Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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    • 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
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      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
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      • Mary block print art series by Kreg Yingst
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    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
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      • 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
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      • 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)
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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World guest post: Kent Ira Groff

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Kent Ira Groff through our mutual attendance at Spiritual Directors International conferences.  We have a shared love of poetry which makes us kindred spirits.  Kent teaches and writes about prayer and poetry in inviting and accessible ways and I am delighted to share his insights into becoming a monk in the world:

KentIraGroffMugBehind me as I write this is Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’—so anyone meeting with me in person or via Skype sees it. The sky and the village are ablaze with lights, yet the church windows are dark. (The church architecture resembles one where his father was pastor in the Netherlands—now superimposed on a French landscape.) Van Gogh consistently painted his churches without lights. Why?

When young Vincent began ministering with the poor coal miners in Belgium, for a time some churches gave financial support, but then withdrew it, even for food and clothing. From then on he rejected institutional church religion, but never Christ. When I tell this at retreats, I say, ‘It’s up to us to put the lights back on in the churches!’ How can we do that?

Van Gogh Starry NightOne way is to link churches and the arts (visual art, pottery, poetry, drama, music, film, dance) with ongoing use of art in sermons, worship, and education. How about a preacher hold up an art object as part of the sermon (or project art on a screen)? Or break into singing, ‘Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen…?’ Or enlist folks to mime a parable of Jesus as it’s read? Or show a movie clip? Or use ‘Scripture Echo?’  These can be done simply.

A major way is to use art to connect churches with poor people all around us. Van Gogh continued to minister this way with his art—potato eaters, empty shoes, and faces of poor folks. With no worldly success, selling only one painting in his lifetime, Vincent literally lived as a monk in the world. What would that look like for you, for me?

The very best way is to become the art: ‘We are God’s work of art (poema in Greek),’ we read in Ephesians 2:10. Your life is a unique work of art. Michael Card reflects this in his moving CD, Poiema. Gandhi said, ‘My life is my message.’ Art can take the brokenness of life and transform it into beauty. Jazz makes the blues joyous. Poetry and yoga-type exercises do that for me.

After surgery for a back injury in 1974, I literally ‘backed’ into disciplined practices of meditation and prayer. Prescribed exercises have become gestures of gratitude or prayers for others. I’ve found ways to incorporate liturgical prayers, scriptures, and breathing meditations. I still go through times of intense pain. Writing creates a way to redirect the body’s pain. Recently, while teaching a writing class at Chautauqua, New York, my wife had to carry my backpack. I wrote in my journal:

Painting Pain

Is there beneath
this pain some gain
that I might miss
if I complain?

Is there within
my complaint some
vibrant pigment
I can use to paint
suffering’s landscape,
to reinvent my pain
into a space for all
humanity to trace
an arc of beauty in
the dust and rain?

Portions are adapted from Kent Ira Groff, Honest to God Prayer.

Kent Ira Groff is a spiritual companion, a retreat director and a writer poet living in Denver, Colorado, USA, who describes his work as “one beggar showing other beggars where to find bread”—his take on being a monk in the world. Serving as founding mentor of Oasis Ministries in Pennsylvania, USA, he also teaches writing in prisons and is author of several books including Writing Tides and Honest to God Prayer. You can see his Weekly Reflections and resources at www.LinkYourSpirituality.com

To read other posts in this series click here>>

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4 Comments October 14, 2013

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

  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Reverend Deb Goldman
  • 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

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