I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Pat Leyko Connelly’s reflection, “Cleaning as a Contemplative Practice.” My husband and I retired and moved from Northern New Jersey to Weston, Vermont seven years ago. I had spent most of my career in parish ministry and my husband was a teacher. After almost 40 years of visiting and making retreats at Weston, Priory, a Benedictine Monastery in Southern Vermont, we knew in our hearts that this was where we wanted to retire. Our friendship with the

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Susan Fish’s reflection on creative work as offering in the midst of trying times. I’ve never been to Paris but when I saw the cathedral on fire this week last year, I held my breath. I like knowing that iconic sites like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame de Paris are there. It is enough for me that they stand in my mind as signs and symbols, pointing. When Notre Dame began to burn, I recognized that

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on Marilyn Freeman’s reflection “Cinema Divina: Another Way of Seeing Seeing.” This is an excerpt from her new book The Illuminated Space: A Personal Theory & Contemplative Practice of Media Art published by The 3rd Thing Press, 2020. I go out shooting video regularly, not necessarily every day, but sometimes multiple times in a day. When I’m shooting, I’m guided by four words: read, reflect, respond, rest. The fact they each start with the letter “r” helps when I want to

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Michale Moore’s reflection, “The Contemplative Life in the time of COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus.” This has been a season of concern, fear, frustration, and exhaustion for my wife Denise and me as we guide the congregation which I serve through this time of difficulty. To be honest, I have had to limit my intake of 24/7 news in much the same way I had to while I was serving as a Chaplain in the US

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Wisdom Council member Kayce Stevens Hughlett’s reflection on her path of becoming a monk in the world. When I first met Christine Valters Paintner at a Seattle coffee shop in the spring of 2006, there was no Abbey of the Arts. No official dancing monks or manifesto. The “Awakening the Creative Spirit” program was one year old. If anyone had called me an artist or even creative at that time, I would have laughed it off as silly and impossible.

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Joni Sensel’s reflection, “From Monk to Mummy and Back.” Monks have always interested me; my second novel is set in a tenth-century abbey, and as a long-distance hiker I’ve long considered myself a peregrina, not in medieval robes but in Gore-Tex. So when I discovered Abbey of the Arts a few years ago, I was immediately intrigued. To explore my evolving identity as a monk in the world, I signed up for one of the Abbey’s five-day

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jennifer Trently’s reflection on finding and extending hospitality in the midst of death. Having committed myself to be a Monk in the World for the past seven years, I have found that at various times, parts of the manifesto are harder to carry out than others.  I like living by the cycle of seasonal liturgical rhythms and for the most part, enjoy a less hurried life. However, as spring began earlier this year and Lent was ending,