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

Featured Poet Series

Featured Poet: Julie Cadwallader Staub

Last spring we launched a series with poets whose work we love and want to feature and will continue it moving forward.

Our next poet is Julie Cadwallader Staub whose recent work is centered on the intersection of human experience, nature, the marginalized, and sorrow in the world. Read her poetry and discover more about the connections she makes between poetry and the sacred. "Lister to her read "Trees" below.

https://abbeyofthearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/JCS-recording-of-Trees1.m4a

Jesus Buys a House in South Burlington, VT

I live in a lovely
neighborhood or at least it
used to be, before he
moved in next door.

Now there’s a stream of raggy people on bikes,
in cars, most trudging up the street on foot to
his raised ranch.

Those old unkempt men who live under
the bridges and back in the woods.
Those women, streetwalker-types, and
old ones with walkers or canes.
Children too, and migrants, immigrants,
illegals, college kids all the riffraff plus a
few decent people some fancy cars
mixed in.

And he feeds them.
Has an old Weber
grill set up in the front
yard.

I called the police and saw them pull up— I
thought they would shut down the
operation— but apparently he’s not
breaking any laws not even disturbing the
peace and today the paper reported that the
officers resigned from their positions and
moved in with him.

And it’s true—I’ve seen them working
side by side with the others serving
food cleaning up weeding that big
garden in the front yard.

The article didn’t include what Jesus said, though, that made
those officers leave good jobs to stay with him. What does
he say that makes all those people want to be near him?

Every night he builds a bonfire out front. Stands there
in the light with everyone gathered around him and I
have to tell you—

I don’t know why I’m doing this, I’m not the kind of person
who does this kind of thing— but here I am, standing in my
bedroom next to my open window to listen.

Themes of Her Work

My poetry has focused on the intersection of nature, human experience and the sacred.  Though that is still the case, my poetry is moving more in the direction of sorrow in the world. In these times of enormous challenge, I am drawn more than ever to the life and example of Jesus, and the lives of those who are marginalized and beaten down by capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and misogyny, including our precious planet and the infinite number of living beings (including us) who are utterly and completely dependent upon it. 

Turning

There comes a time in every fall
before the leaves begin to turn when
blackbirds group and flock and gather
choosing a tree, a branch, together to
click and call and chorus and clamor
announcing the season has come for
travel.

Then comes a time when all those
birds without a sound or backward
glance pour from every branch
and limb into the air, as if on a
whim but it’s a dynamic,
choreographed mass a swoop, a
swerve, a mystery, a dance

and now the tree stands breathless,
amazed at how it was chosen, how it
was changed.

Poetry and the Sacred

I’m walking downtown and see a man pushing a poodle in a stroller. Why would a man be pushing a poodle in a stroller? Is my life more like the poodle’s, being pushed in directions that I haven’t chosen, or more like the man’s? I love the ways God surprises me in everyday life and poses these questions. 

I’m walking my dog and hear a house finch singing its spring song, though it’s January. Where is God in this climate crisis? God’s creation is sacred, and creation manifests the sacred in an infinite number of ways.  Surely this is the most precious thing, the pearl of great price, and yet--we are destroying it.  What does this little bird teach me?  That we should keep singing as the planet is burning? That there is joy everywhere, even—or especially—in the midst of crisis? 

Poems are everywhere, a manifestation of God in our world, of the sacred among us. Alertness to poetry is alertness to the presence of God for me; then writing the poem is an intense process of listening; then editing (and editing, and editing) the poem deepens that process further. It’s a profound experience, the best that I’ve found yet.

Shine

After the first bus comes and
picks up a dozen passengers, I’m alone
at the bus stop

when an older man approaches me drooling,
dressed in a bright yellow crossing guard vest his
clothes stained, hanging loose from his frame

says Do you have a dollar to
spare Yes, I certainly do, I say
and reach into my bag

...such watery blue eyes he has and
what makes a person drool like that...

Do you believe in God he asks as
I glance down to my wallet to
avoid the ten or the five I say, yes,
I certainly do

and when I look at him again he has
straightened up, and there, beside
Shelburne Road and its four lanes of
traffic in rush hour frenzy,

He makes a sweeping sign of the
cross as high as he can reach as
wide as he can stretch

and says, looking at
me God bless you
and Jesus too.

Then he takes the dollar in his
rough, misshapen hands
and walks down the block, across the street

that safety vest shining the whole way.

About Julie Cadwallader Staub

Julie Cadwallader Staub was born in Minneapolis MN. She grew up with her five sisters beside one of Minnesota’s lakes.  Her favorite words to hear growing up were, “Now you girls go outside and play.” She graduated from Earlham College, a Quaker college in Richmond, Indiana with a degree in Religious Studies, earned a Masters in Social Work from Rutgers University, and has made her career in social justice work, especially for women and children. She found her way home to Vermont in 1992, and has lived near Burlington ever since.

Her poems have been published in Hunger Mountain Review, Potomac Review, Spiritus, ARTS, Comstock Review, and the Connecticut River Review among others; featured on The Writer’s Almanac, and included in several anthologies, notably Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, and Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry.

She was awarded a Vermont Council on the Arts grant for poetry in 2001. Her poem Milk won Hunger Mountain Review’s 2015 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, and her poem Turning has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize. Milk, Turning and sixty other poems are included in her new collection, Wing Over Wing, published in 2019 by Paraclete Press. The first collection of her poems, Face to Face, was published by Cascadia Publishing House in 2010.

You can read her poems and order her books at her website at JulieCSPoetry.com.

Dreaming of Stones

Christine Valters Paintner's new collection of poems Dreaming of Stones has been published by Paraclete Press.

The poems in Dreaming of Stones are about what endures: hope and desire, changing seasons, wild places, love, and the wisdom of mystics. Inspired by the poet’s time living in Ireland these readings invite you into deeper ways of seeing the world. They have an incantational quality. Drawing on her commitment as a Benedictine oblate, the poems arise out of a practice of sitting in silence and lectio divina, in which life becomes the holy text.

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Leave a Comment February 21, 2020

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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