Christine Valters Paintner's Blog, page 77

The Jubilee Begins! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Today is my 49thbirthday and tomorrow is John's. We are entering our 50th year of life and eager for this sabbatical time of spaciousness to listen and discern the shape of our work going forward and to have more time for the writing we so love to do.

I returned a week ago from teaching in Chartres, France. (The photo above was received one of my first nights there). The program was hosted by Lauren Artress and the wonderful folks at Veriditas who help promote the labyrinth worldwide. It was a powerful week of diving deeply into poetry as sacred practice, encountering the Cathedral as threshold space and keeper of the sacred feminine through the face of Mary, a very potent private labyrinth walk for our group beginning with a candlelight walk in the crypt, along with our amazing participants made for a very special time.

There were many gifts from this week away, some of which I'll still be unpacking for some time to come. It is always a gift to be held in a ritual space where you walk between worlds for a period of time. While I provided the poetry content and process each morning, there was a team who helped facilitate the other aspects of the program so I got to dive in and have my own pilgrimage experience at Chartres myself.

One of the moments that most touched me was encountering Mary of the Pillar in the cathedral itself and to be told by the guide that she is made of pear wood and under the dress she is wearing she is actually holding a pear in her hand. Some of you might remember my encounter with Mary and the pears when we first moved to Vienna. The pear has become a significant symbol in my life, what John calls my "spirit fruit." It felt like a reminder that I have now been living in Europe seven years and this time ahead is a coming full circle in some ways, and a new beginning in others. The sacred feminine continues to beckon to me to slow down, to release striving, to yield to this moment, to surrender to the divine embrace. What a beautiful reminder as I begin a sabbatical.

At the end of our Chartres retreat one of the team members, the lovely and gifted Catherine Anderson, facilitated us in a SoulCollage session and Our Lady of Delight revealed herself to me through the card-making. The blessing she offered me is: "May you be lavished with the gifts of joy, ease, pleasure, and play. May you trust deeply in the fruitfulness of rest."

I wish this for you as well, my dear monks and pilgrims. I realize that not everyone is able to take time off from work to allow for more spaciousness, rest, and healing in their lives. It is a privilege I do not take lightly. It is a gift I plan to savor every day. And I am eager to see what new gifts emerge in the space that I can offer back to this community.

We are taking a break from the daily and weekly emails for the next month. Look for our return to these on July 28th. We will be exploring the principles of becoming a monk in the world for our weekly reflections this coming year.

If you'd like to help support the continuation of our website and email newsletters during this time please click here for details. You can make a one-time contribution to keeping the Abbey going, or a monthly commitment for the year ahead. We also welcome your prayers and blessings.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: Christine Aroney-Sine

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Christine Aroney-Sine's reflection, "Enter the Re-Wonderment of the World."

This year has been an amazing awe and wonder springtime on America's west coast. In California the spectacular blooming of the desert brought thousands of people out to relish the brilliant oranges, yellows and purples of the flowers whose seeds lie dormant, sometimes for years waiting for rain. In Oregon brilliant purple lupines waved their heads across the mountainsides and here in Seattle, smiling daffodils gave way to tulips and azaleas and rhododendrons in blazing displays of red and pink, white and yellow.

Did you know that a daily dose of awe makes us more caring people? Nature walks boost our immune system and make us healthier and more emotionally stable people. They enrich our contemplative core and expand our horizons to explore new aspects of our world and of our God.

Unfortunately many of us don't have time for God's awe and wonder world. As Robert Macfarlane says in his wonderful book Landmarks: "we have stunned the world out of wonder". We are too busy and too distracted to notice. We have replaced the mystery and majesty of our world and our God with mastery and desire for control.

It's not just natural landscapes that open us to awe either. "Awe softens us for the thunder glance of God and then enables us to glance at others in just the same way." says Father Greg Boyle an important homeless advocate in Los Angeles. Awe begets awe. Recognizing it in the natural world expands our vision to see God's glory in the faces of friends and stranger alike.

So how do we open ourselves to a daily dose of awe and wonder? It doesn't begin with a hurried walk through the neighbourhood though. It is a little like taking lectio divina out into the world, opening our minds, hearts and souls to the mystery of God's presence in everything we see and experience.

First we must slow down and take notice. Most of us hurry through our neighborhoods, intent on where we are going rather than where we are. Slowing down and giving ourselves permission to savour everything we see, hear and touch is an important step towards appreciating its awe. Suddenly we notice not just the magnificent trees in our local parks but also the gardens in broken pavement and the beauty of dandelions in an abandoned lot. Then our eyes shift to the faces of strangers who pass us in the street. They too make us gasp in awe as we catch glimpses of the image of God in them.

