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)
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
    • Community Online Retreats
      • 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: DG Hollums

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for DG Hollums' wisdom on seeing the world more deeply:

I’ve always been an outgoing extrovert. My soul is filled up by being around others and enjoying the smiles and love of others around me. As a child I was passionately quick to love and really did not know a stranger. I was always the one that would hug others. Even those who did not “appreciate” hugs, I would make a B-line for them just to make sure they knew that they were loved. Of course, I can look back now and see that it was God using me to remind others that they are loved.

This extrovert in me stayed alive and well all through high school, undergrad, and seminary. But while working in a cubical farm in the marketing department of a fast food chain, I found the Wesley Covenant Prayer. I taped the prayer to my computer screen at work and prayed it as the first thing I did before I started work and prayed it as the last thing I did before leaving to go home.

It was the first time I experienced a rhythm to my life in relationship with God. This daily pattern was the first taste I had of anything contemplative in nature. I eventually attended seminary and fell in love with listening and seeing through the lens of my heart.

Road to Black Lakes - DG HollumsIt wasn’t until I bought my first Digital SLR camera that I remembered the passion I had for photography back in my undergrad black and white photography classes. This awe inspiring gift that God allows each of us to join in the holy act of being co-creators alongside the Trinity was flooding my mind, reminding me who I was at the core of my being! It was as if I realized that in the past 15 years I was missing an entire piece of my human nature by not joining God through art.

Fishing Bridge - DG HollumsI spent the next 10 years of my life using photography as a spiritual practice/disciple. I had a friend receiving his doctorate of ministry tell me his teacher was speaking about Celtic Christianity having the belief that God created two books. The little book being what we call the Bible and the big book what we call creation. After spending a day receiving images through my camera and heart with God, it dawned on me that I was doing Lectio Divina with the big book! Photography, for me, was receiving the creation into my heart and soul. It fed the newly introduced contemplative in me.  In the past 2 years, God has been challenging me to bring bring balance into my past and future self. So, I’m slowing allowing the extrovert in me to share this contemplative rhythm through teaching others this amazing spiritual practice in the use of photography. He is showing me how to help others to experience transformation and to be able to become contagious in their lives and hearts so that God transforms the very communities where we have been planted. I have great gratitude and thanks for Christine for writing “Eyes of the Heart” and giving me a language and foundation for what I have been practicing for so long! Her book was an empowering pivotal moment in my contemplative practices through photography.

Abby of Gethsemani - DG HollumsMy prayer and passion is that Christianity once again embraces the beautiful enigma of art and creativity in each of our faith walks through the rhythmic tones of life. This is not only for artists:  it is for everyone! This gift is freedom found in our lives. We get to  develop a deeper sensitivity of hearing (Audio Divina), seeing (Visio Divina), and sensing (Sensus Divina) God: in, around, and through each of us and the creation. The more we put these practices into our daily and weekly rhythms, the more and more sensitive we will be at hearing the still small silence and voice of God in our lives in the small book and the big book. Then and only then will we be able to become the dancing monks and friers God has in mind for those called to be living expressions of the art of God. May you be blessed to be a blessing through living a life that is echoing and mirroring the divine relationship with all those around you. Start the journey or continue it, but make sure you are traveling.

Covenant Prayer
From John Wesley's Covenant Service , 1780

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things

to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.


DG HollumsD.G. Hollums M.Div., is a clergy in The United Methodist Church, born and raised in west Texas. He is currently the Sr. Pastor at High Desert UMC (a small church in Rio Rancho, NM since June 2013) D.G. spent the past three years intentionally working at Apple Inc. to show the need for clergy to develop relationships beyond the church to offer community to those who have none. Before Apple, he was a United Methodist church planter in the Cincinnati, OH tristate area doing experimental church planting using communal Lectio Divina in pubs with people of all faiths developing Christ centered community and relationships among strangers. During this time he started to develop a method and spiritual practice of Visio Divina through contemplative photography from the photographer’s eye; as well as, those viewing the art. It has become his passion to help those with faith to empower them to become more sensitive to the "thin space” moments around them and receive them wholeheartedly. He is also a podcaster and lover of culture and a foodie! His wife, Tiffany, is also clergy in the United Methodist Church and they have one 3-year-old adopted daughter that they both are smitten in love with. You can find D.G.’s photography at http://hollumsphotography.com.

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

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7 Comments April 3, 2014

Upcoming Programs

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
Retreat for Lent 2021

February 17-April 1, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman

Recent Reflections

  • Celtic Spirituality and the Spiral Way ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • 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

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