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100th Birthday Video Request

Dearest dancing monks, On June 23rd and 24th John and I each turn 50 years old! It marks the official end of our Jubilee sabbatical year. This year has been a tremendous gift for us and we will be sharing more in the coming weeks about some of what we discovered. We were planning to have a combined 100th birthday party in Galway to celebrate, but due to the pandemic, we sadly had to cancel our celebrations. So we are coming to you, our beloved community with a request for a birthday present: Would you consider creating a short (15-20

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Michael Schoenhofer

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Michael Schoenhofer’s reflection “Awe.” Awe: It’s a key to well-being “an overwhelming feeling of  reverence, admiration, wonder produced by that which is grand, sublime, powerful. . .” (Dictionary.com ). Joshua Tree National Park My wife Mary and I traveled out west for a little sunshine and warmth during the last week of January. Our aim was to walk the trails in Joshua Tree National Park near Palm Springs, California. We flew to Las Vegas, rented a car,

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Monk in the World: Conversion 5 ~ Suggestions for Practice – A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims, During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. Each week will offer new reflections on the theme and every six weeks will introduce a new principle. Principle 7. I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations. Consider writing the words “always we begin again” somewhere you can see them regularly as a reminder to be gentle with yourself on the spiritual path.  This is an invitation to respond to

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Praise Song for the Pandemic now in French

? Praise Song for the Pandemic from Christine Valters Paintner on Vimeo. The combined views of our YouTube and Vimeo versions of the Praise Song for the Pandemic video have reached over 150,000 and over a million on Facebook! We are grateful to know many are using this in their online worship services. Diane Ellison wrote to us to ask permission to translate the poem into French which we share gratefully below. Chant de louange durant la pandémie Loués soient les infirmières, les médecins et tout le personnel médical qui prennent soin des humains et qui, par leur présence, réussissent

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Nancy Joan Brighid neé Muire, OblSB

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy Joan Brighid neé Muire’s reflection “Lessons in Humility.” Most of my life I thought I was successfully managing to get and then control what I wanted. Money was coming in, I owned my home. I had a husband. Then in 2010, disaster struck. By 2012, I was divorced and living on my own. I had bought a home and small acreage in southwestern Colorado and was managing it as a homestead farm. I had a sweetheart,

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Monk in the World: Conversion 4 – Guided Meditation by Christine Valters Paintner + Audio ~ A Love Note from your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims, During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. Each week will offer new reflections on the theme and every six weeks will introduce a new principle. Principle 7. I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations.   I invite you to pray lectio divina with the following scripture passage: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new

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More from Christine Around the Web This Week

Christine was featured on the Ave Explores podcast this week to talk about “The Soul of the Artist” Christine has a new poem titled “Spring Ephemerals” in Bearings journal online which celebrates spring’s arrival and our intimacy with the more-than-human world. You can read it here>> St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, VA is having an online art exhibition in response to the pandemic – here is a collection of poems shared including mine on p. 27 “Always” under the theme of Solace. This poem comes from her second poetry collection The Wisdom of Wild Grace, being published by Paraclete

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Becky Rische

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Becky Rische’s reflection on paying attention to nature and the divine. Quieted by nature, I can sometimes better hear that God-given voice showing me what is mine to do.  Noticing who I am, how I am, and where I am when this happens, gives me guidance on how to hear and see and follow God at other times. For instance, right now I’m writing this from a dear friend’s cabin in the mountains. I planned to leave

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Practicing Resurrection with All of Creation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists and pilgrims, Christine has written an article for Godspace Blog. An excerpt is below with a link to read the full article. Lent is a powerful season of transformation. Forty days in the desert, stripped of our comforts, and buoyed by our commitment to daily practice so that we might arrive at the celebration of Easter deepened and renewed. And yet this year, we were challenged to a much more severe Lenten experience, where many of our daily securities have been stripped away. How do we then approach the glorious season of resurrection, and celebrate not just

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Monk in the World: Conversion 3 – Reflections by Christine Valters Paintner (with AUDIO MP3)

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims, During this Jubilee year of sabbatical we are revisiting our Monk Manifesto by moving slowly through the Monk in the World retreat materials together every Sunday. Each week will offer new reflections on the theme and every six weeks will introduce a new principle. Principle 7. I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations.   Conversion in monastic tradition is never a once-and-for-all event.  Instead it is always a process of unfolding, ripening, emerging, arising.  I like to think about this commitment to conversion as always

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