trees, and winter birds can be seen flying to-and-fro as they perch on, or flit between, the branches. Squirrels are more than happy to show off their amazing swirling acrobatics as they zip from branch to branch!

I am more and more in love with those incredible beings we call trees. As I walk in the woods, wherever I am, I see them changing each day in each season. This reminds my heart that everything is beautiful in its own way and time, but also impermanent. And though I love the spring trees, with their buds swelling and bursting into delicate feathery leaves that expand and flourish into summer, and the autumn trees that display their copper, crimson, and gold treasures which they shower down upon the path, I love winter trees best of all. They have a stark loveliness in their black trunks and branches of varying textures, sizes, and shapes. As they shed their leafy, heavy summer burdens it seems their trunks and branches stretch out and up even higher into the sky. 

And so, it is with we humans. We travel through our seasons much as the trees do. 

In the springtime of our childhood, we delicately build our egos, soft and feathery at first, but bit-by-bit becoming more solid as we approach adulthood. 

Our summer adult years are marked by our full canopy of leaves thickening and bursting forth in all directions as we try to find our places in the ‘forest’ of life. We add on education, careers, families and other relationships, homes, possessions, etc. Our leafy canopies get so full and heavy at times that branches bend or even break, and there is sometimes very little space between them to be seen or experienced. 

In our autumn years there is a letting go of those golden leaves that no longer serve us or that unnecessarily burden us. Often the letting go is not something we consciously do, but which happens anyway whether we want it to or not. 

The winter years of our lives can be a time when our life’s experiences, if we are aware, open up into a great spaciousness in the solidity of our being. The trappings of our youth and adult years can fall away like the autumn leaves and leave us with what really matters, wisdom, gratitude, compassion, love. We experience ‘beingness’ and a oneness with everything. Our bodies and our interior and exterior branches may be dark, bent, broken, scarred, or twisted, but they reveal an underlying grace and strength. There is a spareness, an opening up, a timeless wisdom that almost seems to become visible in our very bodies. Have you ever noticed that spare, almost transparent luminescence of very old people? It is a wonder and loveliness to behold!

When you go walking outdoors, spend a bit of time noticing the trees. You might pick one particular tree that you see often and are able to observe in all seasons. Stand before it, or better yet, sit beneath it. Breathe and quiet yourself. Let it speak to you. Listen to what it is telling you. Tree-beings are great teachers for our life’s journey if we pay attention and listen deeply.

Rita Simon, a retired family physician, is a member of St. Anthony Spirituality Center’s lay preaching team. They plan and present annual themed retreat weekends for a wide range of spiritual seekers. Rita practices embodied spirituality through vocal and instrumental music, yoga and dance, and the enjoyment of nature’s beauty. Rita lives in Chippewa Falls, WI, USA.

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The Soul of a Pilgrim Prayer Cycle – Day 1 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Simon and I are in the midst of our Virtual Celtic Pilgrimage for Samhain and are delighted to also be sharing with you a brand new 7-day prayer cycle of morning and evening prayers on the theme of The Soul of a Pilgrim. The first two audio podcasts for Day 1 morning and evening prayer are being released today on the theme of Hearing the Call and Responding! The podcasts for each day will be released week by week through November and December. 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.) 

Our previous prayer cycles have been on the themes of Earth Monastery, Monk in the World, and Birthing the Holy: Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine.  This series on pilgrimage companions my book The Soul of a Pilgrim which has been a big favorite among many of you for years. The themes and invitations of pilgrimage apply to our everyday lives as well. As St. Benedict teaches about the monastic practice of conversion, we are always on a journey, always growing, deepening, unfolding, discovering. If we think we have arrived or have nothing left to learn, we are in trouble. 

On my own pilgrimage of life, one of the things that has been hugely enriching to be in an ongoing way has been our Lift Every Voice book club to center contemplative writers of color and expand our understanding of the contemplative and mystical life. 

This month’s book club selection is Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us About Wisdom, Persistence and Strength by Kat Armas. I am feeling very blessed by the opportunity to read so many wonderful books in conversation with the authors and my podcast partner Claudia Love Mair. It has been a powerful way to practice humility and expand my vision. 

Kat beautifully weaves in stories from her mother and grandmother and women ancestors with biblical stories about women. She asks the question of what theological reflection looks like when we center the perspectives of those the church or academy would not traditionally consider to be theologians but have an embodied wisdom about what it is to live a meaningful life guided by Spirit. 

Kat is Cuban-American and she describes her ancestors as border crossers who inhabited multiple in-between worlds. “Nepantla” is a Spanish word for the in-between state, uncertain terrain, constant tension, healing, and transformation. With my own love of threshold spaces—and certainly pilgrimage is itself a threshold place—I loved hearing these voices from the margins and the wisdom they offer to us. 

She writes to reclaim intuitive wisdom in a culture that worships the rational. She describes the Holy Spirit as the “wild child” of the Trinity and the breath of God as guiding her ancestors in their knowledge of herbal medicine and other intuitive wisdom such as co-creation through art-making by hand. In her chapter on dance, she describes it as a form of embodied knowing. “The wisdom our bodies hold is sacred; they have a knowledge and language of their own.” 

This is also a book about truth-telling and justice-seeking. She describes the Magnificat: “Mary’s war cry is one of justice, calling forth God’s liberating revolution. Her cry of justice and liberation is one that announced the inauguration of a new kingdom, one that stands in contrast to the kingdoms of oppression and exploitation.” 

We encourage you to buy a copy of Abuelita Faith by Kat Armas and listen to our conversation with her. 

Join Simon and me tomorrow for our November prayer service on the theme of Samhain! We will be joined by Wisdom Council member Therese Taylor-Stinson who will be guiding us in a meditation on the ancestors. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

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