Awe and wonder is rooted in silence. We don't just hurry, we also go noisily through life constantly making noise or listening to it. On my daily lakeside walks I am amazed at how many fellow walkers are listening to music or talking to friends. They walk not for enjoyment but for exercise and hardly notice the beauty around them. Taking time to enter the silence in which God can speak to us about where we live and reveal the intricate details we need to notice is hard, yet necessary if we really want to see our surroundings as God does.

Third we need to take notice of the small and beautiful things. Awe can be triggered by an unexpected smile, a helping hand on the bus, graffiti on the wall. Giving ourselves permission to stop, notice and appreciate the inspiration of these things is a rare and precious gift. 

Fourth awe and wonder are enhanced when we seek out what gives us goosebumps. I recently walked around Beacon New York where my husband's family live. I have always enjoyed walking the streets but this time looked with fresh awe and wonder eyes. I love the murals – from the famous "man with no face" to the mermaid/Hudson River image, their beauty and the story they tell never ceases to inspire me. This year there were new ones that caught my attention and filled me with awe.

Fifth awe and wonder helps us see the world differently. It changes our perspectives of what is beautiful and what is worthy of notice. Walk around your neighborhood with a houseless person, with someone from another culture or with a child. They will notice things you never see and have perspectives very different from your own. They will open your eyes to marvel at aspects of your community that you take for granted.

I encourage you to take time this week to enter into the wonder not just of God's created world but also of the communities in which you live. Take your camera and a companion. What do you notice? What inspires you? Journal about your responses. Enjoy the re-wonderment of God's world.

Contemplative activist, passionate gardener, author, and liturgist, Christine Aroney-Sine loves messing with spiritual traditions and inspiring followers of Jesus to develop creative approaches to spirituality that intertwine the sacred through all of life.  She is the founder and facilitator for the popular contemplative blog GodSpaceLight.com.   Her most recent book is The Gift of Wonder: Creative Practices for Delighting in God. (IVP 2019)

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Earth as the Original Monastery ~ A Love Note from your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This spring I have completed the manuscript for my next book due out in spring 2020 tentatively titled Earth as the Original Monastery. I have been working with this image for several years now and have taught retreats both live and online to explore a deepened intimacy with the earth. To remember that earth is the primal teacher of prayer and sacrament is to cherish it as truly holy, as the truth of the incarnation. It is work that really calls to my heart more and more, especially in this time of our human journey on the planet.

During our Jubilee Year, one of my desires is to pray more with this image and see where it leads me. There are many possibilities, including the retreats we offer, the small grant program we have sometimes offered, as well as bigger dreams of perhaps purchasing small pieces of land in Ireland to plant trees and allow them to re-wild and nurture bio-diversity. It is exciting to ponder how the spirit might be calling us forward.

I wrote this article a few years ago but thought I'd offer it again, so you know the material I have been immersed in these last few months and will continue to be as I edit this manuscript for publication:

When I long to go on retreat, it is most often the sea or the forest which call to me. Everything in nature can become a catalyst for my deepened self-understanding. The forest asks me to embrace my truth once again. The hummingbird invites me to sip holy nectar, the egret to stretch out my wings, the sparrows to remember my flock.

Each pine cone contains an epiphany; each smooth stone offers a revelation. I watch and witness as the sun slowly makes its long arc across the sky and discover my own rising and falling. The moon will sing of quiet miracles, like those which reveal and conceal the world every day right before our eyes.

In our spiritual and religious traditions we categorize our experience in a variety of ways but often forget that the earth is the primary source of these categories.

The creatures and trees are spiritual teachers

Believe me as one who has experience, you will find much more among the woods then ever you will among books. Woods and stones will teach you what you can never hear from any master. —St. Bernard of Clairvaux

In ancient tradition, there were many holy men and women who were described as having a special relationship to animals often connected to embodied life.  St. Benedict, for example, befriended a crow who was later said to have saved his life from being poisoned.  It was said of St. Kevin that an otter would sometimes bring him salmon from the lake so he could eat.  St. Brigid had a cow that accompanied her and provided endless supplies of milk. These special connections and relationships to animals were once a sign of holiness.

