Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 40

I Am Not a Mistake: A Healing Service for the Queer Soul

Sunday, June 26, 2022 11:00am-12:30pm ET with Rev. Simon Ruth de Voil (he/they) and Dr. Jamie Marich (she/they)

The Institute for Creative Mindfulness is happy to invite our friend Rev. Simon Ruth de Voil for this special program that they are hosting for Pride Month. Dr. Jamie Marich spends a great deal of time speaking about spiritual abuse and working with LGBTQ+ persons from a clinical perspective. This year, their clinical training organization wants the Pride Month offering to be something that is much more personal for members of the queer/LGBTQ+ communities and their allies.

So many individuals who identify under the rainbow umbrella report horrendous experiences with being traumatized in organized religion or by religious family members and people in society. In this service, we welcome you to come as you are and to be guided through several healing practices in the spiritual and expressive arts that invite you to embrace your inherent worthiness and goodness. You are not a mistake. You are not defective. You are perfect just as Divine Creator made you.

The Institute for Creative Mindfulness also welcome allies who are affirming of their queer/LGBTQ+ loved ones and friends. We also desire to honor your experiences too in this healing service. There will be an opportunity for open participation in several of our rituals although you are welcome to come and just listen and receive if you do not want to participate in this way.

Click here for registration.

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Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – June 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 this month’s video discussion along with questions for reflection.

This month’s selection is Staying Awake: The Gospel for Changemakers by Tyler Sit.

Jesus asks his followers to stay awake, which begs the question: stay awake to what?

Staying Awake is a practical exploration of Christianity for people who want to show up for justice and stay in the movement. Discover nine essential practices to transform you for transforming the world. Complete with stories, worksheets, poetry, original cartoons, and a commitment to centering queer people of color, this book is here to support you in staying awake: to God, to the evils of oppression, and to the world’s coming liberation.

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

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Laura Musick Wright

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Laura Musick Wright’s reflection, “My Rule of Life – A Daily Prayer.”

“Dearest monks and artists, it has been such a privilege and honor to take this journey with you.  It brings me such deep and profound joy to support others in integrating the contemplative and creative paths of life.” 

—Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist’s Rule – A twelve-week journey. 

Allow me, dear Christine, to thank you!  My participation in your 12-week creative journey, The Artist’s Rule, has brought forth such deep and profound joy. Through the guided exploration of monastic wisdom for nurturing my creative soul, you taught me many jewels of desert, Celtic and Benedictine spirituality. This focused contemplative and creative exercise has birthed a profound self-expression, to more clearly establish and identify with my personal, Rule of Life. 

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The accompanying graphic is the culmination of my creative process – my final exercise for Week Twelve – Creating an Artist’s Rule of Life. Before I take a deeper dive into the meaning of the design I would like to share a bit of background on how I arrived at my Rule of Life. 

I have always felt a deep spiritual connection to our collective creative genius – our God. It revealed itself throughout my childhood, adolescence and adulthood. But did I always pay attention to God’s creation within my own experience?

I was born in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and raised during my early childhood in the beautiful New England community of Hanover, New Hampshire. I grew up through my adolescence in picturesque Ithaca, New York. Marriage and my husband’s career as a Forester brought me back to the Rocky Mountains of Vail, Colorado and later the Green Mountains of Vermont.  I have been fortunate to have a ready connection to nature in my neighborhood throughout my entire life.

As a child, I spent many hours creating fairy houses along a hillside stream next to my house. I would make a playdate with myself and my dolls to explore mystery and romance. From furniture made of sticks and stones to the fabrics of pine needles and acorns, I was nature’s interior designer. 

The stream would flow in and around this dwelling and offer me palpable peace and tranquility. I was especially joyful with the springtime snow melt or a fresh rainstorm, giving the stream a more powerful presence in the story. Each episode of the streamside series was joyful and rejuvenating. 

During Week Nine of The Artist’s Rule, I was literally grounded in the heaven of my childhood when I found myself creating a natural Mandala by a stream. My Inner Monk said through my heart, “This is your individual expression of God’s creative genius.” And what a feeling it was as I left the mandala by the streamside and returned to my home. I was certainly paying attention to God’s Creation within myself.

