I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jamie Marich’s reflection Dancing Mindfully with the Elements. The invitation to pray and meditate with the elements is fully awakened in my life. I credit much of this awakening to Christine and learning from her sacred work with Abbey of the Arts. Diving in to the various exercises in Christine’s books and retreats has heightened my attunement to the elements in the various places that I travel. My own mindful journey and contemplative practices in mindfulness traditions assists in this deepening of

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Joan DiStefano’s reflection on lessons learned at Abbey of Gethsemani. June 6, 2006 the Abbey of Gethsemani, Trappist, Kentucky. Thomas Merton’s grave. I remember that first early afternoon when I was told by a monk to walk near the first tree and find him between two fox’s. Huh? The tree was easy, it was up a tiny incline of grass, but the two fox’s turned out to be the Abbott Fox buried to the  left, Merton in the middle, and a

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jean Wise’s reflection entitled Living With the Tension of Routines and Adventures. Paradox. Deep within me live two longings that I used to believe contradicted each other. I assumed you thrived more within the blessings of routines or within the advantages of adventures. One or another, not both, worked better for me, so I thought. “You can’t enjoy both,” lying voices whispered to my heart.  I am learning now to hold the predictable and the impulsive times equally, knowing they both

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy L. Agneberg’s reflection on entitled Winter Spirituality. I love winter. I prefer winter to summer and spring. When it is fall, I think fall is my favorite season, but then winter comes, and I know, for sure, winter is my favorite season. Oh, I am willing to join in with the usual February and March conversations about winter being far too long and will spring ever arrive? As I listen to the whining about the cold, the snow, the dark, I

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Pat Butler’s reflection on entitled Abba Ice. “Out of whose womb came the ice?”—Job 38:29 January A monastery forms in this plane of all places, over New Jersey, as I fly north in the dead of a Northeast winter, in the grip of an historic deep freeze.  I am returning home from a short trip South, contemplating the icy lunar landscape below, pocked by crows, bridges, and ice-encased riggings. I’m startled to discover how much I’ve missed this purgatory, how eager

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elaine Breckenridge’s reflection on Saint Brigid. I went to Ireland last year and met Saint Brigid: monastic leader and pastor, protector and companion, soul friend and healer. Oh, I had known about Brigid as there are no shortage of books detailing her life as a person in history and her tradition as a goddess of the land of Ireland. But on this sacred journey, experience expanded knowledge as throughout my two week journey, time and again I met Brigid. My visit to

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Erin Marie Clark’s reflection on conversing with the wisdom of the tarot. It was towards the end of my time training to be ordained as an Anglican priest that I was tackled by a mischievous and confounding spiritual practice: namely, reading the images and stories in tarot. Five months before I was due to be ordained, I stumbled on a blog post written by a tarot card reader. The warm, generous, pastoral tone of the post surprised me. It echoed the tone