Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 69

Love Note, Novena, and Praise Song for the Pandemic ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This is a special love note because these are special times. During this Jubilee year we have been sharing our Monk in the World retreat content in this space and you will find this week's below. But I felt moved to write to you directly. The global disruption happening demands that our usual patterns and rhythms be disrupted as well.

We are experiencing an event unlike anything any of us has ever gone through before. There is much unknowing about the road ahead and where it will take us. We know that there will be more loss of life to come and with it the tremendous grief that accompanies it. Many of us are fearful both about the potential impact on our health and also on our financial futures and livelihood. I sit in this messiness with you. I do not have all the answers.

What I can offer are practices rooted in ancient wisdom. Practices which will help us to navigate the treacherous journey with more kindness, more compassion, more grace, and more hospitality to all of our deeply tender and wounded places. Monasticism flourished in the Dark Ages, when communities centered around attention to the divine and to each other.

I also believe that language is powerful and we might consider reframing the terms "social distancing" as "compassionate retreat" and "isolation" as "solitude." For those of us who are not in essential services (and we are seeing how not only medicine and science is vital right now, but all those who are serving our communities through food production and distribution, waste management, and much more) instead of filling our time with distraction, we have an opportunity to turn inward and do some deep reflection. Like Jesus' 40 days in the desert, we too are sitting vigil in the wilderness of our hearts. Our experience this Lent has been magnified.

My deepest hope is that through this time of compassionate retreating, we might begin to see a new way forward when all of this abates. That we might rebuild a society and culture on profound compassion and solidarity, and one that helps Earth to thrive and be nourished again.

John and I are still technically on sabbatical, but in the midst of this crisis we felt moved to offer a gift to this community – our Novena for Times of Unraveling. We began last week on the Feast of St Patrick and our nine days will end on the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th). Each day includes a focus on a particular spiritual practice that can help sustain us. and offers a variety of resources including a live session with me that is recorded. Many of you are already joining us and it is a place of true sanctuary and renewal because of the thousands of open hearts gathering together. If you haven't yet registered, you are more than welcome to still join us. You will have lifetime access to those resources.

Another resource we are sharing is Praise song for a Pandemic. It is a poem that came to me early Thursday morning as I took our dog Sourney out and saw the garbage trucks going by and my heart overflowed with gratitude. It felt like a direct gift from the Spirit and seems to be a helpful resource for many. You are most welcome to share it or use it in any context with attribution and you are encouraged to add your own gratitudes to the list. The closing line perhaps best sums it up: "And when this has passed may we say that love spread more quickly than any virus ever could, may we say this was not just an ending but also a place to begin."

I am also thrilled to share several resources that are the culmination of many months of work:

My newest book Earth, Our Original Monastery will be published on April 3rd (and Ave Maria Press is having a big sale on e-books, you can order this title for $8.99 now and most of my other titles with them – 7 in all – are on sale in e-book version for as little as 99 cents – see list here)
We have a brand new album out that is the collaboration of many wonderful musicians and accompanies my book above with 14 songs to nourish your intimacy with Earth.
In October, my second book of poems will be published. At the heart of  The Wisdom of Wild Grace (available for pre-order) are 30 poems inspired by stories of the kinship of saints and animal including St. Kevin, St. Gobnait, St Francis, and St Julian.

I plan to host a virtual book and CD launch very soon and will let you know the details.

There are a LOT of other resources in this week's newsletter as well including a meditation on the practice of Sabbath, our newest Monk in the World guest post from Wisdom Council member Kayce Hughlett, and the next in our series on A Different Kind of Fast. Pour a cup of tea and linger over the invitation to pause, to practice stillness for a while, to listen for a deeper voice.

In the meantime, know that we are in this together. My heart is overflowing with prayers for this community and for all who are suffering at this time. Let's draw closer to one another through the remarkable gift of technology.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World: Sabbath 4 – Guided Meditation by Christine + Audio

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. Each week will offer new reflections on the theme and every six weeks will introduce a new principle.

Principle 6: I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do.

Listen to the audio version below.

https://abbeyofthearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/7-Sabbath-Monk-in-the-World-Sabbath-Practices.mp3

 

To create your own Sabbath practice begin by reflecting on the best day of the week.