When I began the 12-week journey I was searching for a deeper, more present connection to God through personal creative expression. After years of creating for others (my clients) as a graphic designer, I had often yearned for the time and energy to create for myself – my “God-self.” Typically, there was always something to distract me during my personal hours with life’s “uncreative” tasks or serving others before myself. I was consistently denying myself the opportunity to let my heart speak. 

During Week Two, my Inner Artist spoke to me through it’s own Wisdom Card saying, “Can you come to the knowing that there is no other time in which to express yourself but NOW?” And my Inner Monk chimed in, “Why do you deny me the opportunity to go deep into your heart…to seek the truest meaning in each moment?” Wow! I was ready to pay attention and make it happen! Week by week I found fulfillment in the exercises outlined in The Artist’s Rule.

The final exercise came about as the culmination of twelve weeks of creative contemplation and creativity. What consistently came to me was the bold message, “Let the prayer be a journey of discovery!” And so I decided to create “My Rule of Life – A Daily Prayer. The graphic shown here is my daily prayer. 

This prayer consists of six segments to guide my prayerful journey in a more structured manner. Each step serves a purpose to initiate a deep presence with God, for me as a human being, and to more closely align myself with the tasks at hand throughout my day. The segments are illustrated with a visual image – icons –  which help me to make an immediate connection to my inner truth. Throughout the day I may not remember the exact words of the prayer, but the memory of the visual icons gives me an immediate link back to my purpose. Each segment brings me closer to the all of all – the unified expression of Love within myself. And so it goes…

*****

My Rule of Life – A Daily Prayer

[the gathering]

With reverence, I gather with you as one to express my true nature. I focus on self-alignment with my inner beauty — my God-Self — my deep abiding Love of All.

[the grounding]

For today, moment by moment and step by step, I ground myself in Love by centering in your Truth. I feel my feet on the earth as if my toes are sinking into the sand.

[honoring the body] 

I take every breath with the intention to grow, learn, and love. Daily, I nurture my mind, body, and spirit through sleep, meditation, prayer, nutrition, exercise, and creative expression.

[opening to spirit] 

I dedicate time to receive your inspiration through Love. I listen for your guidance and wisdom to instruct my purpose. I trust that what I need to be of service is here for me. 

[creative expression] 

I create for your glory without constraints. I go deep into the process, losing time to find eternity. I stay within the beauty of the unfolding, enjoying the immersion, expressing Something Pertaining to God.

[embracing the divine within] 

I embody my Rule of Life — to authentically be and share Love. I am in your heart expressing Joy. Glory be to me, you, and all! Amen

*****

Borrowing from Christine’s eloquent closing message at the end of the 12 week journey, I offer you my prayer…

Dearest monks and artists, it has been such a privilege and honor to share this journey with you. It brings me such deep and profound joy to exchange with others in integrating the contemplative and creative paths of life. Blessings to our Inner Monks and Artists! May we journey together in daily prayer. Thank you!

Laura (Laurie) Musick Wright, has a life-long connection to the natural expression of God’s creative genius. A career graphic designer, she has explored a divergent yet inclusive spiritual path, beginning at her childhood United Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, and along the way through Catholicism, Buddhism, A Course in Miracles, and the teachings of Joel Goldsmith. She loves to share love with a smattering of posts found at “Laura’s Love Notes.” She is a master healing arts practitioner of Reiki and the hands-on modality, “Bioenergetic-shen treatment®” founded in Parma, Italy. This treatment aligns the body, mind, and spirit through the energy of the heart. She focuses her healing life force energy on a person’s unique inner beauty to bring about their own self-healing resulting in a more vital life condition. She longs to more deeply explore her ancestral roots in Scotland and England. She lives in Latham, New York.

Visit Laurie online: LMWDesign.com | RightoWellness.com | Facebook

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HeartWork + Prayer Cycle Day 4 Morning and Evening Prayer

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Day 4 of our new Birthing the Holy prayer cycle honors Mary as Our Lady of Silence and Our Lady of the Underworld. The first reading for Morning Prayer is excerpted from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude: 

Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all.

Listen to the audio podcasts for Day 4 Morning and Evening Prayer or read the text for the full seven days here.

