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)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • 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)
      • 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: Jennifer Trently

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jennifer Trently's reflection on finding and extending hospitality in the midst of death.

Having committed myself to be a Monk in the World for the past seven years, I have found that at various times, parts of the manifesto are harder to carry out than others.  I like living by the cycle of seasonal liturgical rhythms and for the most part, enjoy a less hurried life. However, as spring began earlier this year and Lent was ending, I found myself being swept into a polar vortex beyond my control.  All of my plans of decompressing from my thesis, journeying through Holy Week and practicing Resurrection turned upside down.

In the Monk Manifesto, the second commitment reads:  "I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others."  There is nothing like death to challenge your abilities to offer hospitality and stretch the limits of your compassion.

Receiving a middle of the night phone call that my mother-in-law had died thwarted my husband and me into full-throttled travel mode.  We spent time cancelling and re-arranging appointments. Then we had to make travel arrangements, find a cat sitter, and pack etc. etc.  Even all of those well-laid out plans spoiled when the airlines cancelled our flight due to weather, and we had to drive through the night to PA to make it in time for the funeral.  Driving and stopping to switch drivers, depleted my energy, limiting my ability even to be patient, let alone extend compassion.

Soon after an extremely short rest, my being felt thrust into swirling emotions and swarming people overrode my circuitry. I could barely extend hospitality to the stranger within my own soul.  I called a friend and walked under an umbrella in the rain.  Sadness bubbled up as the house seemed too quiet without all of the TVs blaring and as the cupboards stood empty, I thought of how this ended an era, my visits to 11 Marion Circle the place where I first met my husband’s family would be no more.  Radical acts of hospitality did come from friends and extended family who brought food and listened to us talk about Evelyn.

However, for the other within the part of myself, I did not recognize and could barely muster the energy to extend any kindness to, radical acts of hospitality came from those who had gone before.  The moment I seated myself down in the pew, and the funeral liturgy began, I found myself enveloped by the communion of saints, both those venerated by the church and those who had been gone before in humble, devout service without recognition.  Solace came from the recitation of the Divine Liturgy of St. John of Chrysostom, a liturgy in continuous use since the sixth century.  As I took in the Stained-glass windows and meditated on the icons, when my heart became too full to concentrate on the liturgy, the Saints took over.  The ritual, tradition and experience of those who went before me sustained me. The words, the prayers, the chants and the sacrament combined to fill my senses and give my spirit language for the unspeakable.  I felt united with those who worshipped in this spot over the past 150 years.  I thought about what my in-law's wedding was like, my husband’s christening and the funeral for my father-in-law all held in that same church. Later as I lit candles for my mother-in-law, for all of our family and several others, I absorbed the light knowing that the Light, the place of God within me did not ever disappear.

The Light, the place of God, upheld me in the waiting and the wondering of what was to come.  Finally, we arrived at the cemetery, the same cemetery where her parents and grandparents occupied graves.  We went into the chapel again to hear the liturgy of old recited and then stood in front of the casket as the priest recited those infamous words, “…from dust you came and to dust you shall return.”

In this combination of the ancient and the modern, my heart created space and claimed the confused, frustrated, grieving and lost parts of myself.  In receiving this gift, I found the ability to care for the others around me and to allow myself to rest knowing that all of us were apart of a larger community, an ongoing continuous community made up of past and present, of living and dead, of the known and unknown.


Jennifer Trently recently received an MA in Christian Spirituality from Oblate School of Theology, is a spiritual director and a contemplative artist.  She blogs at livingintomycalling.blogspot.com or visit her website, www.JenniferTrently.org.  Jennifer makes her home in Jackson, TN with her husband and two cats, Saya Ming and Macademina.

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Leave a Comment February 26, 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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