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 Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

Join me for a transformative journey through the ancient contemplative practices of lectio divina, centering prayer, and praying the hours.  This Lenten season, create a supported retreat for yourself.  Click the image below for more details.

I have taught several different versions of this Benedictine spirituality course with enthusiastic reviews – I just completed an online version through the Episcopal seminary in Berkeley and many of you have been asking when it would be offered again and were disappointed when the Online Learning Classes filled so quickly for the Winter Session.  Here is an opportunity to dive deep during Lent.

You are welcome to register as an INDIVIDUAL participant – but I am also excited to be able to support you if you'd like to create your own Lenten journey GROUP.  Sign up 4 or more participants at once and you will receive a discount and a FREE BONUS PDF Small Group Guide to Journeying Together through Lent.

See below for a special ADDED BONUS for the first 25 participants to register!

LENTEN E-COURSE: BENEDICTINE SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

(Click link for lots more details!)

February 17-April 3, 2010

BRIEF DESCRIPTION: (Longer description on the course page)

Make a Lenten commitment to cultivate the contemplative practices of lectio divina, centering prayer, and praying the hours. This online Lenten E-Course is a retreat experience in daily life.  Through weekly lessons, guided meditation podcasts, and daily emails you will be supported in the integration of these ancient Christian ways of praying and being in the world.

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PROGRAM COST:

*$95 for the whole program* which includes 6 Weekly Lessons, 3 Guided Meditation Podcasts, Daily Email with Scripture Suggestions and Support, and a signed copy of Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness and a copy of Season by the Sea: A Contemporary Book of Hours sent to you by Priority Mail (these two books plus shipping are a $34 value)

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GROUP DISCOUNT & *FREE BONUS*:

Register 4 or more participants at the same time for a discounted fee of $75 each and also receive a FREE BONUS PDF Small Group Guide to Journeying Together through Lent. This 15-page Guide offers weekly outlines for a gathering of support and prayer through these practices.  Consider joining together with fellow seekers and community members to support each other in contemplative life and practice. (Go to Course Page for Group Discount Payment Buttons)

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*SPECIAL BONUS for the FIRST 25 PARTICIPANTS*

Be one of the first 25 people to sign up and I will include a free copy of Callings: Becoming Who You Already Are as your bonus for early registration in addition to the course materials (this title sold out and is no longer available for purchase at the Abbey Shop but I just found a small stack of extra copies).

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© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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 of welcoming in the dark half of the year and the wisdom of our ancestors who beat within our very blood.  Through ritual, storytelling, art-making, gentle movement, poetry, and being in nature, we will deepen our awareness of the gifts of those who have walked before us. We will gather on the beautiful Hood Canal here in Washington State to dive deep into the mysteries together.

Are you interested in learning more about Benedictine Spiritual Practices such as lectio divina, centering prayer, and praying the hours?  Sign up for a 7-week online course through the Episcopal Seminary in Berkeley and make a commitment to regular practice.  Together we will form a learning community online for discussion of readings and our experience – so you can join us from wherever you are – and move into these rich, contemplative ways of being in a world of doing.  The class begins October 26th and ends December 20th.  Each week I post a lesson and discussion questions and then engage in conversation with you on the web.

Feel free to email me at Christine@AbbeyoftheArts.com with any questions – I am traveling right now but will respond to emails within a couple of days.  You can register for Honoring Our Ancestors right here at the Abbey and for the Benedictine online course, please visit the CDSP website.

(photo above taken on the Hood Canal)

Of course, I hadn't yet seen how my own life and spiritual practice up until that point had actually been thoroughly monastic already with my love of silence, my longing for sacred rhythms, my love of books and art, my ability to see God pulsing in all of Creation.  Art and Nature had been my two primary places of revelation for most of my life.  Then I began reading Hildegard.  I had to read her for those exams I mentioned, but I was captivated by her because of the sheer brilliance and expansiveness of her life.  Here was a 12th century woman who was a visionary, musician, artist, spiritual director, Abbess, writer, herbalist, and more.  She challenged the hierarchy of the church of her day, telling them if God had to send a woman to deliver his message things must have gotten really bad.  My feminist heart cringed, but I could see the rhetorical device between the lines and the way she was able to shame those in power using their own stereotypes and limited vision against them.  I don't believe for a minute Hildegard thought she was any less capable because she was a woman.  Her letters demonstrate all the fierce ways she fought passionately for the things she believed in.

What I grew to love about her was her complexity.  Certainly I felt a kinship to her because of her love of the arts – she believed that singing chant was the most important practice of her community – and her ability to see God in nature – she coined the term "viriditas," which means the greening power of God, and engaged the image of nature's vitality and greenness as a symbol for the soul's own vigor.  The soul which allows God to infuse it is verdant, moist, alive. 

I also loved that while I identified fully with her vision of art and creation as essential sources of revelation of the Divine Nature, I found myself challenged by her apocalyptic mindset.  She believed in the end times and the fiery wrath of God.  She had powerful visions which showed what was to come.  She lived in a very different age when elements of her theology made me entirely uncomfortable. And I grew to love that she was complex enough for me to discover in her a kindred spirit and a strange bedfellow all at once.