Mark S. Burrows will be leading a retreat for us next Saturday, June 4th on the concept of HeartWork (Herzwerk) in Rilke’s poetry. He has this beautiful reflection to share with us:

Already the barberries are ripening with reds
and the garden’s wilting asters breathe their last.
Whoever’s not rich now, as the summer has passed
will wait, and wait, and never come to know themselves.

Those who can’t now close their eyes,
assured that a harvest of faces still lies
waiting within them, for night’s coming,
to rise in their inner darkness: –
it’s over for them, as if they’re an old person.

Nothing more will come, no new day unfold,
and everything lies to them that still might be;
even you, my God. For you are like a stone
that pulls them daily down into the deep.

From “The Book of Pilgrimages” in The-Book-of-Hours
(translation by Mark S. Burrows)

I

I’ve loved this poem since I first read it many years ago—for the way it unsettles my complacence. For the way it evokes the sacredness of time in its long journey in me. For how it beckons me into the hidden depths of my own “self” where everything is alive. Where everything is becoming. Everything. Including my own self.

What is that “harvest of faces” within us? Memories of those we’ve known—and lost? The presence of those we have loved, or feared? Images of those who’ve loved or hurt us? Rilke is pointing something essentially unknowable and yet ever present in the depths of who we are. There, in that darkness, lie the seeds of what yet will be—of us. Of the one we are becoming. Here, what lives is not the past with its memories, or not only this. Nor the future we can only hope for or dread. No, these depths hold an assurance we also long for. They point to the life that is always unfinished. Always still waiting for us to indwell it with its unexpected newness. 

For the openness of your life depends both on what was and on what “still might be” for you. When you become open to this startling truth, you begin to find yourself not as a guest in your own life. In that solitude, you might begin to discover yourself as the host of each “new day” as it unfolds in your life. Even today.

II

Imagine you are writing an epitaph for your gravestone. What would you write on it? Would you chronicle the financial investments you made that brought you wealth? Would you list your professional accomplishments? Did any of that help you discover who you were in the depths of your soul?

Rilke is talking here about riches that cannot be measured in external terms. These are hidden from the crowd and cannot be measured in outward ways. As you imagine these riches in your life, ask yourself what it would take to devote more of your time and energy to cultivating them. What would you let go of—grudges or griefs, fears or fantasies—to make room for that inner work? What would making such “space” bring you here and now? What are you waiting for?

***

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image © Christine Valters Paintner

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Jo-Ellen Darling

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World Guest post series from the community. Read on for Jo-Ellen’s reflection adapted from her book, Journaling as a Spiritual Path: A Journey to Your True Self  and the Divine (Wild Ginger Press, 2022).

Journaling is Primarily a Labor of Self-Love 

Journaling is a way to stay close to myself and to the God of my understanding. It is loving  myself enough to want to engage in the deep mystery and truth of my own self, not only things  of the past, but in the here and now. Knowing and recovering myself takes commitment. This  requires me to explore my basic wants and needs, my wounds and mistakes, my joys, gifts and  desires, and my relationships. I’ve needed to dig deeply to find my past and present yearnings  for clues, such as those I had when I was a child and young adult, and what it is I dream about now, even if I think I cannot attain it fully in the present. 

In the early years of my contemplative spiritual formation, I was invited to explore a  relationship with God by spending time in nature. Journaling in nature becomes contemplative  when I reflect on the mystery, awe, and wonder in the natural world. I’ve come to deeply know  that all of us – and all created things – are carriers of God’s light in the grand incarnation.  

My sense is that God never becomes unavailable, never stops facilitating our growth, and never  gives up on us. We can be awakened at any moment, and our journals will ground us in the  present, holding all the many threads, lessons, insights and experiences that have made us who  we are today. 

Journaling is Countercultural 

Over the years, I’ve found that tending to myself and my spiritual life is countercultural – even  in some spiritual and religious communities. Part of the difficulty is that so much of life is  geared to explore things outside of ourselves, often at the expense of searching inwardly for  answers. Being faithful to our responsibilities and finding that inner path of purpose that only  we are meant to find, isn’t easy. One reason could be is that we’re so busy doing for others that  we’re neglecting ourselves.  

