. . . Rachel Parrish! Rachel, please send me your email address and which Self-Study Online Class you would like as your prize: (with a choice from Soul of a Pilgrim, Eyes of the Heart, Water Wind Earth & Fire, Seasons of the Soul, or Lectio Divina) Thank you to everyone who participated! The photos are beautiful to longer with. Come back for our next Poetry Party on Sunday, December 16th.
Abbey of the Arts is thrilled to offer another beautiful CinemaDivina meditation for this month of December. Marilyn Freeman is a fellow pilgrim on the Benedictine path and she offers this videos as a way of inviting us to pray visually through the medium of film. (You can read her description of it here). Give yourself the gift of a holy pause for just three minutes right now. Pour some tea, close the door, and turn off any distractions. Breathe deeply, put your hand on your heart, and give yourself over to three minutes of reflection and see if you can welcome
The theme for November here at the Abbey is community based on the third principle of the Monk Manifesto: 3. I commit to cultivating community by finding kindred spirits along the path, soul friends with whom I can share my deepest longings, and mentors who can offer guidance and wisdom for the journey. In September I introduced the wonderful work of Marilyn Freeman, a filmmaker in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and fellow lover of the Benedictine way. One of her art forms is the practice of CinemaDivina. Rooted in the contemplative prayer and listening of lectio divina, CinemaDivina draws on film
. . . Karla Grauberger! You have won a space in my upcoming online retreat – Birthing the Holy: An Online Retreat for Advent with reflections by Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB and myself, and the wonderful art of Mary Southard, CSJ. Make sure to stop by and savor the wondrous poems offered there on the theme of community! Thank you to everyone who participated for making the Abbey such a beautiful community of poets.
Bard Judith! Judith, contact me to confirm your email address and you will be subscribed to my upcoming online retreat – Birthing the Holy: An Online Retreat for Advent with reflections by Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB and myself, and the wonderful art of Mary Southard, CSJ. Thank you to everyone who participated. Unfortunately I didn’t get to comment on everyone’s image this time, but I did savor each one. I am so grateful for this creative community. Make sure to stop by and savor the beautiful images shared here. I am heading off to Ireland tomorrow for a week, so things
The wonderful folks at Englewood Review of Books have featured a marvelous review of my latest book. Here are some excerpts: Truly, Paintner offers the commentary not of a learned academic—which she undoubted is—but of an amma who herself wants to speak a word to her readers. The result is a book that you will not want to put down and that you will no doubt revisit often for Paintner’s wisdom as much as the mothers’ and fathers’ wisdom. . . Paintner has offered a succinct introduction to and a lively commentary on the desert mothers and fathers. There are
If you have been following the Abbey for a while, you know that I consider ancestral work vital to the healing and vibrancy of our souls. I believe that the stories of our mothers and fathers, and the generations before them, live on in our blood and shape our own gifts and wounds. I have experienced profound healing on this path. I have even moved to the city of Vienna because of an ancestral call, and here each day I discover new dimensions to my father’s story, and so my own as well. I consider my journey an essential dimension