There is a story about St. Ciaran, one of the early Irish monks in which he encounters a wild boar who was made tame by God. "That boar was St. Ciaran's first disciple or monk, as one might say, in that place. For straightway that boar, as the man of God watched, began with great vigour tearing down twigs and grass with his teeth to build him a little cell." After building him his cell, other animals came from their dens to accompany St. Ciaran, "(a)nd they obeyed the saint's word in all things, as if they had been his monks." I love this image of the animals as St. Ciaran's first monks, I love that they formed his original monastic community.

The elements are spiritual directors

How necessary it is for monks to work in the fields, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters. —Thomas Merton

The elements of water, wind, earth, and fire, offer us wisdom and guidance.  They are the original soul friends.  Air is the gift of breath we receive in each moment, the rhythm of life sustaining us. Fire is the gift of life force and energy and we might call to mind St. John of the Cross' image of the divine as the living flame of love which burns in each of our hearts.

Water is the gift of renewal and replenishment and we might call to mind the ritual of baptism as a call to claim our full gifts or the blood that flows through our veins. Earth is the gift of groundedness and nourishment and a reminder that we one day return to the earth. Bread and wine emerge from the earth. The act of eating is sacred and holy, sustaining our life and work in the world.

The mountains and flowers are the Saints

The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance. —Thomas Merton

The poet David Whyte has this beautiful line in one of his poems where he asks, "why are we the one terrible part of creation privileged to refuse our own flowering?"  As Merton describes, the animals and the elements live their fullness without holding back and in them we can discover what it truly means to become a saint.

They teach us how to live out our own sainthood by no longer refusing our true nature. We work so hard at rejecting our own holiness. How much we can be reminded by looking to nature of ways to yield to who we are most intimately called to be?

The seasons are our scripture text

This earth we are riding keeps trying to tell us something with its continuous scripture of leaves. —William Stafford

In the Celtic tradition it is said that there were two great books of revelation, the first being Nature and the other the scriptures. When we pay attention to the rhythm of the seasons we learn a great deal about the rise and fall of life, about emptiness and fullness.

Spring invites us to blossom forth, summer calls us to our own ripening, autumn demands that we release and let go, and winter quietly whispers to us to rest, to sink into the dark fertile space of unknowing, releasing the demands of productivity and calendars and to do lists and to simply be.

What grace we could offer our bodies by living according to these rhythms and in the winter seasons of the body fully allow the fallowness needed to restore to fruitful ground.

Forests are the original cathedrals and mosques

Groves of redwoods…are often compared to the naves of great cathedrals: the silence; the green, filtered, numinous light. A single banyan, each with its multitude of trunks, is like a temple or mosque—a living colonnade. But the metaphor should be the other way around.  The cathedrals and mosques emulate the trees. The trees are innately holy. —Colin Tudge, Secret Life of Trees

The cathedrals we build reflect the sacred spaces that trees have already been creating for thousands of years.  Next time you are in the forest, imagine this space as one of the primordial or original churches that has helped inspire the creation of thousands of other sanctuary spaces. Notice what arises in your body when you imagine being in the cathedral of trees, joining them in praise of beauty.

Liturgy arises from the original hymn of creation

In the opening pages of Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition, Orthodox theologian Jean-Yves Leloup describes a young philosopher who comes to Fr. Seraphim to learn about prayer of the heart.  Fr. Seraphim says that before he teaches him this way of prayer, he must learn to meditate like a mountain. He goes to learn stability of posture and grounding from the mountain, the weight of presence, and the experience of calmness and stability.  He enters into the timeless time of mountains and experienced eternity within and around him while also learning the grace of the seasons.

Next Fr. Seraphim sent him to learn how to meditate like a poppy taking his mountain wisdom with him.  From the poppy he learns to turn himself toward the light and to orient his meditation practice from his inner depths toward radiance. The poppy also teaches him the ability to bend with the wind and the finitude of our days as the blossom began to wither.

He is then sent to the ocean to learn the wisdom of ebbing and flowing. He learns to synchronize his breath with the "great breathing rhythm of the waves."

Fr. Seraphim finally has him learn to pray like a bird saying that the Prophet Isaiah describes meditation as the cry of an animal like a roaring lion or the song of a dove.  The bird was to teach him how to sing continuously, repeating the name of God in his heart without ceasing.

Each time you go for a walk, see if you can begin with a sense that you are stepping into a landscape that is animate and alive, that is participating in the great unfolding of a liturgy of praise. Then let your body join in with this ongoing hymn, know it as intimate with this already ongoing song.