Sabbath may not happen on the traditional Sunday or Saturday for you.  It might even be a couple of Sabbath evenings during the week. The key is to allow the time to be truly restorative.  The most important aspect of Sabbath time is that it happens, there is time "wasted" for play and delight, free of work and worry.  One evening is better than nothing, although a whole day will be more nourishing and restorative.

This isn't about creating guilt and a sense of inadequacy, but about challenging ourselves to consider what we can let go of to make this a priority.

Once you have settled on a time, create some simple rituals.  It is helpful to mark the beginning and ending of this time, as in Jewish practice.  We signal to our minds that we are entering sacred time and this is different than the rush of our lives.

Here are some things you might consider incorporating:

Find a special candle that is especially for your Sabbath ritual.  Light it as part of entering this sacred time.  You might read a blessing or write your own or offer some words spontaneously about keeping this as time for rest and renewal.

You might begin your Sabbath with a meal with a loved one or share a cup of tea.  Sabbath is best supported by practicing in community.  The monks had a pattern for their living.  We need help to support this in our lives.  It might be a partner, your family, or a dear friend.  Reflect together on the past week and then set aside worries and concerns.

Practice gratitude, name ten things you are grateful for from the week.  Gratitude and Sabbath-keeping both cultivate a sense of abundance rather than scarcity.  When we offer thanks and set aside our work we are acknowledging that there is enough – time, things, love.

Turn off your phone and your email.  Leave a message or auto-responder letting people know that you won't be responding to messages during this time.  See if you can reduce the amount of electricity you use by turning off lights and keeping candles lit, and not doing laundry or running the dishwasher.

Every time you cross the threshold of a doorway pause and take three slow deep breaths.  This relaxes the body and reminds us of the spaciousness available to us.  Sabbath is like crossing over a threshold into a different quality of time.

Engage your body by going on a contemplative walk, which is a walk without the purpose of getting somewhere or for exercise.  Follow your own inclinations, see where the walk wants to lead you.  Make connections with the earth and her creatures.

One of my favorite Sabbath practices is a nap.  Making time for rest in the middle of the day feels like the height of self-love and care.

Most of all in this space listen.  Listen deeply to the subtle song of God within you.  What do you hear when you lay aside all of your important work and just let yourself have time to be?

Blessings on your Sabbath time.  May you experience deep rest and delight.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Ave Maria Press – Huge E-Book Sale on Several Titles by Christine

Ave Maria Press is having a huge sale on their e-book versions of their titles including 7 of the 8 books Christine Valters Paintner has published with them (AND this includes her newest one coming on April 3rd). Sale goes until April 15th!

Earth, Our Original Monastery is $8.99

The Soul's Slow Ripening is $4.99

The Wisdom of the Body is $2.99

Illuminating the Way is $2.99

The Soul of a Pilgrim is 99 cents!

The Artist's Rule is 99 cents!

Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire is 99 cents!

Visit Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and GooglePlay to purchase!

Note: Eyes of the Heart doesn't seem to be included in the sale above.

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Five – Embrace Attention

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

* This is the fifth part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season.

It can be so tempting to think, that in our busy lives multitasking will somehow make us more efficient and productive. We bemoan not having more hours in the day, but the hours we do have our attention is scattered, always trying to keep up. We spread our gaze between so many demands that we may get many things done, but none of it is nourishing.

St. Benedict wisely wrote 1500 years ago, that we are called to always be beginners in the spiritual life. The desert is a place of new beginnings; it is where Jesus began his ministry. In the desert, we are confronted with ourselves, naked and without defenses, called again and again to bring back all of our broken and denied parts into wholeness.

The monastic cell was a central concept in the spirituality of the desert mothers and fathers. The outer cell is really a metaphor for the inner cell, a symbol of the deep soul work we are called to, to become fully awake. It is the place where we come into full presence with ourselves and all of our inner voices, emotions, and challenges and are called to not abandon ourselves in the process through distraction or numbing. It is also the place where we encounter God deep in our own hearts.

Abba Moses wrote, "A brother came to Scetis to visit Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said to him: 'Go sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.'"

Abba Anthony wrote a similar message: "Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cell or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace. So like a fish going toward the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell, for fear that if we delay outside we shall lose our interior watchfulness."

Connected to the cell is the cultivation of patience. The Greek word is hupomone, which essentially means to stay with whatever is happening. This is similar to the central Benedictine concept of stability, which on one level calls monks to a lifetime commitment with a particular community. On a deeper level, the call is to not run away when things become challenging. Stability demands that we stay with difficult experiences and stay present to the discomfort they create in us.

