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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

Christmas 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!) The Risk of Birth This is no time for a child to be born, With the earth betrayed by war & hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out & the sun burns late. That was no time for a child to be born, In a land in the crushing grip of Rome; Honour & truth were trampled by scorn- Yet here did the Saviour make his home. When is the time for love to be born? The

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December 24, 2013

Monk in the World guest post: Teresa Knipper

I am delighted to share our first submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community (you can read the call for submissions here). Teresa Knipper attended our Awakening the Creative Spirit intensive this past fall and it was a delight to get to know her playful spirit and her passion for butterflies. Read on for her wisdom: Waiting for God in the Deep Midwinter Recently I was watering my indoor plants and inspecting a late summer acquisition from the bargain rack of my local nursery. I cannot resist rescuing these orphans and trying my hand

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December 23, 2013

Invitation to Dance: Holy Waiting

We continue our theme this month of “Holy Waiting” through the practice of dance. 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 this image of “Holy Waiting” as the gentlest of intentions, planting a seed as you prepare to step into the dance. You don’t need to think this through or figure it

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December 22, 2013

Prayer for Awakening (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!) Prayer Upon Awakening “The breezes at dawn Have secrets to tell you; Don’t go back to sleep.” -Rumi What force gently lifts back night’s inky black gown studded with shimmering stars, where soot turns to umber, seawater to crimson, rose to saffron, and then to that brilliant morning shade of blue, spilling forth like the seven silk scarves of Salome in a dance of revelation? What is being awakened in you in that threshold moment, when a thousand black crows scatter to the

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December 18, 2013