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Community Visio Divina: Hospitality – What will you welcome in?

Happy New Year!  With January we offer a new invitation for contemplation. Starting in December we returned to a monthly focus on our Monk Manifesto themes. Our focus for this month is on the second principle of hospitality: I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others. The new year brings a sense of renewed hope and beginning again. What will you welcome into your lifes in the

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January 4, 2015

New Year & Epiphany Blessings + *Join us for our online retreat!* (love note from your online Abbess)

New Year blessings dearest dancing monks, I am not a big fan of resolutions because they mostly involve buying things for self-improvement. What if this year wasn’t about “improving” yourself, but deepening into your own heart of longing and releasing all that gets in the way of that journey. I have been praying with the gospel text for the Feast of Epiphany on Sunday in preparation for our upcoming online retreat. (In some churches it is celebrated Sunday, in others on January 6th). I have been struck by what a powerful invitation it offers to us as we enter a new year,

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January 1, 2015

Join us for *Illuminating the Way: Epiphany & New Year Retreat with Monks, Mystics, and Archetypes* (starts January 4th!)

  January 4-February 7, 2015 (5-week online retreat) Description The feast of Epiphany launches us into the new year with a commitment to see the world anew. Full of enthusiasm for the way and the possibility of beginning again, we are joined by several monks and mystics as wise guides. Francis of Assisi, Amma Syncletica (one of the desert mothers), writer Rainer Maria Rilke, the Hebrew prophet Miriam, and modern monk Thomas Merton. They each offer us profound wisdom for giving birth to the divine presence in our own lives. They also function as archetypes, which means that they break

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December 30, 2014

Invitation to Dance: Thomas Merton on Silence

We continue our theme this month of “Silence” which arose from our Community Lectio Divina practice with the quote from Thomas Merton 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 image of “Silence” as the gentlest of intentions, planting a seed as you prepare to step into the dance. Play the

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December 28, 2014

Week 4 Advent Practices: Considering Our Earthiness

This is a weekly Advent series by Christine from the Abbey archives. If praying with the four elements kindles a spark in you, consider my book Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements. In the scriptures for this fourth week of Advent we hear in the gospel the story of Mary’s Annunciation. She was asked to consent to become the earthen vessel through which God could be born into a world of flesh and blood. The story of Advent and Christmas is essentially about God becoming enfleshed in the earthiness of the world. God enters creation and blesses our

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December 23, 2014

Invitation to Poetry: Thomas Merton on Silence

Welcome to Poetry Party #82! 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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December 21, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Elysha O’Brien

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elysha O’Brien’s wisdom on living contemplatively in the chaos: We are a People of Pattern It is morning. The children have been sent out the door and the downstairs neighbor’s dog begins to howl and cry and yip. My day has already started with noise and chaos and it will take everything in my power to rein it back. But the dog… the dog with his high pitched bark and relentless cry, telling the world his saga of agony and abandonment.

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December 18, 2014

Sun’s Pilgrimage (a love note from your online Abbess)

Winter Solstice At this winter’s turning of the year let us go gently — for once – into the night, its dream-drenched, glittering stillness a haven for our souls. There is something beyond the dull brightness of mid-day, fluorescent and buzzing. Something to praise beyond the sun, triumphing over the intricacies of shadowed moonlight. Bring in the old, beautiful realm of Holy Night, echoing with ancient voices, rustling with intimacy’s passion, luminous with stars. Cradled in darkness, be restored to the embrace of mystery. Glory wakes here. Let it kindle your joy. —Rebecca Parker Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, In

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December 17, 2014

Week 3 Advent Practices: Water’s Wisdom

This is a weekly Advent series by Christine from the Abbey archives. If praying with the four elements kindles a spark in you, consider my book Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements. The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance. —Thomas Merton For this third week of Advent I invite you to consider the element of water as an inspiration

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December 16, 2014

Invitation to Photography: Thomas Merton on Silence

Welcome to this month’s Abbey Photo Party! I select a theme and invite you to respond with images. We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with our reflection on Silence from Thomas Merton. I invite you for this month’s Photo Party to hold these words in your heart as you go out in the world to receive images in response. As you walk be ready to see what is revealed to you as a visual expression of your prayer. You can share images you already have which illuminate the theme, but I encourage you also to go for a walk with the theme in mind and

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December 14, 2014