Your Online Monastery for Your Spiritual Practice

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

April 16, 2014

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

April 13, 2014

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

April 10, 2014

Earth Monastery Project Update:
Dance Alchemy

Photo above: Dance Alchemists on the pier at the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Museum, Baltimore. Photo top right: Alchemists peace sign. Photo bottom right: Lucy Zamora. 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. Candice Tritch and Andrew Janssen are grant recipients for their Dance Alchemy project application. Dance Alchemy (click to

April 9, 2014

“Soul Awakes and Sings” (a love note from your online Abbess)

“Even under its burden / the soul awakes and sings” —Trish Bruxvoort Colligan, from her song “Soul Awakes and Sings” off her just about to be released album Wild Acre) We must risk delight. . . We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. . . We must admit there will be music despite everything. —Jack Gilbert, “A Brief for the Defense” (excerpt) “I want / to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” —Pablo Neruda, Love Poem

April 7, 2014

Community Lectio Divina: Song of Songs

With April comes a new invitation for contemplation. In the northern hemisphere, spring is slowly arriving with birdsong and blooming. Wherever we live on this beautiful planet, we can tend to the flowering that happens within after a season of fallowness. The outer seasons become a mirror for our inner experience. I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from one of my favorite biblical books: Song of Songs. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and

April 6, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: DG Hollums

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for DG Hollums’ wisdom on seeing the world more deeply: I’ve always been an outgoing extrovert. My soul is filled up by being around others and enjoying the smiles and love of others around me. As a child I was passionately quick to love and really did not know a stranger. I was always the one that would hug others. Even those who did not “appreciate” hugs, I would make a B-line for them just to make sure they knew that they

April 3, 2014

Earth Monastery Project Update:
Monarch Butterfly Waystation

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. Dr. Martha Brunnell is one of our grant recipients for her project establishing a Monarch Waystation and native wildlife habitat among broad fields and winding roads in northern Illinois adjacent to the Mayfield Congregational Church UCC, where she is the

April 2, 2014

Gifts of Slowness (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a gift!) “The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.” —Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I didn’t write a love note last week because I gave myself permission to not send out a newsletter.

April 1, 2014

A chance to pause and savor

At the Abbey we have weekly invitations to lectio divina, photography, poetry, and dance on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sundays respectively. With a 5th Sunday this month, I am inviting you to allow this week to be a chance to revisit some of the previous invitations and savor what has been shared there, as well as your own unfolding response to the invitation to “Return to me with your whole heart” we have been exploring. Consider stopping by these posts and see what kind of return is inspired: Community Lectio Divina: Return to me with your whole heart Invitation to Photography

March 30, 2014

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Earth Monastery Project Update:
Youth Chaplaincy Coalition Garden Box Project

Invitation to Photography: Arise and bloom

Monk in the World guest post: Morgana Morgaine

Earth Monastery Project Update:
Dance Alchemy

“Soul Awakes and Sings” (a love note from your online Abbess)

Community Lectio Divina: Song of Songs

Monk in the World guest post: DG Hollums

Earth Monastery Project Update:
Monarch Butterfly Waystation

Gifts of Slowness (a love note from your online Abbess)

A chance to pause and savor

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Jill Ore

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