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

Monk in the World

Silence as a Door to Reverence:
A CinemaDivina Prayer Offering

The theme for September here at the Abbey is silence based on the first principle of the Monk Manifesto: "I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be heard, and to resist a culture of noise and constant stimulation."  (Please consider stopping by to sign the Monk Manifesto as a statement of your own commitment).

You can read more about silence here and here and see the wondrous Photo Party (and the visual meditation) and Poetry Party celebrating the gifts of silence.  My latest column at Patheos also explores Silence as the Union of Opposites.

At Abbey of the Arts, I am blessed beyond measure to have many monks and artists as companions and friends.

I am so pleased to introduce Marilyn Freeman who is a filmmaker in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. whom I first met at St. Placid Priory in Lacey, WA, where I am a Benedictine oblate, and Marilyn is now an oblate candidate.  She has a true monastic heart and she brings it to a beautiful spiritual practice she calls CinemaDivina. Rooted in the contemplative prayer and listening of lectio divina, CinemaDivina draws on film as sacred text, as a way to hear the sacred shimmering in this world.

She describes it herself this way:

CinemaDivina is an emerging body of contemplative video essays and a contemplative way of screening the films.

CinemaDivina films are short pieces created to help foster contemplation.  Each film is created through the prayerful practice of lectio divina.  CinemaDivina translates the ancient spiritual practice lectio divina to a filmic paradigm.  Viewing CinemaDivina films within this contemplative screening practice may be especially beneficial, many have found it to be a process that opens hearts, engages imagination, inspires insights, and awakens the sacred in our lives.

Artist Marilyn Freeman creates CinemaDivina works in the context of a Benedictine Monastery – St. Placid Priory and Spirituality Center where she is an oblate candidate. In particular, Sisters Lucy Wynkoop and Mary Giles have provided extraordinary guidance and support. Sr. Wynkoop is co-author along with Christine Valters Paintner of Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening and Awareness, published by Paulist Press.

I am beyond grateful to Marilyn for her willingness to share her work with this community as a regular feature for these coming months.  This month is her reflection on Reverence which is the doorway that silence opens to us – when we enter a place of deep stillness, our hearts are given over to this sense of reverence, of the sacredness of all things.

Pour some tea, close the door, turn off your phone and email notification.  Breathe deeply, put your hand on your heart, and give yourself over to three minutes of reflection and see if you can touch reverence right here in this moment.

Reverence:

Click here to view Reverence at Vimeo

After being with the film, sit in silence for another three minutes, just letting the words and images cascade through your awareness gently, holding tightly to nothing.  Then let even these go and give yourself over to the gift of stillness for just this moment now.  Breathe.

Reverence
~ the literary text ~

I never used to used to use a phrase like bow down…
Until standing in the marsh grasses of the Willapa Bay
A flock of birds flew over my head
And they were so near to me I could hear their wings

I felt the wind they made

They’d crossed the peninsula from the ocean beach
I heard them in the distance, first,
A sound I couldn’t name
I don’t know how many
It seemed like hundreds
Flying so hard
So near to me, I heard their wings

I felt the wind of them

Standing in the marsh grasses, I know I cried
But it wasn’t just crying
It was weeping
What’s the difference, I wonder?
I’m really not certain, I’m only sure that it’s humbling,
That mystery, that difference
Between crying and weeping

In the marsh of the Willapa Bay
I drop to my knees
I bow down,
In Los Angeles, at the Getty, with Stephanie and Annalea
I bow down
On Debe’s porch with all of us
At my mother’s bedside

I bow down
I bow down
In awe
In wonder
In reverence
I bow down

–By Marilyn Freeman, 2008

Description: Reverence

Length 3:25 minutes

Set at the Willapa Bay in Washington State, Reverence—a meditation on the word “reverence”—is a selection from CinemaDivina, contemplative video essays created especially for lectio divina practice. Originally created for the closing ritual of a yearlong spiritual development program entitled, Transforming Fire: Christian Spirituality & Prayer, Reverence was first screened in a lectio context led by Sister Mary Giles Mailhot at St. Placid Spirituality Center on May 20, 2008.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Print
«
»

6 Comments September 25, 2012

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

  • 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
  • Celebrate the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle podcast with us!

Connect with the Abbey

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
JOIN THE HOLY DISORDER OF DANCING MONKS
SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
DONATE TO SUPPORT OUR MINISTRY

Copyright © 2021 BY ABBEY OF THE ARTS · WEBSITE PRIVACY NOTICE

Copyright © 2021 · Flourish Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in