Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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    • About John Valters Paintner
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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
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Abbess love notes

Kinship of the Heart (a love note from your online Abbess)

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074

Dearest monks and artists,

I am familiar with strangeness. The stranger within me has become all the more intimate on this life pilgrimage of living in other cultures. I have grown to deeply treasure the value of my sense of strangeness as it challenges all of my preconceived ideas. Ireland is in many ways both like and so unlike the culture I left behind in the States. It is in the unlikeness that I am learning new ways to be in the world.

John and I continue our daily practice of lectio divina as a kind of anchoring, and lectio never fails to bring me back to center, to remind me what is of the essence (my word for the year). The other day my word was "belongs" and the prayer that arose in my heart began with a series of questions. Where is the place of my heart's true belonging? Do I feel a sense of belonging in this adopted land? What does it mean to truly belong?

Exile and coming home are perennial themes for our spiritual journeys. We know the mythical roots of our exile in the story of being banished from the garden of Eden, a way of understanding our lifelong journeys and longings to go home again, to return to the place of paradise, to build the Kingdom among us.

In my own life, exile and belonging have been ongoing questions. I felt it keenly after my mother died and I was left without parents, without siblings, and without children.  Where do I belong became an even more poignant and pressing question.

After having lived in Vienna, Austria for six months and then being called to Ireland, I sometimes marvel that even though Vienna is still very much a place of the heart for me and a source of incredible creative inspiration, I find myself more at home in this adopted land, where I have no known ancestral connections, than in the place where my father and his parents are buried.  The wild beauty of Ireland embraces me in ways I did not expect. The history of ancient monks here shimmers forth, calling me to name this lineage as my own. The landscape, with its aching wild and elemental beauty mirrors something inside of me.

Sometimes I feel self-conscious about teaching this Celtic monastic tradition I love so much, especially to groups of Irish themselves. Who is this stranger who offers us back our own riches? And yet the response has been so warm and enthusiastic. An older Irish woman I met in the pharmacy a couple of weeks ago started a conversation as often happens here with strangers.  After I told her about my work, she took my hands enthusiastically and looked me in the eyes to tell me "Ireland needs you." And I felt the rush of confirmation in that moment, a blessing from a wise one, that I had indeed been called here to receive the riches of this place and share it with the world.

I have come to appreciate my role as stranger here, sometimes we need our own tradition offered back to us through the eyes of another.  And, of course, the earliest Celtic history and artifacts we have in Europe are found in Austria, so the connections are not so very far apart as I might think at first.

So I continue to sit with questions: As a stranger can I offer my gifts? As the adopted one can I feel a sense of true belonging?

Then I remember that the journey of the monk is often to leave family and kinship ties to join a new community, an adopted community, yet one that offers more resonance with the heart's longings.  I smile as I remember that the Abbey has become a global community of monks in the world without blood ties to one another, but with kinship of the heart, and this sense of being adopted into an ancient lineage with so much healing to offer the world. Perhaps there is more belonging in this commitment of our choosing, rather than the ones we feel tied to out of obligation.

One of the central principles or values of the Abbey is hospitality. We practice welcoming in the stranger within as well as outside of us. In everything I do, the recurring theme is to encourage each of us to welcome in all that has been fragmented or rejected. To know that the whole of ourselves belongs and this is the gift of healing we offer to to the world, to remember that everything belongs.

May you find a sense of deep belonging here among other monks and artists, my beloved friends.

With great and growing love,

Christine

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Leave a Comment January 24, 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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