The more I studied her, the more I wanted to know about this Benedictine tradition she was so steeped in.  I consider her in many ways the patron saint of my journey toward becoming an Oblate.  And her complexity which makes me wrestle with the things I both love and hate about theology continues to inspire me in my spiritual practice.  For me, one of the hallmarks of the Benedictine journey is in what I call "radical hospitality" – the welcoming in of all that is uncomfortable (especially within ourselves) as a primary place of God's revelation.

As Ashley Makar asks in her article about Hildegard (worth a read): "What if we were to stay on the cusps of serious choices, on the slashes that separate the either/ors of life? What if we were to abide between as and if?"

Happy Feast of St. Hildegard.  May you find yourself today embracing the complexity of the world rather than seeking simple answers.  May you discover holiness beating within the strange, the uncomfortable, the challenging.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCED for Hildegard of Bingen:

Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life (a good basic overview of her life)

Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World (my favorite of the three – a collection of essays by different authors on Hildegard's many roles in life as artist, healer, etc.)

Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (a wonderful translation of Hildegard's poetic lyrics)

If you're interested in reading one of the articles I published from my graduate research on Hildegard, you can find it here (on the connection between art and virtue)

© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

END OF SUMMER SALE at the Abbey Shop on ALL Reflective Art Journals!

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The real monastic walks through life with a barefooted soul, alert, aware, grateful, and only partially at home. 
-Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today

There is certainly still more work for me ahead, but I have reached a point where I can really begin to rest more deeply and savor what has already been done.  I am discovering that when I go-go-go for so many weeks at a time, it becomes more challenging to move into a slower pace.  My mind bristles a bit at first, asking, "so when will we be getting back to work?" and "think of all you could be getting done right now!"  But thankfully I have continued to practice contemplative presence in the midst of the fullness and my soul quickly and eagerly released into the space I was creating for myself.

What does an urban artist-monk do when she enters into Sabbath after far too long without?  She goes for long walks with her beloved, even getting slightly lost enough in the woods to discover the wildness in her soul again.  She lingers over a nourishing meal tasting each morsel and sip.  She takes long naps with her sweet hound curled up against her body, knowing that she can sleep as long as her body needs.  She embraces her beloved with abandon, remembering what it is like to make love with leisure and not just in the tired spaces at the end of the day.  She goes to the farmer's market and savors the smell of summer abundance overflowing the stalls, filling her baskets with sweet peaches, succulent berries, savory greens, golden-fleshed potatoes, and a bunch of bright sunflowers and dahlias to brighten her home.  She curls up in her favorite chair and reads an entire book from cover to cover and allows the words to work the soil of her soul.  She pulls out her journal and writes for hours about the new things moving within her, giving them room to spread their wings across the page.  She spreads out paper and paint, preparing to bless the surface with an array of color for the pure pleasure of it, allowing her intuitition to guide her. She remembers quickly what it is that breathes life back into her body and spirit and she vows to not let her life get so full again anytime soon.

Summer days are beginning to wane.  I now see the end of my husband's time off from teaching in sight and soon I'll be back at my other work too, the days are getting slowly shorter and cooler.  Soon I will be immersed in the rhythm of the year as it unfolds season by season. So I am called to be here, to dwell in this moment.  To breathe fully, to feel the gift of now.

What have you been doing in quiet moments this summer?  What glimpses of the holy have risen up from your breathing spaces?  How do you long to reconnect with your most sacred self?

© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

END OF SUMMER SALE at the Abbey Shop on ALL Reflective Art Journals!

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Telling the Truth (on Humility)

** SPECIAL OFFERS FOR FEAST of ST BENEDICT (until July 31st) **

© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

It wasn't until graduate school that I really did begin to understand and fall further in love.  Hildegard of Bingen was my entrypoint.  Always having had a love of art and spirituality, I wanted to know more about this incredible woman who was artist, visionary, poet, composer of music, writer, as well as preacher, healer, and Abbess of her community.  In longing to learn more about her, I had to begin a more intensive study of the Benedictine tradition in which she was immersed. 

It was around this time when I also discovered the practice of lectio divina.  In lectio, I found an incredibly beautiful way to move my prayer deeper and deeper and began intuitively using it in my classes and retreats, as a way to pray with both scripture as well as art, music, poetry, dreams, nature, and life experience. 

When I moved up to Seattle six years ago, I knew I wanted to make my commitment as an Oblate to a Benedictine community.  When I found out there was a women's community about an hour away — St. Placid Priory — I knew I had found my spiritual home.  Sister Lucy Wynkoop is the director of Oblates and the Spirituality Center and she welcomed me in and put me to work right away leading retreats.  We became friends quickly and when she asked if I wanted to write a book about lectio divina together with her for Paulist Press, I jumped at the opportunity.  The chapter I love the most is the one on using lectio to pray with art and art to respond to lectio.

