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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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March 1, 2015

Monk in the World guest post: Dianne Jones

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Dianne Jones’ wisdom on living as a monk in the world: Stop Breathe Believe – A Beginning to a New Way of Being Several years ago I began PrairieFire, a three-year program of spiritual formation, to learn to walk alongside others in the process of slowing down and discovering the heart of their spirituality.  My classmates and I often called ourselves the Monkettes.  We learned together, we cried together, we dared greatly together, we shared deeply with one another, we listened

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February 26, 2015

Invitation to Dance: Community – Who is your tribe?

We continue our theme this month of “Community — Who is your tribe?” which arose from our Community Lectio Divina practice with the story from the Third Principle of the Monk Manifesto and continued with this month’s Photo Party and Poetry Party. I invite you into a movement practice.  Allow yourself just 5 minutes this day to pause and listen and savor what arises. Begin with a full minute of slow and deep breathing.  Let your breath bring your awareness down into your body.  When thoughts come up, just let them go and return to your breath. Hold this question of “Who is my tribe?” as the gentlest of intentions, planting

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February 22, 2015

Monk in the World guest post: Lance Baker

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Lance Baker’s reflections about cultivation as a metaphor for our spiritual life and practice: A Life of Cultivation A certain form of existential paralysis has shadowed my inner life in the past. I’ve had so many questions, dreams, longings, and have been exposed to a range of paradigm-shifting experiences in a relatively short period of time. As a result, I spent a number of years paralyzed by indecision and lacked discernment on how to operate the world with meaning, purpose, and

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February 19, 2015

Letting Go During Lent: Seeing Death as our Friend

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) This is my latest Sacred Seasons column on Patheos, click here to read it there and please share! Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today we enter the long desert of the Lenten season. If you participate in a liturgical service, most likely you will be marked with the sign of ashes and the words “from dust you came and to dust you shall return” will echo through the sanctuary space again and again. St. Benedict writes in his Rule to “keep death daily before

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February 18, 2015

Earth Monastery Project: Hospitality Grounds Community Garden

Abbey of the Arts sponsors a small grant program called the Earth Monastery Project. We began the program in 2014 and so far we have funded six wonderful projects which nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness in our world. It is exciting to us to see the creativity at work in the world and how dancing monks are offering their gifts on behalf of the earth. Our second round of grants have just completed their cycle so for the next three weeks we are featuring each of their final reports to share with you and inspire you to creative action in your own

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February 17, 2015

Invitation to Poetry: Community – Who is your tribe?

Welcome to Poetry Party #85! 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). We

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February 15, 2015

Body-Words of Love

Several years ago, before moving to Ireland, I completed a training to teach yoga. I began the program because I had practiced yoga for many years and longed to dive more deeply into it. I expected to fall in love with my own body even more in the process; what I didn’t expect was how much I would fall in love with other people’s bodies as well. As I walked around the studio and students are in their various poses I see the incredible variety in body types, shapes, sizes, flexibility, and bone structure. My training involves hands-on adjustments, which are less about

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February 13, 2015

Monk in the World guest post: Kate Kennington Steer

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kate Kennington Steer’s wisdom on living as a monk in the world through illness: powerlessness and infinite possibility What if we knew that within our very cells is a God-given energy, a source of light that possesses the secret of God’s beautiful and complex design? (Paula D’Arcy) In 2008, when I was experiencing acute depression, I was sitting in a group therapy session attempting to describe how I felt. Getting to these sessions early in the morning was a huge trial

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February 12, 2015

Love and Hospitality (a love note from your online Abbess)

Dearest dancing monks, A few days ago I received an email from a woman who is writing her dissertation and asked me to respond to the question: “If you had to choose one spiritual practice that is a non-negotiable for spiritual growth in the 21st century, what would it be and why?” My answer was supposed to be short and succinct. Here was my reply: “I would choose hospitality, both inner and outer, because I believe the welcoming in all of the exiled pieces of ourselves to be essential for the healing of the world.” Of course, it is one

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February 11, 2015