I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne Marie Vencill’s reflection on the art of quilting as a spiritual practice. An email set me on my quest to be a monk in the world. It simply said, “I discovered Abbey of the Arts a few years ago. Can’t remember if I shared it with you. It has a lot of good things.” I clicked the link and found St. Gobnait, the art of Marcy Hall, a manifesto that resounded, and doubt. How could I possibly

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy Agneberg’s reflection “Summer Spirituality.” “May you breathe in the beauty of summer with its power of transformation.” I have a confession to make. I am not a summer person. I don’t like the heat and the humidity and what it does to my thick, curly hair. I don’t like mosquitos. To be honest, in the summer I often feel distracted, less productive, drawn away from my garret desk. Nope, I am not a summer person. I am

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne MacDermaid’s reflection “Just Like Me.” “Breathe in compassion, breathe out regret,” has become my mantra, something soothing in the small and wakeful hours of the night, something to inhale like a tonic when times are stressful, something to ground each breath in a habitual intention to enhance both ways of being and little by little, breath by breath, change the world. It is always easiest to look outward rather than inward, and indeed there is much

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Anne Knorr’s reflection, “Forgiveness – A Path to Internal Spaciousness.” Motoring thru the waterways of the Inside Passage from Anacortes, Washington to Glacier Bay, Alaska opened my heart to an untamed splendor and wild landscape that refused to be held by anything other than my soul. I had a similar experience three years ago when I walked the Camino de Santiago from Portugal to Spain.  When a friend asked me to sum up my trek in one

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Julia Casciola’s reflection, “Feather on the Breath of God.” The monk archetype has long been my comfort zone; I have been a lover of silence, solitude, beauty, nature, prayer and listening, while working in the world and being a mother. It has also been a dream of mine to create a small green monastery in the mountains near where I live. But it has changed; I cannot say that I am living as a monk-in-the-world. It feels instead

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World Guest Post series from the community. Read for Elaine Breckenridge’s reflection on the Refuge Practice. “The Spirit will bring the selves of the self into a unity around the center of the indwelling Christ. The New Self will be a kind of inner community based on the principle of love in which there is room for everyone.” -Martin Smith, A Season for the Spirit, Cowley Publications,1991 Thanks to Martin Smith, Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Christine Valters Paintner; I have thought about the selves of the self for

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Bianca Esquivel’s reflection on prayer and work. “Prayer is work and work can become prayer.” ~  St. Benedict When I was a child, I would observe my mother in the act of various homemaking duties. Whether washing dishes, cooking, sweeping, or driving my brother and me to school, she always seemed to be at peace. She would be in silence and would be so focused on each task. In my naivete, and because we were always laughing and