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: Sam Troxal

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sam Troxal's wisdom on marrying Haiku with other contemplative practices:

I searched for a lake
or some other sacred place
my own front porch

I live as a monk in the world by listening—learning to listen. Maybe I really should say I want to learn to listen, hugging the words of Thomas Merton’s prayer that even when I am off course, “the desire to please the Holy does in fact please the Holy.”

For the longest time I didn’t know that the Spirit was speaking. That’s the beauty of the Spirit: it’s always speaking, even when I’m not listening. I caught a sound here and there, not sure where it was coming from, or maybe it was my imagination. More often than not, I forgot all about it. But the Spirit keeps speaking—calling. That’s the word: calling. I think the Holy is calling me—to do, to be.

So, there I was in my usual distracted state a few years ago when I was invited to a leadership role in my congregation. Having spent most of my life as a Pentecostal until coming out of the closet, I felt unprepared for leadership in a mainline congregation where I now was. So I read. Church growth seemed the obvious place to start, but books on spirituality started falling across my path—or, as a friend asked, were they being laid there for me?!

As for the books being laid in my path, they weren’t on mainline spirituality for others, rather they were books on spirituality for me. Eventually the message got through to me, I can best serve my faith community from my own spiritual center.

rain splatters outside
grandpa watching from the door
memories

Some people seem able to hear the Spirit speaking through all the chatter of life, but listening comes harder for me. For me, that means starting and ending each day with morning and evening prayer. Much of my life I felt like I was rushing through life… but to nowhere in particular. I rushed out the door in the morning with breakfast or grabbing it on the way. I skimmed through the news, listened to NPR, as I settled into my workday. Evenings were just as hectic so I rushed from morning to night, day after day. There were weeks where I felt more machine than human.

Prayer helps me slow that down; I don’t seem capable of doing it on my own. At first I even tried to race through that, keeping to a one-month cycle of Psalms. When the Spirit pointed out that I wasn’t really savoring them I heard the call to slow down. Then slow down some more. And then just simply open my prayer with psalms—no schedule, no cycle, just begin prayer here with the psalms and move the bookmark at whatever pace the Spirit leads, but savor the words.

sitting on the porch
haiku roll across the grass
morning prayer

In the morning I need lectio divina. It’s a way of looking out at my day, what is the Spirit calling me to be aware of today? Can I listen to the Spirit’s guidance in the day ahead? I need to start here. And just maybe carry the listening into my day.

Inspired by Christine Valters Painter’s Lectio Divina – The Sacred Art: Transforming Words & Images into Heart-Centered Prayer, I started dabbling in haiku. Honestly, at least some of my interest was to find a quicker route through lectio before work. But, as I discovered—and the Spirit chuckled at my naïveté— haiku was going to be anything but quick.

Many mornings—now noon and evenings, on drives and walks, at work and throughout my day—I pore over haiku. Sometimes, all I hear is a phrase. They may linger there for the day—or days, or weeks. I’m learning to listen. I don’t get to wrap them all up neatly. Sometimes the Spirit just wants a phrase to linger in my soul.

not every haiku
gets finished or right away
to carry around

In the evening I need examen. Here, it is about looking back over my day. Where did I see—or miss—the Holy in my day? The more I do it, the more practiced and familiar I get, I start recognizing the Holy more in the moment.

One examen brought to my attention a coworker whose appearance always brought out a groan within me. If I had to talk, I talked past her. Over time—and this will clue you as to how embarrassingly far off I have been—I discovered three coworkers who caused me to groan. But I prayed them in examen: how did I see them in myself. I began to understand them and found more patience for someone I had something in common with, not to mention toning down some of my own arrogance. I started talking to them—enjoying them, even.

I’m starting to get this listening thing. The more I listen, the more I hear the Holy speaking—calling— from the moments and people in my life.

to see Christ in all
the nice and the downright rude
everyone


Sam TroxalSam Troxal lives in Bloomington, IN where he works as a healthcare enrollment counselor assisting the least of those among us with insurance. He is a member of First United Church where his favorite role is Sunday morning doorkeeper. He is an oblate of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in their oblate intensive which meets for one week each year. You can read his blog here.

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

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4 Comments October 30, 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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