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What is Shimmering? (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realise now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a

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January 14, 2014

Invitation to Photography: Give Me a Word

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 where you were invited to pray with one of the stories of the desert fathers and mothers where one monk asks another “give me a word.” You were invited to share your word for 2014 here (you can still share it, although prize winners have been announced). I invite you for this month’s Photo Party to hold your word for 2014 in your heart as you walk in the world and see which

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January 12, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Peg Conway

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community (you can read the call for submissions here). Read on for Peg’s wisdom: Trusting the Path We vacationed at a lake resort in northern Minnesota for several years nearly a decade ago, and enthusiastic fellow guests introduced us to the joys of hunting for agates, which are distinctive red-orange gemstones formed a billion years ago and transported to that area by glaciers. Particularly after a rain, an agate’s vivid opalescence stands out against the sand on a beach or a dirt

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January 9, 2014

Give Me a Word random drawing winners!

A deep bow of gratitude to everyone who participated in this year’s Give Me a Word!  We had almost 700 responses and it was so inspiring to read through the submissions. It is time for our prize drawing (although you are free to keep sharing your word for 2014 here)! I will include the name and the word below, just in case there are two people with the same name. Winners of a signed copy of Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Christian Contemplative Practice: Maribeth Clancy (Adventure), Meheret Fikre-Sellasie (Relationship), James McDonald (Present), Marie LoParco (At Home) Winners of a copy of Naked

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January 8, 2014

Epiphany Blessings (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!)   Here at the year’s end, at the feast Of birth, let us bring to each other The gifts brought once west through deserts- The precious metal of our mingled hair, The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs, The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses- Let us celebrate the daily Recurrent nativity of love, The endless epiphany of our fluent selves, While the earth rolls away under us Into unknown snows and summers, Into untraveled spaces of the stars. -Kenneth Rexroth, from Sacramental Acts

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January 6, 2014

Community Lectio Divina: Give Me a Word

With January comes a new invitation for contemplation. This month I invite you into a lectio divina practice with a short reading from the desert fathers and mothers. Here at the Abbey, the last few weeks we have been focusing on receiving a word for 2014 to guide us and challenge us through the year. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (sometimes we will engage in some visio and audio divina as well with art and music). For the year I am choosing an overarching theme of discernment. I feel

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January 5, 2014

Guest post from the online Prior: John Valters Paintner

The Abbey is so delighted to be offering an online retreat for men starting January 20th – Exile and Coming Home: Priest, Prophet, Politician, and Poet – An Online Journey for Men – facilitated by John Valters Paintner, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Roy Deleon, and Michael Landron. John shares some insights and an invitation to join him: Greetings My Fellow Monks! A year and a half ago, I made a huge life change.  I gave up a full-time job teaching theology at a Catholic high school.  The main reason for leaving my teaching position was because the Hebrew Scriptures class I had

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January 2, 2014

Community Contemplation & Creativity (Winter-Spring 2014)

We are delighted to continue our practice of invitations into lectio divina, photography, poetry, and dance each month around a given theme. Join the Conversation: You are invited to join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook page as a place to participate or in the comments below each blog post as they appear. Below is a look ahead at the weekly themes. All are welcome to participate. Winter-Spring 2014 Community Invitations January 5: Community Lectio Divina January 12: Invitation to Photography January 19: Invitation to Poetry January 26: Invitation to Dance February 2: Community Lectio Divina February 9: Invitation to

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January 2, 2014

What is of the Essence? (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Dearest monks and artists, I am delighted to reveal the newest in the dancing monk icon series (by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts) above of Mary with the Christ child, inspired by the Black Madonna of Czestochowa in Poland. Mary was often depicted with a pear in medieval art, and the pear became significant for my own journey of learning to yield, to let go of my own striving and reaching. (You can read my poem I wrote last July about this

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January 1, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Laurie Klein

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community (you can read the call for submissions here). I got to meet fellow monk and artist/poet Laurie Klein this past fall when she attended the Sacred Rhythms Writing & Movement Retreat. It was a delight to get to know her soulful spirit. Read on for her wisdom: Romancing the Senses Blue as Devotion  Try to love this world, like a secret, a promise, a sacred tease: five hundred shades of blue—sea glass or sky, sapphire, jade, lapis lazuli. Cool hues play the rogue,

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December 30, 2013