All elements of creation participate in this primordial scripture, liturgy, sainthood, spiritual direction, and sanctuary spaces offering wisdom to us with each turn.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Enter to Win an Audiobook Version of The Soul's Slow Ripening

From June 2019 – June 2020 we will be taking a sabbatical in celebration of our Jubilee year. Everyone who signs up for Level 2-4 of our Jubilee program before June 24th will be entered to win a prize – two people will be selected in a random drawing to receive the audiobook version of The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred. Winners will be contacted the week of June 25th.

Monk in the World Guest Post: Beth Adoette

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Beth Adoette's reflection "Grace. Daily Grace."

I am not a fan of catchphrases. They make me cringe. “One Day at a Time” is one of those sayings that seemed to be written on every other card I received in the mail when I was going through a serious health issue years ago. “Just Breathe” is another one. Two words that can create in me more anxiety and hyperventilating than attempting to be still without them.

But I don’t dismiss these well-intended sayings. I understand there is wisdom in there somewhere. The challenge is transforming simple words in my mind into deep understanding in my spirit. For this, I need a translator. And for me, the translator is Nature. That never-ending, extravagant collection of wisdom and grace wrapped in, and often disguised as, beauty.

To grasp “One Day at a Time” during my health crisis, I used to imagine I was in the woods where I grew up, able to see only one part of the path from my feet to the big, moss covered rock that blocks the view of the rest of the path until you reach and circle around it. “Yes, I can do that,” I would say to myself. “I can travel that part of the path today.” For “Just Breathe,” I remind myself that I am connected to every living thing on earth through the collective breath. I close my eyes and imagine I am slowly breathing in and out with chickadees and ladybugs. I immediately calm down.

Lately, I have been wrestling with another phrase. “Living in the Moment.” A wonderful aspiration, but truth be told it terrifies me. It asks me to look squarely at what is happening right now. No more avoiding the present by looking toward the goal of that big, moss covered rock ahead. I must stand still. I must look at my feet. I am afraid. I need the powerful, yet gentle voice of nature to help me. So that is where I go.

Here in southeastern New England, there is a road that runs between the river and the ocean. At sea level, it is a low vulnerable place. The wind is often fierce. The fickle temperature changes cause the road to buckle. And because of its exposure to the elements, it is often in disrepair. At high tide, the water rises over the pavement, the ground shifts, and the edges begin to crack. It is the place where man-made and natural interact. A perfect place for contemplation. I go there often to walk along the edges.

Like the road, I am vulnerable. I am getting older. I have lived through stuff. There are cracks in my road. There are scars. There are things that may not change. There are questions that may never be answered. I am afraid to be still. It feels like the pause between breaths without chickadees and ladybugs . . . only longer. How can I be brave enough to look at the cracks? How can I be strong enough to face reality? The answer is in the tides.

What I have not yet mentioned about the little river road are the gifts that come in with the tide. As water is slowly pulled up over the road by the circling moon, it carries little pieces of reeds and grass. When the water recedes, beautiful chaos is left behind to settle in the cracks. Daily, the water washes over. Daily, it brings new gifts. Daily, it creates new designs. I realize I don’t walk along the road to see the cracks, I go to see what has settled in them and witness the cracks and grasses working together to create something beautiful.

But even more comforting than the beauty I find along the edges is the faithfulness of the tides.

You can do nothing to stop them. No matter what you do, or have done, the fact is the tide comes in everyday, brining new gifts to soften the unplanned gaps in the road. It is not something you have to ask for. It is already done. All you need to do is look. Eons ago when the Creator set the moon in place, the tides began to rise and fall and have not stopped since. Light and dark. High and low. Power and gentleness. Opposites. Balance. It is Grace. Daily Grace!

Here at the edge of the road where I sometimes feel vulnerable and alone, where I go to find feel God’s presence, the tides are my assurance. A tiny glimpse into the Great Mystery that holds the immense universe together in perfect balance, and a voice that also speaks to me, little me, helping me be brave enough to look at my feet on the pavement. As the moon circles and the tide rises, I am reassured that gifts in different forms will come to soften the cracks in my road.

To “Live in the Moment” is to be still, present, and witness the beauty of reality and grace working together to create beauty under my feet. That is Grace. Daily Grace.

Born in the Appalachian Mountains, Beth Adoette grew up with beech trees, hemlock, mountain streams, and chickadees in her hand.