The cell, it seems, is the complete antithesis of our rushed attention, of trying to get as much done as possible.

Instead, in our cell, we are called to full presence to our inner life. We cultivate the inner witness and watch as our thoughts scurry between different states, notice our internal responses to things, and observe when our minds move to distraction as a way of avoiding engagement with life. The cell is the place where we grow in deep intimacy with our patterns and habits. When we become conscious of our methods of distraction, we can learn to bring ourselves always back to our experience. In this attentiveness to our inner world, we can then bring this kind of loving gaze to our outer tasks.

Behold means to hold something in your gaze.  To behold is not to stare or glance, it is not a quick scan or an expectant look. We can't multitask and behold at the same time. Beholding has a slow and spacious quality to it.  Your vision becomes softer as you make room to take in the whole of what you are seeing.  There is a reflective and reverential quality to this kind of seeing.  You release your expectations of what you think you will see and receive what is actually there and in the process everything can shift. What would it be like to allow the one task at hand to have your full awareness?

We are so used to using our capacity for vision to take in our surroundings quickly, to scan over things, to confirm what it is we are already thinking.  Seeing in this other way takes time and patience.  We can't force the hidden dimension of the world to come forth, we can only create a receptive space in our hearts in which it can arrive.

This Lent I fast from distraction and multitasking so that I might embrace the practice of attention and beholding, creating space to see things differently.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Praise Song for the Pandemic*

Praise be the nurses and doctors, every medical staff bent over flesh to offer care, for lives saved and lives lost, for showing up either way,

Praise for the farmers, tilling soil, planting seeds so food can grow, an act of hope if ever there was,

Praise be the janitors and garbage collectors, the grocery store clerks, and the truck drivers barreling through long quiet nights,

Give thanks for bus drivers, delivery persons, postal workers, and all those keeping an eye on water, gas, and electricity,

Blessings on our leaders, making hard choices for the common good, offering words of assurance,

Celebrate the scientists, working away to understand the thing that plagues us, to find an antidote, all the medicine makers, praise be the journalists keeping us informed,

Praise be the teachers, finding new ways to educate children from afar, and blessings on parents holding it together for them,

Blessed are the elderly and those with weakened immune systems, all those who worry for their health, praise for those who stay at home to protect them,

Blessed are the domestic violence victims, on lock down with abusers, the homeless and refugees,

Praise for the poets and artists, the singers and storytellers, all those who nourish with words and sound and color,

Blessed are the ministers and therapists of every kind, bringing words of comfort,

Blessed are the ones whose jobs are lost, who have no savings, who feel fear of the unknown gnawing,

Blessed are those in grief, especially who mourn alone, blessed are those who have passed into the Great Night,

Praise for police and firefighters, paramedics, and all who work to keep us safe, praise for all the workers and caregivers of every kind,

Praise for the sound of notifications, messages from friends reaching across the distance, give thanks for laughter and kindness,

Praise be our four-footed companions, with no forethought or anxiety, responding only in love,

Praise for the seas and rivers, forests and stones who teach us to endure,

Give thanks for your ancestors, for the wars and plagues they endured and survived, their resilience is in your bones, your blood,

Blessed is the water that flows over our hands and the soap that helps keep them clean, each time a baptism,

Praise every moment of stillness and silence, so new voices can be heard, praise the chance at slowness,

Praise be the birds who continue to sing the sky awake each day, praise for the primrose poking yellow petals from dark earth,

Blessed are the dolphins returning to Venice canals, the sky clearing overhead so one day we can breathe deeply again,

And when this has passed may we say that love spread more quickly than any virus ever could, may we say this was not just an ending but also a place to begin.

—-Christine Valters Paintner, Abbey of the Arts

*a work in progress

Feel free to add your own praise below

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kayce Stevens Hughlett

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Wisdom Council member Kayce Stevens Hughlett's reflection on her path of becoming a monk in the world.

When I first met Christine Valters Paintner at a Seattle coffee shop in the spring of 2006, there was no Abbey of the Arts. No official dancing monks or manifesto. The "Awakening the Creative Spirit" program was one year old. If anyone had called me an artist or even creative at that time, I would have laughed it off as silly and impossible. The only writing I'd done was Julia Cameron's morning pages, plus term papers for my recently acquired Masters in Counseling Psychology. In my family of origin, art was only in museums and a waste of time for those unwilling to color inside the lines. Travel was always within driving distance or a domestic flight. No way was I a pilgrim. My passport had one stamp: England.

