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A Different Kind of Fast – new book for Lent!

It might be early to think about Lent, but Christine’s new book A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent will be published by Broadleaf Books on Tuesday and we are celebrating by hosting a virtual book launch on Friday. This is a free event that will include some reflections from Christine, a guided meditation, and we are delighted wisdom council member Richard Bruxvoort Colligan will be there to share music with us too. It will also be recorded if you can’t join us live. Please join us for a soulful time of sacred listening. This is an adapted excerpt

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Andrea Potos

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Andrea Potos’ reflection and poems on the contemplative process of poetry. My contemplative practice begins at my writing table each morning.  Spiral notebook spread open and pen nearby, I don’t start writing immediately. I read a few poems of other writers that I love, or look at art books with images that compel and inspire me. Then I close my eyes, wait for a feeling of stillness that makes space for quiet to unfold and deepen. I may also make a

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Abbess love notes

Winter Solstice Wisdom and Offerings ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Of Price and Worth Let the ordinary be in your hand; hold it open and imagine a bird landing, offering all it possesses in trust to come to you. Learn to look for the little things that weigh nothing at all, but fill the heart with such light they can never be measured. -Kenneth Steven, Seeing the Light Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  We are delighted to be offering two programs this week to help you slow down and savor the gifts of this time of year as we wait for the tipping point of darkness to light in the

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Books

Christine Interviewed on Things Not Seen Podcast

Christine was interviewed on the Things Not Seen Podcast. In her recent book, The Love of Thousands, our guest Christine Valters Paintner invites us to consider that angels, saints, and even our departed ancestors support and inspire us throughout our lives, and invite us toward holiness. Listen to the episode We are Not Alone on Apple Podcasts. Join the upcoming companion retreat The Love of Thousands: Honoring Angels, Saints, and Ancestors which begins January 15th.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Berenice Chan

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post from the community. Read on for Berenice Chan’s refection and poem “Uncertainty.” I wrote this poem to use as a lectio passage with my follow-on group from the 2020 Abbey of the Arts course “Way of the monk, path of the artist”. The topic “uncertainty” came from a fascinating essay I heard on BBC Radio 3 by the entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker Dr Margaret Heffernan. She defined “uncertainty” as: the “not-knowing” if something is going to happen or not. She explained how artists need

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Abbess love notes

My Heart Feels Lean ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  On Friday, December 15th we are pleased to welcome Wisdom Council member and long-time forum facilitator Melissa Layer to lead us in the mini-retreat My Heart Feels Lean: Behold the Darkness, Cradle the Light. This will be a sanctuary space to be met with tenderness in these days of Advent and holy gestation. Read on for Melissa’s reflection on the grace of conscious grieving. December dusk falls early in Port Townsend on the wild Olympic Peninsula in Washington, where I live.  This liminal time calls me to wander in forest and field and on beaches where powerful king

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Mark Raphael

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mark Raphael’s reflection “Lessons from an Ischemic Stroke: Achieving a Newfound Asceticism and Conversatio.” Stroke. The dreaded word that no 40-year old or their family wants to hear. On February 15, 2022 (the day after Valentine’s Day), I was admitted to the Emergency Room at a local area hospital here in Southern California near the college town of Claremont. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I did not have a female valentine on February 14th. My speech was slurred for

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Abbess love notes

Give Me a Word Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to the divine and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered. Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Janeen R. Adil

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Janeen Adil’s reflection and poem about liminality. Thresholds and doorways make for evocative images; as a monk in the world, I am drawn to a spiritual contemplation of this between space. When we lean into mystery/Mystery, we can see liminal time as a place open to rich and fruitful potential. Rather than stopping in an uneasy pause, we can instead rest on the threshold, regarding the time here (however long or short) as holy, as one of blessing. For a Liminal

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Abbess love notes

Preparing for Advent + Prayer Cycle Day 7

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,  Today we share the final two audio podcasts of our 7-day prayer cycle on the theme of The Love of Thousands. The theme for morning is on ancestral earth and deep time, honoring that our ancestors are not just our human kin, but the mountains whose minerals form our bones and the seas that swim in our blood. We are connected to all of life. The evening theme is the love of thousands, bringing the whole journey through honoring angels, saints, and ancestors together.  Advent begins in a week! Every year before Christmas since 2008 we have

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