I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Andrea Potos’ reflection and poems on the contemplative process of poetry. My contemplative practice begins at my writing table each morning.  Spiral notebook spread open and pen nearby, I don’t start writing immediately. I read a few poems of other writers that I love, or look at art books with images that compel and inspire me. Then I close my eyes, wait for a feeling of stillness that makes space for quiet to unfold and deepen. I may also make a

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post from the community. Read on for Berenice Chan’s refection and poem “Uncertainty.” I wrote this poem to use as a lectio passage with my follow-on group from the 2020 Abbey of the Arts course “Way of the monk, path of the artist”. The topic “uncertainty” came from a fascinating essay I heard on BBC Radio 3 by the entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker Dr Margaret Heffernan. She defined “uncertainty” as: the “not-knowing” if something is going to happen or not. She explained how artists need

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mark Raphael’s reflection “Lessons from an Ischemic Stroke: Achieving a Newfound Asceticism and Conversatio.” Stroke. The dreaded word that no 40-year old or their family wants to hear. On February 15, 2022 (the day after Valentine’s Day), I was admitted to the Emergency Room at a local area hospital here in Southern California near the college town of Claremont. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I did not have a female valentine on February 14th. My speech was slurred for

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Janeen Adil’s reflection and poem about liminality. Thresholds and doorways make for evocative images; as a monk in the world, I am drawn to a spiritual contemplation of this between space. When we lean into mystery/Mystery, we can see liminal time as a place open to rich and fruitful potential. Rather than stopping in an uneasy pause, we can instead rest on the threshold, regarding the time here (however long or short) as holy, as one of blessing. For a Liminal

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Roger Butts’s reflection and poem I Will Look. And I Will Sing. After decades of playing tennis, my knees hurt. After being in the car driving down a Colorado interstate, my back aches. My eyes don’t see so well after being alive 58 years. Sometimes I wonder how my arthritis will play out over time. I’m a hospital chaplain. I know this old body decomposes. I know it gets creaky. Some of us are in wheelchairs and