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Reflections

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How to Be Alone

I just love this.  The line speaking to my heart today (keeping in mind my post from yesterday) is “Dance until you’re sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.” How about you?  Where are you finding the solace of solitude these late summer days? How to Be Alone by Tanya Davis If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it. We could start

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Teach us again how to begin the dance

The world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed we are in the midst of it, and it is in

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Postcard from the Abbey: Shine

Sending you blessings of illumination during these late summer days.  Where in your life do you feel luminous and radiant? Make sure to stop by this week’s Poetry Party and read the wondrous words about being a monk in the world.  Submit your own poem to join the fun and for a chance to win a prize! Have you joined the 298 other monks and signed the Monk Manifesto?

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Monk Manifesto – Reflections and Musings

The idea for the Monk Manifesto emerged several months ago while I was away on a retreat.  Last spring was a very full season of my life and I was claiming a few days of silence to listen.  I was in a threshold space, moving into my own work more fully, and I knew my call was to spread ways of being a Monk in the World to as many people as I could. Many of you who signed indicated that having so many others to join with in a public declaration is supportive and hope-filled. Indeed that was part of my motivation

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Postcard from the Abbey: Soar

Sending blessings and love to you this day – may your heart experience at least one moment of wide-open freedom today – may you breathe in possibility and breathe out hope. Have you joined with over 200 240 monks and signed the Monk Manifesto (and downloaded the printable PDF version)?  Did you sign up yet for the free e-course on becoming a Monk in the World? If you live in Seattle and offer compassionate listening to others through spiritual direction, chaplaincy, counseling, or pastoring consider joining our newly added session of Soul Care for Compassionate Listeners (limited to 6 participants / only three spaces left).

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New *Soul Care for Compassionate Listeners* Session added on Fridays

2010-2011 Soul Care for Compassionate Listeners Professional and personal growth through supervision and the expressive arts for Spiritual Directors, Chaplains, Counselors, & Pastors committed to compassionate listening and care of souls. with Kayce Stevens Hughlett, MA, LMHC & Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE October 2010-May 2011 – Monthly group meeting on Friday mornings in Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA Please Note: Our first two groups filled quickly so we have added a third group on a different set of Friday mornings (see flyer for specific dates & details) Limited to 6 participants $600 for all 8 sessions / $100 non-refundable deposit to

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Summer Renewal

This summer has offered many things to my heart: renewal, restoration, healing, and an invitation into a wide and wild imagination.  I look forward to sharing some of those stories here in the coming weeks. For now, just an image which are speaking to me in these August days of presence to the gifts in this moment now.  I find myself in late summer longing for the cool crisp days of autumn, but I call myself back, remembering that this season has its own grace.

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Tending the Fire: Program in Christian Spirituality and Prayer

If you are in the Seattle, Tacoma, or Olympia area consider joining St Placid Priory Spirituality Center for their program in Christian spirituality and prayer.  I don’t currently teach the program although helped to establish it a few years ago. I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone looking to deepen their understanding and practice of diverse forms of Christian prayer. *Tending the Fire*, Christian Spirituality and Prayer, is a nine-month retreat program designed to explore diverse Christian traditions and prayer practices that deepen one’s spiritual journey and personal faith life. It meets semi-monthly on Tuesday afternoons from 1-4pm and will begin

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Sabbath Now

For the last two weeks there has been a funny thing happening with my calendar.  Each day when I open my Outlook program a notice appears just like all of the other appointment reminders except this one says “Sabbath: Now.”   I do have my Saturdays blocked off as Sabbath days and so somehow this entry has been logged in as a daily event.  When I press the “dismiss” button I am told that the program can’t find the entry and so I will continue to be reminded.  And so it is, each day I receive a message that Sabbath is

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Remembering Your Name

Either you will go through this door or you will not go through. If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name. Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen. If you do not go through it is possible to live worthily to maintain your attitudes to hold your position to die bravely but much will blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows? The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door. -Adrienne Rich Stop by Creative Liberty to read an interview with me

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