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Category: Lectio Divina

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Join us for an online retreat this Lent ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists, I am delighted that John Valters Paintner will be taking the lead on our Lenten retreat online. He has a great love for the scriptures, and taught them at the high school level for many years. The upcoming retreat is the fruit of years of his reflection on exploring some overarching themes in the Bible. What follows is an overview of what the retreat will cover and the rich questions you will be invited to explore: Week 1: Introduction The Bible is not a single, declarative statement of fact. It is a series of competing voices

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Invitation to Poetry: Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

Welcome to our Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there. Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

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Invitation to Community Lectio Divina: Kinship with Creation – How might you nourish an Earth-cherishing consciousness?

With March we offer a new invitation for contemplation. Our focus for this month is Kinship with Creation. We are continuing our monthly exploration of each theme of the Monk Manifesto. Our focus for this month is Kinship with Creation — How might you nourish an Earth-cherishing consciousness? The fourth principle reads: I commit to cultivating awareness of my kinship with creation and a healthy asceticism by discerning my use of energy and things, letting go of what does not help nature to flourish. We invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from Psalm 104 (see below). How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be

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Invitation to Lectio Divina: Community – Who is your tribe?

With February we offer a new invitation for contemplation. We are continuing our monthly exploration of each theme of the Monk Manifesto. Our focus for this month is Community – Who is your tribe? The third principle reads: I commit to cultivating community by finding kindred spirits along the path, soul friends with whom I can share my deepest longings, and mentors who can offer guidance and wisdom for the journey. We invite you into a lectio divina practice below with some words from Thomas Merton. January 31st was his 100th birthday, so there are lots of celebrations honoring his legacy, and certainly for monks

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Community Contemplation & Creativity
(Fall Schedule)

For several years now the Abbey has offered a regular Poetry Party and last year we added in the Photo Parties. These have been invitations into your own creative expression through a particular theme and then sharing it with your fellow monks. We took a break from them over the summer but are excited to be bringing them back now. This autumn we are adding on two new features: Community Lectio Divina: Each month I will be posting a scripture passage or poem (and eventually some art and music) which you will be invited to pray with using the ancient

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New Review of Lectio Divina — The Transforming Art

As with The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom, reviewed on StoryCircleBookReviews, I savoured Christine Valters Paintner’s Lectio Divina as my morning reading practice. Lectio divina essentially means “divine reading” of sacred texts, during which we “enter into an encounter with God.” While the ancient practice has its roots in Judaism, Valters Paintner refers to the scriptures of different religious traditions, including Hebrew, Christian and the Qur’an, throughout the book. There are many passages from which to choose for your own practice. Paintner invites an exploration of lectio divina in Part One of the book. “Listen with

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Featured Review of Lectio Divina at Englewood Review of Books

Chris Smith at the Englewood Review of Books has featured Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words & Images into Heart-Centered Prayer this month!  I am very honored by his review, here is an excerpt: What distinguishes Paintner’s work from a host of other recent books on lectio divina is its focus on beauty.  Paintner is an artist and has reflected at length on the role of the arts in spiritual formation (for instance in her book Awakening the Creative Spirit, co-written with Betsey Beckman, which we reviewed here).  Part of what is lost in the ever-increasing pace of Western culture,

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