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Linger a While

Rather than writing a new post today and burying the Invitation to Poetry I posted on Monday, I invite you to scroll down or click here and re-visit that post with the abundance of beautiful words offered by others and linger for a while. . . A deep heartfelt thank you to everyone who has shared so far. What fun to see how much is evoked in a single image.  Feel free to keep leaving your responses in the comments or by sending me an email and I will add your words to the body of the post.

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Playing in the Field of Possibility

This summer has been rich in experience, epiphany, and insight and there is still another month to go.  I will be processing all of it for many months to come.  Going to Ireland in June was amazing, it connected me with a land infused with holiness that sings in my memory.  I felt a deep connection to those ancient monks who developed a Christianity that was wild and organic, that emerged from their land and traditions as a nature-embracing people.  I felt anger at the history of the Roman Church with its love of order and its petty argumentation. I was

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Contemplative Living

A great reflection by Robert Toth at the Merton Insitute:  “Do you consider yourself a contemplative person? Would you say that you live contemplatively?” Having asked these questions of hundreds of people, we find that most people do not see themselves as contemplative or feel they are living contemplatively. Most defined contemplative living as leading a less busy, more quiet life or engaging in certain practices such as meditation, centering prayer or yoga. In the popular imagination contemplative living is still influenced by the close connection between contemplation and monks and nuns who leave “the world” and live in monasteries.

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We Give It

The Weighing The heart’s reasons seen clearly, even the hardest will carry its whip-marks and sadness and must be forgiven. As the drought-starved eland forgives the drought-starved lion who finally takes her, enters willingly then the life she cannot refuse, and is lion, is fed, and does not remember the other. So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance. The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. -Jane Hirshfield from October Palace -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the

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Kinship with Creation

One of the elements of Celtic spirituality that most attracts me is its sense of kinship with all of creation.  I have written here many times about the connections between animals and spirituality.  While I was in Ireland I read several books on Irish history and Celtic spirituality.   In Thomas Cahill’s book How the Irish Saved Civilization, he describes the prayer of  St. Patrick’s breastplate as conveying this simple message: “The universe itself is the Great Sacrament.”  The French Jesuit and scientist Teilhard de Chardin described our interconnection as the “breathing together of all things.” All God’s creatures are theophanies The world is holy and

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Inspiration as Grace

The other essay in the Theological Aesthetics book I am reading that has especially moved me is by the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff from his book Liberating Grace: “The poet, the musician, and the writer feel overtaken by inspiration.  On the one hand, it is they who do the work. Their energy and their deepest selves are totally involved. The effort to express themselves often leads to complete exhaustion. On the other hand, they feel possessed by something that is above them, outside them, or within them. It drives them to create, compelling them to express their inner experience to

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Do you know how beautiful you are?

Saints Bowing in the Mountains Do you know how beautiful you are? I think not, my dear. For as you talk of God, I see great parades with wildly colorful bands Streaming from your mind and heart, Carrying wonderful and secret messages To every corner of this world. I see saints bowing in the mountains Hundreds of miles away To the wonder of sounds That break into light From your most common words. Speak to me of your mother, Your cousins and your friends. Tell me of squirrels and birds you know. Awaken your legion of nightingales— Let them soar

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Benedictine Resources

Sister Laura Swan, the former Prioress of St. Placid, where I am an Oblate, was interviewed on our local public radio station, you can find the link here. Sr. Laura has written several books on Benedictine tradition worth checking out: The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women Engaging Benedict: What The Rule Can Teach Us Today The Benedictine Tradition (Spirituality in History) I am off for a few days of creative inspiration.  I will still have posts each day this week and should have email access as well but I may be a bit slower than usual

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Beauty

I have been reading Theological Aesthetics: A Reader for a book proposal I am working on for a publisher. It is going to be a book about beauty and aesthetic spirituality inspired by an article I wrote once and I am very excited about this project. The book is a reader which means many of the selections are rather dry and dull, the book overall is very academic.  But there have been several gems I have discovered here and there such as Basil, Augustine, and Ambrose who all describe God as the Supreme Artist.  Or Gregory of Nyssa who writes:

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The Lily

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts (photos of avalanche lilies in bloom in the alpine meadows at Mount Rainier from an impromptu and most delightful visit the last couple of days)

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