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Practicing Resurrection S-l-o-w-l-y

For the season of Easter I made a commitment to practice resurrection of the body, both my own body and the Earth’s body. It has been a good process as I continue to discover places of my own healing and how they are woven together with the healing of the greater body. As a part of this journey I started seeing a nutritionist whose approach to food I love. When we first sat down and she asked about my previous experiences with seeing a nutritionist, I told her that the couple of times I had gone before they had me try

May 30, 2007

Surrender

As I get older, I am slowly learning to take myself and my work less seriously. It is the fruit of embracing humility–that monastic virtue whose root is humus, meaning “of the earth.” At the same time, the more I let go of plans that don’t feed me, and the more I allow myself to go out to bloom, the more I experience a deep sense of peace within myself. I am becoming the peace I want to see bloom in the world. In a world of busyness and productivity, we need a lot more uselessness, more being, more poets, artists, and monks

May 28, 2007

The Fire of Courage

In the Christian church, today is the feast of Pentecost. It is considered to be the birthday of the church because it celebrates when the Spirit descended upon the disciples and filled them with the fire of courage to go and spread the message of liberation witnessed to them. Vestments and banners usually are red, filling the church with a sense of the energy that must have rushed into the room that day. It is a joyful feast, bringing the fifty days of the season of Easter to a dynamic close. I like to imagine that ragtag group, gathered together “in

May 27, 2007

Allium Fireworks

Allium is one of my new favorite flowers (after peonies, of course). For some reason I had never seen or noticed them before. They look to me like purple dandelion seed pods or a tiny fireworks display. Blessings upon your weekend. May you discover new beauty you never noticed before! -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

May 25, 2007

Dreams of Africa

In the last couple of weeks we have watched Blood Diamond which takes place in Sierra Leone and The Last King of Scotland which is about Uganda. They were both heart-rending films. I also have been reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmeal Beah which addresses the Sierra Leone story from the perspective of a boy soldier who was rehabilitated and now lives in the US. It raised again for me the question of how we live in meaningful engagement with the sorrows and struggles of the whole world? A couple months back we went to see a powerful performance of the Soweto Gospel Choir.

May 24, 2007

Peonies

Yesterday I splurged on a bouquet of peonies and proceeded to fall completely in love with them when I got home. I have never before spent so much time gazing at and inhaling the scent of these splendid flowers. I cultivated my new love through the lens of my camera. Some days the abundance I find in words and images is enough to break my heart wide open. What has broken your heart open this day? -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

May 22, 2007

Art in the Cracks of the Day

Driving Under the Influence of Poetry Scribbling on scraps of paper On the seat next to me As my car sails down The freeways. Words tumbling out Around that sharp turn. Poems dashed off at stop lights They will not wait for me To sit politely at a desk. Poems on the run. No speed limit for them. They race in my head As I keep one eye on the road. Few know of these dangers. So, watch out for the drivers With a pen in their hand And a poem in their heart. Beware! -Pamela McCauley Pamela is a

May 21, 2007

Flower Communion

What a gathering-the purple tongues of iris licking out at spikes of lupine, the orange crepe skirts of poppies lifting over buttercup and daisy. Who can be grim in the face of such abundance? There is nothing to compare, no need for beauty to compete. The voluptuous rhododendron and the plain grass are equally filled with themselves, equally declare the miracles of color and form. This is what community looks like- this vibrant jostle, stem by stem declaring the marvelous joining. This is the face of communion, the incarnation once more gracefully resurrected from winter. Hold these things together

May 20, 2007

Being an artist means. . .

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! -Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet I am a pretty patient person. I usually don’t mind the periods of

May 17, 2007

Seven Things About Me Meme

Tess at Anchors andMasts tagged me for this meme. The rules are: People who are tagged start by thinking about 7 random facts/habits about themselves. Each player then must write about those seven things on their blog, as well as include these rules. Players then need to choose 7 people to tag and list their names. Don’t forget to leave each person a comment telling them they’ve been tagged. 1. I am not a big reader of fiction, I much prefer nonfiction. In the last ten years the only novel I have read that I can think of is The Secret

May 15, 2007

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The Fire of Courage

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Peonies

Art in the Cracks of the Day

Flower Communion

Being an artist means. . .

Seven Things About Me Meme

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