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
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        Earth as the Original Sacrament
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        Earth as the Original Liturgy
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      Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
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      Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
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      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
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      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
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      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
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        with Christine Valters Paintner
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      • 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)
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        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
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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World: 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 "Confession: Naked and Unashamed."

 Prologue:

We use the word confession in different ways. We confess things we believe: we confess Christ. We confess ignorance: maybe about technology, when we don’t understand it as well as we’d like. Jesus made the “the good confession” before Pilate. And we confess sin, admitting we got things wrong. I confess I don’t always like that last one. When a Lenten devotional recommended confession as a discipline, I squirmed.

Abbess Christine advises us to lean into dissonance, however, which may hide treasures. So after squirming, I leaned in—in three movements.

Act 1: Location

Who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.—Psalm 19:12

Confession still evokes in me images of a dimly lit church filled with dark corners, flickering candles, and a feeling: foreboding. Ahead in the gloom, at the end of a long colonnade, the shadow of the confessional loomed.

Saturday confession was a staple in my religious upbringing. As a schoolgirl, I invented sins to enter that confessional—scarcely understanding the depths or tenacity of sin. Each week I wondered: was this the day I’d be exposed as a fraud, a liar, an imposter—lying in the act of confessing?

If I went regularly to confession, no one seemed to care how much I sinned. Rather than gouging out our eyes or amputating limbs to prevent sin—Jesus’ prescription—we trusted our rituals to straighten ourselves out. I was glad of it. Weekly confession was less grisly.

But eventually the ritual unraveled for me. “What’s the point?” I wondered. Confession seemed like sin insurance. Through weekly confession, I could sin continually. No need to change. Accepted as a “good” Christian, I was a poor human being, living in false ways of being.

Finally, I gave up the practice, disillusioned by its uselessness in breaking destructive cycles in my life, despite my best intentions. My true motives lay naked and ashamed before God. I left the pews filled with rank and file sinners, heads bowed. The tomb-like silence of the church, punctuated by the latch of the confessional door opening and closing, seemed a place of death.

Act 2: Dislocation

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.—Psalm 32:5

Decades later, I read about confession as a place of reconciliation. Without it, the author maintained, we lose our ability to stand before God. We hide, naked and ashamed, like our first parents.[1]

The thought arrested me. I didn’t want to live like that. What would it be like to live naked and unashamed before God? I never returned to the confessional, but began the spiritual discipline of confession, with the help of Examen questions. Rather than overthinking, overanalyzing, or introspecting, I invited Abba Father to search me and try my heart. Was there any offensive way in me?[2]

I was startled the first morning—challenged to confess fear. As I dug in, I recognized my childhood sense of foreboding. Was I still a fraud? I felt no conviction, just a need to acknowledge the fear before it overtook me. As I did so, the fear revealed its name—fear of God. Was it a sin?

The tension in my body and spirit eased and peace flooded in. I sensed God smiling, rubbing his hands together in delight, saying, “Good! Tomorrow we’ll talk repentance!”

Act 3: Relocation

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.—1 John 2:1

Our Advocate convicts of sin but also defends us. In my second confession, God convicted me of a sin the fear cloaked: believing the lie that if I confessed, I’d be condemned. The sin hiding in dark corners, generating fear, was exposed. Remorse swelled—with a cold-blooded decision of my will to change, to ask forgiveness.

Joy, relief, and lightness of being followed. No condemnation, only love, acceptance, and absolution.

Sometimes we need a confessional. Other times we need only our Father. Sometimes a trusted friend, prayer partner or spiritual director will do. There is strength in numbers, sharing, and community. There is humility in confessing our sins one to another.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.—James 5:16

Epilogue: Assurance of Pardon

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us . . .”—1 John 1:9

In two mornings, I learned two truths: confession helps us avoid sin—catching the little foxes that spoil the vineyard, that lead to sin.[3]Staying naked and letting God cleanse. And confession is not repentance, which might come later or not at all. The word confession means simply to acknowledge. To name things.

Where we’ve been dislocated from the source of life, God relocates us to its full flow. His divine mercy is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love; he forgives, absolves, and restores. Confession takes courage, trust, honesty, vulnerability—living naked and unashamed—my birthright as daughter of the Most High God.


[1] The Seven Last Words of Jesus, Romans Cessario, OP, Magnificat, Paris/NY, 2009, 84

[2] Psalm 139:23-24

[3] Song of Solomon 2:15


Pat Butler is a Floridian monk, currently practicing disciplines of condo restoration and poolside meditations. Artist, poet, and writer, she has authored three chapbooks and is at work on her first book. This is Pat’s third guest blog with the abbey. FB: The Mythic Monastery. IG: @monkinmotion.

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Leave a Comment November 13, 2019

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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