Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Reflections

Filter

Monk in the World Guest Post: Callie J. Smith

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Callie J. Smith’s reflection Pausing with Whatever. The titles on my bookshelves don’t fully reveal what those shelves or their books actually hold. Because I have the habit of tucking notes into my books for safekeeping, I never quite know what will fall out when I open a book. Not a great organizational method for my correspondence, this tucking away of notes into books has no less developed into something quite meaningful for me. Opening books and

Read More
Abbess love notes

Deep Calls Unto Deep: Exploring the Psalms ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are very excited to be welcoming Simon de Voil and David Wallace to teach a four-week series on the psalms starting this week. I hope you will consider joining them for an exploration of these ancient texts and their spiritual meaning for us today.  _______ My dear fellow seekers, I’m writing from the Atlantic coast of New England, watching the cadence of waves soothe and splash as over and over they act out their universal destiny.  I’ve come to Maine to attend the memorial of a beloved cousin felled young by pancreatic cancer, and the

Read More
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.  This month’s selection is Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman: Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter by Wisdom Council member

Read More
Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Liz Hill

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post from the community. Read on for Liz Hill’s reflection “When Life Sends You Dancers.” Several years ago, I felt called to go on a vision quest, a personal journey that would provide solitude in nature along with a physical challenge to improve my confidence. After signing up for a journey, I was excited to receive a packet with logistics and instructions about what to bring for three days alone outdoors in the Green Mountains of Vermont. The instructions included suggestions for pre-trip reading as

Read More
Abbess love notes

Join Our Sustainers Circle ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, One of my heart’s great joys is the global nature of this community. To know that there are monks and artists spread all over the world who commit to this way of life brings me tremendous comfort and encouragement.  I feel grateful daily for this vibrant and meaningful work and the amazing people I get to collaborate with to help create our programs and offerings. I am thankful every day for you and for the many notes of encouragement I receive about what our work means to you.  In October we will be adding a

Read More

Monk in the World Guest Post: Susan Johnson

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Susan Johnson’s reflection and poem “Liturgy of the Hours.” During one of Christine’s online retreats, we were invited to create our own Liturgy of the Hours. I believe that retreat was in 2020, and since that time, the following prayers have become a centerpiece of my every day. Upon awakening, I pray Lauds, and every three hours my phone alarm reminds me to continue the prayers, leading me finally to Compline. Then Matins soothes me in the

Read More
Abbess love notes

The Cloud of Unknowing and the Greening Power of Contemplation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Last spring I received an email from my editor at Broadleaf Books to connect me with Carmen Acevedo Butcher who had a new translation of Brother Lawrence’s writings out. That connection was such a gift as I have been a fan of Carmen’s work for years, having especially loved her work with the women mystics.  We went on to record a conversation about The Practice of the Presence for our book club and found Carmen to be not only a wise teacher of contemplative practice, but a beautiful human being full of kindness and enthusiasm. A friendship

Read More
Books

The Love of Thousands Book Released Today!

I am delighted that my latest book The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness officially released today, August 18th! This book has been gestating for close to twenty years and I am thrilled with how it has formed. I pray it becomes a rich resource of support for many.  Here’s an excerpt from the book’s description: Christine Valters Paintner, popular spiritual writer and abbess of the online Abbey of the Arts, says these sacred beings are paving the way for our journey toward God’s love, even as we pass through a world rife with struggle,

Read More

Monk in the World Guest Post: Cassidhe Hart

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Cassidhe Hart is one our newest Wisdom Council members. Read on for her reflection Walk Barefoot. walk barefoot wherever you go you are standing on holy ground there’s a burning bush on every block the sound of sheer silence in every person who passes the hem of your neighbor’s garment an accomplice to miracles During the times I lived abroad, outside my native US, I carried a notebook with me everywhere, recording the tiniest details to help me depict my

Read More
Abbess love notes

Love Holds You Poetry and WritingMini-Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Whatever I Find hidden among the stones piled by lake’s edge — a beetle, a coin, a candy wrapper — let it be a portent, a cypher. Let me seek a new direction among what is hidden, lost, discarded, rather than always grasping at some bright, invisible future. —Christine Valters Paintner, Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, This coming Friday, I am delighted to be leading an online program, hosted by Mercy by the Sea retreat center, called Love Holds You: Yielding to the Sacred Presence through Poetry and Writing. This mini-retreat

Read More