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: Nancy L. Agneberg

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy Agneberg's reflection "Summer Spirituality."

“May you breathe in the beauty of summer with its power of transformation.”

I have a confession to make. I am not a summer person.

I don't like the heat and the humidity and what it does to my thick, curly hair. I don't like mosquitos. To be honest, in the summer I often feel distracted, less productive, drawn away from my garret desk. Nope, I am not a summer person. I am a winter person. I love to hibernate, to enclose myself in a cave where it is dark and snuggly, to wrap myself in sweaters and to eat soups and stews.

The gifts of winter spirituality are easy for me. I live in Minnesota, and the quiet, days of cold and snow and ice invite me to go deeper inside my inner cave, to explore what it is I most need to know about myself and the movement of God in my life. The summer season, however, is a challenge for me. How can I access the spiritual gifts of this time when there is so much to do, so many places to go and people to see, and it all needs to be crammed into a few weeks bookended by holidays and filled with celebrations?

“May you seek and find spaces of repose during these summer months.”

I pray Joyce Rupp's “A Summer Prayer,” and ask myself how can I meet God during this season of so many pleasures? How does summer speak of God to me? How can I grow in my awareness of the presence of God, whether I am walking along the Mississippi River or reading a book on a beach, or harvesting basil for homemade pesto? As I pack for a road trip, how will I remember to make room for the God who yearns for a place in my life, wherever I am?

Summer spirituality invites me into spaciousness. I open the windows of our home to let in fresh air, along with the smell of lilacs, but I can also open the windows of my heart, releasing what is stale and breathless, instead circulating what is fresh and fragrant. With the shift into summer, I have the opportunity to examine routines no longer working for the person I am now and to see with greater clarity how I am growing or need to grow. Is it time to create more simplicity in my life? To pack lightly, not just for a longed-for vacation, but to lighten any burdens of care or worries or tasks no longer necessary. Simplicity is an invitation to discern what is essential.

I know summer has the potential to stretch me. I stretch my body on my early morning walks or while biking in my neighborhood. Perhaps I do some T'ai Chi in a park, instead of in my garret office. Visiting unfamiliar places, seeing new sights, trying new foods and chatting with strangers can broaden my perspectives, my awareness of the world.

“May your eyes see the wonders of God's colors.
May these colors delight you and entice you into
contemplation and joy.”

Summer invites me to use all my senses and to explore its delights and dazzling abundance of treats. Corn on the cob with melted basil butter. The touch of water lapping my feet as I walk a shoreline. The smell of roses in a lush garden. The sound of fireworks on the 4th of July or an outdoor concert and the sight of the moon lingering in the night sky. Savor it all, I remind myself, for the senses are guides across thresholds to the holy. Summer urges me to linger in sacred space, the places where spirit seems most intense. I have felt the sacred while driving country roads past faded red barns, but also on my own front porch with a glass of lemonade in my hands. At the end of a stimulating day exploring new sights or spending time with family or friends, how good it is to ask a loved one, “What was your favorite?” Isn't that a kind of blessing, a way to create sacred memories?

I remind myself to rejoice in celebrations and summer silliness,to celebrate the special, but also look for the extraordinary in the ordinary. Can I rediscover the child I once was. Come, young Nancy, be my summer guide. Recapture the ease of long, lazy days reading Nancy Drew mysteries on a scratchy picnic blanket spread on the lawn or the freedom of turning one way and then another on my bike or comfortable solitude putting together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, knowing I have the whole summer to complete it.

“May the God of summer lead us to amazing discoveries
as we travel the inner roads of our souls.”

The heavy, hot days of summer draw me to stillness,for when I am still, not moving, I am open to being moved. Stop, listen to the crickets in the evening or cheers from a distant baseball game, but also to the inner whispers of new ideas, new connections, new deeper awareness.

Listen to the call to embrace summer spirituality.

“May the God of summer give us joy.
May the God of summer give us inner light.”

May it be so.

Quotations in bold are from “A Summer Prayer” in The Circle of Life, The Heart's Journey Through the Seasons by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr. (Sorin Books, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2005) pp 119-120.


Nancy L. Agneberg, writer and spiritual director, finds joy helping others deepen their relationship to the Divine, the Sacred, the Holy, especially as one ages. Nancy is writing a spiritual memoir about her growth as a contemplative in the world. She posts frequently on her blog, http://clearingthespace.blogspot.com

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Leave a Comment June 20, 2018

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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