My earnest monkhood began that fall of 2006, although the life journey had begun 50 years earlier. Monkhood greeted me in a simple and singular moment when I took one deep breath within a safe circle of witnesses and said aloud,

I am the pain of the world, covered with blue scarves & white.

I am the beauty of the world, bare-shouldered with upswept hair.

I am the fire of the world, burning with desire and hope.

I am the joy of the world, reaching toward the heavens.

I am.

In that moment I was exquisitely held. Divine – connected – blended with the Universe – no separation. God and I were one. Inside that parish room on Capitol Hill, I knew that I knew. My life had shifted, my eyes were opened, and I had finally seen my whole self … if only for a moment.

The moments between then and now have been immense and mundane. Monkish experiences and not. Ah, to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time and know she is a symbol of my feminine strength. To witness a coal black butterfly dance across my notebook on my 60th birthday and hear the greeting from my dear departed father. Ritual. Writing. Rest. Feet on boggy ground in the Burren, arms widespread to the raging wind. Watching the last breath of my beloved dog, Curry, leave his body. Hearing my Alzheimer-riddled mother say, "You remind me of my daughter, Kayce." The crush of 200,000 pilgrims in Lalibela, Ethiopia to celebrate Timket (Epiphany). Exquisite silence in those underground churches and the holiness of praying with a woman dressed in white, ruby red slippers beside her, a blue shawl wrapped around my own shoulders. Trees that cried out to me in the forests of Croatia when I swore I couldn't take another step. Spirit tapping on my shoulder inside a Balinese temple. Dark shadows swooping through the night. Lightening in Oklahoma. Putting flame to flint on sticks of incense, offering up prayers of lovingkindness. Drawing my first Tarot card, fearing I'd be struck by that childhood lightening, but instead seeing myself once again in word and image, feeling God's spirit inside and around me.

Throwing out the rules. Traveling alone. Studying multi-cultures and rituals. Leading and sharing with other pilgrims. Writing pages and pages of curves and scratches, pouring my soul onto the page. Trying to make sense of it all. Picking up stones and feathers because I swear they wave to me from their resting places. Experiencing a deep resonance when I met my buffalo-hide drum for the first time. With each resounding beat, I heard my ancestors speak to me inside the tiny shop in Portland … all because my internal whispers issued an invitation to Go see a man about a drum and I did.

In my role as monk in the world, I feel, follow, and experience the weight, whispers, and wings of life around and within me. I dance with the elements of earth, wind, fire, and water. Bursting with energy when the season calls and burrowing in like a badger on my own divine time. I am an artist! I write books and read poetry, paint with watercolors, collage, dance in my living room, practice yoga. I share the confidence of Greek goddesses and once proudly declared, I am Persephone, when a Zeus-like man threatened my well-being. And when I'm feeling weak and weepy, you could mop me up with a soggy tissue.

Being this monk in the world morphs and changes day by day, but one thing remains the same: My innate ability to listen and be present in the moment and find meaning in symbols. Yes, I meditate and pray and send lovingkindness into the world on a regular basis. Mainly, however, I first remember my breath … especially … essentially … in these challenging times. Breath is my direct line to the Divine … to the great I am … to myself. Breath is my pathway to being a monk in the world.

Kayce Stevens Hughlett, MA LMHC is a tender, a healer, and an artist of being alive who believes in everyday magic and that complex issues often call for simple practices. Her 2019 memoir, SoulStroller: experiencing the weight, whispers, & wings of the world won the prestigious Nautilus Book award and Chanticleer's Journey award. Co-creator of SoulStrolling® ~ a movement for mindfulness in motion, and creator of the SoulStrolling Inspiration Deck. A member of Abbey of the Arts Wisdom Council and co-leader of Awakening the Creative Spirit (Space Available – Fall, 2020)  KayceHughlett.com

Monk in the World: Sabbath 3 – Reflection by Christine + Audio ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. Each week will offer new reflections on the theme and every six weeks will introduce a new principle.

Principle 6: I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do.

