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Monk in the World guest post: Melinda Thomas Hansen

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Melinda Thomas Hansen’s wisdom about the dance of becoming a monk in the world: It is all too easy to fill my hours with tasks – things that need doing. There are classes to plan, lectures to prepare, websites to build; bills to pay, emails to answer, and products – necessary and unnecessary – to search for on Amazon. The tasks have a way of making themselves seem to be of utmost importance. They arrange themselves in lists on notepads and in

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Practicing Resurrection (a love note from your online Abbess)

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I am still traveling and teaching, so this week I offer you a reprise of another article I wrote for Patheos last year on Practicing Resurrection this Easter season: Lent is a powerful season of transformation. Forty days in the desert, stripped of our comforts, and buoyed by our commitment to daily practice so that we might arrive at the celebration of Easter deepened and renewed. But often, we arrive at the glorious season of resurrection and celebrate for that one day, forgetting it is a span of 50 days, even longer than the Lenten

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Invitation to Dance: Arise and bloom

We continue our theme this month of “Arise and bloom” through the practice of dance (please visit our Community Lectio Divina practice, Invitation to Photography, and Invitation to Poetry which all explored this theme for April). I invite you into a movement practice.  Allow yourself just 5-10 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 the image of arising and blooming, planting a seed

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Monk in the World guest post: Jim Cyr

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jim Cyr’s wisdom about the grace of stories: “My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose

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Easter Blessings! (a love note from your online Abbess)

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Joyous blessings on this celebration of Easter and the season of resurrection stretching out before us! I am in the midst of some travels in the U.S. for about a month which began with a lovely visit to my sister-in-law in South Carolina, and now I am heading to Santa Fe to meet up with a dear friend for a couple of days before the Spiritual Directors International conference begins. Then it will be on to Tulsa, OK for the Awakening the Creative Spirit intensive and Lafayette, LA for a private women’s group. Since I

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Invitation to Poetry: Arise and Bloom

Welcome to Poetry Party #77! I select an image (the photo above is my own of a peony) 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 below

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Monk in the World guest post: Cyndi Gallo Callan

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Cyndi Gallo Callan’s wisdom about what matters most: Prior to Thanksgiving I began thinking about Advent and how I would embrace the season; it always passes so quickly.  Instead of how I thought Advent would be embraced, I found myself reflecting on the theme living as a monk in the world, what it meant in my life, and for those around me.  The reflections moved through me like tidal currents. It was obvious that the Holy Spirit settled within me, as my

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Earth Monastery Project Update:
Youth Chaplaincy Coalition Garden Box Project

Photo: Rev. Dr. Monica Corsaro of Rainier Beach UMC and Rev. Terri Stewart – clearing weeds! The Earth Monastery Project is a partnership between the Abbey and carefully selected applicants, who will receive resources to complete a Project which nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness and cultivate a vision of the earth as our primary monastery. The EMP is a small grant project funded by donations, income from Amazon Associates program, and through a percentage of fees from Abbey online courses. Rev. Terri Stewart is one of our grant recipients for her project Youth Chaplaincy Coalition: Garden Box Project. The Abbey Wisdom Council was drawn to

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Invitation to Photography: Arise and bloom

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 words from the ancient Hebrew text of the Song of Songs. While the northern hemisphere begins to turn to spring through the arrival of birdsong and blossoms, we are all invited to tend to our inner flowering. In my own prayer with the text, the word “arise” shimmered strongly, which is an invitation to awaken from slumber, to take action in the world, to bring more beauty to life. I invite you

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Monk in the World guest post: Morgana Morgaine

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Morgana Morgaine’s wisdom on becoming a Holy Fool: A Monk in the World, Holy Fool in Training! I most closely identify with and revere the monk as Holy Fool.  Holy Fool is a bit of a maverick, well, more than a little! She/he is most likely to be irreverently reverent, using laughter as a way to delight in everyday experience. St. Francis of Assisi who is credited with saying:  “I hung upside down so that I could see the world as it

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