I remember when self-care initially felt selfish. Yet, reprioritizing my activities became necessary for me to be able to sink into what was most deeply drawing the attention of my soul. Taking time to discerng my priorities also presented another obstacle: I was afraid to risk  others’ disapproval. Yet by committing to the process of journaling, my callings and my own  transformation continue to be revealed. 

Journaling is an Act of Radical Self-Care 

Nurturing myself helps me value and find compassion for myself, no matter what has  happened. Self-care strengthens my spirit as I find the courage to do whatever it takes to find support and make healthy changes. Caring about myself sends a signal to my soul that I am not  abandoning myself, that I’m worth the trouble, and that I won’t let myself completely lose the way.  

Being in a state of unknowing is not the same as losing my way. When I’ve lost my way  completely, I’ve probably abandoned myself for a long time. On the other hand, a place of  unknowing can include waiting for clarity or the next thing to be revealed. I may or may not  already have a sense of direction of where I’m headed, but I usually have a sense of trust and  peace. In the frame of self-care, I’m more likely to see my options more clearly. Journaling my experiences and returning to their important lessons provides a pattern of unfolding that  begins to show me how the divine operates in my life.  

Journaling Helps Me to Mourn My Losses 

A wise therapist once told me, “The way you get through trauma is to process it.” So it is with  sorrows, and maybe especially those I have not yet mourned. Grief is the pain inside us and mourning is how we give voice to that pain. An accompanying journal is one way that provides  the sacred space and time for mourning my grief; it allows me to plan what I need to do to take  care of myself during this important season, and to savor the growth and healing that follows.  Keeping a journal, attending bereavement groups, contemplative prayer groups, 12-step groups and individual therapy, as well as talking with soul friends, spiritual directors and spouses, are  ways to mourn and process grief with others.  

Journaling Helps Me to Find My Voice 

Through the process of inward listening and journaling, my spiritual growth is sustained.  Journaling strengthens my voice. My voice is an extension of the listening I do and the true self I  am discovering and living into. Not everyone will agree or approve of our voice, but we’re  learning that this is not as important as it used to be.  

Regular times of silence and solitude provide a way to listen and find my voice. Over the years,  my voice has become more consistent – both stronger and more authentic – by the surprising  discoveries I’ve made about life, myself, God, and others. As our lives unfold in and outside of our journals, we will know the places where we can no longer compromise, as well as the  places where we need to be challenged to grow. I’m convinced that discovering the God of my  understanding and my truest self are two of the most amazing, grounding, and life-changing  choices I will ever make.

Copyright © Jo-Ellen A. Darling. All rights reserved.

Jo-Ellen A. Darling began to journal at age 30 following an intense episode of spiritual  awakening. Thirty-five years later, her journaling continues to be an amazing inner journey of  reflection and discernment, self-knowledge, creative expression, and continued spiritual  growth. After completing a BA in English, Jo-Ellen wrote professionally for 35 years in the medical, technology, and electric utility sectors as well as for newspapers and other  publications. In 2014 she co-edited the book On The Journey for the Kairos School of Spiritual  Formation, where she received certificates in Spiritual Formation in 2011. She later completed  several graduate courses at Moravian Seminary, including Ignatian Exercises: Theology &  Practice, and Contemplative Communication & Relationship. In 2022, Jo-Ellen self-published  Journaling as a Spiritual Path, A Journey to Your True Self and the Divine in partnership with  Wild Ginger Press, now available on Amazon and other online bookstores. Inspired by the  spiritual power and healing that journaling has brought to her own spiritual journey, and the  compassionate and loving God who never abandons us, Jo-Ellen has offered contemplative  writing and journaling retreats since 2013.

Journaling as a Spiritual Path is available on Amazon and many online bookstores. Visit Jo-Ellen Darling’s website at www.JournalingAsaSpiritualPath.com and her Facebook page

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Prayer Cycle Day 3: Morning and Evening Prayer ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

We continue this week with an excerpt from Day 3 of our new Birthing the Holy prayer cycle exploring Mary as Star of the Sea and Vessel of Grace. Below is an excerpt of the Prayers of Concern from Morning Prayer. 

