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Dancing Monk Feast Days – New Book from Abbey of the Arts!

It is finally here! We have created a book for the 52 dancing monk icons created by Marcy Hall for our community. Each icon has a short summary of their life, followed by a creative invitation and beautiful prayer (these were written by Melinda Emily Thomas, Christine and John Valters Paintner wrote the summaries). Immerse yourself in a vibrant journey of faith and creativity in this essential resource from Abbey of the Arts. Featuring 52 colorful, playful icons of saints and mystics, each icon offers reflections, creative invitations, and prayers that explore the depth of contemplative living. Organized around the

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Michael Moore’s reflection on sanctuary and safe spaces. When I first became acquainted with the Abbey and Christine’s writing; I was a newly retired Air Force Chaplain living in the Florida Panhandle and making my way back into parish ministry after 21 years of active-duty military ministry. When Denise and I were looking for a house one of the important ingredients we wanted in our home was a sense of sanctuary. We found that

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Abbess love notes

The Wisdom of the Body ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This month The Wisdom of the Body: 10-week online companion retreat to the book is our featured self-study. We have updated all the video content to now have closed captioning and transcripts for accessibility.  This is an excerpt from the book: How do I welcome in all that is most nourishing and fruitful into my body and soul? What are the habits and beliefs which rob me of this fertile moistness in my body and soul? There is a story from the desert fathers where an Abba says to a seeker, “Do not give your

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Christina Lelache

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Christina Lelache’s visual art reflection on creating your own prayer book. In her book, In the Sanctuary of Women, Jan Richardson tells about the discovery of prayer books that belonged to a convent of Cistercian sisters. Handcrafted by the nuns, each book was distinctive to the woman who had used it, each prayer and page reflecting her spiritual journey as she sought God in the layers of her life. Creating the books offered the sisters a way to

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Abbess love notes

An Easter Gift for You: Midday Prayers for Peace and Justice ~ A Love Note from Your Online abbess

Easter Blessing*God of Rising,you bring new lifeto all the places death inhabits.Bless our own dying dreamswith your breath of new life.Make our dry bones dance,inspire us to sing,revive our bodiesso that we might becomemore vibrant, hopeful witnessesto the persistence of your love.We call on Christ’s wisdomto bless and sustain usin the practice of resurrectionby which we honor our bodiesand become agents of generous abundance.May all the nets we draw upfrom the water be overflowing with fish,may our wounds be still visibleas a sign of healing grace,and may we encounter your presencewhen we sit at table with strangers.Let our lives be

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Shirin McArthur

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Shirin McArthur’s reflection on liturgical dance and Embodied Prayer. Words are my stock in trade. They are a necessary and integral part of how I make my living as a writer and editor. But sometimes, I intentionally don’t use words. I created Embodied Prayer, which is worship with movement instead of words, as an intentional counterbalance to my world of words.  I first encountered movement prayer in the church of my youth. In the 1970s, St. Andrew Presbyterian

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Abbess love notes

Journeying with Story ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Friday, April 3rd, we are delighted to welcome award winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker Kaitlin Curtice to lead us in a retreat on journeying with story. Following the life cycle of a story, Kaitlin will guide us through how powerful stories become in the world and how we interact with and reclaim stories for love and kinship. She offers this excerpt from her book Everything Is a Story. Birth is the beginning of life, of everything that we know and understand as humans, so it makes sense that as we begin to imagine what a story

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Jessica Barrett

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jessica Barrett ‘s reflection “How I Bring Contemplative Presence to My Life and Family.” I didn’t used to be this slow. I used to rush through my mornings with a to-do list etched in my mind like scripture—feeding the baby with one hand while replying to emails with the other, brushing my teeth while bouncing a toddler on my hip, guiltily skipping breakfast in favor of coffee and deadlines. There was a time when productivity felt like a

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Abbess love notes

Sacred Time ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Our featured self-study retreat this month is Sacred Time, the companion retreat to my book of the same title.  Here is an excerpt from the introduction to the book: We live in a breathless world. Everything around us seems to move at faster and faster speeds, summoning us to keep up. We multitask, we organize, we simplify, we do all we can to keep on top of the many demands on our time. We yearn for a day with more hours in it so we can complete all we long to do. We often talk about

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New Interview with Christine Valters Paintner

Christine was featured in an interview with AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast on the intersection of creativity and monastic spirituality. In addition to being a Benedictine Oblate, Christine is Jesuit educated, with degrees from Fordham and Santa Clara Universities, and has written a library of books including The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom. Listen to their conversation on Why Your Inner Artist Needs Monastic Wisdom.

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