Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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    • Prayer Cycle
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    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
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    • Monk Manifesto
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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
      • Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color (Book Club – March 2021)
      • God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila (Book Club – February 2021)
    • 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)
      • 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
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Abbess love notes

What is Shimmering? (a love note from your online Abbess)

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ireland treeI have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

—R.S. Thomas

Dearest monks and artists,

This poem above has arrived to me in a couple of different ways lately and each time keeps deepening me into its invitation. One of the things I love most in Ireland is the way the sky can grow so dark and grey and intense rain falls. Then the sun will emerge through the clouds, its illumination all the more brilliant in contrast to the sky surrounding it. The way the light falls across the wet field and makes it luminous always makes me stop in awe. I wonder too if those ancient Irish monks beheld this vision and were inspired to add gold to their illuminated manuscripts to come closer to reflecting these moments of vision into eternity.

I spent this last weekend leading a retreat for a delightful group here in Ireland of folks who run retreat houses across the country. We explored lectio divina and the creative arts and how lectio can open up our poetic imagination in new ways. The central impulse in lectio is to look for what shimmers, and to trust that as the place where God is speaking to our hearts most intimately, right in this moment of our lives. I have such a love of lectio, and have shared before that John and I pray this way together each morning. These times of listening from the heart then shape our work for the Abbey, so it comes from this place of encounter with the holy presence working in our lives.

Sacred scriptures offer us many things, one of which is a way to meet the poetry of God in an intimate way.  I find myself daily inspired by the words or phrases that shimmer forth, planting themselves in my imagination and calling forth new visions. Words have such power to shape us and shift our ways of seeing, they can break open in a moment.

This act of paying attention to what shimmers in the text also shapes us to begin to see the shimmering all around us at every moment. Life continues to invite us into our own unfolding, offering moments that call us forward into our deep dreams and partnership with the divine Artist at work in our lives.

The rhythms of lectio divina, are the rhythms which call us more deeply into the heart of the world: listening for what shimmers, savoring it and letting it stir us, yielding to the invitation offered, and then resting into stillness. The monk in the world cultivates spaciousness of days so that these possibilities might have room to rise up like fire, like the illumination of the bright field and for at least a moment, remind us of something more beautiful, something enduring, the holiness of now.

For the men of the community, we have a wonderful new program exploring the wisdom of some of the biblical texts for your journey as monks in the world, starting in just a few days.  Join us for Exile and Coming Home: Priest, Prophet, Politician, and Poet – An Online Journey for Men. John Valters Paintner (you can read his previous guest post here), Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Roy DeLeon, and Michael Landon have a beautiful experience of soulful reflection and shared conversation in store for you. Please consider gifting a man in your life with this experience as well.

John and I will also be leading an online retreat for Lent on The Soul's Journey and exploring a different biblical image of pilgrimage each week. If you register by February 1st there is a free mini-retreat on listening to the stirring in your belly included for the upcoming Celtic feast of Imbolc.

There is a new Photo Party and Monk in the World guest post by Peg Conway. Winners for Give me a Word drawing are here.

May you discover the shimmering heart of God calling you more fully into the poetry of your life.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Photo: Tree in Ireland

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Leave a Comment January 14, 2014

Upcoming Programs

  • The Two HT’s Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman on Being Free with Therese Taylor-Stinson
    • Apr 17, 2021
  • Writing Into Bloom with Christine Valters Paintner
    • May 1, 2021
  • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • May 13, 2021
  • View All Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

  • 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
  • Hildy Tails 12: Is ait an mac an saol ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Easter Blessings + An Elemental Journey ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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