O Creator of the Cosmos, thank you that you have placed a Star in the sky who remains a constant presence, ready to guide us no matter how perilous our journey, if only we look up. Forgive us when we focus on the waves and the force of the wind. Help us know that Stella Maris is there to help us navigate the storms that life brings.

Listen to the audio podcast or read the text for Day 3 Morning and Evening Prayer. 

We are thrilled to be hosting Mark Burrows for a retreat on the poet Rainer Maria Rilke June 4th. Mark is a dear friend and soulful scholar of mysticism and poetry. He has graciously shared these reflections with us:

“The path by which we come to discern the true value of a work of art passes through solitude. To devote oneself to a single book, painting, or song for two or three days, learning its habits and becoming familiar with its idiosyncrasies; confiding in it, earning its trust, and experiencing something with it: a grief, a dream, a yearning.” [an excerpt from one of Rilke’s journals]

How busy we often find ourselves, hurrying from this task to that appointment, too seldom taking stock of where we are—and who we are in the depths of our being. How difficult it is to interrupt this rush, to stand apart from the relentless tides that course through our lives. To pause and simply be. To linger and simply breathe. To open ourselves to this moment. To see our lives as part of the larger whole. 

What is the solitude Rilke is here describing? Do you long to know it in your life? Is your heart ready for it? 

Discovering solitude has nothing to do with your sense of urgency, though it is perhaps the most urgent thing you could attend to. It is not an experience you can manage. It is not a task to accomplish. It is not some “thing” among others in your life. It is your life. In the depth of your heart, with all its fullness. And it is always present in you. The question is, are you present to yourself? Are you open to the spaciousness of your own life? Are you ready to find that gift within yourself? And in others?

*

How could you consider giving yourself to this solitude? Rilke is writing here about how you might discover a piece of art. But this is metaphor. His intent reaches to something larger and deeper than a painting you might find yourself looking at—though it might begin with this. It is about finding yourself, in your heart’s depths. How might you do this? Practice an attentiveness to something in front of you. Open yourself to something particular and real in your life. It could be a given moment. A particular experience. A relationship.

How you find the value of what is depends upon opening yourself to the solitude that is always here, even when you don’t notice it. Even then, it is still here, within you. Opening yourself to it with devotion is what might bring you to find out who you are, with all your “habits” and “idiosyncrasies.” What will come when you open yourself to this solitude? A grief, a dream, a yearning? This is your heart-work to do, and only you can do it.

Try opening yourself to that spaciousness right now in your life. Start small. Keep at it. Devotion, after all, does not come quickly. Take a slow-walk in your neighborhood, or through a nearby park. Practice looking at what is to be seen. Trust entering the solitude that you might glimpse along the way. Patiently. Imaginatively. As your heart-work. Think of making yourself spacious enough to receive this given moment in your life, with all it promises. Call this “soul-hospitality.” Call it God. Call it home.

****

You can join me tomorrow on a webinar hosted by Veriditas about my book Sacred Time. Melinda will lead our monthly yoga class on Thursday celebrating the Sacred Feminine. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image credit © Kreg Yingst

Prayers of Concern written by Polly Paton-Brown

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Rosemary McMahan

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Rosemary McMahan’s reflection “The Eyes of Wabi-Sabi”.

I recently was introduced to the Japanese Buddhist tradition of Wabi-sabi.  According to Leonard Koren, “Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.  It is a beauty of things modest and humble.  It is a beauty of things unconventional”  (Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers).  Wabi-sabi has an ancient history which began with Chinese Buddhists and eventually made its way to Japanese Buddhists who influenced its current meaning.  Wikipedia explains that “Around 700 years ago, particularly among the Japanese nobility, understanding emptiness and imperfection was honored as tantamount to the first step to satori, or enlightenment. In today’s Japan, the meaning of wabi-sabi is often condensed to ‘wisdom in natural simplicity.’ In art books, it is typically defined as ‘flawed beauty.’” 

I suppose what captures my attention about wabi-sabi is how counter-cultural it is to our Western philosophies and ideals of what is beautiful.  We admire those who are fit and glamorous, perfectly “put together.”  We envy those who own homes with impeccable gardens and golf course lawns.  We fill our thrift stores with the flawed objects we have tossed out to be replaced by that which is new and shiny.  We often revere successful people who have “made it to the top.” We even teach our children at a very young age that to color correctly (and thus with beauty), they must stay within the lines.  And as we age, we despair of every gray hair, every wrinkle, every age spot that somehow diminishes what our world confirms is worthy.  Washed away in our strivings to be “beautiful people” are humility and acceptance.