A long time resident of southeastern New England, she now concentrates on writing, illustrating, and photographing what she calls the “Contemplative Sacred Circles” she co-creates with nature.

Beth holds a BFA in Fine Arts and certification in Eco-Art Therapy. She recently published her first illustrated book, A Year of Sacred Circles, Hearing Nature's Voice in Silent Conversations. Visit her online at BethAdoette.com

 

The Spirit of Jubilee: A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Fling wide the gates,

open the ancient doors,

and the Holy One will come in!

—Psalm 24

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

In preparation for our Jubilee year of sabbatical I have been reading Maria Harris’ book Jubilee Time: Celebrating Women, Spirit, and the Advent of Age. She begins with the image of Crossing the Threshold which has been a potent one for me for many years, perhaps because I have felt my life to be a whole series of thresholds summoning me to new mysteries and adventures. She draws from the biblical text which John explored for you in last week’s love note. Jubilee is a time of both letting go and deepening into freedom.

Approaching my 50thyear I feel grateful every morning for this life I lead, with a wonderful husband, in a beautiful landscape, with many collaborators, and meaningful work with open-hearted participants. I feel as though the year ahead offers me a chance to savor even more, to rest into spaciousness and discover what awaits me there. Maria Harris describes the 50thyear as an orientation time. She mentions the ancient practice of orienting churches along the east-west axis so that the altar faces the dawn and the time of new beginning. This is a time to begin again. She also includes the quote from Psalm 24 above in her text and I read in it an invitation to make space for the sacred to enter my life in new ways.

I enjoy getting older and the wisdom that life experience brings with it. I cherish the keen awareness I have of my limited days on earth and how I want to inhabit this time. The season ahead is an opportunity to realign myself with what makes my heart sing the loudest and to see where perhaps my energy no longer needs to be directed.

Maria Harris writes: “Saying no is a significant Jubilee moment. It symbolizes turning away from external demands on our time and acknowledging we have a right, even a duty, not to say yes to every request that comes our way.” I have long been a fan of the word no, of setting clear boundaries so my energy can thrive. But sometimes a pause is necessary to reevaluate, to see where there have been perhaps too many yeses.

Many of you might be familiar with the concept of peregrinatio which I have written about many times. This Celtic form of pilgrimage involves stepping into a boat without rudder or oar, and letting the currents of divine love on the wind and water carry them to the place of their resurrection. This year ahead feels in many ways like a practice of setting aside my own agenda as much as possible. I have been asked many times by folks what we’ll be doing during our sabbatical. And while there are some practical answers to that question – a book I am committed to write on Sacred Time, a couple of pilgrimage experiences that have called to our hearts – mostly I am hoping for time to just listen deeply to where the currents of my life are carrying me now. My planning mind wants to figure out what this time ahead will mean. My intuitive heart knows better to rest into the mystery of things and allow for holy surprises to emerge.

What plans might you release to let yourself be carried to the shores of your heart’s unfolding?

We would be really honored and delighted if you were able to support this time ahead in some way, especially to continue our website and email newsletters which cost a lot to maintain. Anything at all you can contribute is most welcome as well as your prayers and blessings!

Everyone who signs up for Level 2-4 of our Jubilee program before June 24th will be entered to win a prize – two people will be selected in a random drawing to receive the audiobook version of The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred. Winners will be contacted the week of June 25th.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Wisdom Council: Guest Post from Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission from one our newest Wisdom Council members. Read on for Michael Moore's "Reflections on the Contemplative Life."

What is Contemplative Life? When I first became aware of the term, I associated it with Monks and Nuns in Monasteries and Convents who lived in relative isolation from the outside world. To be honest, I didn’t really see how it could apply to me during my 21 years as a US Air Force Chaplain. That understanding began to turn during the last three years I was in the Air Force. I found myself going through a divorce and a crisis of faith. I was also becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Chaplain Corps and was trying to discern what was next. As I faced retirement and the next step (going back into the church as a pastor) I found myself spending time on the Gulf listening to the waves crashing ashore. During that time, living alone, I had plenty of time in the silence. However, at that point in my life, silence was threatening because in that silence I had to face myself and all my fears and failures. Over time and with healing, silence became less of a threat and more of a comfort to me. Photography slowly became a method of contemplation in this journey of life.

