Christine was interviewed on the podcast Find Your Center, Find Your Feet: Going Deeper in the Spiritual Life produced by the Moravian Seminary. She had a lovely conversation with hosts Pam Rotelle Robertson & Marcella Kraybill-Greggo, Director of the Spiritual Direction Training Program at Moravian Seminary about writing, expressive arts, ancestors, and her new fairy tale Journey to Joy. Listen here.
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are blessed to have so many beautiful musicians in our community of dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims. This Friday, May 23rd, Wisdom Council member Te Martin will lead us in a mini-retreat on Sourcing from the Well: Songs of Strength and Resilience. Te offers this reflection on the power of song. Little bird, listen to your songThere are bones buried deep deep downThey are rising from the groundWith your song-Te Martin, “Little Bird” Under tall pines and a night sky, we sang. There were songs from the Congo, Haiti, Iran, Armenia, Palestine, and Ireland. Tears of
We welcome you to submit your reflection for possible publication in our Monk in the World guest post series. It is a gift to read how ordinary people are living lives of depth and meaning in the midst of the challenges of real life. There are so many talented writers and artists in this Abbey community, so this is a chance to share your perspective. The link to the reflection will be included in our weekly newsletter which goes out to thousands of subscribers. Submit your own post from one of the following categories on the general theme of “How do I live
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kiki McGrath’s reflection and visual art essay Contemplative and Creative Practice. For the past year I have been drawing and painting in a copy of Revelations of Divine Love, responding to this visionary text with graphite, oil pastel, and watercolor paint. Inspired by Julian of Norwich’s mystical experiences, I find her medieval life equally compelling: for more than twenty years she lived alone in an anchorhold—a room attached to a church—and wrote what is now the earliest surviving
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, In pre-pandemic times, John and I used to lead pilgrimages in Ireland (and Austria and Germany) and one of my favorites was called Writing on the Wild Edges on the island of Inismor off the coast of Galway. The retreat was inspired by the story of St. Brendan, who was known as the navigator because he went on a seven-year journey by sea to find the Island Promised to the Saints. It is a wonderful story of preparations, prayer, discoveries, going in circles, and confronting monsters along the way, before arriving at their destination, and
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jamie Alm’s reflection on contemplative presence and family life. How do I live as a monk in the world? How do I bring contemplative presence to my work and/or family? In my early days of motherhood, I would jealously read about monks with endless hours to contemplate beauty, goodness and truth in the silence of their cloistered lives. I envied their uninterrupted life. It looked so pure, so impenetrable. They lived in a spiritual fortress that could
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow Simon de Voil and I are leading our final contemplative prayer service of the season before we take a break until the fall. Our theme is Creative Joy which is the 8th principle of our Monk Manifesto: I commit to being a dancing monk, cultivating creative joy and letting my body and “heart overflow with the inexpressible delights of love.” Here is a reflection on creative joy from our Monk in the World online retreat: Whether we dance literally or metaphorically, the dance is a symbol for forgetting our self-consciousness and letting ourselves be overcome
Note: Click CC to turn closed captions on or off. Thank you for celebrating the release of our sixth prayer cycle Cultivating Seeds of Liberation and the start of the Abbey’s 20th year! We had a beautiful time gathering in community for prayer, contemplation, story, and song. The audio podcasts for each day will be released weekly over the next seven weeks with the video podcasts coming in 2026. Listen to Day 1 Morning and Evening Prayer here or on your favorite podcast platform such as Apple or Spotify. Music for the prayer cycle is available on our album Cultivating Seeds of Liberation: Songs of
I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Laura J. Collins’s reflection on practicing biomimicry for spiritual well-being. Janine Benyus, the founder of the Biomimicry Institute, urges individuals, organizations and even governments to pay close attention to how nature works and learn to emulate its genius to enhance our planet and our lives. She applies her work primarily to technology, but listening to her makes me wonder about our theologies and spiritual practices, as well. Are they drawing on the wisdom of nature? I work with
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are delighted to be celebrating our 19th anniversary at Abbey of the Arts and launching our 20th year of ministry and service. For our 20th year we are planning some lovely offerings and gifts. One of these is our brand new prayer cycle Cultivating Seeds of Liberation with 7 days of morning and evening prayer center around Love, Vision, Hope, Justice, Peace, Joy, and Beauty. Each day includes an audio podcast that will be released weekly beginning next Sunday. The new prayer cycle was created with the vision of our Wisdom Council to provide a free resource that amplifies our