A couple of days ago, my partner and I took a hike through the woods near our home.  I wanted to practice paying attention to what was in the woods, not just blindly stomping past trees, rocks, plants, the sky.  I was surprised by how often I caught myself drifting away, and also grateful for those moments when I did, in fact, see a partially hidden spider web shimmering with drops of dew and a single perfect purple spiderwort in full bloom, both beautiful and unspoiled.  But it was the hickory tree, pictured above, that made me stop in wonder—the wabi-sabi hickory tree.

We ventured close to examine the trunks, yes, trunks, of this single tree.  It appears that as the tree first began to grow, something bent it over.  I am not an arborist, so I have no idea why the trunk decided to curve and bend and then somehow root itself again before growing straight upwards, at least 20 feet high, with bright, abundant green foliage.  But for all the tree’s mystery, it isn’t a beautiful tree.  It is an odd hickory, an anomaly in a woods full of trees that knew how to grow upward from the beginning.  Yet it touched me more than any of the others because of its strangeness, its awkwardness, and so I keep reflecting on what wisdom, enlightenment, satori, I might receive from it.

Growing out of the humus, the earth, this hickory reminds me of wabi-sabi and the spirituality of accepting our imperfections, flaws, limitations, and impermanence with humility and compassion.  In my own faith tradition, Jesus Christ was able to do that for others, to see them through wabi-sabi eyes. The bent tree reminds me of the story in the New Testament, in Luke’s gospel, Chapter 13:10-17, of the woman bent over for 18 years whom Jesus saw with compassion, not revulsion, and healed. Our culture clamors for perfection; we spend so much energy, so much of our lives, trying to impress, trying to prove we are, indeed, worthy, trying to “stand up straight.”  Yet perhaps our worthiness resides not in what we do or how we look or what we produce but in honoring ourselves as we are, and others as they are. This misshapen (at least by our standards) hickory tree reminds me that all of us—all of creation—are vitally connected not by our perfection but by our own imperfections, incompleteness, and impermanence in a way that, if we truly want to see as the Christ sees, makes us somehow beautiful.  We are all, each one of us, “fearfully and wonderfully made” as the ancient Jewish psalmist proclaimed (Psalm 139, verse 14) and the hickory tree echoed.

It wouldn’t hurt our Western world to practice a bit more humility, a bit more compassion, a bit more awareness of what is truly important and what is not.  So it seems rather fitting that a tree would be that messenger for me.   

The Shell Collector

Imagine God by whatever holy name you
utter, walking along the sandy beach, the waves
roiling and tumbling across feet and ankles
while God collects sea shells.
See God picking up a pearly gray clamshell–
one you would value—
only to toss it back to the sea.
Or perhaps God chooses a whole
sand dollar, perfectly intact,
so rare, and then flings it
into the frothy waves
while you gasp.
Maybe God fancies that cockle shell
with its raised ribs and God remembers
Irish Molly Malone selling her shells
in the streets of Dublin and God smiles
before leaving it on the sand.
You wonder why.
And then imagine that you are a shell,
lying with chipped edges
after your rough ride
through the oceans
and God comes to you.
God lifts you from the tide,
and with a tender hand brushes off
the stray strand of seaweed
to notice your blemishes.
God says to Godself, knowingly,
“This one’s been wounded,”
and pulls from God’s pocket
a burlap pouch and adds you to it,
along with the shell
broken by an affair;
one chipped by divorce;
one marred by grief,
one that’s been lost
for so long it no longer
gleams—none beautiful
or perfect but instead treasured
and precious, and God
walks and walks the beach
seeing in each broken shell
God keeps
God’s own exquisite image.

Rosemary McMahan has loved poetry since childhood, going on to earn a BA and MA in English Literature. After teaching English at a local university for several years, she became an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), crafting sermons instead of poetry. When she semi-retired in 2020, she enrolled in Christine Valters Paintner’s “Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist” workshop and felt a renewed call to write poetry as a means of being both a monk and an artist in a world that badly needs beauty.