I received my first camera when I was twelve years old. It was a hand-me-down from my Mom. Over the years I took hundreds of pictures, but it was only to document the “where I have been and what we have seen” moments. As I faced the changes and challenges before me, I began to see photography as something more than just compiling pictures. This was an incredibly slow process for me as I allowed my perspective to change. It wasn’t until I took a course on Thomas Merton and sat with some of his pictures in the Chapel during worship that I began to see how the Contemplative life could be expressed in a way that was familiar to me. Thanks to Thomas Merton and our own dear Abbess Christine, photography is becoming a lens for receiving what God offers and an opportunity to simply Be Still.

Life rushes on for so many people today. My wife Denise and I love to go hiking in our backyard, the Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colorado. On the trails and roadways, we see so many people rushing by us to check some item off their list before scurrying off frantically to capture their next moment. Last Fall, we were intentionally hiking off the main trail and simply breathing in the atmosphere and stillness of the moment. As we walked, we were both taking pictures and simply receiving what God had for us in those moments. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted antlers in the brush. We were in the presence of a mature Bull Moose who was taking a siesta underneath a tree. From a safe distance we spent the next 45 minutes communing with our new friend. He knew we were there as we acknowledged him, but the calm of the moment invited the three of us to simply Be Still. As he rose to leave, he looked at us and stood still so we could receive some wonderful images with our cameras. If we had been rushing through the park as so many of our visitors do, we would have missed out on this sacred moment.

The idea of the contemplative life has been transformed from my initial thoughts years ago that I related at the beginning of this blog. That is part of the beauty of the invitation offered by Abbess Christine and the Abbey of the Arts community. Being invited to become Monks in the World is an invitation to slow down amid the frantic hurry and scurry of life today. It is an invitation to simply Be Still in the moment and breathe in what the Spirit is offering us. It is an opportunity to see and experience life in a different way.

After two funerals on a recent Friday and Saturday and worship and a meeting after worship, even though I was exhausted, Denise and I went into the Park with our cameras. Our godson and his girlfriend were visiting and so we wanted to help them enjoy Rocky. As cars whizzed by us, we drove slowly and intentionally until we received the gift of a moment with another Bull Elk who was busy resting and re-growing his antlers. We received, in that moment, a treasured gift. This is a lifelong learning process for me as it is for each one of us. In the midst of more Hospice visits and meetings at church, I need to remind myself again and again to slow down for a moment. In that moment, to take a sacred pause and simply Be Still. That, dear reader, is the gift of the contemplative living!

Michael Moore is a retired USAF Chaplain and pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who currently lives in Estes Park, Colorado with his wife and partner in life and ministry, Denise. His undergraduate degree is in Business Administration (University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire) and he earned his Master of Divinity degree from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (Saint Paul, MN). He served two small yoked Presbyterian Churches in rural Fergus Falls, MN for three years before going on Active Duty with the USAF for 21 years. Following his retirement, he served a church in Florida for four years before going to his current call in Estes Park in 2015. He has a Certificate in Christian Spiritual Formation from Columbia Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. A writer and photographer, you can find him blogging at ScotsIrishPadre.blog or at GodSpaceLight.com as a member of that community.

Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea and Stone: Participant Poems ~ Kathy Marsh

In April, 18 creative souls gathered with us for our retreat on Inismor – Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea and Stone. We had a wonderful group with participants from all over the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia. I am delighted to share some of their poems. Pour a cup of tea, imagine yourself on a windswept limestone island in the Atlantic, and savor for a while.

From Kathy Marsh

Morning Blessing

Lilting through the air,

The full-hearted song of bird

Weaves into the air,

Braiding into a joy

That touches the landscape and

Tapestries into

The crevassed walls;

The muted, mingled shades of earth;

The bright, unexpected blue, of flower.

The Spirit dances through the long grass,

Pausing to breathe into the stillness,

Then wooshes up in praiseful delight

Which sculptures the clouds

Where the birds weave, before

They alight to sing their paean of praise.

 

Do you like the smell of garlic?

The path winds into the sacred grove

Of dappled light, where sunlit shadows play.

The sun warmed air caresses and coaxes the

White starred accolytes

To release their scent in benediction,

Perfuming the air

Where bees lazily drone

And flies swarm the air.

Fallen tree sculptured by tactile moss,

And succoured life gently creeps

Into a lush carpet of shaded green,

Where the wild garlic bloom

Their star brightness across a green sky

Of verdant bloom.

 

Introspection

Like mirrored glass

The sheen of unruffled water lies,

Deep.

What stirrings of life

With their stories untold,

Deep

Beneath the pure glisten

Of reflective beauty

Lie?

What secrets and shapes

Coalescing into form?

