Holy Mountain* I want to climb the holy mountain ascend over weight of stone and force of gravity, follow the rise of a wide and cracked earth toward eternal sky, measured steps across the sharp path, rest often to catch my heavy breath. I want to hear the silence of stone and stars, lie back on granite’s steep rise face to silver sky’s glittering points where I can taste the galaxies on my tongue, communion of fire, then stand on the summit and look out at the laboring world. I want to witness earth’s slow turning with early light brushing

Connemara Illuminated A poem is being scribed this morning across the thick brown bog and over the gashed granite folds of mountain, written in spires of gold descending from the wide bowl of sky across the breathing heather. You have to pause to read it, long enough to hear beneath the relentless moan of wind where centuries of voices have whispered their seeking, feasting, fasting, loving. You know your singular aloneness and your place in a communion of stone and sea. Even as the kestrel’s wings vibrate into the night sending quills into the damp air, even as the skylarks

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, To continue celebrating the upcoming release of my poetry collection Dreaming of Stones, I have another poem video for you this week. This poem, titled St. Teresa’s Ecstasy, was inspired by the statue created by Bernini which depicts a moment she describes in her autobiography of mystical communion.  The poem video also takes its inspiration from this statue. St. Teresa’s Ecstasy You must have felt it once or twice yourself an early winter morning as the sun tilts slowly above the vale of earth bird wings flap fiercely slicing the sky as it turns from

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, There are many ways to practice pilgrimage. You can journey far away to a sacred site, but there are also options within reach of a walk or drive from home, or even within your own imagination. Keep in mind these three essential aspects to create your own pilgrimage experience: Begin with an intention and prayer or blessing for this time. Stay open to the ways God might break in through the unexpected. When you return, spend time in reflection on how this experience has touched you. What new discoveries or invitations did you hear? Walking

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, In celebration of publishing my new collection of poems, Dreaming of Stones, we are delighted to be working with local video production company Morgan Creative to launch a series of poetry videos. I have two to share with you today: First, enjoy this one-minute book trailer they created with gorgeous images from Ireland. Wings I wake from a dream, reach towards day as it hatches, its tiny beak presses against the delicate shell of sky. Today I might learn to fly. —Christine Valters Paintner, poem appears in Dreaming of Stones: Poems Dreaming of Stones book trailer from

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Valentine’s Day is coming, which for many of us is a holiday that only serves to make us feel inadequate, as all highly commercialized things do. And yet the message of love is worth repeating if we can look beneath the chocolate hearts and flowers and the expectation that we all be in a significant relationship or be lacking. Hospitality is the heart of our work – creating a safe space where we can begin welcoming back in the stranger within and in the process discover the hidden wholeness of which Thomas Merton wrote. This kind of

St. Brigid at the Market I saw her in the market backlit in the doorway from the evening sun, blue cloak ripples like water dandelions and primrose in her hand. Passersby brush past this moment of light and song in a rush to get shoes off and dinner on, just another day of traffic, bills, and angry bosses. I stood, mouth open, holding three lemons, a pile of sunlight, a miracle in yellow, tiny halos a little girl stops next to me, giggles, points to the door, her mother’s yank drags her back to the world of lists. I fear