Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

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  • 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)
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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Jenine Baines

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jenine Baines' reflection, "Hail Mary, Full of Grace and Surprises and Smiles."

When I was twelve, I wanted to be a movie star or a nun. And while, outwardly, I’ve become neither, I carry the spirit of both within me.

I believe with the fervor of a nun (or Monk in the World). Except when I don’t. When the doubts return and the ghost of the late renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens haunts me. Then I take a deep breath, recall how Hitchens’ favorite target, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, struggled with her own dark night, and draw on my inner actress. “I be what I wish to seem.” (Thank you, Socrates.)

Nevertheless, sometimes I just can’t find a way to inhabit the role. “Help!” I cry out to the Great Director. “What’s my character’s motivation? Guide me, please.”

Invariably, the following memory returns. Then I laugh, and get on with it…

I was walking, praying for guidance. My own mini Camino, despite the 1000-degree heat. A perfect metaphor since I was indeed in ‘hell’. Should I leave a marriage so toxic it was transforming me and my husband into grotesqueries, our most wretched, ugly false selves? Or should I honor our vows and, as my husband wished, “just live with it”?

“You’re a crappy wife,” a friend announced after Mass in the parking lot. “Leave! Free your husband to find happiness in a better match.”

Not long afterwards, the leader of a silent retreat read a poem by Rilke. It opened with the line “Want the change.” 

These verses struck me as well:

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming
a laurel,

dares you to become the wind.

I wanted change.  Yet I didn’t dare take up Daphne’s challenge.

A street and a half into my walk, I spotted a black elastic hair tie – you know, the twisty gizmos for ponytails – on the sidewalk.

Hmmm, I’d worn my thick kinky hair loose and WAS regretting it. But the thing was probably infested with disgusting stuff. I bypassed the band.

A block further, I spied a second elastic. This time I scooped it up, sliding it over my wrist. 

The next street over, I spied a third band. 

Three bands in less than an hour? I’d gone years without seeing one.

Pythagoras called 3 “the first true number; Schoolhouse Rock, “a magic number.”

The most “magic” of 3s, for me, is a Christian doctrine codified in 325. Yet what on earth did The Trinity have to do with hair bands? What was I meant to see?

I stared at the two bands on my wrist, maneuvering my arm this way and that… 

All I saw was a fashion no-no. Certainly no shadow-cast vision of Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Maybe it was heatstroke, my overheated imagination. The bands were there because someone had accidentally dropped them, game over. 

And yet there was Synonym, Symbolism, a sensing, Rhythm here. What could these ties represent?

Something that frees us from the heavy weight of our hair by twisting into a knot. A KNOT! Wasn’t I praying a novena to Mary, the Undoer of KNOTS, for help untangling and relieving the heavy weight of our marriage? 

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me. Are you saying the answer(s) to the twisted, hairy knots on my ‘walk’ will arrive?

I burst out laughing. The Virgin rains roses, not hair elastics. 

I might well have abandoned the whole quest right then, except suddenly I was reliving the past weekend’s  silent retreat. I walked down an office corridor, passing a door with Willis Wheatley’s ‘Laughing Jesus’ taped to it. Laughing Jesus, yes! What a refreshing break from the depictions of crucified, bleeding Jesus every other corner! I took a photo and framed it.

I’d already photographed the plaque above the door to my room. Most guest rooms were dedicated to donors; mine was dedicated to Jesus’s mum. 

Now, this hot afternoon on Camino, it was all coalescing. Though what it was I wasn’t sure.

After Mass, I placed the elastic bands among the flowers at Mary’s altar. “Am I crazy to believe this?” I asked her. “Please send an answer I can’t disprove.”

Back at my car, I opened my purse, reached for my keys…And there, beside my car’s left front wheel, lay a fourth elastic hair band.

Except this one was BLUE. As blue as Mary’s robe.

Bands still rain. Usually after a disturbing loss, encounter, or epiphany. Sometimes just to say “hello.” Never when I request them. 

Once, I shared my ‘hair elastic /Virgin’ story with two sweet but skeptical lunchmates. Afterwards a band crossed my path…Better yet, believe it or not, bands arrived for my two friends on their ways to their cars. 

Ever since, when a tie appears, I look up at the heavens and send a thumbs up to Christopher Hitchens. He’s standing beside Mary, a bag of bands in hand. 

They take turns dropping them.


Jenine Baines is a retired publicist for the musical arts who now writes essays and poetry for various publications. Often, her words are inspired by the beauty of God's creation and the awe and revelations they bring. Her prayer is that her words cross the path of those 'needing' to read them, that they may be inspired in turn. That the ripple from the writing extends ever-outward and inward in God's endless pool of love. Jenine is also the overjoyed grandmother of 9 month old Yves. Feel free to send her an email by clicking here >>

Thank you, Abbey of the Arts. Jenine the monk is dancing on her toes, pirouettes of delight, over being welcomed to the Abbey.

 

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Leave a Comment December 16, 2020

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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