Imagine,

The reflective surface

Turned to mirror down

Deep.

What glimpsed stirrings

Will I see?

 

Freefall

Eyes focused, instinct honed,

The raptor dives,

Arrow-piercing through the air

As it screams the wind down.

Talons locked on prized prey,

Then heaved away.

What if? …. …..

Talons unlock,

Prey unprized, falls away,

Weighting through the air.

The raptor now airborne ,

Wings lightened, flies free.

 

Reflections on Inismor

The journey unravels,

Revealing mystery of landscape,

Where feet have trod, have trod,

Traversing the flint-stone pathways,

Past the crevassed walls

That stone by stone were toiled,

And heaved from the bare-boned earth.

Now lichened and mossed.

Man’s imprint but a passing shadow

That fades into the flint-faced soil.

The walls of houses

Blank-eyed. The

Glint and spark of life, melded into

The dancing drifts of wind and air.

Hermit cells and altars

Lying open, in homage

To the immensity of sky,

Where the clouds gather

And the salt breezes blow.

And yet, and yet,

As I sit on the alcove seat

Of ruined church,

Hearing bird chatter interweaving

With gull’s strident call;

Sea’s distant murmuring

And churn of wave on rock.

I feel the pulse of life

As the storied lives

Of monk and hermit

Babble in my mind.

The stones beneath my feet,

Once moved by the tread of those,

Who trod, who trod.

My journey spools into a gathering yarn;

An ancient weaved pattern told by

Work-hardened hands,

That weave still the island’s stories;

Lived into shape and fireside gathered.

I hear now the island’s voice,

Which lives and dances into song.

For Kathy Marsh involvement in family and community life are important.   Kathy runs a local contemplative  group and  is also a Spiritual Director.   She has written a booklet, Writing Prayer Poetry: How to Deepen Your Prayer Life (published by Grove Books Ltd), as an encouragement to others who would like to creatively journey into prayer, and has just started co-running workshops based on 'Writing into Prayer'.

A Celebration of Poetry ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

I hope you have enjoyed the series of poetry videos we have produced in collaboration with Morgan Creative. One of our great joys here at the Abbey is bringing artists together whether through these videos, the albums we are creating, or the icon series we commissioned. When time and resources allow we hope to continue these video offerings. For now, I thought I’d share links to all eight of the poems in case you have missed any of them over the last few months:

How to Be a Pilgrim

Requiem for Myself

Take My Hand

Vespers

St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection

Connemara Illuminated

St. Teresa’s Ecstasy

Dreaming of Stones and poetry book trailer

Your can order your own copy of Dreaming of Stones.

One of the things that calls to me most strongly for our Jubilee year ahead is to have the time and space to write more poems. I am close to enough for a second collection on the theme of the wisdom of wild grace. These include a series of poems about the stories of saints and animals which I have been meditating on. You can read one of the poems in this series, St Melangell and the Hare, at Bearings online.

Poems for me always begin with the seeds of images in my journal. My favorite time to write is first thing in the morning, after I have fed Sourney and taken her out, I love to climb back in bed with her and a cup of tea or coffee. I often sit in silence for a while and then read a poem or two from another writer and practice a modified version of lectio divina with these texts, listening for a word or phrase that shimmers for me. I let that unfold in my imagination and the images that arise often form the seed of a poem I will write. It is very much a contemplative practice that for me requires a commitment to time and space. Writing poetry is very much an act of cultivating wonder for myself and hopefully for my reader as well. It is about seeing the world beneath the surface of things and offering it back through language.

How does poetry (whether reading or writing) inspire your own life and spiritual practice?

I have a few bonus things for you to read and listen to this week – two articles I have had published recently with U.S. Catholic magazine and a podcast at Spark My Muse:

8 Faces of Mary to Call On in Prayer

12 Celtic Spiritual Practice that Celebrate God in Our World

Celtic Practices and Poetry (Podcast)

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

Monk in the World Guest Post: D.G. Hollums

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for D.G. Hollums' reflection on carving space for the nourishing Sacred Heart.

I love.  I love passionately and deeply as a self proclaimed contemplative extrovert and neo-friar.  But I’ve also found that loving deeply and passionately also means hurting deeply and passionately sometimes.  Life has taken me on some very desolate and dark times.  Times that have rocked me to my core and have tried to rob me of that passionate love and joy, both of which are so distinctive to who I am.  Those who do not know my depths might think I am spontaneous or unpredictable, but in fact, I’ve discovered during these dark trying times that I’ve found peace and solace in rhythms.  For in these rhythms my soul has been renewed and has found peace.