Rosemary’s poetry has been published in several journals, and she has been awarded three State of Alabama poetry awards. She occasionally records her poetry for a local PBS station; she also writes a blog: Spirit-reflections.org; and Rosemary continues to participate in a Monks and Artists’ group birthed from Christine’s workshop.  A certified spiritual director, Rosemary lives with her husband Dennis in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Jewish Mysticism + Prayer Cycle Day 2 Morning and Evening Prayer ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

We are delighted to release the audio podcasts for Day 2 of the Birthing the Holy Prayer Cycle featuring the titles of Mary as Untier of Knots, and Mustafia. Mustafia is one of Mary’s Islamic names and means “She Who Is Chosen.” Here is the opening to evening prayer.

Mary, Mustafia, chosen by God to birth the holy, help us to answer our unique calling in the world. May your love heal divisions with those we “other” and reject based on culture, skin color or belief. Guide us this evening to a path of peace, kindness, and compassion.

This Saturday we are pleased to welcome back my dear friend Rabbi Zari Weiss to lead the mini-retreat Touching and Being Touched by the Ineffable: Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. Zari led a retreat last fall on Shabbat/Sabbath which was so enthusiastically received. Read on for Zari’s reflection:

Many years ago, when I was in rabbinical school, I had an internship doing chaplaincy at a hospital. I was young and inexperienced, and so I often entered the room with a little bit of trepidation—I wondered how I could be present and perhaps helpful to someone else as they faced illness or death.

I recall one visit in particular. I poked my head in the doorway and saw an older man sitting next to his bed, staring off into the distance.  I felt some trepidation inside as I introduced myself to him and asked him if I might visit.  I soon learned that he was 77 years old—exactly 50 years older than me at the time—and indeed facing the end of his life.  Inside I wondered if or what I might be able to offer that could be of help or support to him.  Before I knew it, an hour had gone by.  Somehow, in that time, a sacred space had been created between us.  As our visit came to an end, he thanked me, and said that our conversation had been very helpful to him.  I remember that after I made my way to the door, I looked back at him sitting there quietly by his bed.  In that moment I realized that Something had been present in the room with us. At the time, I wouldn’t have known to call it God’s Presence.  It was only later than I learned that the rabbis of old taught that the Shechina,God’s Divine Presence, is present in the room of one who is ill. 

Those moments—the ones when I felt the presence of Something Other—have occurred only occasionally in my life, but they stand out, clear as a bell.  I do not claim that I saw God “panim el panim”—“face to face[1], and yet, I do believe that I somehow I got a glimpse of “God’s back,” just as Moses did when God placed him in a cleft of a rock and caused God’s glory to pass by.[2]  My experiences are no less real than those of Moses or Ezekiel, even though they are certainly less dramatic!

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I know that throughout history there are some who have seen the bush afire with God, and others who have felt the soft touch of God’s Presence.  For some, those moments have been intense and overwhelming; for others, gentle and comforting.  I so want us to be able to share these stories with one another, instead of keeping them to ourselves out of fear that others will judge us as crazy or arrogant for daring to claim that we’ve touched or been touched by God.  I want us to feel emboldened to proclaim, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” just like the prophet Isaiah did, and make our stories a part of the sacred texts that we pass on to the generations after us.  Our experiences of the Ineffable are such precious and important parts of who we are and what has been most meaningful to us; they have impacted our lives and our spiritual journeys in sometimes profound, and sometimes subtle ways.  

I so want to build a bridge between the mysticism of our ancestors and those moments in our own lives when we touch and are touched by the Ineffable. 

Earth is crammed with heaven.  Come, take off your shoes. Let’s sit by the fire and share our stories.

Please join us next Saturday, May 21 when Rabbi Zari will invite us into the gifts of Jewish mysticism. 

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Image © Kreg Yingst

Opening Prayer written by Christine Valters Paintner, arranged by Melinda Thomas

[1] “The Eternal would speak to Moses face to face, as one [man] speaks to another.” Ex. 33:11. 

