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Featured Poet: Marjorie Maddox

Last spring we launched a series with poets whose work we love and want to feature and will continue it moving forward. Our next poet is Marjorie Maddox, whose work focuses on the intersection of body and spirit.  You can hear Marjorie reading her poem “Prayer” below and read more about the connections she makes between poetry and the sacred. And the Topic for Today Is Environmentalism . . . . Teaching “God’s Grandeur” More politically correct than divine grandeur, it too flames out in this small Pennsylvania town where fracking hijacks the headlines. Good reason and good enough to bring

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August 14, 2019

Monk in the World Reflection by Christine (Silence and Solitude) + AUDIO ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear pilgrims, monks, artists, Please note: This reflection was written when we lived in Seattle and had a dog named Winter. We currently live in Galway, Ireland with our dog Sourney. If you’d prefer to listen to Christine on silence here is the audio version.   Being a monk in the world means, for me, choosing to live contemplatively in resistance to the demand for speed, to live mindfully and with intention instead of rushing through life, to savor my experience rather than consume it, and to remember that my self-worth is not defined by how much I do or achieve,

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August 10, 2019

Monk in the World Guest Post: Nicole Walters

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nicole Walters’ reflection “The Rhythms of the Dawn.” The quiet of the morning is broken by the alarm that starts off on the periphery of a dream and shifts to a nagging pull into reality. I stumble out of bed, untangling the little limbs wrapped around my body.  In the dark I can’t decipher which child is to my right and who is to my left but I don’t want to wake either one. My husband lies across

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August 7, 2019

Reflection by John (Silence and Solitude) ~ A Note from Your Online Prior

Dear pilgrims, monks, and artists, 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. Mark 6:31-33 He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going

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August 4, 2019

Featured Poet: Mark Burrows

Last spring we launched a series with poets whose work we love and want to feature and will continue it moving forward. Our next poet is Mark Burrows, whose work is deeply inspired by the idea of home and stability of place.  You can hear Mark reading his poem “I Still Marvel” below and read more about the connections he makes between poetry and the sacred. I STILL MARVEL Each spring I wait for the crocuses to come, eager to greet their purple bursts as they rise from the soggy earth and stubborn patches of late-lingering snow, and while I know

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July 31, 2019

Silence and Solitude 1: A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear pilgrims, monks, and artists, 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. “Silence is never merely the cessation of words . . . Rather it is the pause that holds together-indeed, it makes sense of-all the words, both spoken and unspoken. Silence is the glue that connects our attitudes and our actions. Silence is the fullness, not emptiness; it is not absence, but

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July 28, 2019

Dreaming of Stones review from the Chicago Tribune

Dreaming of Stones: Poetry collection offers spiritual solace by Barbara Mahany, Chicago Tribune To enter the pages of Christine Valters Paintner’s “Dreaming of Stones” feels akin to wandering the undulations of Celtic wilds, the barren landscape that cloisters timeless secrets and truths. It’s not hard to imagine ancient ruins off in the mist-drenched distance. Nor to hear the cry of North Atlantic winds, sweeping across moor and mountain. It’s haunting and it’s beautiful. Most of all, it’s to find yourself at home in a place you’ve never been — the very definition of soulful retreat.   And so it is

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June 25, 2019

The Jubilee Begins! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today is my 49thbirthday and tomorrow is John’s. We are entering our 50th year of life and eager for this sabbatical time of spaciousness to listen and discern the shape of our work going forward and to have more time for the writing we so love to do. I returned a week ago from teaching in Chartres, France. (The photo above was received one of my first nights there). The program was hosted by Lauren Artress and the wonderful folks at Veriditas who help promote the labyrinth worldwide. It was a powerful week of diving deeply

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June 23, 2019

Monk in the World Guest Post: Christine Aroney-Sine

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Christine Aroney-Sine’s reflection, “Enter the Re-Wonderment of the World.” This year has been an amazing awe and wonder springtime on America’s west coast. In California the spectacular blooming of the desert brought thousands of people out to relish the brilliant oranges, yellows and purples of the flowers whose seeds lie dormant, sometimes for years waiting for rain. In Oregon brilliant purple lupines waved their heads across the mountainsides and here in Seattle, smiling daffodils gave way to tulips and

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June 19, 2019