Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
On Monday, April 27th we will be gathering for a 20th anniversary celebration online! We would love for you to join us. We will be sharing some stories from how Abbey of the Arts ripened over the years and some of our lovely musicians will be there to offer the gift of song.
The official date of the 20th anniversary is May 2nd but John and I will be getting ready to welcome some of our Wisdom Council members to Galway, where we live in Ireland, the next day. We are thrilled to have several beloved members joining us to help us celebrate and experience some of Ireland’s beauty and inspiration. We will be listening together for how the future of the Abbey might unfold.
If you have any questions you’d invite our gathering to hold as we journey through our week together, do let us know.
It is amazing to me that twenty years have passed since that first moment when I hit “publish” on the blog that was to become the website. I had completed my PhD in Christian Spirituality three years prior and was longing for a way to unlearn the academic writing I had been taught and write for people beyond the academy. Writing has always been my first love. But that writing is deeply enriched by the ways I get to interact with you, our community members.
There have been many small moments of grace along the way, as well as the larger movements which led to significant shifts and expanding of our ministry. Certainly, the first decision to offer online programs, back in 2009, and then the decision to move to Europe in 2012, and the pandemic in 2020, all helped us to find ways to meet you in your own inner monasteries.
This year we released our sixth (and final for now) prayer cycle on Cultivating Seeds of Liberation. We created a 28-day cycle of midday prayers for peace called Sanctuary. We have been working to update all of our self-study programs to have corrected closed captioning and transcripts. We have created a wonderful book of the dancing monk icons (52 in total!) I was able to take six months of sabbatical for writing last year which allowed me to complete A Book of Everyday Blessings, as well as a poetry collection (due out this fall from Monkfish Publishing), and a book of meditations for the Easter season (due out next spring from Broadleaf).
We were also delighted to return to a couple of our favorite online programs this year—Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist and Earth, Our Original Monastery—companions to two of my books. We worked with some wonderful guest teachers to enhance those offerings with additional content. Claudia Love Mair and I have continued our Lift Every Voice book club and I continue to be transformed by the voices we highlight there.
In the midst of all that doing, we also continue our commitment to witness to a way of being in the world that values slowness, spaciousness, rest, and contemplative rhythms.
All that happens at the Abbey is because of an amazing team of dancing monks and artists who love these practices. And of course, all of you who engage in what we offer. That is perhaps what I am most proud of at Abbey of the Arts, the community we have built, both those leading programs and those who engage this work.
The times we live in are chaotic and challenging. Knowing there are so many kindred souls spread across this beautiful world who value contemplation, creativity, compassion, and liberation for all beings is what inspires me daily to keep showing up. Thank you for being here, we are really so grateful to have you with us in this monastery without walls.
You can sign up to join us for the 20th anniversary celebration here (it will be recorded if you can’t join live).
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
