I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Today’s poem is by Wisdom Council member Jamie Marich who will lead a mini-retreat on September 13th on Writing Your Spiritual Memoir. Read on for her poem The Great Lie. Jamie is fresh off of writing her memoir, You Lied to Me About God: A Memoir, and has a great deal to share with the world about her spiritual formation process. This poem is one small reflection that flowed from her own expressive arts processes in preparing the book for publication. The Great LieThere are many lies about God going

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jean Wise’s reflection The Spiritual Practice of Writing a Poem Each Day. At the end of my third-grade year, my teacher gave me a book of poetry. “When I saw this book, I thought of you,” she said. “Keep writing, Jeanie.” This is the first memory I have of someone else recognizing me as a writer. Even though I was young yet and as life unfolded, took different routes, her encouragement and gift of poetry seeded deep

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Today’s post is an offering from Wisdom Council member Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Read on for Carmen’s reflection on exploring the history of words as a contemplative practice. Thank you, soul sister Christine, for your friendship, Hildegardian abbess wisdom, invitation into the Wisdom Council, its conversations and belonging among diverse insights, and the joyful dancing. I’m grateful for all the Abbey of the Arts community! Living in community and awareness of interconnectedness is essential to being human, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel reminds us. We remember.

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sarah Pickering’s reflection Creating a way through. Creating, a way through.(because punctuation matters). Spring is happening all around me, the trees are exploding with the limiest of greens and I want to move with the season, I would love to bloom into spring, but I live in winter. I was born on the winter solstice and on the first full day of my life there was a snow storm that brought London to a standstill. I understand

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jenny Taylor’s reflection “Inspiration on the not-so-wild edge of Suffolk.” Spending nine days on virtual pilgrimage in the company of “dancing monks”, and guided by Christine Valters Paintner’s hypnotic meditations, has stirred something deep in me. As our world yields to the implacable advance of the digital revolution, the real becomes not just more important, but more sacramental. The real is held for ever in the life-giving embrace of the places and stories, the stones and the