It is my incredible privilege to do the work I do, work that I love and believe in with every fiber of my being.   This summer I will be leading a retreat for Palisades (the beautiful Archdiocesan retreat center) on Creative Expression and Contemplative Practice (July 12-14, click for brochure) where we will be exploring the rhythms of lectio divina and art-making together.  I would love to have you come join us!

For an initial taste of using lectio divina to pray with the arts, visit Patheos where I have a new article on Audio Divina (praying with music).  Select a piece of music that is meaningful to you and try the process out for yourself.

This summer I am also teaching a class on Contemporary Expressions of Benedictine Spirituality for the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University (July 27-31).  It is a one-week intensive and the format will allow us to experience some of the monastic rhythms of prayer as a central part of our class.  And in the fall I am offering an online class through CDSP (the Episcopal Seminary of Berkeley) on Benedictine Spiritual Practices: Contemplative Ways of Being in the World (October 26-December 20). 

So consider getting yourself a copy of Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness (you can order through Amazon, if you use the link it helps to further support the work of the Abbey, or you can order a signed copy directly through me).

In October I will be traveling to Rome for the World Oblate Congress, gathering together with Oblates from around the world to discuss "The Religious Challenges of Today — The Benedictine Answer."  The practices of monastic tradition shape the way I move through and experience the world around me in profound ways. They offer me the invitation of complete presence and a profound listening to the way the holy pulses through each moment.  To be able to share this with others is a gift beyond measure. 

Summary of Benedictine Resources:

• Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness (the book!)
• Article on Audio Divina at Patheos (praying with music)
• Creative Expression and Contemplative Practice (Retreat July 12-14)
• Contemporary Expressions of Benedictine Spirituality (Class July 27-31)
• Benedictine Spiritual Practices: Contemplative Ways of Being in the World (Online Class Oct 26-Dec 20)

(All photos taken by Christine at the Cloisters at her last visit in March 2008)

© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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-Rumi

I am very grateful for the many thoughtful comments and emails I received in response to my post from Monday on Wonder and Despair.  If you haven't read all of the comments I encourage you to do so.

The poem above by Rumi has been one of those core life poems for me for several years — a poem that speaks to me so beautifully and simply about what I believe to be one of life's central and most difficult tasks. 

Over time, as I lived into the poem's imagery, I began to discover a connection to the Benedictine concept of hospitality that plays a central role in my spiritual life and practice.  St. Benedict wrote in his Rule: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for him himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”  The core of his idea was that everyone who comes to the door of the monastery, and by extension the door to our lives—the poor, the traveler, the curious, those of a different religion, social class, or education — should be welcomed in, not just as an honored guest, but as a window onto the sacred presence.  For Benedict, our encounter with the stranger, the unknown, the unexpected, the foreign elements that spark our fear, are precisely the places where we are most likely to encounter God.

I began to see how we could apply this kind of hospitality to our very selves, to all of the elements about us that we fear and reject — the painful and dark feelings, our shadow side, the things we do and long for we don't want anyone to know about.  I began to see this as a kind of radical hospitality of the soul.  The word radical comes from the Latin word radix meaning root.  Radical hospitality might be seen as hospitality that proceeds from the very core or root of who we are, an invitation to extend a welcome to the stranger that dwells inside of you.  We are made up of multiple inner characters and voices and some of them get invited to our inner table, while others are standing out in the rain waiting to be let in to feast and share their wisdom with us.

Rumi's poem commands us to make space for the whole range of guests who might arrive – the feelings we experience that we push back, resist, numb ourselves to – which might come bearing gifts. 

How do you welcome in the range of your feelings without being swept away by them?  One way to do this is by cultivating an inner witness. Meditation practice can nurture our ability to sit and observe the rise and fall of our inner lives without resisting or seizing any particular moment.  When we offer ourselves the space to simply be with whatever is happening inside, without judgement, we begin to see that each of those feelings passes with time.  The inner witness is that part of ourselves – described in different ways by many traditions — that can be fully present without anxiety, that can offer radical hospitality to whatever knocks at our inner door.

We are called to be a witness to each other as well – to be fully present to the sorrow and despair of another without rushing to console or offer hope to circumvent our own discomfort.  It is because I have treasured friends and other support in my life who provide a safe container for me to explore the depths of my experience, that I am able to walk into the feelings of despair when they come, rather than run the other way.  It is because I make a regular practice of nurturing the ability of my inner witness to be present to the guests arriving at my inner door welcoming them in.  When the difficult feelings arrive, I breathe deeply and make space so I can listen to what messages they have to offer me rather than resist and leave them banging on the door. Some days this is easier than others, some days I still want to pile the furniture to prevent their entry. But as Rumi said so wisely 800 years ago, treat each guest honorably as a guide much wiser than myself. In that act of hospitality I will walk in solidarity with those who are shrouded in pain. I will come to know how essential kindness is. I will discover moments of wonder. I will come face to face with a different kind of hope, one that rises like heat from wrestling bodies.

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

(photo of door handle taken in Ireland last summer)