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
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  • 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
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      • 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
    • Walk the Ancient Paths: Pilgrimage
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
    • Live Programs and Spiritual Retreats
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World:
        An Online Writing Retreat
      • 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)
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
    • 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: Pat Butler

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Pat Butler's reflection, Thirsty Walls. 

As veteran homeowners know, the work never ends. Nor does spiritual work. And as this novice homeowner discovered, one can inform the other in a monastic practice of restoration: renovations!

Wall prep seemed to go on forever as I peeled wallpaper, cleaned and scrubbed glue, repaired cracks and spackled dings, sanded, preparing the walls to receive paint. I prayed through the work—for help, strength, knowledge, protection—in this new monastic cell, with a new spiritual discipline.

I smoothed hardened drips of paint that had run their course, ending their history as mine began, taking possession of this house. The work stretched on, one tedious wall after another, and my thorny relationship with the walls grew. It seemed the wallpaper glue would never dissolve, despite repeated soakings and a multitude of products. I tossed sacrificial offerings into the dumpster each day: sponges, sandpaper, rubber gloves, broken fingernails, and cleaning products.

Disruptions stalled the work: injuries, travel, lack of finances. Would it ever end? Were there short cuts? I searched You Tube, googled products, consulted with other homeowners, and made daily pilgrimages to the home improvement stores.

Weeks turned into months. By month two, I scrubbed with a lament from the psalms: How long O Lord!? There came a swift response:

How long to you think restoration takes?

A glimpse of God’s heart for the careful, painstaking work of restoration sobered me. I scrubbed on; each day a new day of reckoning. What else would the walls say?

Go the distance. Do it right.

I studied more, consulted more, reworked the budget, learned to wait for help, finances, or a pulled muscle to heal.

Old photos in cracked frames, gently removed from the walls, confounded me at the happiness portrayed but left behind. Were these walls abandoned, like the photos? Why?

Tell me a story, walls.

Erase the past; better: redeem it. Whose walls are these now? 

I learned to caress the walls, feeling for imperfections invisible to the eye, exposed to fingertips, inevitably revealed if paint went up prematurely. Daily I inspected, groomed, a monkey mother with her infants. I began to fall in love with the walls as part of my new home, supporting, protecting, demarcating space.

Eventually, each wall yielded up a beautifully smooth surface, ready to receive paint. A final inspection for flaws, one final consultation with helpers, and a photo to record the process. I gathered paint chips with names like Plum Dandy, Ionic Ivory and Obstinate Orange. Selecting, painting samples, making choices, commitments. Praying over the walls, writing Scriptures, blessings and prayers on them—and then—color!  One wall at a time.

Still the walls spoke.

Forgive.

Forgive the laziness, neglect, shortcuts, mistakes, lack of care or craftsmanship, which has created so much work for me.

Holy Week: another friend came to help. I’m thankful for companions on the journey. They weren’t always available, and I learned to shoulder more responsibility. A spiritual discipline is practiced by the individual, even in community. And some spiritual journeys are made alone, as Christ learned in Gethsemane. Ultimately, no one else could do my job. No one else could walk my walk. No one could or would love or prep these walls quite like me.

A thankless job I grew to thank God for, because I have a home, unlike so many. I want these walls to be ready to receive anyone who comes. And I want to hear all the words the walls want to speak, if I give them the time.

Good Friday: at the end of our week, exhausted, backs aching, we stopped for lunch. I made a power meal to keep our energy up, but after eating, we slumped in our chairs more likely to nap than press on.

“Let’s move before we fall asleep!”

I jumped up—consecration to the task!—asking God for renewed strength.

Two coats of primer later, I was finally splashing on color in my bedroom:  Cornflower Blue. I bent over, trying for the third time to reach a hard corner. The first coat was soaking in faster than I could paint, leaving a blotchy patchwork behind me. “These walls are thirsty!” I sighed.

I thirst.

The very verse I had read that morning! Fully awake now, I straightened. Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening . . . 

As the walls soaked up the paint, my mind soaked up images of a crucified Christ, dying: what were his thoughts? Of physical thirst, no doubt. But spiritual thirst as well? Thirsting to go home, for an end to suffering, for his Father, thirsting to obey, to fulfill his call.

Thirsting for his creation, for each one of us. Thirsting to make the rough places smooth and fill gaps, to remove what is stubbornly glued to us. To redeem histories, and add color. To prepare a place for us, and bring us home.

I yearned for this thirst. I prayed for it, as I continued with Cornflower Blue, preparing an earthbound place, sacred space for myself and others. No short cuts.

One could say I’m simply renovating a house, but that’s the external story; the internal one speaks of taking ownership, restoring, preparing a place for others. And God will use both stories for his redemptive purposes.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.


Pat Butler is a monk in the subtropics of Florida, currently practicing spiritual disciplines of first-time home buying, sunset gazing, and beach combing. Artist, poet and writer, Pat has authored three chapbooks through Finishing Line Press, and enjoys family, travel, French culture, and black jellybeans.

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1 Comment November 22, 2017

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

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