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
    • 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
  • Contact

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World guest post: Laurie Klein

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community (you can read the call for submissions here). I got to meet fellow monk and artist/poet Laurie Klein this past fall when she attended the Sacred Rhythms Writing & Movement Retreat. It was a delight to get to know her soulful spirit. Read on for her wisdom:

Romancing the Senses

Blue as Devotion 

Try to love this world, like a secret,

a promise, a sacred tease:

five hundred shades of blue—sea glass or sky,

sapphire, jade, lapis lazuli. Cool hues

play the rogue, retreat from our gaze

while come-hithering, mystical

as the quiet splice of shadows and twilight,

fickle as evening tide, its invocation

foaming like cream on blackberry sand,

every ebbing a benediction.

How many ways can one soul taste

what perfumes the mind,

be it sandalwood, hyacinth, rain?

Scent, you are memory’s journey mate.

Time frays, like next week’s vapor trail;

the past unspools, and there we are

at midnight, still gazing upward.

—Laurie Klein

Of course, some of us are staring into the dark at midnight despite going to bed at nine o’clock. We can’t hush our thoughts long enough to rest.

I try not to envy those who engage stillness (or sleep!) with seeming ease. Hard-wired like a hummingbird, my spirit craves slow times with God throughout the day, a warm wind I can ride a while, to renew vision and strength. I can hover. Even alight. Sustaining day-to-day devotional practice poses the greatest challenge.

Let me unspool a scene from my past: A chronic bustler and hostage to multi-tasking, I am arrested by the idea of praying without ceasing. Call me a monk wannabe. Longing to keep my soul homing heavenward, I learn to seize pockets of time for worship and gradually supersize them.

Then my father’s death plunges me into clinical depression. My life disassembles. Once I’ve finally unearthed my Bible and journal, I lack the energy to locate a working pen. Too sad to read, much less write, I place these things on the kitchen table. Maybe tomorrow.

A week later, I light a lime-cilantro candle and notice deep sighs while penning a prayer. The play of light and scent pierces apathy. This small pleasure beckons me from bed the next day, when I also dial up a Gregorian chant. Something inside me uncoils, breathes. I discover a gel pen draws me to the page because the ink flows; maybe my thoughts will follow suit, as I grope my way toward hope and wholeness. I am romancing my senses, enticing my soul to be present, to immerse in God’s presence, emerge refreshed. Or are these bribes?

When medication finally kicks in, I enroll in calligraphy class. Stroke by stroke, I experience in my body the sinuous beauty of letterforms. An “A” can make the hand sing! Who knew? Soon I am choosing a word or phrase from Psalms that seems to lift off the page. I letter this word in my spiral notebook and doodle around it. It calms the carom of thoughts, once again pinballing through my brain. Lest I forget, I jot the word on post-its and stick them on mirrors, a cupboard, my dashboard. Later, I’ll learn I’ve stumbled into Lectio Divina.

Then my health lurches again; I succumb to disease, enforced stillness. A verse in Isaiah heartens me: “I will give you the treasures of darkness, wisdom stored up in secret places, so that you may know I am the Lord who calls you by name” (Isaiah 45:3). Pay attention, a voice in my spirit whispers.

Again, romancing my senses summons me to the table. I dust off a translucent teacup, ring a sweet sounding bell. Fingers touch these things gently. In the process I am learning to handle myself with care. No bribes, these are “sense incentives.”

Anointing my hands with orange-ginger lotion becomes a prayer. I bless feet that can barely walk by tucking my tools in a basket, adding a few more to counter pesky distractions: a nail file, lip balm, a silk fan. Little rituals evolve. Lavender complexion mist. Poetry. A new devotional book. Whatever might override pain, undergird my intention, and awaken me from a slump goes into the basket. I call it my portable cloister.

Years pass, my body heals. Along the way I become a writer. Now I can move around the house easily and might journal prayers for the world beside a globe in the guestroom, absorb a sunset from the deck, savor new music in the den. The basket goes with me. An overly-busy mind is slowly becoming a sacred enclosure.

When that old hummingbird vibe winds me up, romancing my senses may not be enough. Then I tell myself I can be present and attentive because God was “mindful” first: For he has been mindful of the lowly estate of his servant (Luke 1:48 NIV). The word mindful comes from a Greek verb that’s fun to say: ep-ee-blep’o. Cross-references in the Old Testament amplify its meaning and invitation:

To gaze at, to behold with respect, to discern, to desire,

to search out specifically in worship or prayer, to pay

attention to, to open the eyes, to wake, to stir up the self,

to turn aside and look.      —Strong’s Concordance

Amid the press of modern life, how telling that the one moment we can fully inhabit is one we often sidestep: this one. Anything can happen in an hour, tomorrow, next year. Now is what we have.

If you are reading these words, an unrepeatable presence of Spirit unites us. Never again in history will we, as a group, and as individuals, experience this exact space and time. As fellow monks in the world, may we become storehouses of practical wisdom for others; may we be irresistible sources of delight: portable cloisters.

Blessed are you who open a gate in every moment . . . 

–Leonard Cohen, “Psalm 28,” Book of Mercy


Laurie KleinLaurie Klein's work appears in journals, anthologies, hymnals, and recordings. Winner of the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, she also authored the classic praise chorus "I Love You, Lord." A former consulting editor for Rock & Sling, she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Bill, and a goofy labrador.

Click here to read all the guest posts in the Monk in the World series>>

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Print
«
»

20 Comments December 30, 2013

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

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