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Abbess love notes

Join Us For The Mystical Heart and Hildegard ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

St. Hildegard Strolls Through the Garden Luminous morning, Hildegard gazes at the array of blooms, holding in her heart the young boy with a mysterious rash, the woman reaching menopause, the newly minted widower, and the black Abbey cat with digestive issues who wandered in one night and stayed. New complaints arrive each day. She gathers bunches of dandelions, their yellow profusion a welcome sight in the monastery garden, red clover, nettle, fennel, sprigs of parsley to boil later in wine. She glances to make sure none of her sisters are peering around pillars, slips off her worn leather shoes

September 11, 2022

Monk in the World Guest Post: Jean Wise

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jean Wise’s reflection “Travel Light.” “Travel light,” was our tour guide’s instruction. We were soon heading to Germany with a group of fellow pilgrims to visit historic sites and cathedrals and would complete our journey by seeing the Passion Play in Oberammergau. Excited, I was ready to pack. I chuckled thinking about her advice about packing. I have tended to overpack on most of our vacations and dreaded facing this challenge once again. I stuffed my suitcases

September 7, 2022

Christine Interviewed on “The Hagitude Sessions”

Christine Valters Paintner was this week’s guest on Sharon Blackie’s ‘The Hagitude Sessions’ podcast which helps to celebrate Sharon’s wonderful new book. In this episode we talk about Hildegard of Bingen, one of the inspiring elder women featured in ‘Hagitude’, other elders in the Christian tradition, and the transformative effects of chronic illness. See all the episodes here:https://hagitude.org/podcast/ Find Christine’s episode here.

September 5, 2022

Abbess love notes

The Sacred Art of Doll Making + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Saturday, September 10th, Wisdom Council Member Polly Paton-Brown is leading a retreat on Praying with Poppets: Rediscovering the Sacred Art of Doll Making. Polly worked for many years as a psychotherapist and trainer in the field of trauma. More recently, her focus has been on helping people explore their spirituality and prayer using creativity and connection with nature. Polly has a particular passion for creating healing dolls as a portal to transformation. Read on for Polly’s reflection on the art of doll making. Creativity, nature and spirituality have always been interwoven for me. As a child I loved the

September 4, 2022

Lift Every Voice Book Club

Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – September Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition. Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation. Click here to view or listen to the full conversation along with questions for reflection. This month’s selection is

September 1, 2022

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: CJ Shelton

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for CJ Shelton’s reflection Reclaiming Our Sense of the Sacred. On summer mornings I often wake to the sound of birds singing their first tentative greetings to the dawn’s early light, the soft beams of which filter through the curtains swaying in a gentle breeze. My cat, happily ensconced on a thick pile of blankets, yawns deeply, and stretches right out to the very tips of each toe. I envy that stretch and try to mimic it although,

August 31, 2022

Abbess love notes

Hildy Tails: Jesus Curses the Fig Tree + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess & Prior

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, This week we are featuring one of our Hildy Tails. This series of essays were composed last year for our Sustainers Circle. They were dictated to John by the Abbey’s mascot, Hildy the Monk-ey. Hildy is a bit of a free spirit who likes to entertain and doesn’t normally feel constrained by conventional story structure . . . or grammar, in general. She lives by the motto that “all stories are true; some actually happened.” We wanted to share them with you, our wider Abbey community, to give you a small monkey-sized, humorous perspective on

August 28, 2022

Monk in the World Guest Post: Elaine Breckenridge

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elaine Breckenridge’s reflection “Spiritual Guidance in and Through Creation.” In the summer of 2020 I had the opportunity to read the book Earth, Our Original Monastery by Christine Valters Paintner and participate in an Abbey of the Arts community retreat by the same name. The retreat helped me out of my pandemic lethargy and into the great outdoors. There I experienced, as Christine has written in the book, spiritual guidance in and through God’s creation. My journey

August 24, 2022

Abbess love notes

The Mystical Heart: Love as a Creative Force ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love. Therefore, it can never find rest nor happiness in other things. By its very nature it must seek God, who is love. –Mechthild of Magdeburg (1208-1282) Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. About how I believe it is at the foundation of everything. This deep knowing is what helps sustain me in dark times. Even as we are bombarded by news of violence and destruction daily, Love also helps me to remember the tremendous beauty to be found in

August 21, 2022

Monk in the World Guest Post: Julie Ferraro

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Julie Ferraro’s reflection “As Observer and Participant.” Over the course of 30 years, I’ve visited many Benedictine monasteries – as well as Trappist – across the United States. From the first time I stood in the chapel at Our Lady of Grace in Beech Grove, Indiana, praying with the Sisters using inclusive language, I’ve been “hooked” by the way St. Benedict’s balanced approach to life is manifested in this modern era. Since June, 2021, with COVID-19 causing

August 17, 2022

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Join Us For The Mystical Heart and Hildegard ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Jean Wise

Christine Interviewed on “The Hagitude Sessions”

The Sacred Art of Doll Making + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – September Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Monk in the World Guest Post: CJ Shelton

Hildy Tails: Jesus Curses the Fig Tree + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess & Prior

Monk in the World Guest Post: Elaine Breckenridge

The Mystical Heart: Love as a Creative Force ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Julie Ferraro

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Recent Reflections

Monk in the World Guest Post: Rochelle Rawson Naylor

Easter and the Journey to Joy! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Lori DiPrete Brown

Ripened (S)aging: A Good Friday Invitation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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