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
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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
    • 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: Barb Morris

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Barb Morris' reflection on the Hospital of the Soul.

This is a story of following hunches, nudges, and breadcrumbs dropped by the Holy Spirit.

I found El Hospital del Alma on a cold, rainy day on the Camino. El Hospital del Alma, “Hospital of the Soul,” is in Castrojeriz, along the Camino de Santiago, on the vast, interior Spanish plateau called the Meseta. The Camino Francés begins in the beauty of Navarra and Rioja among the Pyrenees, rolling hills, rivers, and vineyards. The Camino ends in the beauty of Galicia, with its mountain ranges, deep green fields, and rainbows. In between is the Meseta – arid, flat, monotonous, and seemingly endless.

The two weeks in May that we spent walking across the Meseta were unusually cold and wet.

El Hospital del Alma was a welcome refuge at the end of a long, wet slog of a day along muddy paths and rocky roads. Finding it was an accident. Most pilgrims walk through Castrojeriz unaware of El Hospital del Alma’s existence. After our usual post-walk showering and laundry routine, we went in search of our usual post-walk beer and tapas. I don’t remember now why we departed from the main route through Castrojeriz. Then, there it was – The Hospital of the Soul. I knew immediately that I needed this place, especially the sunroom with its glass ceiling, warm wood stove, quiet music, and soft furniture. The artist owner provided strawberries, cookies, and tea. Other pilgrims soaked in the gift of this house with its brightly painted rooms, bookshelves, colorful fabrics, and photographs.

And its warmth. Oh, its warmth.

My journal entry for that day reads, in part, “I have found my life’s work on day 16 of my Camino. This is surprising to me .… I’m constantly astounded these days – by how much I walk, by the beauty around me, by my strength …. I felt a total, complete soul hit the moment I walked in here …. My 'job' is to create a space like this – art, photography, poetry, books, funky simple beauty – to open it to people who need it. Who crave it like I am craving it. This makes no intellectual sense.”

As a step in following my soul’s irrational guidance, I now offer regular Hospital del Alma opportunities. I provide tea and cookies as retreatants arrive and settle in. We open our time with community Lectio Divina. (I use Abbess Christine’s book Lectio Divina as a guide.) After Lectio, some participants choose silence while others stay and talk. Then we come together for facilitated conversation about a specific topic, usually an outgrowth of Lectio. A simple soup and bread lunch ends our time together.

I continue to be surprised by our Hospital of the Soul. Here’s one example. Last month, rather than picking a piece of poetry or scripture based on a hunch or yearning as I usually do, I went “hard-core monastic” and used the gospel appointed for the day from the Episcopal Church’s daily lectionary readings. I consulted a reliable source, Forward Day by Day, for the reading, which was Matthew’s account of the feeding of the five-thousand (Matthew 14: 13 – 21).

One of our regular participants is a practicing Quaker. Another has a profound discomfort with organized religion. All of us have some qualms about church. There was a little unease in the room when I announced the text.

In Matthew’s account of this story, Jesus has just heard that Herod has beheaded John, and he goes away to a deserted place. The crowd, “about five thousand men, plus women and children,” gets wind of Jesus’ whereabouts, and they follow. What does Jesus do? I imagine him wiping away his tears and indulging in a sigh of exasperation before he gets to work. As Matthew puts it, Jesus “had compassion on them and cured their sick.” He teaches and heals. And then he feeds the people. Or, rather, he tells his disciples to feed the people.

When our group listens deeply to a text in the container of Lectio, we typically hear different things. Last month, however, we all heard variations on the same theme. We are, here in the United States, living with a government doing brutal things. We were just beginning to learn of our president’s policy to separate children from their parents at our southern border. Our take-away, to a woman, was that in the face of evil acts, our task is to stay faithful to our calling – to teach, heal, and feed. To choose compassion and generosity, over and over again, just as Jesus did. Like Jesus, we wanted to withdraw to a deserted place. And, following Jesus, we will instead respond to the needs of a hurting world, trusting in the sufficiency and mercy of God.

Here’s another surprise. Forward Day by Day had the wrong gospel listed that day. They were a week early with Matthew’s feeding of the five thousand. It’s the only time I’ve known the editors to make an error.

The reading was incorrect, and the reading was perfect for us.

My husband’s desire to walk the Camino led me to El Hospital del Alma, which led to gatherings of women seeking a healing space for themselves and others, which led to deep reading in community Lectio.  Holy breadcrumbs, followed faithfully, lead to healing and wholeness for us as individuals and for the world in which we live.


Barb Morris is a life coach, teacher, and retreat facilitator living in Bend, Oregon with her Episcopal priest husband. They walked the Camino de Santiago in 2014, and the trails of Central Oregon as often as they can. Connect with her at www.barbmorris.com.

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Leave a Comment October 31, 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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