Poppies greet morning with orange wonder and mirth, I begin to bloom. -Christine Valters Paintner *** Make sure to visit this week’s new Photo Party! *** © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
Welcome to the very first Abbey Photo Party! This is a new experiment and sort of a twist on the regular Poetry Parties. Instead of my selecting a theme and image and inviting you to respond with words, I will select a theme and poem and invite you to respond with images. Since you can’t post images directly in the comments section here, I invite you to add them to the Flickr Group I have created. Please do leave a comment below to let us know you have joined the party and feel free to link back to your own blog and post your image there too.
I will be writing a regular weekly article for Patheos on Art & Spirit in the Church. Click the link for this week’s feature, see the links below for previous articles. It is for the Catholic Gateway, but much of what I write is accessible to an ecumenical audience. Liturgy as a Feast for the Senses The Christian imagination and experience of the world are shaped by a God who becomes fully human – who steps into what it means to be flesh with all of its joys and wounds. In the Gospels, we often find the person of Jesus sharing meals,
Growing up in New York City, my favorite place was The Cloisters (a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with art from medieval European monasteries). I had fallen in love with the aesthetic dimension of monastic tradition long before I understood what that way of life really meant. The art, architecture, music, and illuminated manuscripts all made me swoon. It wasn’t until graduate school that I really did begin to understand and fall further in love. Hildegard of Bingen was my entrypoint. Always having had a love of art and spirituality, I wanted to know more about this incredible woman who
Have you checked out Patheos yet? (the great new site exploring different religious traditions) I will be contributing to them regularly on the topic of art and spirituality and my latest article is here — Beauty and Spirituality — so pour yourself a cup of tea and contemplate the role of beauty in your own spiritual practice and then head on over to this week’s Poetry Party for more creative inspiration!
** Make sure you visit this week’s Poetry Party on Shadow & Light (these are a few more of the images from my photographic journey last week)** ______________________________________________ © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
Welcome to our 36th Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog. ADDED NOTE: Mister Linky is acting kind of funny and not loading properly and slowing down the loading of my blog, so for now we’re doing this the old-fashioned way and posting the poems
I went on a journey to the Seattle Aquarium yesterday and in addition to my favorites of sea otters and moon jellies, I found myself captivated by reflections and children pressed up against the glass to see more clearly. What do you see? © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity. -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation These mountains — Mount Baker and the Sisters and Shuksan, the Canadian Coastal Range and the Olympics on the peninsula — are surely the edge of the known and comprehended world…. That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to