A visual meditation with images from my travels during the World Congress of Benedictine Oblates in October 2009. The photos were taken in the Vatican City, Rome, Subiaco (Benedict's Cave), Monte Cassino (Benedictine monastery), and Sant'Anselmo (Primatial Abbey). The music is by Hildegard of Bingen. © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative [...]
Posts in the Monastic Spirituality category
Retreat & Learning Opportunities
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A quick note to let you know that my Teaching Calendar has been updated with several upcoming retreat & workshop opportunities. A reminder to join Betsey Beckman and me for a wonderful Art & Movement retreat to Honor Our Ancestors over the weekend of Halloween, Samhain, and All Saint's. This will be a beautiful time [...]
Happy Feast of St. Hildegard
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Hildegard of Bingen was my doorway into the Benedictine life. While in graduate school I was studying for my "History of Christian Spirituality" comprehensive examination (a fearful and awesome task if there ever was one) and actually had a slight disdain for those ancient monks. My spirituality up until that point had been quite infused [...]
Monastic Wisdom
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A monastery can never be merely an escape from the world. Its very purpose is to enable us to face the problems of the world at their deepest level, that is to say, in relation to God and eternal life. Everything in the monastic life down to the deepest level has to be viewed from [...]
Breathing Space
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Those of you who follow the Abbey regularly know that this has been a very full summer for me, filled with good and wonderful opportunities. When I said yes to each of these I was aware that I was committing myself to a season of hard work. Being my monk-ish self, I value working hard [...]
Happy Feast of St. Benedict!
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Here are some of my favorite posts on monastic spirituality, sort of a "Best of Benedictine Spirituality" in honor of his Feast Day today: How to Be An Artist-Monk Radical Hospitality Rule of Life at the Abbey Standing in Place (on Stability) I Live My Life in Widening Circles (on the Hours [...]
How to Be an Artist-Monk
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Be. Here. This Moment Now is all there is, don’t go seeking another. Discover the sacred in your artist’s tools, they are the vessels of the altar of your own unfolding. Look at this cup of holy water, washing clean the brushes. See the blank page, awaiting your blessing. Gaze on the colors before you, [...]
Are you listening?
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Growing up in New York City, my favorite place was The Cloisters (a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with art from medieval European monasteries). I had fallen in love with the aesthetic dimension of monastic tradition long before I understood what that way of life really meant. The art, architecture, music, and illuminated manuscripts all [...]
Radical Hospitality
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This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. [S]he may [...]
