Your Online Monastery for Your Spiritual Practice

The Call of Retreat: Unfurl

I go on a long walk through the forest listening for the word calling to me. It is a form of lectio divina I practice where nature is the sacred text revealing holy wonders to my heart. I step further into the silence of trees and moss and ferns. The forest floor is covered with ferns, creation’s lush and extravagant gesture. At first I notice the large and mature ones with their wide leaves, but soon my gaze is called to tend to these tender shoots unfurling themselves. If I listen closely I can hear the quiet movements of a

May 11, 2010

Retreat

I am heading out for some time of retreat by the forest and sea and dreaming of the year ahead. Thank you so much to everyone who already commented on last Tuesday’s invitation to share what you need for your own retreat time. Reading through them has been true refreshment for my own spirit. I encourage anyone who hasn’t yet, to stop by with a cup of tea and a journal and begin dreaming your next retreat into being. You can still add your comment until next Monday, May 10 and enter for a chance to win a set of

May 7, 2010

Holy Pause: The Practice of Retreat

Last Friday and Saturday I was at St. Placid Priory leading a workshop and a retreat. Much of my work is leading retreats – and while I spend a lot of time designing the flow of experiences, ultimately it is about creating and holding sacred space for others. On retreat the invitation is to cross the threshold of ordinary awareness and enter liminal space for a few hours or days to receive the new questions waiting for us. This coming weekend I go on my own time of retreat to the place where the forest meets the sea. This space

May 4, 2010

A Monk in the World

One of the ways we become intimate with the fire in our lives is to explore our passions, our deepest desires, the commitments which make our hearts burn with love. The mystics across traditions describe God as the spark or flame dwelling in each of our hearts, the source of infinite compassion. When we live from the heart – which is where Ignatius of Loyola said that God plants our deepest desires – we become a temple of fire and reveal the splendor of God to the world. I feel deeply blessed to be intimate with my own deepest desires,

April 28, 2010

Pink Petaled Profusion

What are your pink-petaled dreams? What is the longing deep within you just beginning to blossom forth into the world? Will you say yes? And YES? ________________________________________________ © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

April 22, 2010

Practicing Resurrection through the Elements

Our Easter Season E-Course is underway and it is a joy to guide others through the practice of praying with water, wind, earth, and fire as vessels for awareness of the ways God moves through the world. This first week’s focus is on wind. Click the links below for some blog posts written by participants: Mind Sieve and Diamonds in the Sky With Lucy both offer their beautiful poetic reflections on the gift of wind. Laurel at The Rose Window shares her thoughtful reflections as she begins this time of retreat. ___________________________________ David Crumm at Read the Spirit shares these

April 21, 2010

On Angels

On Angels All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe in you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams. Short is your stay here: now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear, in a melody repeated by a bird, or in the smell of apples at close of day when the light makes the orchards magic. They say somebody has invented you but to me this does not sound convincing for the humans invented

April 15, 2010

Season of Resurrection

Do you have a body? Don’t sit on the porch! Go out and walk in the rain! If you are in love, then why are you asleep? Wake up, wake up! You have slept millions of years Why not wake up this morning -Kabir I have been away this last week, traveling to visit family for Easter and then the Spiritual Directors International conference where Awakening the Creative Spiritwas officially released (and the bookstore sold out of their copies!) In between I was going to have a few days to play in San Francisco with my beloved. Instead we both

April 12, 2010

Here and Now

Getting There You take a final step and, look, suddenly You’re there. You’ve arrived At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for: This common ground Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone. What did you want To be? You’ll remember soon. You feel like tinder Under a burning glass, A luminous point of change. The sky is pulsing Against the cracked horizon, Holding it firm till the arrival of stars In time with your heartbeats. Like wind etching rock, you’ve made a lasting impression On the self you were By having come all this way through

April 8, 2010

Another great review of Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire

I am honored to have my book Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements reviewed on the wonderful site Spirituality and Practice: “This well-done and quote-filled paperback forges deep and rich connections between the Christian faith and the natural world.”

April 1, 2010

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

Reflections

Filter

The Call of Retreat: Unfurl

Retreat

Holy Pause: The Practice of Retreat

A Monk in the World

Pink Petaled Profusion

Practicing Resurrection through the Elements

On Angels

Season of Resurrection

Here and Now

Another great review of Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire

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