Listen to the audio version below.

https://abbeyofthearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/6-Monk-in-the-World-Sabbath-Reflections.mp3

 

 

We live lives stretched thin by doing.  "I'm so busy" becomes either a badge of pride or a lament depending on which circles you run in.  Our calendars are booked solid and we continue to take on more and more.  There is so much to do: earn a living, nurture our relationships, care for our companion animals, exercise, cook meals, clean the house, and I am sure you can add a dozen more things to that list.

We are given the message at every turn to spend more money and so we end up working longer hours to pay the rising bills.  And then one day we look at our life with exhaustion and wonder how we got to this place.  Our lives are so overflowing that we never have time to really reflect on whether this is really how we want to spend our time.

Out of this frenzy of commitments rises the call to practice Sabbath.  And if you are anything like me, you hear that word and immediately shake off the possibility because there is no way you could imagine actually stopping for a day.

Several years ago I read this quote by Thomas Merton from his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander and it stopped me in my tracks.

"The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.  To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence."

Merton's words are directed toward people working for peace and justice.  He describes the ways in which we participate in our culture's push toward productivity as a form of violence to our bodies and spirits.  There are physical impacts, the way we push ourselves can lead to serious health complications.  There are social impacts; we are always feeling overwhelmed and do not have the time to sit and reflect upon complex problems of our lives.  We begin to lose the sense that we can do anything constructive to address larger social issues.  There are spiritual impacts, our spiritual life becomes focused on another form of doing rather than being in the presence of God.   Even with prayer, it can become another thing to get done.

Being constantly busy is not only damaging to our bodies with their needs for rest, and our spirits with their needs for renewal, but also for our society at large.  We have become so overwhelmed by life that our ability to discern possible solutions to the complex problems of our age has become severely compromised.

When I first read Merton's words, I suddenly saw the crazy pace of my life as woven together with the violence of our culture.  I realized if I was committed to a different way of being in the world, my calendar and priorities needed to reflect it.  Even our churches embrace this kind of compulsive busyness by filling every free moment with events and stretching their ministers and  leaders too thin until they collapse from exhaustion.

Sabbath is an ancient practice, appearing in the first creation story of the Hebrew Scriptures, which climaxes on the seventh day. Having created everything, God rests, and blesses this day, and makes it holy declaring just how very good creation is. Resting, God takes pleasure in what has been made; God has no regrets, no need to go on to create a still better world.  The word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which means to cease.

What would it mean for you to cease?  To set it all down?  To pause for a while and let yourself do something utterly not useful.

Yet our human compulsions drive us to keep going, to believe that the work is never finished and that the world will fall apart without us.  It is this kind of deep-rooted arrogance that is killing us.  When we follow the holy patterns of work and rest offered by the Sabbath, we restore our dignity and claim our freedom from the tyranny of doing.  When the Israelites are released from slavery in Egypt, honoring the Sabbath becomes a symbol of their freedom.  Slaves are unable to rest.  Sabbath is both about holiness and justice.

I am blessed with close friends who are Jewish and I have been invited many times to a Friday night Shabbat dinner.  Together we light candles, sing blessings, break bread, and welcome in the gift of this sacred time to rest.  We remember what it is to be free.  It was this friendship and experience that inspired my husband and I to claim our own Sabbath practice.  We are not always successful, I too get caught up in the compulsion of getting things done.  This is why we always begin again in any practice.  Every time we fall away, we return.

During Sabbath we enter into rest and stillness, releasing our doing, and offer ourselves a time to integrate the blessings and challenges of the week into our psyches.

In the practice of yoga, it is said that the most important pose of all is the final one, savasana, or corpse pose.  This is the place where all that has come before is integrated. In this place of rest we can bring all of our striving and work to a place of wholeness.

Just as the other poses don't hold meaning without that final pose of rest, so our work becomes an exercise in endless futility if we never offer ourselves those times to integrate, to bring in all of our experience and doing and allow ourselves to be for a while.

There are even secular movements these days for what are called technology Sabbaths.  We live in such a wired and connected world that it is nearly impossible to truly unplug unless we do so with intention.

For the ancient monks, Sabbath is rooted in the practice of humility.  By letting go of our doing we acknowledge that we are not the source of creation.  We remember that consumption is not the purpose of our lives.  Theologian Monica Furlong describes the belief that life cannot go on unless we work ourselves beyond our means is a form of megalomania, 'a pathological state which must be fought, in ourselves, our friends, and our nearest and dearest'.  As our exhausted minds and bodies are allowed to rest we begin to discover more important and life-giving goals than productivity.

