Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
    • 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
    • Breath Prayer:
      An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred
    • 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
    • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color Book Club
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
      • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Sacred Balance:
        Aligning Body and Spirit Through
        Yoga and the Benedictine Way
    • 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)
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
        (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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 (SELF-STUDY)
      • 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
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Abbess love notes

Please Help Support Our Jubilee Year ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims,

Contemplative rhythms are essential here at Abbey of the Arts, both in terms of what we teach as well as what we practice. Each week we try to take a Sabbath day as a time to celebrate the lavish gift of rest. Each summer we take a month of sabbatical time to refresh and renew our bodies and spirits.

We both long for a longer time of sabbatical. If we still worked in a university or church setting this might be built in to the financial support, but since we are entirely self-supporting taking this needed time to step back and listen for the deeper call demands more planning and outside financial support.

About a year ago we realized that since we were coming up on our 50thbirthdays in 2020 (Christine and John’s birthdays are a day apart – June 23 and June 24 – same year of birth) that we might take the opportunity to live into the biblical practice of Jubilee. Because the Jubilee is the 50thyear we realized that when we turn 49 is the start of our Jubilee year and this happens for us in June 2019 when we will begin a year of sabbatical.

Jubilee is a time of sabbatical but also a time to let the land lie fallow, for the forgiveness of debt, and for freedom for everyone in the land. It is a time for us to lie fallow for a while, and pay attention to the ways we have enslaved ourselves through busyness and productivity. It is an invitation into deeper listening and allowing new visions to emerge.

Mostly we want time to be at home in Galway and to rest and write. Writing is our first love for both of us and often gets squeezed between everything else we do. To have open and uninterrupted time to write will be a tremendous gift. We do have some travel planned, a retreat together to begin our experience, and some ancestral travel which has been so core to Christine’s spiritual practice for many years.

We have been saving money for this time. Taking a year off demands a lot of courage, to risk our financial well-being and trust that the Spirit and our community will help us to meet our needs. Because we would like to keep our website going and the daily and weekly email newsletters, as well as admin assistance for responding to email inquiries, there are a lot of administrative expenses we are seeking support from you for helping to cover.

With this in mind we have created a yearlong online program. The content from the program will come from the writing projects we are both working on, so won’t be added work during our sabbatical, but a chance for us to share with you what we are focusing our attention on.

For Christine, this means writing poetry and completing her book on Sacred Time. For John, he will be sharing some stories featuring Hildy, our mascot monk-ey, that illumine life here in Galway with some playfulness. We are also grateful to our wonderful Wisdom Council, as each member will be offering a mini-retreat to be featured each new moon (12 in all) to invite you into seasonal wisdom.

We hope you’ll consider supporting us in this way if you are able. There are different funding levels, as well as both monthly and one-time commitments.

If you’d like to see the content included for different levels of support please click here>>

If you aren’t able to offer support at this time, we ask for your prayers and blessings that this time be fruitful and offer the space needed for God’s new birthing in our lives to come through.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

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Leave a Comment May 12, 2019

Upcoming Programs

  • Writing Into Bloom with Christine Valters Paintner
    • May 1, 2021
  • Revelations: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe
    • May 13, 2021
  • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: A Weekend Retreat Online
    • May 15, 2021 - May 16, 2021
  • View All Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Reverend Deb Goldman
  • A mini-poetry reading from Christine plus other publishing news
  • St. Kevin Holds Open His Hand and Radical Hospitality ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Monk in the World Guest Post: Greta Kopec
  • Monk in the World Podcast + Harriet Tubman Mysticism ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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