Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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    • About John Valters Paintner
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  • Books
    • Breath Prayer:
      An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred
    • 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
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
      • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Sacred Balance:
        Aligning Body and Spirit Through
        Yoga and the Benedictine Way
    • 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)
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
        (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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 (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
  • Calendar
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Spirituality

Messy Spirituality

I freely admit that I crave a certain degree of order in my life.  On the Myers-Briggs I am an INFJ with a fairly strong organizational J.  That J serves me very well in work and thrives on deadlines. It is certainly what got me through a PhD program in under 6 years. I love my home to be neat and I have a hard time getting to work if its not (okay, so maybe it helps me procrastinate sometimes).  I can be the queen of planning and every day make lists of things to get done (although I often don't accomplish everything on the list).  I have a friend who is high on the P end of the scale who envies me greatly and wants to know my secret for getting things done.  This way of doing things can certainly be a gift.

But in the last few years there have been some big shifts inside of me. I find myself being invited, especially through prayer and dreams, to hold my plans much more lightly and live into whatever is emerging in my life.  I call it "organic spirituality," this path of listening to my own unfolding.  Following what seems to be most life-giving in this time and place.  Trusting my own longings.

I had a dream recently: I walk into my spiritual director's office and the couch I usually sit on has been folded out into a bed and the sheets are rumpled. I am invited to sit down, but feel confused, maybe a bit anxious.  I laughed to myself at this image when I woke up–these delightfully rumpled sheets that represent my longing for a spirituality that is willing to get messy, that doesn't always need the bed perfectly made to feel at ease.

I have often thought that if I lost my agenda I would be even more distressed than if I lost my wallet.  Identity theft notwithstanding, credit cards and ID's are easily cancelled and replaced.  My agenda however, contains all the places I am supposed to be from now through the whole of next year.  To reconstruct spiritual direction appointments, classes, workshops, groups, and more would be a frightful task.  And yet, I have a love-hate relationship with this carefully scheduled life.  It's not that I'm not spontaneous or flexible–in fact I am much more of a "P" with regard to my personal life–it's just that I have realized many of my friends and other people I am deeply fond of I see at pre-arranged times, for example in my women's group, my writing group, my dream group, my supervision group, and so on.  And while these groups provide me with essential support and feedback for different parts of my work, I realize I am longing for my relationships to start getting a little messier and spill out of their neat little boxes on my planner pages.  I want friends to meet friends from different parts of my life, or to meet my husband, or to just be able to call one morning and plan lunch or a hike one day.  I do this occasionally, but far less than is necessary.  I expressed this over the summer to one of my group gatherings to a warm and enthusiastic response.  We were talking about what shape our group might take in the fall and I said I wanted to get to know spouses and celebrate things together and just let out lives overlap more and get a bit messier.  Part of it are the crazy times in which we live. People are so very busy, sometimes if we don't plan ahead several weeks will go by before we get to see a dear friend.

Really though, for me this is about much more than lunch dates and putting aside my agenda. It is about the journey I think we are all called to–the letting go of plans, the exploding of our boxes, the recognition that God is so much bigger than our plans–bigger even than our widest imagination.  It is a lifelong journey, because we naturally think in boxes, wanting to categorize and make sense of things.  Even when I think I have allowed God as much room to be who God is, I suddenly bump up against a limit I have imposed unconsciously and I wonder, why haven't I let the sacred into that part of my life?

It is the kind of spirituality that makes decisions that don't always seem logical or practical.  Like adopting an almost ten-year-old dog after my previously beloved ten year-old dog died, simply because of a longing to bring some healing to her wounded heart. Or doing something despite the mental list of reasons not to, simply because it feels like the most deeply life-giving thing I could do in this moment of my life and when I do it, my heart grows wider and my imagination soars.

Do you have any rumpled sheets in your own life?  Where are the places your plans have gotten in the way? What is emerging in you now, wanting to have a voice, despite how impractical or silly it sounds?

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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14 Comments September 5, 2007

Upcoming Programs

  • Writing Into Bloom with Christine Valters Paintner
    • May 1, 2021
  • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • May 13, 2021
  • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
    • May 15, 2021 - May 16, 2021
  • View All Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

  • A mini-poetry reading from Christine plus other publishing news
  • St. Kevin Holds Open His Hand and Radical Hospitality ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Greta Kopec
  • Monk in the World Podcast + Harriet Tubman Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – April Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

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