Being a monk in the world means making time for silence and solitude.  A holy pause to reflect on life's meaning. The monk in the world stays committed to the contemplative way through regular practice, but part of that practice is creating spaciousness and joy.  We can allow these desert practices to become another form of competition and productivity, measuring our self-worth by how often or how well we do them.  Or we can remember that ultimately it is about something much bigger than ourselves.  Sometimes we can only remember the grace available to us when we let go of all of our doing, and rest into our being.

When we practice Sabbath we have time to remember who we really are, underneath the surface of busyness and frantic doing.  We touch down into the grace of being.  We can listen to the call of our lives toward something larger than just struggling to make ends meet.

Benedictine sister, Joan Chittister writes:

What does real life look like to you in your best moments, your quiet moments? What is it that you yourself actually want–down deep–and how much are you willing to give up to get it? What really gives you life? It's time to consider what makes a thing life-giving and the point when even the life-giving becomes death-dealing for you .

Then it is time to define life differently, perhaps. It's the moment to put down what it is we're doing that can be done but does not really need to be done, at least not by us. We need to ask ourselves what it is that we really do not want to do so that everything else we do can be done with more energy, more quality, more inner peace . . .

. . . In the whirlwind of life, in the hurly-burly of things and people and work, we risk the loss of life itself. We risk the loss of focus. Suddenly, we one day realize, we don't know what our lives are actually about anymore, except that they are about too much. We risk the loss of relationships. We get too busy, too scattered, to attend to the truly human intimacies we need if we are to stay in touch with what it means to be human. We risk the loss of balance. We risk the loss of direction.

Her words are really about the gift of Sabbath which really offers us a place to rest, and an inner compass where we can listen.

I believe there is both a sacred yes and a sacred no.  We often think about saying yes as part of responding to your call to a bigger life in this world.  But the no is just as essential.  When we say no we set healthy limits and protect time for what is most important to us.

What I discover when I truly allow myself to experience the gift of Sabbath is that I am able to return to my work with more focus and delight, I actually get more things done and done well.  But I don't want to give the impression that Sabbath is some kind of productivity tool.  I practice Sabbath to embrace my human limits and the gifts of rest.

Sabbath gives us space to discern whether there are things we actually want to keep doing or whether we can let them go.   When I practice Sabbath, I commit to living in a way that is different from the dominant culture.  This is part of what being a monk in the world means – to witness to an alternate way of being, one that is slower, more spacious, more reflective, more generous.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

A Different Kind of Fast: Part Four – Embrace Slowness

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims,

* This is the fourth part of a seven-part series we will publish weekly during this Lenten season

Modern life seems to move at full speed and many of us can hardly catch our breath between the demands of earning a living, nurturing family and friendships, and the hundreds of small daily details like paying our bills, cleaning, grocery shopping. More and more we feel stretched thin by commitments and lament our busyness, but without a clear sense of the alternative.

There is no space left to consider other options and the idea of heading off on a retreat to ponder new possibilities may be beyond our reach. But there are opportunities for breathing spaces within our days. The monastic tradition invites us into the practice of stopping one thing before beginning another. It is the acknowledgment that in the space of transition and threshold is a sacred dimension, a holy pause full of possibility.

What might it be like to allow just a ten-minute window to sit in silence between appointments? Or after finishing a phone call or checking your email to take just five long, slow, deep breaths before pushing on to the next thing?

We often think of these in-between times as wasted moments and inconveniences, rather than opportunities to return again and again, to awaken to the gifts right here, not the ones we imagine waiting for us beyond the next door. But what if we built in these thresholds between our daily activities, just for a few minutes to intentionally savor silence and breath?

When we pause between activities or moments in our day, we open ourselves to the possibility of discovering a new kind of presence to the "in-between times." When we rush from one thing to another, we skim over the surface of life losing that sacred attentiveness that brings forth revelations in the most ordinary of moments.

We are continually crossing thresholds in our lives, both the literal kind when moving through doorways, leaving the building, or going to another room, as well as the metaphorical thresholds, when time becomes a transition space of waiting and tending. We hope for news about a friend struggling with illness, we are longing for clarity about our own deepest dreams. This place between is a place of stillness, where we let go of what came before and prepare ourselves to enter fully into what comes next.

