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
    • About the Wisdom Council
    • Monk Manifesto
    • Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks
    • Subscribe to Our Love Notes
    • Website privacy notice
  • 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
    • Walk the Ancient Paths: Pilgrimage
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
    • Live Programs and Spiritual Retreats
      • 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)
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
    • 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
  • Contact

Uncategorized

Latest Reviews of Water, Wind, Earth, & Fire

Two wonderful new reviews of Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements (click the link to purchase your own copy on Amazon.com)

Reviewed by Spiritual Directors International:

Spiritual director Christine Valters Paintner describes sitting on an Oregon coastal shore piled with sand and stones, watching the setting sun while gulls glide on a Pacific Ocean breeze. She writes, “Here in this place, wind, water, earth, and fire all meet in a glorious window onto the Divine extravagance” (138). Encountering the four elements in one place is exactly what Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire does, inviting the reader to become a pray-er who enjoys Paintner’s collection of scripture, poetry, wisdom, and prayer. This is a book to take outdoors, where the reader can become fully embodied while planting one’s feet firmly on the earth. The invitation is to taste water and to immerse oneself in it, to feel caressed by the wind, to lift one’s face to the sun’s warmth and light. Paintner teaches people to discover God’s glory and to experience Sabbath rest while praising the Creator for the wonderful gifts God offers again and again.

Paintner connects the elements of fire, earth, water, and wind to an annual season. The cyclical transformation of the earth becomes an invitation for the soul’s conversion. Paintner calls attention to new sensory perception through the words of both contemporary mystics and those of long ago whose truth seems eternal and can only be expressed through metaphor. Contemplating the universe brings new awareness, deeper consciousness, and a greater respect for what God gives us to tend and care for. As Saint Francis would have us discover, the world becomes brother and sister to us.

Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements is not a book to move through quickly but instead is one to savor, much like a person who seeks spiritual development grows closer to God by reading the universe and praying with it. The text calls forth a desire to linger with the “earth community” and its “mystery” (7), to learn from them what God would speak to the individual. With each of the elements, Paintner provides a lectio divina, suggesting a way to read, reflect, respond, and rest with God’s word spoken in creation. Though Paintner’s perspective is primarily Christian, she honors the Hebrew Scriptures along with other spiritual traditions when she unfolds the story of each element. Reflection questions are provided to deepen conceptual understanding and suggest creative prayer practices to open the heart to possibility. She says, “This book is designed to be an accompaniment and guide for ongoing prayer and times of retreat” (7).

Spiritual directors or spiritual directees who either love creation or are challenged by it can use this book to allow God to open a heart space in them. And for those times when God may seem to be distant, Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire offers a way to find God in the pregnant, tangible realities that surround us. 

-Review written by Bobbie Bonk

Reviewed by Spirit & Life magazine:

In view of the recent oil disaster in the Gulf, this book has a particular timeliness. Beautifully and simply written, it celebrates the significance of the four natural elements in our spiritual life. The author draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources – ancient and modern, scriptural, theological and mystical. Her reflections and simple rituals incorporating the elements are those of a pilgrim, not a tourist, in the natural world. She helps us to “see” with more than our eyes, to “sense with more than merely our natural senses. The discipline of spiritual practice helps us to cultivate our ability to see below the surface of things, to have a transfigured vision of the world.” This book is filled with skillfully chosen quotes and practical suggestions to help the world around us come alive in a profoundly Christian and personal experience. It needs to be read by inches, not pages.  

-Review written by Sr. Lenora Black, OSB

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Leave a Comment September 12, 2010

Upcoming Programs

The Way of the Hermit:
A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times

January 22-24, 2021
with Kayleen Asbo, PhD

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

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

Recent Reflections

  • 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
  • Hildy Tales One: Dia dhuit, is mise Hildy! by John Valters Paintner, Your Online Prior

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