Holy rhythms.

Morning prayer.  Singing vespers with my wife and young daughter before bedtime or praying my decade rosary on my commute each day.  These rhythms have ministered to my soul and provided a constant when little else has.  For many years now, the contemplative practice of Visio Divina (Divine Seeing) through contemplative photography has met a deep place in my soul. This was especially true when I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Anytime I needed to spend a deep intimate time with our favorite loving Trinity, I would go take my camera and prayerfully enter into the desert or mountains and listen with the eyes of my heart to the world around me (thanks to our online Abbess’s book, “Eye’s of the Heart”).

Each stage in my life has seemed to be another uphill challenge that has managed to find  new ways to drain me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  Any contemplative dancing monk should be the first to tell you that no matter how strong or passionate your desire is to live a life ‘above the fray’, life will always attempt to get in the way. Sadly, in my case, ‘life’ was represented by people who have hurt me to the core so many times I stopped being able to keep count.  And the deeper sadness for me, has been that many of these people have been ‘in the church’…the very place and people who should never be the bearers of that kind of pain.  That deep hurt and disappointment has taken my soul on several trips down the path of depression rather than the path of peace.

My family and I moved to Austin, TX to be able to circle around family facing their own physical ‘mountains’.  It was a wake up call to my heart as those favorite places of the desert and mountains were replaced by the Texas Hill Country which, of course, is beautiful in it’s own right.  But, my weary and dry soul was heartsick for the familiar holy places in the desert and mountain steams, where my heart seemed to still reside.

I felt lost and no amount of life rhythmic prayers was able to heal as I was desperately needing and craving. I was still searching for the way to find my place in the larger reign of God.  My contemplative photography was not the renewing spiritual practice that it had once been for me and I was simply depending on the rhythms of my life to slowly bring me back to the path of peace as they had done for me in the past.

One day, while thinking about a gift idea for my wife, God brought to mind some of my very first years in ministry in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  A master craftsman from the church I was appointed taught me some very basic and beautiful wood carving techniques that originated from the small town of Cordova, NM which is very close to the famous Sanctuario de Chimayo and it’s healing sand.

I decided upon a carving of a sacred heart for my first carving and gift. I realized that as I was carving, I found myself praying. With each small chip of wood falling off, there was a familiar rhythm in my carving and praying. As I slowly carved away the wood with my hand tools, the sacred heart slowly came into view. I also realized that when my carpal tunnel condition in my hands would cause them to go numb, it was God reminding me to pause…pray…and then begin again.  As the wood began to take form, I was deeply touching the heart of Christ and carving away the wood that was keeping this heart from being viewed by the world.

After a few weeks of my new found love of contemplative carving, I was divinely inspired and realized it was the touch of the sacred heart of Christ in my hands and fingers that was slowly becoming a new spiritual practice for me. All those years of Visio Divina (Divine Seeing) was being translated into Contingo Divina (Divine Touch). And again, I was renewed, remolded, and refreshed with a new way of allowing God to enter into the ‘life’ and breathe his peace into my dryness.

I invite you to try holding things that are precious to you in a way that invites Christ to hold you in those hands. Remember that you are caressed and held tenderly in the heart of Christ when you are doing the dishes, crocheting blankets for others, and working in the garden. Go on a hike and pick up rock, flower, or blade of grass and allow God to speak to you in your touch… reminding you of God’s presence and care of you. Go and experience Contingo Divina in your own lives and the power of touch.  Allow the very hands of God to hold you…mold you….and carve away the pinnings of this world that are keeping his divine image to be shown through you for the sake of the world.

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D.G. Hollums, is clergy in The United Methodist Church, born and raised in north west Texas and currently lives in Austin, TX. He is a geek, foodie, contemplative photographer, contemplative carver, daddy, husband, self-described "extroverted contemplative”, and considers every person he meets to be someone he can’t wait to get to know. He has been an associate pastor, lead pastor, church planter, director of online communications for the global United Methodist church, as well as worked for Tesla Inc. and Apple Inc.

D.G. is currently developing a new non-profit called The Order of the Trinity that would be a local and online community who promote a simple rule of life based around our 5 senses for a neo-friar-like people who love out their lives through art, creativity, and rhythms to make a difference in thier communities. If you are interested in supporting, helping or joining scroll to the bottom of the website and let us know, OrderOfTheTrinity.com