[2] He said, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” (19) And [God] answered, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name ‘The Lord’, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show,” (20) continuing, “But you cannot see My face, for a human being may not see Me and live.” (21) And the Lord said, “See, there is a place near Me. Station yourself on the rock (22) and, as My Presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with My hand until I have passed by. (23) Then I will take My hand away and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.” (Exodus 33:18-23).

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Presence: Cultivating Embodiment with Christine Valters Paintner

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Almut Furchert, PhD

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Almut Furchert’s reflection, “Contemplating the Poignancy of Motherhood: A Mother’s Day Reflection.”

Some experiences are universally shared, like the pain and joy of understanding yourself.  Others are reserved only for some to experience. For instance the odd feeling when new life first stirs in your womb. Before, I only listened to mothers’ stories of having born, tended to, worried about or lost a child. But only when it happened to me could I walk into those feelings. Now I also know the loss a mother endures when the tender fruit of new life leaves her body before its time. Like after a flood that washes away the future, one remains behind in pain, but also in awe of how one’s emptied body restores itself. Since that time, I wonder in new ways about the magic and vulnerability of motherhood and what it has to teach us about our spiritual life.

Having born, nurtured, and lost our children, mothers know from experience about hope and fear. We have contemplated the big questions of being and non-being not only with our minds, but also with our bodies. Being granted the ability to give life, we are also confronted with the fragility and insecurity of all life, and the joys and sorrows motherhood carries in its core. 

Though the world tells us to have a “happy” mothers day, for many the day comes with a bittersweet undertone. No happy children posting happy messages. Some have lost children before they could birth them, some lost them later, to death or to life. All mothers are also daughters, some cherishing, some mourning, some still struggling with their own mothers. 

I think about a client who grew up with a cold and rejecting mother, and now suffers his own lack of warmth. Or about a woman who was given away as a baby, still searching, and longing, for her birth mother.  There was no love, no appreciation, no empathy which could heal that wound of a lost mother, until she found, held and was at last held by her birth mother.  

There is in all of us, sons and daughters, a deep longing for our motherly home. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN has seen this deep longing embedded at the heart of human creation: In one of her stunning illuminations she pictures the soul’s journey from being embodied in her mother’s womb to her search for her spiritual home to set up her tent. We are born in a unity of body and soul, with our original wisdom (“sophia”) folded like a tent inside us.

Hildegard speaks in poignant terms of the longing of the soul, and its challenges and lamentations on the way. Being faced with the pain of a bodily life the soul cries out to mother Zion: where shall I flee?

But instead of a quick answer Hildegard gives room for the soul’s lamentations. Because as wisdom teachers know, the answer lies in the contemplation of our human lot itself.  In doing so we are reminded of our Divine origin, of being living breath and body all-woven-together, able to transcend our sufferings and to trust ourselves to life anew. Do not forget, my daughter, says mother Zion in Hildegard’s vision, that the giver of all life has given your soul wings to fly above all obstacles.

Though Hildegard  was never a birth mother she has become a mother to many. A foremother, a mother in spirit, an example of motherhood, a strong symbol for the mother archetype. For her, motherhood has always also been a powerful metaphor for the life force of all creation. Birthing is at the center of her cosmology as well as her spiritual teaching. 

Thus, we do not need to be mothers, not even women, to participate in the mystery of birth. We all have the spiritual ability to birth new life, to create and recreate. We all know about the “birthing pain” whenever wisdom or new insight is born in us, know the joy which ensouls us when we are first pregnant with and then give birth to the holy within us.  As we also know the fragility of this journey and the places of pain and loss within. 

And like mothers we can offer comfort and warm embrace to our own and to other’s struggling souls.

And if this mothers day
has come to you
with all its ambivalence
joy and sorrow
tend patiently to each
like young green shoots growing
quietly
towards the sun
under dead layers of leaves.

Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych., is a German-American philosopher of religion, existential counselor, teacher, retreat leader, dancing monk and  weary pilgrim. A mother of a toddler she is also the woman behind CloisterSeminars.org where she and her husband share their passion for wisdom teachings and contemplative practice. Having grown up as a pastor’s child in the former East Germany, Almut teaches and writes in the intersection of psychology, philosophy and spirituality on both continents (e.g. on Søren Kierkegaard and Hildegard of Bingen).

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