Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • 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
    • Walk the Ancient Paths: Pilgrimage
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
    • Live Programs and Spiritual Retreats
      • 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)
      • 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)
      • 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

Abbess love notes

Renewing a Love for Earth in Challenging Times ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dear monks, artists, and pilgrims,

This week's love note is an excerpt from a written interview that Bearings, the journal of the Collegeville Institute, posted with me this week about my newest book Earth, Our Original Monastery.
_____
In the book’s introduction you identify your vocation as contemplative. How do you engage with the existential dread and anxiety of climate change?

Being a contemplative is the only thing that saves me from complete despair. Yet, even so, I still experience those feelings of dread and anxiety. There are beliefs which are the core of my contemplative practice: one, a deep trust in Love as the foundation of everything and the ground of all being; and two, the ability to actively cultivate a relationship to this abiding Love. When I feel anxious and fearful, I return to the belief that beneath everything is Love.

I fundamentally believe the contemplative practices of sitting in silence and walking in the woods enable me to deepen into that trust. Additionally, I believe in a God of complete mystery while honoring the limits of my own imagination. I trust that God is more expansive than anything I can imagine, which gives me a great deal of hope because it means my own limited imagination isn’t the final word on everything. There is a much bigger imagination out there.

The thrust of the book is encouraging people to cultivate intimacy with the earth. If you are in love with this source of beauty, grace, sustenance and nourishment, you will invest in preserving it however you can.

But what do we do with the dread and the despair that we feel and how do we sustain ourselves? How do we get up in the morning and continue doing the necessary work of showing up for ourselves and for one another with compassion? For me, I spend time walking in the woods as a way to be connected to the seasonal rhythms unfolding around me, the diversity of life in all its forms, and to be present to the wisdom that comes through other ways of knowing that are more intuitive and embodied.

In a letter from the Canadian Catholic bishops regarding the environmental crisis they describe three responses: prophetic, aesthetic, and contemplative. The prophetic response speaks out about justice issues and often works on political levels. The aesthetic response is the concrete actions we might take in our everyday lives, like fasting from using plastic or trying to reduce our meat consumption. The contemplative response is really the heart of my book, that is, giving ourselves the opportunities to deepen our sense of love and kinship with Earth.

In chapter five, “Earth as the Original Icon,” you discuss the necessity of lament and how it can influence our approach to the climate crisis. 

I’m influenced by Walter Brueggemann’s book, The Prophetic Imagination, and his idea of lament as an essential act of both truth telling and grieving. We live in this culture which rejects grief as too messy, too time-consuming, and too burdensome. And yet, I believe deeply that lament allows us to fully experience grief, rage, sadness, and fear, which unleashes resources within us to be able to see whatever we are grieving in a new way.

Part of our limited imagination comes from limiting our capacity for full emotional expression and response. Who doesn’t feel incredible sadness and grief over the fires in Australia, California, and the Amazon rainforest, over the devastating loss of species, over the poisoning of our seas with plastic and oil spills? We need to allow space to feel these feelings. The lament itself is a way of saying, “This is what’s wrong, this is what needs to change.” It leads to acts of justice.
______

To read the entire interview click here>>

To order a copy of the book click here>>

I am so very excited to be hosting a Virtual Book & Album Launch on Earth Day, which is this Wednesday, April 22nd at 9 am Pacific/12 noon Eastern/5 pm Ireland-UK time. I will be sharing more about the Earth Monastery book and reading some poems from my forthcoming collection The Wisdom of Wild Grace. I'll be joined by wonderful Abbey of the Arts colleagues and wisdom council members – Betsey Beckman (who will share some of the gesture prayers she has created) and Simon de Voil & Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (who will share some of the songs on the new album which companions the book). Please join us for this free event! (It will also be recorded)

This week we have the next installment of our Monk in the World series on the practice of conversion and a new Monk in the World guest post. If you missed my podcast conversation on Encountering Silence you can find Episode 1 here and Episode 2 here.

With great and growing love,

Christine

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE

Photo © Christine Valters Paintner

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Leave a Comment April 19, 2020

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 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
  • Celebrate the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle podcast with us!
  • Join us for A Midwinter God & Epiphany! ~ A Love Note from Our Online Abbess

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