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Category: Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice

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Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Starting in a week, we will be offering a completely revised and updated version of an online companion retreat to my book Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice. This book and program remains an ongoing favorite of many dancing monks and it felt like time to revisit this material and invite in some wonderful guest teachers to help illuminate the content further.  I am sharing an excerpt here to invite you to consider how receiving the gift of images might help you cultivate your inner monk and artist:  My journey with photography began when

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Cultivating Eyes of the Heart (Part 1) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, The Gospels are filled with stories about seeing, or not seeing, as the case may be.  On the road to Emmaus the disciples are walking with Jesus and breaking bread with him.  We read that their “eyes were prevented from recognizing him.” (Luke 24:16) When Jesus returns in resurrected form, he is fully embodied, yet hard for them to see clearly.  The disciples do not expect their dear friend to be among them again and so they miss this truth with their limited vision. We find a similar emphasis on vision in the story of

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Virtual Book Tour: Spring Roundup!

Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice was published in April by Ave Maria Press, and I have been so grateful for the wonderful reception! I embarked on an almost two-month long Virtual Book Tour (ah, the wonders of the internet!) and am so grateful to everyone who participated, wrote reviews, hosted guest posts, and conducted interviews.  I am really in awe at the generous response. I have compiled the whole tour below broken down by category so it is easier now to find what you might be looking for.  Several guest posts from me on the

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Virtual Book Tour: Review at Image Journal

Image is a journal of religion and the arts.  I love the work they do, as it is in such alignment with my own passion for the monk and artist paths.  I have attended their Glen Workshop with classes in writing and the arts in the past and found it to be really inspiring and enlivening. So I am thrilled they have chose to review Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice in their latest newsletter: Eyes of the Heart by Christine Valters Paintner is a little like Madeleine L’Engle’s classic Walking on Water, if L’Engle’s book had

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Virtual Book Tour: Guided Meditation and new Review at Patheos Book Club

The Patheos Book Club continues to feature Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice.   New today is a visual guided meditation featured on the main page of the book club.  Click here and scroll down to where it says Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart: A Guided Meditation with Images by Christine Valters Paintner and you can scroll through a series of my photos, with quotes from the book, as well as suggestions for reflection and pondering. There is also a brand new and wonderful review by Craig Detweiler of Doc Hollywood, who is a professor

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Virtual Book Tour: More wonderful reviews of Eyes of the Heart!

I am always thrilled when the wonderful folks at Spirituality and Practice review my books.  I am a big fan of the work they do, so much in alignment with what the Abbey offers.  (I am very honored to be one of their Living Spiritual Teachers and I have an e-course offered through them on Wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers) In an adventuresome opening chapter, the author takes us on an exhilarating spiritual ride with reflections on beauty, the art of beholding, the heart as the source of vision, the third eye, and Thomas Merton as photographer. These

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Virtual Book Tour: Eyes of the Heart featured at Patheos Book Club

I am delighted that my newest book – Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice – is being featured June 1-15 at the Patheos Book Club. Stop by for. . . Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart: A Q&A with Christine Valters Paintner: Eyes of the Heart is about photography as a Christian contemplative practice.  To begin with, what is your description of a contemplative practice? And then specifically, what is a Christian contemplative practice? Carmelite monk William McNamara described contemplation as a “long loving look at the real” which I find to be an excellent foundation

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