The holy pause calls us to a sense of reverence for slowness, for mindfulness, and for the fertile dark spaces between our goals where we can pause and center ourselves, and listen. We can open up a space within for God to work. We can become fully conscious of what we are about to do rather than mindlessly completing another task.

The holy pause can also be the space of integration and healing. How often do we rush through our lives, not allowing the time to gather the pieces of ourselves, to allow our fragmented selves the space of coming together again?

When we allow rest, we awaken to the broken places that often push us to keep doing and producing and striving. There are things in life best done slowly.

This Lent I will fast from rushing through my life and overscheduling my commitments. I will offer myself the gift of pausing before and after whenever possible, to simply savor the sheer grace of the moment. The desert way also calls us to value holy leisure, times when we are not directing our attention on achieving anything, but simply resting in the goodness of the divine. I will also embrace the practice of doing nothing at all, making room for God to erupt in new ways in the spaces between.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Joni Sensel

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Joni Sensel's reflection, "From Monk to Mummy and Back."

Monks have always interested me; my second novel is set in a tenth-century abbey, and as a long-distance hiker I've long considered myself a peregrina, not in medieval robes but in Gore-Tex. So when I discovered Abbey of the Arts a few years ago, I was immediately intrigued.

To explore my evolving identity as a monk in the world, I signed up for one of the Abbey's five-day events called Awakening the Creative Spirit. The workshop became a way for me to secretly acknowledge my partner, Tony, who'd died abruptly a year previously and whose birthday fell during that week. I enjoyed the workshop immensely, but one activity especially bowled me over: Near the end of the week, we made plaster casts of our faces. I expected this to be among our least challenging projects. Hoo-boy, was I wrong.

My partner, Michele, would plaster me first. With a shower cap protecting my hair, I stretched out on a yoga mat and closed my eyes, feeling as vulnerable as a hospital patient. Plastic wrap protected my skin with only the tiniest gap at my nostrils for breathing. Michele began smoothing wet strips of plaster overtop.

When my eyes and mouth were sealed over, I thought, "Oh! This is like a mummification. I'm being prepared for the next life." It wasn't the first time the week's activities had me thinking of symbolic deaths and rebirths. We were welcoming the emerging identities we'd try to capture as we painted our masks.

As the plaster stiffened, the mask felt increasingly isolating. I could still feel Michele's fingers and soothing presence, but I couldn't see, move, or even breathe deeply. The music in the room was trance-inducing. Trying to relax, I focused on each shallow breath.

And I thought about Tony. This loss of sensation, mobility, control—was it anything like what he'd felt as he died? I'd touched his face while I tried to revive him, not in these sweeping strokes but with great urgency. I imagined stroking his stubbled cheeks as Michele smoothed plaster on mine. This could be only the thinnest reflection of dying.

My heart ached intensely. Tears rose. No. Not now. Crying was one more thing I couldn't do. If I got sniffy, my slim ability to breathe would be lost and I'd have to bail.

Michele whispered, "You okay?"

I gave her a thumbs-up. I can do this. It can't be much longer. Pressing my hands to my overwhelmed heart, I tried to anchor myself to the music.

More warm, soothing hands touched my shins, feet, and hands. Our workshop leaders had a talent for reading emotion. Sensing my distress, they held me to the ground, a balloon—or a ghost—at risk of floating away.

The first teams done with their plastering began to speak above whispers, proof of life beyond my swirling mind and imprisoning mask. I wasn't scared, just awash in emotion: curiosity and grief, uncertainty, gratitude for Michele's tender help. After days spent expressing emotions through dance, those feelings were now trapped and roiling. Would my plastering never be done?

Light brightened beyond my eyelids. Good. Focus there. The clouds blocking the sun outside must have drifted. As I appreciated that glow, a sudden impression flashed—power, rushing just beyond my eyelids and my sense of self. It was like standing too close to a bison stampede: roaring, immense. That physical sensation struck me as a divine force, or maybe the flow of the collective unconscious. It was here, immanent, both reassuring and intimidating. I almost giggled into my mask because it showed me how utterly inadequate our conceptions of divinity are: We're ants trying to understand a nuclear rocket.

With that, Michele finally lifted my mask off. Breathe. Try not to shake. Queasy, I wiped my face and focused on returning the favor for her. The cool glop of the plaster helped calm my trembling. Still, as soon as we'd finished, I had to escape into the woods. With the trees and Tony around me, I could finally cry.

Feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, I dropped flat to the pine needles, spread my arms, and let my emotions sink into the ground. Surrendering. And trying to understand what had happened.

After 10 minutes or so, one of our leaders appeared on the trail. A gift. Though this break in the schedule was her time off to recharge, Betsey kindly paused. She asked and then listened while I spilled my feelings about the mask work, which had veered so far from the lark I'd expected. After brief support and a hug, she walked on. I remained prone until the chickadees hopping through the leaves granted me enough energy to go find warmth and tea.

Though it took me days to recover from my pseudo-mummification, the experience pushed me closer to Tony. I consider it a not-very-near-death experience, one that confirmed a Divinity out there, an immensity both in and beyond our perceptions.

Monks and mummies share the assumption of such a Beyond. They also share a strong sense of purpose, a focus on approaching and experiencing the Divine that is helping me to find meaning after my loss. Together, they're leading me forward, a hiking, art-making monk in the world who sees value in the mummy's seclusion and darkness as well as in dancing and light.

The author of more than a dozen books, Joni Sensel explores creativity and monkish adventures from her home at the knees of Mt. Rainier in Washington State. Visit her online at JoniSensel.com

Monk in the World: Sabbath 2 – Scripture Reflection by John ~ A Love Note from Your Online Prior

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,

During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. Each week will offer new reflections on the theme and every six weeks will introduce a new principle.

Principle 6: I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do.

Exodus 20:1-11

The Ten Commandments

Then God spoke all these words:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Background

After being freed from Egyptian slavery by Yahweh, the Israelites needed a bit of guidance. For generations they had been under the control of the Pharaoh. They were a people unaccustomed to making their own decisions. It was not something they had experience with. And so without the Commandments, the former slaves could very well have been like the college freshmen from a strict family: wild and a likely danger to themselves and each other.

Most of the Ten Commandments are about right relationship with others. But the first Commandments are about right relationship to God. The Commandment to "keep holy the Sabbath" usually gets put into the latter category as it is seen as a way to respect God. However, I see it as both: it respects God, but also the self and others.

Of all the Decalogue, this Sabbath Commandment is one of the most detailed. Like some of the others, it gives a reason for doing so: the Lord consecrated the Sabbath. But it also details all who it applies to: self, children, servants (there is no distinction in Biblical Hebrew between "slave" and "servant;" it is contextual, as the same word is used for both), work animals, and even guests. Everyone, regardless of age or gender or social status is to observe the Sabbath together and equally.

But more to the point, this Commandment turns the old ways of the Pharaoh on its head. Humans are more than beasts of burden. We are made for more than just working, producing goods and services. While that is important (or at least necessary), we were also created to be in relationship with our Creator. And that takes time.

You will hear people talk about "quality time" versus "quantity time." But if there is too little time spent on an activity or with a person, there is no quality to it. We exist in the fourth dimension as well; we span time as well as space.

Reflection

Part of how Christine and I plan our programs, whether they be online or live, is to ask ourselves what types of things would attract us to participate in a program. Being on the introverted end of the spectrum, we naturally gravitate towards programs that aren't over packed with activities and time spent in groups. We like being with people and interacting with others. But we both need time alone to physically recover and to mentally process everything we've been through.

So, none of our online courses will ever be seven days a week. The number of weeks may vary, but there is always at least one day a week is a Sabbath day to process the week's lessons and discussions. The same is true for our in person pilgrimages and retreats. There is always some Sabbath time or even a full Sabbath day in the middle, to give participants a chance to stop and catch their breath, both physically and mentally. The more we lead a program, the less we try to pack into it. Less really can be more.

But these Sabbath breaks are as much for ourselves as for our lovely participants. To be at our best for others, we need to take care of ourselves in order to take care of others. Part of the decision is to model good spiritual practice. And part of it is just practical, a time to regroup and rejuvenate.

I don't want to leave you with the notion that Sabbath is just a practical excuse to rest. There is a very real spiritual component. Stopping for a day helps put so many things in perspective. When we realize that the world can survive without our constant attention, we get a better sense of our place in the universe. Now that might make one feel small or unnecessary. The alternative interpretation of that is a greater appreciation of what God and others do. It can give us a better sense of hope, to be able to accept what we are powerless over and what is within our power to change.

With great and growing love,

John

John Valters Paintner, MTS