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Category: Lift Every Voice Book Club

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Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – March Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition.  Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation.  This month’s selection is A Brown Girl’s Epiphany: Reclaim Your Intuition and Step into Your Power by Aurelia Dávila

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Kirk Byron Jones

We are delighted to offer this post by Kirk Byron Jones, author of Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All and Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose. Soul Talk is our featured book this December in our Lift Every Voice Book Club. Listen to our conversation with Kirk here.  We’d like to offer this poem by Kirk as an invitation into the holy pause of the season. It was originally published on his Facebook page Yes to Grace. Nothing is Something Going, going, going. Slowing, slowing, slowing. Stop. Being at ease is healing and

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Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – December Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition.  Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation.  Click here to view or listen to the full conversation along with questions for reflection. This month’s selection is

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Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – November Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition.  Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation.  Click here to view or listen to the full conversation along with questions for reflection. This month’s selection is

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This Here Flesh ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Next Saturday, October 22nd I will be leading a retreat for Spirituality & Practice on The Wisdom of the Body: Contemplative Practices for Deep Listening. Buddhist teacher Reginald Ray describes the body as “the last unexplored wilderness.” For the desert monks of the Christian tradition, the wilderness is the place where we can have a radical and intimate encounter with the divine. What does it mean to take the incarnation seriously? To live as if our flesh is holy? St. Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th century Benedictine Abbess believed there was a greening life force, very similar to

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Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – October Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition.  Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation.  Click here to view or listen to the full conversation along with questions for reflection. This month’s selection is

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Join Us for Writing with the Ancestors + New Dancing Monk Icon ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Some of you who have been following my work for many years know that honoring my ancestors and engaging in healing has been a central part of my spiritual practice. I recently completed the manuscript for a book that will be published Fall 2023 by Ave Maria Press tentatively titled The Love of Thousands: Honoring Angels, Saints, and Ancestors. I offered some of this material for our Lent retreat online this past spring and have since doubled the materials written.  Most religious traditions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and most indigenous traditions all have

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