A Blessing for Creativity
Spirit of Holy Imagination,
we ask you to bless our vision
with the wisdom to see what is possible.
Help us trust our desire to create
through color, word, shape, gesture, and song.
When our fingers tremble
at picking up a pen or marker,
connect us to the joy of playing
on the white page, drawing,
doodling, dabbling, dreaming,
letting our lives
be a canvas for expression.
When judgments arise
and the inner critic yells,
guide us to hear our intuitions
whispering the way ahead
with quiet confidence.
When our feet feel restless,
inspire us to play music
and dance freely
until peace descends again.
Connect us to the freedom
of making something
for the love of it.
Speak to us in dreams
of what you desire
to create together with us,
making the world
a great work of art.
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
Tomorrow is my birthday (and John’s is the day after) and it also officially begins some sabbatical time I am taking from teaching to have more time to write (through November).
Not to worry, we will still be offering many rich and wonderful programs during this time from our many wise and creative friends (you can see the program calendar here).
And I will still be working behind the scenes to make sure the Abbey continues to run smoothly and we can offer you wonderful resources. I will be relying on our wonderful program coordinator Melinda and our program assistant Delaney even more and am so grateful for such amazing support of this work (among our many wondrous team members, Wisdom Council members, and guest teachers. This work is always at the core about relationship for me, cultivating a creative and contemplative community on all levels).
I began this love note with a blessing for creativity because my deep desire is to focus these next few months until Advent on my writing. You know I am always working on a book project, either writing, editing, or marketing (often all three at the same time because of projects at different stages). I am eager for some time to do this when my attention isn’t being called to multiple other things.
I have a new book coming out this fall from Broadleaf titled Give Me a Word: An Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year which you can pre-order.
I have just turned in a manuscript of 100 blessings I have written to Ave Maria Press which should be published in spring of 2026. I know many of you have been eagerly anticipating this resource for creative blessings and I am so excited to have completed it and to move onto editing.
The two things I will be turning my attention to now are first, another poetry collection. This will be my fourth, and it is tentatively titled Ephemeral and is about the fragile beauty of life, including experience of chronic illness.
The other book I am contracted for through Broadleaf is a follow up to my Lent book A Different Kind of Fast and will be a book for the Easter season in a similar format. Kreg Yingst, the wonderful artist I have worked with several times now, is providing the artwork for each week of Easter and you can see one of them above.
The overall theme of the book will be on practicing resurrection. If Easter is a season of 50 days, how do we embody resurrection in our lives as a spiritual practice for that time? I will spend my summer meditating with Jesus’ resurrection narratives and creating various meditations to break these open. (This will be published for Easter season 2027!)
If I complete this sooner than expected, then I will return my attention to the manuscript on the seven women mystics which is due in the fall next year. I adored journeying with many of you through Lent with an early version of that material. I am eager to return with a fresh lens.
I am also looking forward to a slower pace for a while. Writing books while teaching and running the Abbey demands a lot of time and attention, which I love to give this work I adore. And it is good to take time to rest and breathe and be for a while.
I would greatly appreciate your prayers and blessings for a fruitful season!
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
Block print by Kreg Yingst
