Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Reflections

Filter

Sacred Life Arts is featuring the Abbey and a podcast interview with me

Dana Reynolds is the wise and gracious presence behind Sacred Life Arts and offers so many amazing resources at her site which are in such harmony with the Abbey’s mission. So it was an absolute delight to have the opportunity to be interviewed by Dana. Abbey of the Arts is also the featured resource for the month of August! Stop by her site to see the post or listen to the interview below.  It is about 50 minutes long, so pour a cup of tea and listen for while.  Then make sure to peruse Dana’s other wonderful resources. [audio:http://www.mediafire.com/?o97uus9be0o1raz] Previous Virtual

Read More

Next stop on the Virtual Book Tour – an interview with me at June Mears Driedger’s blog

June Mears Driedger has interviewed me over at her blog.  Stop by to read and leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom. Here is an excerpt: The title of your book is “The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom.” Intriguing title—but what do monks have to do with artists? Monasteries have been great centers of creativity since they were first formed – think of the beauty of Gregorian chant, the great illuminated manuscripts which bring text to life through a marriage with

Read More

The Holy Pause: Spiritual Practices for a Time-Obsessed Culture

Stop by Patheos for my latest reflection: Time is the measure of things that come to an end, but where time itself ends, eternity begins . . . In the end, there is no end. The ends of time are near the roots of eternity, and the ends of the Earth touch on the other world or the world behind the world. –Michael Meade I was driving to my yoga class this morning but there was some kind of race blocking all of the cross streets I usually travel. I finally found my way around but at that point I

Read More

New review of The Artist’s Rule at Spirituality and Practice!

I am delighted to share the latest review of The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom at the wonderful site Spirituality and Practice.  Here is a brief excerpt: Evidencing the same creative flair we saw in her book of spiritual insights into the elements, Paintner has now fashioned a twelve-week journey on the interplay between creativity, the contemplative path, and monastic wisdom. . . Paintner wants us to experience the joys of our inner monk and artist. These two parts of ourselves share a capacity for seeing the world beyond surface appearances; nourishing wonder, awe, and holy

Read More

Awakening to our creative, sacred hearts

I am most honored to have a post featured over at Tess Giles Marshall’s beautiful site Pilgrim’s Moon (her site is subtitled “growing older on our own terms, a counter-cultural path for woman” and she offers great wisdom there regularly, so be sure to bookmark her) on Awakening to our creative sacred hearts: I teach a five-day workshop called Awakening the Creative Spirit, designed for soul care practitioners to kindle their own creativity and bring the arts to their work with others.  I love the metaphor of “awakening” because there is a gentleness to it, a soft transition from slumber

Read More

Savoring Summer’s Sweet Slowness

Stop by Patheos for my latest reflection: “The summer night is like a perfection of thought.”  –Wallace Stevens “What is summer’s sweetness / but an invitation to respond?” —Lynn Ungar My husband and my work schedules run on the academic year which means that we work quite hard from fall through spring, but then summer opens up like a lavish gift before us.  I am finding these summer days I have been resistant even to the writing that I love so much, craving more silence and rest and so as I sit down to write this reflection I am drawn toward

Read More

Review of The Artist’s Rule at Creative Liberty

Liz Massey at Creative Liberty interviewed me about a year ago and now offers a great review of The Artist’s Rule.  Here is an excerpt: Christine is a master at using texts from other wisdom traditions beyond Christianity to explain the point she is trying to make in each chapter. This broadens the audience that will benefit from this book considerably. It also reinforces a key element in Benedictine thinking, which is to engage the stranger (the person who is not necessarily a member of the same church or subscribes to the same philosophy as the oblate) as a person

Read More

Listen to an Interview with me about The Artist’s Rule

Nathan Rosquist is a member of the Art Monastery, which is a wonderful project based in Italy of artists living together in community exploring what it means to be an Art Monk.  He also blogs at Otherhood where he writes about monasticism and art (yes, my favorite topics).  Nathan was so gracious in inviting me to talk with him about my new book The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom, and our shared passions of creativity and contemplation.  Stop by his post for an interview (about a half hour long).  Leave a comment at his blog for a

Read More

Live it to Give it (guest reflection from Kayce Hughlett)

She had to find it in herself.  —Glinda, The Wizard of Oz (MGM) If someone asked you to describe your relationship to self-care how might you answer? Could you or would you be willing to elaborate on your own soul nourishment practices? Do you even know how to begin? Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I’ve discovered the best way is to start at the beginning and follow the yellow brick road. As with Dorothy, my story of change and journey into soulful living began with a catalytic event. In her case the event was being swept up in a

Read More

Sweet Midsummer Blessings (Abbey Sabbatical)

Watermelon  You know what summer tastes like—the pink flesh of a generous earth, this rounded life fully ripe, fully flavored. How could you be ashamed at the tug of desire? The world has opened itself to you, season after season. What is summer’s sweetness but an invitation to respond? There is only one way to eat a watermelon. Bury your face in the wetness of that rosy slab and bite. -Lynn Ungar from Blessing the Bread  I leave on Monday for two weeks away with my beloved in a warm, breezy place with little internet access and nothing but wide

Read More