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Praying with the Elements
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What is Blossoming Within You?
Season by the Sea: A Contemporary Book of Hours
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(does not apply to Crossing [...]
Posted in Fun, zine journal | 2 Comments »
** The Abbey Blog will be on a break the next few days until the Feast of Epiphany on January 4th — look for a new reflection then **
** Our next Poetry Party will return on Monday, January 5th and the Sacred Artist Interviews will be back that week as well **
In the meantime visit my [...]
Posted in Art, Creativity, & Spirituality Retreat, Fun | 4 Comments »
** A Most Blessed Christmas to all my dear readers **
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts (all photos taken this week in downtown Seattle)
Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | 6 Comments »
This song has been speaking to me in beautiful ways during the Advent season. I offer it to you as a gift for Christmas on this most holy night. Return in the morning for more images!
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In the center of ourselves
you place the power
of choosing.
Forgive us the times
we have given that power away,
when we have sold
our birthright
for that which
does not
satisfy.
And so
in your wisdom
may our yes
be truly yes
and our no
be truly no,
that we may
touch with dignity
and love with integrity
and know the freedom
of our own choosing
all our days.
-Jan Richardson, from Night Visions: Searching the [...]
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If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you’re causing terrible damage.
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,
you’re helping people you don’t know
and have never seen.
Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,
if you know, if you’ve known it
from before the beginning of the universe.
-Rumi
** For the season of Advent I am posting a reflection each [...]
Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | 5 Comments »
The Road
Here is the road: the light
comes and goes then returns again.
Be gentle with your fellow travelers
as they move through the world of stone and stars
whirling with you yet every one alone.
The road waits.
Do not ask questions but when it invites you
to dance at daybreak, say yes.
Each step is the journey; a single note the [...]
Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | 3 Comments »
Winter Solstice
(Two Poems by Rebecca Parker)
Perhaps
for a moment…
the wheels stop rolling,
the computers desist from computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant, in the stillness,
the chiming of celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised
in the crystalline darkness, and then
tilts.
Let there be a season
when holiness is heard, and
the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned [...]
Posted in Visual Meditation | 8 Comments »
May it be done to me according to your word. -Luke 1:38
Consent
There was the minute no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting.
She did not cry,”I cannot, I am not worthy,”
nor, “I have not the strength.”
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the [...]
Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | 6 Comments »
O night of admiration, full of choirs,
O night of deepest praise,
And darkness full of sweet delight!
-Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours
** For the season of Advent I am posting a reflection each Sunday on a theme from the lectionary readings and then during the week offering a poem each day to highlight that theme — [...]
Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | Comments Off
