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Abbess love notes

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

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today we begin Holy Week and observe the transformative journey toward Easter and Resurrection. Before we jump to Resurrection it is important to sit with the landscape of grief and holy pause. On Friday, April 18th, Wisdom Council Member, psychospiritual therapist, and interfaith spiritual companion Melissa Layer will lead us in the mini-retreat Ripened (S)aging: A Good Friday Invitation for Exploration of Grief, Loss & Mortality in Our Wisdom Years. Good Friday’s potent themes of death and resurrection are compelling portals holding symbolic metaphors that offer an expanded opportunity for wisdom in our eldering years. Melissa offers us this reflection.

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April 13, 2025

Monk in the World Guest Post: Amy Oden

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Amy Oden’s reflection on silence in academic settings. As a professor I live much of my life with students in learning and discovery. This happens in physical classrooms, outside classrooms, in retreat settings and in virtual spaces. I’m noticing how my contemplative journey continues to shape and transform my teaching. My monk-in-the-world speaks into course design and class sessions, drawing my attention to the rhythms we inhabit together as learners. Life with students has been a wonderful

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April 9, 2025
Abbess love notes

Conversion, Wonder, and Being Surprised by God ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Tomorrow, April 7th, Simon and I will be joined by guest musician Richard Bruxvoort Colligan for our monthly Contemplative Prayer Service. Our theme this month is the 7th principle of the Monk Manifesto, Conversion. Here is an excerpt from our Monk in the World self-study retreat. 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 is one of the central commitments which Benedictine monks make. The other two are obedience and stability which have to do with listening deeply for God’s voice in the world and committing

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April 6, 2025
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Monk in the World Guest Post: JoRene Byers

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for JoRene Byers’s reflection and poem “New Moon, Beloved Darkness”. I wrote this poem after setting aside time to prayfully gather the beautiful symbolic elements, and lighting the candles in a sacred manner for the mandala. Every step is taken with gentle awareness:  asking first, giving thanks, offering the beauty and fragrance of the incense of herbs, spices, flowers, fruit, and flame. The generosity of the more than human world always humbles and comforts me. This gathering returns me to

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April 2, 2025
Abbess love notes

Feast of Sister Thea Bowman ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today is the feast day of Sister Thea Bowman, an amazing woman whose vibrancy still radiates to us today, calling us to shine our lights in a world that is often hard to bear. Even in the midst of a slow and painful death from cancer, she embodied joyful living, knowing that joy and delight must be cultivated in the midst of injustice and suffering.  These last few months we have been creating a resource and sharing it with our Sustainers Circle. For each of our dancing monk icons (created by the wonderful Marcy

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March 30, 2025
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A Midwinter God Named a Best Spiritual Book of 2024

Christine’s book A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness was named A Best Spiritual Book of 2024 by Spirituality & Practice! Jon M. Sweeney of Spirituality & Practice also wrote a lovely review. “No one combines teaching wisdom with spiritual practice quite like Christine Valters Paintner does in her books. This one is designed for anyone who’s grieving a loss and desires to thread that loss through their lives for meaning.” ~ Jon M. Sweeney, Read the full review at Spirituality & Practice

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March 27, 2025

Monk in the World Guest Post: Susan Miller Setiawan

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Susan Miller Setiawan’s reflection “the way is made by walking.” This past April, my partner and I returned from Indonesia, where we had spent the previous 4 months leading a semester abroad for the small liberal arts college where I work.  Soon after we returned, a friend asked me how I was doing.  “Well,” I found myself saying, “I feel like my soul is still back in Indonesia.” I knew right away that I didn’t say that

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March 26, 2025
Abbess love notes

Blessing for Theotokos (God-Bearer) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Note: Click cc turn closed captions on or off. Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Tuesday is the Feast of the Annunciation and I want to share an adapted excerpt from my book Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal. My book explores 31 archetypes of Mary and this one is on the Greek image of Theotokos. During these difficult days with uncertainty and suffering everywhere, we can call upon Mary as God-bearer to remind us that we too are called to birth the holy.  Theotokos: She Who Gave Birth to God  Theotokos means God-bearer. There is a beautiful

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March 23, 2025
A sketch of a heron in the water by Melinda Thomas
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Monk in the World Guest Post: Melinda Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Abbey Program Coordinator Melinda Thomas’s reflection and poem Synonym. It is my great privilege to serve the Abbey as Program Coordinator and get to know all of you, our dear, dancing monks. One of our guiding principles is a commitment to community. As an introvert and someone who often finds it difficult to reach out, I value the wisdom of how there are different ways to be in community. Whether we gather online or in person, in

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March 19, 2025
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Earth Psalter: Writing Psalms for the Anthropocene ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Friday we are delighted to welcome Wisdom Council member Cassidhe Hart and her teaching partner Grant Showalter-Swanson for a creative mini-retreat on Earth Psalter: Writing Psalms for the Anthropocene. Read on for their reflection on this spiritual practice. My (Cassidhe’s) family moved frequently as a child, and as a soul who even then longed for a monastic sense of stability, I was often overwhelmed by the constant change in setting. When I was about 11 years old, I remember comforting myself with bible verses such as Genesis 8:22 about the regularity of the seasons

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March 16, 2025