For Kinship with Creation*
God of lavish fecundity,
you overflow into nature in every moment,
offering your gifts of beauty and nourishment.
Nurture me with sacred rhythms of light and dark,
rising and falling, fullness and emptiness,
as the pulse of your loving presence animates every living thing.
Help me to remember my own wildness
so that I come to know
every bird, fish, insect, and animal
as kin
and to live in ways that renew and sustain
earth and all her systems.
Renew my vision so that I see
beyond the barriers I have constructed.
Kindle my longing to join the great song
of the sea, the trees, the mountains, and the flowers,
which are already singing your praise,
and to live as a member of the great community of creation.
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
This year for Lent we are revisiting my book Earth, Our Original Monastery and the companion retreat that deepens our experience of it. Lent is a time to increase our commitment to prayer and simplifying our lives so that all life might flourish.
Here is an adapted excerpt from the book:
Of the many rich and fruitful paths available as part of the Christian tradition, the monastic way calls to me the strongest. The invitation to live life with more slowness, simplicity, and attentiveness is a rich gift in a world driven by speed, consumerism, and distraction. Contemplative practices help to offer an antidote to ways of living that have contributed to the destruction of Earth.
Monastic tradition has its roots in a call to be in intimate connection with nature. The monk’s path was birthed in the forests and deserts, the places of wilderness and other wild edges that reflect an inner reality as well. This call to the edges, which is the monk’s call, is a call to wildness—to that which lies beyond our domesticated, neat, safe, and secure lives. Nature reminds us of the messiness and beauty of things. Nature says that when we let ourselves get messy and play in the dirt, profound things can happen.
Our work as spiritual seekers and contemplatives is to see all of creation as woven together in holiness and to live this truth. In this loving act we begin to knit together that which has been torn; we gather all that has been scattered. Contemplative practice is a way to bring healing presence to the world.
The central image I offer in this book is to consider Earth as our original monastery. Earth is the place where we learn our most fundamental prayers, hear the call of the wild arising at dawn that awakens us to a new day, participate in the primal liturgy of praise unfolding all around us, and experience the wisdom and guidance of the seasons.
When I long to go on retreat, it is most often the sea or the forest that calls to me. When I lead others on retreat and ask participants where they most often experience a sense of sanctuary and renewal, the majority of responses are places in nature.
Everything in creation becomes a catalyst for my deepened self-understanding. The forest asks me to embrace my truth once again. The hummingbird invites me to sip holy nectar, the egret to stretch out my wings, the sparrows to remember my flock. Each pine cone contains an epiphany; each smooth stone offers a revelation. I watch and witness as the sun slowly makes her long arc across the sky and discover my own rising and falling. The moon will sing of quiet miracles, like those that reveal and conceal the world every day right before our eyes.
I crave a wide sea of wordless moments that allow me to express myself in another language, one more ancient and primal. I want to become a disciple of silence and hear in that shimmering soundlessness the voice of the One who whispers in stillness, whose singing vibrates in stones, who out of the silence calls forth a radical commitment of which I do not yet know the shape.
We emerge from the Earth matrix. The structures and rhythms of Earth are not external to our own thriving; rather, we arise from this holy sanctuary. It is vital to our own thriving. Creation as sacred space is the very foundation of our own existence.
Please join us for our Lent retreat where we will cultivate an earth-cherishing intimacy and open ourselves to falling back in love with creation. The online retreat begins with a live session and then unfolds through video and audio content daily to support and nourish your contemplative and creative practice. If you have participated in this retreat before, there is a lot of additional content for this offering.
Please plan to join me and Simon de Voil for the book launch of A Book of Everyday Blessings: 100 Prayers for Dancing Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims tomorrow!.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
*Blessing is from Christine’s book A Book of Everyday Blessings: 100 Prayers for Dancing Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims (Ave Maria Press).
Featured image paid license with Canva
