Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
      • Introduction to the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle
      • Day 1 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Cathedral
      • Day 2 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Scriptures
      • Day 3 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Saints
      • Day 4 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Spiritual Directors
      • Day 5 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Icon
      • Day 6 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Sacrament
      • Day 7 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Liturgy
      • Prayer Cycle Leader Resources
    • About the Abbey
    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
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  • Books
    • Sacred Time:
      Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
    • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
    • Earth, Our Original Monastery:
      Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
    • Dreaming of Stones: Poems
    • The Soul's Slow Ripening:
      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
    • The Wisdom of the Body:
      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
    • Illuminating the Way:
      Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
    • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
      Eight Practices for the Journey Within
    • Eyes of the Heart:
      Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
    • The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom
    • Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained
    • Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
    • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    • Awakening the Creative Spirit:
      Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction
    • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness
  • Poetry | Art | Music
    • Music + DVD
    • Poetry by Christine Valters Paintner
    • Poetry Videos
    • Dancing Monk Icons
    • Other Art Collaborations
      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
      • Saints & Animals art series by David Hollington
      • Sacred Time art series by Alexi Francis
      • Mary block print art series by Kreg Yingst
  • Programs
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color
      • The Way of the Hermit:
        A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times
        with Kayleen Asbo, PhD
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers (Lent 2021)
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World:
        An Online Writing Retreat
    • Self-Study Online Spiritual Retreats
      • Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert:
        An Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen
      • Dreaming of the Sea:
        A women’s discernment journey through the story of the Selkie
      • Earth, Our Original Monastery
        A Companion Retreat to the Book (SELF-STUDY)
      • Exile and Coming Home:
        An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures
      • Eyes of the Heart:
        Photography as Contemplative Practice
        (Companion retreat to the book)
      • Honoring Saints and Ancestors:
        Online Retreat for the Season of Remembrance
      • Lectio Divina:
        The Sacred Art of Reading the World
      • A Midwinter God:
        Making a Conscious Underworld Journey
      • Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea & Stone:
        A Creative Retreat with the Elements (SELF-STUDY)
      • Sacred Seasons:
        A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
      • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
        Eight Practices for the Journey Within
        (a companion retreat to the book)
      • The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (a companion retreat to the book)
      • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire
      • Watershed Moments
        in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
      • Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist:
        A 12-Week Companion Retreat to The Artist's Rule
      • The Wisdom of the Body:
        A 10-Week Online Companion Retreat to the Book
      • The Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
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Monastic Spirituality, Photos

Measuring Time

      

 

Before I left for Ireland I had a dream in which my husband and I return to our old apartment building in San Francisco which was going to be demolished and help to save an old clock tower that rests on top of it (the clock tower is not there in waking life).  I brought this dream to my spiritual director who pointed out that clock towers rest at the junction between chronos time and kairos time.  For those of you not familiar with those terms, chronos time refers to everyday time, the time we measure out in our schedules, time that often can feel relentless in its pace and scarcity.  Kairos time, however, is God's time.  It is the time beyond time, when for a moment we can touch the eternal because we lose track of the movement of chronos time.  Kairos time lifts us out of the experience of the everyday and immerses us in a sense of the abundance of time.  Clocks measure out chronos time in minute increments (sometimes seconds), but the clock towers of older times have a grace and beauty to them and often functioned as a call to prayer, and so open up the possibility of kairos time as well.

In Ireland I loved that I found decorative clocks and clock towers around every corner it seemed.  In Dublin, the bells of Christchurch Cathedral rang out to call people to Sunday mass and chimed the hours.  In our modern rushed world, those chimes could be a reminder of how quickly time passes or how little time is left, but their function was to call people to prayer and an awareness of God in the midst of the workday.  Monasteries would ring bells to call the monks to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the call to prayer is issued from minarets (sometimes called the gate between heaven and earth) to Muslim faithful five times each day, in Jewish tradition prayers are said three times each day and four on Shabbat or other holy days, and while I am not aware of a similar communal call to prayer from towers in Jewish communities, the shofar is sounded to awaken people to the start of Sabbath, the New Year and the new moon, and on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiest of holy days.  The traditional times for prayer are at hinge moments of the day, those times of transition — dawn when day is breaking open, before work begins, noon when we reach the fulcrum of daytime, dusk when we release into darkness, and in the black of night.  These are the thresholds of the day that are most conducive to our own awakening from spiritual slumber. 

I bristle against externally imposed schedules, part of why I so enjoy working from home and waking without an alarm on most days (as Michael Meade says, why would we want to alarm ourselves first thing in the morning).  This rhythm helps to feed an organic approach to prayer which is so life-giving for me, learning to listen deeply to the rhythms of my body and spirit and responding out of those.  And yet, there are certainly times when I perhaps need to hear the sound of the church bells or the voice calling me to prayer from the minaret. Times when I am still asleep. Walking by all of those decorative clocks in Ireland reminded me of my dream, how I was trying to save the clock tower, and connected me to a longing for that sacred sense of time and a deeper embrace of the hinge moments in my own day.

Praying the hours is certainly a central part of the monastic life, although as an Oblate it has not been one of my primary practices.  I love the prayers, but they feel like prayers that should be said or sung in community which is often not possible.  But I am feeling a call to examine this more closely and see how I might deepen my awareness of the gifts of the day through this practice and trust the longing that is unfolding within me.

What is the call you need to hear to awaken from your sleep? 

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

(photos taken in Dublin, Waterford, Dingle, and Galway)

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3 Comments July 9, 2007

Upcoming Programs

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
Retreat for Lent 2021

February 17-April 1, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman

Recent Reflections

  • Celtic Spirituality and the Spiral Way ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 3: Ní heolas go haontíos ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Humility + Join us today for live prayer! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 2: Tús maith leath na hoibre – by John Valters Paintner
  • New Book Club for 2021: Lift Every Voice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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